hitchhiking around the world
DESCRIPTION
In 1991, Adam Cochran took off hitchhiking around the world with $350 hidden in his right shoe. Over a year later and lucky to be alive, he reappeared. This is his journal.TRANSCRIPT
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HITCHHIKING AROUND THE
WORLD
GUNS, KNIVES, AND POISON
By Adam Cochran
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Copyright 2009 by Adam Cochran
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INTRODUCTION
he following journal is completely true and I
have made every attempt to avoid exaggeration.
As my original tattered and stained journal is
quite sparse, I have added many details to my original
notes as best as I can remember them. All the people are
real people. The only changes made have been to edit out
days or periods of time that I felt were not eventful
enough to leave in.
T
I want to thank my lovely wife, Laura, for proofing this
book and pointing out many of my grammatical errors.
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Any errors that still exist are a result of changes I made
later. I don’t claim to be a great writer, but I feel it is
important to make sure that my adventure isn’t lost when
I die. I simply want people to know that this took place.
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2:35PM, APRIL 26, 1991
top!” yells Mike from the back seat. Toby
snaps out of his driver’s haze, and
instantly clutches the wheel at the ten and
two position. His speed slows but he doesn’t stop the car.
“S
I look up from my map to see a not-too-attractive woman,
with her thumb out, standing on the entrance ramp
wearing nothing but a vest and shorts. With some
prompting from Mike, she grabs her vest and throws it
open, revealing her bare breasts. I assume that this show
is to tempt us into giving her a ride, and while we
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appreciate the effort, there’s no possible way we can cram
another body, even a naked one, into Toby’s little car.
“Stop!” insists Mike.
Toby slowly drives past the woman as we enter the
highway. I give her a consolatory wave, and Mike
continues to be outraged.
“You guys are assholes!” he says.
Toby doesn’t bother with an explanation. We just
continue on our journey. All I can think is that I wish my
life were always this entertaining.
I know that in a couple of hours I’m going to be dropped
off with nothing but my backpack, made out of my best-
friend Adrian’s football duffel bag, and $350 hidden
underneath the insole of my right shoe. I don’t get
nervous very often, but I am a little nervous now.
Actually, I am very nervous.
As Toby’s driving, he glances over, “You’re a freak,
Adam.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye,
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trying to gauge whether his comment has annoyed me or
not.
I nod, but really all I can think right now is, “Has anyone
ever even tried this before?” Maybe I am crazy. I’ve
never heard of anyone hitchhiking around the world, not
to mention on only $350. I guess it doesn’t matter now.
I’m too bored with my life not to try.
Soon we switch drivers.
“You know, Toby, I’m surprised that you even let me
drive your car after I tried to jump your Impala.”
“I know, but there’s no way that I want to drive all the
way from Idaho to San Diego by myself…just don’t try
and jump anything or I’m going to be crazy pissed”
“Turn in here,” Mike says.
I pull in to the ferry dock and Mike hops out. I get his
bag out and hand it to him.
“Have a great time on Catalina Island, Mike.”
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Mike has managed to line up a job for the summer
hooking up tourists’ harnesses at a parasailing business.
“Ya, good luck to you, Adam. I hope you make it back.”
I smile and wave as I climb back into the car. As we are
driving away I’m thinking that I’ll probably never see
Mike again.
I have this grand vision of hitchhiking around the world.
I use the word “Vision” rather than “Plan,” because the
only planning I have done is to spend about 20 minutes
looking at a National Geographic map of the world. I will
attempt to hitchhike south through Mexico, Central
America, and South America. I’d love to go to Europe
and Africa, as well, but that would require a plane ticket,
and with only $350 to my name, it looks like I’m headed
to Mexico.
Without a doubt, this is a poorly conceived, half-cocked
idea…but it’s my idea, and if I die attempting it, I hope
that people will remember me as adventurous and not just
stupid. The whole thing is a little like the high dive. The
scariest part is standing at the top looking down. At least
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that’s what I keep telling myself. I figure if I don’t
attempt this now, it will never happen. I don’t have a
girlfriend, a job, or any bills to hold me back. What I do
have, however, is a strong desire to escape this boredom
that has plagued me my entire life.
A couple hours have gone by and we are now on the
outskirts of San Diego. “Let me buy you your last meal,”
Toby says, as he hands me a burrito. Considering that I
have eaten nothing but Top Ramen for the past three days,
this burrito is a little piece of heaven.
Before Toby leaves, he helps me rustle up a piece of
cardboard that he has torn off a box from behind the
burrito shack. I write “El Centro” on it, which I know is
near the Mexican border, and then hand Toby back his
marker.
“Thank you, Toby. I feel like I am jumping off a ship in
the middle of the ocean.”
“You are…you can keep the marker.”
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As Toby drives away, I notice a scraggly man with a
backpack and his dog approaching me. “Need a drink?”
he asks as he shoves his can of Hamm’s beer in front of
me. “I’m a witness to a murder and I’ve been running
from the subpoena for two years now but they ain’t
caught me yet. You can sleep with me in these bushes
tonight if you want.”
I contemplate the meaning of “with me” for a moment.
“Thanks, but I need to catch a ride,” I tell him.
“You won’t catch anything this late. It’s a six-hour trip,
ya know.”
Considering the sign in front of me says that El Centro is
120 miles away, I’m a bit suspicious. I nod, and five
minutes later get picked up by a guy and his two kids in a
station wagon. As I’m putting my bag in the back, the
driver says to me, “Let’s get out of here before that bum
gets here.” I hop in and thank him for picking me up.
“No prob! I like the conversation. My wife’s leaving me,
but I don’t care! Where you going, anyway?”
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“South America.”
I’m not so sure that he believes me, but it probably
doesn’t matter. Two hours later we reach El Centro and
he drops me off.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say.
“Hey, good luck, man! Don’t get killed!”
I see a McDonald’s up ahead and it looks like a good
place to wash up and brush my teeth. I think that I’ll wait
until morning before I cross into Mexico. I don’t know
where I’m going to sleep tonight, but I see a haggard-
looking homeless man on a picnic table up ahead that I
might be able to talk to. Maybe I’ll sleep near him if he
seems alright.
“How’s it going? I’m Adam.”
“Ok,” he grunts.
“What’s your name?”
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“I don’t have a name anymore.”
It looks like I’m not going to get very far with this guy
and my mind begins to wander. How did this guy end up
looking the way he does? Why are there ugly people at
all? I mean, if evolution is true, then why isn’t everyone
beautiful? If being beautiful would cause you to be more
desirable and, therefore, have more offspring, then why
aren’t there more beautiful people today than, say, 100
years ago. Even homeless, this guy should be really hot.
Suddenly, I snap back into reality.
I guess I will just sleep behind those trees up ahead. A
moment later, I’m pulling my sleeping bag out. I also
reach for a piece of string to tie my pack to my belt loop;
a safety precaution that I adopt for the rest of my World
Adventure, as I’ve begun calling it. Tomorrow will be
June 1, 1991. I am 19 years old and am about to
hitchhike into Mexico with just over $300 to my
name…what could go wrong?
I have lots of time to think as I am lying here, thinking
about why I’m not happy. Is sleeping in some weeds 300
feet from a bum going to change anything? I’ve never
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heard of that making anyone happier…but what else can I
do? I thought that when I turned 18 and went off to
college, everything would change; that I would be more
fulfilled and these feelings of constant boredom would go
away. Why can’t I be more like my friends, happy going
to parties, hitting on girls, puking off balconies. Maybe
my expectations of life were too high, but I really feel like
I am wired differently. I just wish a UFO would land and
take me back to their planet. Let me experience
something completely different from anything that I have
ever known. Being scared is a poor substitute for being
bored, but I suppose desperate times require desperate
measures.
In some ways this whole trip is a bizarre experiment in
my search for whatever is missing inside me. Sometimes
I wish I could just take a time machine and travel to
another place and time. I begin to ponder this. What if I
traveled back to, say, Jesus’ Last Supper? How exciting
would that be? The more I think about it, though, the
more I realize that time travel will never be possible. If it
were possible, I certainly wouldn’t be the only person
with a time machine at the Last Supper. Imagine how
many people between now and the end of time will want
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to witness the Last Supper. There will be millions of
people there with their time machines waiting to witness
the historic event. The bible would certainly mention
these millions of time machines circled around the table.
I can’t decide whether pondering this means I’m smart or
an idiot. I know which way I’m leaning, though, and it’s
not a pleasant conclusion. Either way, it’s beginning to
look like I’m going to be stuck in 1991 for a while, so I
better try and get some rest.
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6:03AM, JUNE 1, 1991
he sun is already shining on my face when I
wake up. My feelings have now moved from
unease to anticipation. I feel good. Right away
I catch a ride with a guy to Calexico, a border town that is
split in half by a fence. The American side is called
Calexico and the Mexican side is Mexicali…although,
both sides seem pretty Mexican.
T
“I’m headed down to Calexico to give blood. They only
let me do it twice a week, but I get $17.50 and free
doughnuts every time!”
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“That’s pretty cool,” I say.
“Damn right it is! You want to come with me? It’s easy
as shit and you get all the free doughnuts you want.”
“I would, but I’ve got to get going. Thanks, though.”
“Suit yourself.”
It’s starting to appear that the people I meet may end up
being the best part of my journey. He drops me off at a
one-way revolving door along the fence line, which I
walk through. I think that I’m in Mexico, but I’m not
sure. I don’t even see a border patrolman. After
wandering around Mexicali and its outskirts for a couple
hours, I think that I’ve finally confirmed that I’m in
Mexico and have located the Pan American Highway. I
have to tell people that I’m headed to Mexico City,
because it is one of the few places that I can pronounce to
their understanding, let alone one of the only words I
know in Spanish.
It is hot! Really hot! I’ve drunk so much water today that
this piece of corn I bought for a buck is as much as I want
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to eat. I’m hoping that I don’t get sick from the water.
I’ve heard horror stories, so I’m taking precautions. I’m
using an old cranberry juice container as a water jug and
inserting Army Surplus water purification tablets. Now
would not be a good time for me to get sick.
When I show people on my National Geographic map of
the world where I am going, which is basically just south,
they say that I’m “loco.” They say I’m other things, too,
but without any knowledge of Spanish, I can only guess at
their meanings. Frequently, I check my compass to make
sure that I’m still going south.
Not knowing where to sleep, I bang on the door of a local
church. To my surprise, they are letting me sleep in a
room connected to the back of the church. There is
nothing in the room but a light and some trash on the
floor, but it’s free, and I’m thankful that the lady from the
church is letting me stay here. I think I’m about 200
miles into Mexico. No turning back now.
The church here is the most gorgeous that I have ever
seen. Completely white with marble floors. Statues of
Jesus and Mary laced with gold decorate the inside. It is
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lonely here, though. Especially, not being able to speak
Spanish, but I’m working on it, trying to memorize a few
words here and there.
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3:15PM, JUNE 3, 1991
A
hundred miles between towns and nothing in
between except cactuses and sand. Mostly just
big trucks on the road, but trucks are good
when you’re hitchhiking because they cover a lot of
distance. Ernie says that he is taking his load of tomatoes
all the way to Mexico City. It’s going to be a long trip,
but at least I know I’m going to make it that far. He lets
me sleep up in the tomatoes, which is much better than on
the dirt with the cockroaches. We don’t have cockroaches
back in Idaho. It’s too cold for them there, so these are
the first ones I have ever seen. The one that I’m looking
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at now is nearly four inches in length. It took me a
moment to realize that it wasn’t simply a large mouse.
Ernie laughed at my surprise and told me, via charades,
that they are over five inches long in Guatemala and some
people eat them. I’m not sure that that’s true, but he
seems pretty convinced of it.
Little by little, Ernie and I move through Mexico.
Culiacán, Mazatlan, and so on, continuing south on the
Pan Am. The highway is in terrible condition and the
trucks on it are even worse, so it takes a long time to
cover much ground. We stop occasionally and beat on
the tires with a wooden rod to make sure that they are not
flat. The truck has double tires, so it is hard to tell if we
have a flat or not. When struck with the rod, a flat tire
makes a different sound then a full tire, and having a flat
tire in the middle of the desert is a disaster. We drive for
hours on end without much to look at. Ernie takes speed
in his coffee to stay awake. It seems to be legal here,
although he says he used to do pot, cocaine, and freebase
four vials of crack a day.
We are starting to get into some valleys and ravines,
which are a nice change. It’s easy to tell when we are on
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a dangerous stretch of road by all the white crosses placed
along the shoulder of the road for every person that has
died by going off the edge and into the ravine. Usually,
when there are a large number of crosses, there will also
be a little temple at which Ernie, and most all drivers, will
stop to light a candle for their prayers. The little temples
are probably no larger than an average sized bathroom,
but contain hundreds of lit candles. It’s actually a pretty
amazing sight.
Truck drivers make a pretty good living here, so Ernie
buys me dinner quite a bit of the time. Meals usually
consist of tortillas and refried beans and cost about $2.
We generally eat at roadside food stands, where I always
seem to draw a crowd. Sometimes to hear my English,
sometimes to meet a gringo, and sometimes just to see my
contact lenses that Ernie loves to point out. It’s 1991.
Contact lenses have been around for a long time. I’m
pretty amazed that there are still people who have never
heard of them.
I don’t smell too great, but they must not either, because
no one ever seems to mind. I haven’t seen a toilet,
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shower, sink, or telephone since I left San Diego, but I
haven’t really searched for them either.
I see two cars up ahead swerving back-and-forth, and I
give Ernie a confused look. “Toros,” he says and smiles.
He punches the gas and gets up beside the cars. Now I
see the two bulls running down the road. Ernie drives
right up to them and nudges them off the road. He is
literally pushing the bulls with the side of his truck.
“Muy Bien, Ernie.” The people in the cars honk and
wave. They seem to have the attitude of “Good, now we
can continue,” as opposed to my response of, “Wow,
that’s kind of strange.”
We have been on the road for a long time now. Things
that were once odd are quickly becoming normal, like
wild burros running along side the truck, using used
notebook paper to wipe your ass with, and spending a half
hour draping the huge tarp over the truck of tomatoes
every time it rains.
We are getting in to Mexico City now and I don’t feel like
I am in the middle of nowhere anymore. This city is so
incredibly huge, it’s amazing. Our truck moves about a
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foot every five minutes, through the traffic, trying to get
to the market where we can unload his tomatoes. A car
bumps into our truck, so Ernie turns and yells out the
window at the guy. This is of little concern now, though,
because a police officer is at my window yelling
something in Spanish at Ernie. I wish I could understand
it. Ernie reaches down to grab something. He slips some
wadded-up cash into the officer’s hand as he is looking
around. The officer tucks it into his palm and walks away
as if nothing had happened. All I can think now is how
corrupt this place is. I’m a little concerned that I could
end up in some Mexican jail for the next twenty years.
