There are a few things to be afraid of: alligators, drug smugglers arriving in the dark of night, murdering rapists from a prime time television program and of course… the cops.  What we are doing is probably illegal.  We are not sure if it is private property or public property because it wasn’t posted as anything.  But this is the US of A after all so no doubt this little stretch of paradise is technically under the dominion of someone.  We stayed in a real campground last night.  It was beautiful and all but it cost 25 whole bucks (plus tax) just for a spot to set up our tent.  So tonight we decided on the more radical option.  Driving down the main highway between the San Blas peninsula and the town of Apalachicola, we turned off on a random dirt road that led through a small stretch of palm trees, scrub pine and swamp to arrive at the shoreline.  It’s not a campground or anything.  There’s no stretch of sandy beach or flat solid ground to set up our tent.  But we do have privacy.  There’s not another soul around.  And so, as the sun sets on the Gulf of Mexico, splashing the horizon with pink and purple and orange, we settle in and make ourselves at home…

Our journey from the campground in rural Georgia to the coast of the Florida Panhandle really is through Third World America.  We leave the main highway and travel the back roads.  No longer a land of bright lights, big business, and massive energy consumption, instead what we see is trailer parks and shotgun shacks with the occasional odd independent business; taxidermy, boiled peanuts and bonsai trees.  How weird is that?  The highlight of this leg is the surprising town of Dothan, Alabama which dubs itself the city of murals and lives up to its name.  Half the walls in the whole downtown are covered with impressive hand painted murals.  We like it so much we consider getting a room and staying a while.  But the beach calls out to us so we continue on.

We reach the coast at Panama City and then head east along the panhandle.  Third World no more, we are back in the first; strip malls and corporate competitors clutter the ocean side parkway.  It must have been beautiful along this road once.  But now it looks like everywhere else.  The same bright lights, the same big signs… the same, the same, the same.  There’s a major military base here and like so many other places in this country, that base drives the economy.  Tax payers give money to the government.  The government gives it to the soldiers and the soldiers spend it at the strip malls.  It’s a bizarre hybrid of socialism and capitalism.  Round and round the money flows, where it stops, nobody knows.  If only they had better taste in architecture.

Our first coastal destination is a place called St. Joseph’s state park which is located at the tip of the San Blas peninsula.  The image from the map and brochure gives us high hopes for an idyllic setting.  But we have some doubts about the affordability factor.  Apparently, the San Blas Peninsula is known for having some of the most expensive real estate on the planet earth.  Prices run in the vicinity of a million dollars an acre.  We’re not planning on buying any acreage or anything but if the purchase price is so high so must be the rent.  As we soon find out, however, most of the million dollar real estate stands empty.  I can’t help but wonder if the entire scene is somehow a product of the real estate collapse or perhaps fall out from the big oil spill in the Gulf.  The road along the peninsula is lined with luxury mansion after luxury mansion.  But only rarely do we see cars or people and almost every home has a “for sale” sign.  I think of the homeless and hungry on the streets of our cities and suggest an overnight occupation of one of the luxury homes as a symbolic act of protest.  Chances are… we’d never get caught and it would definitely save us the cost of a night camping.  But Ms. B. thinks I’m getting carried away with my revolution so we continue on to the campground.

The campground at St. Joe’s is spectacular.  A white sand peninsula juts out into the Gulf like a finger.  The almost empty beach seems to stretch out forever.  Colorful shells, apparently clean water and a sunset for the record books.  They charge us almost 30 bucks for a campsite though (25 plus tax) and most of the other campers are retired senior citizens living out their golden years as semi-nomadic RV dwellers.  Is this a campground or a retirement home?  I guess most people of working age have no time for camping.  Work now…enjoy later; is the lesson we learn in school.  I, however, didn’t learn that lesson well.  Enjoy now, enjoy always is my motto.

We find our campsite and make ourselves at home.  But because it costs so much we are only staying one night so we don’t bother with the tent.  Instead, like before, we transform the back of the Subaru into a comfy sleeping shelter.  Once our setup is established, we head to the beach…

Wow.  It’s been awhile since I’ve dipped my toes in the ocean and the white sands of this place are like from a vision rather than reality.  There are very few people around; maybe 7 or 8 as far as the eye can see.  Me and Ms. B have this particular slice of heaven more or less to ourselves.  Several large pieces of drift wood scattered here and there are the only solid objects against the background of pure white and deep blue.  The warm tingles start inside me.  I feel like a performer on the stage of the planet earth.  Where does this feeling come from?  Maybe it’s the full on beams of the setting sun.  Or maybe it’s the smell of the ocean or the taste of the wind.  I can’t explain it.  I feel so alive I’m ready to fly.  As if this moment is the climactic scene in a glorious show.  Accordingly, I leave my civilization accessories (camera, cell phone and wallet) on a piece of drift wood for safe keeping and perform…really, I do.

I dash towards the ocean and do a diving somersault in the sand.  I walk on my hands and do cartwheels.  I splash in the water up to my knees but don’t go all the way in because it’s cold and there is a shark danger at the sunset hours.  I return to the sand for more acrobatics.  I land flat on my back when I try a front handspring…aaaugh!  But even that feels good in a painfully alive way.  I roll over, push up, and walk some more on my hands.  I may be getting old and rusty but I can still do this stuff.  Why do I stop?  Why do I allow myself to become sedentary?  It feels so great to be awake and alive, why don’t I move like this all the time?

While I perform, Ms. B. shoots photos; artistic shots of the drift wood, the sunset and a couple of me.  Afterwards, we walk the beach together…looking for shells, breathing the sea air and being happy. It’s after dark by the time we get back to the campsite where we have a romantic meal of pb and j’s with a side of chips and salsa.  Oh yeah, life is so good.  And for desert…well… a little bit of green.

Our timing is so good I impress myself.  You’d almost think we planned it this way.  Our first night on the ocean is the night of the full moon.  The big glowing white orb climbs above the tree tops and soaks our world with its magical rays.  It’s so incredible in fact that we decide to take another walk.  Back to the beach we go.  A full moon stroll on an empty beach with the beautiful Ms. B.; oh yeah!  Some stories are just too good to tell.

The next day, we leave the campground.  I’d be happy there for a week or two but we really can’t afford it.  We have to find a cheaper alternative.  So we leave the San Blas peninsula and head east along the panhandle towards the town of Apalachicola.  Once off the big peninsula, there’s no more newly developed luxury mansions lining the roadway.  Instead, there’s undeveloped swamp and scrub pine with palm tree forest separating the main road from the ocean.  A few plots have been marked off and the occasional dirt road cuts through the tangle towards the shore but there are no buildings.  Thankfully, the real estate boom went bust before it consumed this territory.  And all us interlopers need is an opening and we will lay claim to a space.   We continue on to Apalachicola but take not of the uncivilized dirt roadways as possible sleeping spots for later.  The universe provides the opportunities; it’s up to us to take them.

How much do we like Apalachicola?  A whole lot.  We like it so much we discuss its potential as a winter residence.  It’s an atmospheric small town where the river meets the ocean.  There’s a good coffee shop, a couple restaurants and bars, several excellent local art galleries and even an independent bookstore.  Ms. B. is particularly impressed with the fine details in the historic architecture while I rather enjoy the colorful local characters we meet in the shops.  This one older guy with a big fluffy mustache and only two teeth is my favorite.  In response to my polite question “how are you today?”  A smile to save the world envelops his entire face and he sings out with a southern twang, “I could not possibly be any better.”  His enthusiastic response brings joy to my heart and is catapulted into the realm of the miraculous when the shopkeeper informs us afterwards that the man who uttered those words is dying of cancer.  Wow!  It’s truly amazing how one brief human encounter can put a whole lot of stupid shit into perspective.

After the leisurely wander around the town, we have an early dinner in one of the seafood restaurants.  It’s a bit beyond our budget but since we are planning to camp for free a little splashing out for food can be justified.  Bellies full of fish, we head back to the undeveloped stretch of land along the highway and seek out a secluded spot.  Sure enough, we find a random dirt road that disappears into the underbrush and we follow it to the shoreline.  There’s not another human soul around as the sun goes down over the ocean with a dazzling display of purple and orange and read and pink.  Yeah sure, it might be illegal to camp here.  But it’s not posted or anything and it certainly doesn’t seem wrong.  As a matter of fact, it’s so beautiful now it almost seems like the universe is wishing us a great big welcome.   And so, we transform the Subaru back into a sleeping shelter and settle into our new found temporary home.

Southern Hospitality

He doesn’t piss on the confederate flag… or even on the pole that holds up the flag.  But he does come close.  And it’s the metaphor that counts, not the reality.  He leans up against the small circular fence that surrounds the flag pole and unleashes it from there.  He is demonstrating disdain for the symbol which so undermines the reputation of his home state.  We are in South Carolina at the moment.  We’ve been hanging out at a bar across the street from the capitol building in Colombia, South Carolina.  I stepped outside for a smoke with a couple of locals and we got to talking about politics.  Who won the Republican primary here?  The confederate flag looked down upon us from its perch atop the flagpole in front of the government buildings and one of my new friends decided that a symbolic act of some kind was necessary to demonstrate his depth of feeling.  And so, we dashed across the street for a closer look and this small act of defiance…

The journey south was fairly uneventful.  With our vehicle fully loaded with camping supplies and bicycles, we followed route 81 all the way from NY to North Carolina.  No doubt, a meandering journey along winding roads is more our style but we wanted to get somewhere warm and fuzzy as soon as possible.   Accordingly, we followed the most direct concrete corridor that connects point A with point B.   I was, of course, aesthetically oppressed by the development style of the corporations that dominated the landscape.  The same ugly signs for the same big businesses repeated themselves over and over and over again; Walmart here and McDonalds there, Exxon Mobile and Sunoco; don’t forget the Dollar General, KFC and the ever present chain hotels.   This is First World America after all; the America of corporations and efficiency and energy consumption and concrete.   Theoretically, route 81 and the development along it is a manifestation of a successful free market.   Indeed, if our economy continues progressing on its present course, we can look forward to more and more and more development just like this… Wow. Capitalism?  Isn’t it great?

We stayed for a night with friends in North Carolina and then continued on to South Carolina.  It’s Super bowl Sunday when we go out drinking in downtown Colombia but we choose a place without a television.  As the Giants and Patriots square off in the battle royale… the ultimate expression of American culture… we are busy drinking whiskey and talking about travel.  The friends we are staying with are familiar with my travel stories.  Indeed, they have read my Timbuktu book and have even shared it with some friends.   One of the friends they shared it with joins us at our table.  Thus, in a new twist on my reality, I get to meet someone who has read my book who I never met before.   This makes me feel slightly strange.  Many people have read my book and complimented me on it but only people that knew me before they read it.    This is my first full response from a complete an utter stranger.   I’m slightly self-conscious about the whole experience.  Like any writer, I can’t help but wonder if my words conveyed what I wanted them to convey.  Does the story make sense to others like it makes sense to me?  I don’t know.   I’m used to being a stone mason who likes to travel but now I feel like a travel writer out on the road meeting my potential audience.  But this is a reality I will have to get used to if I am going to be serious about selling my books.   So what exactly does a travel writer do when he meets with readers on the road?

