fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

Any moment on the road can be categorised between two extremes: Either you're staying in one place or you're moving fast to new ones. Staying has the advantage of getting to know people and the place closely, you can relax, recover and feel at home somewhere; this is a luxury you are rarely afforded when you're moving fast but instead you get rewarded by the excitement of never knowing what awaits you around the next corner, whom you may meet, what new foods you may try and what unexpected things may happen. And in some sense both states are both easy and hard at the same time. It is tiring and exhausting to move for a long time but your travelling feet also start itching when you've stayed somewhere for a long time; as always the problem may boil down to time but I won't go into that again.
But I make no choices - usually life, circumstances or those strong gut feelings just sweep me away and make the choice for me.
I stayed in Bogota longer than in almost any other place. The city is entertaining and relaxed, I made friends and my body and mind were tired of moving and of being bombarded with new things everyday. And even though it was not cocaine addiction that kept me there (allaying my parents' fears) I had as little control over staying or leaving as a coke addict has over his habit. It was physically and mentally so very hard to get up and go - kind of like the feeling when you first battle with the decision to get up and leave your comfortable and easy home for the first time and set out into the world to travel. It takes willpower and conviction and sometimes a kick in the backside.
Eventually time kicked me in the backside and my excitement at seeing new places fuelled my conviction to have to leave sooner or later. But, just for the record, Colombia is a wonderful country with amazing people and I truly regret not having seen more of it. But I tell myself I am saving it for another time when I have more energy.
When I arrived in Mexico City I had a heavy heart and was again homeless. Adding to my woes was a fascist-style HI Hostel with a massive hotel feel to it and too many rules. And the city is pricey and huge.
On the second day there was a last minute afternoon-trip to Cuernavaca - a beautiful town, bursting at the rim with language schools and a fair number of Gringos (in Mexico and Colombia, by the way, I wasn't a Gringo anymore as only US-Americans are Gringos here) - and then hit the nightlife in Mexico City which, when experienced as a tourist, is slightly pitiful. Still, the people you drunkenly meet on the street are pretty fun, especially in Zona Rosa - go figure it out...
Next morning, hungover and after less than minimum sleep: beeline to Guadalajara, Mexico's second city, cool and funky. Arrived that night and followed up on a party recommendation from Mexico City. The party ended up lasting until the next evening. Good stuff.
I allowed myself a day of rest - or rather I was too paralysed to move anyway. But the next day's afternoon - I slept in after a night of Tequila and worm - I kicked myself again and left Guadalajara, after paralysis caused by inability to make up my mind: should I stay or should I go?
On arrival in Maruata at night, the beach and village were dark and deserted but still great for hanging around. Next day I chilled on the beach, in the town (very relaxed) and talked to the sea and that afternoon I again left to Mexico City, hitchhiking, taking taxis and buses to get there overnight.
There I washed my still salty hair in a sink at the bus station, left my backpack in a locker and went to the pre-Mayan ruins of Teotihuacan; I was so tired I fell asleep on the bus there and missed my stop - that's what moving fast does to you.
Teotihuacan is very nice but being close to Mexico City and very accessible it has groups of school kids running around whistling on pre-Mayan whistles - which is all kinda cute but not as atmospheric as Machu Picchu (yes, here I go again). But where Machu Picchu was to all intents and purposes a tiny village, Teotihuacan clearly used to be a Metropolis - the Mexico City of its day, more than a thousand years ago. But, just like Machu Picchu, it must have been a pretty cool place to live in; I'd be chilling on the wide main avenue like the army of Artesania vendors nowadays and would watch people walk by, going to the Temples and living their ancient lives. Screw Helen of Troy - I want to see a movie called Helen of Teotihuacan.
And now, I am again in Mexico City, typing this in and not knowing what will happen tomorrow. But the good news is that I've been eating delicious tacos everyday! Nice.
I don't know why I've been moving so fast, it just kind of happened so it could have been the momentum of the enjoyable air-ride that set me off here. But maybe I will leave this super-chido (cool in Mexican) country with super-chido people any day now. Maybe I will stay a few days longer for another party. And still I don't know which.
And that's the other bright side to moving fast: I don't care. I don't have time to look for meaning and to think 'I wish I was special, so fucking special, what the hell am I doing here?" (to quote Radiohead for no apparent reason).
Shit just happens and it's fun. Maybe I'm cured.