Ernie has been a great companion and I appreciate all that
he has done for me, but it is time for me to say goodbye
and try to get out of Mexico City. I am able to mooch a
free ride on a trolley headed to the bus station. The ride is
essentially a music war between three guitar players in the
back of the trolley and the driver with his radio. Every
time the mariachi singers sing louder, the driver turns up
the radio.
Once I reach the bus station, I catch a bus which takes me
just outside of Mexico City. The reason for this is that I
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was told it would be a two-day walk to get out of the city
if I tried to do it on foot. There is a creek, so I guess that
this is as good of a place as any to sleep. I pull out my
sleeping bag and climb inside for the night.
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6:11AM, JUNE 6, 1991
C
lump! Clump! Clump! I jump up and try to
squirm out of my sleeping bag. All I can see
are animal legs around me. Finally, I’m able to
stand up and avoid being trampled by this train of burros
running past me on all sides. I think that the only thing
that kept me from being seriously injured is that the
burros purposely avoided stepping on me. In this one
moment, I am transformed into a light sleeper. All of my
life I have been a heavy sleeper, but from this moment
forward and for the rest of my life, I become a very light
sleeper. I would not have thought a transformation like
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this was even possible, but clearly it is. I run out of the
burros’ way, leaving my sleeping bag to fend for itself. I
intend to leave my bag, as well, but forgetting that I have
tied it to my waist, it drags behind me like an anchor
exasperating the situation. Finally, the burros pass and I
just stand there for a moment trying to figure out what
just happened. Eventually, I pack up my dusty sleeping
bag and work my way back to the road.
After about three hours with my thumb out, I’ve decided
to pay the 25,000 pesos ($8) for a bus ticket to Oaxaca.
The towns around here are full of street vendors trying to
sell food and handmade crafts. It is a real score for them
when the bus driver lets them on the bus. They walk up
and down the aisle trying to sell their goods. They don’t
have plastic cups down here and the bottles are too
valuable for them to give away, so when people buy a
Coke, they have to drink it out of a plastic sandwich bag
with a straw. It’s a bit awkward at first to keep the bag
from spilling, but with a little practice I’m starting to get
the hang of it. Maybe I’ll take buses for a while, if I can
afford it.
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I think it has been ten days since I took a shower and my
feet smell it. I’m getting “trench foot” from not letting
my feet dry out. I have heard about soldiers getting this
during World War I, but never understood exactly what it
was. Looking at my feet now, I know exactly what it is.
Having my shoes and socks on 24 hours a day for days on
end has caused my feet to become soft and white. They
are prune-like, as if I had been in a bathtub for hours. The
skin is so soft and fragile that any rubbing in my boots
causes pieces of skin to fall off or rub away. I’m going to
have to let my feet dry out at any cost. If my skin doesn’t
firm up, I will be in serious trouble. I have also begun
rubbing deodorant on my socks and the tops of my boots
to keep the scent down, but it hasn’t worked overly well.
They just smell like shampoo and bologna.
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12:30PM, JUNE 7, 1991
I
guess the major purpose for my trip is to make sure
that there is nothing better out there, see how other
people live and whether they are more or less happy
than I am, to learn a little, and to keep from being bored.
Boredom is a big problem with me, and much of what I
do is because of it. I’m afraid that I’m not going to be
happy doing anything, but I am looking, seeing what else
is out there, and hoping that I get a better understanding
of myself. I’m not sure how I ended up with these needs,
though. I don’t think that my growing-up was all that
atypical. My mother had me when she was 17 years old.
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It’s hard to believe that she was two years younger than I
am now. My birth father left us when I was three. He
actually moved out while my mother was in the hospital
giving birth to my brother. He did visit me and my
brother a few more times, but after age five, I never saw
him again. My mom remarried shortly after that and she
and my new father had two more children. I joined the
Boy Scouts, played basketball, served as Student Body
President, told a lot of jokes, basically did a lot of the
things that kids growing up in a small town do.
I’m sleeping in the Oaxaca open-air bus station. There is
a guy sitting in a desk in front of the bathroom. He is
selling toilet paper, one square at a time. A lady just
dropped her square and is chasing it around the station.
The crazy part is that I’m the only one laughing…or
maybe I should say trying not to laugh. This appears to
be a pretty regular occurrence for these folks. If nothing
else, it will at least help kill the time while I wait for my
bus to arrive.
The bus does finally arrives and I ride it all night and
morning. I’ve learned that “second class” means “Old
American school bus – three to a seat.” I’m 6’5”! 6’5”
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people don’t fit into school bus seats with two other
people…especially when they are all trying to drink Coke
from sandwich bags. All the sudden, passengers start
boarding the bus with chickens, some in cages, some not.
I don’t really mind the smell, but the chickens are loud
and just walking up and down the aisle. Clearly, I have
accidentally gotten on the third class bus, even though I
have a second class ticket. I walk up to the bus driver and
complain. In perfect English he says, “Third class has
pigs.” I’m not sure whether he speaks English or just gets
this question a lot. I go back to my seat and prepare for
the rest of the journey. We eventually arrive in Tapachula
where I spend about ten minutes trying to hitch a ride to
the border. I see a very small man walking up to me.
“Where are you going?” he asks in English.
“Guatemala.”
“You can go with me. My name is Louis.”
Louis is about my age, dark complexion and very thin.
We walk through Tapachula, which is basically a town
full of Guatemalans selling goods. Louis’ English is very
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poor, but better than my Spanish. We walk into a
bookstore so he can get some medical text books. Most
everyone stares at me. “They like your height,” Louis
says.
We are getting on a school bus now headed for
Guatemala. At the border, I am told that it will cost me
$10 for a visa. If I have to pay this at every country, I
will be broke in no time. I pull out my $100 bill, but they
have no change.
“I could cross into Guatemala, exchange my $100 bill at
that bank, and then return with the money for a visa.”
They reluctantly agree. The Border Patrolman once again
holds up ten fingers and says, “diez.” It occurs to me that
the reason our number system is in increments of ten is
probably because we have ten fingers. I wonder if there is
an eight-fingered tribe somewhere out in these jungles
using a number system that is in increments of eight.
Once I walk across the border, I bypass the bank, hop
back onto the bus and announce “Let’s go.” Probably not
one of my best ideas, but an idea nonetheless. Soon the
bus arrives in Louis’ village.
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“Louis, I need a bathroom…bad.” He takes me over to
his friend Pedro’s house and shows me the outdoor
shower. Clearly there is some miscommunication. I
proceed to act out the use of a toilet. He then shows me
to the toilet, which is also outside. As the toilet does not
appear to be connected to anything, I’m a bit confused.
After asking for some clarification, I discover that the
used notebook laying on the ground, which appears to
have homework written in it, is to be used as toilet paper.
“But DO NOT put it in the toilet!” Apparently I’m to
throw it on to the ground when I’m done. I am also
shown that to “flush” I am to fill this bucket with water
and then pour it into the toilet and everything will go
down into the “hole.” Having seen the “shower” I ask
Louis and Pedro if I can use it. I desperately need to
clean myself off. The shower is cold, but at this point, not
a concern. Pedro’s house is tiny; basically, two ten-foot
rooms; one for sleeping, one for everything else;
bathroom is outside.
The three of us go out for bite to eat and then Louis and I
hop on a bus that will take us closer to Louis’ house. It is
a very bumpy and crowded bus ride on dirt roads.
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“I think I’m going to puke, Louis!”
He looks at me confused, so I try again. “Agua es no
bueno por Americanos!” Then I make puking gestures.
He hands me his backpack so that I don’t puke on the bus.
Fortunately, I’m able to contain myself. Soon, after a bus
ride and half-hour hike up to his house, he finds me a bed
and in seconds I am fast asleep.
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7:28AM, JUNE 9, 1991
“A
dam! Adam! Wake up!” It’s about
7:30am and his family is excited to see
me. They have made me a huge
breakfast. I can’t identify any of it, though. They place a
large bowl in front of me with what appears to be an
avocado-shaped vegetable floating in milk. I take a bite
and am surprised to find that the milk is hot…and odd-
tasting. I look around, but it quickly becomes evident that
they do not own a cow…just a goat. I gag down the
unknown vegetable in hot goat’s milk with a smile on my
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face while they stand around watching me, waiting for my
approval.
“Gracias.”
The sun is finally starting to come up and I can see how
beautiful it is up here in the rainforest; a thousand
different shades of green. Louis’ family is very intrigued
by me. I pull out my camera, and they are in a panic,
running around, trying to put on their best clothes and
braiding their hair. Getting their picture taken is a big
thrill and they are making it a big deal. Everyone lines up
in a row in front of their house for the photo. The whole
family is here except for Louis’ father. He and all the
men of the village are carving a road along the side of the
mountain with nothing but gardening hoes. It almost
seems impossible, but they’re doing it. They are on the
side of the hill opposite us and I can see a big cloud of
dust rising from where they are working. Everyone seems
to be excited by the prospect of having a road that goes all
the way up to their little village.
Louis walks me down to the nearest road where we are
able to flag down a bus that says
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“La Chicata” as its destination.
“Thanks for everything, Louis! It was great to meet you
and your family.”
“Goodbye, Adam!”
Soon, I am traveling through the mountains of Guatemala.
No one speaks English so I am just enjoying the scenery.
This is truly one of the most beautiful places that I have
been in my entire life…then we round a tight corner.
“Oh my God!”
There’s a bus ripped in half across the road with bloody
bodies strewn for about 100 feet! It looks like about half
the people are dead and the other half are either injured or
taking care of the injured. Some of the people have
articles of clothing layed over top of them. Our bus
begins swerving around the bodies. It appears that we are
not going to stop. I can’t believe that we’re not stopping!
There’s about 30 dead and injured people on the road and
we’re not even stopping! We simply weave in and out to
39
avoid the bodies and then continue on our way. I am just
shocked and disturbed by it all.
For the next couple hours, I just stare out the window
thinking about the accident, when suddenly, our bus
finally stops. This isn’t La Chicata, though, this isn’t
even a town! We’re all switching on to a school bus
while a couple guys throw our bags on the top of the bus.
They are in a big hurry. Within minutes, our school bus is
pulling away, and I don’t see my bag anywhere. I’m
hanging out of the window to look on top of the bus, but
I’m pretty certain that my bag is not up there.
“Bus driver, my bag is not on this bus!”
I’m doing a little “my bag’s-not-on-this-bus” motioning
now, but I guess he’s never played charades before.
“Hey! Stop the damn bus! Alto!”
Finally, he stops. I jump out and jog back to the switch-
point. Upon arrival, I do my “bag-not-on-the-bus” routine
for the taxi driver. He nods and points at his taxi.
40
“No taxi!” I say, and do my little routine again. This time
he holds up two fingers and then points at his taxi.
“Thanks, that explains everything.”
This goes on for about twenty minutes before I am finally
able to ascertain that my bag was found and put on the
roof of another taxi, which is now chasing down the bus.
Finally, I get him to give me a ride to La Chicata. On the
way we pass a taxi coming from the opposite direction
with what appears to be my bag on the top. I nearly have
a heart attack, pointing, hanging out the window, and
yelling.
We flag down the other taxi and I am so relieved that I’m
just standing here with a giant smile on my face. I’m
never letting go of this bag again. I would have been
screwed without my sleeping bag, my contact lens
solution, and the $150 I have in there.
41
42
1:18PM, JUNE 10, 1991
I
t’s still very hot and, bag-in-hand, I’m just sitting at
the Guatemala/Honduras border now trying to figure
out what to do. I know the Guatemalans won’t
stamp my passport because I don’t have an entrance
stamp. I also know that the Hondurans won’t let me in
without an exit stamp from Guatemala. Besides this
predicament, I really don’t have any money to spare for a
visa, either. There is nothing here except the border
patrol station and I don’t even see any place where I can
sneak across. This looks very bad. I’m going to sit here
in front of the border patrol office and try to inch my way
43
over to the other side where the tourists that have already
been stamped are standing. I’m scooting inch-by-inch
and I don’t think that anyone is noticing. Slowly, ever so
slowly, inching. Okay, after about 20 minutes I have
worked my way to the other side. I hope no one has
noticed. I’m trying to keep my face down, but I’m so tall
that it makes it difficult for me to blend in. So far, so
good. I don’t think anyone is following me, but I’m not
looking back to see. Eventually, I slowly peak behind
me. No one! I’m safe.
Honduras is a very small country and, for me, consists
mostly of Mayan ruins, like Copán (which I have enjoyed
exploring), and hitchhiking, which has become more of an
art than anything. The road here is long, straight, and
desolate. I am the only thing that I can see in any
direction. I’ve grown to love hearing nothing but the
sound of gravel under my feet. It makes me feel like I’m
the only person on Earth. While I’m waiting for cars to
come, I’m kicking field goals with a Tacaté beer can. It’s
actually kind of fun, especially when I score. It gives me
a lot of time to think. Everyone tells me how the best
things in life are free, but I don’t think they give the bad
things equal time. What I mean is, I don’t see anyone
44
paying for the really bad things, either. Sure the best
things in life are free, but malaria is pretty cheap, too.
Suddenly it occurs to me…“I’m standing here talking to
an empty can of beer!”
What the hell am I doing in the middle of Central
America with only $250 and a jug of water? Maybe this
was a mistake. Maybe this was a BIG mistake.
Regardless, I can’t stay here, so I’ve got to put on an
Oscar-winning performance when a car actually does
come by. The first routine consists of making my hands
into fists with only my thumbs sticking out. At this point,
I swing my arms up and down in a sort of “disco-
hitchhike” dance routine as I move back-and-forth across
the road singing “Karma Chameleon.” The dance ends
with me pointing my direction of travel with my thumb.
In hindsight this was idiotic and probably delayed my
catching a ride.
After I try this a while and obtain nothing but a beer can
being hurled at me, I move on to “routine #2.” This one
consists of me standing in the road with my arms sticking
straight out to the sides at shoulder height. When the car
45
is within viewing distance, I make a wave go through my
arms starting at one arm’s fingertips and ending with a
thumb in the other hand pointing out the direction I want
to go. This “breakdancing-hitchhiking” is, of course,
accompanied with a little moonwalking routine I have
worked out. I’m sure I look ridiculous, but if I can make
people laugh, they just might stop. And if I can get a ride,
who cares what I look like? Hell, I could die out here!
