Travel Log - Hunting, Hitchhiking, Painting & Getting Dirty: Traveling Across America

[Sleazeside Heights]

is that a simpsons reference?

[Keepitrail]

Resized mate, hope I got them in the right order.

thanks, man.

 

KIR- hit me up. I'll PM you some contact info. I'm still on the unemployed circuit, so the time is rampant.

on it. check your phone!

 

i really like that this is still going. saw some tier over the past weekend in your home town man.

over my friends though. thats that shit i dont like.

not mad. keep doin you

ha, sorry about that... who was it over? Must have been many moons ago.

is that a simpsons reference?

 

Pinchy would have wanted it that way...

[Keepitrail]

 

(continuing)

 

I made good friends with one of the workers, Benedito, and was invited to his home, a small shack on a hillside about a mile into the jungle. There was a dirt path which led uphill off of the dirt road, winding up through the forest to a hill where his 3-walled thatch roof shack sat upon. He had maybe a dozen banana trees, three scraggly chickens, two near death dogs, a plumpish brown wife, and two very young children.

 

There was no running water, save for the creek which (most of the time) flowed a quarter mile downhill from his house, which all his water came from. No electricity, no stove, no bed, just hammocks and a fire pit. The first thing the guy offers me is a blunt rolled in corn husk. After that, his wife comes out with (creek) coffee, and chicken-neck oil soup.

 

In perspective, the host family's wasn't exactly a resort, it had some electricity, running water, cinder block houses, a kitchen, flocks of chickens, a car, etc. Even with all they, they rarely cooked us meat. So to be treated with that was pretty impressive, coming from this family that lives on almost nothing.

 

We talked for a while, smoked, and ate chicken necks and tortillas till the sun set. He moved out to the jungle from the Belize City, a terrifically awful place to live. He said he was basically a robber and gangbanger, but he got sick of always going to jail and his wife being killed helped him decide to move out of the shit.

 

When the conversation lulled, I naively asked "so, what are you doing tonight?" He just looked at me plainly and smiled. This is what he's doing tonight. Sitting in his shack waiting for dark, then sleeping. Having the same conversation with his wife and kids every night, without light, without water, without heat.Without a real meal. No drinks save boiled creek water.

 

He gave me an eighth, that he grew himself, and said keep it, thank you for coming over, and working with us. I gave him (US$20), because fuck man... he's in a shack, and he said no, I persisted, and he said, thank you -but it must go to my wife. It is commonplace that money goes to the woman of the house, lest the man spend it all on booze.

[MedicineCabinet]

a blunt rolled in corn husk!

 

thats awesome

[Keepitrail]

The next few days were mostly a blur... rising early, working my ass off, and meeting the family only for meals. There were five in total, father, mother, and three kids - two young

girls and a teenage boy. The boy pestered me incessantly to play chess with him, which I did, in between oven-ish sun

sessions shoveling sand and clearing land for the ever expanding garden of shitty little cacao plants.

 

[ Their "Earthship", made of concrete and used plastic & glass bottles. Most Earthships are made to be self-sustainable and benefit their environment. This one will be something of a trap for tourists who visit the Lubantuun ruins and need refreshments. ]

 

They were (and acted like) British upper-middle class rejects who flew from their homeland to a place where their pestulent snobbishness would be feared, if not tolerated.

Constant was I told something I did was "so .. American". I have to say though, Their Earthship was pretty sick.

It would have been a real trip to work on it had they not been complete assholes 24 hours a day.

To give a brief example, take a verbatum exchange between me and the father of the family, Richard. The scene is such:

 

Enter KIR, having just finished mixing concrete in the sun for five hours in 104 degree heat,

emerges from the back of the house, having washed his face in a creek. He goes to his small

cabana and grabs a blanket hanging from the porch, and dries his face. It's noon.

 

KIR (aside): Whoooo, fuck me. That feels good.

 

Enter Richard, the father, having just emerged from his hammock.

