From shipwreck, to Lama head-on….from Caribbean, to Andes, from yachts to bikes. The is a lot more to the Americas, than America. I take up, where I left off, washed up in Cartegena, Colombia.
Cafe Havana. For me, that’s how Cartegena began, and, how Cartegena ended.  Bookmarks of character.

After the gruelling negotiations and then the panga, jeep and bus hike, from the wounded Ave Maria, the first place to introduce me to Colombia’s finest city, was Cafe Havana. A week to the day, and just hours before the dawn taxi run to the airport, Cafe Havana is where it ended. Chapter 1, at least.

Cafe Havana says a lot about Cartegena. On a prime corner in the subprime Getsemani, Cafe Havana is to salsa, what CBGB’s was to rock, in NYC. Only open from Thursdays, and with the band kicking in after 11, Cafe Havana is a house of swinging smile, salsa style.

Around the walls, old posters beam joy from the faces of the greats of salsa, making a nice change from the sullen, oh so cool posters, of the rock bands.

Outside, the cool and coked up doorman negotiate the street. You can get anything you want, at Cafe Havana’s doorstep. Across the street, the dealers hustle pot, coke and coca cola. 20m down the street, the whores giggle amongst themselves, awaiting a man whose base chakra rules his wallet.

The faces of the old, Spanish colonial facades whisper, “I’ve seen it all before’, in their washed out limewash tones.

It wasn’t long before we had secure a hole in wall home, in my case, a room, shuttered and barred,  inches from Getsamani, madness -central.

Getsamani. What a great name for a place, all about get za money, honey. There are more street vendors, hustlers, hookers and hardware working Getsamani, than outside the gates of the 1975 Bangkok Hilton.

I love it. Not so good for sleep, sure. Especially when the touts started blowing their profits up their nose, and washing it down with rocket fuel. For them,  the daily grind either ended in tears, or asleep on a corner.

Everyone’s addiction is well catered for, from gambling, to pet care on the piss.

There are plenty of cities where it’s fun, in the maddest street in town, but in Columbia, madness takes on a whole new demeanour.  Madness, whilst noisy at times, is a more gentle art, in the all accepting Colombia. After Pablo Escobar, what could really be a problem? Even killing Pablo Escobar was a cool blood sport, not far removed from a soccer obsession. “YES! ITS A GOAL! STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES”….AND THE AK47′S ARE RUNNING ONTO THE FIELD! US: 1….. COLUMBIA :   NIL!”

But Cartegena is not just all about the mad, inner circle of Getsmani.  Everything most people outside think of Colombia, is not true. Seemingly, all you have to do is mention the word Colombia to most westerners, and the impacts of years of propagandist media kicks in, and all most people think is , 1. coke…. 2 danger….and  3…they haven’t got to 3 yet. I was the same. But unending stories from yachties and backpackers, coming out of Colombia, told glowing stories. The only risk in Colombia, as the cable TV adds run, is that you won’t want to leave. It’s an almost believable add.

Let me describe Cartegena. Cartegena was once the main Spanish trading city in the Caribbean, and compared to say Portobello, Galle Fort, Cochins old city,  this colonial walled city take the cake, both for its preserved beauty, its size, and its daily spunk.

Cartegena is not just a well preserved antique, its alive with street stalls, bars and cafes, and the old city is used, not just observed. You can wander for days , soaking it all in, and in my case, having spent 5 years hanging around a faculty of architecture, and with a one-time family interest architectural restoration, there were joys to my eyes that others missed, whilst licking their ice creams. I must admit to having spent much of my time in the city, looking up, hoping I was not about to step into  an open drain, as each building had its own unique facade, with their little romantic balconies, held up by beams, thick enough to constitute a forest in one joist.

Harbours wind in and out of the city walls, in a Venetian way, but with only one entrance navigable, if an invader made it into the harbour, he could be filled with canon shot fast.

It does seem a bit strange, that whilst the US pretends to be spending squillions on cleaning up coke in Columbia, that personal possession of 5g of coke, and 15 g of pot, is fully legal. Go figure.

It reminds me of Thailand in the 70’s and 80’s when Nam R&R was the order of the day, drugs were everywhere,  and whilst the US used the pretence of cleaning up the opium infusion, it was really using Thailand for a staging point to hammer the powdered gold, out of the golden triangle. In US body bags. Charming.

Its pretty  much the same deal here. The characters and countries have just got different stage names.

Firstly, we have the excuse.  The war on drugs. ( more like the war funded by drugs). In Thailand, it was smack. In Columbia it’s coke.  Like Thailand, where there were really no big poppy crops inside their borders, the same is true here in Colombia, where the coca fields are mainly in Bolivia.

Like, Thailand, we had two handy boogie men, one internal, one external. You must design these plots, with one core aim in mind, namely, justifying the existence of big budgets for corrupt military and police, and, all their local narco mates in designer suits, and, in government.

In Thailand, we had those rotten commie bastards, in Cambodia, and under the bed, and here in Columbia, we have the new, leftist, Latin America, who have the audacity to hassle Coca Cola.

In Thailand, we had a convenient bunch of hill tribe separatists: in Colombia, fuc me, we have FARC. Both groups provide a marvellous service, justifying a police state, huge arms spending, and loads of jobs for the boys. If the lame separatists lie low, you can always pour a bit of petrol on one of their nests, light the match, and watch the military expenditure requestions soar.

Besides, how the hell would their still be an Ave Maria, had it not been for military needing something to kill the time by. Killing innocent FARC relatives can be quite an inconvenience at time, especially when the footy is on.  Rescuing gringos with crew members in bikinis in much more fun.

So, before James Bond script writers even came up with the idea, the live and let live of Columbia rocks on.

You can get anything you want, in Colombia’s

Getsamani.  For example, I needed a solution the dead Croc syndrome.  So I got a boot maker.

No, not to make me some cowboy winkle pickers.

They make 5,000,000 , $50 Crocs each year, and these squishy , rip-off clogs must account for several deaths, and at least a thousand hospital victims , bed bound at any one time, as anyone who has worn Crocs for any time, will know they are more slippery than Don Rumsfield when things look smooth, but get wet. I’m told they have been banned in some places, probably England, as it always wet there.

I had tried taking blade to the soul, but I needed to go further, so I now possess the world’s only re-souled rubber crocs, and baby, I now stick like shit to a blanket, when things get shitty.

Then I needed a makeover of the face, to take on more of a trendy, intellectual looser look, but outdoing all those fashionistas, who now use retro,  Ray Ban Wayfarers frames, for reading glass frames.

Deep in those street vending lanes, you can find the real deal frames.  Somewhere between the Malcolm X look, and the Victa Lawm mower’s CEO, I have two sets of reading glasses, that put the geek into retro.

I needed more. Like a haircut, and a beard trim. A beard trim is an experience, to this point in my life, that I have not had. Finally my goatie is more good than goat. Although, I admit, it’s a work in progress. At least I no longer, don’t mindlessly shave it off when I get my occasional bimonthly hot shower.

Then, I needed a tailor. At 53, TV and other flatscreens take a toll on your six pack. Sailing on daily basis, on the other hand, soon removes any of those love handles, lacking love.

So everyone of my dacks, as we call them in Oz, had to have 60mm removed from the waist. I’m no fan of the exposed arse crack look, and whilst it may be a fashion statement, no more or less emeritus than looking like a 19 50’s industrialist geek, falling pants are just not my style, so now, my jeans fit.

Then a hat, I figured (being that I will soon be at 4000m), would be needed, so I can either look like a typical dimwit in a lama fur headed sock,  or I could confuse everyone, with beret, half way between Andy Cap, and Charles De Gaul. In red. Either way, there was an element of dimwit in it.

Never ever wear the hat of the local country, when a tourist in that country. If I see another Gringo in Australia, wearing a Crocodile Dundee leather hat, I might just pull out one of those long blades.

At risk of getting caught in one of those, over-50’s moments, with my fly down, I had my shirts cut square, so  I can hang it out… the shirt that is, in style.

To elevate myself above the pimps rattling my bar, again, not the dick type, I moved to the only room In Getsamani, with a balcony, above it all. For a massive $12, I now had 20 more channels on the box, 3 beds, a bathroom, and a view. Life was good. I even got PBS, the only US cable programme, without redneck reactionaries trawling the sewers.

I had already had some personalised T shirts made. These I had embroidered, not screen printed, in the San Blas.

The exercise of translating my already out-there ideas, to a Kuna tribeswoman, had some interesting outcomes. For example, my ‘SAIL FAST, LIVE SLOW’, T shit came back ‘SALI FAST, LIVE SLOW”. Sali?

I haven’t yet had time to fully explain, but I have become disillusioned at the Obama phenomena, once I realised that his appointment of dangerous madmen like Bresinski,  the 1970s  co-author of the Iluminati hand book,  recently revisited in  Bush’s ,” Project for the New America”, was now the US’s leading global strategist, and you don’t need to be Einstein to realise that there is no CHANGE  about Obama, he’s the Iluminati’s new man on the ground despite his seemingly liberal, articulate agenda. Remember Bill Clinton, one of the US’s best Republican presidents?

And the list of the Black Hands’ appointments within Team Obama is sickening, to anyone with an understanding of matters Black, and I aint taking Afro..

We have been conned, once again. But you can’t con all of the people, all of the time, and so my Kuna tribeswoman, made some appropriate changes to my 2008 electioneering, Obama T shirt. What once had a picture of a soulful Obama, with ‘HOPE’ emblazoned across it, now reads, ‘DONT JUST HOPE’.

All you liberal greenies out there, don’t just sit in front of your 42 inch screens, soothed by a new president who sure, now knows know the difference between Australian and Austria, but  Obama, my little darlings, has done some deals with the devil, and we, the world will pay.

For example. Grand scam number one goes like this.

There is an ‘international banking crisis’. The sky is about to fall. But what really happened, was that shitty little Iluminati pervert, Greenspan, set up the game , so every bank in the world could pump credit down the throats of the world, fattening us up like ducks headed for duck pate. No one noticed, that security for the loans, was in fact, vapour, devised by some, too-smart-by-halves, Harvard graduate. The money they pumped out, um, it really did not exist.

So bailout the banks is the solution. Now that makes a lot of sense, atop a few government spending sprees.

All of a sudden, we woke up to the fact that a shitty workers cottage in the city, is infact,  still just a shitty workers cottage, and maybe it’s not worth the $3million it cost. So now it’s worth a mill and falling. And there are no more fat incomes. And we are broke. So what does Team Obama do…its blows what is left in the coffers, on handouts to Gordon Gecko, and with a trill or two more Chinese credit, blows it on useless spending. Now there’s logic. Now we are well and truly fucked. The money’s all gone, the debt is bigger than ever, and pensioners have a new flat screen. What economic genius.

But team Obama has a darker plot, being directed by the luminaries such as the dear sweet Rothchilds.

Charming those Rothchilds, funding death on unseen levels, with family members in Berlin, Paris and London, funding all sides in both WW1 and 2, till about 100 million of us had been slaughtered.

But today, the Rothchilds have an even more clever plan. Why do you need a son in each of London, Paris and Berlin, when with a centralized world banking system, you can control government spending  through one organisation. As the Rothchild’s matriarch once quipped, who needs to control a country’s government, when you can control its money instead. And to any of you naive types, the Federal Reserve is neither owned or controlled by the America people.

So how would you go about building one world banking system? I reckon, the best way to get action, is to  create a big problem, and then come up with a U beaut solution. Greenspan did his part, creating the problem. It’s now over to Team Obama, to solve the crisis, and the way to do it, is to completely remake the world financial system in the mould of its makers, the Rothchild’s.

If you think we are being fucked over now, wait until the next big whamo, when Brzezinski’s little ‘Project for the New America’ kicks in when even more shit hits the fan.

As one commentator put it, America is being used to destroy America. Does anyone seriously believe, that fat, overpriced western countries, buried in debt to the Chinese, can come out of this trap, ontop? Mind you, as soon as the Rothchilds get what they want, with Obama and Gordon Brown busy doing their handiwork just this week, forming a world banking control mechanism, the Rothchilds will take their hands momentarily of our throats, but not for long, as the Rothchilds, more than anyone, know what 2012, and consciousness evolution, means. To be kind to the Rothchilds, they are a needed player in the game unfolding, bless them.

Oh, and just about the only thing the Chinese can’t beat us at, is software…and by the way, ever used Window’s Vista? If i had a hammer, I’d reshape this software.