When all other attempts fail, I find a big piece of
cardboard and write the name of the next country that I’m
headed to on it. In this case, “Nicaragua.” I am here with
my sign and no ride. I’m beginning to get desperate.
Maybe I’ll try “routine #1” again.
In this manner, I hitch my way through Nicaragua, Costa
Rica, over the Panama Canal, and finally make my way to
the south of Panama. I run into some trouble trying to
leave Nicaragua, though. The border is completely
fenced with no way to sneak across. The border is made
up of two chain link fences with a two-mile gap between
them. The two-mile space is a no-man’s land in which
anyone crossing can be easily seen. I walk up to the gate
and try to enter. The soldier sees that I have no entrance
46
stamp and takes me into a building to speak to his
commanding officer. Another man who speaks English
helps translate for me. The translator, who is simply a
traveler like myself, and the officer argue for about 45
minutes. At one point, the translator says to me, “I think
they’re going to send you back to Managua.” I simply
keep saying that they failed to give me an entrance stamp
and that I do not know why. Finally, the officer leans
back in his chair and says, “Okay, fine,” and then stamps
my passport. I am allowed to continue on.
47
48
12:51PM, JUNE 19, 1991
have managed to travel through Costa Rica and now
Panama. Here, just south of Panama City, the Pan-
American Highway peters-out into a muddy goat
trail. I trudge along, through the mud for a couple of
hours until finally I come across a river. I see a man with
a dugout canoe. He is clearly not Hispanic. Judging by
the beads he is wearing and his small stature he must be a
native Indian.
I
“Can you give me a ride in your canoe?”
49
He doesn’t respond, so I make a rowing motion with my
arms and point to myself and his canoe, but he does not
understand what I am asking. I then pull out two
American dollars. Low-and-behold he has no problem
understanding my request and informs me that,
coincidentally, canoe rides cost two American dollars.
What luck.
For the next couple of hours I ride with the Indian down
the river until we reach the mouth of the river where it
meets the Pacific Ocean. The entire journey, not a word
is said between us. I could blame it on the language
barrier, but the truth is that I am an extroverted hermit. I
can be relatively social, but I can’t say I really enjoy
talking to a lot of people. I’ve never understood the need
to talk simply to fill the silence. As we float down the
river, I begin trying to guess how long we’ve been
paddling. The silence gets me to thinking about time
itself. It seems like time could be considered a sixth
sense. Even if I couldn’t hear, see, touch, etc., I think I
could still tell whether three seconds or three hours had
gone by. Wouldn’t this make it a sixth sense? We finally
arrive. Here I meet up with a man taking a boat full of
rice further south. It is just a small rowboat, but it does
50
have a motor on it. I ride up front while the other three
passengers ride in the back. We spend the rest of the day
traveling along the coast. Each wave flies over the bow
completely soaking me. Everything I own is drenched.
My passport becomes so wet that the blue cover
completely separates from the other pages. I continue to
shiver for hours on end until we finally arrive at our
destination: the Colombian jungle. He drops me and
another individual off at a remote village called Jurado. It
looks exactly like Gilligan’s Island, except the castaways
are black. Upon arriving, a large woman known as
“Momma” and her three sons take me, and the other guy
that got off the boat, to her shack. “You can stay with
us,” she says in Spanish. At least that is what I
understand, but I’m half guessing.
“Thank you, this is very nice of you,” I respond in broken
Spanish, “But how can I continue traveling south?” I
have difficulty understanding her Spanish, but with the
addition of some charades I can make out the basic
meaning of what she is telling me, which is basically,
“It’s a four-day walk if you know the way and walk very
fast until you reach the nearest road, but even once you’re
there, I doubt you will find any cars on it. It’s too muddy
51
this time of year. Also, you’ll probably get killed by the
drug-runners that take this route into Panama.”
“Is there another boat that I can take?”
“Yes, a boat comes every Saturday. You can catch it in a
week.”
“It’s not the boat I was just on, is it?”
“No, it’s bigger.”
This place is really the jungle. No cars. No bathrooms.
No jobs. This village could be straight out of National
Geographic. I spend the next week with Momma and her
three boys. Momma is a large, kind woman. She and her
oldest son, Benny, sleep on a mattress while the rest of us
sleep on the floor. There is no other furniture in the
house, not even a chair. Every meal here consists of a
fish (with the head still on it), rice, and a fried banana, or
maybe it’s a plantain, I’m not sure. The bananas are not
like any I have ever had before, though. They are picked
right off the tree; green, crunchy and could easily be
mistaken for a cucumber. I have no idea why they don’t
52
let these bananas sit for a few days to ripen up. It’s
difficult to believe that they prefer them like this, but I
guess they must.
Momma’s oldest son, Benny, goes fishing every morning
for us. Benny has a very large physique, which is obvious
since he never wears a shirt. He is very quiet and
generally only talks to Momma. Benny fishes with some
old fishing line that he has probably had for years. The
fishing line is rolled around an old dried out mushroom
that’s about eight inches across and has a notch carved
into it to roll the fishing line around. Every few days we
have to help Benny un-kink the fishing line by stretching
it between two trees.
It is amazing how plentiful fruit is here. Literally, within
500 feet of the village you can pick bananas, oranges,
mangos, pineapples, coconuts, and small green ping-
pong-ball-sized fruit that I have never seen before. On
one particular day, one of Momma’s neighbors even
caught a jaguar and cooked it over a fire. They walked
into the village with the jaguar tied to a pole being carried
over their shoulders.
53
Everyone is pretty laid-back here in Jurado, except for the
freak, Carlos, that got off the boat with me. He’s really
starting to annoy me. He’s scared to death of me because
I’m American.
Earlier today I found my bag on the floor with its contents
strewn about. My toothpaste, Clearasil, and broken
mirror were all missing. Carlos then ran in and picked up
something that belonged to him.
“We’ve been robbed!” he exclaimed.
Carlos is a terrible actor and it is obvious that he has
stolen the objects from my bag that he considers either
weapons or poisons so that I won’t use them against him.
Since he can’t read English, I’m sure that he assumes the
toothpaste and Clearasil are poisons. When the sun goes
down, we lay down to sleep. I punch my fist against my
hand and say “En la Mañana!” A couple hours later,
Carlos wakes up from a nightmare screaming. He grabs
me and yells “Don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!” I
demand the return of my belongings and he gives them to
me. I might have to kill him.
54
At the moment, Carlos is chomping on a coconut. We all
are. He takes a bite and then spits out the shell.
“Hey, you just lost your tooth!” I yell at him. He spit it
out with the coconut shell.
“You lost your tooth!” I repeat.
“Oh, shit! Where is it?”
I can see that it’s right in front of Momma’s chicken, but
before he can grab it, the chicken pecks it up and
swallows it.
“Ah, shit! That was my tooth!”
I’m standing here, astonished by what I have just seen.
He wants the tooth back so that a dentist can put it back
in, but since it is a couple weeks until he can get to a
dentist, that’s clearly not going to happen.
I pick up a small white object off the ground.
“Wait, here’s your tooth!”
55
He takes it from me and puts it in the hole left by his
missing tooth, but then quickly pulls it out.
“Hey, this is a stone!” he exclaims.
Momma, her sons, and I start laughing. Everyone gets a
good laugh out of it but Carlos.
“You still look good,” is all I can think to say.
I’m starting to pick up a few words of Spanish here and
there. There is an older man in the village that owns a
Spanish/English dictionary. This has helped us
communicate on several occasions. The first time he
pulled it out I noticed that he was looking for a particular
word one page at time, looking at each and every word
until he found it. Neither he, nor his son, had any concept
that dictionaries are alphabetized and that you can just flip
to the word that you are looking for. The first time I did
this, they nearly passed out with amazement. I found a
word in five seconds, a task that would have taken them
five hours. Little things like this constantly surprise me.
56
Finally, Saturday arrives. Today is the day that the boat
will arrive to take me to a larger city in Colombia. I want
to make sure that I don’t miss it, so I get up early, pack
my bag, and say my goodbyes. I wait down on the beach.
A few hours go by and still no boat. Then its mid-day,
the arrival of the boat can’t be too much longer now. Still
no boat. I stand on the beach all day long from sun-up to
sun-down, not even leaving to get food, 12 hours, but still
no boat. Part of the reason I left on this adventure was to
escape boredom and here I am just standing alone on the
beach for hours on end watching wave after wave hit the
shore. Finally, I walk back to Momma’s hut in the dark.
When I arrive, I inform Momma that there was “No boat.”
In Spanish she responds, “Maybe next Saturday.”
Another week goes by of picking bananas, untangling
fishing line, and not understanding what anyone is talking
about. Finally, the day I’ve been waiting for. Momma
informs me that the boat has arrived. It’s only been two
weeks, but I’ve grown attached to these people. This
family has been very good to me. Just yesterday a village
kid tried to steal money from my bag and Momma’s 14-
year-old kid chased him through the village with a
machete. That’s a good host!
57
I hand Momma an American five dollar bill as a thank
you for letting me stay with them for two weeks, but she
flips out and tells me that it is way too much money. She
finally agrees to accept $2. I say goodbye to everyone
and head down to the beach. Upon catching my first view
of the boat, I am shocked. It is a 20-foot diesel-engine
boat with an enormous carousel sitting on top of it, the
type of carousel you might find at a carnival, complete
with wooden horses and benches. So large is this
carousel that it hangs over each side of the boat by a good
eight feet and the front of the boat appears to be in serious
danger of being pushed below the water line. I seriously
think we have about a 50% chance of staying afloat. The
captain shows me my cot in the engine room, also the
only room. It is about 130 degrees in here and absolutely
miserable. So hot in fact, that my bar of soap and small
deodorant melt inside my bag. The diesel fumes have
given me an awful headache. There is standing room
only on the deck, so for the next three days I survive on
no food and about 30 minutes of sleep. My clothes are
completely soaked from all the sweating and reek of
diesel. Needless to say, I am pretty happy when we pull
in to port in Buenaventura, Colombia.
58
Buenaventura is Colombia’s largest port on the Pacific.
There are a lot of enormous ships lined up here; so big
that it takes about 10 minutes to walk the length of each
one. Most of the ships are here to transport coffee beans
to other countries, and it takes about five days just to load
each of them.
I’m down to my last $100 bill. Upon trying to use the bill
in a store, the clerk accidentally tears it in half while
trying to check its authenticity. $100 is so much money
down here that they want to make absolutely sure that
they’re getting the real thing. I’ve often wondered why
the Treasury Department doesn’t just put barcodes on
money. That way stores, banks, etc. could scan it to make
sure that it’s not stolen or counterfeit. Maybe Americans
don’t really care, but they sure seem to care down here. I
have taped it back together, but no one will accept a torn
bill. They think that it is no good since it has been torn.
Even the bank won’t take it. The only person that accepts
it is a shady guy in the back of a store who gives me $50
for it (as long as I buy him and his buddy a Coke). So
now I’m down to my last $49. This town seems a bit
dangerous, so I think I better try to find a cheap hotel. I
would probably try to just sleep in my sleeping bag
59
somewhere, but I’m still a little shaken up from when I
tried to do this in Panama City. I had been walking
around Panama City at dark trying to find a place to lay
my sleeping bag for the night, when three guys started
following me. They were arguing amongst themselves
and grew louder and louder. I became concerned and ran
into a shop I spotted that was just about to close. The
owner says to me, “What are you doing in this part of
town?”
“Looking for a place to sleep.”
“Do you know what those men are arguing about?”
“No.”
“They’re arguing over who gets to rob you! You need to
run as fast as you can until you are far from here.”
I thanked him and did as he instructed. And I have to say,
Buenaventura doesn’t seem any safer than Panama City.
At least a handful of foreigners travel to Panama. Here in
Colombia it is pretty much just me. The only other
foreigners are the sailors on the ships, and they rarely
60
venture out of the port. People are very surprised to see
me here. Women in the streets yell, “I love you!” or
“Marry me!” simply because I am American. If anyone
wants to know what it feels like to be famous, just walk
through the streets of Colombia. It is a dangerous, wild
place.
I ask where I can find a cheap hotel and am pointed
towards “Hotel El Faro.” It means The Lighthouse Hotel,
which sounds nice, but isn’t. At $3 a night, though, I’m
not complaining. The only things in the room are a light
bulb, a bed, and an old whore. It takes me a while to
figure out why these women keep walking into my room,
one at a time, but I eventually figure it out. In time, I
actually become friends with these women, especially
Nelly, who wants to marry me and move to America. For
multiple reasons I think this is a bad idea.
After laying my bag down, I walk into the front room of
the hotel, which is not really nice enough to be called a
lobby, and sit down in front of the TV. There are two
other guys watching TV. One of them has his hand over
his head making the sign of the devil by holding up his
pinky and index finger.
61
“Why do you make that symbol with you hand?” I ask.
“Because the news is on.”
“Because the news is on?” I ask to the other guy.
“Forget him, he’s crazy,” says Felix, “You from
California or the United States?”
“United States.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Traveling,” I tell him, “Do you know how I can get on a
ship going to Europe?”
“I’m not sure, but I know a few of the guys down at the
port. We can see if they’ll put you on a ship if you want.”
“Ya, if you don’t mind.”
A little later, once it has grown dark, Felix wakes me up
by knocking on my door. He is wearing a black t-shirt
and a grubby pair of jeans.
62
“I think I have a ship lined up for you, but it’s leaving
tonight, so we have to go now.”
“That’s great, Felix!”
“We’ll have to take a taxi down to the port.”
We drive for a while until Felix says, “Stop here!”
Felix doesn’t have any money for the taxi, so I have to
pay for it. I take my shoe off and pull the money out to
pay the driver. We walk through the darkness towards the
port. We pass a gate with a security guard and keep
walking along the cement wall. It seems quite desolate
here. Felix is walking closer and closer to me. When I
move over, so does he. Suddenly, Felix lunges out and
grabs me by the shirt. He pulls out what appears to be a
homemade knife and sticks it up to my stomach. My
heart is pounding like mad. I am about as scared as a
person can be.
“Give me your money!” he shouts angrily, “Give it to
me!”
63
I punch his hand that is holding my shirt to break his grip.
But instead of breaking his grip, it just stretches out my
shirt. He lets go of my shirt and thrusts his hand into my
front pants pocket, but pulling out only my passport. No
longer gripping me, I jump backwards. I’m walking
backwards, keeping about 10 feet between us.
