May the Peace of our town be with you

We arrived so early after rolling down through canyons and from one side of Baja to the other across a highway potholed and emotionally troubled from the start. Dogs ate AK, dogs ate Waz, dogs ate me and we looked for a better place after breakfast of pancakes and orange juice and coffee and beans and man I wanted more orange juice, it was so good to my throat.



Then we slept inside the Hotel Lorimar, the air conditioner was too noisy to turn on but we tempted ourselves with its cold breeze anyway. Then it became quiet and I slept and they slept and we woke hours later still wanting to be asleep. We walked along the malecon and stared at the water, wondering where the beaches were and how we could not get to them right now. I could have dived into that harbour in my jeans and boots if it wasn't for my boredom.

By now I am all but refusing to speak Spanish, it's too hard and I am tired and everyone speaks English anyway.

These Giant Creatures

Spitting and dorsalling and rolling and eyeing you off. Grey Whale mum and calf at the side of the boat, waiting for their belly to be scratched for days to free them off barnacles and then you think again. It's not easy to decide to pat a whale.

It's the new age sensation of 1997 and the whale noise CD, now I can understand it and I will buy one when I get back to shore.



They were so graceful, I felt sadness for them been coralled between jewish senior citizens from New York on lunchtime cruisers and backpackers on fishing boats. They most likely hated us but I heart for them, I fell for whales that day.

The Salt of the Earth

So maybe this could be a piece of Mexico, less English, less concrete, more beauty for damn sure.

The night rider

You ride, ride, ride out through the city in the back of a station wagon and Christ is on the hilltop, peering and leering down on you and La Hedonista. There's the idea, floating in the middle of your mind that you are about to get the fuck hit out of you, maybe something dark, long and sharp threatened at your arse before they take your safety net of visa, passport, cash, bag. Then you don't really need it to live, you might actually feel free.

But in Tijuana they don't commit crime in day light. Vice is saved the dark.

So we waited for hour, hour, hour at Tijuana's bus terminal and then a big bus that did not look big enough rolls in and you figure, climb aboard. You watch slums and strip malls form one long chain, calling out for each other to have a meaningful relationship of cheap tiquila and child prostitution.

I slept, slept for some time and woke to a machine gun at my window. A babies face holding a machine gun and looking through the luggage underneath. Speed humps and harsh white light and then back in to the boiling black of night. I saw giant cactus, two-storey tall and with birds perched above them and eyes glowing back at me.

An apple and an orange cost me 7 pesos, I smiled and climb back on. Tried to sleep and watch out the window at the same time.

Border town

It's the most notable of border posts, a giant Mexican flag flies high above Tijuana.

Mexico ... well Tijuana at least

It's odd, something of an identity crisis where two economies, two cultures, two times clash viciously and desperate not to give.

Tijuana is a shit hole filled with leeches, vices and fast food. Tonight we could have watched a donkey fuck a woman for $US70 - it was there on the street for us to buy, to consume like a hot dog between sunglasses and burritos. I am frightened, I feel lonely but I feel comfortable in the middle of all this hurly.

I am with company, with compadres and we are well together. We get moody, I get moody at least and I know I push them away but we are here, in Mexico together and that really is enough for the moment.

We're trying to push on Baja Spur, Santa Rosaria perhaps, somewhere below the 28th parallel. Where we go forward another hour, or another hour away. Another hour closer to nothing, which is maybe what we are looking for.

Don't drink the water ... features

It’s 5 and the neon is flicking through thick felt curtains. The clock keeps flashing at me:
“Please stop talking to me, don’t do this.
“We can have a meaningful relationship, you just have to be honest.
“Is it AM or PM?”
AK is hallucinating, Waz is sleeping and I am between.
Giant volcanoes erupt every hour on the hour and gondolas float through the desert, searching for consumers while Caesar gloats as his empire roars.



We took mushrooms and I shat for two days straight then went out for new jeans and a belt. The paradise buffet was all that America can eat for just $6.99. So we ate to pass the time and waited and ate apple pie and waited and I shat some more.
Then our princess delivered juice and we checked to see it was included.
She was beautiful and oddly naïve, her innocence was honest – the most honest thing I’d felt in 24 hours. I hearted her but it was useless like it always is. She just kept bringing me apple juice, caring for me more and more with each limp sip. I asked for more ice ands she obliged – I could have had her right there.
We got out as best we could, with more than our dignity in tatters but our souls still intact.