So yes, my Kuna tribeswoman, she stitched well, adding ‘DONT JUST HOPE’ modifications to the Obama T shirt, as maybe we need to do more than just HOPE, maybe we should be shitting ourselves?

But maybe not. From here, in the main plaza in Peru’ Lima, with a hangover recovering expresso under my belt, what will be, will be. As the mystics and sages say, everything is just perfect, just as it is, right here, right now.

Once you get out on the road, away from those flat screens, it soon becomes apparent, that the consciousness, it’s way different to the politics.

The reason I am in Peru, is unusual. Back in the late 1950’s the end came to the world’s main font of  spiritual enlightenment, when the Chinese closed down Tibet, and the Dalai hoofed it outta there.

On the very same day, that Mr Lama made tracks, the lamas of  South America pricked their ears. At both ends.

Tibet has been the seat of all the Vedic teachings that have influenced the world for centuries. At the seat of this influence, was a male energetic vortex, that saw, amongst other things, a rule of the world by men, for thousands of years. But now, baby, it’s the chic’s turn. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius: water, the female element, is about to reshape earth.

But the male vortex of Tibet, it is no more, and from the 50’s ,through all sorts of indigenous ceremonies and insiders efforts, the vortex has slowly, and painfully, moved like the Kundilini, or Serpent of Light, that it is, snaking from one mountain top area, to another.

Thousands now know what has gone down, and thousands, myself included, are here to sniff the air, as the new spiritual hot spot, here on earth, has passed through the Andes, and I plan to track it. And I am not alone. Even here in on the coast of Peru, my “Friend’s” hostel, is packed with travellers in the know.

If you don’t know what is unfolding here on earth, you are running out of time to find out.

But  I admit, I had no idea what was happening in South America, and I still don’t. For example, when I got all washed up in Columbia, I was surprised to find that Peru was right next door to Columbia. That’s how ignorant I am.

So I bought a ticket,that even confused the airline I bought it from. It was $400 to fly to Peru, one way from Columbia. But in the world of internet madness, with the aid of some sly ( and cute) Aussie backpacker, who had been a Mexican tour guide for a few years, I found that if I flew from Cartegena to Bogata, then on to Medillon, then back to Bogota, and then across the mountains to Peru, it would only cost $171. Return. Go figure.

So I bought the ticket, drank at Cafe Havana till before dawn, and headed to Cartegena airport. At the check in, I pointed out to the staff, that they were about to fly me to Medillin, and back, all in the next few hours, and if they had any sense, they could just fly me to Bogata, let me out for a day tour, and them get me to Lima.

How the fuck I could scam their system, to do all of this for $171 instead of $800, had the managers fucked, but hey, I had a valid e-ticket.

So after a few strong Columbia coffees, I found myself wandering the streets of Bogata. From all I had heard, I had expected to find some drug crazed ghetto, in the mountains, but much to my surprise, I found a very sexy , European style city, something like the Basque region, 1980, in pristine, cultured format.

All this sophistication seemed to warrant a visit to Columbia’s National Museum, to visit Incan mummies, and pompous portraits of Spanish fuckwits. I had just the day before, visited the Museum of the Spanish Inquisition in Cartegena, and I had, in consequence, a none too amorous attitude to the Spanish and the Roman Catholics, after a detail inspection of head crushing screws, breast ripping tongs, throat piecing forks, and little pieces of gym equipment designed to give you a little bit more extra stretch, that I get out of my daily yoga practise.

Then it was back on the plane, over the Amazon, and down the coast to Lima. Lima, on first impression, was a shithole. The hangover, and the lack of sleep didn’t help tint the impression, as some crazed taxi driver showed me how medium strips, one ways streets,( the wrong way) and footpaths, were in fact all part of a purposefully built personal  race track, where video replays of terminal car crashes are the expected norm.

To get to the, (then to me unknown), rather flash Miraflores and Baranco, one takes the coast road. The coast road, runs below filthy dirt cliffs, along miles of grey, grubby beachfront, where the city’s garbage is loosely compacted to turn a coastline into a dark seen from Blade Runner.

Fog dimed the scene, so as I  really could not tell, for miles, if I  was looking out over a cloudy industrial valley, or in fact,  the ocean.

Turning up a pass through the cliffs, at the top of the cliffs, appeared a whole new scene, of manicured high rise suburbs, and some very fun and funky scenes.

It was not till morning, and with it some new found sunshine, as I paced out, in pursuit of a cliff top yoga spot, that I realised I was indeed in a flash part of town.

Back at the Friends’ hostel, in wandered the delightful Vita, with whom I spent the day, wandering and lunching in the glamous surrounds, complete with DYI , backpacker dinner partay, and drinks till late, at salsa central, Baranco, in the company of Chilean surf champs, US sailing captains, and French travel hounds. As you do.

And tomorrow, I get high. Very high, and a lot cooler: in Cuzco. Them there spiritual mountains, they are a beckoning.

Peru has taken me by such surprise, that I really have not had a chance to catch my breath…literally. Above 3000metres, oxygen is a little light on. One minute I am meant to be sailing the Caribbean, next, I’m in the Andes. From helm, to handlebars. What the?
Right here, right now, I am lying behind the thick mud brick walls of a hostal deep inside an Andean valley. This afternoon, I fell asleep on the steps of a mountain church on the sun warmed steps waiting for passing showers to do their thing in the valley below.  Whilst Cusco crawls with tourists, just a few hours south, I am the only non-Andean in the valley, a valley full of Inca remains and Peruvian farmers.  200cc of semi agricultural motorbike, at 20 bucks per day is my lone companion. The Dell had to be left as security for the hired Ag  bike, as I need my passport for a fling into Bolivia…or whatever country is next, so I am typing away on my email phone….being I am a two finger typist anyway. God knows why the caps lock KEeps engaging.

Outside is San Pedro village… a valley peppered with other smaller villages. An soft afternoon tour by my inconspicuous, local looking mota, revealed back valley beauty I can’t aptly verbalise, given some personal handicaps of the digestive and low oxygen nature, and combined, if I were a lighter, I would need a dozen flint strikes to spark.
Gratefully my new Sony camera was brought back from extinction by some micro fiddling Peruvian, besieged in Cusco by others of a similar digital demise, so maybe my photos can make up for my lack of spark.  But sadly, in an all Christian crowd, watching the body of Christ, (the fibreglass one), ( I am the Way, the Truth, and the Mould), being lugged into the biggest basilica on Easter,  and at the trips end, one of these devotees took it upon himself, to pick a pocket or two, picking my repaired Sony, ripping of with it, 400 of the most amazing landscape photos I have ever taken, breaking my heart, and infuriating me, but making me realise, photos are a thing of the past, not the now, which I add, barley helped relax my annoyance, let alone allow you, my reader, to see, to some degree at least, what I saw of the Andes by bike. A few Machu Pichu shots taken on my mobile phone remain trapped in the phone, as I hunt electrical shops for the elusive connector. I hate that.
Cusco was the Andean base camp of choice for Incas, Spanish, and now the world’s North Face wearing tourists….and it is indeed a gorgeous antique of the urban kind…in around the old city, if nothing else.  The cobbled streets are so tight that you have to exhale and hug the walls when the go-cart sized taxis squeeze past. It is, to the technically minded, the naval of the world. Pachacutec in all his Incan glory, using raid and rip-off politics mixed with imperial benevolence, demolished and rebuilt Cusco, using an interlocking masonry technique that indeed, got the wind up the horses, in Chariots of the Gods.  With the chutzpah of Van Daniken, and with my 5 year qualification of as Bachelor of Building, (more bachelor than builder) I can assert,  with certainty, that either anti-gravitational materials handling techniques were used to lift 20 tonne polyhedron stones, hewn on up to 30 faces, which all aligned together so closely, that a pin couldn’t be set in the gaps, or alternatively,  I assert, that the shithead Pachacutec enslaved whole families to spend their entire lives shaping up maybe one or two of the huge stones, amongst the millions laid…either way, something cruel or weird built Cusco’s foundations. These interlocking, polyhedrons that that are the only remaining earthquake proof foundation structures in Cusco, make the Spanish stonework, built atop the Incan bases, look positively rough arse. As for the concrete and mud brick adds-ons’ of the recent tourist industry, well hey, the next earthquake, due soon, should make short shift of what isn’t 700 years old, and Incan interlocking.

Out here in the real Peru, rooms come at 4 bucks per night, with no heating, and cold, and frost bite inducing showers. But the thick mud brick walls do wonders by way of insulating protection. Little food for a few days, to combat some new Peruvian gut bug, sees me a little prone to the shivers, but nothing that 20 blankets can’t remedy…and fuc, I thought I was going be tanning in the Caribbean, until we got all washed up in Colombia.
Mud is all the go here. Everyone makes their house out of it. The river runs red with it, feeding the Amazon a good dose of mud, daily . The patina of everyone’s skin and clothes is mildly mud caked, and hey, with no hot showers, I’m with the local’s too…especially travelling by Ag bike.

Dogs do designer dirt. Mules are in on it…as are hairy cows, old women and lamas. Hey, when in Rome, get with the mud, man.

I had to go one further recently, with both ice and mud…and lost.

It all started well.  Then it got all too hard.
There is a thin valley with rapids and a lone rail track connecting Cusco, the navel, with Machu Pichu, the something or other chakra.

Regrettably, in this tight valley, there was no room left for a road…so the road to Machu Pichu is…as they say…over the top. Armed with the then latest Honda 250cc dirt bike, the sweet little mota fared well in the oh so scenic climb out of Cusco, and after the first day’s ride into Ollytaytambo, I was left so exhilarated, that I could have easily spend the rest of my life touring the world by mota bike.

Then, the next day, things got seriously Matterhorn.
Talk about up. I have never suffered vertigo but when bike riding morphed with base jumping, I got edgy….where the edge was just a second’s front wheel slip on an unseen rock fall, awaiting you around every third hairpin. And there were more hairpins than my mum’s dresser drawer. Needless to say, the scenery made the Alps look more lame, than a lama.

‘Gasp’…that’s probably the best world for it.
The endless climb through treeless tundra was punctuated by the odd, frozen stone hut. From the odd hut, wandered the odd Andean farmer, often a woman, bustled around the hips with more cloth than the Savoys opening curtains, and from the waist up, the postcard colour collage in reds and aqua’s that define Peruvian fashion, alpine style. Those San Blas Kuna’s…they have colour competitors.
It seemed, oddly, that I had this scary, but magnificent mountain road, all to myself….and sadly, unbeknownst to me…I more or less did have the road to myself. And why? Well, somewhere between K2 and Everest, a semi frozen local on a small bike coming towards me,  kindly waved me down… and in a mix of pigeon Spanish and roadside charades…it became apparent that the reason why the road was vacant, was because ahead, it was blocked by a landslide deep enough to bury 20 trucks. But no one had told me…albeit thinking back….those weird flapping waves by the odd passing ute must have had more meaning, than met my eye.  By this stage, the wind chill, the fog and the snow had got the better of my onion like clothing. I thought I was ready, with a clothing set for all seasons, including a yachty jacket, a bike jacket, a wet suit jacket, and a range of North Face under layers. I froze. This made me nervous, knowing I was planning 4 months on a bike in Europe….eek. But then this was a lot higher than Europe.
So it was to the frozen mercy of a small stone hut I fled. Stone huts without mortar, and with no trees for an open fire, are hardly comfortable and warm . But who am I to complain, when greeted by sandal wearing local, of the old woman kind, who despite being toothless, god awful ugly, and seemingly blind… was having a hoot of a day. The clay stove blackening the already windowless hut was good enough to sit on as well s cook on…my arse being that cold. Who needs a fridge in these houses, as all sorts of skinned, dead animals, hanging from the rafters, attested.
Life restoring coca tea, 4 potatoes and some bone du jour, mit rancid meat, made lunch. politely  skipped the rancid meat, but the bugs got me anyway, a few days later. If it’s meat here, it’s likely disgusting lama, making my semi veg diet look like a survival technique.

If you could only see how freezing it is making your way to the banos here outside my room, you would understand more of the downside to upside-down intestines…. there is a small internal courtyard below in mud brick and barnyard format, where grandad’s beanie clad skull watches on with amusement, as I plod to the bog, hitting my head on each pygmy sized door head enroute.