“Come on, I need that,” I complain, scared-to-death.
“Give me your money!”
“I need my passport.”
“Give me your money!”
“Help!” I scream to one of the port guards that we have
backed-up enough to see now, “Help me!”
“What are you talking about?” Felix says, “He’s crazy!”
Felix hands me back my passport, says something in
Spanish to the port guard, and then quickly walks away.
64
“What happened?” the guard asks, still careful not to open
the gate.
“That guy had a knife up to me!” I say, trembling.
“Are you okay?”
“Ya, just a little shaken up.”
“Where are you staying?”
“Hotel El Faro.”
“That’s a whorehouse!” he exclaims.
“I know, but I just sleep there.”
“That bus will take you there,” he says pointing, “You be
careful!”
Finally, I arrive back at the hotel and lay down on my
bed, wide awake. I never saw Felix again.
65
66
2:40PM, JUNE 27, 1991
heard about your mishap the other night,
Adam. You okay?” asks Sergio, the young
guy that lives next to my hotel.
“I“Ya, it was a close one.”
“You have to be careful around here, everyone thinks that
Americans are rich.”
“So I’ve seen.”
67
“Say, do you want to come to my sister’s birthday party
today?” Sergio asks me.
“Sure, that sounds like fun.”
After a 20-minute bus ride, we start walking down a dirt
road until we reach a little wooden shack. Sergio knocks
on the door. A fat man with greasy hair answers the door.
I can see that he doesn’t know any English because he is
wearing a tight white T-shirt that reads “Hunk Watcher,”
but I don’t think that’s as bad as the old man I saw at a
funeral the other day wearing a mesh baseball cap that
read, “Party ‘til ya puke.”
“Hunk Watcher” gives some money to Sergio and now
we are continuing our walk down the dirt road. I can see
a strange person to our left.
“Sergio, I think that guy is following us,” I say, but Sergio
doesn’t hear me because we have just come upon another
guy in the street that owes Sergio money. I’m starting to
suspect that Sergio sells drugs. At this moment, the
strange guy I had seen following us comes out of the
darkness, walking towards me.
68
“Hey, what do you want?” he asks me.
“Nothing,” I respond.
“What do you want? You want some cocaine?” he asks
me in English.
“No.”
“You want a gun?” he yells as he pulls a silver pistol out
of his pants and points it at my head. “You want a gun?
I’ve got a gun!” he repeats.
At this point, Sergio, still oblivious to what is going on,
pulls a wad of money out of his pocket to make change
with the guy that owes him money. Once the dark-haired
stranger sees Sergio’s money, he starts waving the gun
back-and-forth between Sergio and me.
“Give me the money!” he yells.
Sergio and his friend dive through the nearest doorway
and slam the door shut. The stranger runs up to the door
and starts banging his pistol against the window.
69
“Let me in or I’ll kill your friend!” he yells.
With the stranger’s back facing me, I start sprinting the
opposite direction, through all the people who have come
out to see what all the commotion is. I keep running for
about ten minutes until I find a taxi.
“Go, go, go!” I yell to the driver.
“What’s going on?” he asks
“Some guy’s waving a pistol back there!”
“Damn! You have to be careful around here.”
“I know.”
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“Hotel El Faro.”
“That’s a whorehouse!” he exclaims.
“I know.”
70
11:08AM, JULY 5, 1991
I
spend most of my days down at the docks trying to
persuade ships to take me with them. I’m happy to
cook and clean to cover my passage. Many of the
ship captains have been quite helpful, but the final answer
is always no. Either the ship’s insurance agency won’t
allow me to travel with them, or the ship’s owner is afraid
that I will bring cocaine on board, or they simply don’t
want to take me. I have tried everything I can think of. I
obtained a letter from the Federal Building here in
Buenaventura officially asking ships to provide me
passage. Even this has not helped. Many of the ships do
71
allow me to eat on board, though. This has been greatly
appreciated as I am running very low on money.
I have been trying to stow-away on a ship in the cargo
hold, but this has also proven to be impossible. The ships
are guarded 24 hours a day and before they leave the port,
20 police officers comb the entire ship for stow-aways
and drugs. Drug smuggling is a huge problem here. I
have been approached several times by people asking me
to smuggle large quantities of cocaine for them. Literally,
suitcases full that they will give me for free to sell in the
U.S. and send half the profits back to them. They talk
about cocaine openly here because, although it is illegal,
the police only go after the huge cartels. I have no
interest in spending the rest of my life in a foreign prison,
so I kindly reject their offers.
Today, while checking for new ships at the port, I met a
security guard named Herman. He seems quite nice and
has offered to let me stay at his house. I don’t know
anything about Herman, but I am almost out of money
and, at this point, have few other options. I pack up my
belongings from Hotel El Faro, say my goodbyes to Nelly
and the other prostitutes, and then head over to Herman’s
72
place. Herman’s house turns out not to be much of a
house. It is a room in a concrete apartment building.
There are no windows. Just open holes where windows
should be, so rats and bugs come and go as they please.
There are two cots for beds and a portable camp stove set
up for cooking. The shower/toilet is simply a hole in the
floor and a bucket full of water that needs to be re-filled
outside. Basically, it’s a dump.
For the next month, Herman and I plot how we can stow
away on a ship. Everyone in Colombia wants to get out
of here. If you are lucky enough to find a job here, the
average pay is only $4 a day, so sneaking into America is
very appealing to them. We have elaborate plans of
smuggling food and water on board and bribing police,
but time after time, it never works out. I chip in my last
$25 dollars to help Herman pay for food. I am completely
broke now and relying on Herman to feed me.
73
74
2:15PM, July 8, 1991
T
oday the leg fell off my pants. My only pair of
pants. It had started as a hole in the knee, but
the hole gradually widened into a larger tear that
eventually resulted in the leg falling off from the knee
down. I look ridiculous with one pant leg, even by
Colombian standards. I tear the other pant leg off at the
knee to turn them into shorts. I have two shirts. Neither
has been washed in months, so I borrow a washboard and
begin to scrub them. They are just regular long-sleeved
cotton t-shirts, but because I have not washed them in so
long, they have become very oily from my skin. So oily,
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in fact, that I can’t get them wet. When I pull them out of
the water, they are still completely dry, the water just
beads up on them and then runs off. It takes 30 minutes
for me to scrub them clean, and in the process, I nearly
destroy the shirts.
As I lay here in bed, I take a good look at my feet.
They’ve held up pretty well and the trench foot has
completely gone away. It’s a big relief. Suddenly, I’m
distracted by the sound of rats running above me in the
ceiling. The ceiling is simply brown paper nailed to some
joists, so I can actually see the indentations of the rats
running above it. Then, I notice a creature come out from
the edge of the paper. It’s not a rat at all. It’s the biggest
spider I have seen in my entire life. It’s an enormous
tarantula, probably five or six inches across and it is
directly above my bed. I try to sleep, but all I can think
about is this enormous spider. Is it going to crawl on me?
Is it going to bite me? The spider is now crawling down
the wall and is standing next to my bed. Finally, I get out
of bed and find a twig to scare the spider off with. To my
surprise, when I try to shoo it away, it simply rises up on
its back legs and tries to fight the stick, waving its front
legs in the air and trying to grab it out of my hand. I wake
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Herman and show him the spider. Herman simply says,
“Bueno suerte” and then goes back to bed. I find out later
that this means “good luck” in Spanish. Finally, I just
give up and spend the rest of the night staring at the
ceiling waiting to be attacked. Of course, the attack never
comes and the next morning the spider is no where to be
found. I hope he has decided to leave the apartment, but I
am convinced that he is still in here somewhere.
“The eclipse is at 2:30,” an old man says to me in the
street.
“What?”
“Are you here for the eclipse?” he asks.
“I didn’t know there was an eclipse?”
“It’s at 2:30…I’m Willy, the son of Jesus.”
Jesus is a common name down here, so I’m not sure if he
is referring to himself as someone named Jesus or the son
of God.
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“I’m waiting for my people to come get me…they’re in
Miami,” he continues, “I was the translator for Nixon,
Carter, and Kennedy.”
“Did you say that you were the son of Jesus?”
“Yes, when Jesus came back in 1962, he adopted me…do
you have $5?”
“No.”
To my surprise, about two hours later, it gets completely
dark. Not only was there an eclipse, but it turns out that
this is one of the only places in the world where you can
see this total solar eclipse. Once the moon completely
blocks out the sun, it becomes so dark that all the ships in
the harbor have to turn on their lights and begin blowing
their horns in celebration. It is truly one of those
serendipitous moments where I happen to be at the right
place at the right time. The solar eclipse lasts about 20
minutes, and then everything goes back to normal.
Maybe Jesus really did adopt Willie in 1962.
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8:08AM, JULY 17, 1991
wo months have passed now since I left Idaho
and I think I may finally have a way to get
home. An American ship has pulled into the
port. It is the first American ship I have seen.
T
“Permission to come aboard?” I ask, “I’d like to speak to
your captain.”
“You can talk to whoever the hell you want,” is the reply
from the American sailor. It is very refreshing to hear an
American voice. It occurs to me now that in the places
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you go, you see the places you’re from. He is the first
American that I have seen in over two months. He’s
about 50 years old, wearing a sleeveless white t-shirt
stretched out by his large belly. He takes the cigarette out
of his mouth, “What, did you get a wild hair up your ass
and decide to come down here?”
“Ya, something like that. Now I’m kind of stuck.”
“I don’t see why we can’t take ya, hell, we used to take
dozens of people back during the Vietnam War.”
He lets me speak to the Captain. I explain my
predicament to him and offer to work on the ship for
passage.
“What made you leave America in the first place?” he
asks.
“I guess I was just really bored.”
“You know, a lot of people worked for a long time to
make America a boring place…anyway…we do need
some help in the kitchen. I think we can work it out. I’ll
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tell you what, you go get your stuff together and meet
back here at 4:00.”
“Oh, thank you, that is fantastic news!”
I inform Herman of the good news and thank him for all
his help. I spend the next couple of hours saying goodbye
to people I have met. Finally, I return to Herman’s
apartment to gather my belongings. Herman is not there.
As I’m packing things up, I notice that my camera and my
fishing reel are missing. I look around the apartment and
find them hidden in the pockets of Herman’s jacket. I am
so disappointed. I really considered Herman a friend. We
have spent every day together for the last couple of
weeks. I would have given him the items had he asked.
Sadly, I gather my things and head down to the port. I am
greeted at the ship by the captain. “Bad news, Adam, the
owners of the ship have told me that we cannot take on a
passenger. I’m very sorry. You can go down to the mess
hall and take whatever you’d like to eat, though.”
I am hugely disappointed. I have no money, no way to
get home, and I can’t even go back to Herman’s
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apartment now that he has turned on me. I fight back the
tears as I make myself five peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches. As I’m putting them in my bag, the fat sailor
that I met earlier walks in. “I’m sorry to hear the bad
news.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Me and the guys took up a collection for you.”
I look up and see him holding out M&M’s, soda, $117
American dollars, $38 Colombian, and a pack of
Marlboros. I am overwhelmed. Never has a person been
in more need of this than I am right now. I thank him
over and over again. I’ll never meet these people again. I
don’t even know their names, but I wish I did so that I
could pay them back and let them know how thankful I
am for their gifts. Even years later, knowing that I can
never re-pay the kindness I received from these sailors, I
sometimes try to do kind things for other people I find in
need. It’s the closest I can come to paying those sailors
back.
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As I’m walking away, staring down at my feet, it becomes
apparent how everything affects everything else. I guess
if I think about it, that’s Newton’s third law: for every
action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Staring
down at my feet, it occurs to me that as I’m walking, the
friction between the earth and my feet pushes me forward,
yet, in the same way, the earth is ever-so-slightly being
pushed in the opposite direction. It’s probably too small
of an amount to even measure, but if I walk east, I slow
down the revolution of the earth. If I walk west, I speed it
up. It is impossible for me not to have an effect on the
things around me.
I spend the rest of the night with port guards, waiting for
the sun to come up; when I know it will be safer to travel.
Finally, at about 5:30am, I give one of the guards my
cigarettes and head for the bus station. Once there, I buy
a bus ticket to Bogotá. I’m told that there is an American
Embassy there that can help me get home.
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4:22PM, JULY 18, 1991
finally arrive at the American Embassy in Bogotá.
The line out front is about a block long and full of
Colombians trying to get visas to enter the United
States. I can see that one-by-one they are all getting
turned down. I have not seen a single person get accepted
for a visa. Just when I am resigned to the fact that I will
be in this line all day, one of the American Marines that is
guarding the front gate yells out to me, “Hey, are you
American?”
I
“Yes!” I show him my damaged passport.
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“Well you don’t need to wait in that line. You can just go
right in.” He opens up a separate gate and lets me enter
the embassy. Once inside, I am greeted by an American
in a suit. “Hello, Adam. We received your letter last
month stating that you were stranded, but had no way of
contacting you. Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any money?”
“About $100.”
“You are going to need a lot more than that to fly home.
Here is what we can do for you. We will purchase you a
ticket for a flight tomorrow. We will need to call ALL of
your family and relatives and ask them to send you money
to pay for this. If they all refuse, then we will loan the
money to you. To ensure that you do indeed pay us back,
we will need to take your passport and stamp it as NO
LONGER VALID. You will then be declared a
DESTITUTE CITIZEN and will not be allowed to leave
the United States until all your debts have been paid.”
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“Wow, how much will all this cost?”
“It’s going to be expensive, but it’s the only way that we
can get you home.”
I thanked him and told him that I wanted to think about it
first. I keep thinking about all my family and relatives
getting this call about how I was in trouble and asking
them for money. I really don’t want that. Plus, I still
want to travel to Europe and Africa. If I accept the
embassy’s offer, that definitely won’t happen in the near
future. Screw it, I’m going to take this $100 and
somehow get back to the U.S. where I can get a job and
continue my journey.
I am able to get a bus to a small Atlantic port called
Turbo, near Cartagena. Once there, I am approached by a
police officer. “Pay me,” he says. Clearly he wants a
bribe. I am so sick of this corruption and so desperate to
get out of here that I just say “No,” and walk off. I
entirely expect him to grab me, but fortunately, he just
stands there. I think he is a bit surprised. Finally, I locate
a small boat that can get me to Panama. It costs $24, but
it’s my only option. After several hours, we come upon a
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remote cove with a gorgeous mansion. It seems
completely out of place in this remote coastal jungle. The
owner of the boat points to it and simply says, “Pablo
Escobar.” I instantly recognize the name from the
newspapers as the biggest cocaine lord in all of Colombia.