[The photos are up. Find them in Album Mexico.]

Full stop, period, the end. Caracas - Bogota: a mere 634 miles separate the two yet for some reason it took me more than 7000 and through eight countries along the way. What did all this mean? 7000 miles or so ago I didn't quite know what it would all mean and hoped for revelations on the way. But life ain't that simple and finding meaning in a meaningless world may forever be doomed to failure; the only ones who ever feel they come close may be lovers, poets and the blindly religious. Yet all that is still so terribly far away from what we truly crave in our lives.
So, I lie here on my bed in my cheap hotel in Bogota trying to piece it all together from memory, all the while acutely aware of my impending failure and of a clock ticking mechanically somewhere in the silence.

The story started 24 weeks ago in Caracas. I felt like a naked new-born and I was on my own, truly alone, for the first time in my life. It was frightening. I was afraid of being found robbed and murdered in an alley-way - I was afraid of never being found - before my life had barely begun. So I started beginning my life; maybe I felt that luck was on my side.
The tiniest events - finding a bed, keeping myself from starving, walking a few blocks, posting a blog entry, meeting the first other traveller, booking a bus - they all set off hormonal fireworks inside of me. My body and brain were working hard to adjust to the freedom and the burden of being responsible to no-one but myself.
Churning up the miles on my first long-distance bus ride I was surprised by people wanting to be your friend and helping you just because you're a lonely foreigner in their country. My Spanish at any rate was still close to useless and our contact could have only been superficial at best but they didn't seem to mind. What a good world I was in.
In Ciudad Bolivar I found a safe place where I could gather myself and try to understand what it was I was looking for. Endless numbers of travellers passed through the hostel there, many staying only one night, swapping stories of places and adventures. I was envious of them yet I listened and the stories gave me confidence. I started coming to terms with what it was I had. Waking up every day in a hammock, blinking my eyes at the sun and feeling the warm morning air drifting through the roof terrace. It was freedom; the freedom to use my life to do whatever it wanted to be used for.
My life chose to take its time to savour that feeling. But then, one morning, I heard a ticking sound. It was my newly bought, chunky alarm clock and it reminded me of the far-away crocodile that threatens Neverland, the place without time. Time can bring all to an end, even freedom and always life.
With the realisation of limited time came the realisation of the necessity of choices and the subconscious, almost arbitrary manner in which these are usually made. But when travelling, any choice made has an effect far greater that most choices faced in life in its 'normal' stationary state.
Somehow I thus chose the almost remote jungle, a waterfall in the middle of nowhere, a place thick with the dust of a frontiertown on its roads, and an isolated community of Indios and societal 'dropouts'. Then I chose Brasil and did not choose Angel Falls, Mount Roraima, and hundreds of other natural and cultural marvels that could fill several lifetimes - if chosen.
I left Venezuela feeling I had seen a lot yet knowing I had seen nothing.
I entered the North of Brasil with nothing but confusion and the longing for more cheap adventure and quick adrenaline thrills. But on a mere 30-day visa from the unsympathetic Brasilian officials at the Venezuelan border I instead felt irritation at the arrogant pride of Brasilians in their supposedly magnificent country. Up in Manaus this magnificence seemed little more than a stinking, urban mess long beyond its prime in the middle of the wild jungle that was giving way to humans and their filthy needs. Most people were unfriendly, uneducated and spoke a messed up type of Portuguese, making no effort to be intelligible to the few foreigners who'd made it to this isolated part of the world. I had never felt as lonely and as lost as I felt back in Manaus and I decided to show the crocodile and the Brasilians how fast I could move through this huge country. Argentina promised bigger and better things to me at the time.