There was, I noticed, some taped and tangled wiring heading to an electrocuting shower head, and for a buck, I was under it. The towel they gave me made me dirtier than when I got under, but hey, I have my western habits, including shaving in the shower. Forget shampoo…it was too cold for that addition. In my room, a rabid application of wax and coconut oil greased the skin parts exposed to the motorcycle adventures, and presto, it’s time for breakfast. I add, no end of fatty skin protection could stop my face aging 5 years in 2 weeks of Andean bike riding. Girls, beware.

Buying my own porridge, the daft cook turned the packet a  soup of the consistency of skim milk.  All the Peruvian cooks  did this to my porridge, despite my protestations.  But I wasn’t going to be conned into believing that a ‘continental breakfast’ (a roll and coffee) had anything more than 10 minutes of sustenance in it,besides, the ‘continental” is the breakfast of the addicted only, whether it be addiction to cigarettes, caffeine or booze: the reason why people do ‘continental’, is simply because their addictions have them so fucked by morning, that that is all they can stomach.

However, as the only gringo in a non English speaking village, there was little point complaining.
You would have heard of Machu Pichu, and regrettably, so has every other tourist on earth. Yes. Machu Pichu is a must see, and accordingly, the Peruvians  $milk it for every cent they can get out of us…charging $75 for the $5 train ride in, and bleeding you at every point along the way, until I could not bear to think about it. Then, at around 10 am, to salt the wounds, when busloads of neo crippled, luxury tourists arrive, it is indeed a sad sight of overfed, nearly dead, rubber necks, making sacrilegious, the sacred site.
But the beauty and majesty of the holy citadel is unsurpassed, here on earth.
Machu Pichu is bedecked with a sophistication and cosmic understanding that insults the trite interpretation, that the current conspiracy of lies manifest, spurned from what is accepted of modern archaeological doctrine. No one noticed that it was the Iluminati controlled Fabien Society that made all the scholarship grants and subsequent Ivy league professorial appointments of pre war western society,  only promoting views that simplified pyramids to mere tombs, and Incas to mere fancy stone masons.

Accordingly, Machu Pichu’s historical interpretation is to me, an infuriating insult. My sly chats with Incan guides on the side, concurred with my more multidimensional and awestruck view of the temples and their construction and their purpose, yet just as the evil Spanish Inquisitors  burnt and buried the Incan truth in their day, don’t be deluded into thinking it’s any better today, and if you inquire, you will find it is the same family bloodlines of the Spanish rulers of 1550, that are the Black Hand controllers of today’s society, dishing up lies about the real truths of earlier civilisations, as they bleed us into our CNN stupor. But their days are numbered, and they know it, as there is just too much weird and unanswered information arising, that debunks the absurdist simplifications of today’s archaeological bullshit.

Yes, some say, ladies and gentlemen, that there is a mother earth consciousness, and with here, there is a father sun, and if you think climate changes is all about 4 atoms per 10,000 of CO2, we are all in for some big surprises. But we still deem Incan understanding of these planetary consciousness matters, as pagan delusion?
I’ve just abandoned the porridge soup and daringly, from a dysfunctional, hose style digestive process, and  ordered two fried eggs.
So back to Machu Pichu. It’s not all about grotesque and ignorant tourism. It’s a very special spot, also about energy and reverence. I add, it must have been one very funky, switched on spot to live. I’m kinda jealous. Some interpretations say it was heavily weighed with princesses and virgins, increasing my lower chakra envy. And in terms of a setting…the views are mind blowing.

A few passing mountain showers, and soon the touristica rabble is dispersed, and what remains are a handful of those in the know, tucked into coves and temples in quiet meditation, soaking up what Machu Pichu is all about.
Having departed Ollytaytambo, at 4 am for the climb, and leaving the mountain site late, I had all the time in the world to sit quietly in the coves, where once, offerings were made to the gods above, the gods here on earth, and the gods below… and in some vain sort of consciousness offering…I offered me, to a world of peace and compassion, sorta’ thing.  Not that I am a pure white lama, sorta’ offering, I come with some blemishes.

It sounds corny, but it was deeply peaceful thing, and I was not alone in my mountain meditations. Not everyone is just looking for a photo opportunity, some want a shot at redemption, and many now know what is unfolding in the acceleration of consciousness, and can see deeper than CNN, world recession, and a wander round some old rocks.

The eggs looked shitful and tasted fab.  But I indeed can’t wait for Asia, as most of the Americans; both North and South, are culinary challenged. You don’t come here for the food, that’s for sure.

A day of stillness up at Machu Pichu had a rude, evening awakening, when I was told that the departing train left from up the mountain, and not from where it had arrived, lower down the hill in Aguas Calientes, where I was waiting at 7pm, for a train departing at 7pm. The mad dash through the markets and train station, with sprinting train conductors in the lead, ended in a wild jump onto a moving train, followed by 20 minutes of heavy breathing in the fogged up car back to Ollytaytambo. Never rush anything at 3000m.

In the quaint English garden of my Ollytaytambo hostal, was the motorbike of a tall, lanky, ‘Sir Hillary’ looking, Englishman, named Malcolm. Malcolm was on a short jaunt from Argentina to Alaska, after spending the past 26 years sailing around the world, 5 of which he spent working as an architect of some distinction, being the only architect to address the Australian floor of Parliament, with his idea, for example. With 8 grandchildren, at age 70, it was a sight to behold when Malcolm declared he was about to make a crowd beating B line, climbing the near vertical Machu Pichu lookout, leaving 20-somethings in his wake. Go Malcolm. At 53, there is still hope for me yet. I too could spend 27 years travelling the world, on a work-to-travel ratio of 1year 5. I add, discipline, hardiness and daring, are all needed fully experience the world, and by 50, most of us  Westerners have succumb to the soul destroying need for those little comforts and securities, as fear takes over from fun. So spending a few days with Malcolm, absorbing his rare attitude was indeed a treat. Our discussions varied from anchors, to bike touring stoves, to deeper issues of consciousness vs. intelligence. Bloody marvellous. We both headed off into the mountains, on our pack-kitted bikes, Malcolm’s small Honda looking the picture of minimalist excellence. Malcolm tells me he will likely use the money from the sale of his yacht, to buy a river barge in Europe, and maybe write a book, as his daily vista changes  more slowly by barge. I love him. Never settle down in front of a TV, its terminal.

But adventure travel has its price tag.

Like today.

Oh fuck. What a day.
From the retrospective fireside comfort of a small restaurant alongside Lake Titicaca……all I can say, is, thankyou God. Between here and Cusco, remain a few thousand stranded travellers, caught high on the alpine tundra….pinned down by blockades from what could only be called a massive civil insurrection….something I recall, I am neither insured for, or ready for, but hey, shit happens, and today, it happened to me.

A few years back, a marxist mob called Shining Path, led by a character with all the tact of Charles Manson, would rip locals off the bus, in this very area, (along with a few of us tourists), and then, would simply shoot them in the gutter. The area I had ridden into, had a nasty recent history, shall we say.
Lonely Planet rarely calls anywhere bleak. There is sunny side to everywhere. But bleak could amply describe the lives of the windowless enshrined Andean villagers, living so high that the only thing that will  grow there, are fucking lamas.
I don’t know what it is about summit passes, but of the three I have attempted so far, all have been disasters. Today’s was a mere four and an half kilometres high. No big deal if you don’t breath oxygen. But both bikes and humans burn O2 to make bacon. So at four kilometres high, 200 cc of Suzuki Ag bike was, shall we say, sub optimal, when it came to performance. But unlike the previous summit climbs, in Panama, and enroute to Machu Pichu, this time, I actually made it to the summit in one, unfrozen piece, and theoretically, it was all downhill from there.

My script writer had another plan.

Allow me a mo’ to slurp some of this cream of asparagus comfort food. The coca leaf and cola pre-dinner drinks did wonders.
So back to the snowy summit. Lamas…. I am no fan of lamas…they spit at you, and according to a certain Doctor Dolittle, can be two headed. In other words never trust a lama.
So on approaching a herd of the stupid fucas, it seemed appropriate to slow a tad.
But lamas will be lamas, and sure enough, one lama made the fateful Jonestown call, and made speed, not away from me, but at me. Result….a lama head-on…at about 50k/h. Bam. Thank the gods that I had asked the bike hirer to fit hand guards, otherwise I would be typing this rant with my toes, as lamas, at speed, hurt. I might add, I hope the fucking lama has a headache that lasts a month.  You don’t even get a bleat out of lama, they are not only stupid, they’re mute.

The bike was shaken, but not stirred, unlike me. Aside of a sacrificial, and trashed hand guard.

Over the next few days, I gave into my ‘never look like an idiot tourist’ rule, and bought a few alpaca scarves and jumpers (Europe is soon) in the vain and spiteful hope, that they sheared the stupid lamas of my wool, on the eve of winter.
Nonetheless, the ugly day had hardly begun.
The  tundra plains put the dirt into dirt poverty, and I was about to meet the civil discontent face to face….or more like, 500 faces glaring at my face.

I simply could not believe it, when once again, I had an odd feeling I was alone on the alpine highway, when, despairingly, in the distance, I could see yet another half mile line up of trucks.
Surely not another landslide?

Nope…this time it was a blockade.

Blockade?…I know blockades, I thought, as I weaved my way through the trucks and buses, to the head of the problem.
Having once kept 500 of my angry workers at bay, 30 years ago, surely another, angry, 500 head crowd could be cajoled into letting one happy smiley bikey through.  When one cannot speak much Spanish beyond numbers and greetings, there is a form of diplomacy that I would describe as the Jerry Lewis style, that is a sure fire technique. Pull faces, keep smiling, and throw in lots of, ‘grassy arses’, and ‘buenos dias’ and hey presto, the magic word…’passe’ will eventuate…and after some Evil Knievil bike jumps….I am through the  insurrection blockade.  Chuffed by surviving the lama hit, and being the only guy in 500 to make it through the blockade, it seemed an oral ovation, in helmet, of ‘Happy days are here again’, was appropriate. But shit happens, repetitively.
Like some kind of Irish joke, there was two of them, blockades that is.
So again…off with the helmet, and on with the Jerry Lewis facial diplomacy. And again, the ignorant laughing gringo is on his way. But, my   ‘way’, the road itself, soon turned ugly. It seemed word of discontent had infected the whole frozen Altiplano, and blockades soon became as frequent as yesterday’s farts, and for mile after mile, rocks were strewn across the road, with the odd lamppost and fire thrown in for good measure. Villages were flanked with thousands of disgruntled and pissed-off Peruvians….around a road where the only living traffic, was me. So it wasn’t long before eventually, some grumpy old Shining Path left over gave me the, no way mate, to my passage. So sitting there on my bike, surrounded by hundreds of angry faces, all looking like they wanted to torch my moto, it was time to upgrade my diplomacy. The looks of pain on the lined and suffering Andean faces, glaring and crowding around me, is a look of I will never forget. It made the painting of the potato eaters, look live a Nivea ad.

Empathy. That’s it, I figured as I found a spot to sit surrounded by as a many protestors as possible. Besides, I, like the locals, shared a common view about government. The one where the rich get richer, and the poor get the picture. This, it seemed would the technique de jour.
So after a dozen broken glass and boulder heaped blockages, manned by thousands of  rock-sling wielding locals, I was building confidence. I mean, who but some fool genius could talk his way through blockade after blockade other than Jerry Lewis on an Ag bike, with empathy? Hundreds in fact thousands remained trapped in their buses, trucks and taxis, impaled by protest, as I slithered through smiling.

After about 10 protracted blockade negotiations, I ran into a cyclist, kit in toe, peddling to America, and enquiring from whence he had peddled, as if I should have known, he said Ireland.  He was infact peddling around the world. As you do. And I thought I was mad. Recommending the Jerry Lewis, keep smiling style, we parted company on a bleak alpine plain, no one insight but fucking lamas. I bet he is stuck now, in some shithole, miles from sea level. He wasn’t, as his blog later attested.
The last blockade was the best. This one was armed to the nines with thousands of protestors….on one side, hundreds of stranded trucks, on the other, hillsides full of ex Shining Path protestors, their kids, and their grandparents. Everyone had the shits.

This one was gunna be the acid diplomatic test.
How, I pondered, could Jerry Lewis get through this one? It was a time for an adjustment in tactics, once again. It was time for some wannabee Che Guevara. Maybe some sorta, ‘Motor Cycle Diaries’, thing?.  I had two words in Spanish that I could recount as maybe workable…‘Viva! y Bueno!‘ It was a kinda’ all or nothing call. This blockade comprised about 4 rock and soil embankments over 150m laced with broken bottles, fires and large crowds.