Soon we arrive in the small jungle town of Olbadia,
Panama. There are no cars and no roads, but there is an
airstrip. For $41 a small Cesna airplane will fly me to
Panama City. This will nearly deplete my funds, but I
know that if I can get to Panama City, I can hitchhike
back up the Pan American Highway all the way back to
the U.S., so I accept. It is a very small plane, just the
pilot, myself, and one other passenger.
Our plane touches down in Panama City, but I notice that
it’s not the main airport. It is a very small landing strip
and we are met by soldiers with machine guns. The other
passenger and I are escorted into a building. The soldiers
spend the next hour going through our belongings. So
extensive are they that they actually taste my tube of
toothpaste. The soldier then takes out my tube of
Clearasil, unscrews the cap, squirts out a big blob of
cream onto his finger and then sticks it into his mouth.
Suddenly, his face takes on a sour/disgusted look and I
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look back at him like, “What did you think was going to
happen?” They finish searching my belongings and then
begin to search the other passengers’ items. All he has
with him is a big cast-iron dutch oven with the lid taped
down. One of the soldiers pulls the tape off and lifts the
lid. Inside is a large Zip-Lock bag full of white powder.
The three soldiers all stare at it with mouths agape. The
passenger begins frantically repeating, “Sugar, sugar,
sugar, it’s sugar.” One of the soldiers sticks his finger
into the bag and tastes the powder. “Sugar,” he says, and
all three of the soldiers begin laughing. Clearly, they see
this as a mistaken identification, but it seems more likely
to me that this bag of sugar is a test-run for bringing a bag
of cocaine into the country.
At this point, they order me to take off all my clothes,
which I reluctantly do. At this point, standing in only my
underwear, the soldier in charge says something in
Spanish and then leaves the room. The soldier she spoke
to then turns to me and, in English, says, “She told me to
frisk you.” The soldier then begins patting my
underwear, I assume, feeling for drugs. He is certain not
to miss any cracks or hiding places. Upon completion he
says, “Okay, you can go.” I dress, gather my belongings,
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and start walking toward the nearest road. I am down to
$34, but I have finally reached the Pan American
Highway. It’s starting to look like I might actually make
it back.
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6:18PM, JULY 22, 1991
I
am sitting along the desolate highway in the
Mountains of northern Nicaragua. My face and
hands are completely sun burnt because I spent the
last five hours on top of a semi loaded with bags of
cement. The driver picked me up in Managua, but he
already had three people in the cab, so I climbed up on the
back of the truck and laid on the bags of powdered
cement. The cement bags are stacked in a pyramid shape,
for stability, which means that I have to lay on the top
single row of bags. It is very narrow and quite dangerous.
Several times, I almost roll off, but alas, the driver drops
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me off here at the Nicaragua/Honduras border. It is
already getting dark, so I think that I will try to sleep
somewhere nearby and then cross in the morning.
I walk down off the highway and through the woods until
I come to a creek. It is completely dark now, so I pull out
my sleeping bag and prepare to sleep. It is too cold to
sleep, though, so I pull out my only book, a travel guide,
and begin burning pages of it to keep warm. This helps
warm me a little, but after about 20 minutes, the fire has
consumed the entire book and starts to peter out. As I
stare into the dying flame, I begin to ponder why this fire
wouldn’t be considered a living organism. It breathes
oxygen, eats wood, and reproduces…and now it’s dying.
I would contemplate it further, but the more it becomes
comprehensible, the more it seems pointless. Finally, I
climb into my sleeping bag and go to sleep. I sleep for a
couple of hours, but then am awoken by sounds of men
walking. I look up and see soldiers with machine guns in
the moonlight. They are washing themselves in the creek.
I am guessing that they are freedom fighters that have
sneaked across the border. The nearest of them is only
about 40 feet from me, but still has not spotted me. I am
very concerned that they will shoot me if they see me. I
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suddenly realize my error in purchasing a light-blue
sleeping bag. Although it is dark out, you can still make
out my sleeping bag in the moonlight. As the men splash
water on themselves, I slowly crawl out of my sleeping
bag and inch my way deeper into the woods. At one
point, I freeze because they go completely silent. Did
they hear me? Do they see me? Finally, they resume
their splashing and I slip off into the woods where I curl
up under some bushes until daybreak. I wake once the
sun peaks out. It takes me a moment to remember where
I am.
“Oh, shit, I’m in Nicaragua!”
Many times in my life I have woken up in unfamiliar
surroundings and not recalled where I am for a moment,
but once I do remember where I am, I am always relieved.
Well, that is exactly the opposite of what is happening
now.
I return to my sleeping bag. Both it and my belongings
are still there, completely untouched. I gather my things
and head for the border.
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2:41PM, JULY 23, 1991
B
ecause I do not have enough money for visas,
when I reach a border, I sneak into the woods,
cross the border, walk about a half-mile, and
then walk back out to the Pan American Highway. Up
until now this has worked pretty well. I am trying to
cross into Guatemala. It is mostly farmland in this area
and there are not a lot of places to hide. I wind my way
through the farm land, but as I am crossing the border I
hear a woman yell “Donde va? Donde va?” which I know
means “Where are you going?” I don’t even turn around.
I just keep walking. She is just a farmer and I’m hoping
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that she will give up. A few minutes later I see a
helicopter appear. It is slowly hovering about 200 feet off
the ground and is clearly looking for me. I have nowhere
to hide. I walk the last 30 feet out to the highway and
notice about eight people sitting on the side of the road
waiting to be picked up by someone. They are all sitting
on there large white bags that appear to be full of freshly
dug potatoes. They must be waiting to take the potatoes
into town. In a moment of shear luck, I realize that their
white bags look almost identical to the bag that I am
carrying. I quickly plop my bag down next to them, sit on
it, and stare at the ground, as if I, too, am waiting with my
sack of potatoes. I think that they are a little confused,
but say nothing to me. As I stare at the ground, I can hear
the helicopter hovering directly over my head. The sound
is deafening. Still, I do not look up.
“Oh, fuck me! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Oh, shit! Fuck me!
Oh, no. What the fuck am I doing? Fuck me!”
Am I caught? Are they going to land? Finally, the
helicopter moves away and continues its search for me
along the farmland. All the sudden I look up and see a
large semi; the same semi that had given me a ride in
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Honduras. He recognizes me and stops. I motion to him
that I want to sleep and climb in the back. He slams the
large doors closed, climbs back in the cab and takes off. I
can hear the sound of the helicopter growing quieter and
quieter. Once again, I’m headed north.
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98
12:08PM, JULY 30, 1991
I
spend the next week hitchhiking through Guatemala
and Mexico, often going a day or two between
meals. I meet lots of interesting people and see lots
of beautiful land, from the green mountains of Guatemala
through the vast desert of Mexico. I am now finally
within 150 miles of the Texas border. After about three
hours without any luck hitchhiking, a car finally stops to
pick me up; three young guys from Mexico City. They
speak English very well and two of the three have visas to
enter the U.S. Apparently, the driver’s brother owns a
restaurant in Michigan and they are going up to visit him.
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Still 20 miles from Texas, we are stopped by the Mexican
Border Patrol.
“I need to see your permit,” he says to me.
“What permit?” I ask.
“Your visitor’s permit.”
“I didn’t think Americans needed permits to enter
Mexico.”
“If you travel more than 35 kilometers into Mexico, you
need a permit.”
“Well, I don’t have one.”
“Well, you need one.”
“I don’t have one.”
He doesn’t say anything. After about five minutes of him
just standing there looking at us, the driver asks him,
“Can we go?” Still he doesn’t say anything, so I say,
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“Ya, let’s go.” We then drive off towards the U.S. border.
The border patrolman makes no effort to stop us.
Once we are near the border, we stop at a gas station to
drop off the guy that does not have a visa. The man at the
gas station has offered to “swim him” across the river and
into Texas for $100. We agree to meet at a house on the
other side and then the other three of us drive up to the
border.
The border patrol officer says to me, “You can walk on
in. You two come with me.” After about an hour, they
re-emerge from the building. “Your friends can’t enter!”
the Border Patrol officer informs me. Apparently, the
officer had spent the last hour trying to get them to admit
that they were going to work in his brother’s restaurant.
Finally, after saying “No” many, many times, one of them
answered “Maybe a little.” That was all the officer
needed to hear to send them back.
I then had to walk into the U.S., find their friend and
inform him that they were not coming. They were very
upset, and one of them clearly had tears running down his
cheeks. I felt bad for them, but there was really nothing
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that I could do, so I just started walking and walked right
into Laredo.
Laredo is on the American side of the border, but you
wouldn’t know it walking through. Everyone speaks
Spanish, the signs are in Spanish, but it is definitely Texas
and I have finally made it back to the U.S.
It looks like the nearest city is San Antonio. If I can get
to San Antonio I can probably find a job, save some
money and continue on with my world adventure. I find a
good place to hitch a ride, near an entrance ramp and
having a big shoulder so that a car can pull off and pick
me up. At last, a car stops.
“Where you headed?” he asks.
“San Antonio.”
“I’m headed to San Antonio in a couple hours if you want
a lift.”
“Great!”
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“I’m José. I actually live San Antonio. I work for Sony
Records, and I’m visiting all the radio stations and
bookstores here in Loredo promoting our new releases. I
just have two more stops to make.”
I take a look at the records. They’re all Latino groups that
I’ve never heard of. José pulls into a radio station, but
because it’s a few minutes after 5pm, they’re already
closed for the day.
“Damn, looks like I’m going to have to spend the night
here and then head to San Antonio in the morning.
Sony’s paying for the hotel room, so, if you have a
sleeping bag or something you can just sleep on the floor
and then I’ll give you a ride to San Antonio in the
morning.”
Knowing I have no better options, I agree. We stop at the
motel and José pulls out a pink tank top.
“Here, put this on.”
“No, I’m fine.”
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“No, put it on! I’m going to buy you dinner.”
Reluctantly, I agree. True to his word, José does indeed
buy me dinner at Denny’s and then takes me to Kmart to
buy me a t-shirt of my choosing. It’s getting late, so we
head back to the motel. Once there, I pull out my
sleeping bag, spread out on the floor and quickly fall
asleep. A couple hours pass, and I feel something in my
hair. I open my eyes to find José leaning over me,
running his hands through my hair. All I can think to say
is, “That’s okay, you don’t need to do that.” José jumps
back into bed and goes to sleep…or at least pretends to. I
spend the next couple of hours just laying there
wondering what he has planned next. Finally, I nod off
again.
About 7:00am I wake up. José is already up. Nothing is
said. I quickly gather my things together. It’s going to be
a long ride to San Antonio, but I really need a ride. We
hop in the car and head off. Soon, we pull into the
Greyhound Bus Station.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
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“I think it’s better if you take the bus to San Antonio.”
“I don’t have money for a bus ticket. That’s why I was
hitchhiking.”
“I’m buying the ticket for you.”
“Okay.”
We are both glad to be rid of each other and I get a bus
ticket and a new t-shirt out of the deal. Separating is
definitely for the best, as I was starting to feel like his
bitch.
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3:04PM, JULY 31, 1991
oon I am in San Antonio. Within two days, I am
able to get a job waiting tables. I’m also able to
make a deal with an apartment manager. I give
him my last $25 and agree to paint an apartment. In
return, he gives me the first month free in one of his
efficiencies. It looks like I’m finally back on my feet.
S
Sadly, things do not turn out as well as I had hoped. The
apartment is FILLED with cockroaches and my job is
barely a job. On my first day I mess up an order and am
told that I can only open. No one comes to this restaurant
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in the mornings. I don’t even know why they are open in
the mornings. I work about five hours every morning and
am averaging just a couple of dollars an hour; well below
minimum wage. Soon I cannot make payments on the
apartment and am told to leave. I stop showing up to
work and am officially homeless in San Antonio.
My plans are slowly falling apart. As I’m leaving the
apartment, my neighbor says I can crash on his floor if I
want, which I do, only to wake to him masturbating in
front of me. Why does this keep happening to me? Even
though it is the middle of the night, I grab my things and
walk out into the street. Soon I find an abandoned
building to sleep in. I stay here for a couple of nights, but
this really can’t continue. I’m going to end up getting
killed.
I learn of a company in nearby Austin called Pharmico
where they test new drugs on people. I give them a call
and am informed that I can take part in their upcoming
cholesterol-reducing drug test. I will be given $1000 and
free room and board in their luxury facility, which has
ping pong and pool. This is very exciting. The only
prerequisite is that I must have a cholesterol level of 250
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or higher. As I am very skinny, this may be a problem. I
have one week to get my cholesterol up. For the next
week my diet consists largely of eating raw sticks of
butter and fried eggs. When I finally arrive at Pharmico
for testing, I am convinced that my cholesterol level will
set some kind of record. Sadly, I am surprised to find out
that my cholesterol level only reaches 133. The lowest of
anyone tested that day. It’s a sad trip back to San
Antonio, and I’m starting to realize that things are no
better for me here than they were in Central America.
I can’t seem to get any work. No one wants to hire a
person that they suspect of being homeless, and the fact
that I don’t have a phone number to give out doesn’t help
things, either. I’ve been walking all day, so I decide to sit
on a small concrete wall where I see some people eating
their lunches. A few minutes later, a man walks up with a
box of Gideon bibles and hands one to me. I open up the
small red book and start thumbing through it. I recall an
obscure bible verse about strangers being angels and I
begin randomly flipping through the pages hoping to
blindly come across it. I know that I probably won’t,
though, because I can’t even remember what book of the
bible it’s in.
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There is a man sitting next to me eating his lunch. He
appears to be a 35 year old white man with dark curly
hair. He’s dressed in business attire and speaking to a
woman that is sitting next to him. To my surprise, mid-
sentence he turns to me and says, “Hebrews 13:2.” He
then turns back to the woman and continues with his
conversation. “That was odd,” I think, but I begin
looking up the verse anyway, uncertain what to expect. I
find the verse and begin reading it to myself, “Do not
forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have
unwittingly entertained angels.” I am certain that I have
not said the verse aloud or even mouthed it as I continue
looking. Suddenly, again breaking mid-sentence with the
woman, the man turns to me and says, “Pretty cool, huh?”
and then turns back to the woman. What just happened
here? How in the hell did he know what verse I was
thinking about? Is this guy an angel? Of course he’s not
an angel…angels don’t eat salad and wear ties…and
DON’T EXIST…but, wow, this is freaky!