I tell travel stories.  Like usual, the ayahuasca in the Amazon with the shaman story is a big hit.  I’m tempted to re-tell it here on this blog but its very long and part of my epic novel anyway.   In response to my stories, my reader and new friend buys us whiskey and offers me a smoke.   I think I can get used to this role of travel writer.   As we stand outside the bar smoking, we look across the street at the confederate flag in front of the capital building.   The conversation turns to politics and we soon go closer to the flag for a demonstration of rebellion.  I can’t help but feel that the message of my literature is making its way out into the world.  The symbolism is overwhelming  That’s right, as the ultimate expression of the American Corporate Reality plays itself out on the big screen for hundreds of millions of viewers (the super bowl), one of Pat Ryan’s very few readers urinates on a confederate flagpole in front of a capital building.  It really is a beautiful universe…

Budget travel in the USA is no easy task.  Accommodation is always expensive so a certain amount of versatility and creativity is required.  When we head south from Colombia, we no longer have the welcoming homes of friends to rely upon for resting our weary heads.  From here on out, we have to wing it.  We’re hoping to find cheap campgrounds for the whole journey.  Ms. B’s Subaru Forester is fully loaded with camping supplies such that we are a self-sufficient contained unit.  With our little microcosm of a vehicle, we have all the necessaries for survival.  Thus, our main challenge is finding a place to park each night.  One would think, in a nation as vast and expansive as America that would be easy.  But this is a country that takes its property rights seriously.   You can’t just pull up anywhere that’s open and make yourself at home because everywhere that’s open is already owned by someone.  Yeah sure, Walmart lets you use their parking lot for overnight stays.  But does anyone really want to stay in a Walmart parking lot?  If only this country were really “free”.  Then this journey would be easy.

Thanks to our whiskey hangovers, we get a late start from Colombia and continue south along another corridor of concrete capitalism.  I’d describe it again but it’s really just the same as the interstate we started on; the same bright lights, the same golden arches, the same rest areas and convenience plazas.  It’s about 9 at night when we decide to exit the transport infrastructure and go searching for a temporary home.  We seek not hotels or guesthouses because our financially depressed reality disallows such an option.  Hopefully, that campground just ahead will be within our price range.

But it’s not really a campground.  It’s an RV Park with electric hookups and water faucets and a central compound with so many goods and service options that it might as well be a shopping mall.  I guess they call this “camping” in the 21st century.  No doubt they will charge us a pretty penny to sleep here and they don’t list prices for camping on their welcoming board.  The central compound and reception area is closed at this hour so there is no one around to ask.       We consider choosing a site at random and just paying in the morning when they open.  But given the super sized high end mobile units on the other sites, there is a fairly good chance we would awake to a big fat bill in the morning.  We can’t afford luxury camping.  We need primitive.  Accordingly, onward we go.

A half hour down the road, we find a state campground that is named after FDR.  The facilities here were built during the Great Depression.   As most people know, President Roosevelt was a big government democrat who taxed the rich and re-distributed the wealth.  In an attempt to stimulate the economy, he also invested large amounts of public funds in jobs programs that built infrastructure throughout the country.  Ultimately, it took World War 2 to stimulate the American economy out of the Great Depression because war is fundamental to the structure of capitalism.  But one of the many by-products of President Roosevelt’s pre-war investments is our state and national park system.  Somehow it’s seems appropriate that this year’s journey through Third World America should make a stopover at such a place.

It’s late, however, when we pull in.  The office is closed and there is no option for self-registration.  It also indicates that the price for camping is 25 dollars per site.  This shocks me.  Can they really charge that much just to set up a tent?  I thought state parks were supposed to belong to “the people”.  Aren’t we the “people” too?  No matter, it’s late, we’re tired and we have to camp somewhere.  So we pull in through the entrance and explore the campground.  It’s really quite wonderful with a central lake and a winding road through a forest of campsites.  We choose a secluded spot in the depths of the forest and back into the site.  We don’t bother to set up the tent though.  Instead, we move all our belongings to the front of the Subaru and put down the seats in the back.  We lay out the foam pad and put the sleeping bags on top.  It’s really quite comfy though about 6 inches short of perfection.  Oh well, I will just have to sleep diagonal.

It takes about ten minutes to transform our transportation vehicle into a sleeping shelter and afterwards, we settle back to enjoy the evening.  An almost full moon shines through the tree tops to light up our private forest sanctuary.  Our provision box is full of eatables, drinkables and smokeables.  We have background music if we want, but we prefer the silence.  We have books to read as well but we really need no entertainment.  We have each other; crazy me and the beautiful Ms. B. and that is all we need.  How good is it to be alive on this great planet earth?.

We awake early the next morning.  Long before park rangers or camp officials patrol for interlopers, we transform our sleeping shelter back into a transport vehicle and head for the exit.  If anyone sees us, we will feign innocence and pay the required 25 dollar fee.  But I certainly feel no obligation on that account and I hope we avoid detection.  Outside the camping area, there’s a right hand turn that goes back to the registration office and a left hand turn that leads to the main road.  We turn left and make a successful escape.  The best things in life really are free… or at least they should be.

Deportation is a drag… a serious crashing drag.  It’s happened to me… twice; once in Paraguay and once in Mauritania.  I did nothing wrong, of course (in either country).  I was a tall white dude trying to travel in countries where tall white dudes are not the majority population.  I thought my papers were in order but I must have been mistaken.  In both cases, I could have avoided deportation had I been willing to pay sufficient funds.   But I, like a fool, demanded fairness and was cast out because of it.  I just heard on the radio that the Obama administration has deported more illegal aliens than any other administration in history.  Meanwhile, the Republican candidates argue about the best ways to deport more and more.   As I sit here, in a comfortable cabin, on the side of a mountain in Vermont listening to the radio, I can’t help but think about that one dreadful day in that far away place…

There I was, on the triple frontier, where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay come together in a confusing tangle of inter-jurisdiction.  I was on my way to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay from Argentina but the bus had to pass through Brazil in order to get there.  I didn’t have a visa for Brazil but apparently I didn’t need one if I stayed on the bus.   As a matter of fact, I didn’t even get stamped in.  That’s the way it worked.  Or at least that’s what the driver of the local bus I was on told me. I stamped out of Argentina and didn’t stamp into anywhere.  I was a visitor to the world between boundaries.  It was only 40 minutes or so that we had to drive through the territory of Brazil to reach Paraguay but a slight cloud of paranoia descended upon me.  Why did I feel like I was doing something wrong?

My friend the Frog lives in paradise.  Of all the places I hang out once in a while, his home in Central Vermont is one of the most comfortable for me.   It’s a small place, on the side of a mountain on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.    He has all the modern comforts and technologies, a great collection of music and books and a pantry fully stocked with healthy organic food.   This is Third World America however so he is almost never there because he works all the time.  A stressful job in retail management keeps him away from his glorious refuge.   As a matter of fact, he’s not home when I arrive in the late afternoon.   I have to crawl in through the dog door.   Kali… his elderly dalmation… greets me with a friendly lick rather than a defensive bark.  I open the fridge, grab a beer and sit down on the futon.   The view is spectacular out the big front window; snowy fields and distant mountains against a backdrop of darkening blue sky.  Kali climbs up next to me and puts her head in my lap. I use the remote to click on the radio.  Sure enough, the sound of NPR fills the room. It’s a story about illegal immigration.   Everybody seems to be against it.  Both political parties come down rather strongly in favor of deportation.

The craziest thing about my whole border crossing fiasco in Paraguay was that I fell asleep on the bus and missed the entry into the country.  I finally woke up as the bus pulled into stop at a busy market in downtown Ciudad Del Este.   All the other passengers got off there so I collected my backpack and went to ask the driver about immigration.  He acted surprised.  He pointed back the way we came and informed me that I should have got off at the bridge.   Bridge?  What bridge?  I don’t remember crossing any bridge.  I look in the direction the driver is pointing.  I don’t see any bridge from where I’m standing.  It must be a long ways.  How long was I sleeping?  That’s when the realization became clear in my mind.  Holy shit, I thought to myself.  I accidently snuck into Paraguay.  I’m an illegal alien.

Meanwhile, back on the radio in the present, the politicians are using the buzz word of self-deportation.  The more they try to explain the concept the more bizarre it sounds.  Obviously, these guys have never been deported.   Honestly, if I understand them correctly, they are openly advocating a policy of making immigrants as unwelcome and miserable as possible so that the immigrants will choose to leave on their own.  They try to cloak the concept within the garb of the rule of law.  As if only the technically illegal will be subjected to the mistreatment.  But it sounds to me like some sort of fancy way of saying legalized racism. Self-deportation? Are they kidding?

There I was in Paraguay.  Smack dab in the center of a very big market in the middle of town.   But I had no entry stamp.  Technically, I was nowhere.  I had left the civilized world and landed in the unchartered territories outside the paper trail.    The temperature hovered in the vicinity of ten thousand degrees.  Sweat dripped from my body and I had yet to even begin walking.  I needed to stop and think for a minute.  I had to figure out what to do.  I saw a street vendor selling coca cola.  Fortunately, he accepted several currencies including the Argentine pesos I had in my pocket.  I bought the coke and sat down.  The metaphors overwhelmed.  I was perched on a precipice between two worlds.  I was tempted by the fruit of pure anarchy; the real freedom of an illegal existence.  The thoughts ran through my mind like a train careening down a track… Bust out, break free, there’s a whole damn world to see.  Who needs papers?  Who needs bureaucracy?  Who needs red tape?  I am a free animal of the planet earth. I need not bow my head before the rules of the man.   Identification is for slaves.  Passports are so 20th century.  Why can’t we all just be brothers under the sun?  Why the boundaries?  Why the nation states?

But alas, the fear of arrest and deportation hovered over me like a cloud of foul black smog on a hot and humid day.   Visions of handcuffs and billy clubs and an uncomfortable encounter with angry men in uniforms made me reconsider my reverie.  I had to deal with reality.  How much trouble could I possibly get in?   It was only an entry stamp I lacked.  American’s don’t even need visas for Paraguay.  What’s the big deal?  Can’t I just continue on into central Paraguay?  There’s a bus right there with a signboard for Asuncion, the capital city.  Do I really have to go all the way back to the entrance just to fill out some stupid paperwork and be officially stamped in before I go on?  It doesn’t seem fair…  But there’s probably a police checkpoint in my near future and if I don’t have the proper paperwork bad things will happen.  By the time the coca cola is drained to the bottom, I make my final decision.  I give up on the ideal of illegality and decide to self-deport.

The politicians on the radio are now talking about illegal immigration and its effect on the economy.   Supposedly, the illegal aliens are taking the jobs from ordinary (white) Americans.  These same politicians are champions of the “free market” and the globalization of capital.  With their off shore tax havens and portfolios full of stocks from multi-national corporations they claim the legal right to own the resources and assets of foreign lands.  Do they not understand the absolute inconsistency of their two positions?   Real free markets you fools… not fake ones.

It took me about twenty minutes to walk back through town and reach the immigration office at the international bridge.   Thanks to the heavy backpack and oppressive heat, I was drenched in sweat by the time I arrived.  I went up to the appropriate window and handed my passport to the man in uniform on the other side.   Expecting a quick stamp and the appropriate words of welcome I was quite surprised when the evil little man started shaking his head vigorously no.  “You need visa,” he says, “where is visa?”

“I’m American,” I say, “I checked on the internet before I came here.  I don’t need visa.  Just a tourist stamp for 30 days please?”

“No,” he says, “you need visa.”  He points at a door to the right and indicates for me to go through it.  He stuffs my passport in his pocket and disappears into an inner office.