So hand waving in the sky, helmet off, each blockade, I greeted with a hearty ‘bueno’, and the odd ‘viva!’ thrown in, on approach, and sure enough, not single grumpy officiado had the guts to block my passage, as much to my amused amazement, thousands of roadside protestors  cheered in support of my mindless rally cry. I of course had no idea what was the day’s, ‘cause celeb, but hey, apparently what I did had pleased the crowd. I mounted each rock pile victoriously. It was as much to my amazement, as the hundred of truckies gobsmacked at the other side of the last blockade, that I rode on through.

Tonight, the Peruvian news is blazon with the civil insurrection story, from Shining Path central, as thousands stay trapped in their cars, and as far as I can figure, having watched others fail, I am the lone freak who made it through. So fireside here in Puno, the red wine and coca drinks have a better than usual warming feel.

Winding though Puno streets, with illegible Lonely Planet strapped to the handle bars, today I choose the special treat hotel, where my bike currently adorns the foyer, and where, for an exorbitant 15 bucks…I enjoyed a 3O minute hot shower…a luxury I sure as hell thought was a bridge to far, out there in the dirt, of the dirt poor today

To date, I still have no details as to what was up the insurrection rectum.
But back maybe I plead more ignorance than is really plausible, as blind Freddy could see, that the poverty of the high Antiplano is a weeping injustice when compared to say Miraflores, in Lima, where lifestyle is more or less European, and apparently, where the principles of a caring and sharing governance pass like a bad fart in a court proceeding. It stinks, but no one dares talk about it.

But not all is turmoil and drama in the Andes.
Pulling out of the port city of Puno, if lakes have ports, I headed out along the frigid shores of the world’s highest lake.  Titicaca was to the Incas, the Sacred Lake. To the Uros tribe, Titicaca is just about all there is in life. Not even with a dry bit of turf to call home, the Uros found home, afloat on beds of reeds, strapped, bundled and re-laid regularly, such that, as long as the Uros could cut reeds, they had a home….and not just a paddock, but a hut, a roof and a boat, all made of reeds, and as if that was not enough, they eat the shit too. Who needs to be a ginger bread man, living in a ginger bread house, when the Uros can up the ante by throwing in a boat made of reeds too. A ginger bread boat would last as long as a biscuit in tea, but in the life that is ever renewed on Uros, a reed boat, that will take you a month to make, will last a year.  The original disposable society.

Like the Lilliputian  sized Kunas of San Blas, the wee Uros….ah….er…they were wee too, and so made to water, to avoid their enemies, as hey, in the history of Peru, it was nothing to find your head impaled on a spear, at the entrance to the town you were the mayor of yesterday ….along with the heads of your kids and neighbours.
But today, they don’t put the Uros head on a spear, they put an admission ticket on it, and today, the Uros have sold out to the Disneyland reed ride tour.  Indeed, the place is so badly overrun in a culture of tourist trinket, that in many ways, the place has sunk already.

So off to the Bolivian side of the lake, 200cc and me, we head.
I always thought those pathetic, mid life crisis, accountants on Harley Davidson’s, were too much to bear, when they wrapped scarfs around their heads, but hey, at 3600m high, through icy, lake chilled winds, I gave in, wrapping my head in my Kuna Yala scarf, and putting my helmet over the odd apparition. A few days later, I upgraded the scarf choice to Alpaca.

The border of Peru and Bolivia is small, bleak, bus stop, on the edge of the shared Lake Titicaca.  As for me, my police and immigration duties were through in a flash, as the lone border crossee, but the final government officials,  whose role i couldn’t figure, would not issue an entry permit to the Suzuki. Maybe a Suzuki is the modern day drug mule? Mine certainly performed like a mule on drugs.
So having found and hired a manger in which I could leave the mangy bike….I made for Bolivia by foot. It’s in places like Bolivia, that the type of tourist you meet, have been well and truly culled of those seeking basic Hilton comforts, something I found quite comforting, being that my daily fare included Lama head-ons, and not air-conditioned daiquiris. Here at last where some old school travellers.
It was only 20 cents and 15 minutes later, that I was in the dusty lakeside town of Copacabana, where dozens of idle fibreglass swans sat waiting for a fiesta of tourists to peddle their paddles. 5 bucks here, and you have room with a view of the lake, with a shower that will either electrocute you, or defrost you, often both.
Music and passion are always the passion, at the Copacabana…but just not this one. This ain’t Cuba.

So after an afternoon bidding on every old BMW bike on UK Ebay, I hit the sack, and in the morning, made for the wharf. To hell with places like Mecca…these days, spiritual tourism  all about the new, real deal hot spots. Isla del Sol is where is all began for the Incas, as their story goes. Of course despite the fact that Lake Titicaca remains one of the world’s hottest UFO spots, as with much of Shirley McLean’s Peru, banal materialists know better, if you believe CNN, and to think that Inca history is full  space ships, beings and leaders coming out of the lake and its heavens, we can dismiss the Inca stories as amusing mythology, even if we can’t explain the most simple engineering feats of the Incas, to this day. Any modern masons can easily demonstrate how to cut a curved, 30 sided, two tonne slab of basalt, and fit it together so finely that you would fold your micrometer finding a gap…. yeah, right. Or shift 20 tonne stones from mountain top to mountain top without a trail.
As I write, we are doodling across lake Titicaca at 4 knots, in some wonky boat copied in design from some 1960s Montecarlo brochure. I am just returning from Isla del sol, after 3 of the most calm and cosmic days of my journey. Inti the father sun god was a big feature of Incan belief systems.   As a passing resident of the island of the sun, it occurred to me that as we protestants are want to recite, something like, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name’….and here, ‘His’ name is Inti, and he is so hallowed, that you need sunblock.

Sacred sites take all manner of forms, and in Australia, for example a sacred site can simply just be a rock, or a waterfall. On Isla del Sol, it’s a few stones circles, a rock face oddly profiling a deity, and the remains of the stone hut attendees.
According to the Incan mythology, where I am currently buried in research, the creator god of all, arranged an energetic upgrade that seeded the Incas boom, using 3 players, one a star, Our Father Sun, (which art in heaven), along with Pacha Mama, mother earth, or Gaia, and last but not least, that sexy lover, the one than runs babes off their 28 day feet, the fertilizing moon. Between the 3 of them, after the catraphobic residue of the last fall, or shall we call it flood, a whole new stage was set for the Incas to boom based on basics, like sun to energise the corn and maize, earth to be the seed’s womb, and the moon to give cycle to growth.
Of course we CNN mob, dismiss planetary influences as astrological nonsense, yet are you telling me, if you are female, that your lunar menstruation alignment is caused by gravity? One day people will learn that climate change ain’t all about 4 particles in 10,000.

So from this sacred lake, via Isla del Sol, came the seeding of one of the most advanced nations known to history.

Those liars who are the Ivy league archaeology professors, try to tell us that ancient Samaria was the birth place of civilisation, 5000 years ago. It’s a bit embarrassing for their decaying lies, to recently find remains of more advanced cities under Lake Titicaca, in dive expeditions barely a few years old, where there remains outdate Samaria by a thousand years.  If the truth be known about Samaria, I am left wondering if Samaria is just an Illuminati, or Aryan poster promo, as Samaria is simply the Sum of the Aryans, where, if you a good bible believer, aliens called Anunuki came and fucked our maidens and bread up a slave race, tooling with our multidimensional DNA antenna, turning it off, such that we now call it junk DNA. Sorry, the DNA bit wasn’t from the bible…just the bit about aliens fucking our maidens to make a slave race. Hey, never question the ‘word of god’.

But I am also a weird quantum scientist of the fringe type.  So here we go again>>>
Energy, all that there is, comes in more shapes and sizes than meets the eye. Or the ear. Or the sense of touch. Infact, of all the energy forms we know of, we humans can sense a small fraction of one percent of what there is. Accordingly with quarks zipping in and out of this dimension without E, I don’t  Einstein’s permission, I think it is reasonable to suggest, that there are some types of energy that we (Tesla aside), have not fathomed yet.

That being the case, if an energetic occurrence occurs thousands of years ago, on Isla del Sol,  that helped boost and build  mighty Inca nation, who am I to dismiss Incan mythology as impossible madness.
So soak it up, was the order of the day, and whilst some folks can meditate their way down to quiet, I find sleep is fine too. Accordingly on Isla del Sol, I found some comfy spots to quietly nap in the sun, smack bang on the sacred site rock circles and fields, and just happily soaked it all in. I entered with gut disease, back aches and a looming cold, and I exited well… And all I did, was be there.

It was surprisingly quiet yesterday, I could feel a relaxing vibe in an already totally chilled out Bolivian highland (island) community. It was Sun Day of the Isla Del Sol. So a long chatty breakfast with fellow cosmic tripper Emanuel from France was followed by an equally long and chilled lunch before wandering off into the agricultural wonderland, that became yet another spot to snooze, watching soccer.
Given that the new energetic vortex that moved from Tibet to the Andes also shifted the vortex spin from male to female, it is no wonder Isla del Sol is one of the most gentle places I have ever been, and in 5 months on the road, I hereby add this tiny community to my favourite spot list, along with the San Blas islands.

Old American Indian hippy writers like Drunvalo, have recently published an array of accounts of the cosmic earth work done in ceremonies at the Isla del Sol vortex, chipping away at aligning the world’s energetic Unity Consciousness Grid, in the same way as Reiki or Chinese doctors shift your chi.
I guess you might call Titicaca one of the planets main charka points, and for those of you who don’t know what a chakra point is….all I can say, maybe you are fast running out of time to understand how we really work.
CNN….and N and N, aint where it’s at.
So heading back to shore at 4 knots, in a boat full of trekking boots, suntanned faces and back packs, I am quite content having simply been on Isla del Sol.  Back breaking mile after mile of terraced gardens wrap around the island like contour detours. There is not a farm motor or noise in sight…..ah.. agronomist supreme, Bill Mollison would fit and froth, as here is one big organic cycle, where humans lug fodder they cut by hand, then sling it on their backs, as unlike the most primitive farmers of old Asia, a bullock cart is an impossibility in this terrain, so donkeys and spines get a work out. Pigs wander the main street, mischievously nicking the backpackers buns when they aint looking, and these pigs don’t give up a bun without a chase… not that I’d re eat a pig mouthed bun. No shit goes to waste, and the rock pens of sheep, donkeys and cows all turn famer lugged fodder, into farmer lugged manure. The manure thrown on the rose beds, makes blooms that would make the Royal Kew Gardener, green. I was left wandering if plants super grow on Isla del Sol like Glastonbury? I will go to Glastonbury just to figure out how to spell it right soon.
The thin air throws the high pitches sounds at you with exacting clarity, whilst the deeper tones disappear, creating an audio wonder world, with no sound floor, and each chirp of the finch is heard forever. Even if freezing, the sun god delivers bikini grade sun sitting for those quick enough to get in and out of 6 layers of clothing. Not a drop of sweat is made, so for example, aside of the fact that what few clothes I have are strapped to my bike in Peru, I haven’t changed single item of clothing for 5 days. I have not got any other clothes to change into.. I might yield to the stupid woollen sock-on-head look, for under-helmet wear, but apart from that, who cares… besides, the showers are two cold to shower under, so all told, all is well, as no spare clothes, keeps out the light in light weight travel.
I was a bit nervous about the logistics of finding the farmer with me mota, so after the crawl across the lake, the walk to the border, I was none too pleased to see, when I got to the border, yet more blockades, and not the blockade of the police or immigration style, but of the local insurrection type.

The fucka’s were following me.
After checking out of Bolivia and hoofing it into Peru, I slipped my passport onto the counter and asked to enter Peru. The official looked over the top of his reading glasses, and dryly asked me, ‘Are you SURE you want to enter Peru?’

Fuck it, I thought, stamp me in, albeit I might be back real soon, I replied. After talking my way through countless blockades a few days back, I was up for it. So wheeling my bike out of the lama shit, sheep shed, along with countless grassy arses to the farmer’s wife, the first thing I dug out from my watertight knapsack, was a dictionary. If there where blockades ahead, I had a new idea beyond limp impersonations of Jerry Lewis and Che Guevara, and the old favourite was pretending to be the press, and, ‘la prensa’ was the first word I found and memorised.

