It Really is Too Much of a Good Thing

Antigua — I didn’t do much of anything but gawk at the beauty of it, wandering the streets in the rain; the puddles and dripping eaves; the pale pastel colors dim in the rain white light; the crumbling church facades, the cobblestone streets, the Maya, the Kaqchikel, the colorful Mayan women walking the streets as ever in Guatemala; the liveliness of night; the central square; the homeless sleeping outside; the marimba bands; vendors; tuk tuks; motorcycles.

I ate fried plantains filled with black beans, I ate cheap street food; I drank plenty of beer, I got high and I chummed with Jamie and Krissie and Brian and Sophie and Kate — all people I’d fell in line with along the way, way back in Belize — I chummed with myself, alone, played pool with a bespectacled almost cross eyed, eyes which so innocently and intently met my eyes while I spoke like he was so interested to listen; this leather jacketed guitar wielding Guatemalteco kid who had never played pool before and told me all about the difficulties, the near impossibility for most Guatemaltecos to get to the US legally, and later played and sang American songs to me on his acoustic guitar; ran into some backpackers I’d shared a bus with on the way to Antigua who were trying to buy cocaine and followed them to watch the transaction and help them with translation; followed them into a bar where I ran into Jamie and Krissie and Sophie and Kate and everyone was yelling and cheering with Maori style painted faces for the New Zealand vs France Rugby game blowout.

I spent the last night in Antigua drinking in a bar called Cafe No Se. It was a bar straight out of hell. The walls were a dark thick painted black red and there was almost no light outside of candle light. There was a small Alice in Wonderland door which led to a Mezcal bar in another room. There were pentagrams scrawled into the paint in the tiny bathroom. It wasn’t wild, it wasn’t quiet, it wasn’t pretentious, nobody paid attention to anybody else but the person they were talking to, talking with gestures and in a manner which indicated deep and interesting conversations; chandeliers; strange paintings and fixtures and really something straight out of a Tarantino or something out of the movie From Dusk till Dawn. It was the last time I saw Jamie and Krissie. We got high outside of the bar and watched the cigarette smokers outside heavy in their chats and a group of people freestyle rapping. It was the best bar I’ve ever drank in.

I left Antigua early in the morning on a micro bus with a pretty Norwegian girl I met at the hostel named Matilde. It was a quick three hour ride to Lake Atitlan (we also picked up Brian from Texas; didn’t expect to see him on the same bus, but I didn’t expect to see him at four different points in four different places randomly on the streets); and a nice bumpy potholed landslide rockslide prone winding road down to some town near the lake where Me Matilde Brian and a Frenchie named Rodolphe (I’ve liked every French person I’ve met while traveling, the way he would say hhgghhwoldolphe) caught a Tuk Tuk down to the hippie spiritual enclave of San Marcos right on the lake. It was raining — same as it had been for a week, same as it had been since I left hot sunny Flores and entered the week and maybe more of rain in Lanquin and onward. The rain was atmospheric and mystical and I grew to really love it.

Lake Atitlan — the mystical lake that Aldous Huxley so famously wrote about. It was quite a sight to see the huge lake covered in mist, surrounded by jungle green hills and volcanoes; so tranquil and Mayan (Kaqchikel – I had learned a few words in the Kekchi dialect, but all the 20 something different dialects in Guatemala are entirely different and so had to re-learn the same words; and at each different village bordering the lake the Kaqchikel dialect was different somehow, same language but entirely different, very confusing) like a Zen Mayan mountain where coffee grew all over, and jocote, and avocados and all kinds of mysterious fruits.

The four of us left San Marcos for crazy party San Pedro the next day and stayed at the crazy party hostel fe where I drank more beer than I’ve drank in a long time (as I sit drinking another hair of the dog pint while I write this, staring out over my balcony at the Lake, magic) — drank a beer when we arrived at noon; went out and ate and had my first mojito which I didn’t care for, give it to me straight; went out and kayaked the lake with Rodolphe and Brian while Matilde got a massage; came back and had a litre of beer; ate some more; had two more beers at a bar where a group of young Guatemaltecos with two guitars small amps and a very basic kick snare highhat drum set up played Bob Marley and a Red Hot Chili Peppers cover — under the bridge, which was the first song I can remember falling in love with as a four year old on the way to preschool in my mom’s black 89 Mustang, a love song to LA which touches me in a good way — met up with some Israelis we met earlier on a bus and drank 3 litres of beer among us and talked about DMT and dreams while smoking too many cigarettes — an entire pack in one day which is a pack too much for me — but the drinking, and the talking necessitates it — walked back to the hostel and had another litre with Brian and Rodolphe — walked upstairs to the hostel room where Matilde was getting ready for bed and tried to give her a kiss goodbye but she turned her cheek — walked back downstairs and had another liter with Brian while Rodolphe sat sipping his glass and we talked about Henry Miller, Hemingway, Kerouac, Rimbaud, London, Kafka, Thomas etc etc; walked back upstairs with Rodolphe, having had to walk him to the room because I was the only one with a room key; and I think Matilde probably liked this 40 yr old relaxed French guy, I certainly thought he was cool — the both of them having to travel 10 hours to Lanquin starting at 4 AM the next morning and already making plans to share a bottle of red wine when they arrived, I think she did like him); walked back downstairs and had my litre with Brian while naked Australian guys did backflips off the deck into the lake; played a flip cup drinking game myself just so I could drink more beer because I was all out and didn’t feel like spending more money; and finally went to bed to the raucous scene outside our dorm door which you could hear blocks away I’m sure.