So I go through the door as directed and find myself in a small office.  There’s a big desk, and a couple of chairs in front but there are no other people.  It reminds me of an interview room at a corporate headquarters.    I take the seat of the applicant and wait for the authority figure.   After a few moments, the uniformed man from earlier enters through a side door and sits behind the big desk.  Everything seems very formal and official.  Nevertheless, my spider senses are tingling.  I have a sneaky suspicion I’m about to get squeezed.

“You need visa,” he says, “how come you don’t have visa?”

“I don’t need one,” I insisted.  “I checked on the internet.  Americans get free tourist passes for up to 30 days.”

“Law changed one week ago,” says uniformed authority man behind big desk.   A mischievous smile turns up the corners of his lips and his big fluffy mustache twitches. “Now you need visa.”

“Okay,” I say reluctantly, “I guess we have to follow the rule of law.  How do I apply for a visa?”

“Normally you have to apply at the embassy,” says the devious little man, “but you seem like good person, trustworthy person, respectable person (translated these words mean white guy with money), maybe I can make extra special exception just for you.”

“Oh really,” I say, “that’s very kind of you.  How much is this extra special exception going to cost me?”

“I’m not sure,” he says, “this is unusual.  I will have to check with the central administration in Asuncion.  Excuse me for one minute.  I will go see.”  He pushes himself away from the desk and disappears behind a door again.  I can’t understand why he didn’t know the price.  It’s all very strange.   What could possibly be unusual about this situation?  A tourist wants to enter the country so he comes to immigration?  The whole thing seems suspiciously like a great big scam.

I only wait a few minutes before the tyrant returns with a paper in his hand.  He’s smiling like a redneck with a winning lottery ticket.  “No problem,” he says as he hands it over, “Asuncion will make special exception just for you.  You can have a tourist visa issued here at frontier.  All you have to do is sign this form and pay me one hundred fifty dollars.”

“A hundred and fifty dollars?” I question as I look at the form, “that’s got to be the most expensive visa in the world.”  Seriously… it’s not even a visa application.  It says tourist card on the front and it’s just like one of those six line entry forms you see at most international borders.  If this story is legit, I’m an Arabian princess.  Obviously, this tyrant in a uniform is going to pocket my cash and just give me a regular entry stamp like every other tourist that comes wandering in.  He singled me out as a white dude he could squeeze for a little extra cash.  Damn I hate this shit.

“Not very expensive,” says the smiling tyrant, “only 150 dollars.  And you are American, you can afford.  And this special visa.  Only available at the frontier.”

I should have just paid the money and went on my way to Paraguay.  But no, I didn’t.  I had to be a smart ass.  And because I was a smart ass, Mr. Smiling Tyrant Authority man kicked me the heck out of the country.  “Okay,” I said, “I’ll pay the 150 bucks.  But something about this troubles me.  It’s inconsistent with what I read online.  So before I pay you the money, I need to write down your full name and identification information.  I’m going to double check this with the embassy when I get to Asuncion.  Could I please see your id?”  I pulled out a notebook and pen from my backpack to demonstrate that I was serious.

All of a sudden, the smiling tyrant stopped smiling.  He turned around abruptly and exited the office.  He returned a few moments later with two other officers.  “There has been a mistake,” he said.  “Visas are not available at this border.  You will have to leave here and go to the embassy in Brazil or Argentina to get one.  These two men are here to make sure you do not try to enter this country illegally.  Thank you and have a nice day.”  He turned around again and exited the office.   And so, I got deported.  They didn’t handcuff me or hold me in detention or anything.  They just followed me outside to the bridge and watched me as I flagged down a taxi cab going back towards Brazil and Argentina.

In the last phase of the Immigration debate on the radio, the candidates discuss securing the border with more patrols, a taller fence and ever increasing security.   Once again, the two political parties seem to be in complete agreement on the basic premise:  Build the wall, they say, build it bigger, taller, stronger and better.   They only disagree and argue about how much taxpayer money should be spent on the project and the specific design of the overall security apparatus.   In a bizarre twist on reality, I long for Ronnie Reagan and the famous words he spoke to Gorbachev….  Tear down the wall Mr. President… Tear down that wall.

As I rode in the taxi away from the Paraguayan border, it occurred to me that I was still a man outside the nation states.   I had checked out of Argentina several hours before and I had yet to check into anywhere new.  I was in Brazil, but I wasn’t allowed to be in Brazil because I needed a visa and an entry stamp in order to enter.  I couldn’t go to Paraguay because of the tyrant so my only option seemed a return to Argentina.  But I’m not one to give up so easy.  So I had the taxi drop me off at the Paraguayan embassy in Foz de Iquazu in Brazil.  I went inside to see if I could get some justice.  I wanted to find out the truth about the visa requirements.  I wanted to report the tyrant who tried to force me to bribe him.

Big surprise.  They did pass a new law the week before.  Americans did indeed now need visas to enter Paraguay.  Of course the visa only cost 30 bucks but I had no proof that the guy at the border demanded 150 so there was no way I could get him in trouble.  I could, however, get a 30 dollar visa right there and then at the embassy and go back to Paraguay with it.   Then the tyrant and his goons wouldn’t’ be able to stop me.  And so, I applied for a Visa.  It was a real visa form.  Several pages, with lots of information requested.  The hard part was the request for the number on the entry stamp for Brazil.  Since I had no entry stamp, I couldn’t fill in the number.  I tried to explain the situation to the lady behind the immigration desk.  What should I do about this number if I don’t have an entry stamp? And that’s when the friendly lady was friendly no more.

“Oh my god,” she said, “you have no entry stamp.  You are illegal. We can’t give you a visa.  You can’t even be here.  You must leave here right now or I will call Brazilian Immigration.  They will deport you.”

“But, but,”

“I will call them right now.” She picked up the phone.

And so, for the second time in the same day I had to self-deport from a country.  It’s a lousy feeling to be officially unwelcome somewhere.  To have… to leave.   I stood outside the embassy and considered the absurdity.  About 4 hours ago, I checked out of Argentina and headed towards Paraguay.   I never arrived.  As a matter of fact, according to the official records I never arrived anywhere.  I went to some unknown place.  I now have to return to Argentina… to the exact spot I left.    What the hell happened in the last 4 hours?  My innocent soul was cast down upon the rocks of bureaucracy.  I was denied, rejected and refused entry.  On the roller coaster of life I took a deep downward plunge…

Meanwhile, back in the present, I hear the sound of the Frog’s car in the driveway.  I click off the radio as he walks up the steps.   He puts the key in the front door and comes on in.  The dog stays with me on the couch.  I haven’t seen the Frog in quite some time.  He knows I might be coming by for a visit but he’s not sure when.  He doesn’t expect me to break in.  This is a small surprise.  I only hope he will be happy to see me.   Thankfully, a big smile stretches across his face.

“Well well,” he says, “you evaded my defense systems and neutralized my guard dog.   I see you found the beer…  Everything is as it should be.  Is there anything else you need to feel perfectly welcome here in my home?”

“Perhaps, one more small thing,” I say, “and I’m guessing you have some in that drawer beneath your telephone.”

“But of course,” says the Frog.

If all the immigration officers on this planet were as friendly as the Frog, the world would be a wonderful place.

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Wacky people do weird things for bizarre reasons and it is merely a fine line which separates a fascinating cultural metaphor from a cruel and brutal reality.  When I ate dog in Vietnam a number of years ago, I had no inner desire to eat dog.   My palate sought no pleasure from the juices of canine sirloin and my over active imagination could not help visualizing cute little puppies getting hacked to pieces by very mean men with great big knives.  Nevertheless, I ate dog.  No doubt about it; left on my own with the option of many meats to choose from, I would never voluntarily choose to eat dog.  But that was not the situation.   I was in Vietnam and I was hanging around with some friendly Vietnamese.   They were all very excited about eating dog on that particular day in the lunar cycle and they enthusiastically invited me to join them at their feast.  How could I possibly say no?  Always willing to push the envelope of cultural curiosity, I overcame my inner revulsion and immersed myself in the experience.  In the end, it wasn’t so bad.  Yeah sure, the dog stew did not taste very delicious. But the flavor was not unbearable and the nice people and friendly atmosphere more than made up for my disturbing thoughts about suffering puppies….

Now, here I am, living through the early stages of my Third World USA tour.   In the house where I am presently accommodated, Fox News blares from the television and dominates the evening meal.   Why do you suppose it is that listening to Fox News here and now in the USA brings back such vivid memories of eating dog in Vietnam so many years ago?

Ms. B drops me at the bus station and I head north.  We will rendezvous in a week or so but for now I’m on my own.  The bus travels the highway through the Adirondack Mountains and arrives in the town of Plattsburgh on the shores of Lake Champlain. This is the town where I grew up, the town where my father and lots of my other family members live.  I try to make a pilgrimage here at least a few times each year. Usually, I head up this way right before I go overseas for the winter.  This year I’m traveling inside the country but I want to visit family anyway.  After all, the third world USA tour must begin at the beginning.

My brother picks me up at the bus station and takes me to the house.   My father is not there because he is volunteering at a church program for the homeless.  I won’t be able to see him until some time tomorrow.  No matter, I spend the evening catching up with my brother.  He too is a writer.  He’s getting ready to self-publish his first fantasy novel.  We discuss the world of online publishing and the serious possibility that paperback books are going the way of the cassette recorder.  Traditional book publishing is a dying industry.  Any person can now make their e-book available to the whole wide world.    So why bother with traditional publishers?   I don’t know.  Both of my travel books are now available online for anyone who wants to buy them (buy my books).    It seems as if the only thing left for big business to do is marketing.  But marketing is expensive and a little financial backing can make all the difference in the world.   Is that it?  Financial backing?  Is that the only thing which separates a real writer from an amateur?

My next day in Plattsburgh, I visit the home of another brother.  This one is an artist and photographer rather than a writer but he suffers from the same curse as the rest of us.  He hasn’t found a financial backer for his creativity either…  Why does this same story replay itself so frequently in Third World USA?  The starving artists toil away at miserable day jobs while quietly and secretly creating masterpieces in their spare time.    One day, perhaps, the starving artist of the American fantasy will be discovered and riches will rain down upon him.  But for most people living in the American nightmare, the toiling away continues and the discovery never happens.  The dream of one day getting discovered is substituted for the reality of having no free time to pursue the dream…  The passion and power disappear and the truth of economic slavery takes hold.  Aaauggh.

In the evening, I return to my childhood home and have dinner with my father.   We watch Fox News and it is a totally bizarre semi-hallucinatory experience.  Honestly, I don’t even own a television.  I’ve heard of Fox News as an institution of course.  I know it’s owned by Rupert Murdoch and it’s a bastion of right wing media.  But it’s not something that I ever actually sit down and watch.   I rarely watch any television and if I do, Fox News is not my preferred programming.  But here I am at my father’s house.  He likes to watch it regularly and I like to be an accommodating guest who adapts to the routine of the place I’m staying.  If he wants to watch Fox News, I’m going to sit right here and watch it with him… How about that?  Isn’t this interesting?  A television station dedicated completely to the god of Capitalism.  Do people still believe this stuff?  Don’t they realize that Capitalism is a broken concept?   I guess some metaphors take a long time to die.