But today, the first, second and third blockades were a walkover, compared to the Antiplano riots.
I had been told that tomorrow they were going to blockade Puno for a few days, and the only way to Arequipa was via Puno, and so surviving the Bolivian border blockades, I made my way to Puno with the throttle held, open full stick, all day, not stopping for anything other than gasoline in, and urine out, till I was buried in the Peruvian wild west town of Julica, telling rick saw riders to fuck off as I wove through one way traffic (going the wrong way), in a determined fit of fervour to get the hell out of the Puno area, manyana’s blockade zone. This I had to do before night fall, recalling as you may, my bike’s lack of lights, and lama magnet tendencies. Fucking lamas. So Arequipa was out of the question, but I did make it to a town called St Lucia. There is not a single tree within miles of St whatever Lucia….and this is the raw and real Peru, that the trekkers and bus bound backpackers don’t get to see. It ain’t much to look at.  By comparison, at least the dark satanic mills have some architectural articulation. It’s a grim town.

I quickly found the Peruvian equivalent, of the truckies trailer trash hotel, and my room, comprising a couple of dozen mud bricks and a door set at 5 foot six, is my cosy home. To get the light working, I had to strip a live 110V cable, with the aid of a knife borrowed from the blackened kitchen, and peeling back the plastic insulation, with a twist, I have a  working light bulb, and classical music on the Ipod speakers…and also, after 20 minutes, just enough charge in this email phone to diarise today’s madness. I tried the local internet hall, but when Yahoo’s sign in page still hadn’t shown up on the screen after 20 minutes, I went and bought lemons and dinner for a buck, to savour in my 4 buck, mud brick hole. God is great.  I kinda like it real. But real, has its price…like varieties of belly bugs that won’t go away, like George Bush’s second term.

When it comes to climbing mountain ranges in Peru, never think you are near the summit, simply because you can see nothing over the last ridge…because in Peru, mountains are made of steroids, and going up means going up, up some more, and when you are 4 kilometres high, you still have another K to go….up that is. The gods who made southern Peru must have been on a bender. The ride into Arequipa defies normal geographical and geological, planetary parameters. First, start climbing though glacial tundra valleys so vast, so expansive, and so breath taking, you need an iron lung. Hey…how about a few snow capped, 6000 meter volcanoes for half time.
If that ain’t enough, flick a geographical switch, and you are in a desert of cacti, dropping into gorges, so gorgeous, they steal the grand out of Grand Canyon.

The outskirts of Arequipa look like Bagdad after a bit of cluster bombing. It’s a city in an alpine desert, but with its snow melts being the highest source of the Amazon, it has lots of water flowing through the groins. Arequipa gets down. Deep down in the valleys, at only a mere couple on K above sea level…positively low by comparison from whence I came. Volcanoes that throw boulders 100k, and earthquakes as regular as London buses, means the geology of the area is impermanent. To thieving Spanish colonialists and empire building Catholics, such geological impermanence has its upside. For example, the white volcanic rock could almost be cut with chainsaw, so having robbed and enslaved the locals, they got them to work carving floral laced basilicas and monasteries that rival Madrid’s best. The result is a city of great architectural splendour, built on the blood of others, where the Mestisto aristocracy led cultured, European life styles, while all around  them was poverty. Arequipa has been the breeding ground for all Peru’s heartless right wing leaders, for some time.
They have a famous nunnery in Arequipa which was only exposed in the 1970s, for what it truly was: basically, it was a luxury Hilton Hotel for rich kid girls, where each poor suffering nun had 8 black servants.  Such devotion…and even today, entry to the social disgrace is a rip-off. I refused to enter. I did however visit the beautiful inner courtyard home, of the  Spanish appointed mayors. It was a beautiful house, but not a beautiful home. Dad was apparently a dickhead, ripping off what he could, as he ruled the locals, and as his son proceeded to fuc up various government and military appointments, the son became deluded, so much so,  that the loving parents passed a decree, and banished their son to a cell in the house, till he died. Charming. No wonder volcanoes and earthquakes tried to wreck the place. But tourists don’t see the pain, they just love the architecture and the culture.

This contemporary theory that the poor of the world have fallen behind, is a complete myth. The truth of the matter is that Europe and the West have stolen, ripped of and raped Asia, Latin America and Africa to the point of obscenity. It continues today, with farcical World Bank and IMF, ‘aid and development’ funds, of say $5 billion a year, concealing the $50 billion they bleed out of the same people in crippling interest payments. And I add, the aid is fraud, it simply benefits the corportocracy and the corrupt 1% elite.

But wine with dinner with an Arequipa cultured elite, and elegant courtyard accommodation, over two cosmopolitan days in Arequipa where both a surprise and delight, evil politics aside.
Pulling out of Arequipa after an exquisite breakfast alongside the Alliance François library, this time I was better prepared for a wild ride.
With no particular affection for fucking lama it seemed entirely ethical to fleece some Alpacas of their insulation, buying myself more alpaca scarfs, head socks and jumpers for a tenth of their Western price, and so back up to 5K high I motored, knocking off truck after truck on the 50k climb.
Then things got fun. The road went dirt. Bye bye busload after busload of packaged tourists, as a trail of bright Alpaca scarfs fluttered farewell to overtaken punters. This was canyon country, Colca style. Canyons here are a kilometre deep…so again, it was time to git down brother. What an exhilarating ride, sweeping and heeling down the gorge.
Chivay is the accom town on the valley floor, and it comes with some hot mineral springs that do wonders for bikers buggered shoulder blades.
If I can’t get minerals into my body by gut infected organs, at least I can do it via my skin.
The whole valley gets under your skin, infact. Condors soar about, albeit not about me. The Inca have left miles of Pachacutec engineered terraces, as a nation that can produce food in irrigated abundance can feed armies of 40,000 at the same time as feeding another 40,000 building Pachucutec’s visions and the centre of the then world, Cusco, in an urban development plan that demolished most of the city’s core to rebuild in foundations that the thieving Spaniard than rebuilt on again.

Deeper into the valley, things got beautiful beyond geological belief. The rugged little dirt bike came into its own, as the roads deteriorated, and the vistas exploded. I really cannot think of any other mountain location, on earth, that can match some parts of the Andes, for sheer, raw magnificence. But I admit, I‘m mainly a sailor, so I am no expert. The bike could wind its way down donkey paths, that lead into the most extraordinary textures in tiers of flowering crops…it just felt like I was walking through a painting.

All was life, nothing was mechanised or electrified, a single car passed maybe once every hour or two.

What is it, about life above 3000m, the world over, in traditional village life, that makes every mountain culture decorate their attire in the colours of a cottage garden in full flower? Whether it be Karen, Vietnamese, Peruvian of Mexican…its pretty much the same attitude to colour in fashion.   In Peru, its the bright red chest, the verdant green skirts, the Christmas lights in the trimmings, and in Colca, even broad brim bowler hats are an embroidery partay. There is some trippy little insight that you get living above 3000m, some sort of cosmic colouring competition. Peruvian women are masters of colour, and regardless of the mud and the manure, it’s every day the same outfit, flying their united colours, the ones that Beneton can only fake.

The tour sales staff in Argequipa were wrong about the roads, the ones that they warned me were impassable. I could get anywhere, albeit only thanks to my enduro racing background, and the last few years of weekend trips, up near impossible Daintree hinterland trails, where more often than not, I was hammering down the road, under the bike, rather than on top of it.

There was no way that you take on the Andes sitting down, it was on the foot pegs, all day, as when your weight is on the pegs, your legs control the centre of gravity, like riding a surf board, and the suspension was free to take hits and rocker over the rocks, rather than slam them. Years ago,  when lying exhausted at the end of days brain blurring enduro racing, I was reminded, that an hour of motocross, is measurably more athletic than an hour of first grade football, and whilst it make not look physical, by hell it is. How those off road bikers get Paris to Dakar at the speeds they do, day after day, is beyond me.

I rode myself off my maps. Infact, I rode myself of maps, into locations and across durations, that had I had a good map, I would have reconsidered. The edge of my last map said something like, Cusco, 300k. No big deal I thought, that’s just 50k more than my regular ride along the Daintree coast, where a few cold schooners at the bottom pub in Cooktown awaited me. How wrong I was. Leaving just after dawn, from the first opening of the farmer’s market, I had warmed my gloves around a hot mug of coca leaves, steam fogging my goggles, as I stuffed a goat’s cheese and egg rolls in my pockets. Alpaca head socks and scarfs, twin sets of gloves over gloves, jackets over jackets over jackets, boots laced up, pack’s strapped down with sliced inner tube, map shreds pinned under the ocky straps, and off into the mountain passes I headed. A kayakers kit bag was strapped across the handlebars for a windscreen. Waxed coconut oil covered my face, lip balm was applied on the hour, and I was ready for a fun day. A fun day, soon turned into a massive day, as roads became progressively more arctic, more high altitude, and more pot holed.  From dawn to dusk, most of it standing, and most of it either up an unending climb, or down a deadly decent. There were places, where, after not a single vehicle had passed for hours, I was left wondering, if infact I was still on planet earth. The Andes are like that. Off the planet. Kinda like the opening scenes of 2001, A Space Odyssey.

Rock wall circles hung onto mountain sides, packed with the morning’s release of lamas. A tree was not seen all day. What was green was chewed tighter than a putting green, or was tufted into clumps of alpine grasses that would whip even the best whipper snipper.  Window-less stone and mud huts, had no chimney, as there was nothing to burn, other than imported twiggery.

Snowlines crept closer and closer. At close to 4500m, there was precious little oxygen for any decent internal engine combustion, nor ideal metabolism. How guys do this by pushbike baffles me. The bike laboured all day, so much so, that when it got onto the final 100k home run, on the Pan American Highway at full speed/full revs, it just seized, locking up the back wheel, on S bends right in front of a tailing semi trailer, yikes.

The clutch released with riders insta-intuition, and the death slide turned to a glide, and the truck gratefully went by me, rather than over me. Application of some oil, and verbal coaxing, and the 200 cc piston remnant kicked back to life, and after a day of hard core endurance, the enduro ended in cosy Cusco bar. Good adventure, I loved it. Gimmee more. I gotta get back to the Andes with some serious hardware, some day soon. Touring the Andes by dirt bike is the extreme end of dirt bike fun.  Mind you, there is always the Himalaya’s…how do I get there? And there are no fucking lamas in Tibet…are there?

Back in Cusco, there was some negotiation needed in the diplomacy of returning the bike…. but I got there, less some soles.

It was the week before Easter, and the Catholic processions had begun. I kinda like the way the Peruvians somehow find the odd palm leaf to throw on the street. Then of course, the pompous procession to hump the plaster cast Jesus on a cross into the basilica filled Cusco with about 10,000 Christians, one of whom pick-pocketed my camera, this one barely few weeks old, but worse, still containing  400 of the most stunning landscape photos I have ever taken, but hey, it’s OK, as some idiot assures us, that Jesus forgives us all, and infact, despite the fact that he died on roads lined with fellow nailed victims, it was his death, and his death alone, that somehow atones everyone, from his death, thereafter, including my pickpocket, god bless him. I really never quite figured the logic of how Jesus saved us all, given the best of the best of the masters, prophets and gurus often had sticky endings as well. But then who am I to question the opinion of a former taxman, who like any underpaid government accountant, had a road to Damascus experience, and changed careers, in Paul’s case, to become a writer. Of the Bible.

Some cosy dinners, a lot of time preparing future stages of my world tour through endless research online, and I was left excited about the future. My spirit of travel was boosted across several breakfasts with the riding partner of the Irish round the world peddle team,  who was also busy planning away, telling me he was close to rowing across the Atlantic, to join a hall of fame club of 6 humans, who have used purely human body power to circle the globe. I was told, some idiot is even planning a swim across the Atlantic, in the cold northern bit, and this bordering on madness, I thought, as I passed the sugar. One of the dinners, with former Port Douglas resident and recent mum , whose hubby runs the world’s most ambitious rafting ventures, as she runs Cusco’s best restaurant, had me well chuffed about life in general, for my last night, in Peru. What a grand land.

The punctuation and defrost before the next leg came in the form of 5 days in my much loved Cartegena.  The wicked and wonderful Colombia, where the Havana Club salsa pumped in through my shutters till dawn. Down at the yacht club, Ave Maria sat being scraped and polished by a crew of $30 a day experts, and had bounced back into life, at a cosmetic level at least, as Paul tried Milano for some romantic repairs of the Mexican girlfriend type, as we both let rip with our pent up sailing gripes at each other, online. A wander every evening through the warm streets of the old fort city, through the families sitting on their dinning chairs, moved to the pavement, through the street vendors, hookers and chess players, was just as much  of a treat, as it was on first arriving, all washed up.

