Hitchhiking Planet

freedom from want, juin 2008

2008-08-29T00:17:00+00:00

The gate squealed after us and shudders back into position. We set our eyes on our surroundings; shapes of woodland
Perhaps she's afraid of how far my legs will take us in search of shelter tonight. The sky is an thick black. Dogs bark from far away farm houses. We have mozerella we discovered behind a restaurant to mix with the pasta from napoli and tomatoes found in Pisa, or thereabouts. The moon is hidden by darkening clouds. We turn and are met by a swarm of stars, brighter than I've ever seen.
'We'll be okay tonight. We'll be dry. And we have good food'. One of the only things I could fantasise over during these days was what could pass into my stomach. I could imagine the texture of the food and the feeling of heat passing through me, the steam pouring out of my mouth. When you're living on so little, not just physically but mentally and spiritually too - things become closer, detailed, enhanced and magnfied. You begin to hoan your fear into a sharp point, flinging it into the gut, the empty space of distance lurching in the heart. Senses are heightened. You tread dog shit and know what the dog has eaten.
And I become dumber. I stop to write. I barely read. My energy of spirit is sent to my legs. I am alert only in a coma of movement. I forget how to pass into moments, how to stop the world. We're wandering the same roads with different backstage props. We want punx in the palace but we're masturbating businessmen, to burn time and gulp down what we lost.
We've taken this same rest station exit 400km away the night before. Symmetry of the road at its worst. We blew up polizei squad cars as we woke to the sun rising, rubbing our eyes. Checked and hounded. I miss the winter sun already. I miss peanut butter and kudo asleep in his basket in the dead of the night. I have no home and no riot to attend and theres a perpetual sweat settled in between my two shoulder blades. I don't sweat. I haven't made love for over a month, more; I miss her as the last great awk's last breath in 1844 (dancing bullets) and she may be extinct too, for what? cheap foolish words, shit,
'why are the stars blinking?'
and they were. they were moving and disappearing and appearing again seconds later.
'burning lights with wings'
'fireflies?'
'make a wish'

I first saw them in Pennsylvania thinking at the time of ways to survive. The little kitten brushed into a colourless abstract painting. Nothing giggles in the colourless world. I knew no hope, courage, joy or laughter during those days. Perhaps I knew the quiet kind of anger that simmers in the toes and makes it difficult to walk. But the night I first touched a firefly, I had a kid on my shoulders and five more around me. We were going to the lakeside to cook smores, the traditional american campfire snack concisting of marshmellows and chocolate. My muscles had become the pancakes I was forced to eat for breakfast and my blood the chocolate milk doused in cocaine at the afternoon snack time.
At the time I still wanted to be a ufologist. I was barely writing then. I disliked people to such a degree that I wanted to immerse myself in what was not. Everything was not in these blistering years.
I saw the lights and gaped. I gaze at the sky till I received a patting on the head and a kick in the side. And I look down and one floats right past my fingertips. I cup it in my hands. I begin to write, on this evening. I disowned other lands in return for the pulse of the ground I tread.

I turn around with my big bag, sunk into my shoulder blades, into a sea of them, floating beside us, blinking on and off, in and out of the world, totally lost without their light.
We find a placre to sleep, over a stream, and sit openmouthed at the lightshow until the pasta begins to froth. I lie and watch the fireflies through the steam.
We wake up dry. I can't remember my dreams. Everything is intertwined. The last ride to the next. I gulp up the morning air. I finish the words of Castaneda. I stop the world. I brush my teeth and feel my belly moving in and out. We drink tea from Ulkraine. I will send this haze to the public stocks. I am ashamed of what I have lived without cognisance. I am another. I have laid my egg and have in turn been swallowed up by what has appeared.
Je est un autre.
And again: No more gods! no more gods!

Amore mio

2008-08-28T16:26:00+00:00

Pipa, pipa, pipa.... quando volto a pipa apenas pra pegar minha bolsa afim de viajar no outro dia, eu encontro uma italiana encantadora! Perfeita... Rebeca - trabalha em uma ONG que luta contra preconceitos raciais e xenofóbicos. Ela colou em mim o tempo todo, e eu nela, e não deu outra, logo logo agente ficou com cara de bobo o tempo inteiro se encarando, sorrindo e se curtindo... foi bem forte.... mas eu não posso parar, e hoje pela manhã debaixo de lágriamas, nos separamos. E segui carregando minha bolsa um bocado mais pesada que antes. Machuquei minha perna na praia, mas graças ao kit de primeiros socorros que meu pai me deu, eu fiz um curativo bacana (também fiz um curativo pra um amigo que cortou a mão, foi muito útil).

Não tive paciência em esperar caronas em pipa, eu estava destruído, sem dormir, e arrasado por ter deixado uma mulher tão linda, tão inteligente e tão apaixonada pra trás. E peguei um ônibus de R$ 2,50 até Goianinha. De lá segui... uma estrada nova pra mim, foi razoávelmente difícil, principalmente quando cheguei na deserta cidade de Santo Antônio do Salto da Onça. Mas, consegui um carro pra sair desse buraco de cidade; um carro carregado de cimento (ainda estou pensando na Rebeca o tempo inteiro, estou um pouco fraco, e também penso em minha mãe e em meu pai.) E quando chego nas bordas da cidade de Dona Inês, cidade de minha rota, minha bolsa quebra uma fivela, a fivela central! Exatamente a fivela que eu esqueci de comprar e decidi comprar depois! Merda! Peguei um carro caríssimo, R$ 23,00 por uns 20km.

Dentro do carro uma surpresa, o motorista é nativo da cidade de Dona Inês, e conhece toda a minha família. Não deu outra, me deixou na porta da casa da minha tia (mas o valor não mudou). Aqui é muito distante de tudo, é uma cidade no meio do nada, acho que tou um pouco sufocado por isso. Foi difícil entrar aqui, e agora estou com minha bolsa quebrado. Talvez eu tenha que pegar um ônibus daqui pra João Pssoa, e concertar minha bolsa.

Apesar de comendo super-bem, estou fraco, emocionalmente fraco. Depois coloco mais fotos.

Close your eyes, I'll...

Cuba and Public Transportation

2008-08-28T14:19:43+00:00

The Challenge:
Get from “Moron“, Ciego de Avila to “Caibarièn”, Villa Clara

It looks on the map as if it is less then 100 km. We, my travelbuddy Alex and me, wanted to make this distance with a low budget in order to figure out how the cubans mamage to get from A to B in Cuba. Thats means Taxis are not allowed and car rentals either!

So we had variouse options I would like to present to you.

Option 1: National Buses (Astro)
There is a bus which is going from Moròn at 1 pm to Santa Clara. One day it pases by Remedios, so it takes the north route and the other day the bus takes the central road so we would have to switch buses in Santa Clara (arrival 5 pm) to another bus which brings us to Moròn.
Problem: The woman at the counter says that she is not authorisized to sell tickets to foreigners. Not even in “divisas”. She is the one wh recomends us the oficial option 2.

Option 2: The oficial one
Go with a municipality bus to Ciego de Avila. Take a taxi or walk for 1 hour (in a unsuportable heat with all your luggage) to the Viazul Terminal. Hope that there is still a free seat in the only bus which is leaving Ciego de Avila at 4:40 pm and gets to Santa Clara at 7:30 pm.
Problems: 1. At the time we get to Santa Clara there isno connection bus to Caibarièn so we ve got to stay overnight in Santa Clara. 2. We don t know if the Viazul has space for us. 3. We can t make reservation for the Viazul, not via Inet nor via Phone 4. Thats the normal/oficial way and hardly payable for cubans.

Option 3: Hitchhiking and Local/Municipality Buses
We could try to get through with hitchhiking and trying to hop on local transportation. That would reqire us to use three local buses and the probability that these are leaving more then twice a day is close to cero. So you miht catch the first one but will me stuck in the next town maybe for a day…
Okay so we hitchhike if there is no transportation. The problem ith hitchhiking is that there are very few private cars in general and the drivers are afraid to get a fine if they take foreigners because as a tourist you are supposed to rent your own car or go by taxi. Aditionally there are a lot of cuban hitchhikers and drivers always ask for money -sometimes uite a lot if they figure out that you are not cuban. By the way I suld mention that the Tropical Storm “Fay” is over Cuba in that moment and heavy rain showers are very likely.