 

Richard: EY! At's not a fuckin' toul, ya? 's a fuckin blanke'.

 

KIR (looks up): What?

 

Richard: Aye said it's not a fuckin toul, ya? is a blanke'. You don't wipe your fayce onnit.

 

KIR: Oh, I'm so, so sorry, Richard! Tell me, what do you Earthlings do with this... "blanket"?

 

[Keepitrail]

In the end, a week into our 6-week journey, it finally got too much. We were supposed to be gone that night, but we ended up coming back early. We noticed that on the one night we were supposed to be gone they had made duck pate. "If you don't know how to appreciate pate, don't just eat it anyway or push it aside, give it to us, it's a very complicated taste."

Another memorable quote: "Back in Spain, ya? We had pyramids of fois gras. Lit-rally pyramids."

We were discussing how "Americans" celebrate holidays and I mentioned that for Christmas one year, I told my family instead of gifts, to give to this cleft palette foundation to fix kids grills.

 

"That's so American, ya? Why don't you do that every year, uh? It's so incredibly selfish."

 

"I'm selfish? What about you? Why don't you house some of your Mayan workers that live in dirt shacks and eat nothing but corn and rice? You have empty houses sitting here and you're eating duck pate, drinking liquor I brought halfway across the continent for you."

 

At this point, it descends into madness. The wife, Alisa, begins screaming at me, "You don't know what it's like! They're better off than us! How dare you!" Then the man, Richard. "You have no idea how the world works do you? You're lit-rally the most ignorant person I've evah met. Totally fucking charmless. The steupidest person I've evah met."

"You don't go back home much do you?"

"The fuck does that mean?"

At this point, I tell him we're going to be leaving, that they're incredibly dysfunctional. The woman starts screaming, and Richard picks up the other end of the bench I'm on, shouting British obscenities. Then he walks across the table and gets up in my face, to which I bring one index finger to his face and tell him that he had best be very careful the next thing he does. He backs down, but his wife rears up, "YEWWW don't tell him to be careful! Git the fuck out of my house! Go-on!"

My girl's already out of the house, crying and packing our bags. I walk out, followed by the wife, who is literally screaming at the top of her lungs. I'm laughing my ass off, trying not to collapse. "got ya knickas in a twist, ya?"

[Keepitrail]

We said peace to the only other person who was there, a rural English dude with half his face shave and half the other side of his head shaved. He was making a bottle labyrinth. He said "boop" endlessly and had some sort of manifesto regarding it. They seemed to keep him around to have backing to whatever argument they were pushing. He stuck around for the food and place to stay, plus he had zero dollars. Apparently he walked from Florida to CA once. He was pretty legit.

I found his youtube account worth a peek. http://www.youtube.com/user/twatrick

 

Anyway, we said peace to him and started packing up our shit, it was dark as fuck and in the middle of the jungle. The ruins were about a mile down the road, (where they "found" the crystal skull of Mayan lore) so we figured we'd camp there. We had a little bottle of rum and some beers in their kitchen, so I returned to get them, fending off Alisa with a well timed "shut up dumb cunt" and then drinking all the liquor and beer we had.

 

Everything was straight and we were putting on pants for the jungle trek when I was struck in the knee with a baseball bat coated in hornets and anthrax.

Fuck that.

 

Within a few minutes my leg was entirely numb, except for horrific pain in my knee. Drunk and limpy, we wandered off into the darkness, English curses at our heels.

[!@#$%]

wow. i tend to try to avoid people because of these types of exchanges

 

:rolleyes:

 

not much you can do about crazy.

 

nutty updates. props.

we ran across a scorpion in cambodia but it was far smaller than that behemoth

[Keepitrail]

The next day, I went to their house on the way to the bus stop and told them they owed us ninety bucks for all their books and shit we brought them, to which she throws some english pounds on the floor and says "There, fair and legal tender"

"What is this? How much is this?"

"It's the most powerful money in the world. You're clever, figure it out."