Its time for Mexico, and oops, I never even finished writing about Peru or Colombia.

One day I’l learn to finish thi…

But hey, I’ve been overtaken by the need for speed, Speedy Gonzales that is.

Arriba, arriba…..andele, andele!!

On with the tale, this is it.

Firstly, let me point out, that much as I have always wanted to have sex with Mexico, I’m a virgin. So I have no idea what to expect.

I do have the cultural advantage of Bugs Bunny, and Hollywood to insure I had a comprehensive cultural understanding, plus, I have been buried for months in studying the Mayan Calendar, so somewhere between Speedy Gonzales, and the end of times, I’m a complete and utter expert  idiot on Mexico.

You usually arrive in Cancun, on the Yucatan peninsula, via Miami. And, if like me, you use web travel portals to research web portals,  sooner or later,  you hit ‘find flights now’, and you invariably get a flight that dumps you in Miami overnight, facing the choice of either loitering in a US airport, where idle behaviour will find your sleeping carcass surrounded by bomb disposal teams, or, if you can use another ‘find me’  web portal, you will end up, for 50 bucks, in some run down airport hotel, above a sports bar and grill, with good old boys watching one, (or maybe all ) of a dozen flat screens, chugging beer. So I chugged beer with Homer Simpsons mates, pretending to get excited when someone did something apparently cool with one of many balls in the air, all on the flat screens.

Off a LAN flight, onto a Mexicana flight, and you move from idiots to ‘insultants’, recalling if I may, the void of diplomacy from the frump air hostess, who for the sake of her personal 20 minute, go home early advantage, ripped the ear plugs out of my socket, just as David Frost was about to pin Richard Nixon into a corner, in that now famous, oh shit, (and now new film), interview.

Bitch.

You arrive in Cancun, and you can either take a $80 taxi, or get a Stretch, as did I, for $3.  The ‘Stretch’ being 50 foot of brand new bus, with hostess, driver, and me.  Just me.

The best thing you can do, when you drive into Cancun, is to drive straight out again.

Possibly related to Dubai or Ibiza, Cancun is to tourism, what Attila the Hun is to yoga.

What a shit hole. Who the fuc, would spend their pathetic annual holiday, on level 14 of Crass Towers, being overfed, overcharged, and sensorarily deprived, all for the sale of some personal climate control, in an almost perfect climate anyway? The answer is obvious…millions of idiots.

So straight from bus terminal to wharf was my agenda, to  an island of women, or so the name Isla Del Mujeres translates, to a mixture of  white talcum beaches, azure water, and a Kuta-meets-Disneyland, heartbeat.

Lonely Planet rated the old Poc Na backpackers hangout, as the best backpacker pad in Mexico, with more hippies on the beach than a parking lot full of Magic Buses. I can mix it with crazed Israeli boys, just out of having their heads fucked, after being conscripted into roles as military henchmen, paid by the US, who I might add, sends every Israeli man, woman, and child, $1600  a year, to maintain their insane ongoing anger, and pay these poor guys.

I can also smooze it with the milky northern European backpacking girls, whose blond tone, turns an edible honey, when exposed to Mexican sun.  Throw in some buffed Brazilian and Argentinean boys, cruising the  Euro chics, like barracuda in a school of fish, and you have a perfect recipe for mad breakfast voyeurism, at Poc Na, $3.50 and 30 minutes offshore of Cancun.

I was busy at Poc Na, as I had work to do. Ebay had me pinned. So far, my Ebay score was as bad as my sex with Heidi ratio… I had bid on something like 30 BMW bikes, and missed the deal 30 times. Competitors have this filthy habit, on Ebay, of staying up all night, all around the world, waiting till 30 seconds before close of auction, to steal bargains I had been stalking for days.

So despairing my failed techniques, I said, fuck it, I give in… “Universe” I said, “just do it for me, will you? Show me the bike to buy”.

And a moment later, up on the screen popped the type of bike I had no intent, nor enough money, to buy…. or so I thought. BMW make a type of 4 wheel drive bike, that despite having only 2 wheels, is the choice of international mule, for the travelling hardcore. Possibly one of the worlds ugliest bikes, it is nonetheless, capable, with 100 horse power, ( and weighing slightly less than one horse)…of circumnavigating the planet via Mongolia and U-bet-ya-Stein. So I placed a bid. 2300 quid.

They say, or I say, at least, that the balance point of a good deal, it the point where you can take it, or leave it, and not get the shits. And that point, care of the universe’s magic, came as follows. I placed the bid, was happy with the price, blinked, and lost the auction.

Was I shitty? I pondered it over night. No, I wasn’t shitty, I thought. I was at the right balance point. And under universal guidance, the next day I got an email, from Paul, Director of Humanities, in Somerset, and owner of the R1150GS, telling me, that the lead bid had failed to deliver, and I could have the bike at the price I bid. So I pondered once again the magic of balance, and bought it. Ahead, was the riding all over Europe bit, followed by the reverse transaction, to sell it, where I was willing, albeit not volunteering, to  loose 25% of its value, as loosing that 25%, compared to overpriced European public transport costs,  added to taxis for the last 2k, was way cheaper.

And now, if I decided to go to Mongolia, I could. Or more likely a scenario, if I wanted to camp on some rocky Adriatic headland, I could get there. And after Cancun, I had a pressing need to get away from mass tourism. The banality of ice cream coloured holiday makers, trying to kid themselves that they are enjoying the cues and the prices, makes me want to set up a holiday company specialising in giving people who have just had a holiday, a holiday.

The way out of Cancun came,  once again, via one of those market slaughtering  US web portals, that hunts down car rental bargains, leading me to a new, four door mini Chev,  at $15 day, with a audio jack for my Ipod, and reclining seats to make camping as easy as parking and turning off the engine.

All this escape excitement was a bit contagious, and by fate as easy as Mexican sunshine, I quickly had two new best friends, Nancy and Chris, as hardcore, budget travel mates. Chris knew light weight travel, and had just recently taken a 3000 mile stroll, with everything he needed in a 10kg packpack. Nancy had conquered the world by more means than 20 people, whether by her own yacht, by van, by dive tank, by Alaskan fishing boat, or by thumb. This was a real travel team, all who wanted the real Mexico, not the plastic one.

So skipping another version of Cancun designed for Italians in G-strings, called Playa Del Carmen, we headed for Tullum, where miles of white talcum, Caribbean beach, accommodated wooden cabanas and tents,  ‘sans’, ( or ‘sin’, as they say here) electricity, shops and bullshit ( aside of the accommodation prices).

So Chris pulled a tent and sleeping bag, out of a space as big as a grapefruit, and I contented myself in a flapping hired tent, and on the beach edge we crashed, after a night of trainee Mexican drinking.

Tullum is one of those spots where the Mayans had identified a special chakra spot on Gaia, which corresponds to the throat chakra,  and to those who are aware, mother earth, Pacha Mama, Gaia, is in fact not just a rock in space, but a conscious entity, just like you and me, in fact, like us all of us, all being one.  Besides, it’s a holographic universe here, where space and time are somewhat of an illusion, according to Alby Einstein.

So the Mayans built a series of temples and associated palatial bits and pieces, on the Tullum headland above the most azure of Caribbean oceans, as part of a series of important temple sites,  that to me, are more sacred sites, than architectural ruins.  Some of these sacred sites,  as I mentioned before, to the few in the know, are based around Pacha Mama’s chakra points, like connotes to the soul. At Tullum, being the throat chakra, the focus is on sound.  Other temples, such as the one built over the third eye chakra, are covered with third eye motifs.

Such sensibilities, as to why, and what the temple sites are designed to do, is way beyond the scope and means of the guided tourism, that cues, crowds and packs thousands of gringo tourists into these sites daily. Sickening, actually, watching the sacrilege of sacred sites being buried in money making madness. But regardless of the ignorance and ugliness, thousands of people do get to experience these places, and this, is maybe a good thing, at an unseen level.

Chichen Itza is one on these, and it was unlucky enough to have been recently lobbied into the category of one of the world’s 7 wonders, dooming it instantly.  Now days, the sacred heart chakra centre, (where you would maybe want to open your heart), is a parking lot packed full of tour buses, and once inside the magnificent site, all is an ugly mess of cheap trinkets and hustlers.  Kinda’ like Asia, where it’s worse. I somehow suspect the Iluminati like it this way, with such important sacred sites desecrated by tourism, where the sell out archaeologists give into the big dollar, and those with a spiritual interest, they have not even a peep of a voice, especially in Mexico, where Catholicism and Government work hand in hand, to ensure the populace suffers in perpetual ignorance. Like everywhere.

Aside of the odd remaining Mayan shaman, who on planet earth, is willing to speak out in defence of important Mayan messages? At the last super important shamanistic gathering at Chichen Itza in 2003, the local police actually arrested the Humbatz elders, when the elders objected to officials extinguishing their ceremonial smoking ceremony. These are stone ruins, on dry ground, where nothing is flammable. The pope would have loved it. The cops did. What hope is there for the truth?

I was left disgusted, that such an important place was prey once again to the vendetta know as archaeology, and despite the fact that this site was about an open heart chakra, mine stayed well closed. Not good.

Chichen Itza, in its defence, is a succour for punishment, being within bus hit range of the wankers flying into Cancun, for a holiday of shopping malls, and ugly high-rise hotels, whose idea of fun can be summarised as, ‘one tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor…”

So off we drove into the agricultural abyss that is Yucatan agriculture.  Mexico is a good example of what you can do to ruin a once verdant and abundant land, and turn it into a virtual agricultural wasteland. I heard an interesting stat today. It takes 150 kilograms of timber fuel, to make one kilogram of cement, using traditional Mayan techniques. Archaeologists have calculated that the cement needed for just the visible Mayan ruins, would be enough to completely deforest the Yucatan. Add farming, and not a tree would be left standing, not unlike the Middle East. Remove the trees, and say goodbye to rainfall. Trees seed more that seedlings.

So driving through what was once one of the world’s most prolific civilisations, you are left staring out the car window, wondering how these ancient populations ever survived, until you add the regional climate change factors….namley: deforestation.

Nonetheless, the Yucatan has its huge urban populations, and into the more interesting spots, we drove. From Tullum’s talcum beaches, we drove the poor hire car down 60k of 4 wheel drive roads, wetlands on one side, and azure Caribbean on the other, dodging idiot gringos in packs of hired Jeeps, enroute to the sleepy, end of the road enclave of Puerto Alem, where Bonefishing fly fisherman, hang out in between engaging in their usual daily cycle of fishing, drinking and sleeping. We did the same, less the fish. The bar full of local fishing guides was packed with faces so sun browned, that it was obvious that Ascension Bay fishing grounds, and it azure waters, were indeed a solarium from hell. I like the dry, blue grey light of Mexico, it’s quite surreal. No wonder they invented the sombrero here.

There is one big difference between Mexico, and its neighbouring Spanish speaking southern neighbours. Given the scarcity of agricultural advantage in Mexico, the difference to which I allude is astonishing. It’s called cuisine. Mexico has cuisine, lots of it, and by comparison to Central America, and what I saw of South America, I take my sombrero off to the Mexicans. Mind you, beating Panamanian cuisine is hardly difficult, Panamanians have none. Bar frying the fuc out of everything.

Mexicans, despite the appalling influences of their northern neighbours, are to me, the most light and fun mob of the tropical Americas. If I could develop some better Mexican attitude, I’d be a better person. Life ain’t about what ya got, but how ya get there.  Mexicans have a lot of rock piles, holes, some more rocks, and a lot of dust. Buy hey, they have a lot more fun with what they got, when compared to us anal westerners.

From Tullum and the end of the sandy road, fish stop, we…that is,Nance, Chris and Rod, drove, to Valladolid, and the next day, Merida. At both places, I started to get Spanish town planning déjà vue. I was starting to wonder whether I was in Colombia, Peru or Mexico, when walking in or out of these town’s central plazas, where the fascist Spanish planners made identical replicas, everywhere they took their thieving and enslaving ways.  When, the next day, I pulled into the old Spanish walled city at Campeche, I could just about pick the exact location of everything, kinda like finding the toilet in a Hilton Hotel whilst blindfolded, and not pissing a drop outside the bowl.