We are about half way through the Bill O’Reiley segment when I have a very vivid flash back to my days in Vietnam.  Not to the war of course, but to my remarkable dog eating experience during my travels there in 2001.   I was staying in a good sized town somewhere in the western mountains of the country.  While wandering aimlessly through the town’s central park, I came upon four young men who were drinking some kind of home made rot gut alcohol from a bottle in a paper bag.   They could not speak a word of English but they managed to offer me a hit off their communal bottle.  Always a brave one, I accepted their offer.  Wow, that shit was strong.  We then proceeded to pass the bottle from person to person as we attempted to communicate. Before the Vietnamese guys took their sips from the bottle, each one of them would utter a word that I could not quite understand.  It sounded like: awanetdoge.  When they handed me the bottle for the second time, they tried to get me to repeat the word before I drank.  I did my best to imitate them: awanetdoge.  They laughed when I tried to say it because I obviously had no idea what I was saying.  I wondered if it was a Vietnamese curse word.   This went on and on for about a half hour, the bottle going around in a circle, them saying the words, me trying to imitate their pronunciation.   Awanetdoge… guzzle back a shot.   Awanetdoge…guzzle back another shot. When the full moon came up on the eastern horizon and my four friends started howling with laughter, I finally realized what the words meant.  I wasn’t speaking bad Vietnamese.  They were speaking bad English.  I want to Eat Dog.  I want to Eat Dog.  I must have said it more than ten times before I learned the meaning.  And then well, could I really say no?  So I hopped up on the back of one of my new friend’s motorcycle and rode my way across town to the dog feast…

Meanwhile, back in the present, the commentators on Fox News are following the Republican presidential primaries.  Newt Gingrich has just called Barack Obama the Food Stamp President.  I swear, Newt Gingrich is such a perfect metaphor for everything that is wrong with America that I sometimes believe he is a fictional character rather than a real person.   Even his name is like some sort of twisted confused anagram. Just move the “t” a couple letters over and throw in a space:  New is Gitng rich bullshitting America.  He champions the cause of making life harder on the poor in order to properly encourage them to embrace free enterprise.  He raises his hands in the air and shouts out his message…. The lower class is a bunch of losers.  They are ungrateful, uneducated, good for nothing, lazy bums.    You, my followers, are not the lower class.  You are the middle class. You are not one of them you are one of us, the entrepreneurs, the successful hardworking Americans.  Blah blah blah…

When I arrived at the dog feast in Vietnam, I was very drunk and no one at the party spoke more than a few words of English.  Nevertheless, I remember very clearly several people trying to explain to me about the eating of dog meat in relation to the cycles of the moon…  U wanna eat dog.  I wanna eat dog.  But no eat dog after full moon…  Apparently, it is always bad luck to eat dog meat when the moon is waning and always good luck to eat dog meat when the moon is waxing.  Furthermore, the closer the moon is to full the more powerful the force of luck.  The moment, however, the moon passes full, is the worst time of all to eat dog.  That is when you will get stuck with very powerful bad luck.  Thus, the object of the ritual is to eat as much dog as possible up until the precise moment of the moon’s fullness but stop eating before the waning begins.    How close can we get to the full moon?   How far can we push our good luck before it turns bad?   That is the challenge and the fun of the dog eating ritual.  I don’t know if it works this way everywhere but at the respected dog meat establishment where I ate, they stopped serving at the precise moment of the full moon.  All the customers at the party then proceeded to throw what was left on their plates into the communal fire.    U wanna eat dog.  I wanna eat dog.  U wanna eat dog.  I wanna eat dog.   But no eat dog when the full moon is over.

Fox News is back and I’m watching the commentators discuss whether or not the Presidential candidate Mitt Romney should release his taxes.  This is the dude who likes to make ten thousand dollar bets.  He has some absurd personal fortune and he pays a very meager amount of taxes.   He made his fortune as part of the investor class.  So much money for so little work.  It makes as much sense as eating dog.   He’s a rich dude who makes no bones about it. He’s wants to be president to work on behalf of the rich people.  He believes whole-heartedly in the ideology of accumulated wealth.  The fawning commentators on Fox fail to even discuss the extent to which his entire fortune is dependent upon government support.   Realistically, any individual human’s ability to possess wealth is limited by practical physical constraints.  How much space can one human occupy?  How much energy can one human consume?  How much material can one person handle?   Accordingly, in the real world, the extent to which a person can own things that he or she does not possess is only possible with the complicity and direct assistance of the government.  All paper wealth only has value because the government says it does.  Ownership is not inherent.  It is a legally created construct.  What gives you the right to control resources that you do not possess… the government does.  So you really should shut up and start paying your fair share of taxes…  But no, the god of Capitalism does not see things that way.

At the feast in Vietnam, we sat on the floor around a long narrow table.  Great big pots of dog stew were placed at intervals along the table and we were all passed small bowls and chopsticks to eat with.    Everyone was very excited.  The liquor was flowing and the laughter was loud.  The Vietnamese all seemed happy to have a stranger among them and I was happy to be joining in their feast.  Songs were sung, liquor was drunk and we ate the bowls of dog stew.  It didn’t taste so good.  It was very stringy and greasy meat, kind of like bad pot roast all covered up with spices.  Sometimes, no matter how much you spice something… the funk, foul and nastiness still remains at the core.  It made my stomach turn.  I would never choose it in a restaurant under normal circumstances.  But these were not normal circumstances.  I was participating in the cultural ritual and getting myself some very good luck.  Sure why not, I can eat dog.   As long as I get to do it in a nice place with nice people who are having a good time.

I stay at my father’s house for several days.  During that time, I watch the bizarre phenomena of Fox News on a couple of occasions. In truth, I have about as much chance of believing their story as I do in believing that eating dog meat before the full moon will bring me good luck.  But that does not mean that I can’t dabble in it out of cultural curiosity.  Besides, my father and brother are wonderful and accommodating people.  Spending a few days in their presence is a pleasure no matter what weird cultural metaphors they believe in.  When my visit is complete, they give me a ride along the lake and over the bridge from NY to Vermont.  They drop me off at the home of the Frog on the slopes of Snake Mountain.  Rather remarkably, the universe transforms…  Fox News fades to the background and the friendly folks at NPR take over the airwaves. .  I can’t help but wonder if the moon has gone past full…

Al Qaeda is coming.  Al Qaeda is coming.  And they have an evil and diabolical plan to destroy our homeland.  It’s absolutely true.  I have seen their secret strategy and plan outlined in careful detail.  They are lining up armies of men, trucks and heavy machinery at the border and they are planning to charge across the frontier and totally devastate our landscape.   In the initial phase of the attack they plan to use massive drills to bore some 18,000 holes a mile or so deep into the earth all around us.    They then plan to take hundreds of millions of gallons of water from our lakes and streams and infuse the water with dangerous poisonous chemicals.    Then, for the cout de grat…..they are going to take the chemically infused water and pump massive quantities of it at great force into the mile deep holes.    Their intention is to shatter the very foundations of the earth beneath us in hopes of releasing the natural gas that is trapped within it.  If they do manage to release the gas, they will collect it for themselves and sell it to the Chinese overseas.   They care not how many lives they ruin or people they kill.  They care not about the devastated landscape they will leave in their wake.  All they care about is getting their evil greedy hands on the natural gas.  We must stop them.  We can’t stand back and let them destroy us.  Come on citizens, take up arms and defend our homeland against this horrific attack planned by EVIL  AL QAEDA.

Oh wait a second.  I made a mistake.  It’s not Al Qaeda that is planning this horrific invasion; it’s the corporate capitalist natural gas companies.    In that case we shouldn’t take up arms and defend our homeland.  Instead we should get down on our knees and beg them for jobs and ask them to give us a tiny percentage of the profit they are going to gain from destroying our environment……

A Concerned Citizen

The Hydrofracked Planet

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So, here I am, stranded in the suburbs on the outskirts of town.  It’s New Year’s Eve, an hour before midnight and I’m wandering around in the dark all alone…  The Third World USA tour starts very slowly.  It’s been over a week and it’s not yet off the ground.  Of course I was sick.  The flu hit me hard right after the solstice.  I couldn’t get off the couch.  And now, when I’m better, Ms. B. gets it.  Mother Nature’s micro organisms are delaying the game.   No doubt I’m still thinking about the metaphorical party… the incredible scene in my new epic story.  But I can’t yet see the way to get from the here and now to there and then.    At the moment, the real world dominates:  economic bleakness and environmental devastation on the horizon and nothing but political absurdity and helplessness in response.  Any sort of radical transformation seems impossible…  Meanwhile, the streets where I’m walking are empty of people.  The neighborhood is full of quiet houses.  It’s almost a ghost town except for the constant blue glow that emanates forth from each home.

We’re skipping the First Night celebrations on account of our illnesses. Ms. B. is in the cottage watching movies with her sister while I wander through the neighborhood on my own.  I’m stoned of course, and a little bit drunk.  I’m approaching the calendar completion with the proper enthusiasm.  Whiskey and weed makes for a fine New Year indeed.   I’m thinking about my novel again as the blue lights blink.    I’m thinking about traveling again as the blue lights blink.  Total darkness… And blinking blue lights.  I want to go…but something holds me back.  I want to shatter the boundaries of this oppressive real world and enter the realm of the imaginary…but something holds me back.   Yeah, I know, there are practical problems.  The cash supply is mighty low.   It’s too cold for the bicycles so we will have to drive the first leg.  Ms. B. has craft shows to apply for before we can leave.  The world is conspiring to keep us trapped.   But there must be a way to get the hell out of here…  The blue lights seem to be everywhere…. behind every curtain… in every home.  Blinking blue lights and more blinking blue lights… I have to wonder what it all could mean…

Its New Year’s Eve morning and I wake up in a grumpy mood.   The fridge is full of leftovers but there’s nothing I want to eat.   I got no weed.  I got no booze.  I’ve been stuck sick in the house for a week.  I’m feeling better physically but not really.  More stir crazy than anything.  I have an urge to go on an adventure.  Ms. B. suggests the liquor store and a bottle of whiskey as a possible destination.  “Hot toddy’s you know…will knock back the germs”.

I look at the pile of recycling and it’s depressing.  How quickly it collects in this throw away world.  In my universe, there’s no such thing as garbage.  I like to imagine that everything can be re-used, recycled or composted.  The world goes around in a circle not straight ahead in a line.  But reality makes this principle hard to live up to.  The tower of cans and boxes reaches to the ceiling. “I really should take those to the recycling center today.”  Conveniently, the friendly neighborhood pot provider also lives near the recycling center.

“We need a couple of things from the grocery store as well,” says Ms. B.  “I want to bake some bread.  As long as you are going out anyway, why don’t you make a quick stop at the store?”

And so, my New Year’s Eve afternoon is here and I am on an errand run.  I can’t help but wonder if this afternoon’s quest is somehow symbolic of the year to come.  First stop the bank machine.  I punch in the numbers and it spits out the bills?  Wherever do these green pieces of paper come from? Believe it or not, in this world where I live, I can trade these pieces of paper for everything I want and need.  First stop the liquor store where I make a deal with the proprietor.  I give him some of the green papers from the bank machine and he lets me have a bottle of bourbon.  It seems somehow unfair… I get booze and all he gets is paper… but the liquor man is happy with the exchange so why should I complain?  After the liquor store I move on to the grocery store.  I walk the aisles of infinite supply.  I mean really.  There’s no shortage of anything.  Just look at this place. They take the green paper here as well.  Thank the empire for the collective illusion or such transactions would be mighty complicated.  I pick out the essentials from the well ordered rows; flour, honey, lemon, cider…I give green papers to the cashier and walk out the door to the motorized vehicle.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m driving.  I’m using up some fossil fuels.  I’d rather not, of course.  But it’s pretty damn cold for a bicycle.  No doubt if I lived in a sensibly organized world, I wouldn’t have to ever drive.  But public transport is shit here.  It’s all part of the idiotic conspiracy that force feeds us fossil fuels.   But the supply seems infinite…  I just go to the pump, hand over the green paper and the fuel keeps on flowing.  After the bank, liquor, groceries and gas, I go to recycling.   The left over containers that brought the supplies from the source must be returned to the source so that the cycle can continue.  Unfortunately, the recycle center here looks suspiciously like a garbage dump….