Even with these best of intentions in mind I couldn't help but starting to warm to Brasil, little by little. But I didn't know this yet in Manaus nor when I was still drifting down the Amazon on its disgusting boats. I don't think I knew it when I stopped in Santarem either, nor when I finally reached Belem after 5 days on the water, in sickness and in health. The mortality and fragility of my own body hit me and I considered not eating and drinking any crap off the street or the boats anymore. But after recovery you always feel invincible again.
The strange thing is that I don't anymore remember what made me decide to go to Sao Luis instead of rushing ahead to Fortaleza as I had originally planned. But I do remember that it was a choice weirdly made within split seconds at Belem's bus station. Probably I didn't really know why I did it back then either. With the benefit of hindsight maybe it was that gradual warmth that I was feeling for the country or a suspicion of just how diverse Brasil is and how many surprises could lie forever hidden to me along the coast between Belem and Fortaleza. Indeed, I would later consciously realise that calling Brasil one country is like calling Europe one country in a cultural sense.
In Sao Luis I then finally got the first hint of the Brasil that is the stuff of legends: the mix of Africa, Europe, South America and Indigenous hit me through the music, the people and the vibrations in the air.
I was charged, excited to see more and when I stretched out on the fishing boat full of stoned fishermen, drifting lazily but purposefully through the Parnaibo delta, I told myself that this was it. It had to be, it was the stuff of my dreams - no, it was reality surpassing them by miles and I tried to listen inside of myself for an appropriate feeling: freedom? The feeling was good but it wasn't the clear, shining tone I had expected. Maybe the lack of meaning dilutes such tones but I don't really know.
On arrival in Jericoacoara I found out how some others were beating time, or at least giving them the illusion of victory, amongst palm trees, sand dunes and beaches. A perfect place for urbanites sick of the rat-race.
And then, suddenly, time stopped for me too. The second-worst event I had imagined had occurred; it was just slightly better than being found dead in an alley. I had lost my diary. Somehow it felt like all the memories I had made until then seeped from me - memories I had wanted to save for those rainy days in the London rat-race. It was as though the crocodile had taken a huge bite out of my brain.
Thus lobotomised I began my therapy sessions to get over this trauma, pen and paper in hand. In retrospect this was probably the single most significant moment on my trip - it was all at once full of grief, reflection, reparation and finally contemplation of meaning and the 'why' of my travels, for the first time consciously. And it was - ultimately - ridiculous but it liberated me. Hell, the second-worst thing imaginable had occurred and I was surviving, moving on and learning (wiser but still paranoid, photocopyable loose pages have been my diary since).
But still the 'why' remained unanswered. I had two enemies now: an unanswered question and the crocodile, but at least I could see them both although I may have known that they were both uncrackable.
Somehow it became easier to travel that way - eyes open - and the mostly unremarkable but pleasant Fortaleza was followed by a giant leap to Salvador in the state of Bahia, whose 'motto' 'tranquilo' translates to something like 'chill out'. So I chilled out in Arembepe, the time-less mental institution and hippie commune, and celebrated something like Christmas in Lencois. It was probably in Bahia that I first started truly loving Brasil, its people, culture, attitude and diversity, and I dare anyone to go there and not to feel it.
Rio was where this love matured and then and there I gave my vows, till death do us part but I noticed a bitter taste on my tongue.