 

We took the bus into Punta Gorda, and hooked up at a hostel where we met a chill as fuck old guy who immediately recruited us to work on his little jungle house on an island thirty minutes by boat away. That night, we were sitting in the little common area with some Aussies playing chess when we heard what sounded like a wet timing belt. We all shut up, and then a blood-murder scream erupted, "HELLP ME! HELP!"

 

.01 seconds later Me and the Aussie dude were out the door running down the street towards a small group of girls screaming and pointing into the woods.

"He went that way!"

 

Robbers! We took chase to the woods, pitch black, weaving through houses and overgrown alleys, each with a 2x4 ready to smash up some belizian bad guys. Barefoot, we crashed through some trees and saw the guy take off down the road. In a minute, we lost him, but another guy had driven up and pointed out the robber's house. Apparently he lived like three blocks away. We ran to his house and this dude fuckin smashes down the dudes door with one kick. He was gone. The town was small enough the guy wasn't getting away anytime soon so we went back to the hostel and kicked it till we caught a boat ride to the spot on the island the next day.

[Keepitrail]

The homie Chet, our new host on the island. He put us to work immediately, saying "Whatever you can do, build, plant, make paths, anything helps. I'll bring food out to the island twice a week and you just work as much as you want. The main thing I want is for you two to enjoy yourselves and learn from Santiago (the indigenous Mayan who lived there most of the year by himself)"

 

Santiago's tent, which he inexplicably placed on the concrete flooring and slept with no matress.

 

The best part of staying there, a SHIT TON of crabs all along the beach. They were so big that when you ran up on one with a stick, it would raise up its big claw to fight, and immediately topple over backwards from the weight. Super easy catches, hold em down, pick em up, and bucket.

 

There was one other dude there, Ben, who was chill as fuck and left his home in Maine to bounce around Central America for no reason.

 

Daily catch

 

Ben patching up Santiago after he stepped on a nail.

 

The hammock after my girl thought it would be funny to surprise me and jump on while I was in it.

 

Gathering special rope wood vines to make hats and fans with.

 

Neighbors down the river. Every day these two old people would go out at five AM and throw out a mile of net into the river, then haul it up at noon and ride to town with whatever they caught. We dug a well for them at some point but it got contaminated with dead fish water (?).

 

Conch

view from our tent

[Keepitrail]

wow. i tend to try to avoid people because of these types of exchanges

 

:rolleyes:

 

not much you can do about crazy.

 

nutty updates. props.

we ran across a scorpion in cambodia but it was far smaller than that behemoth

 

I know right... I just pretend I'm an anthropologist, and my job is to study these people without passing judgement or participating in their lunacy. It makes it much more enjoyable that way.

[ink face]

that sounded real hectic dealing with them english folks. Can't say i've ever caught one from a scorpion, nor want to, but this:

 

is the motherfucking business.

[!@#$%]

in fucking deed^

 

I know right... I just pretend I'm an anthropologist, and my job is to study these people without passing judgement or participating in their lunacy. It makes it much more enjoyable that way.

 

awesome attitude

 

[one thing that is essential for long trips, imo]

[bobbie blowjob]

"You don't go back home much do you?"

"The fuck does that mean?"

At this point, I tell him we're going to be leaving, that they're incredibly dysfunctional. The woman starts screaming, and Richard picks up the other end of the bench I'm on, shouting British obscenities. Then he walks across the table and gets up in my face, to which I bring one index finger to his face and tell him that he had best be very careful the next thing he does. He backs down, but his wife rears up, "YEWWW don't tell him to be careful! Git the fuck out of my house! Go-on!"

My girl's already out of the house, crying and packing our bags. I walk out, followed by the wife, who is literally screaming at the top of her lungs. I'm laughing my ass off, trying not to collapse. "got ya knickas in a twist, ya?"

 

sounds like some full blown old school imperialistic folks , wow..

[BELTOLEUM]

Damn KIR you make me want to leave again, aftr just getn home.