After the dump, I stop in to see Dr. M.  He is not a real doctor but he does have my favorite herbal medicine.  As usual, he is manifesting his social dysfunction with various rants and raves about the incomprehensible.  Today’s topic is the water supply and he sounds quite a bit like a character from my novel…  Water is abundant but it won’t be for long.  The 20th century wars were all about energy while the 21st century wars will be about water.  The empire is collecting it in plastic storage bottles and storing it in warehouses.  They are contaminating mass quantities with chemicals and pumping it deep under ground.  It’s all part of their long term plan to commodify everything.  When there is no more clean water left in the natural world we will have to buy it from them.  They take away everything that is all around us and tell us we can’t have it unless we give them money.  And then they won’t let us have money unless we do what they tell us.  It’s a god damn conspiracy…

“Speaking of which Dr. M,” I say, “how many green pieces of paper do I have to give you for the weed?”

I make it back to the cottage in the late afternoon.  I put away the supplies.  The place is fully stocked.  We now have everything.  Complete abundance.  Food, water, shelter, whiskey and weed.   If today somehow represents the year to come… what lies ahead is abundance.   But no, abundance is not the story we hear on the news.  The economy is depressed.  We are in a recession.  We are not working enough.  We are not producing enough green pieces of paper.  More people need jobs.  We need more green paper.  The economy better start growing or we are in trouble….    I myself am quite broke.  I have very little cash.  I too need to get my hands on more green pieces of paper.  Why?  I say why?  What do I need it for?   I don’t eat the paper or sleep in the paper or wear the paper.  The paper is just a symbol.  What do I need that symbol for?   The contradictory realities clash in my brain.  Wealth is everywhere but the whole world is poor.   Why are we trapped in this paper cage?

I drink a whiskey and relax.  I smoke a joint.  The New Year is almost here.  Tomorrow morning I will make the first post.  Then I will see what happens.  Maybe it ends there.  With a single random idea tossed out into the ether: occupy the water supply.  Maybe no one will pay attention.  Maybe someone will convince me it’s a bad idea.  Who knows?  All I can do is go slowly.   One step at a time.   After the first story sits for a while, I will release another and then another.   It might attract attention, build momentum and transform into a full grown something.  Or it might fall flat on its face after a few half-hearted rants.  I drink another whiskey and relax some more.  No need to worry at all about these things.

In the early evening, Ms. B.’s sister stops by with a pizza.  After dinner, they download a movie and  I go for a walk.   I wander through the neighborhood of glowing blue lights and silent houses…   What is the message that the blue light is advertising?  What is the truth it is teaching us to believe?   The New Year is coming and times are bad.  Abundance surrounds us but we should be sad.  All of this water, energy and air, food for our bellies and entertainment to spare.    But we can’t touch it because of the cash.  The metaphor imprisons us in an economy crash.

Hey, wait a second, did that rhyme?   Sorry about that; sometimes the rhymes just kind of tumble on out.  Anyway… where was I?  I’m here in the suburbs.  Trapped in the real world.    I’m longing to get away, hit the road; begin this year’s journey on the infinite roads through Third World America.   I’m wondering if Third World America really does exist.   At the moment, I’m still stranded in what’s left of First World America, and the future looks scary…

Unemployment is high, businesses are closing, everybody’s broke, and no one is paying me to do stonework anymore because they can’t afford it.   Where did all the money go?  How come it no longer flows?  The real answer to this question is simple.  In the grand economic model of the world, the color map of the upstate NY region where I live has changed.   We used to get the green color for a pleasant human living environment.  But a couple of years ago, we got switched to grey.  Grey is the color for a resource extraction region.  If you are an international investor who wants to extract a resource, the first step in the process is to tighten the cash supply to the region in question so the people who live there are bargaining with a losing hand.    Very simple reality.   Our present poverty is the product of a politically imposed absurdity… Aaauugh!

But I refuse to accept that absurdity so I am setting out on this journey.   I can still imagine another way.    In my universe, I live in a region that is blessed with great natural wealth.   We have lakes and rivers and farms and forests.  There’s abundant food and lots of fresh clean water.   There’s energy too, the renewable kind.  With the solar power and wind power and water power and wood burning power, we have more than enough to provide for all our energy needs.   We are also wealthy in culture.  Music, art and theatre too; these hills have no shortage of entertainment options.  Given all this, I ask what is lacking.  The only thing that seems to be missing here is the incredibly useful, absolutely indispensible big fat green dollar bills.

So where do dollar bills come from?  Why can’t we manufacture our own?  That’s really the issue right now.   The Federal Reserve manufactures dollar bills.  They then give those bills to  corporate banks at very low interest rates.  The banks then decide whether or not to lend that money to people.   Right now the banks are not lending.  The money has stopped flowing.  The reduction of the flow of money from bank to business to person to person is the cause of the recession…depression…economic despair.  Everything else is a lie.  The Federal Reserve prints the cash and lends it to the corporate banks but the banks are not passing it on.  Why?  Because of the squeeze play perhaps?  Not just here in upstate NY but throughout the country.  Has anyone noticed the extent to which the economic recession has paralleled the Domestic Natural Gas Boom?  The nation wide hydro-fracking invasion has gone hand and in hand with the tightening of the money supply.  Coincidence?  Or are investors just playing the same game here in the homeland that they have been playing throughout the world for the last 100 years?

Pick a country… any country… that’s unfortunate enough to be wealthy in natural resources but somewhat disorganized in its governmental structure.  Find a leader in that country… someone with charisma, charm and personality to spare.  Give that leader a system, an ideology… a rational plan.   Lend that leader money, lots of it… lend it to him freely.  Sell him weapons and guns and security systems in exchange for the money that you lend him.  Help him take over and gain control of the country.  But lead him along so it takes a while.  Lend him and lend him and lend him some more.  Lend him until he becomes something that can best be described as the internationally recognized “owner” of large quantities of natural resources and then hit him with the sucker punch….  Start collecting on the debt.   You don’t want to be paid in money of course, that’s just the card trick, the game and the illusion.  Who needs the purple paper from Bullshitlandia?  You want their fucking natural gas…

Anyway, you get the picture.  That’s pretty much the game that the First World Economies have been tap dancing on the heads of the Third World Economies for the last 100 years or so.  Then, something crazy happened.  America played the game backwards and sucker punched itself.  I mean seriously, it’s basic economics… EC 101.  If you want to conquer a country, you raise taxes to pay for the fight.   Theoretically, there will be a return on the taxpayer’s investment because you gain access to the resources of the conquered country.   Meanwhile, the taxes raised are spent to buy weapons and energy and supplies for the war and the economy is thereby stimulated.   It is an economic cycle that can continually repeat itself and grow the economy for as long as there are more countries to conquer.   By fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and lowering taxes simultaneously, America effectively sucker punched itself.  And now, to pay for it, America is going to devastate its own landscape and suck out the natural gas.

Welcome to the Third World.  America has now decided to conquer itself…

Anyway, enough of this walking around in the dark and cold among the blinking blue lights.  I’m going back inside the warm cottage to ring in the New Year.  I wonder if Ms. B and her sister are even still awake?

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So, here I am, wide awake and alive on the winter solstice 2011.  Once again, however, I also seem to be lost.  No worries though… I’m not lost in a physical sense.  I’m well aware of my location.   Longitude and latitude are completely under control.  I’m also not lost in the emotional sense.  There’s no doubt in my mind about who I love.  Nor am I lost in a spiritual sense.  My understanding of the universe may be unusual but it is sensible and sound.  I’m only lost in the metaphorical sense.  This winter’s wander is about to begin and I have yet to decide on a theme or destination for the journey… Hmmm…  Where should I go?  What should I do?  I’ve already been to Timbuktu… 

Right now, at this very moment, I’m at a place called inspiration point.  I’m all alone.  No other humans around.  There are, however, hundreds of geese; and they are all screeching…screeching…screeching.  There is no order to the sound.  Chaotic reverberations come forth in a cacophony.   It seems a strange way to begin this brand new year.  I know, I’m crazy, but to my ears it sounds a bit like the multitudes discussing the great issues of the day.  The world is collapsing and they want to know why?  How come?  What for?  What can we do?   Meanwhile, I sit here on a boulder beside the water, quiet as a Buddha, watching the geese and listening to them screech.

I pause my meditation to hit the joint and sip the fruit juice.  I have a strange notion that there is an answer right here in front of my eyes:  A lake, a dam and a flock of geese…whatever could it mean…  What is the world trying to tell me?  And then, believe it or not, I get it.  All of a sudden, the whole scenario makes perfect sense.  Water versus Energy.  The Empire wants to threaten our water supply to provide itself with energy.  What is the proper, proportional metaphorical response?  The answer comes to me in a most remarkable way.   All of a sudden, I understand what the quacking geese are trying to say.  They’re giving us a strategy to take on the empire.  And the strategy they are suggesting can be distilled into four simple words….  The disparate screeches come together in harmony.  Their unified voices sound like a scream, a shout, a battle cry:  OCCUPY THE WATER SUPPLY.  They lift off from the water, join in formation and fly south…

And I personally think that’s a pretty darn good idea…

I awake at 5:30 am to my cell phone alarm.  According to the internet, the solstice takes place right about now.   The exact moment, of course, doesn’t really matter.  I never did care much for details and I’m in this for the metaphor rather than the reality.  I get out of bed, shut off the alarm, walk to the kitchen, push play on the coffee maker and begin to look around for the celebratory joint.

In case you are not familiar with my unusual universe, let me give you the basics.  I work seasonally in upstate NY doing landscape stonework.  But because of the snow and ice that comes in the NY winter, I only work from sometime in early April until sometime in early November.  In the winter months, I go traveling.  In the last 13 years, traveling for four or five months a year, I’ve been to over 40 countries on five continents.  I don’t spend much money when I wander because I don’t have much to spend.   I learned long ago that if I stick to local accommodation and services, I can see most of the world for a very reasonable rate.

Some years back, I started writing stories about my various adventures on the road.  I don’t claim to tell the exact truth in my stories because I live in a subjective universe, not an objective one.  I post some of the stories on this travelogue and save others for full length books.    Right now, right here, at this moment… this year’s journey is beginning and I have yet to come up with a metaphor for my theoretical quest…

Ah, there it is.  I found the joint.  Ms. B. was kind enough to roll one for me and leave it on the living room table.  Isn’t she sweet?  As per tradition, I prepared myself for this year’s journey with a good old fashioned paradisiacal cleanse; six weeks of purity…it all began way back on the 11th of November.  All things considered, I must say, it was a pretty good performance.  Yeah sure, I cheated a few times on the red meat (one burger, half a bowl of chili and one filet mignon).   But honestly, I swear, most of my meals were healthy, organic vegetables.  And yes, I admit, I did have one cup of coffee and a single glass of wine while giving thanks with the Family.  But at least I avoided whiskey, cigarettes and coca cola.  Yeah, yeah, I know, I also smoked one little joint on a pilgrimage to see the Frog.  But I never even considered cocaine, heroin or any wacky pharmaceuticals.   Ultimately, it was a pretty good purge.  Minor discrepancies are allowed in the context of my metaphor and even in the real world I’m pretty gosh darn clean and healthy.