Eventually, he stands up and walks off, leaving me sitting
there with a little red bible and a strange look on my face.
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4:08PM, AUGUST 3, 1991
s I’m walking through the city, looking for
anyone who will hire me, I come across a
homeless man. I ask him where a homeless
shelter is and he gives me directions to SAM’s Shelter.
It’s in a bad neighborhood, but it’s got to be better than
where I’ve been sleeping. I show up at the shelter and
join the line to enter. The other homeless people are
actually quite nice and welcome me. The first person I
meet is John.
A
“How did you find this place?” John asks.
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“That guy told me how to get here,” I say as I point to the
homeless man who gave me directions earlier.
John looks at me strangely. “Him?”
“Ya.”
“He doesn’t speak. I’ve been staying here four years and
he’s never said a word.”
I wave my hand to get the homeless guy’s attention.
“Thanks for the directions,” I say.
He looks right through me as if I don’t even exist. John
then looks at me as if to say that I am either confused or
lying, but I’m certain it is the same guy. The whole time
I’m at SAM’s Shelter he never says another word.
“You know,” John continues, “I’ve got $1,000 in a safe
up in Phoenix, but I forgot the combination to it, so that’s
why I’m staying here.”
Clearly John has some problems, but, he and his friends
seem to be the most normal ones here. Soon we are
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eating in the food hall and sleeping in our bunk beds. The
security guard is pretty mean to us, but other than that,
this place isn’t half bad.
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114
Author (center) showing father and sister proposed
route.
115
Raft of bananas in Jurado, Colombia.
116
Momma’s son behind shack in Jurado, Colombia.
117
Momma and son, Benny, in front of shack in Jurado,
Colombia.
118
Momma’s son watching author wait for boat in
Jurado, Colombia.
119
Village children playing in Jurado, Colombia.
120
Young girl sweeping in Jurado, Colombia.
121
Author (second from left) and Nelly (second from
right) at Hotel El Faro in Buenaventura, Colombia.
122
Creek where author was nearly discovered by
Nicaraguan rebels.
123
Author (right) working at Stop n’ Go in San Antonio,
Texas.
124
Author with fellow cold travelers Caroline and Kelly
on Greek ferry.
125
Author on ruins in Greece.
126
Author posing with nude mannequins in Athens,
Greece.
127
Author playing army in Fulda, Germany.
128
Mike and Eli in van driving to Spain.
129
Author in van shortly after running out of gas.
130
Author (front) with Jeremy (in van) arriving in
Pamplona, Spain.
131
Author self-portrait in Pamplona, Spain.
132
Laura (second from left) with friends in Pamplona,
Spain.
133
Author at the running-of-the-bulls, Pamplona, Spain.
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4:29AM, AUGUST 4, 1991
B
am! Bam! Bam! At about 4:30am, the
security guard starts rapping on all the beds
with a large flashlight. We are quickly rushed
outside to “look for a job.” It is completely dark and I am
reasonably certain that no one is taking applications at
5am, so I start walking up the street to stay warm. All of
a sudden a car pulls up and the lady driving hands me an
entire box of day-old donuts. I later learn that the “donut-
lady” has convinced the local grocery stores to give her
their day-old donuts, which she then distributes amongst
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the homeless. I am touched by her kindness and thrilled
by the gift.
As I continue walking, while finishing my donuts, I hear a
banging sound. I look up to see John and his friends in
the second floor window of McDonalds, the only place
open at this hour. John is rapping on the glass and
motions for me to come up. When I arrive, I find the
three of them sitting at a table sipping coffee.
“The trick is to sneak in with a McDonald’s coffee cup
and get a free refill. Then we just sit up here for a couple
hours waiting for the sun to come up,” says John. Soon
this becomes my ritual, too. The idea of being homeless
sounds very scary, but once you actually live the life for a
while, you get pretty accustomed to it. It’s not fun, but
it’s not scary any more, either. When you are homeless,
many people yell at you for no reason. “Get a job!” “Get
out of my way!” Other people, like the doughnut-lady, are
overly kind. You definitely get a different view of
humanity when you’re homeless. This goes on for several
weeks, before I am finally able to get a job as the night
clerk at Stop n’ Go, a convenience store in a bad part of
town. I soon learn that everyone calls it “Stop n’ Rob.”
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The employees are very kind, and one of them, Brian,
even lets me move into his apartment with him. Brian is
about the biggest nerd you have ever met, but a hell of a
nice guy. Brian works the day shift and then I work the
night shift. I work alone at night. Stop n’ Go pays its
employees $4.25 an hour, but is paying me $5.25 an hour.
I’m getting an extra dollar an hour for working the more
“dangerous” night shift.
I spend the next seven months working at the convenience
store, saving every cent I make. I don’t go to bars, I don’t
go dancing, I don’t go to movies, I just work 12 hour
shifts at Stop n’ Go. In those seven months, I end up
getting robbed five times; the first time being the scariest.
137
138
2:04AM, SEPTEMBER 8, 1991
I
have been at Stop n’ Go for about a month. The
manager loves me, and things have really been going
well. It’s about 2am, and I am straightening the
shelves. A fat white man wearing a white t-shirt and red
sweatpants walks in. I step behind the cash register, and
to my surprise, he follows me behind the counter. He
pulls out a knife and thrusts it at me before I can even
react. I am convinced that this is the end for me and
cringe as the knife is about to enter my stomach, but it
doesn’t. I look down and he is holding the point of the
large Rambo knife up to my stomach. At this moment, I
139
realize that I am peeing my pants. Not metaphorically. I
am actually peeing my pants. I didn’t think people really
did that. I thought that was something that people said in
a joking manner, but I am definitely peeing my pants. I
think to myself, “I need to stop peeing my pants,” and
quickly cut if off mid-stream.
“Open the register!” He yells.
I push the “No Sale” button on the register.
“Open it!” he yells again and pushes the knife tighter
against my stomach.
“It’s opening! It’s opening!” I say.
Finally, the drawer opens. He grabs all the cash out of the
drawer and then takes off out of the store. Immediately, I
call the police. They soon arrive and begin taking down
the details. Within a couple minutes of the police
arriving, “Wino” a regular customer and now friend of
mine, comes busting through the front door.
“Is Little Buddy okay?” Wino asks.
140
I have no idea why Wino calls me “Little Buddy,” let
alone why he wants me to call him “Wino,” but it works.
Wino is an ex-biker who lives in a house next door with
all his ex-biker buddies. They still consider themselves
bikers, but have long ago had to sell their bikes for
money. They drink a lot, don’t work, and are really nice
guys. Wino is about 45 years old, overweight, and always
wears a leather jacket and a moustache. He is also
genuinely concerned about me. I even ended up spending
Thanksgiving with him and his gang.
Over the next six months, I am robbed four more times.
Once with a Ruger handgun, two more times with knives,
and on one occasion with a metal crowbar. I had begun
locking the door at 2am for protection. Most of the sales
are before 2am anyway, and the manager was okay with
me doing this; but on this particular night, the criminal
busted down the glass door with a crowbar, walked
inside, grabbed as much beer as he could carry, and
walked back out.
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142
2:23AM, MARCH 5, 1992
fter seven months of working at Stop n’ Go, I
have finally become paranoid that I am going
to get killed if I continue working here. The
final straw is an incident in which I lock the door at 2am,
as I always do. Shortly after I lock the door, a man in a
black trench coat starts banging on the door.
A
“We’re closed!” I yell.
“Let me in!”
143
“We’re closed!”
“Open this fucking door!” he yells and starts jerking on
the handle.
I pick up the phone as if to call the police. He
immediately leaves and I set the phone back down.
About 10 minutes later I get a phone call from the Circle
K convenience store two blocks away.
“Lock your doors!” the manager yells frantically, “A man
in a black trench coat just shot my clerk in the head!” For
just a moment, an image flashes over my mind of the bus
accident I witnessed in Guatemala.
This convenience store incident ends up haunting me for
years. What if I had just called the police? Would the
clerk still be alive? What if I hadn’t locked the door to
my store? Should I have called Circle K as soon as this
guy had left? I never saw a gun, so I really had no idea
that this would happen…but still. As soon as my
manager got in later that morning I told him what had
happened. I also gave him my two-weeks notice. He was
sad to see me go, but completely understood.
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8:09AM, MARCH 7, 1992
’ve finally saved enough money to continue my
journey around the world. I pack my bag up, say my
goodbyes to Brian and Wino, and then have “Boxcar
Ray,” a regular at the convenience store, show me how to
hop a train.
I
“Ya, I take trains all over the place to collect food stamps
and welfare in different states,” Boxcar Ray informs me.
He takes me down to the train yard, “See that? That’s the
Yard Dog. He’ll usually tell you which trains are going
out. That white Blazer there, that’s the Bull. He’s the
145
train cop. If he sees you hopping, he’ll arrest you. You
don’t want to get arrested. You want to find a train with
four or five engines. That means it’s a hotshot and it’ll be
going a long distance. You don’t want a train with empty
boxcars because it won’t be going very far.”
“I’m trying to get to Phoenix, to visit my Grandmother,
and from there I’ll continue on with my journey,” I
inform him.
“Then you want to catch a full train. You’ll have to run
beside it and jump on the ladder,” he says. This
immediately reminds me of a guy I met in SAM’s Shelter
named “Stub.” As his name implies, Stub lost half of his
foot when he tried to jump on a boxcar’s ladder. His foot
slipped off the bottom rung and got run over by the train
wheel. Stub was also the only person I have ever known
to have a legitimate prescription for marijuana.
“If it starts raining,” Boxcar Ray continues, “Then you’re
going to want to do some Cadillac-ing.”
“You mean hitchhiking?”
146
“No, I mean Cadillac-ing. If it’s raining you want to
work your way up to the rear engine. There’s never
anyone in the rear engine and the door will be unlocked.
Once inside, just flip on the heater and you’re good to
go.”
This all sounded good, so Boxcar Ray wished me good
luck and left me to catch a train. I hide in the bushes,
waiting for a “hotshot” to come by. I wait in the bushes
for 3 ½ hours, but no “hotshots” come by. No trains
come by at all. Finally a train pulls in, but it only has one
engine on it. Fuck it! I’ll be here all night if I keep
waiting for a hotshot that may never come. As the train
starts to slowly leave the rail yard, I jump out of the
bushes and chase it down. It is hard to run with my big
bag, but I eventually catch up to the train and, again
thinking of Stub, jump onto one of the ladders. I grab
hold and climb onto the back of the boxcar.
There is a little area at the front and rear of each car
where there is enough room to sit. It’s exposed, though,
and this turns out to be a problem once it starts raining. I
ride the train for about 6 hours, hoping I’m going the right
general direction. It’s dark now and still raining. All I
147
can see in any direction is mud. No roads or buildings,
just mud. Even the tracks are under a foot of mud.
We pull up near some metal structures that appear to be
silos for filling train cars, but with what, I’m not sure.
Suddenly the train stops. I look around the side of the car
to see the engineer unhook the engine from the rest of the
train and then take off. He drives away stranding me in
the middle of nowhere. It looks as if I am on the
moon…if the moon were covered in mud. I can’t even
get off the car because I’ll sink down into the mud. I am
literally, stranded. Suddenly, I see a light way up ahead.
Slowly, it gets closer and closer. After about 10 minutes I
can see that it is a large plow scooping the mud off the
train tracks. I wave to him and he pulls up beside me.
“Son, you caught the wrong train!”
“I know.”
“Hop on. I’ll give you a ride out to the highway.”
I jump onto the plow and he gives me a ride to where his
truck is parked, which is about a mile away. We hop in
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his truck and he drives me another mile to the Interstate. I
thank him and start trying to hitch a ride. This late, no
one is stopping, so I finally just lay down on the shoulder
of the road and fall asleep.
A couple hours later the sun comes up and quickly I catch
a ride with Joel and his brown Camaro. Joel has to stop
every fifteen miles to add water to his radiator. At least
until, his engine blows. At this point, I am picked up by a
church van. The passengers have a private meeting
without me and then announce that they have decided that
I can join them in their mission to “spread the word.”
While they are having their little meeting about me, it
occurs to me how more accommodating and less
judgmental Satan is than God. I have trouble imagining a
van full of Satanists having to hold a meeting to decide
whether I should be included. It seems to me that Satan
lets anyone into hell and welcomes all. I thank them, but
inform them that I need to visit my Grandmother.
The church van lets me out along the freeway in Arizona.
The freeway is not busy and has a big shoulder, so it
shouldn’t be too difficult to get someone to stop for me. I
can’t stop thinking about the church van, God, and Satan.
149
If Satan tempts me to do bad things, does God do the
opposite? Does God “tempt” me to do good things? Is
God more passive about the whole thing? If so, isn’t God
being a bit lazier than Satan? I see a car off in the
distance and stick out my thumb. What if I stick my arm
out too far and this car takes it off? Will I lose part of my
soul? Where does the soul reside? Is it in my body? Is
any of it in my arm? What if I was cut in half and both
halves remained alive for a few seconds? Would my soul
be in BOTH halves? As the car approaches, I realize that
it is a State Trooper. I immediately put my thumb down,
but too late. The police car slows down and pulls up
along side of me. The window rolls down and I am
greeted with a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
“Son, you got a death wish or something?”
“No.”
“Then why are you hitchhiking on the freeway?”
“Because I need a ride.”
“No, what you need is a ticket.”
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The Trooper proceeds to write me a ticket and soon I’m
back on the road hitchhiking. After a long series of rides,
I finally arrive at my Grandmother’s trailer in Phoenix. I
love my grandmother. She is a great person. I am finally
able to get some home-cooked food and a real bed to
sleep in. I take the money I have saved and make some
purchases. I buy a bus ticket to New York City, a bargain
plane ticket from New York City to London on Kuwait
Airlines, and a two-month unlimited Eurorail train pass.
151
152
10:13PM, MARCH 14, 1992
A
fter a few days of recuperation, I give my
grandmother a big hug and hop on the bus for
NYC. It is a long 2 ½ days to New York. It’s
late when we arrive at the Port Authority bus station, so I
make my way to the only set of benches I can find. There
is not a lot of room because about 20 homeless people are
already sitting or sleeping on the benches. I find an open
spot and sit down. I figure that I will stay here until
sunrise. At about midnight some drag queens come in
and start flirting with one of the homeless guys. When
the homeless guy catches me laughing at him, he becomes
153
irate. “What the fuck are you laughing at!” he yells. I
don’t say anything. I just sit there like a deer caught in
the headlights. To my surprise, he then leans his head
back and either falls asleep or passes out. Either way, I
am very relieved. I then hear the two guys next to me
conspiring, “Hey, I just saw a white guy over there all
alone.” They both stand up and walk around the corner.