Option 4: Train & Bus
At 1:20 pm there is supposed to be atrain to Santa Clara which could drop us of close to Caibarièn. When we got to the train station the it turned out that the Tropical Storm “Fay” has washed away a bridge so the train has to go on another track but it still should arrive in Santa Clara around 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 and sth. pm.
Instead of 1:20 pm we left at 3:45 pm, so almost 2,5 hours after we should have left.
we ended up paying 10.5 Pesos Moneda Nacional which is around 0.40 € and this was still twice the price then cubans payed.

In the rain there are plenty of people selling food, soaps, toothbrushes, cheesebatterys, etc. to the passengers. It s like alitle market. In the little villages we stop the local try to sell there products (fruits, cheese, eggs, …) to the passengers. before we left the train statio I was reading an article of the Granma about the punctuality of the trains. Accoring to the article 85 % of the trains were in time. Accorng to the cubans in the train the train has never arrive in time on this line.
Finally we arrived at 0.30 am in Santa Clara.
There people told us that at 2am a bus leaves to Caibarien from the train station. Allright .. we get some food and hopp on the bus - no problem. At 2 am three wasn t any bus. Then they told us that at 4 am another bus is supposed to arrive. Nothing happened. At 6 am there came finally a bus which brought us over to Caibarien where we finally git a 7.45 am in the morning the day after we left Moròn. The last bus we took was a bus which brings employees to the Cayos (touristic islands) and we ve had to talk the bus driver over to carryus because thats probably not allwoed either.

So finally it took us 22 hurs to figure out a way to go from Moròn to Caibarièn. A distance of probably less then 100 km. We could have just rent a car or take a taxi but then you wouldn t have anything to read …

Jailed not by

2008-08-27T13:49:28+00:00

I didn't deserve 20 days in jail! "CSX" never even knew!

Momma loves her baby, Daddy loves me too!

2008-08-27T13:43:38+00:00

Keeping us safe is what they are supposed to do!

Merida, Mexico

2008-08-27T04:03:23+00:00

I did it. I escaped Cuba by boat.
Alex, my travelbuddy and me came back on Friday night to La Habana. On Saturday morning I ve called the Marina Hemingway and they told me that there is a french guy leaving with his boat.
I couldn t believe it. A few days before I ran into a couple from Israel who stayed several weeks in the Isla de las Mujeres in Mexico to find a boat to Cuba and finally came by plane - Hurricane Season! Nobody wants to travel now on th Golf of Mexico.
So after I ve heared about the boat which was supposed to leave to Mexico I showereed brushed my teeth and made my way with public buses to the marina. Over there I had to wait like two hours before Gerome and his buddy Bill showed up. After a few sentences they accepted me as a crew member. I couldn t believe it.
After a last supper with my Cuban / English Family I came with all my stuff on Sunday morning to the Marina. After checking the last things we took off and with minimal problems at the Inmigration (I m impressed of the Cuban Intelligence Service) we took of - course South/West - Destination Cancun! During our trip I was steering the boat every two hours for an hour and it was exiting to be on this ocean with this tiny boat.
After 48 hours on the boat we arrived today (Tuesday) at noon in Cancun / Isla Mujeres. After we did all the migration tramits I took of to Merida where I am now…

Uma visita inesperada

2008-08-27T00:08:00+00:00

Ficaram algumas coisas inacabadas em Natal, e no último domingo eu resolvi cair na estrada, em direção norte - Natal. Ninguém esperava me ver, foi bem inusitado, mas não resolvi tudo que tinha de resolver, mas deixei encaminhado as coisas. Aproveitei pra trazer comigo alguns DVDs que tenho e livros que quero ler. E assim minha bolsa fica cada dia mais pesada.

Foi muito fácil encarar a estrada voltando e depois retornando aqui.
Essa plaquinha ao lado com o desenho do Forte dos Reis Magos me rendeu uma carona direta em menos de 5 minutos, fantástico. Foi uma carona de luxo, com muito espaço e direito a ar-condicionado. Esperava que fosse mais difícil pois deixei minha mochila aqui em pipa e levei uma pequena bolsinha com o básico. O motorista pensava que eu era um interiorano e se surpreendeu quando comecei a falar sobre tecnologia quando perguntou da minha profissão.

Ninguém acreditava quando me via de novo em Natal. Mas foram curtos 2 dias, quando minha mãe esperava um pouco mais, ou melhor, não esperava. Bem, ela parecia mais conformada, e já contava pra outras pessoas sobre minha empreitada com entusiasmo e até conformação. Recebi uma pequena e inesperada despedida chorosa do marido dela, nos concideramos bastante.

Por fim, consegui uma câmerzinha que espero que me ajude com o blog, e aqui está o que comi hoje de manhã na casa da minha tia preferida, a qual foi a última a me ver em minha volta inesperada.
O dia nasceu choromingoso hoje. Ganhei uma nova capa de chuva da minha tia, pra me protejer da chuva. E segui a estrada...

A estrada foi tranquila. Boas conversas, caronas não muito demorada, e caminhei muito menos que 1km no total. Uma coisa muito inesperada aconteceu, um carro com duas moças muito bonita parou na estrada ao lado, e perguntou sobre mim, todo sem jeito expliquei minha viajem, mas elas não podiam me ajudar. Quando elas foram embora fiquei pensando na possibilidade de ter me aberto mais a possibilidades diversas. Agora não importa, estou de volta em Pipa.

Trampen im Jemen, Harwdramout, von Shibam nach Seijun

2008-08-26T15:59:26+00:00

Blogged via Mail.

Vorsicht vor der Tramperin

2008-08-26T13:15:23+00:00

Einige Male Biel-Bern und Bern-Biel zu dritt und zu zweit, sonst nichts aufregendes. Immerhin das erste Mal in Dunkelheit, aber zu zweit. Klappte ganz gut..

Grain truck vs. Grain train!

2008-08-25T21:14:26+00:00

Winter of 1999. I had just rode in from Tulsa, Oklahoma on the BNSF into Kansas City.

decapitatedhope @ 2008-08-24T00:47:00

2008-08-23T23:55:23+00:00

On where we fled from -
If despair is rampant in this depressed region [reportadly owning the fourth highest suicide rate count in the world] -- employment opportunities are apparently plentiful in the afterlife. Dienas Bizness reports that the number of dead people registered as the owners and executives of Latvian firms has risen by 1789 deceased persons in the last two and a half months. Money laundering and fraud seem to be the most lucrative fields to get into once beyond the grave..

gurgling with rats eyes

2008-08-23T23:35:53+00:00

in my pocket survival guide, I am told that, if in dire need of water, it is possible to drink from fish eyes.
also cow dung makes great fuel.
and insects are rich in fat, carbohydrates and protein.
I say we just use the second in extreme circumstances.
but nowhere in my survival guide, does it tell me how to survive humans.
I went to a skeleton exhibition today. Each skeleton had a little piece of writing on it's cause of death and other notable examinations that the pathologists have made. I tried to imagine the people alive and give them lives. But I couldn't. My imagination turned into peas. I just stared at the shattered skeleton of a young baby. I left my skin for a while, becoming the bones inside me, striping away everything else...guts, dreams, love, tenderness, anger, hope. and that stuff just matters more with the knowledge of what is to come. or it has to otherwise we're already there. the dead sing the foulest of tunes and that violin won't stop creaking...o'brother, how did I sleep that long?

Bringing it all back home…

2008-08-23T13:45:52+00:00

On Tuesday morning, we started off in Ulac, Turkey towards V. Tarnovo, Bulgaria. Hüsseyin walks some meters out of town with us and waits until a car stops to have some smalltalk to the driver. Few cars pass, but all stop. He seems to be well known in town, everybody wants to give him a [...]

Easter Celebrations

2008-08-23T12:21:05+00:00

Traditionally Easter Sunday in Georgia (which according to the Gregorian calender is about a month after the Western holiday), is observed by dressing in black, going to church at midnight and hollering your eyes out in mourning for the dead.
My friends and I celebrated the ocasion rather differently: we went on an outing in the greenery around Tibilisi. We drove up one of the roads winding up the green, rocky hills at the centre of which the sinuous streets and Soviet monuments of Tiblisi are spattered so amorphously, up to a friend's dacha, or summerhouse, for Barbecue and ღვინო (ghvino, or Georgian wine).

I have long wondered about this obstructive gh-sound (ღ) so indescribably difficult to pronounce for a foreigner, which sits at the beginning of this word whose following syllables otherwise seem all too familiar for a speaker of the large neighbouring Indo-European language. An acquaintance of mine analysed it the way that it is probably an attempt to capture the initial consonant of the word in whatever language Georgian borrowed it from, as with the Welsh gw- or the Greek oi-.
At the same time, isn't Georgia proper supposed to be the cradle of winemaking itself, so wouldn't they also maybe have invented the word for the potable, and it was us foreigners who chose to do away with that rough projection
of a sound at the beginning of a beloved product? A linguists will know the answer.