Coffee is ready and I pour myself a cup.  I add a shot of Bailey’s to complete the formula.  I bring my beverage to the living room; pick up the joint and lighter and sit in my favorite chair.  I click off the lamp and let darkness envelop me.  The moment has come.  Let the game begin.   The time of deprivation has ended.  The time of indulgence is here.  I light the joint, drink the drink and sit quietly as the morning light starts to grow in the sky.

The madness in my personal world started back in late September; shortly after the equinox.  All of a sudden…Whammo!  I came up with the concept for my next epic novel.  This will be my third one and I’m really very excited about it…  But I’m also just a little bit scared.  I went kind of crazy while writing the first two epics (1995 and 2004) and I’m slightly concerned about it happening again.  The travel stories are different… much easier.  Based mostly on reality, I write those books without really thinking.   The epic novels, however, are pure fiction and kind of overwhelming.  It’s hard to describe the extent to which the process of writing them interferes with normality.   The new epic is fiction, of course, like the first two… but it deals with a topic that is very important and very controversial in the real world.  And the problem I seem to be having involves separating the fiction from the reality.

I sip more coffee and take another hit off the joint.  The sky gets brighter…up comes the sun.  The plot for my new epic is fairly straightforward.  It’s about an idyllic region in upstate NY that is economically poor but wealthy in culture and natural resources.  In a very strange twist on reality, this economically poor region is also the provider of the most valuable resource to the financial capital of the world.  That’s right; this extremely poor region upstate is the source of NY City’s water.

In my novel, something crazy happens.  The Powers that Be, the international investors… the corporatocracy… the evil empire… discovers that the region which provides them with water also has the potential to provide them with lots of energy as well.  A newly invented industrial process called high volume hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) makes it possible to get at natural gas which lies very deep down in the ground.  Unfortunately, the new industrial process is also somewhat hazardous to the water supply so the investors are faced with a dilemma.  Water or energy; what treasure shall they choose?

Of course, the empire makes the worst possible choice…the super greedy option.  They defy rationality and believe that they can have both.   The scientists and bureaucrats are sent in to analyze. After months of reflection they offer up their solution.  They break the region down into tiny small parts.  They compartmentalize and organize and divide and separate.  If we do it correctly, they say, the water of the empire can be protected.   It’s only the local people that have to get hydro-fucked…  As you might expect, my novel will tell the story of the inevitable confrontation….

The sun is pretty high now, so I’m going for a walk.  I take the other half joint and a jug of organic fruit juice and head out the door.   I follow the abandoned railroad tracks in the direction of state land.  There’s no snow yet and it’s almost Christmas.  Does that mean global warming is pushing back winter?    I moved out of my apartment last week.  I guess that means I’m homeless again…like so many other Americans.  I’m lucky though, I can’t afford rent, but at least Ms. B. will put me up until it’s time to go.  She’s coming with me again.   How about that?  Two years in a row.  She must really like me….  Our general plan is a Third World USA tour.   For 13 years in a row now I’ve witnessed the calamities of capitalism in far away places.   But now that the economic devastation has come home to roost, the time has come for a tour of the homeland.

The train tracks lead me to the collapsing ruin of a 19th century railroad bridge.  It marks the turn-off for the trail through the woods.   I climb up the embankment and onto the path.  Now I enter the dark forest.  The leaves are all gone from the hardwoods but the soft light of sun barely shining upon the barren branches dims the atmosphere to a gloomy grey.  The trail follows a ridge and then descends down a steep hill.  At the bottom, the terrain gets swampy with fallen moss covered logs and dark slimy sinkholes.    The pathway meanders to avoid the tough spots until eventually it emerges on the banks of a river.  I walk up the river along the rocks until I reach the bottom of the waterfall that tumbles over the hydro-electric dam.  It’s a spectacular sight to visualize and gosh darn impressive as well; human ingenuity making good use of a resource.    Not all hydro dams are a bad idea…  The trail climbs upward on the right hand side.  I follow it up and over and then I see the nice little lake.    Most surprisingly, in the middle of the lake I see geese… lots of them… perhaps the most geese I have ever seen in one place.

The trail to the right leads down to Inspiration Point; a tiny rocky peninsula that juts out into the bay.    As I walk closer and closer to the water, I notice that the geese are squawking.  And they are squawking quite a lot.  The closer I get, the louder and crazier it sounds.   I finally reach the boulder on the end where I like to sit.    I plop myself down and try to stay calm as the screeching all around me gets louder and crazier.

In the context of my fictional story, I have this interesting plot idea.  Over and over, the incredible scene replays in my head.   The date is June 21, 2012 and the location is a reservoir in Delaware County that provides the drinking water to New York City.    In the middle of this reservoir there are tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) average citizens of upstate NY and they are having a big beach party.  It’s an occupation…an unarmed occupation.  As a matter of fact, all these people are naked…buck naked.    And they are refusing to leave the reservoir until the NY state government bans hydro-fracking for the whole damn state….  Yeah, I know, not very realistic.  My imagination gets carried away.   In the real world, participants would have to wear some clothing.  We don’t want to give the media the wrong idea.  It’s a protest about resource allocation and environmental destruction, it’s not some outlandish artistic stunt…Yeah…you’re right… I guess it is an outlandish artistic stunt.  But it’s also a live action non-violent peace performance that has the potential to shake the very foundations of the evil empire….

One way or another, it’s a pretty good plot idea if I can manage to pull it off.  And I will spend the next several months trying to figure out if it’s possible.  Meanwhile… I will be wandering around Third World America with Ms.B..   If only there was some way to combine the epic novel with this year’s winter trip.  But that would be a very confusing combination of fiction and reality.  What is illusion and what is the truth?   And how much does that question matter…  Hmmm.  Wait a second. I think I have it.  All of a sudden, the perfect plan comes together in my head.    At that same moment the disparate cries of the geese come together into a unified scream:  OCCUPY THE WATER SUPPLY.  They lift off from the lake, gather into flock formation and fly south carrying their message…  Don’t worry my friends, I hear you loud and clear.  My plan for this year’s wander has fallen firmly into place.

I’m going to the party in Paradise

That’s where I want to be

The gathering for the summer solstice

To celebrate the land of the free

Right now it’s the winter solstice so that gives me a six month time period.  At the moment, I’m on the outskirts of O’town at a place called inspiration point; very much in the real world.  In between here and now and the party in paradise are the infinite roads through Third World America and the fine line which separates reality from the imagination.  I have very little money for this trip because the stonework business was super slow this year.  But I do have a bicycle and some stories to sell (buy my books) so somehow I will manage to survive.  I also have Ms. B.  She’s agreed to come with me so that should make things easier.  Will we make it to our destination… the summer solstice party in Paradise (occupation of the NY reservoir)?  I don’t know.  One way or another, it will be a very interesting journey.

Heaven

Cold to the bone
Surrounded by stone
Heaven is barren and spare…

Snow covered peaks
I’m so small and weak
Gasping and wheezing for air…

Sun going down, shines joy all around…  And the glaciers glitter like gold.

Here there is peace       A perfect release…  a vision of god to behold…

The river rushes past With a gurgle and a splash…  A sound so wonderful to hear..

The wind blows through
With a spirit true
And the air is crisp and clear…

In places like this, in touch with the bliss, the world seem so far away…

Drifting upstream, in a Shangra La dream…

I have nothing more to say…

So, here I am, somewhere in the mountains of Nepal. I’m trying to reach a small village which is near the Tibetan border. I started at sunrise and walked all day. I have to be close but I don’t know how close. I’m tired…exhausted…on the verge of collapse. Maybe I should have stayed in that village about ten miles back. What if I don’t make it to my destination? It’s cold now and going to be icy cold later. I don’t want to spend the night outside. I see a big round boulder on the side of a semi-frozen stream. It looks like a Buddha boulder…a perfect resting place for a weary soul. I stop. The sun is setting behind the snow capped peaks. I don’t want to walk in the dark. But I need to sit down for just a little while.

He trudges down the trail towards me with the hunched over but strong walk of a mountain person. As he gets closer, I notice that his clothes are nothing but rags; torn bits of cloth haphazardly sewn together. Grey stubble hair barely covers his recently shaved head. He looks up from the pathway and notices me through slanted Tibetan eyes. There are not just wrinkles in his face, but cracks and crevasses; as deep as the canyons of these Himalayas. “Namaste,” he says as his eyes twinkle.

“Namaste,” I respond politely.

He walks over and sits down next to me on the boulder. He lifts up his left  foot and points at it. Bare toes and heel poke out through torn sneakers. “Need money for new shoes,” he says. The corners of his cracked lips turn upwards with a hesitant smile.  An icy mountain wind blows through. I shiver and notice again the old man’s rags. They are worn threadbare, torn and patched over again. They look like he found them in a dumpster but there are no dumpsters up here in the mountains. It’s definitely no protection from the glacial cold.

“I’m sorry, but I have no money to give,” I say honestly.

The hesitant smile of the old man flattens to a frown. His eyes ache. He looks like he is about to cry.

“But I do have this,” I add.  I turn around and reach into my backpack. The heavy extra sweatshirt weighs me down. I don’t need it. I really don’t. I retrieve the sweatshirt and hand it over.

The old man smiles. The centuries are in his eyes; the ages. I get the odd feeling that this whole encounter has happened before.

“Thank you,” he says, “and now this for you.” A bronze medallion dangles on a flimsy string in front of the old man’s chest. He leans forward and slowly lifts the string and medallion off his slumped shoulders and over his head.
He signals for me to lean forward and I do.

“Always remember,” he says, as he puts the medallion around my neck, “when all the world is chaos… and it will be…peace is at the very center…here, in your heart.”  He reaches out his hand and lightly presses the medallion into my chest. There, at the center, where he touches me, I feel the glow; the warm, comfortable, perfect glow… Is it god?

The old man smiles; forever in a face; eternity in the eyes. He releases his hand, stands up from the boulder and slowly, slowly, walks away.

Merzouga, Morocco; Dec. 22, 2008.

So, here I am, lost and alone, somewhere in the Sahara desert, surrounded by sand dunes as far as the eye can see. The sun is high in the sky and the light on the eyes is intense. I have no sunglasses, only half a water bottle and no food. I have sufficient clothing to protect my skin from burning and keep me relatively warm at night. But I have no tent or sleeping bag or provisions of any kind. I don’t have a GPS or a compass or even a map. All I have is a vague idea of my location. I am somewhere in between the desert village of Merzouga in Morocco and the Algerian border. The oasis camp where I spent the previous night has to be within five miles or so of my present location, but five miles in what direction, I don’t know. In short, I am in semi-deep shit…a bit of a spot…a rather precarious situation… I am also stoned completely out of my mind on hashish.  As I trudge my way up the largest of the surrounding sand dunes, I just have to ask myself, “How and why do I always get myself into these situations?”

No doubt, it was my own fault; me and my bright ideas. Thought I could find some inspiration and ended up with a nightmare. If you have read my travelogues before you are probably aware that I recently finished writing a novel. And now that one is finished, it is time to start another one. The problem is, before I can start; I need to find a good story or plot or idea to write about. Now, if I was a wise man, I would simply sit back and wait for inspiration to come to me. But no, I am a foolish man, so I go chasing after it. I embarked upon a little quest. And that is how and why I ended up lost and alone in the Sahara desert.