About 30 seconds later, on the other side of the windows,
I see a white man in a business suit running at top speed
while carrying a briefcase. About 30 seconds after that
the two homeless guys come back and sit down next to
me. “Damn!” one of them remarks.
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7:03AM, MARCH 17, 1992
he next day I start working my way towards the
airport. I first stop at a small shop in Manhattan
to get some food. As I’m waiting to pay for my
items, the man in front of me orders “two loosies” from
the clerk. Apparently, “loosies” are single cigarettes that
can be purchased rather than having to buy the whole
pack. “Twenty cents,” the clerk says as he hands the man
the cigarettes.
T
“You shouldn’t touch the ends of the loosies,” the man
says.
155
“Well, then you shouldn’t order loosies.”
“What!”
“Then you shouldn’t order loosies!”
The man then throws the two loose cigarettes back into
the clerk’s face and storms out of the store. New York is
a world away from Idaho. I pay for my items and head to
the subway. I walk down the steps and attempt to walk
through the turnstile. I can see no place to enter money,
so I get in line to speak to the man in the little booth.
Finally, it’s my turn at the window.
“How do I enter the subway?”
“Dial 25,” he says.
I walk back up to the turnstile and attempt to “Dial 25,”
but I can’t seem to find a place to dial any numbers at all.
I walk back up to the booth.
“I can’t find any place to dial 25.”
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“No, dollar twenty-five,” he says slowly.
I feel stupid as I pay the man $1.25 for a subway token.
157
158
4:40PM, MARCH 17, 1992
am glad to be getting on a plane. After I arrive at
the airport and go through security, I head to my
gate. I hand my ticket to the Kuwait Airlines flight
attendant and begin walking through the accordion that
connects the terminal to the plane. I am surprised to find
a table set up in the accordion. All the passengers are
required to have their bags searched by the Kuwait
Airlines pilots and flight attendants. This, of course,
slows things down greatly and I’m starting to feel like I’m
back in Panama.
I
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Eventually, we are all on board and seated. They close
the doors. The flight attendants and pilots then line up
against the inside wall of the plane and begin to frisk each
other. Clearly this airline has had some problems in the
past. Finally, we take off. The movie turns out to be a
man with a beard singing verses from the Koran for two
hours. We eventually touch down in London and I am
ready to begin the next leg of my world adventure.
I take the ferry to France and find my way to the nearest
train station. I have a two-month unlimited Eurail train
pass, which means I can go wherever I want and I plan to
make the best of it.
I spend the next two months traveling around Europe. I
have some money, but certainly not enough to be staying
in hotels. So, the method of travel I adopt is to spend my
days walking around various cities in Europe, then
catching a night train to a different European City. This
allows me to sleep on the train and wake up in a new
country every morning. I don’t have a sleeper car,
though, so it makes for some uncomfortable nights in my
seat. In this manner, I criss-cross Europe visiting nearly
160
every corner of the continent, from Portugal to Hungary;
from Italy to the Arctic circle in Sweden.
My European journey starts with a trip to Belgium where
I am walking through the streets of Brussels taking in all
the beautiful architecture. As I walk, I notice the
architecture becoming less and less beautiful. Soon it is
not beautiful at all, and there are red lights in the
windows. It doesn’t take me long to realize that Brussels
must have a red light district, and I’m in it.
The large windows of the buildings have women sitting in
them, waving to the men outside. Some of the women are
beautiful, some used to be beautiful, but they are all
waving to the men below. They are waving to me, as
well. I seize the opportunity to snap a photograph of
them. As soon as I do this, I see the women talking
amongst themselves and motioning to me.
Within about 30 seconds, I see a large group of the
women come out of the building and begin chasing after
me. Apparently, I shouldn’t have taken their photograph.
I begin running, but am greatly slowed down by my large
bag. The women have taken off their high heels for better
161
running. I make it about a block before a dozen whores
tackle me. They drag me to the ground. I am trying to
shake them loose and push them off of me, but there are
just too many of them. They motion that they want my
camera, but I refuse. I don’t want to lose it, nor, more
importantly, do I want to lose the roll of film that is in it
as, as it is one of only two rolls that I have taken on my
entire adventure.
Some of the prostitutes are now kicking and hitting me,
but most are beating me with the spiked heels of their
shoes. It is very painful and I have to cover my head with
my arms for protection. The prostitutes continue beating
me, ripping my rain jacket that I have on in many places.
Soon a large man comes to my rescue. He works his way
through the prostitutes and helps me up. Apparently, he
had been eyeing the prostitutes in the window when he
saw the incident take place. The large man takes my
camera from me, opens up the back, and pulls the film
out, exposing it to the light and ruining my photographs.
This pacifies the women and they begin getting their
things together and walking back to their building. Once
they walk off, the man helps me up.
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“Are you okay?”
“Those heels hurt!” I respond.
“They can get arrested if someone gives the police a
photograph of them in the window. That’s why they
attacked you.”
“Thank you for your help.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Your clothes are all ripped.”
“I’ll be alright.”
I have never heard of someone getting attacked by a
whore house before. I didn’t know it could happen. I just
wouldn’t have believed it, but here I am, half beaten,
staggering through the streets of Brussels. Again, I have
somehow managed to make a poor decision.
163
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11:41AM, APRIL 2, 1992
T
he restaurants in Europe are far too expensive
for my dwindling funds, so I mostly eat out of
my backpack. Every couple of days I find a
grocery store and buy whatever cheap food I can find.
This works well until I arrive in Paris. I find a small
grocery store, but am surprised to find how high the
prices are for even the most basic of staples. I leave the
store empty-handed and instead decide to walk around
Paris and take in some of the beautiful architecture. Even
hungry, it is hard not to be amazed by the grandeur of
Paris. As I walk along the Seine River, I notice large
165
piles of birdseed that have been left on the pedestals on
the end of the bridge. I wait until no one seems to be
looking my direction; I walk up to the pile of birdseed and
sweep it into my hat. After I walk a block, I find a bench
to sit on and begin eating the birdseed. It’s really not that
bad. It just takes like wheat germ or something. I feel a
little embarrassed about it, though. I’m sure other people
find it a lot more disgusting than I do, but those people
have the luxury of not having to eat birdseed.
I work my way back to the train station and catch a night
train to Hungary. Maybe my pangs have subliminally
chosen my country of destination, but I can’t help but
think that food will be much cheaper there.
Upon arrival in Budapest, I am disappointed to find that
today is a national holiday here and the banks are all
closed. A man in the street offers to exchange $20 into
Hungarian money for me. I am a little apprehensive,
especially after having just dealt with a group of gypsy
children who pretended to show me a newspaper while
they reached underneath it and slipped their hands into
my pockets in an attempt to steal money.
166
“$20 is more money than I need. Can you exchange $5
worth?”
“Are you sure you don’t want exchange $20?” he asks.
“Ya, $5 will be fine.”
He begins to count out the money and then folds it up.
“Hey, what’s going on here!” another person yells.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Is there a problem here?” he continues.
“No,” I say as I take the money and walk off.
Once I’ve walked off, I unfold the money to find that it is
one real bill folded around some blank pieces of paper.
It’s clear that I’ve just been had. I guess I should be
thankful that I only gave him $5, but I can’t help feeling
like an idiot. Eventually, I find a little food shop that will
accept American dollars and I fill my bag with bananas,
bread, yogurt, and cookies.
167
I spend the next few weeks traveling through Greece,
Italy and Spain. I work my way to the south of Spain,
near Gibraltar. Here, in the town of Algaciris, I catch a
ferry going to Morocco. I ask for the cheapest ticket, and
with it, the ferry takes me across the Straight to a small
town called Ceuta. Here, I try to exchange some money
and am surprised when they give me Spanish Pesetas.
“I thought I was in Morocco,” I say.
“Not yet.”
Apparently this little coastal town is owned my Spain,
even though I’m in Africa. I walk out of the building and
find a man that appears to be waiting for a bus. He
clearly looks Moroccan from his clothing.
“Excuse me, do you know how I can get to Morocco?” I
ask.
“The nearest city is Tetouan. That is where I am going,
so I will show you.”
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Soon the bus arrives and we get on. It costs about 50
cents and soon we are dropped off at the Moroccan
border. We go through customs and soon the man who
gave me directions and I are in a taxi headed for Tetouan.
The driver does not speak English, so I ask the Moroccan
man that I am with to drop me off at a cheap hotel.
“The old part of the city is the cheapest,” he says. “We
can find you a cheap hotel there.”
“Thanks.”
The taxi takes us into the old part of the city. Eventually,
the streets become so narrow that the car can no longer fit,
so the driver lets us out. The Moroccan man and I walk
through the narrow winding streets. The city is very, very
old and the buildings are several stories high and appear
to be made of clay and stone. Because the streets are so
narrow, not much light gets down to the street and they
are always dimly lit. So far, I have not seen any tourists
besides myself.
Soon the Moroccan man leads me into a rug store.
169
“No, I don’t want a rug. I just want a cheap hotel,” I
protest.
“I’ll take you to the hotel next. I just thought that you
may want to buy a Moroccan carpet to take home.”
I don’t want to be rude, and I do want him to show me
where this hotel is, so I oblige him and look around. The
shop has a large table in the center displaying smaller
carpets and pieces of clothing. The large open windows
are all obscured by light flowing curtains which cause the
light to constantly dance around the room. The salesman,
who is wearing a red fez, leather slippers, and a white
djellaba (a long, loose, hooded garment) greets me.
“Hello, can I show you some beautiful Moroccan
carpets?”
“I’m just looking.”
“Please,” he persists, “Our most beautiful carpets are
upstairs. Let me show you.”
170
Finally, I agree. The salesman, the Moroccan man I am
with, and I walk up a set of wooden stairs to an upper
room that is filled with large beautiful carpets.
“Please sit down here,” the salesman motions to a bench
with a coffee table.
The Moroccan man and I sit down on the multi-colored
pillows and a very large man, in what I can only describe
as “Genie” clothing, appears with two drinks for the
Moroccan man and me. The drinks have some type of
green herb in them and look a little like a mint julep.
What concerns me, however, is that I see a small white
fizzing pill in the bottom of my drink and not in the
Moroccan man’s drink.
“Please excuse me, I need to use the restroom,” the
Moroccan man says and walks down the stairs. At this
point, the large man that brought us the drinks stands in
the doorway. It appears as if he is purposely blocking the
doorway, so that I cannot leave. I am very concerned
now and am sitting on the bench with my backpack
clutched in my arms.
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“Please, drink the tea,” the salesman says.
I don’t drink the tea. Instead, I just sit there trying to
decide what to do. The salesman turns around, pulls a
carpet off the wall and holds it up for me.
“Would you like to buy this one? Look how beautiful it
is, and handmade…Only $500!”
“No thanks. I don’t have $500.”
He turns and reaches for another carpet. This one is a
little larger and I can see that he is having difficulty
pulling it down.
“This one is most beautiful. Only $600.”
“No thanks. I don’t have any money.”
“Please drink your tea. It is VERY rude not to!” he says
angrily.
My heart is racing. Am I going to die right here? Is this
how it ends for Adam Cochran…killed in a Moroccan
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carpet shop? What in the hell have I gotten myself into?
It doesn’t take much for a great adventure to turn into an
obituary. I am not going to get killed in a Moroccan
carpet shop by a guy wearing a fucking fez!
He then turns to pull down another carpet. At this point I
am scared shitless, and, having recently seen Raiders of
the Lost Ark, am inspired to get out of here alive. With
his back to me, I quickly switch my drink with the
Moroccan man’s drink, as he is still “In the bathroom.” I
glance up at the large man blocking the doorway, but I
don’t think he saw me make the switch. The salesman
turns back around holding a large carpet.
“This beautiful carpet is only $1000.”
“No thank you, I don’t have any money.”
“Drink your tea! It is VERY rude not to drink your tea!”
I reach down and take a sip from the glass that I have
exchanged mine for. This seems to calm the salesman
and I set the glass back down, still trying to find a way out
of this mess. At this point, the salesman sets down the
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carpet and walks up to me. He grabs a hold of my
backpack and says, “Please let me take your bag so that
you are more comfortable.”
“No, I’ve got it,” I say.
He begins yanking on my backpack to get it out of my
hands. I am hanging on tight, jerking it back and forth.
Finally, I free it from his grip. I jump up, with my
backpack in hand, and run for the door. The large man is
still in the doorway. For lack of a better idea, I put my
head down like a football player and charge him. My
head rams into his fat belly and he stumbles backwards
giving me just enough room to get down the stairs. I run
down them at full sprint. As I am racing down the stairs,
I hear a voice say, “Your friend is not coming back.” I
run out of the store and down the street. I continue
running for about seven or eight blocks. They are not
following me, so I decide it is finally safe to walk. Again,
I have to ask myself, “How do I keep getting into these
messes?”
After I calm down a bit, I ask a man in the street where a
cheap hotel is.
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“There is a good carpet store down this way.”
Is everyone in this town on the carpet store’s payroll?
“No, I don’t want a carpet store! I want a hotel,” I say.
He finally gives me directions and when I lay eyes on the
hotel, and verify that it is not a carpet store, I am very
relieved. It is a small, clean, room for $3.80 a night.
I spend the next few days walking around Tetouan. There
is a strange scent that wafts through the streets of incense
and wet earth. It is a beautiful, mysterious, dangerous
city. And has a bustling market with vegetables, animals,
and snake charmers. There are bars where people are
smoking hashish from Hookahs. And five times a day,
everyone kneels down on small mats to pray in the
direction of Mecca. Also five times a day, someone asks
me if I want to go to the “carpet shop.”
I enter one of the bars and sit down.
“Do you have beer?” I ask.
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“No, Muslims do not drink beer. We drink tea and smoke
hashish. Would you like some hashish?”
“Isn’t hashish illegal?”
“If the police come, you just pay them 10 dirham ($1.15)
and they will leave you alone.”
“Do you have any food?”
“Today is Ramadan. We do not eat until sundown.”
“Oh, I guess I’ll just have some tea then.”
The waiter brings me a glass of tea. It looks exactly like
the tea at the carpet store, which at first, alarms me, but I
soon decide that it is safe.
After a few days in Morocco, I decide that it is time to
return to Spain. I work my way to the border where I spot
some other westerners. The first I’ve seen since leaving
Spain. I see a young guy wiping tears from his eyes. He
has a large backpack with a Canadian flag patch on it and
a Moroccan carpet tied to the top.