Knowing that you'll have to leave a lover is hard, especially if you've just started getting to know each other and there is still so much more to find out. It was as though I had only a blurry, incomplete photograph in my wallet, near my heart and in my mind. It seemed like everywhere I could go I would discover more and more facets of her character.
But bigamy can't work for long. I already had a wife and I learned that cheating on someone as omnipresent as time herself is impossible. I knew then than I would be her slave forever and her minion, the crocodile, chased me through Sao Paulo and Foz de Iguacu out of Brasil and into the arms of Argentina.
Once you've given your heart away and it's been broken it is hard to do so again. And Buenos Aires sure tries hard. Everything about her is eminently lovable but I knew I could find more of her type back in Europe. Still, we had our fun and I wasn't expecting anything deep again so soon after the last affair.
Cordoba too had oodles of charm but again it left me a little bored, just like that 'German' village which was wearing make-up from yester-year.
But the further I was moving North towards Bolivia the more interesting the characters of the places became. Salta was exciting - I hadn't yet seen a town like it or something I could compare it to. It was surprising and unpredictable, just like my little adventure on horseback in its countryside; the restless eel inside of me was being fed.
On I pushed northwards through Tilcara and its carnival and into Bolivia that was exuding its strange unknown influence across Argentine borders, calling to me.
In Bolivia I found a place that seemed unique to me. It was magical and unexplainable; I knew I had found a friend but also immediately knew that our relationship would remain strictly platonic. Bolivia is perhaps not a place you can love romantically and with such intensity as the pure distillation of life and hedonism that is Brasil, but love it I did and it touched me deep inside. Bolivia is no distillation but a crude, unfiltered mixture of good-hearted fun, ancient Indio traditions, stoic misery, chaos, tranquility, the overwhelming and so much more I did not get to see. And through it all seems to shine a genuine, stable happiness and calm inner peace of its people, almost no matter what their circumstance.
Bolivia will always be a wise and humbling friend to me and it taught me how to deal with one of my enemies; time was still, as ever, on my heels snapping at my ankles and driving me away and on. But as one learns to talk to an unruly child I learned a few magic words that would calm the beast and send it into momentary lapses of aggression. These words I would henceforth keep uttering like a prayer when I would feel a panic inside of me triggered by travellers or locals telling me of places. The words were: 'I'll be back'. Bolivia taught me these words and they gave me speed. Something inside of me began to feel that South America had already given me more than I had ever expected, maybe because I never knew what to expect in the first place.
So I pulled myself together for one last climactic high, which this time was laden with expectation; I raced through Chile, Cusco and straight up and down the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. It didn't disappoint and in retrospect I doubt I could have been disappointed considering my state of mind at the time.
After this self-induced and -prophecied high the travel-weariness kicked in. I don't know if it's a cliché that travelling is not living but running from life (and ultimately that statement confuses me once I start thinking about it too much) but for whatever reason I felt that I was ready to live again. A 'normal' life, wherever.
And that's what I've tried doing since then, in both Lima and Bogota. And it feels good. The urge to experience these places as a tourist has almost disappeared (or been suppressed - I haven't yet found out). I am taking it easy, enjoying myself and the company of others, I dream, I sleep, I eat. In short: life. But then again no one really knows what that means.