I woke up hungover squatting over a seatless toilet to shit while I smoked a cigarette, squinting my hungover red eyes through the smoke; all the while outside in the Atitlan morning a Guatemalteco with a terrible voice was crooning to a terrible slow ballad which never ended; all the while outside in the Atitlan morning where the purr and grunt of motorcycles chugging along filled the air; staring out over the balcony, my Guatemala, my home; the magical Atitlan.

The morning was over and all of my friends were gone. I was alone again. Brian left for Monterrico. Matilde and Rodolphe left for Lanquin. Jamie and Krissie I left in Antigua. My last days in Guatemala before El Salvador. I didn’t want to leave. I love the people of Guatemala, they have a firm place in my tender heart. I can’t help but to buy from them, even things I don’t want — peanuts, bread, popcorn — and they’re just about the only people who can ask me for money and I’ll give it to them — it only happened three times in my two weeks in Guatemala but when they did ask and I did give they lit up and were genuinely thankful — beautiful people I say. They call out to me and I can’t say no. I know my money helps and so I’m glad to give it. These are my people.

I spent most of the hungover day in my room moping and congesting my brain with debates over heading into El Salvador or skipping it altogether and heading to Copan Honduras. It’s the first time that I’ve actually felt a fear of traveling to a place and having it weight heavy on my mind — the reports of civil war in El Salvador and how it’s not safe to travel to at the moment — but how true are these reports and should I just go and find out for myself? I over thought it way too much, something I do when I’m hungover — when I know I should just stop thinking about important things entirely until I’m clear minded and healthy after the hangover.

I finished my night in San Pedro feeling so alone, low; not quite hungover but not quite right either; missing my love, the hole in my heart; staring at a table full of laughing smiling chatting dancey people while I drank glass after glass till my litre was gone. I didn’t like them. I didn’t like them because I couldn’t be one of them. I was lost. I regretted leaving my room; waiting all day for night to come so I could make new friends when the night came alive, to try to be part of the crowd; I regretted leaving my room, the empty room I had all to myself to drink alone the way I love to do, to drink to music and writing and bathe in the lowdown that anchors me in the way I love and hate and love to suffer. I was over it, I emptied my bottle and slunk out.

Big Sur, Jack Kerouac, Jack London and Magic Mushrooms

Jack Kerouac’s book Big Sur completely altered my direction in life before I ever read it.

It took three readings of On the Road before Kerouac captured me. I first borrowed it from a friend in fall of 2008, and I didn’t understand why On the Road was a must read. My mind certainly wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t in the right place in life. There’s always that special moment when a thing really rings true. Truer than it ever could have. I really wanted to understand why the Beat Generation and On the Road was such a big deal, so I read the book again in Spring 2009.  I really enjoyed it the second time around. It was exciting – fresh, yet had the yellowing feel of a time long past. I looked up a list of Kerouac’s other novels.  Big Sur struck me as a curious title, though I never bothered to look further in to it and I put Kerouac on hold for a year.

I read it for the 3rd time in 2010 and became thoroughly curious about this man Kerouac. I felt like I understood why this was such an important book. It was a moment in time. It was the start of something big. I immediately thought of Big Sur. BIG SUR.  What an odd name.  It took me a month or so before I decided to google Big Sur, at which I point I found it was a paradise 5 hours away from Los Angeles.

The first picture I saw of Big Sur was McWay Falls.

From that moment forward I was determined to visit the place the first chance I got.  It was all I ever thought about.

I was so very disappointed when I couldn’t find any copies of Big Sur in the College library, nor in the public library system.  Dharma Bums sounded just as curious a title as Big Sur so I checked it out from my school library (and I’m very glad that that was the second Kerouac book I read).

It was at this point that my fascination with Jack Kerouac solidified.

“See the whole thing is a world full of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ’em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures”

Quotes like that really did it for me, and the book is loaded with them. Aside from the insight throughout the book, the overall story was a good read.

I also checked out Jack London’s ‘The Road’.

The Road turned me on to tramp/hobo culture. Plenty of vignettes about London’s days as a hobo, riding the rails and traveling around the US in the late 1800’s. Such an interesting period in time. The lifestyle really gripped me.

It gripped me so much so that I planned my first hitchhiking trip to Arcata, CA a few months later (which I’ll talk about in another post)

I read The Road and Dharma Bums before and during my first trip to Big Sur. It was my first travel experience without parents. I planned it out and executed. It was a very liberating feeling.