During that sunny afternoon on the lofty altitudes, drinking glass after glass of this sweet amber homebrew that comes out of old Pepsi-bottles and flows down the gorge like warm butter, I came to a different analysis: I think the ღ might simply be onomatopoeic. Because after a few glasses of this unsuspiciously sweet and spicy liquid that still retains a decisive taste of the grapes it is made from, suddenly, unexpectedly, it will wrench off your head as if a well-oiled garrote had been jerked into motion. So I think the letter ღ may simply be an anticipation of the crack your neck is going to emit at that point.

The sea-breeze started to blow colder as the sun went down and, although we were already swaying in our seats from the swell, we followed up the wine with a bottle of vodka, its content translucent and luminous as the beams of the full moon that had began to lay its eery light on our faces, and pure and biting like a splash of fresh spring water.
One slop of the crystal clear spirit down my gullet sufficed to erase my consciousness completely, cloak all following events in dense darkness. Because how many hours later, and how exactly we made it home, I don't know.
But wake up in the middle of night in my bed, next to a puddle of well-digested chicken and leek the colour of marmelade, I did. Outside of my door I heard Azelma and Shakro quarreling noisily. I stumbled outside, begging for help to clean up the mess in the room. I was still too drunk to make use of my gross motor skills in that way.
After my sheets were changed, and my head had cleared sufficiently to wipe the floor, we decided to sit down and have a cup of tea before going back to bed. Azelma
and Shakro couldn't lay their argument to rest however. After Azelma went to bed alone, sulking, Shakro, still drunk, tried to persuade me to sleep with him. Bleeding Georgian men again.

To heal our hang-overs on Easter Monday, we opened a 2 litre bottle of beer straight after breakfast (which was around lunch time anyway). There simply is no better medication:Quaffing large quantities of low quality Georgian beer from plastic bottles worked wonders for my dried-out brain which was agonizingly rasping at the inner walls of my skull for lack of liquid. It also took away the overall pain in my muscles, the feeling of having been beaten up by an army of Lilliputian strongmen working from underneath my skin. After the first few glasses, I felt like myself again.
We spent the day watching trashy horrorfilms where people had their eyes poked out with biros, their brains
exploded by screw-wrenches that were introduced into their mouths, and where husbands were strangled by small intestines slung around their necks pulled out from their wives' bellies. All in all another cosy day off.

The problem came the day after. I am a journalist after all. I am here on business. I had an appointment for an interview at noon the next day, which for me is a difficult endeavour on regular days, but on the second day of hangover after two days and nights of Georgian style drinking, peeling myself out of the bed sheets at 11 proved especially difficult. I put the kettle on, took a shower, put on the neatest clothes that I have and that vaguely might be considered professionally looking, rushed back to the kitchen, made a cup of coffee and one of strongly caffeinated green tea, did something to my hair in front of the mirror in the hall, and then realised there was no time to so much as even put my lips on one of the still piping hot mugs I had prepared. So I washed out an old nescafe tinpot into which I poured the black-brackish solution of instant coffee. For the tea I took an empty cola bottle, and off I was. Only in the metro I noticed I had had better to wash the latter one out, too, for the liquid was opaque with minuscule disgusting floaters. No sane human being would have dared to even sip at the concoction. But I had no choice. So I drank it.

The interview went just fine.

we're the drunken bastards that blew up your beach,

2008-08-23T01:47:40+00:00

and all this travel for what, for who? I have gained the fairy dust that only he who has been pregnatated with motion can have...motion for what, man? who called for the gullotine to the stretching afternoons of green tea and apple pies, cookies and milk, films till the day dripped softly across the night..
in these flickers of warmth, miracles of stupidity (hey latvia, I'm fornicating your name..), the dragging endurance of the mind...baby, the boredom is so colourful, what do you mean it no longer exists?

and all this time, thinking I was beginning to know something..
forgetting how to do weive the simplist of adornments...
choked out all my stories in wherever, serbia, perhaps...naming places on hands too heavy for all this nonsense...yardayarda, I went to x and then y and you know, now we can carry on with our lives now, uh?
I miss the sprawling deserts of my creations, my pages filled with stories that can only sing for me...maybe they're not so out of tune to others...sometimes...I hope...but most of all, the importance of brevity, of the unmistakable clarity of growth...whichever way...as of late...my shoulder into my neck
god, I long for the flames again, the golden carnivals of disorder and madness galloping down to my toes...on the subject of toes, I'm so surprised to still have them...these past three weeks of rain slipped into my skin...

so let these new tales be more audatious than ever before, let them piss at communion and let the steam rise like doves.
I don't know why I stopped and why I must commence once more. I needed to bleed something out of me, not through suffering but from the pretentions, the act, the wisdom...you are no more than what you are now...you are your reactions, your madnesses, your joys and loss. and we paint with it. we carve our ideas in the fume stained windows of old soviet factories to show nobody and every ghost..
I must find the ant with the whip.

Atrasos e a ruptura

2008-08-23T01:22:00+00:00

Correria, estrece. Esses três últimos dias foi louco, trabalhei horas seguidas como nunca antes. Comi pouco e mal parei pra cuidar da minha higiene. Tanta coisa pra resolver antes de viajar, e a coisa foi se prolongando e crescendo igual bola de neve.

A ruptura de valores, e a tensão da passagem da vida estável pra a nômade, ou semi-nômade. Ter que simplificar as coisas, julgar as coisas pelo peso físico e pela real utilidade, matar cada resquício de vaidade ou consumismo. Fiz e refiz minha mochila cerca de 7 vezes, doei uma super sacola de roupas pra meu irmão. Abandonei livros, DVD, e algumas coisas que eu acreditava que ia levar. Até mesmo o navio pirata e meu saco de dormir que tanto me serviu, de última hora comprei uma outra barraca mais leve e um outro saco mais compacto (e até melhor), seguem os preços:

Barraca, 1,8kg + selador impermeabilizante -> R$ 150,00
Saco de dormir (diz na embalagem que aguenta até -25º) -> R$ 49,00

Espero ter feito uma boa escolha. O material antigo, que inicialmente foi comprado pensando na situação eu e Bio, está a venda, tenho um possível comprador, espero que dê tudo certo. Um outro detalhe é que estou sem câmera.

Agora estou em Pipa, e depois escrevo mais sobre isso.

Back to Argentina

2008-08-22T15:00:00+00:00

Last Tuesday the border pass between Santiago (Chile) and Mendoza (Argentina) was finally reopened after 5 days closing due to snow falls. We started hitchhiking around 10:30am, hoping to get in one of the 3000 trucks waiting on the Chilean side to pass to Argentina. All truck drivers passing us would just rise their shoulders, shake their head, or tip with their right hand on top of their left shoulder, which meant police checkpoints ahead. We finally got about 25 km before the border, but at that point there were no trucks left. The road was empty, but we were lucky. Two military officers brought us right to the border, showing us "el caracol" (the snail) - a road with 32 curves leading up to the border packed with all the trucks we had missed. With a Pax form, which we got at the police department, we were let to hitchhike, and surprisingly fast we found two Argentinians who brought us right in front of our friend's door in Mendoza. At 6:30 pm we arrived, and an hour later entered Bernardo's and Sol's house, who are brother and sister of our friend Cristobal from Santiago. We feel great here, and are currently looking for a place to stay a bit longer. We need a rest, time to work, and a plan of how to arrange our work and private life during traveling. A new big challenge.

Past and present

2008-08-21T12:11:34+00:00

Thought you all should know, I never post right after traveling. Some of the post here are (and will be) fresh out of my memory, or even a year or two old. It all depends on how I’m feeling. And they are all written in present tense because I prefer the stream of consciousness technique. Nonetheless, everything here is and will be as it happened.

Best of luck.

Vlad.

The real ends of the Earth!...Inuvik, Yukon.

2008-08-20T19:12:38+00:00

Away from the decay of the south! The spring of 1993... I had left Russellville, Arkansas 11 days earlier had made it as far north as Whitehorse.

My greatest rides

2008-08-20T16:22:41+00:00

Of course the best rides I have ever had were those in which I encountered people with whom I had many laughs, who understood me, gave me advice, and especially those from who I learnt something. Those experiences however, we all have had and are nothing unusual. Therefore I will tell about the more unusual rides I have had.