Simple enough idea right; cleanse the body, find some really good hashish; discover the perfect location at the right moment and whammo…inspiration will come. I started the cleansing process way back on the 8th of November. I finished my stonework for the season; watched the exciting presidential elections game and then went cold turkey on everything: no more booze, no more drugs, no more smoke, no more nothing. I drank a lot of water and herbal tea and ate lots of veggies. I have to say, the first week was a bit miserable as the various toxins seeped from my body, but after that, it was easy. It actually felt good to be clean and healthy.

By the time I arrived in Morocco in early December I was clean and pure as the new fallen snow, or perhaps, more to the point, as clean as the sands of the Sahara. Anyway, since hashish seemed fairly plentiful upon arrival, my main task was to find a time and a place for my inspirational moment. Tangiers was definitely not the place and neither was Fez.   I originally thought I’d go high in the Atlas mountains like Moses or Mohamed (ha, ha) but after a few days in Morocco and a sudden realization of the freezing cold weather here in the wintertime, I decided the Atlas mountains were a bad idea.   As I wandered around Fez though, many people came up to me and tried to sell me tours in the desert near Merzouga.   I didn’t buy any of their tours but I did take their pestering to be some kind of a sign….. Go to the desert Pat. You’re on a quest for god’s sake. Why the hell not?

I linger in Fez for a few days to check out all the sights but then I take the overnight bus to Rissani; the last real town before the desert village of Merzouga. I am the only westerner on the bus and during the journey another passenger comes up to me, hands me a cell phone and says, “My friend wants talk to you.”

So I take the cell phone and put it to my ear and some guy on the other end of the line says; “My very good welcome to you new good friend: Welcome to Merzouga desert. My name Ishmael. What is your name good sir?”

“It is ah, ah Patrick.”

“A very big welcome to you Mr. Patrick; it will be very nice to meet you in person. Thank you and goodbye.” He hangs up the phone and I hand the cell phone back to the stranger on the bus.  That was kind of weird.  What the hell is going on?

Sure enough; when the bus arrives in Rissani, there is some one there to meet Mr. Patrick.

“Let me guess,” I say. ”Your name is Ishmael.”

“No, no, my name Hamdid. I am transport.  Ishmael sent me to pick you up and take you to his auberge,”(local word for guesthouse).

“But I did not agree to go to his auberge. I just talked to him briefly on the phone. There are many auberges to choose from and I don’t have much money”.

“Your name Patrick. I transport.  I take you to very nice place. You no want go no have to. But it is very nice place and very cheap. You can sleep in Berber tent for 25 dirham and eat in restaurant for 40 to 70 dirham.”

I have an urge to argue with the guy because that is what you are supposed to do. Theoretically; it’s kind of stupid to pick a place to stay in the desert without researching it.  But what the hell? Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow.

It’s less than an hour by four wheel -drive on a dirt road through the desert before arrival but when we get there, I am more than a little impressed. This place is incredible: The Erg Chebbi sand dunes near Merzouga are truly one of the great wonders of the world. Miles and miles of rolling hills of sand; some dunes are three or four hundred feet high. The whole place is like a scene from a desert fantasy film. I have definitely found the place for my inspirational moment.

The auberge isn’t much to get excited about. They have rooms for 70 dirham or Berber tents for 25. I choose the tent option. They also have a somewhat overpriced restaurant, but not too bad. The location, however, could not be better. It’s beside an oasis lake surrounded by sand dunes.  I spend the afternoon exploring the area. I don’t smoke any hashish this day because I am still waiting for the right moment. True, I did take a couple hits when I bought the stuff from Mohamed but that was a necessary part of the transaction. Exercising an all important exception; in my mind, I am still as clean as a snowflake.   No matter, it is not necessary to be stoned to enjoy the sand dunes. They are trippy enough with a straight head. I take a lot of photographs. The changing shadows on the dunes as the sun falls toward the horizon make the entire topography seem a living breathing creature. It is also fairly easy to not get lost. I always stay within sight of the oasis. I make it back to the auberge just as it is getting dark.  I have a meal in the restaurant and go to bed early. I have big plans for the following morning.

It is the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, the beginning of the cycle of light…could there be a better day for inspiration? I awake before dawn. I have no watch to tell the exact time but I can tell by the sliver of moon close to the horizon that it has to be almost morning. I put on my warmest clothes and head out into the dunes.   Kind of crazy huh?  Wandering alone through the sand dunes in the dark. I probably should be scared. But I am having too much fun checking out the surreal scenery to even think about being scared. Honestly, I have the sensation I am walking on the moon.

I must have left my tent earlier than I thought though because I walk for a very long time and still there is no morning light in the sky.   Infinite stars and bright sliver of moon but no sign of the sun. I come to a place where the two largest dunes rise up in front of me. Running between the mountainous dunes is a valley. To enter the valley is to leave sight of the oasis. No matter, I can always use the two giant sand dunes as reference points.  And besides; how can I not go into that valley?  It seems a gateway to another world.

Of course the pathway through the valley is not straight or flat. It twists and curves up hill and down hill as it meanders through the smaller dunes. Just as I reach the other side of the giant dunes and the way opens up, I notice some light in the sky.  Morning is upon me. Straight ahead I see a wide open choppy sea of small sand dunes surrounded by a ring of sand mountains. And there, sitting in the center of the choppy sea is a medium sized dune sticking up like a beacon in the center of a storm. I make my way across the sea of smaller dunes until I reach it. I climb to the top of the center dune and sit down. I have found my spot.

I barely have time to pack my pipe full of hashish when the first sliver of sun appears on the eastern horizon. I suck the pipe down in three giant inhales and then pack it again. The sky turns pink and orange and purple and gold…..a visual extravaganza. I puff the pipe dry again with three more inhales and pack it full again. When the round ball of sun sits on the horizon, I finish the third pipe. The sky blazes like a bonfire from heaven. Luminescent technicolors wash over the desert. Particles in the sand sparkle like a field of diamonds. The dunes undulate like lungs breathing. The whole world is magic and I feel fantastic… Well, anyway, you get the picture. It’s a pretty amazing moment, truly incredible. But no, I am not inspired. I don’t talk to God or Allah or get enlightened or collect a nifty new set of rules to follow. I don’t even come up with a plot or story for a new book. I just get stoned out of my gourd and watch a beautiful sunrise. Oh well, you can’t blame a guy for trying…

So anyway, I hang out on my spot for an hour or so and then decide to head back. I can see the valley I entered the area from off to the left but decide that way is too easy. If the oasis is on the other side of that mountainous sand dune, can’t I circle around the backside and do a loop to return rather than going back the same way?  In a brilliant moment of stoned nonsense thinking, I head in the opposite direction from the way I came in. Actually, what I really do is charge off into the dunes like a maniac. The rolling orange hills with shifting shadows are just too much fun. I run up one dune and slide down another. I do somersaults and cartwheels and otherwise frolic about. I sort of think know where I am going but don’t pay attention. Then, after a while, I stop, look around and can not recognize the landscape. There are several mountainous dunes but I am not sure which is the one near the oasis. In short, I am totally confused and befuddled.

So, here I am, lost and alone, somewhere in the Sahara desert, surrounded by sand dunes… Yeah, I know; I exaggerate. I got carried away with my metaphor. The image is dramatic but the reality is boring. The Ergg Chebbi sand dunes are indeed a great wonder of the world. But like all great wonders of the world, they are also a colossal tourist trap. Getting really lost here is about as likely as getting really lost in Disneyland. Yeah sure, the dunes are in the Sahara and the dunes are several miles wide and fifteen or twenty miles long. But surrounding these dunes is a shitload of guesthouses, auberges and hotels. If I walk in any direction for very long, I will certainly find help. Shit… If I just stay in this same place long enough I will probably be run over by a four wheeler or trampled by a herd of camels ridden by clumsy tourists all decked out in Lawrence of Arabia outfits.

And besides, I’m not really as stupid as I sometimes pretend. Honestly, do you really think I need a GPS or a compass to find my way in the desert? The sun rises in the east and sets in the west and the Sahara is slightly north of the equator. Put two and two together, observe the shadows on the sand dunes and east, west, north and south are readily apparent. I know my auberge is in the northern part of the dunes so I head generally north always climbing the higher dunes and looking ahead for an oasis… There are times in this life that you can’t see the oasis. Nevertheless, you just have to believe the oasis is still there…

After an hour or so, I do see the oasis and I make it back to the auberge by lunchtime. How good is it to be alive on this beautiful planet?

The Soul of Borneo

The island of Borneo is not a circle.  It’s more of a triangular oval with rough edges and indentations.  As such, it is very difficult to determine the exact center of the island.  Nevertheless, if you look at a map of Borneo and attempt to put your finger on the very center, the place you put your finger would pretty much be the exact spot where we are presently camping.  We are situated on a bend in a river somewhere in the deep jungle between the villages of Long Apari and Tanjun Lokan.  No doubt, it is probably not the exact mathematical center.  But as I lie here in my tent with the rain cover off, looking up through a   tiny hole in the canopy at the few stars shining through, I feel as if I have indeed found the center.

 Insects and bugs chatter as they fly incessantly into the protective netting of my tent.  Faint moonlight sets the jungle world a glow.  Fireflies flash through the trees.  The sound of wildlife around me is so intense I feel as if I am immersed in a super natural symphony.  For two and a half months, I have traveled around Borneo.  During that time, I have seen many shopping malls and the various scars of modernization.  Over and over I have asked myself; what has happened to Borneo?  Does the Borneo of image, the Borneo of dream no longer exist?  The wonder world of infinite vegetation and amazing biodiversity has been destroyed and exploited to meet the commercial demands of the modern economic system.  The headhunters no longer hunt heads, the orangutans are all dying out and the trees are disappearing so fast that the environmentalists can’t even keep track.  But still, somewhere at the very center…the essence of Borneo…the soul of Borneo still thrives.   Perhaps Borneo, and what is happening here, is a symbol or metaphor for what is happening to the entire planet.  The body of humans, the body of the planet is slowly corrupted by psychotic notions of economic progress.  But somewhere deep inside, the souls of humans, the soul of the planet and the soul of Borneo are still pure.  Will we recognize the error of our ways, rediscover our souls and the soul of the planet and stop the destruction before it’s too late?  I seriously doubt it.  But as I lie here in my tent, surrounded by jungle purity, a glimmer of hope arises within me.  We can change.  Destruction is not inevitable.  We can find truth…in places like this.  And use that truth to revitalize the world and change the way we interact with the planet…

Rabun arrives at our losmen at about 8:30 am.  We shoulder our packs and follow him down to the river where a motorized canoe is waiting to take us upstream to the trailhead.  The boat ride alone is quite an adventure.  White water rapids, shallow waters and protruding rocks provide ample reasons for fear and anxiety.  We are splashed a few times and we almost flip but the boat operator is truly a master.  After two hours of precarious maneuvering through a spectacular jungle canyon, the boat pulls over to the shoreline.   It’s time for the long walk to begin.

In addition to Rabun, there are two other guides, both of whom are indigenous Dayaks.  Bang Beang appears to be in his mid 30s while Tiong can’t be more than 20.  Compared to us, the rattan packs they carry are very small.  All they have is a big sack of rice and the necessary instruments of jungle survival; machetes, shotguns, blowpipes and fishing net.  For the next five or six days, we will live off the resources of the jungle.  I am excited by the possibility.  I want to live the primitive jungle lifestyle and re-awaken the animal self that lies within me.