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“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I guess,” he says.
“What happened?”
“I was taken to a rug store. They tried to sell me a rug,
but I didn’t want one. I drank some tea that they gave me.
The next thing I remember is waking up the next day on
the floor of someone’s house. Three men were standing
over me with knives. The $400 cash I had was gone. The
weird thing is that there was this rug tied to my backpack
that I didn’t buy. The men told me to go cash my
traveler’s checks and give them the money. I walked over
to the bank. Once inside the bank, I didn’t see the men
anywhere, so I just ran out of the bank and kept running,
and now I just want to go home.”
I really feel sorry for this guy. That would have been me.
I want to ask him what he’s going to do with that carpet.
I can’t imagine that he is going to put it in his house. I
don’t, though. Instead, I tell him what had happened to
me.
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“We were in that carpet store, too.”
We look up to see a middle-aged American couple with
two suitcases and a large carpet rolled up.
“We paid $1400 for these two carpets that we didn’t even
want because we were afraid that something bad would
happen to us if we didn’t.”
At this point, the shuttle arrives and we board it. I am
feeling very lucky to have escaped the carpet shop. It
takes us to the ferry and soon I am back in Spain.
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10:17AM, MAY 4, 1992
I
continue my journey on the trains, through
Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Finally in
Germany, my Eurorail pass expires. With my funds
now nearly depleted, I decide to find Eli. Eli is an old
high school friend of mine who is stationed on a U.S.
Army base here in Fulda, Germany. Once I finally track
him down, he invites me to sleep on his couch, which I
gladly accept. The next day, I get a job on base at the
Shoppette, the Army’s version of a convenience store.
For the next couple months I live and work on the base.
Almost everyone here is my age, so I have made a lot of
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friends. Eli, Jeremy, Mike and John show me all over
Germany. We visit dance clubs in Frankfurt, visit the last
quarter mile of the Berlin wall, and even go bungee
jumping near Stuttgart.
“You know what I really want to do, though?...go running
with the bulls!” I say.
“We should do that!” says Eli.
“The running of the bulls is July 7-14 in Pamplona, Spain.
I’ve wanted to do it all my life.”
“If we can get leave, we could rent a van and drive there.”
“Ya, let’s do it!”
It doesn’t take much convincing from Eli and me to get
Jeremy, Mike and John to agree, and within three days I
have quit my job, and am now sitting in a van headed to
Spain. It ends up being a much longer drive than I
expected. We drive through Germany and France,
sleeping on and off. Jeremy does most of the driving
since the car is rented under his name.
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11:35AM, JULY 10, 1992
e are now somewhere in the French
countryside when I notice us rolling to a
stop.
W“Uh, the gas ran out guys,” says Jeremy from the front
seat.
I sit up and see that we are pulled over to the shoulder of
the road.
“You dumb ass, Jeremy!” says Mike.
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Within a few minutes, Jeremy is handed an empty juice
bottle and told to look for gas. The rest of us lie back
down in the seats and await his return.
About an hour later, Jeremy returns with the filled bottle.
We pour it into the gas tank and try to start the van.
Nothing. The van won’t start. I guess one bottle isn’t
enough gas.
“Where’s the gas station, Jeremy?” I ask.
“About a mile up the road.”
“Let’s just push the van there,” says Eli.
We begin pushing the van, while Jeremy sits in the
passenger seat and steers. Everyone is pretty pissed at
Jeremy. After about 45 minutes of pushing, we arrive at
the gas station, fill the tank, and thankfully, the engine
starts right up. We should be in Pamplona by tomorrow.
The road leading into Pamplona is a winding, difficult
drive. Everyone looks at the gas gauge about every 10
minutes. Except for John, who’s in the back seat and just
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keeps yelling, “How much gas do we have Jeremy?” We
finally arrive at the beautiful little Basque town of
Pamplona. We park the van and start walking toward the
town center. The Festival of San Fermín is already
underway and it doesn’t take us long to join in. There are
thousands of people marching through the streets with
cups of wine in their hands. Many people are wearing the
traditional red and white clothing. People are cheering
and dancing in the streets as it starts to become evening.
As we are standing in the town center, Eli points. I look
up and see a group of attractive girls that look American.
They are smiling. At first, one of them walks over to us
and introduces herself. Then the others join her. The
prettiest of them is a dark-haired Mediterranean-looking
girl wearing jeans and a black shirt. She is clearly out of
my league, so I just stand there. She approaches me and
says, “You have the most gorgeous body that I have ever
seen.” No one has ever said this to me before because it
isn’t true. I am tall and gangly. Either she is making fun
of me, or I’m going to marry this woman.
“Thanks, you’re pretty good looking, too!” is all I can
think to say. As it comes out of my mouth, I realize how
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stupid it sounds, but judging from her smile, I don’t think
she minds.
“I’m Laura.”
“Hello, Laura. I’m Adam.”
“You think he has the best body? What about me?” Eli
butts in.
Then Jeremy grabs her hand and pulls her away.
“Let me buy you a drink!”
I am still convinced that she is out of my league, so I
don’t put up a fight. But then it occurs to me that if she is
out of my league, then she’s definitely out of Jeremy’s
league. Soon, I am back with beautiful Laura. We spend
the rest of the night together, walking through the streets,
talking about music and pretending that we are married.
When it really starts getting late, Laura and her friend
take John and me to their hotel where we spend the rest of
the evening talking and kissing. All too soon, the sun
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comes up and I know that the bulls will be running at
8am. As much as I don’t want to leave Laura, running
with the bulls is the entire purpose of coming here. Laura
and I exchange phone numbers. She goes to college in
Virginia, but is currently taking Spanish classes in
Madrid. “Promise you’ll call,” I say, and she agrees. I
need to leave before I change my mind, so I grab John
and we head towards the van. I’m not even sure that the
other guys will be there, but I don’t know where else they
would sleep.
John and I arrive at the van at about 7am and find Eli and
Mike there.
“Hey, we didn’t think you guys were going to show!”
says Eli.
“We wouldn’t miss this!” I respond, “Where’s Jeremy?”
“We thought he was with you,” Eli says.
“Uh oh.”
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We all know how drunken Jeremy was. We open up the
van and change into our bull-running clothes. I decide to
go shirtless and just wear boots and shorts. I find some
finger paints and paint a sloppy American flag on my
chest. Eli grabs his camera and we start walking to the
street where the bulls run. It is a half-mile road that leads
from the corral to the arena. The sides of the street are
lined with large wooden fences to keep the bulls from
escaping. There are thousands of people both standing in
the street and along the fence, except for one person we
see, still passed out in the middle of the street. The bulls
are about to be released. If he does not get up within the
next 10 minutes, he will almost certainly be trampled. I
walk up to the guy lying in the street.
“Jeremy?”
“Huh?”
“Jeremy, what are you doing passed out in the middle of
the street?”
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“Oh…ya…I was so drunk that I knew I was going to pass
out big time. So I decided to just sleep in the street…so
that I don’t miss it.”
“Well, you better get up because it’s like five minutes ‘til
8:00.”
As I’m helping him up, two Spaniards walk up to us and
announce that they want to fight us. I sense that the
American flag painted on my chest has somehow pissed
them off. At that moment, Mike steps up and starts
yelling at them, “Get the fuck out of here!” Instead of
leaving, though, they just stand there, speechless. After a
minute or two pass, Eli says, “I’m afraid that these
jackasses are going to push us in front of a bull or
something.” We agree to walk up the road a bit further to
get away from them. As we start pushing our way
through the crowd a policeman spots Eli with his camera
and shouts, “No cameras in the path of the bulls!” There
is nothing the policeman can do about it, so Eli just hides
the camera in his shirt.
Suddenly, we hear a loud bang. It is 8am and the bulls
have been released. John reaches into Eli’s shirt and
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grabs his camera, “Alright, Jesus Christ! I’ll take the
camera!” Pretending to be a martyr and clearly looking
for an excuse, John takes the camera and climbs over the
fence. A few moments later we see the bulls coming;
seven huge bulls with big horns charging at an incredible
speed. Everyone is panicking and running as fast as they
can. Jeremy tries to climb up the fence to escape, but a
police officer kicks him in the chest and knocks him back
on to the street. I start running as fast as I can, but I can
hear the bulls quickly gaining on me. Suddenly, I come
to a jog in the road. The road runs directly into a wall and
then goes 15 feet to the left before continuing forward
again. I am about to dead end into the wall. I turn back
and see a bull right on my ass, about 10 feet behind me.
He’s going to plow me into the wall. Suddenly, the bull
sees the wall and tries to stop. His hooves slide on the
wet cobblestones and he falls on to his side, his
momentum still carrying him towards the wall. With just
a few feet between me and the wall, I change directions
and run straight at the bull, still sliding on his side. Not
knowing what else to do, I leap into the air and the bull
slides underneath me. I land back on the street and start
running again before the bull has a chance to get up.
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We run through the streets. It’s a complete madhouse;
bulls passing by us; people pushing, falling, and getting
stepped on. There are injured people laying along side
the wall. We run into the arena. Just as we enter, they
close the doors. We are now locked inside. The bulls are
all let through a gate and it is only people in the arena
now.
I soon realize that they are going to let bulls back out of
the gate, into the arena and people are starting to sit on the
ground in front of the gate to show their bravery. I decide
that I can’t be outdone, so I walk all the way to the front
of the group and sit down in front of them. Suddenly, the
gate swings open. The gate is so close to me that I
actually have to tuck my legs in so that it doesn’t hit me.
Out of the darkness, a huge bull appears, charging straight
at me. I try to jump up, but the person behind me is
holding onto to me for dear life. I quickly turn, take a
swing at the guy to break his grip, and then jump up. I
run as fast as I can, but the bull is right on my ass! I jump
for the railing and just as I grab it…WHAM! The bull
hits me and I fly through the air. I land on the ground and
immediately jump up. Fortunately, the bull hit me with
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his head and not his horns. His horns went on each side
of me, saving me from a bad goring.
I begin running around the arena. First they let out one
bull, then two, then three. On the other side of the arena I
notice some type of commotion going on. As I get closer,
I am surprised to see Eli holding on to the tail of a bull
and being dragged while about a dozen Spaniards are
smacking Eli with rolled up newspapers. I immediately
run to Eli’s aid, as I think it is going to turn into a big
brawl. Then Eli lets go of the bull’s tail and all the
Spaniards stop smacking him.
“It is disrespectful to grab the bull,” one of them explains.
Eli nods.
After about 30 minutes the bulls are let out of the arena
and the arena doors are opened. We walk out, battered
and exhausted. This has been the best 24 hours of my
life! I’ve run with the bulls, joined one of the largest
celebrations in the world, and met an incredible woman.
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4:50PM, JULY 21, 1992
he flight home is uneventful, and soon I am on a
Greyhound bus headed back home to Idaho. I
end up sitting next to a guy with wild-looking
hair. One of the boots I’m wearing has a cross on it.
When he sees this, he says, “You are the one who is to
give me the omen.”
T
“What omen,” I ask.
“The omen of what I’m to do.”
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“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I am the prophet Elijah. I have just sent 17,000 bottles
of perfume to the House of Israel and God has given me
200 million dollars to purchase 500 female slaves…but no
chinks!”
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1:04AM, JULY 26, 1992
M
y whole adventure is finally coming to end.
I’m both sad and happy. The bus drops me
off in Coeur d’Alene, which is about 45
miles from my parents’ house in Sandpoint. Let me
rephrase that: 45 miles from my father’s house, as my
parents have divorced while I’ve been on my world
adventure. It’s late, so I start walking. I try hitchhiking,
but it’s too late to catch a ride, so I just walk. I make it
about half-way to Sandpoint by the time the sun comes
up. I catch a ride for the last 20 miles and get dropped off
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in front of my father’s house. I knock and am greeted
with much surprise and excitement.
I’ve made it home…although, it doesn’t really feel like
home anymore. Something has changed. I don’t feel like
the same person anymore. I don’t think I realized the
change until now. I’m not sure who I’ve become, I just
know that I’m not who I was.
“You left a boy and came back a man,” my dad says. I’m
not convinced, but I hope he’s right.
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11:00AM, AUGUST 9, 1992
T
wo weeks pass and I head back to the University
of Idaho. I’ve been gone well over a year and
it’s a little strange moving back into the
fraternity. I register for Spanish, German, and bowling,
which should make for an interesting semester. It’s hard
to get back into the swing of things, though. Three
months ago, I was getting poisoned by Moroccans and
now I’m just sitting in a lecture hall thinking about
someone else, somewhere else. Needless to say, I ‘m not
doing well in my classes. I date a girl named Nicki for
about two months, but this ends abruptly when she
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announces that she is pregnant with her ex-boyfriend’s
child.
So I go on with my life, semi-detached from it, almost as
if I am pretending to be myself, doing an impression of
myself, and even forging my own signature. I spend my
time sitting through classes, playing basketball, going to
parties…things college people do, but I’m not really here,
I’m somewhere else.
“Phone call, Adam...it’s your wife,” my roommate
announces.
“What?”
“That’s what she said.”
I pick up the phone. “Hello?”
“Adam? It’s Laura,” she says.
I can’t believe it. After all these months it’s the beautiful
girl I met in Spain.
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“Holy shit, Laura? How are you?”
“Good. I thought I’d give you a call. It’s 1am here, so I
figured you were the only person I know that would still
be up.”
“Ya, it’s only 10:00 here. It’s great to hear from you. I
miss you.”
“When are you going to come visit?”
“Well…school ends in two weeks. Why don’t I come out
then?”
Two weeks later I’m getting off the plane at Dulles
Airport in Virginia. As I walk off the plane I see a
beautiful girl with long black hair and wearing a short
skirt. She looks incredible! Soon my two-week stay gets
extended into a three-week stay and then into a four-week
stay and then finally I just never leave. Laura and I move
back to Spain for a year, teach English, and re-visit the
running-of-the-bulls.
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198
3:18PM, OCTOBER 21, 1995
n the fall of 1995, Laura and I get married. The
reception is at a beautiful mansion in Maryland. The
same location that Martha Washington’s son got
married. Laura’s father, Von, tells the guests how we met
and introduces the two of us as for the first time as
husband and wife. The band plays Spanish Flamenco
music as we walk down the aisle and all I can think about
is how lucky I am and amazing it is that my life came
together the way it did. I feel like I can finally appreciate
how great my life has turned out. For me, it is closure;
I
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closure of a bizarre, unstable part of my life, but a part of
my life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
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