Thoughts On Travel and Hitchhiking

2008-08-20T16:10:18+00:00

Popular Culture, Travel Snobbishness, and the Reaffirmation of the Human Spirit

“Onramps before darkness, petrol stations after…”

2008-08-20T12:04:22+00:00

“Onramps before darkness, petrol stations after…”

A guest who would arrive on Saturday, after I would be back from my trip, asked on Thursday if she could arrive one day earlier, on Friday. Luckily a friend would be helpful, so she, or better they, could stay over at his place. After ending the working day we met up all together for a cup of tea and then I went on, back to my territory… Maastrichts’ official hitchhiking place.

Malaysischer Zwischenbericht - - (Small Malay report)

2008-08-20T09:07:46+00:00

Hab es vor ner guten woche doch mal geschafft Penang (Georgetown) zu verlassen und bin richtung sueden Malaysias getrampt, was hier auch ganz gut geht. Mein letzter fahrer hat mich fuer 4 tage irgendwo im urwald abgesetzt und mich dort auch wieder abgeholt Der hat mich dann auch zusammen mit der gesamten familie nach Johor Bahru gebracht, in dem ich mein indonesisches Visa erhalten habe.

Musste ausserdem feststellen, dass meine hepatitis impfungen seit ein paar monaten abgelaufen sind. Werd ich mir wohl neue holen hier. Gegen Dengue Fieber gibts wohl noch nix, oder? Ne impfung gegen stinkende feuchte klamotten waer auch nich schlecht

Pics und tagebuch wurden aktualisiert, beschreibungen hinzugefuegt und rechts in der Navigationsleiste gibts auch was neues.

Short news in english:

Thx to my last driver Shoan i had a very good last week in malaysia. Both in the Jungle and at his home. He also brought me to Johor Bahru, where i got an indonesian Visa. Within the next days i will decide when and where i cross the border to indonesia.

@MAP: ich bleib auf dem boden… zufirieden? ^^ Wo sind denn nu deine bilder versteckt?

@marzia: oh yea, the chaos party. Hehe. I remember. Enrica introduced us.

@Muskva: Yea, you are right… but i was definitely not happy this day

@Heidrun: der wohnt ja in den phillies. Und ja, er verkauft es jetzt wieder.

@Bjoern: Postkarte kommt inkl lebensgeschichte… innerhalb der naechsten monate

@Marion: Danke fuer den netten kommentaf. Den rückenwind kann ich grad gut gebrauchen. Und da hast verdammt recht. Thailand und Laos… Tramlaender zum auswandern. Ich hoffe du hast in den baltischen staaten genau so viel spass und laesst was von dort hoeren.

@Sandita: Oh. Das tut mir sehr leid. Ich hoffe dir gehts einigermassen gut. Druekch dich ganz fest

Rota Nordeste

2008-08-20T04:51:00+00:00

Vamos lá, desenhei agora a pouco no Google Maps a rota estimada para o Nordeste. Ficou cerca de 1.500km, calculo que em minha velocidade média de carona, serão necessário 5 dias na estrada:

Exibir mapa ampliado

São 21:49 da noite de terça feira 19 de Agosto. O projeto teve que ser adiado para dia 21, mas estou indo montar minha mochila e resolver algumas pendências...

The house of Dracula and the house of couchsurfers

2008-08-19T22:00:41+00:00

Friday. Noon. Just got out from work. Huge backpack. Check. Pretty colored sign saying Sighisoara. Check. Lots of people hitching South. Half going to the rock festival at Sibiu, half to the medieval festival at Sighisoara. I find a cozy spot uphill from everyone, and after a lousy 3 minutes, a medium size truck stops.

Trip turns out to be event-less, except for me trying to figure out if it’s gonna rain or not in Sighisoara, by the direction of movement and the motion of the clouds.

A couple of hours pass, thankfully, quite quick, the driver being a nice folk and good conversation. And so I arrive at Sighisoara, at the bottom of the citadel, near a set of endless stairs that lead to it.

(more…)

Pré-estréia (Na estrada)

2008-08-19T21:39:00+00:00

Correria agora nas vésperas da partida, quase não me deu tempo para escrever sobre minha última viajem que fiz nesse último fim de semana.

Sim, não foi nada planejado. Eu encontrei um tio meu que mora em Mossoró (285km de Natal). Ele ia viajar de madrugada, e queria uma companhia, demorei cerca de 20 minutos pra arrumar minha mochila, e quando percebi já estávamos a mais de 50km da minha casa respirando o ar da estrada e seguindo o horizonte do oeste. Saí semi-liso...

Começo da volta

O planejado foi voltar no domingo de manhã, afim de dormir em Natal. Dormi em um clube de águas termais acampado em frente a um chalé que meu tio alugou por lá, ficava praticamente na saída da cidade. Foi minha discreta despedida com o tio que mais simpatizo. Acordei de 5 da manhã e recolhi a barraca, montei a mochila e fiz minha plaquinha com toda a esperança do mundo, dizendo: 'Natal'. De brinde ganhei uma carona de moto com um funcionário dele que me levou até o trevo da saída da cidade, aproximadamente as 6:30 da manhã pisei na estrada.

Presente

A estrada me deu um ótimo presente logo no começo, pois estavam concertando parte da estrada logo na saída. E improvisaram um semáforo pra controlar o tráfego. Fiz amizade com os controladores do semáforo, e fui pra o final da construção, afim de pegar os carros. Mas não tentei muito, resolvi voltar pra a entrada da construção. E acenei com minha plaquinha 'Natal'. Um motorista passou por mim e me explicou que minha placa estava de cabeça para baixo! Até que os motoristas estavam bem humorados, mas ninguém parou. Então mudei a plaquinha, para algo menos pretencioso, como: 'Assu' (78km dalí). Assim que terminei de escrever minha plaquinha, e estiquei todo feliz, um carro branco veio em minha direção quase me atropelando. Sim, minha primeira carona. Me expremi no banco da frente junto com a mochila. Era um caçador, contou algumas histórias de caçadas de raposa. Alguns minutos depois encontramos dois caroneiros que pareciam ir trabalhar em outra cidade, e apanhamos eles. Os dois iam para Angicos (45km de Assu). O nosso motorista ia para Paraú (27km de Assu) portanto iria nos deixar em um trevo a 6km de Assu. Foi muito engraçado, pois no trevo haviam algumas pessoas, entre elas uma mulher super animada que comemorava a chegada da carona, não contei, mas sei que quando deixamos o carro, o carro foi cheio novamente por caroneiros que provavelmente também iam para Paraú. Desde 2003 que pego carona por essas bandas e nunca vi uma cena parecida. Enquanto fui mijar os dois outros caroneiros conseguiram um carro. O dia estava prometendo.

Assu

Caminhei até Assu (A foto ao lado não foi eu quem tirei, eu estava sem câmera nessa viajem). Lá atualizei minha plaquinha em um posto de gasolina, tentando chamar o máximo de atenção possível, afinal eu queria ser visto, ou melhor 'levado'. E escrevi 'Angicos'. E perguntei para um dos curiosos se ele caminhoneiro, e se ia para Natal, mas ele não estava viajando. E coloquei o pé na estrada, e segui alguns metros, até que um carro parou pra mim. Um não, dois! Em que mundo eu estava? Hoje era o dia das caronas fáceis e impossíveis! Competir para me levar era demais... Então corri feliz para o carro mais atrás de mim e perguntei se ele poderia me levar, mas ele me ignorou e perguntou como poderia me levar se estava sendo rebocado. Que merda, o carro de trás estava sendo rebocado de forma bem precária por um fio, até que o fio torou e os carros pararam no acostamento. Ofereci ajuda, mas fui rejeitado. Então me afastei um pouco e organizei a mochila nas costas, até que um carro parou pra falar com os caras do carro. Perguntei a ele se ia pra a cidade, e ele me levou. Na cidade fiquei intertido com um campeonato de Taekwondo juvenil e revi minha amiga Angélica, a qual prometi escrever o nome dela aqui no blog. Também conheci a Kelly e atravéz da Kelly, um carinha que me deu uma carona de volta até o trevo. E segui caminhando preguiçosamente uns 5km até um posto de gasolina.