The beginning of the trail is very steep and very overgrown.  No doubt, I would not be able to find it or follow it without a guide.   The old guy Rabun leads the way. I’m second, Hans (a.k.a. Mr. Clean) is after me with the two younger guides bringing up the rear.  Our pace is very slow as we climb our way out of the canyon.   In fact, my brain tells me the pace is too slow.   Although I have a heavy pack and the temperature is oppressively hot and humid, I still find myself on the heels of Rabun, slowing down so I don’t run into him.  The journey is supposed to take five to seven days.  At the rate we are moving, I imagine it will take ten.  But no, maybe I’m mistaken.  I don’t know or understand the jungle.  The old guy does.  Maybe he goes slowly to watch for dangers such as snakes or to make sure of the way.  I sure hope he is not too old or out of shape to handle the journey.  He certainly looks fit enough.  A bit old, maybe mid 50s, but that gives him experience and he looks strong and healthy.  But the truth is, it’s very hard to tell.  He speaks no English so I can’t even really ask him about it.  It sure would be a pain in the ass if we had to turn back because one of the guides can’t make it.

After about an hour of steep climbing through thick jungle, we reach the top of the gorge and stop for a short rest.  The trail is more distinct now and the way ahead looks to be downhill and flat.  Perhaps the hardest part is over now and it’s easy walking after this…yeah right.  As we rest and drink water; one of the guides hears a sound in the jungle.  I hear nothing specific but it must be something good because the three Dayak guides get rather excited.  Rabun signals for us to be quiet, Bang Beang takes off his shoes, grabs his blowpipe full of poison darts and heads into the dense vegetation.  He must be crazy going barefoot into that tangle.  With poisonous snakes, spiders, leeches and ants, there’s a regular smorgasbord of monsters to attack his feet.  But no, he’s not crazy.  He’s just a native Dayak.  And the essence of Dayaks, the soul of Dayaks is expressed and manifested through the ancient art of hunting wild animals in the jungle.  No…Bang Beang is not even close to crazy.  Actually, he is quite the opposite.  He is doing the thing that comes most naturally to him.

Unfortunately, Bang Beang is unsuccessful in his hunt.  Somehow, his quarry eludes him and he returns to the trail empty handed.  Oh well, no doubt there will be plenty of opportunity to hunt jungle creatures in the coming days.  For now, we shoulder our packs and continue on down the trail.  The next several hours are truly incredible.  The steep part over, the trail flattens out and becomes much easier to follow.  Not easy by civilized human standards, just easier than before.  The heat is still intense, my pack heavy, the humidity is oppressive and we have to trudge through many leech infested swamp holes.    Surprisingly, leeches are something that you can get used to.  Of course the first couple that attach themselves to me kind of freak me out.  But after a while they become commonplace and my psychology adapts.  Every time we stop for a brief rest, I scan my legs, feet and arms for the little bastards and nonchalantly pluck them off.   Leeches smeeches, I can handle the jungle.

For the most part, the trail follows small streams and rivers.  There are occasional crossings and no bridges.  We have to splash through ankle deep water and sometimes wade through up to our knees.  For me, it’s no problem.  I learned my lesson in Bako and traded in my heavy hiking boots for cheap running shoes.  I slosh through the water without a second thought.   Mr. Clean, however, has issues.  He wears those ridiculously dysfunctional military style hiking boots that become a serious burden when wet.  So every time we reach a river crossing, he has to decide between taking off his shoes and slowing us or just stomping on through and suffering the consequences.  For the first couple of crossings, he stops to remove his shoes.  After a while though, there are so many crossings that stopping at each one becomes absurd.  He has no choice but to accept the fact that his feet and boots will be wet and heavy for the entire journey.  Oh well, he’s a tough young man, he can handle it.

Since the only food we brought is a bag of rice, we have to hope that the fruits of the jungle will supplement our nutritional needs.  In that regard, we strike gold in the mid afternoon.  A mother load of perfectly ripe durians has fallen all around the path.  The three Dayak guides get so excited that they practically jump for joy.  “Makan makan,” (eat, eat) they shout as they begin picking up the fruit, cracking it open and passing it around.  Truth be told, durian is not exactly one of my favorite fruits.  It’s very large, no doubt, and loaded with nutritional value, but it has a bad smell and a strange taste.  It often goes by the commonplace name of stinky fruit.  Traveling in this part of the world, I have met many people who just love it, think it’s the greatest fruit ever.  My reaction, however, has been less than enthusiastic.  Of course I’ve eaten it several times, mostly to be polite to locals who have offered it to me with great fanfare.   To say I’ve enjoyed eating it though would be an exaggeration.  Actually, given a choice, I’d probably never buy it in a supermarket…  Now, however, is different.  After four hours of trekking through hot, steamy jungle, the durians taste like heaven.  I’ve never tasted anything better.  I can feel the power of the fruit, the nutrition of the fruit, the energy of the fruit seeping into my system.  It’s like a drug, but not a drug, the force of nature unleashed.  It gives life…it gives strength…it gives power.  As I munch down the creamy pulp enthusiastically, the thought runs through my mind.  I am the jungle and the jungle is me.

After our lunch of durian, we continue walking for several more hours.   To say the walk is beautiful or wonderful is an inadequate understatement.  It’s impossible to find words to describe the vision that envelopes me.  It’s not just something to see, but something to experience with all five senses.  The taste of durian lingers on my tongue, sweat pours from my body as the heart beats strongly within.  I pluck occasional leeches from my feet and legs, insects buzz, birds chirp, unseen creatures slither and move through the super dense vegetation.  Tiny beams of sunlight slide through small holes in the canopy to electrify the greenery.  Streams and small rivers trickle, splash, gleam and glisten.  My body is wet but so is the jungle.  Sunlight and moisture combine to give the surroundings a hallucinatory glow.  The water that makes up my body and the light that illuminates my soul combine to receive this multi-sensory experience.  I am the jungle and the jungle is me.  The human animal within me is alive and well on the living breathing planet.

During this portion of our walk, the ordering of our group mixes up somewhat.  Bang Beang no longer brings up the rear.  Instead, he charges ahead alone and barefoot with shotgun and blowpipe ready to take down any animal he might cross.  The young guide Tiong goes second and I follow him.  Somewhere in the distance behind is the old guy Rabun and Mr. Clean with his military clothes and very big backpack.  Tiong is far enough ahead of me that I can barely see him and the others are so far behind that it seems as if I am walking through the jungle alone and this factor multiplies the intensity of the experience.  The trail is clear enough to see now and the others are close enough that it is very unlikely I will get lost.  But still, under the circumstances, I can imagine what it would be like to be lost in such a jungle.  Oddly enough, there is a part of my nature that longs for exactly that.  Something inside me wants to get lost.  At the same time, the thought or possibility of actually being lost scares the hell out of me.  Such is the contradictory nature of my very confused soul.

But I don’t get lost.  Around four in the afternoon, I climb a small hill and then descend to a rather wide river.  On the other side of the river, Bang Beang and Tiong have a small fire going and a little camp set up.  This is the place where we are staying the night.  I wade across the river to join them.  Immediately upon reaching the other side, I drop my heavy pack, strip to my underwear and plunge into the river.  Now I’ve had some pretty great bathing experiences in my life but this one may very well be the best; a bend in the river, the middle of the jungle, a body worn out, beaten and soaked with sweat.  The moment I hit the water, my body releases a spontaneous exultation.  This is joy, this is wonder, this is illumination; this is glory.  I am one with the jungle, one with the universe…connected to god.   Ahhhhhhhh.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Wallow in the moment.  Soak up the sensation.   Let the experience linger for as long as possible.

A short while later, Hans and Rabun arrive.   Everyone looks and feels good.  The first leg of our journey is completed.  We’ve made it this far, we should be able to make the rest.  So now we relax and enjoy the afternoon and evening.  We hang our sweat soaked clothes on bamboo poles to dry in the sun.  We swim in the river and sit on the rocks.   We watch the sunlight glitter through the canopy.  It sure would be nice to speak with our Dayak guides to learn some specifics about their way of life, their spiritual traditions, their hunting techniques and thoughts on the jungle.  But they speak no English and we speak no Dayak.  Real communication is impossible so we have to settle for smiles and nods.

We do share a communal meal together.  The guides take turns with the fishing net and manage to haul in a decent number of small silver fish from the river in front of us.  The fish are boiled in a big pot with salt and a large quantity of rice completes the meal.  There are no plates or silverware so the food is served on some bamboo leaves and we eat with our hands.  Actually, we only use the right hand because the left is used for other things.  I have to correct Mr. Clean about this.  He seems to think it matters not as he is toilet paper man rather than a water and left hand man.  I explain that the guides are unaware of his toilet habits and he finally agrees and puts his left hand away.

Truthfully, I find eating fresh food from the jungle with my hand rather than silverware to be a rather fulfilling experience.  Somehow it makes the activity more authentic, more real…less hygienic perhaps, but what’s the big deal.  So far at least, with the exception of the minor annoyance caused by my growing dislike for Hans, the jungle experience is proving to be everything I hoped and dreamed about when I came to Borneo.  Here I am, dead center middle of the island, surrounded by virgin jungle, camping out with native Dayak guides, eating fresh food from the jungle with my bare hands after bathing in a jungle river.  It’s perfect.  How could it be better?  But alas, just as I have this thought, a nasty little honey bee stings me in the hip just above my ass.  Ow! That hurts.   But what can I do?  It’s all part of the experience.  I’ll take the pain.  I’ll take the suffering.  I’ll take the leech sores and mosquito bites and bee stings.  I’ll take the sweat and the toil and the ache and the pain.  I’ll take it all.  As long as I get moments like this:  a perfect moment in the middle of the deep, dense, dark jungle.

After we eat, we make our sleeping arrangements.  The guides stretch out sack cloth on the rocks while I set up my tent without the rain cover and put my sleeping bag inside.  Unbelievably, Mr. Clean has absolutely nothing for a sleeping set up.  Truthfully, I learned of this absurdity back in Tiong Hong but I still find it hard to believe.  He came to the jungle with the biggest pack I’ve ever seen but it contains no tent, no mosquito net, no sleeping bag and no sleeping mat.  What does he have in there?  Well, it’s hard to say; mostly clothes of the camouflage fashion and various militaristic accessories (boots, a very big tough guy knife, an antique compass, etc).    But he also has a nice collection of board games like Backgammon and Connect Four.    Of course he has an MP3 player and speakers to go with it.  But more than anything, I think he has personal hygiene and beauty products.  As a matter of fact, I sort of have the impression that he has enough shit in that bag to start his own salon.    All in all, it seems that Mr. Clean is perfectly prepared as a tourist for an extended stay in a beach bungalow, but he is completely unprepared for the jungle.      Now, if I were a mean and nasty person, I would leave him to his own devices.  He’d have to curl up with his fashionable sarong next to the guides on the rocks.  He’d spend the night getting eaten by insects and probably give up on the whole adventure the following morning.  But I’m not mean and nasty, I’m nice.  So I let him use my mosquito net for insect protection and my tent’s rain cover for a blanket.

Anyway, the perfect day ends as I lie on my back on top of my sleeping bag and stare up at the jungle through the netting of my tent.  The light fades and the darkness grows.  The guides are talking in the background in the Dayak language and their voices serve as the baseline for the symphony that now surrounds me.  As the light disappears, the sounds of the insects and animals seem to get louder.  The jungle is alive in the daytime but even more alive at night.  The cacophony of noises entrances me.  The lingering light and flashes of fireflies amaze me.  The durian, fish and rice digesting inside energize me.  The scent of pollen and fish and jungle moisture and fresh clean oxygenated jungle air intoxicates me.  I am one with the universe.  I am one with god.  As I lie here in the growing darkness, I feel as if after two and a half months of searching, I have finally found the soul of Borneo.

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