It was a good hike south, through wetlands and wastelands, until finally, something green began to emerge through the windscreen. Truck stop rednecks are the same the world around, including Mexico, so to fit in, I threw my chicken mole, a dark chocolate coloured sauced thing, down the front of my shirt, like eating crab with multigrips. Fuc’n good grub, I could hear the rednecks think, as they eyed me like I was some Woody Allen freak.  Talk show host, Ellen was on the flat screen, interviewing survivors of some America jetliner that landed in the NYC river, which, given they hardly got wet, would have saved them a fortune in taxi fares from JFK.

From Tabasco to Chiapas I passed, hammering the poor little hired Chev, until destination Palenque arrived, late in the day. Its not just me that likes it green and kindly, hippies have long been into it. We’re not stupid. So in a rare patch of Daintree like jungle, I found a settlement of alternative type hostels, all morphing into each other like a water drop jigsaw.

Not unlike Machu Pichu, Palenque was a late arrival when it came to western discovery. The Mayans who built the place, were well gone even before the conquistadors arrived. Maybe like the Aztecs who followed centuries later, the Mayans knew a bad thing when they saw it prophesised? But maybe not? Maybe, Mayas degenerated, just as the USA and the West is doing today?

But the Mayans and their Olmec grand daddies, they were no Incan, Aztec or Apache mob. You can read the official history if you like, but if you like it wild and free, try my version.

Firstly, this story that civilisation began, out of nowhere, 3000 BC, is just complete bullshit.  All that happened 5000 years ago, is the Annunuki/Nephilum/Iluminati version of history began, with the Sum of the Aryans…Samaria. Windows Vista is even in on the scam, with it’s spell-check refusing to even acknowledge that the A, N and I words  exist. Thankyou Bill Gates, you sell-out. Interestingly, even the Mayan royal bloodline (read Iluminati) version of history, has Mayan history beginning with the birth of humanity, coincidentally, aligning perfectly with all the other royal bloodline’s bullshit versions.

As I have alluded to earlier, as a god fearing bible believer, it was the Annunuki, (spelt wrongly) who lobbed in from the stars somewhere, to fuck our local maidens, and make the Nephilim, now Iluminti mob, who have ruled earth for 5000 years of history,  who then dutifully wrote their own version of history, to this acheologically bankrupt present.

You may not buy this stuff, but hey, it’s more fun.

Mayan history has left us one amazing inheritance… the Mayan codex. This codex, has only recently begun to be understood, albeit just in the nick of time, some might suggest. There are of course the ruins, which are, as thousands see daily, ruined. But here in Palenque, the ruins at least have a rare beauty, set in amongst the rainforest, unlike the ‘Gypo pyramids, and the other dry country Mayan ruins, whose backdrop is more about bus car parks and trinket sales.

Mayans were short arsed, and in their classic period to about 700AD, only had spears, not fancy stuff like bows and arrows. So if some warring, short arsed mob wanted to raid ya granddads jade tomb, it was easier to stand at the top of the stairs, and hoick a spear down at you foe,  rather than run around the jungle chasing them. So Mayan palaces and temple all are at the top of a long set of stairs, unlike the once polished, stone clad ‘Gypo pyramids, built for kamikaze skateboarders.

Pyramids are pretty cool things, even if the Iluminati version of history insures that no one in the world has any idea, what the hell is the point of a pyramid. It strikes me as a bit strange, that for all our untold modern knowledge, no one has an official clue as why pyramids are pyramid shape. Is it because pyramid builders had tough beards, and needed pyramids to sharpen their razors?

Or could it be that pyramids are something to do with the spectrum of energy that is beyond all but the fraction of 1%, of the all the energy spectrums, that our eyes, ears and smell can detect? Face it guys, we are deaf mutes to the full gig.

So these ancient types, basically the ‘Gypos and Mayans, had something going with their pyramids.  And the location they put them on, maybe that’s a clue?

The word Maya, in Hindu, means illusion of time, and add in some Alby Einstein, and you get the world we live it, apparently according to Alby and the Hindus> an illusion of both space and time…a holographic universe, where electrons zip in and out of this dimension without passports.

So could it be, that pyramids are sited where energy, of some weird kind, flows in and out of Pacha Mama, Gaia> the ‘conscious’ entity that you are sitting on right now?

Tullum is said to be the equivalent of the throat chakra point, and Chichen Itza, that is like acupuncture’s heart chakra.

There is a weird gland in your head, that has the Iluminati silenced scientists a bit baffled, called the Pineal. It’s the key link to the third eye, and, new paradigm  writers define this 7^th and upper chakra as working the high level of consciousness that you  move into when you are about to cark it, and leave the body, something I have done a thousand times, but can’t remember once, damn it. Some dudes, or so the story goes, in the last 200,000 years, (3 in fact) managed to master this upper level of the matrix consciousness game, and do smart arsed tricks, like walk on water, then fucking ascend. Word has it, in the last 15 years, over 8000 ascended masters have had a little cosmic boost, and have made the cosmic link between the Mer Ka Bah field, and the upper chakra. Bad news, is the game ain’t over yet, as the damn eighth chakra, an energy ball, floating a hands distance above the head, is still at a higher level, that even the best ascended masters gamesters have not reached. Good news is, however, that humankind in general, is about to get a cosmic game advantage, with everyone getting a shot at chakra 7 link upgrade soon. Who needs World of Warcraft, when this game is free, and coming to a planet you are on soon.

Palenque, ‘Integrates the Kundalini energy throughout all the charka and spirit bodies of the initiate….bringing in the new Kundalini energy from Chile to the Mayan people (and freaks like me) much like a magnifying glass focuses the light of the sun’… or so says North American Shaman Drunvalo.

Anyway, to the Mayas, the 7^th chakra is to us humans, what  Palenque is to Pacha Mana, mother earth. What the hell,  and whilst I’m already, ‘out there’, I add, Palenque is also the Pleiadian Hall of Records, a mystery school of  sacred geometry, a major archaoe-astronomical centre, and the initiation vortex of the inner West, albeit, you don’t get information this on you $10 guided tour of the ruins. For $10, however, Mexican tour guide Ernesto, and my 3 Israeli chic guidees, had a right royal interesting time.

Being a pervert of Iluminati symbology, I could not help but notice some freakasoid common denominators at Palenque. A step back in time notes that Mayan history goes through thousands of years (if you include Olmec stuff). Mayan history went from cool and harmonious, to warring and desperate, and in the middle, at its zenith, guys like Pacal, 603AD, the Mayan equivalent of the Incan king Pachucutec, get remembered in history as the big guy of Mayan history. His sarcophagus lid was a gem for understanding consciousness evolution. But hey, like Pachucutec, Pacal had his wicked, wicked ways, like raiding his neighbours, and dragging their bound kings back to his palace, for some Sunday ‘arvo beheadings, for the enjoyment his inbred royal mates voyeurism.

After deforesting and desertification of Mexico, food and resources went from all happy in 300AD, to competitive and warring in 600AD, kinda like USA Today.

You may have seen the famous Fluer de Lys insignia all over European Royal (Iluminati) insignia? So how the hell, did that same little evil flower insignia make it onto Mayan temples, from 600AD? The modus operandi of the Iluminati, and of the Mayan royalty, was to enslave their people in fear, based on keeping the workers in fear and ignorance, where those in ‘the know’, kept the secrets to themselves, and everyone else remained brainwashed, and shit scarred.  It’s the same story, all across the world, from Maya 600AD, to Washington 2009. The little flower insignia, is one of many, ‘secret nod’ type symbols, that perverts of symbology, like me, find entertaining. I can’t wait to re-tour the core financial district of London, where this symbology drips from the walls. Bugger the Da Vinci tours, I like the hardcore stuff.

It’s a bit odd, but only I would notice and make this link? The Mayan and Egyptian civilisations are alleged to share common roots, when their former home base went under water, as per the nasty flood myths, the Atlantis story, where some Atlanteans split west from the sunken Atlanean cities ( maybe from the shallow Bermudan areas?) whilst the others hightailed it east. Both built pyramids. Both has hieroglyphic written language, the same astrological gigs, and amazingly, in a recent discovery, both had a consciousness based 360 day calendar…one lot became ancient Egypt, the other, Maya. You could disagree with me, and say this is all crap, and believe the official line,that says both Mayans and ‘Gypos came out of nowhere, and instantly made amazing civilisations. Yeah, right.

Anyway, one of the more odd an illusive features of Annunuki fucking the maidens story, ended up with some rather badly deformed head shapes. It’s not well know, but those ‘Gypo pharaoh  dudes, like Atunakan, and his missus, Nefertiti, had rather long , odd, skulls, poor dears. Nefertiti dealt with her odd head, with that famous long hat. No, that was not a beehive hairdo. The way the Mayan kings made claim to fame, was by claiming direct lineage with the ‘deities’. In this case, the deity, grandad (Nephilim), had that rather odd, long skull. Or so goes Rod’s, weird history weekly. Fact is stranger than fiction, remember.

So to maintain the fashion, just in case some messy royal interbreeding rounded off the kid’s skull, and to insure the ignorant workers kept believing in the king-deity bullshit bit, the Mayans bound the heads of the royal kids, so they grew up with elongated heads, just like grandad, the freak lineage. Or so the story goes, maybe the true blue bloods (as in heartless royalty ) already had pointy, Mr Zippy heads, and all the royal wanabees just bound their kids heads to get them plush royal jobs?

Whatever.

As if that was not enough, the court kids had to go to the dentist, to have their teeth filed to shark teeth shape.  Ouch. Then, off to the cosmetic surgeons, without aesthetic, and the cosmetic surgeons got right up the royal noses, peeling back the skin and shoving up some chewing gum like material, to make the Mayan ruler’s, monster nose. Mass murdering Iluminati employee,  the big nosed, Henry Kissinger would have been impressed. When the royal kids smiled, they looked like they wanted to eat you, and with elongated heads, and giant noses, who was gunna fuck with these guys?

Henry Killinger, wouldn’t like the bit, where, when things got tough, offerings of royal blood were extracted by making a hole in the  royal tongue, and running a thorn bound rope through the hole. Add some daily hallucinogens, and 70 days straight of bleeding the royal family, atop drought and despair, and it’s no wonder the Mayans disappeared as race.  The kings went mad?

Some survived…there are 11,000,000 Mayans in Mexico and Guatemala today.

So there we go, there’s a more interesting take on history than the guide books dish up. My intrigued guide Ernesto, took me aside, and told me the story of how a Mason turned up at Palenque two years back, and offered any money, to a guide who could take him to spot matching the Masonic insignia, that the guy was flashing around the car park, on a photo.  The mason had no trouble getting the match. Surprise, surprise.

My guide Ernesto, on hearing my take on the symbology, did some back stage deals with the guards, and got us a quick look inside the sealed of parts of Pacal’s palace, and sure enough, clear as day, on the walls, was the Iluminati symbology in rare painted reliefs. Being that the palace top is about to be sealed of to the public next year, it was a once in lifetime perve. At perverts work.

So that’s Palenque, originally, and even more so today, a magical sacred site, acting as the highest of cosmic links, whilst hosting a history of  good through evil masters, and ending up a nice tree lined tourist attraction, for rubber necks looking at rock piles.

Sometimes I kinda’ like the less fanciful Australian aboriginal sacred sites and creation spots, with not a dead king in sight, (or site), or a single bit of grand architecture. Mayans may have been a hit for a few thousand years, but Aboriginals did it better, in many ways, for 70,000 years.

Today I took what it ought would be a short drive from the steamy jungles of Palenque,  from happy hippy central, to the  Zapatista mountain base of San Cristobal De Las Casas.  My planned 2 to 3 hour trip took all day. They say that highway robbery, from this, the semi Shining Path leftists of Mexico, is not something you not should dismiss, and is infact, quiet common. This being the case, there seemed no harm in driving only in packs. Unbeknownst to me, some Mexican really know how to drive. The group I choose to follow sure did, and it was not long, before I realised that the gear lever had to worked hard and fast, the seat had to be set back, so the perfect 10 minutes to 1 hand position could be held, and I spent the day hammering through 8 hours of S bends, up mountain roads, with doof hammering on the sound system, and, well, it was all quite fun. It’s been years since I have had to do an Italian Job, I just wish I had my old GTV 2000 Alfa to have done it with…, ah, and old rear wheel drive Alfa, now there’s a stick shift with wood.