Velho posto

Eu tinha visitado esse posto em minha primeiras viajens em 2003. E tinha tudo na memória, de cara reconheci o quase-dono do posto, o Marcos (mais um que prometi escrever aqui). Lá me senti em casa, tinha café de graça, comida boa e barata (bolo por 1,00 R$, e suco tambémm) e um fluxo de caminhões e viajantes em geral super grande. Também tinha apartamentos por lá, estava de tarde já, pois eu tinha ficado muito tempo com as meninas em Assu. Parei lá decidido a descançar e provavelmente passar a noite. Procurei algumas caronas, mas não insisti muito. No fim da tarde fui pra a saída do posto, e rejeitei 3 caronas que iam pra a cidade vizinha, afinal era melhor dormir onde estava do que em um lugar desconhecido. A noite eu já conhecia todos do posto, e até tentaram me ajudar. Um garotinho que vendia CDs no poso me ajudou a montar minha barraquinha lá pra as 20:00 e durmi tranquilo. Apesar de pela madrugada 2 cachorros ficaram latindo pra minha barraquinha, até que eu botei a cabeça pra fora e eles correram pra nunca mais voltar. Recolhi o acampamento as 3:40. Comi um bom prato de cuzcuz com guizado por R$ 5,00 e fui pra a estrada com o céu escuro ainda. não demorou muito até que me levassem até Angicos.

Volta pra casa

Na estrada, esperei um pouco, até que um carro veio em minha direção perguntando se eu ia pra Natal. Ótimo! Fim da estrada... Esse motorista parou em todas as cidades que passamos e procurava pessoas pra levar, e uma dessas pessoas quando desceu eu percebi que deu uma grana pra ele. E logo entendi que ele pegava passageiros e cobrava por isso. Que roubada me meti, tenho que concertar isso. Em Santa Maria (55km de Natal) eu expliquei pra ele que era um caroneiro que não costumava pagar pelas caronas, pois afinal de contas eu tinha muito pouco dinheiro, mas ele me tranquilizou e disse que resolvia isso. Em Natal, ele me deixou onde eu pedi, e se despediu de mim normalmente, fiquei mais agradecido do que de costume.

O começo

Bem, como planejado, eu deveria viajar daqui a algumas horas para Pipa (85km de Natal) e Iniciar a América Latina à Dedo. Mas houveram alguns atrasos importantes que provavelmente irão me segurar aqui amanhã, então, apesar da mochila semi-pronta, inicio na quinta (assim espero)!

Música

Zé Ramalho - ~~Vida de Gado~~ Admirável Gado Novo

Trip to North Ossetia

2008-08-19T09:35:24+00:00

A few years ago Russia made a rule that with regular tourist visas you could no longer visit most of the regions close to borders (except while provably on the way somewhere else)-since then for example Vyborg next to the Finnish border was off-limits to holders of foreign passports, but also all of the northern Caucasus range except Sochi. Just in the nick of time before these new regulations I embarked on a trip that took me from Mt. Elbrus to Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia.
It just so happens that the last thing I heard from there was "things are quiet as usual, except from the boom of warplanes coming from the South".

The first town in the Northern Caucasus that I visited was Kislovodsk which with its steep hills, leafy town-centre and pretty bridges over a lazy river was the one place in the world that reminded me most closely of my hometown, Baden-Baden. Needless to say I stayed only a few hours.

In that town hoever I got the first taste of a region that is a preferred Russian holiday destination. Superficially instantly endearing with its handsome towns and natural surroundings ranging from soft rolling hills to dramatic snowy mountainscapes, it seems quiet and relaxing, sometimes deceivingly. When my Norwegian friend Ivar had visited Kislovodsk a couple of years before me he had taken up the rack railway to a view point above the town -only to arrive at the top and hear that in the next carriage after them a bomb planted by Chechen rebels had killed some 15 people. And especially the next town I visited, Nalchik, capital of the republic Kabardia-Balkaria, should make cameo appearances on international news because of Chechen raids and other unrest in the years following my visit there. These were the symptoms of a low-key war that had been simmering -and continues to simmer- in the region for over a decade now and that hardly ever makes it into international spotlight. The biggest tragical incident, one that didn't confine itself to a "cameo" on foreign news channels, but one that positively shook the world, was to happen as I was still down there in the Northern Caucasus, although already a few hundreds of kilometres away from the location.

In Nalchik I stayed in a not far from the town centre. The room alloted to me was so dirty that my dust allergy obliged me to spend the night uncomfortably rolled up in the bathtub; taking the extremely creaky and shaky hotel's lift for the first time had proved such a stirring experience that I didn't care to repeat it and henceforth took to sprinting up the stairs when I came back from a walk and wanted to lounge in my room on the 14th floor. The only detail of interest might be the hotels name, 'Nard', an allusion to a mythological race of giants whose adventures are related in the legends and sagas of the many Caucasian peoples, such as the Balkars the mountain people that live in villages on the foothills and in the deep-cut gorges of this region .

From Nalchik's towncentre the mountains are barely visible, reduced to ducking dark green shapes on the horizon. They are only a short ride away though, and as you approach them, delve into them on roads first dug, then dynamited into their flanks you are quickly transported into a world of towering rock inebriating any mountaineer by their sheer sight. Like many of their Caucasian brother peoples the Balkars are Muslims, and so on the way from your car-window you can see mosques with half-moon-topped onion-domed minarets; that is to say mosques with the physique usually attributed to orthodox churches, to all appearances buildings not converted but constructed that way.

As for me, I took public transportation to the village Dombay, a serious tourist trap where you can buy pairs of thick woolen socks from one of the plentiful souvenir vendors and then take two scarily shaky gondola rides up a to watch Mt. Elbrus, Europe's highest summit, sit perfectly stoically under an unbroken table-cloth of snow as thick white rags of clouds condense around it and veil and unveil the sight of it in a rhythm dictated by the wind.

On my way back I hitched a lift with a group of youths who were astonished I was hitchhiking, telling me 'It is so dangerous, you know!', all the while making it a point of not putting their seat-belts on as we were curving down the winding mountain street at a serious break-neck speed... with a two-litre plastic bottle of beer being passed from mouth to mouth -including the driver's.

The next day I was on the road again, hitching out of Nalchik. Again a woman approached me telling me I shouldn't hitchhike here, since it was dangerous. She asked me where I was from and on my answer she gratified me with a lovely smile embellished by an entire front row of gold-teeth. Then a dark spasm flashed across her face: “I am from Chechnya. But you know we had to leave. ”- “Are you Chechen?”, I asked - “No, Russian”; and she hung her head in sorrow.
With time I learnt that the tragically bruised are often quick to impart their grief this way.

It was a bad idea to hitch that day and I finally gave up and hopped on of the ramshackle buses coming my way.

Somewhere along that boring, pot-holed highway that leads in a straight line from Nalchik to Grozny, then a war zone, my bus made a stop-over in a lightless, non-descript town called Beslan. I remember watching a lady struggling to stuff the large plastic sacks she had by way of baggage into the luggage space before boarding; then the bus jerked back into motion and off we were.

About an hour later we took a right turn off the main road. Appearantly the road led off into the plain, but soon the electrocardiogramme-like irregularity of the horizon began to fledge out into proper mountains whose silhouettes were scragging the sky. We were approaching Vladikavkaz ,the city whose name translates as 'Ruler of the Caucasus'. The famous Georgia military highway starts here, connecting the capital of North Ossetia with Kazbegi and finally Tbilisi to the south. Many a famous explorer and poet have taken it before.

Since it has been long closed to foreigners though I had to content myself with strolling about the city itself. I wandered the pleasant leafy avenues along the riverside, engaging in the Russian summer pass-times of drinking slightly fermented Kvas sold out of rusty yellow tanks on the street, and sucking the salt off the husks of sunflower-seeds before cracking them open with my teeth. Thus entertaining myself I gazed into the snowcapped world that dominates all the open spaces of the city like parks and boulevards.

Hanging out on a bench somewhere, I started to talk to a group of youth. They couldn't believe it that I had just come all the way from Estonia via Moscow and Volgograd. It had taken me just over a week, but a trip of such scope was beyond their imaginations. We chatted and as the evening moved on they invited me to dinner in a simple restaurant down the road and finally proposed I could come and stay at one of their houses. To celebrate the occasion we were going to stop by the shop and take home a few of bottles of vodka. In the perfect Caucasian pretense that drinking is only auxiliary to eating large chunks of cheese and bread were also bought along with the spirit, even though our bellies had been filled to more than satiety at dinner. Needless to say once at the apartment the foodstuff was placed on the table not to be touched once during the evening. We talked about everything and nothing in particular and at some point during the evening one of the boys said to me: 'You should come back in winter, then we could go snowboarding!'.