And that's it, all of it, the wheel has turned full circle and I have barely moved.
My alarm clock, bought 24 weeks ago in Venezuela, is still ticking loudly in my hotel room in the early morning. But I guess it doesn't really bother me much anymore.
What should bother me is that I still don't really have an answer to 'why' and I haven't really found any meaning in this whole mess behind me. The only things I thought to have found after all this are precious only to myself and lack a universal - hence they sound banale. As ultimately sounds life, mocked by time that will always be the final victor.
But maybe travelling is good. Maybe it is good because it is real. It is good because we choose it and it is good because luck does not matter. It is good because it happened. It is good because it is always unique and it will never happen again in the same way. And in the end it is good because we are not yet dead.
And if you want to look at it in this way then maybe life too is good, in spite of time.
Time can never change anything that lies in our past and present and maybe time's forward pointing arrow is the only thing that makes anything good; it continually locks away every bit of our pasts with the certainty of never being undone. Every moment in life is thus real but fleeting and urgently longs to be valuable and always unique.
But with time eternally and unstoppably moving in one direction the only valuable freedom that is left in life to make it unique is our ability to carefully and deliberately choose our place, in the x, y and z dimensions. Without that choice there may be none left at all.

And still I hear my alarm clock ticking neutrally and steadily. It looks at me in what appears to me to be a slightly Japanese way, with its neon-blue plastic housing. My eyes close and I start dreaming of a place where all the houses and roads will be of that colour; a soft, blue, glowing hum in all the streets, pulsating in silence like clockwork. The place draws me in and suddenly I find myself floating one foot above the still pulsating road. I look around and notice that I understand nothing that I see or hear. And then suddenly - a clock still ticking in a hotel room - it all means nothing again.

[I'll think about whether or not to get a digital alarm clock. While I ponder this and while I will try to go to the Gold Museum before I leave you can find pictures of, no sorry, from Bogota in Album Colombia - Bogota.]

Every step I took forward was a strain, my boots sticky with honey keeping me glued to this magnificent continent. Like a fly that's fallen into a pot of honey and feels the need to binge eat yet at the same time knows instinctively that this place could be its sugary grave: its wings grow sticky and useless and it dies of thirst as nothing can live on honey alone.
I had the luxury of taking a bus that plowed through the honey pot, relentlessly taking me where I was too weak to go on my own strength and masking the candy behind tinted windows and with a television playing action B-movies.
You shall know our velocity, I told myself and with momentum as my ally I arrived in Guyaquil, Ecuador, ready to ignore this Dollarised economy and step on the next flight to Bogota.
I was stopped dead in my tracks. The only flight left the next morning and could have paid for a royal lifestyle in Bolivia for a month.
I entered the impeccable airport bathroom, unshaven and laden with backpacks, to wash the travel weariness out of my face. A grey-haired, -faced and -bodied businessman stared at me as though lost in somnambulist trance. Then, for a fraction of a second, there was a look of confusion - maybe existential angst - on his face before he looked back at himself in the mirror, washed his hands and returned to his world that I should have had nothing to do with. I don't purport to know this man. But at that moment I did.
And so I sat amongst the overpriced airport fast-food restaurants, sipped on my coffee and decided I needed a dose of different. Asia may do. Until I'd get there I would be the anti-tourist. I picked up a book I'd meant to start for a long time and read the whole night through in the airport, aided by the bright lights and time that was only measured by the ebb and flow of people entering my realm.
The next morning travelling had disappeared out of my life. Instead of noticing mile after mile being ground up by a bus beneath me I passed out on the airplane and woke up an unknown amount of time later. It was like magic, like teleportation to me - I stepped into one airport that could be anywhere in the world with metal beams, glass and shiny floors and almost instantaneously ended up in another time-less and space-less teleportation chamber. I exited and found myself in Bogota, the city I would make into my anti-touristic home.
I had chosen a good place: one of the coolest cities in South America.
I started out experiencing the Israli side of Bogota by staying in a hostel that is a legend back in Israel. Being dropped into this world of no rules, endless supplies of drugs and readily available women after years of army forbearances may be called irresponsible. But who can blame them for partying so hard. In contrast I was partied out after two nights with them.
My sleeping patterns, however, would remain the same for my stay here - sunrise would remind me of bedtime and sunset would be my breakfast call.
Bogota is a lovely place to be. Amazing locals, great coffee and accompanying shops, readily accessible, quality nightlife and culture and plenty of time for reading and what goes with it - anti-touristically. And even though this country is practically in a civil war I have very rarely felt more secure in a city and the country as a whole is safer to visit than it has been in a long time.
So, how long will I stay here? I don't know. Will I even make it to other parts of Colombia? No clue. What will I do here until I leave? I have absolutely no idea. Every day just kind of comes along, I make no plans yet am always surprised by where it ends up going.
Be warned: anti-tourism wrecks your decision making ability. But it feels good.

[In true anti-tourist style I have uploaded no photos yet. Besides it is a public holiday and no fast internet cafes are open.
A few pictures now online at Albums Peru 3 - towards the bottom.]