Along the way, I took a breather to check out the giant jungle water falls at Misol-Ha, and take a swim in the azure ble waters of, well Aqua Azul, as you do. This whole part of Mexico must have been a reef not so long ago, with limestone blue tinted water cascades, and connotes, or inland diving holes, everywhere. The area around Chiapas was like driving around my tropical homelands in the Daintree, but the local botany here, is all new release, high tech stuff, unlike the ancient stuff of my Gondawana land refuge. Like for example, trees, of the Poinciana type, where their leaves  twist like motorised solar panels. When these modern design trees do sexing, the whole world knows about it, in blaze of flowers.  Their seeds then disperse like US drones, whereas our older trees, sprout a single fruit from the trunk, with all the sensuality of a thalidomide victim, and just drop its seed like a turd on its toes..

San Cristobal is at 2000m, and is cool in more ways than one. Infact, on first impression, I rate this city my favourite Mexican find. I’m liking Mexico more and each day . Where else would a bunch of mad, mischievous, Mayan minstrels,  all about 20, hair slicked back… traditionally attired in striped Venetian knickerbockers, atop long black socks, be found herding giggling girls, as they surrounded them in packs of 10 stringed instruments, in perfect harmonious song….I love it, besides, it was all love song. There seems to be more culture in this glamorous antique town, that in 10 kg of yogurt.

The brew here in Mexico has more than just a few single celled animals in the yogurt, as the maybe the end of part of the world has begun with a pig sneeze, and some swine flu, killing of some healthy 25- 45 years old Mexicans, like past deadly flu epidemics. Not to worry, I am sure someone will invent a vaccine, that will , in the panic, do way more harm to humanity that the swine of a bug itself. I sure know how to pick exciting countries to visit. I bet entering the USA, from Mexico, next week, will be sporting.

Meanwhile, Brown and Obama go about borrowing trillions from the same evil banking cartel that is receiving the bailouts, to the point where their governments are that crippled and buried in  yet more debt, putting the world at the mercy of those manipulating the scam. There are 3 stages to this Rothchilds, et al, ‘World Banking Crisis’, and ina few years, it will be interesting re-reading this projection , to see just how on the ball my cynical view turns out to be:

Stage 1: Crash the economy (done); Stage 2: have governments borrow extraordinary amounts of money from the very banking and financial cartel that the same ‘money’ is being spent to ‘bail out’ (being done), Stage 3: To crash the economy still further when government options are exhausted and leave them with no way of responding (waiting to be done).

The end game will produce the World  Central Bank, controlled in all its magnificence, by the Rothchild’s and other Iluminati families,  the same ones who started this whole  economic collapse in the first place, by turning world money business, a giant casino, before pulling the tablecloth out.

But from Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia…..who gives a shit. It’s not all about money here. Viva Latin America. I’m coming back.

But Viva Mexico suffered a interesting set back, with some swine of a flu sweeping the country just as arrived, sweeping the world into panic. Media and the United States of Paranoia, being what and who they are, didn’t cope to well with a new thing to fear, so close to their flat screened lives. This flu, flew better than the avian variety, proving pigs can fly. This one jumped human to human, not just bird to man. My piggy Mexican girlfriend Babe, looked me sadly in the eye, coughed one last cough, carked it, and was Ham and Flu Roll in no time.

Pig flu made me well and truly the piggy in the middle. Rumours abounded that they would close borders, incarcerating us in Mexico >

Its bad enough as it is, plying your way through Bin Laden obsessed US borders, but to have to take on the JKF airport just outside of New York, direct from plague central, Mexico, was a thought I tried not to dwell on.

I had be first experience of becoming a disease refugee, when after a day’s drive that crossed the equivalent of half of Europe, I pulled into a little dusty beachside hamlet, Barra Del something or other, where about maybe 50 or 100 surfers had made seasonal home, as the tubes along the beach had put this spot well and truly  on the map after Ripcurl held and international comp there, a few years back.

I threw down a couple of beers and ordered shrimp. The sun set, the Latino via speakers hammered away. At near midnight, worried and annoyed looking  Australians, who had surfed here for more than 8 years, complete with their own four wheel drive kept in store, walked up the steps to the concrete slab, that was half a building site,  and half our veranda (like the whole of Mexico).

They announce that the villagers had just met, and had decided to evict all gringos at dawn. Not happy. I has just decided to settle into the traditional, laid back hammock and surfboard way of life, that Mexico was once famed for. But nope, despite the fact that there were no pig flu cases within 1000k, the villagers deemed us swine, and gave us the boot.

Into the hire car I again plopped, and I was on the road, pondering the looming fate of possibly millions, who might one day face the same sort of rejections, but without the easy access to a $15 day escape car. The absurdity of the paranoia was positively News Ltd. At one point, we heard 145 were dead. Then, across the net, medicos confirmed that only 7 of the 145 flu instigated deaths were actually swine flu. In a country where something like 20 bodies are dumped daily, some decapitated, many tortured, at the hands of the drug cartels and their police partners, it seemed things were getting a tad out of proportion here, as News Ltd et al, are want to do

The British tabloids did what British tabloids do best, namely horrify the hordes. Next thing I get an email from Paul Smith, Director of Humanities, and vendor my new  UK bike, telling me a public service directive banned him from having any contact with me. So much for Humanity. So what?… he will wheel the bike on the street, throw me the keys, and paper glider me the papers? Maddness.

Every internet cafe was full of young backpackers, receiving nervous, paranoid messages from their family. Meanwhile, my mates were sending me recipes for cooking pig. At this point in time, I decided, like any electioneer, to impose a media blackout on myself, relying only on comment around the internet cafes, and fellow travellers to be my sole source. Because if I tuned into www.full.of.shit.com, I would simply become like the rest of then. Petrified.

My view about disease is non mainstream, at best. Big Pharma and I, let’s just say…we don’t see eye to eye. We have this thing called an immune system, and despite the most massive assault in human history via food chemicals, EMF, Big Pharma, and a myriad of concealed poisons, our immune system, and our energetic wellbeing, remain humanity’s best line of defence against dis-ease.

Also, staying out or crowds in high altitude cities like Mexico City, helps. Any city that has grown from under 8 million to 27 million in 30 years, was sure to one day, to become a big problem. So I got to work on gobbling and ordering more rolls Roice food supplements like Mannatech, eating well, and not drinking, and washing hands, whilst doing yoga and long walks.

This I did at 2000m above sea level, in quite a chilly climate, in what I deem my favourite Mexican city, San Cristobal, Sandinista central, and the art, cultural and political nerve ending of southern Mexico. Here in San Cristobal, the mention of nearby swine flu suspects, had one in 10 locals rushing to the Farmacia, to buy surgical face masks, and in no time, the city saw a fashion shift from balaclavas and Sandinista masks, to the MASH, post operative look.

San Christobal is a treat. Again, it’s is laid out in traditional Spanish colonial grid, where all the street frontages are wall to wall, concealing a beautiful courtyard lifestyle inside the walls. Cafes were abuzz with politics, art and caffeine. Everything was wifi, hifi and arthouse.

Unlike my usual self, the Mercedes Tour, some weird cultural tour, caught my eye in Lonely Planet. Generally, I like to learn things by  DIY experience ,  and not being told from voice on a  bus mike. The Mercedes tour was not about German cars, but I guy called Mercedes, whose interest was Mayan culture, before succumbing to Buddhism, and leaving the tour to his intelligentsia mates.

San Cristobal is surrounded by a dozen, and more, former Mayan cultures and languages that have fought tooth and nail, and endured poverty, in support of their spiritual and cultural identity.  The region, Chiapas, is Mexico’s indigenous heart land. One such Mayan community, after quietly burning down the odd churchs, oops, slipped, and in continuing to pay much respect  to the armadas of catholic, evangelical or protestant do-gooders flanking them, decided to sort of strike a deal with the huge unused local catholic church.

The, believe-or-we-will-torment-you, catholic conquistadors, thought they were shoe in when they first strode onto Mayan turf, to find crucifixes everywhere.  But these crosses were not the Jesus franchise type. Infact, the crucifix symbology was never a copyright owned by the Christians, they just recycled it, with a happy match up with Roman death by agony techniques. The Mayan crosses have more to do with the Tree of Life, than Calgary. The tree of life is like a shamanic metro to all levels of consciousness, a sort of Google Cosmos, that is a spiritual repeat offender, turning up as Bodhi trees in India, oaks to Celts, and here in Mexico, a tree with distinct tendency to throw out branches like a crucifix. Interestingly, the Mayans have a second take of the cross, noting it’s also the astrological cross that occurs every 12000 odd years, the next one being Dec 21, 2012, ( a good night for an unusual Christmas party ).

This rejection came as a bit of a shock to the catholic conquistadors who first arrived here, and whilst they forced Christian beliefs down local throats with a sword and a whip, succeeding from Mexico to Chile, they never managed to convert all the Mayans. Instead in a local deal, Mayans hybridized Catholic Saints with their cosmic deities, as many with a cosmic overview can see, that whilst there are many cultural interpretations of who’s who in the cosmos, at the end of the day, it’s all the one set of cosmic actors, just with different wardrobe assistants. Their duties and scripts are the same, their costumes are not.

So when you walk into the Mayans old Spanish church, after being struck by the beauty of 10,000 lit candles, and the gentle demeanour of the dozens of Mayans doing their little ceremonies there on the pine needle covered floor, you then notice,  that all the pews have been removed, there is no preacher’s pedestal, nor any preacher. In fact, no one gets up in this church, claiming ordination into the Jesus franchise, to brainwash the parishioners into fearing any transgression from the Jesus franchise rules. But the saints are in boxes are around the church, and the catholic hierarchy can take some satisfaction seeing Mayans worshiping away on Catholic saints. The Catholics may get a bit tetchy when John the Baptist gets pride of place over Jesus, but being that Jesus is seen by Mayans as more, Sun is God, than Son of God, Jesus’s place is more above the roof, than on the floor.

Healing prayers and ceremonies replace bull-shitters in robes, espousing their heaven and hell schism. The odd chook gets it in the neck, by way of sacrifice. To induce a good energetic release, carbonated soft drinks are a part of the ceremony, in what some simplistically see as the Coca Cola Church. Urp.

It’s all quite a sight, and it’s never seen outside the church, as photography is totally banned, and anyone who has seen what an shaman can do with a  photograph, will know why.

Quite frankly, the world would evolve, if every church on earth was taken over by the locals, the preacher sacked, and the space used for human to human healing, quite meditation, and prayer. Fuck the rest of the socio-political, religious agenda. It days are numbers, just as the war and profit agenda of the last 12000 year, male dominated cycle, is crumbling fast.

I always seem to find the best place in each destination, just as I am about to fly out. In Panama, it was San Blas. In Peru, it was the Colca Canyon. In Cartagena, it was a backstreet of Getsamani. Here in Mexico, it’s a Pacific beach called Zipolite, next to Puerto Angel.

Here, to old time travellers, is a rare residue of what third world travel was all about in the 70’s. Its no big deal, not wearing clothes when you swim. No one cares.  It’s no big deal, if the local pizza chef passes a client a joint as he slips the Margarita into to fire. The hippies are at home with the locals, and anyone can live on the beach in a hotel or hut for under $15. The expats arnt importing their urbane neurosis, but rather sit around all day talking the about the bigger issues of life, the cosmos and everything. To call the locals eccentric would be understated. Be who ya wana be, we don’t mind.  Zipolite reminds me of Kuta, in Bali, 35 years ago.

I was beginning to wonder if every World Bank borrowing country, had succumb to the  demands of the FDA, and like Bali and Phuket, turned a once cool scene, into a matrix of concrete hotels, soccer on the flat screens,  all for lager louts and obese sheep. Soem say that the number of genuinely cool scenes, around the planet, has been drastically reduced over the last 20 years. But at least one liberal minded mob remains. I will see, in my travels ahead, what else exists like this. Cool has a way of finding air.

Here, I sit under thatched roofing, on hippy painted furniture, or hammocks, perusing the nutters doing ‘beach’. The surf of massive Pacific rollers keeps the surfers entranced, and the air ionised.

Its two days, all day driving back to Cancun, to dump the car, and jump the jet to NYC.

I had no idea what I was going to find in the Americas, but now, after 5 months here, I’m hooked. I could do to learn some more Spanish, and arrange better motorbikes and camping gear, next time around, as   somewhere in my life ahead, there must be room for a quick ride from Argentina to Alaska.

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