A day later, I took an overnight bus to Sochi, the spa town and tourist resort on the Black Sea coast which at the moment has its surrounding nature resorts destroyed because in the not too distant future will be in the spotlight for the Olympic wintergames. I spent a short few days lounging on its pebbled beaches, drinking ice-cool Kvas and making friends with two teenage girls who had come ten days on a train from somewhere in Siberia to stay for two weeks, enjoy the sun and get as much of a tan as possible so it could still be seen when they'd debark in their home town after another ten days' train ride home.
Then, one evening we watched the news together and I was shaken awake from my perception of the region I had just travelled through so carefree as only pretty and relaxing. The Chrusheva-dominated hole of a town that my bus had stopped in that day before it dropped me off in Vladikavkaz had become instant famous. It's name would connote tragedy for many years, if not decades, to come.
It's name, of course, was Beslan.

On bikes, across Galicja

2008-08-19T07:23:54+00:00

We rode up the hill and we rode down the hill and we rode straight into a delicately dying sky.We found large patches of moss as soft as mattresses to sleep on and gazed into the twilight scenery. To the north clouds were towering like snow-capped mountains over the of the fringes of a forest, to the south the Tatras planted their first imposing imprint on the horizon.

That day we'd been looking for raodkill all along the road to take care of our protein needs. The ones we came across though never were in good enough condition -always more road-rug than prospective steak. But when we stopped in a small forest for lunch we found some distant relatives of the fungus we have between our toes that we could cook with our (deliciously unnutritious) spaghetti.

A sail down to Spain

2008-08-19T07:23:14+00:00

The fourth day, we get into a storm. The luminosity of the setting sun lends the savage scenery a falsely glacial air and an eerie slowness to nature's spectacle. The broken white water that is gushing over us seems to do so in slow motion, like snow falling. It seems like we are sailing down not a fluid valley of breaking waves, but a white gash of snow paralysed in between each bat of the eyelash. It is my first ever storm on sea, and since I am not seasick I actually enjoy this rollercoaster-like ride, blissfully ignorant of all the things that could go wrong. Better not let my grin grow too big though in the presence of our understandably less amused and actually quite worried captain. After a few hours the main sail starts tearing, and the wind, far from taming its furious tongues, resumes even wilder, lashing out at the sea till its entire surface has turned into foaming white whipped cream

Tropical Storm “Fay”

2008-08-18T20:28:27+00:00

If you ve heared nothing about that storm - ignore this message.

I f you ve heared or read about it and you were worried abut me - thanks but eveything is allright.

There was quite a bit of rain in the last few days but we managed more or less to be out of the worst areas when the storm passed.

In 4 to 5 days I m gonna be back in La Habana and check my possibilities for the hitchhike a boat from the Hemmingay Marina somewhere to the american continent.

So keep on rocking … more when I m back in easy InetAcessArea.

A7-Yoyo

2008-08-18T11:51:06+00:00

Tags wie nachts rauscht die Autobahn, mitgenommen wird man weitergetragen wie von einem Fluß, der aber auch in die Gegenrichtung fließt. Wichtig sind nur die Punkte, an denen ein Seitenwechsel möglich ist. Prinzipiell geht das an jeder Auffahrt, viele Auffahrten sind aber sehr tageszeitabhängig oder insgesamt untrampbare Verkehrsgärten. (Ja, es ginge auch, indem man direkt über die Autobahn läuft - kann ich aber nur in Notlagen empfehlen. Das Risiko ist enorm, denn Autos mit deutschen Spitzengeschwindigkeiten können sehr schnell sehr nahe sein…)

Daher werden gerade nachts die Rasthöfe interessant, die auf beiden Seiten der Autobahn liegen. Einige von ihnen sind direkt per Brücke verbunden (z.B. Frankenwald auf der A9), bei einer größeren Anzahl gibt es in nächster Nähe einen Tunnel (z.B. Herford auf der A2), bei den meisten läßt sich durch eine kleine Wanderung ein oder zwei Kilometer entfernt eine Über- oder Unterführung nutzen (z.B. Gräfenhausen auf der A5).

Was fast gar nicht geht: Die Raststätte Harz, der Evil Twin des früheren Rasthofs Seesen. Auf beiden Seiten ist das gesamte Areal umzäunt, die wenigen Türen sind mit Sicherheitsschlössern verhängt. (Hä? Wilde Tiere? Terroristen? Hauen die Angestellten ab?) Es ist zwar möglich, in höchstens halbstündigen Verhandlungen jemanden vom Tankstellenpersonal (”Wie sind Sie denn hierhergekommen?!”) dazu zu bringen, eine der Türen aufzuschließen, um auf der einen Seite rauszukommen und gleich am nördlichen Ende der Anlage durch den Straßentunnel die Seite zu wechseln. Nur ergibt sich dann das Problem, daß man sich auf der anderen Seite laut genug bemerkbar machen müßte, damit vom Inneren der Raststätte jemand mit Schließbefugnis und Schließlaune es mitbekommt.

Glücklicherweise ist am Straßentunnel eine Tür zur Diensttreppe in der Regel nicht abgeschlossen, sondern nur zugeklappt.

Not paying attention to the car you ride may be hazardous to your health!

2008-08-18T03:17:27+00:00

UP special agents in Las Vegas. It was the spring of 1991. I had caught out of Yermo, California on the Uncle Pete to ride to Provo, UT for a bit of work. The ride from Yermo to Las Vegas was just like any other I had taken, hot boring.

L’autostop pour l’autostop

2008-08-17T20:41:49+00:00

Während der letzten paar Tage habe ich mich dem Trampen um seiner selbst willen hingegeben, davon ausgehend, daß ich dazu - der Tramperstand möge mir vergeben - erstmal wieder eine Weile nicht kommen werde, sondern nur zum Zieltrampen, Zeittrampen, allenfalls mal zu einem Nachmittag leicht gebaumelten Trampens.

Das war die Reiseroute in etwa:

Living my own Czech fairytale

2008-08-17T13:20:53+00:00

Cesky Krumlov is the ideal place to relax and recuperate - and so that's what I did. Each day I would splash around in the river and then sun bathe in the last few hours of sun.

Powder River run the Delirium Tremens!

2008-08-17T13:16:03+00:00

Was this a time to quit? I guess that the year of 1998 was my peak of alcohol consumption. (Although I have not had a drink now since December 2 of 2006). I had worked over in the town of Keokuk, Iowa for a few days made a bankroll there.

Newfoundland,...the smaller Alaska!

2008-08-16T12:34:36+00:00

The year was 1992. I had only been riding freight trains for about 3 years, had always wanted to go out to Newfoundland! So, after catching the "Selkirk-NE" (New England train) out of Conrail's Selkirk Yards in Albany, New York I got off there in the Rigby Yards in S.Portland, Maine.

Escaping the smog

2008-08-15T15:00:00+00:00

Two weeks ago we took a bus from Valparaiso to Santiago, where we stayed with Felizpe, whom we met in Horcon, Valle de Elqui. We had fun with his hard hearing grandmother (84), and enjoyed the beautiful tones of his flute sounds. Four days later we stayed again with CouchSurfing member Karina, who introduced us to famous Pocho, a hamster.
For the necessary biomagnetism treatment I found Dr. Tognarelli. It was a special experience, since he found not only inactive malaria, a bacterial infection caused by bat excrements, a stomach infection, sinusitis, bronchitis and a fungal infection (sounds all worse than it was), but also treated me with hipnosis. He found an event in my life which caused paralyzing fear, occurring in the age of 8. He deparalyzed me, and promised that it will hold significant changes for my life. Second biomagnetism treatment was scheduled after 1 week, so we went for 2 days to Paine - small village 40 km South from Santiago. On our way to Paine, our bus driver was attacked with knifes by two young fellows, who cut his right palm and stole most of the coins from his ticket box. We were surprised to see that bus continued the journey without interruption, without calling police or any other actions. Terribly passive passengers as well: "Why call police? Such robberies happens all the time"... Some of them got into shock though. In Paine occurred a big chain of destiny. We met father Pedro and sister Sol of our friend Cristobal from Copiapo (they identified us by feeling). We found out that Pedro is a good friend of our Hospitalityclub host Eliana for this night, and that the place, to which Eliana's son Ricardo invited us for a stay, was actually Pedro's house, where his family used to live for 7 years. We came back to Santiago by train, which right on our departure returned to work after 1 week of strike.
The second biomagnetism treatment confirmed me absolute health (besides asthmatic bronchitis caused by Santiago's smog) and I learned a bit more about my past. The following Tuesday evening we found ourselves in front of Rodolfo's kitchen chimney in San Felipe, a small town 90km North of Santiago. We enjoy the surroundings a lot, breath deep the fresh countryside air, and look forward to the end of the rain, which most likely means our trip to Mendoza, Argentina.

Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan-Caught by the CP bull!

2008-08-15T12:25:24+00:00

Canadian immigration a USA transient! August 2007. I had just left Palmer, Alaska two weeks before, hitch-hiked to the Alaska/Yukon border.

Tucson to Hermosillo, Mexico route...

2008-08-15T12:16:44+00:00

Hermosillo, Mexico from Tucson. CTC all the way!

dreams of folk hags,

2008-08-14T15:54:41+00:00

geogia attacked by russia. the hatred boiling over for the russians here in the baltics. the russian government warns that the baltics will be next if they show support for georgia.
we have a tent and warm, now, away from the rain.
I have to, at all costs, begin to write again. I can't remember how to write without great dull explosions spurting out everywhere.
I forget where trust fled away to, from the fingers wrapped in mine to the blood dripping down to my toes.
everywhere, people are scared. the local latvians can barely afford to eat but everyone has huge cars. apparently, they're all to the russians, but thats impossible. the houses are like temples, great greek sprawling towers and medieval castles on little pieces of land.
I have sand in my shoes. I got stung twice by wasps, the throat shot was the worst. I forgot how they can heighten even emotional despairs.
rimbaud ripening in my hands and the singing of great birds some days ago in a national park with mushrooms we found scavenging that barter for great enourmous prices in the west of europe.

back in london on the 21st for a couple of days. please share good conversation with me, if you're near.
be incredible, no matter how much it takes from you.

München - Malmö/Schweden - München

2008-08-13T21:15:56+00:00

Servus!
Rekordverdächtige Tramperei von München nach Malmö...

Mir kam am Morgen des 17.Juli der Gedanke nach Malmö/Schweden zu trampen um dort freunde zu besuchen...
Ich wurde 2 Wochen vorher aus meiner firma gefeuert...
also FUCK that shit .. weg mit der schlechten Laune und raus in die Welt!

Um 12Uhr war ich dann fertig mitm Frühstücken ;-) und hab auch gepackt, skateboard aufn Rucksack geschnallt und los gehts.
Von München raus ist von mir aus am besten beim KentuckySchreitFicken auf die A8 - von dort auf die A7 Richtung Flensburg Dänemark und Schweden. Also einfach nach Norden!

Startzeit München KFC zur A8: 14:30

Die ersten paar hundert Kilometer bis Kassel gingen recht zäh.

400 Miles The Wrong Way

2008-08-13T20:53:32+00:00

You never know which way it will go. Well there are many reasons why I left town that day, everyone has their own reasons for what they do, anyway to get down to it it was about one o'clock that afternoon on the first of the month in August when I arrived at the yard and waited for hours till a northbound came through at the same time a southbound one came.

Alta - Helsinki - Tallinn - Riga

2008-08-13T16:28:44+00:00

Sorry about all the detail. The last post has been a while now and I want to write it down while it’s fresh. I can always rewrite it later when I’ll work on my book.

We tried leaving Alta for Tromso, but after 2,5 hours of a lot of cars and none stopping we decided to just head south. It took another 1,5 hour before someone stopped. For the shortest ride of our trip, 2 km only, but it was encouraging, especially thanks to the strawberries we got from the young woman who picked us up. From the bus stop we were dropped at we didn’t have to wait that long again to get a ride to Kautokeino, in a huge Chevrolet, driven by a guy attending a Christian meet-up. He only talked a little bit about Christ and the gospels his friend had made were actually a good way to learn some more Norwegian. After walking and waiting a bit a guy stopped. A friendly dog in the trunk. He was on his way to Rovaniemi, which meant we could go along for quite a while.

We found out he was actually going for a weekend of hunting. Nice to find out for two (mostly) vegans. Well, at least killing the animals you eat is more sincere than having a huge machinery do it for you. We were dropped in an abandoned tiny village and decided to continue a bit more, even though it was 22:30 or so. Of course it was still light, we hadn’t seen more darkness than the blinders would give us in 5 days. Surprisingly, a couple stopped, and then I had made a mistake. I left the bluetooth GPS device given to me by Marcus on my bag. So I lost it there. It was much faster in getting a satelite fix than my N810 so I slightly miss it these days.

Then after 25 minutes driving we were really dropped in the middle of nowhere and killing mosquitos decided to set up our tent. In the morning we heard “nok nok” and some Russian but we didn’t feel like inviting the millions of mosquitos in our cozy tent. Later we got a ride from a Norwegian on his way to buy a fridge. At the crossroads two friendly Finnish women picked us up. They were totally into fishing. We were dropped at a city at the Northern coast of Finland where it took us not too much time to get a ride to Oulu.

I had sent a bunch of texts to our potential host in Oulu but hadn’t received anything back. I decided to give her a call when we were 50 minutes away from Oulu. Apparently none of my messages had come through. The same thing happened in Denmark, where my messages never made it to the recipient. I will have to file a complaint with Vodaphone, especially if they still dare to charge some ridiculous amount of money for sending less than 160 bytes. She was actually on her way to a festival close to the spot where we found our ride to Oulu.

In the meanwhile, our driver told us he was driving all the way to Lahti, 90 km from Helsinki. Since our back-up plans in Oulu were not working out either we decided to head to Lahti and see if we could still hitch to Helsinki from there. Our driver had to drop off his trailer at his summer house, which freaked out Erga a little bit since it was not even on my GPS map. We got there around midnight. There was a gas station and a big mall. And lots of mall rats. With scooters. And “no picknick”. We had some food anyway, thanks to the supermarkt guard. Then we tried a bit of hitching. No luck. So we pitched our tent in a little bush next to the highway. Next morning, oh well, a bit later, we started hitching. I guess it took 2 hours (not looking at the time) before a car stopped. Not going south. We decided to take the ride anyway and the friendly old man showed us how pretty the little village used to be. We wereropped and started walking in the direction back to the highway (but more south). Again we were picked up by a friendly old guy and then we had to walk even more.

After hours of walking and thumbing we were getting slightly desperate, less than 80 km away from Helsinki. Then finally an angel stopped. She was a very friendly nurse who had been looking for berries in the forest. We hugged goodbye at a metro station in Helsinki.

We finally were able to take a shower and clean Anu’s fridge. We quite a few days in Helsinki, first at Anu’s, then at Laura’s. Dumpster dove quite a bit and made delish food, vegan soup, pancakes. I finished the garam masala and bought some new.

The ferry to Tallinn was a forebode for the internet situation in Estonia. You can find (unprotected wireless) internet in almost every street corner and apartment. Apart from Andros’ place. I had to plug a cable into my newly bought Acer Aspire One. We cleaned out his junk room so we had a very comfy place to sleep. He also had a car and loved to drive around people all over town. Yesterday morning he took us to a good spot to hitch out of Tallinn.

The first driver was an IT/artist guy who drove us to Parnu. When we got there we had some baked goods and it started pouring down. We were almost tempted to take a bus. It appeared to cost more than 10 euros per person though, and the rain, well, hitchhiking in the rain is good for character building and practicing bad Russian.

We found a local bus eastward and when I thought I saw a gas station we got off. To find out that we could have gone 4 more stops. But we saw a lot of trucks coming our way and started walking there, almost drowing in the rain. We decided to ask at a gas station and my bad Russian appeared to be very useful. We found a ride to the border with a friendly Latvian Russian guy. The radio was all about the war in Georgia. In Russian though, but we had already been drowned with news about the war in Tallinn. People are very concerned here. I’m glad Marian didn’t take the plane to volunteer and report the mayhem.

At the border we tried hitching. I asked 2 truck drivers, but they didn’t want to take two people. I did see 4 very similar trucks and decided to try and ask them if they could take us. We where dropped next to a highway because they didn’t go all the way to Riga and through my GPS found out that we were at Salaspils. Walked a lot. Missed the last train. Walked even more. Found a microbus for 1 lat (1,50 EUR) to the city. Happy. In Riga we were warmly welcomed with Leffe, food (but not veggy) by Inga, her roommates and two tiny black tom kittens who where very happy with the food.

Now we’re sitting in the Old Town hostel that was the focal point of the Riga Winter Camp 2,5 years ago. There’s free wireless and I’ve done some Drupal hacking on my 1 kg laptop.