My girlfriend and I put some camping gear and food in her car and set off. We took the pacific coast highway (CA-1). Such a beautiful drive.

We stopped at a few random beaches in Santa Barbara. We made a pretty cool side trip to the Guadalupe Nipomo Dunes –  the largest remaining dune system south of San Francisco and the second largest in the U.S. state of California according to Wikipedia. I recommend visiting it if you have the time.

 

It took us about 8 hours to get to Big Sur with the few stops we made. What a beautiful winding drive it was. .

We camped at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, among redwoods and banana slugs. The air was so so clean (especially coming from Los Angeles).

We brought some (magic) mushrooms with us, and we spent the next day exploring different parts of the Big Sur stretch deciding on the perfect place to take them.

We went to Point Lobos State Reserve. You can spend a few hours there, I highly recommend visiting. You can park outside and enter for free, or park inside and pay a small fee (which helps maintain the reserve).

I was looking forward to visiting China Cove

While it was certainly the perfect place to take mushrooms, there were too many people around for the type of trip we were interested in. We wanted solitude in a serene setting.

***Big Sur Tip***

If planning a visit, do it in the dead of winter (it doesn’t get very cold at all). There are much less people in the winter than in the warmer months (we drove through Big Sur at another time in August and the entire stretch of Big Sur was packed with people. It had an amusement park sort of feel. It tends to lose it’s magic in those conditions, I think)

After Point Lobos we drove to Andrew Molera State Park and hiked the Creamery Meadows Trail to the Beach. We had to cross the Big Sur River (which we figured was a sort of baptism when we ate the shrooms in the river the next day). It’s about a mile hike to the beach and at the point we were free to walk along the beach as far as the tide would allow. It was peaceful and devoid of people. It had a very nice magic about it and we decided this was the place.

There’s always a sort of nervous anticipation the day you’re going to take mushrooms. It’s the idea that your visual perception will warp a bit – that you’ll see the earth breath, and the sand swim like snakes. It’s the idea that you might feel nauseous at first. Or the idea that  this ride is four hours long and you can’t get off. It’s the idea that the words that come out of your mouth won’t sound like words at all, just general sounds and you might think – “does she understand what I just said? did I just sound crazy? Maybe I’m tripping. Of course I’m tripping” and then you proceed to laugh uncontrollably the way children can so easily do. It’s the sound of a bird’s tweet shooting through the air like a psychedelic arrow and attaching some sort of significant meaning to that bird, that ever so watchful bird. It’s stealing a glance into the eyes of another human and feeling their feelings and taking a peak at their thoughts – that raw nervous or joyful or pensive moment that reflects so strong in the eyes. It’s the experience of time slowing down so that you can feel the pregnant seconds in a minute in an hour in four or five hours. It’s yawning uncontrollably and feeling so damp all over – very amphibious.  It’s realizing that you’re a human and that everything is really very beautiful, and that you’re alive on a planet spinning in space and everything is alive. And when you come down from the trip, it’s the feeling that you’re coming back from a secret timeless place on the earth that you can enter at will and come back better for it – cleansed, healed, real, unreal.

Imagine all that on a vibrant green bluff along a desolate stretch of pristine and desolate coast

We hung out on the bluff for about an hour before descending and continuing down the beach (I should mention – There were sand fleas everywhere on the beach! We couldn’t sit still, we constantly had to move and cover ourselves. It was miserable at first. So we kept walking and staying close to the water when we happened upon a tiny waterfall coming off a very climbable part of the bluff)

We walked for what seemed like miles down the beach – through beach caves and over big handfuls of rocks that were only exposed at low tide – past crabs and starfish and anemones – until we reached a very ominous part of the beach where the sand dropped in such a steep and sudden manner and the waves crashed down and pulled back toward the sea with such a crazy force. The tide was coming in and it seemed like a perfect time to start the journey back to reality.

Back at the campground me and my girlfriend reflected on the trip and basked in the afterglow around the actual glow of the campfire. We slept well to say the least.

The next day we packed and head home. We made sure to stop and hike Limekiln SP (which is one of my favorite spots in Big Sur).

We visited the famous McWay Falls in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park which is the picture I posted in the beginning of the post

I feel like the picture makes it seem much more paradisiacal, but it really is a gorgeous place to visit. It would be a treat to hang out at the bottom where the fall meets the sea.

We stopped at Jade Cove and spent an hour hounding for jade that washes up from the beach. Our last stop was a stretch of beach where we hung out with an elephant seal colony. We had sandwiches and watched them laze on the beach, pretty much close enough to touch them (when we tried to touch the babies the alpha male would come thumping up and barking so we stopped).

Unfortunately you can’t visit that stretch of beach anymore but you can still sea the colony of elephant seals from a viewpoint a little further down the road in San Simeon. It’s also unfortunate that we don’t have any pictures (our camera must’ve died)

Coming back to Los Angeles was a drag. It had such a grey fast paced energy to it. Strangers didn’t smile or say hello. It stunk. It’s crazy how you can get so used to a thing.