Got a homie n Santa Cruz tryna head dwn to Belize soon, told her

i wantd to join.

Lookn good, keep it going

[Deine Mudder]

...ding dong !

[bobbie blowjob]

...ding dong !

 

who's there?

[Guest]

Damn KIR you make me want to leave again, aftr just getn home.

Got a homie n Santa Cruz tryna head dwn to Belize soon, told her

i wantd to join.

Lookn good, keep it going

 

I thought I am pretty spartan …

 

Belto does it for real tho

[Sleazeside Heights]

thanks for the shoutout homie. Hope you're having an awesome holiday season. be safe and enjoy, seems ya always do.

[Keepitrail]

who's there?

Another update!

 

 

I think i left off somewhere in southern Belize...?

 

we left the little island house after a few weeks of restoring the place and took a bus up to Mexico.

I have some good pictures of that but I'll summarize since I can't find them here...

 

- Went to a cenote and spent the day jumping and swimming with these eel-like birds that speared fish with their beaks

 

 

Then back to Cancun, at a neat hostel - take the bus into the beach area, stop by a few farmacias and cop some super cheap mexican vicodin and percs.

The molly we snuck in was in capsules, but we kept it in our vitamins bag, and apparently at some point the whole thing got kind of damp and they merged into a weird gummy bear that tasted like piss and made your whole world into phosphorescent fantasies snorkeling in super warm mexican beaches and getting free drinks from hotels by finding wristbands in the sand. The coke was god-awful and expensive even by MX standards...

 

Afer a week of silliness we woke up in the hostel to a stolen camera. All of the photos from the past year were on it. We ran downstairs and told the dude working the desk - an ex-gangster dude who we had befriended. He put the place on lock and said nobody was leaving without getting searched. But really... it was like 10 am and whoever took it was long gone for sure. Back upstairs in the room, we packed our bags and a mexican dude was walking out. They don't allow mexicans to stay in the hostels. Fake polo shirt, 210lb, fauxhawk, and a little backpack. He passed me and I kind of looked at him sideways and he stopped and said in spanish, 'hey friend, do you know where the bathroom is?' which was about 20 feet away, in the same room we all slept in. 'yeah, it's right there.' he looked over, 'oh, i'm going to use the one downstairs...' 'why don't you use that one?' 'oh no problem, i'm just heading out' "Nahhhhhhhh, hold up a sec" he started to walk by me. "nah, dude, hold up.' My girl called the desk homie and he came up, talking better spanish. we agreed to go downstairs and look in his bag. At the bottom of the stairs he started to run outside and I grabbed him and swung in front of him to block the door. Then he tried to play it hard and get by me, at which point my homie called the cops. We sat him (forcibly) down on the couch and he emptied his bag, but there was just some clothes and an ipod cord. "See? Nada! And you are keeping me here against my will!" Hold up, homie. He was shaking his bag upside down but holding onto it kind of odd. I grabbed his bag and sure enough..clunk. At this point he stands up and starts to run out, but I grabbed his collar and sat him down. He tried to act like he was going to swing, but my homie ran up on him and told him what was the deal in spanish. The cops came and handcuffed him to the pickup truck, took him away. He was saying he'd be out that night and come back for revenge, but my homie pointed a finger at him and said "boom boom boom amigo, try it".

 

Anyway, we caught the bus to the airport and ditched out, all limbs intact and camera inhand.

[Keepitrail]

As Some1 said:

 

 

GET YOUR ASS ON INSTAGRAM DAMNIT

 

I just got it! Put me on: Keepitrail

[Keepitrail]

FF to the past few months. I don't know if I included the 100+ hours I spent on one fucking freight train from Oakland to St. Louis?? I'll put the pics up anyway. Here's some random stuff along the way!

 

A dead dog my girl ran over when we ran around Valladolid MX on the hostel's bikes.

 

How I hope to be at 50

 

Debil Werships in Guatemala

 

Shootin Coons in TN

 

$$$$

[Cool_Hand]

Glad you are updating man! where are you these days?