Adventure Park, Isparta & Istanbul

2008-08-11T13:01:44+00:00

Moin, Wir sind am Samstag erfolgreich aus Antalya rausgetrampt, und unser 2. Lift war dann auch schon ein Hollaender, der lokal nen Kletterpark mit Kanu, Kajak, Rafting blabdibla Sportskram besitzt. Wunderbar gelegen in den tuerkischen Bergen, und promt wurden wir eingeladen mit der heutigen Gruppe rumzuklettern und Kanu zu fahren. War hammerdufte, abends kam dann auch [...]

Montana Roll On

2008-08-10T15:47:36+00:00

Hitchiking around Montana, cradling dead deer, longboarding down the great divide, personal weirdness, hopping MRL, personal lessons.

Tuerkische Suedkueste

2008-08-08T20:44:38+00:00

Aleppo (Syrien) - Kilis (Tuerkei) Am Dienstag ging es dann endlich los, mit mulmigem Magen ging es los zur Hauptstrasse Richtung Tuerkei. Das trampen an sich war ein kinderspiel, erster Lift bis raus aus Aleppo, der zweite hat uns direkt nach Hause zum Tee trinken eingeladen. Ok, halbe Stunde Pause denke ich mir, woraus dann fast [...]

Vacina!

2008-08-08T19:10:00+00:00

Algums países da américa do sul (inclusive algumas regiões do Brasil), é necessário a vacina contra frebre-amarela. Muito simples, basta procurar um posto de saúde que tenha a vacina (aqui em Natal tem 2 em cada região), e pronto. Eu só levei minha identidade, recebi um cartãozinho, que devo levar até o aeroporto para pegar o cartão internacional.

A fila que entrei só tinha três pessoas na minha frente, e a aplicação é super-rápido e praticamente não doi. Agora estou imune por 10 anos (é preciso tomar a vacina 10 dias antes de ir pra as áreas de risco).

Cienfuegos

2008-08-08T16:09:44+00:00

Like I wrote Inet is expensive here.
I m now in Cienfueos and this Computer does not work with my memory stick.

I don t have a flight out of Cuba so far … I m going to hitch a boat from the Marina Hemingway in La Habana in the end of themonth.-.. lets see where I m gonna end up …

Hope it s gonna work

Viva la Revolucion!

Mais coisas...

2008-08-08T11:42:00+00:00

Comprei mais umas coisinhas mas deixei pra postar agora tudo junto.

* Capa de chuva tipo poncho (posso usar junto com a mochila) - R$ 5,00 (muito fraco o material)
* 2 Isolantes termicos (antes da desistência do Bio) - R$ 30,00 (cada um)
* 2 Bonder Tape - Silver Tape (para concerto de qualquer coisa) - R$ 9,00 (cada uma)

Total parcial: R$ 44,00!

Agora preciso vender parte do material já que agora estou sozinho....

The Craving

2008-08-08T04:02:16+00:00

The sun is blazing. Gypsy kids splashing naked in the fountain at Rustaveli Metro today. I've started to talk to an old man whose grey full beard and little blue marble eyes behind his pair of glasses have intrigued me for weeks now as I have been striding past him begging on Tbilisi's main avenue. He usually sits under a tree in the shade, somewhere across from a histrionic lady in black, whom from time to time you can see sneaking out into a nearby back-alley for cigarette breaks. If I had to put my money on either of them as to who earns more a day I would without hesitation opt for the lady, whose perfectly shrouded figure strikes a very theatrical pose, with her left arm hugging an icon, the other hand laid palm open in her lap. The old guy's trick for attracting by-walkers sympathies is less melodramatic, but equally cunning: in front of the little stool on which he sits is poised a large sign in four languages designed to deceive gullible tourists. It identifies him as a political dissident under some sort of duress from the Saakashvili government.
I've just started to realize that, just by giving him the time of day to as much as open his mouth, I've been had; I only just realized that I am in for a solid hour-long ramble if I don't act quick, that if I don't escape now his tangents are going to pile up and up on each other, his elaborations are going to spiral out of control, his sentences are going to get longer and longer, and my nerves thinner and thinner. I was so embroiled in thinking about how to get out of this dilemma, when the craving hit me. A craving of a special kind. A craving for that toxic kind of extra-artificial lemonade of viridescent colour that probably only an Ex-Soviet country can sell as tasty to the masses. Tarragon Lemonade!

It is with an absent-minded naturalness as if a foreign force has taken hold of me that I politely get rid of my discursive dissenter and sleep-walk across the street. I just decided it's time to make it over there to check out that flashy supermarket I've been seeing sitting at the street corner, but never entered so far. Once I've penetrated into the shady cool of the interior, I walk the shelves and notice that, although there are almost 20 types of tea on display, this place is nothing as showy and class struggle inciting as the over-the-top shopping centres of Moscow; far from it actually. I am almost pleasantly surprised by the modesty of the goods on show -were it not for the glaring absence of exactly the type of lemonade I came to seek out among the Bebsis and Calocacos in the fridge. The type of poisonous green, plastic-flavoured, oversugary tarragon lemonade that tastes off-putting the first time you try it, but to which you soon grow not only an irrational liking, but an outright addiction.
In fact right now I covete the chemical concoction as intensely as a chain smoker covetes her first cigarette after an overseas flight. My hands are almost trembling.

The result is that in the blink of an eye you can see me flying down Rustaveli avenue direction Chavchavadze checking out all the kiosks where they sell those squishy oily potatoe cakes you can eat on the run at lunchbreak, scanning their fridge shelfs in the back of the display for my poison of choice. Only when I have finally found it, -at an eatery in sight of Philharmony square-, torn off the plastic seal, screwed off the top, and inhaled its noxious smell particles deep into my infected lungs I pause and revel doe-eyed for a moment in the gentle glow of satisfaction.

I live with quiet people

2008-08-07T12:29:25+00:00

When I first arrived in Tbilisi I fell into one of those golden cages of hospitality which in Georgia, due to the country's drinking habits, most closely resemble black holes. For two weeks it was cosy and merry at Azelma's and Shako's place, but when I was finally spat out again from the intense gravitational field of daily inebriation that their home represented, I decided it was time to search for a more permanent place to stay. Thus, I went through the following row of adventures:

After trying to rent a room with an elderly lady who forbade me to touch the tea-pot "lest it explode", or take a shower without her supervision, I crashed one night at the house of an amiable elder Japanese man who spoke Georgian, Russian and French, but none of them enough to comunicate; then I stayed a few nights at my friend Mtvarisa's, who, along with other former refugees who refuse to be bought out, still has a small room in an old athlete's home, assigned to her family when they fled Abkhazia over 15 years ago; and finally, I found a new abode: I now have a room in a dinky family home around the train station.

It is a dodgy part of town where mini-tornadoes form towers of dirt in the air and the wind whirls up the rubbish and chases it down the street before me as I walk home. Fat men in yellow shirts follow me from the metro exit and mumble "Haven't I seen you here before?" in my ear, which is code for "how much are you?". Indeed the whores cost less than 2 Euros around here I was informed ("No, prices have already gone up", corrects the chatty lady on night duty at the chemists').
When Shako and Azelma lived down the road, the scuffles on the street frequently got so noisy that Shako once felt impelled to stop the nightly disturbance by emptying a pot of cold water on the louts from his third floor balcony.

Meanwhile the 'boudoir' I have been allocated is a stuffy, rectangular chamber whose size is yet diminished by the tall bookshelves obstructing its walls. They are impressive in both size and garniture: The crème de la crème of European classics seem to be crowded onto them. Their natural alphabetical order has been partially disrupted only by the last earthquake I am explained.
The lodging has two beds, the other one of which is warmed at nights by a hefty Georgian spinster around fifty who gets up before dawn to sell washcloths and potholders on the market, then comes home around nine to watch Brazilian telenovelas on the flickering telly in the kitchen and forthwith drop to sleep. I, meanwhile, make good use of our room's paraphernalia and sit and read in the fading evening light by the window in the hall.

The family who rents out to us is constituted of mummy, daddy, two teenage boys and a tottering old granny who was especially quick to take me to her heart: ""Какая ты глупая -что ты хочешь опять, придурка? И какая ты неряха -Ты же женщина! Женщинам надо всё убирать! Женщинам надо аккуратно быть! Очевидно, чем-то тебе не хватает в голове. Ты просто помешанная...
Когда ты уедешь?"