[Keepitrail]

Just before leaving the sailboat for a while, grabbed my paintings off it

Nothing says Welcome to California like a dumpster full of weed.

 

 

Santa Barbara...

 

Oh yeah, so some aussies from Melbourne come by SF back in November and want to do a road trip. Fuck yes!

They rented a car in SF, and stayed the night on the boat. In the morning, I grabbed all my shit and we shoved off east towards Yosemite.

[Keepitrail]

Glad you are updating man! where are you these days?

Still bouncing around, but I'm in north bay SF now, trying to keep my boat on a leash.

[Keepitrail]

Me and the auzzies made it up to Yosemite and spent a few days there. I took them to the secret tunnel in the pass. There's actually two, we found the other one on the way out. If you're going in from 120, and you get into the park, there's a tunnel through the mountain about a half mile long. About halfway through it, if you're looking away from the mountain, there's a tiny little tunnel that flashes by. Everyone parks right after the tunnel and takes flicks, but you have to hike back up into the tunnel to get the super tight view. I think I mentioned it twenty or so pages back. Here it is again.

Scary as fuuuuck leaning over that cliff...

[Keepitrail]

I just realized I had two photobucket accounts. Hahahah.... I kept wondering where half my shit was.

Yosemite... Second only to Yellowstone.

But... Death Valley!!

Back at the salt flats....

Eat some c-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e-s...

THINGS GET STRAAANNNNGEEEEEE..........................

 

Moonlight refractions on hundred mile horizons, salt plate fire pops, bang! Bottlerocket burns, blood and missing finger skin - white hot night and where's the beer... give me the revolver, quick! Pow! Pow! Shoot the moon, mushroom bloom from barrel soon! Burned up bags, nylon rips and feathers everywhere, how did we sleep through that? The Auzzie needs a doctor. Distant dots, looks like cops... let's take a walk.

 

Dots disappear... twenty feet near, reappear..

 

(female) Drop the bags, Any weapons on you? ---(hmmmm)....Why No, officer! - You were Camping in the salt flats - Illegal fun! No sleeping where it's unauthorized! ....(though I admit I wish I could sleep there) at any rate, what's this?? I spy a bone in the car - Possession of Natural Resources! I'll have to retrieve it. Oh my, I'll have to look around for More Natural Resources. Ah-HAH! POTS AND PILLS! [[[they fail to notice the drug induced tags on the ground about 10 feet from the car]]]] and what's this>> Sprayable Paint - Tell me son, when was the last time you huffed??

 

$350 later....

 

Okay boys, free to go - don't go having anymore fun without our permission! And don't forget the forms! Fill out the forms! Pay the paperwork! Work your ass off to pay me to fuck people over! (2nd cop "Oh, what's this...what color spraypaint was in the car?" Oh.... blue, ma'am. "Sure it wasn't black?Look at this here... " don't know what that is, ma'am. looks like scribbles. "Isn't that a coincidence?" Don't think so ma'am, listen, we gotta go - meetings in Vegas and corporate stuff... -everyone scrambles in car and jets --

 

I tell a guy in line the story of the desert, and he says "Be right back".... ten minutes later he hands me a quarter of sour diesel "I know that feeling buddy... enjoy your stay in vegas"

A portion of advice: If you really really want to get on the roof of the Circus Circus, make it quick.

 

Cause they know the instant you open that door!!

[hatetown]

I had some pretty good photos of my last trip from Berkeley up to PDX but seems my camera doesn't want to stay on for more than 5 seconds. By the way, what the fuck is an Instagram??

[Keepitrail]

On the Road Again....

 

Driving out 37 to Tahoe, we spotted this little beauty. Sprewing beer shouting, "Sphtthphthh! Talongs! talons! pullover!"

 

a good start to a weeklong trip through hotspring country

[injury]

you have an *impressive* way with the law. just $350 for all that, damn.