CouchSurfing the World

In the darkness of the night it was almost impossible to feel like I had arrived to Cuba except when the occasional pre 1960 American brand Ford, Chevrolet or rusty Cadillac rattled passed us coughing a cloud of unattended engine dust our way. Often a beautifully restored convertible would join us at the lights, a pack of smokes rolled up in the drivers sleeve, hat tilted to the opposite side of his Cuban honey leaving him just enough eye candy. This is cool.

A roadside billboard of George Bush and Obama’s faces catches my attention, especially the huge letters stamped across spelling ‘Terrorists’. That’s even cooler! Further down the road another billboard with Fidel and Che turns my head, ‘50 years of Revolution’, ‘Victory’. I was here to find out exactly what Che had gave his life for and hopefully make sense of Fidel’s motives after all this time. I had questions, lots and lots of questions!

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I knew nothing of Recife upon arrival, only that it’s the fourth largest Metropolitan area in Brazil and is situated beside the sea. I was expecting a tropical paradise yet walking to the supermarket almost destroyed my sense of smell. The city is located where the Beberibe River meets the Capibaribe River to flow into the Atlantic Ocean. A maze of river’s run parallel to all major roads with small bridges connecting walkways which gives Recife the moniker of the ‘Brazilian Venice’ whereas I’d prefer to call it the ‘Devil’s Arsehole’. I have never smelt something so vile. The first time is impossible to forget. I felt abused, empathetic to what the Jews must have endured in the prison camps of world war two. In the midst of relating my travel stories to my new surfer friends in my typical giddy, animated and outré manner, my nescience left my big mouth open and prone to digest a horrendous and tetchy taste forcing my consternation to boil into a frightful cry like an ululating jackal with his balls stuck on a barbed wire fence.  Imagine a fishmonger who returns home from work and suffers a heart attack before having a chance to change his clothes. Try to picture the smell of the house after the CSI crew discover his body a few weeks later. My shit has never smelt so good!

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As with Capoeira, the slave society found a way to entertain their masters pretending to join in with the many ceremonies when in fact they found a way to preserve their own in disguise. This has led to a modern collaboration of religious views from both cultures confusing our children further more with the harsh reality that all religion is a blatant push for social structure and money seeking deception. Why do you think the pope promotes sex without the condom? So we can breed more brainwashed stem cells for the hungry pockets of the church who, in return give you some crappy dried bread and watered down wine every Sunday. And if the pope is as holy as they say, why the hell does he need a bullet proof car if he’s got angels protecting him? Even Batman has the discrepancy to wear a protective suit!

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I, on the other hand just needed a friend I could trust. Maybe even enjoy some dancing to shake off those empty spirits clinging to me like toilet paper does to the arse when you drop a sticky poop! That’s why you should always carry ‘Huggies’, the gods have had smooth cheeks since creation, laughing at us from above grinding our teeth with each wipe of recycled wood shavings! Even Adam and Eve used leafs and totally understood the phrase ‘Your barking up the wrong tree’. When the hell were we told by our mothers that we are now old enough to wipe our sphincters with the same material once used for two signatures to sign away their souls in a promise now regurgitated into the basin of a toilet with last night’s Vindaloo? I was the ‘Lord Of The Ring Stings’ for way too long until the 8th wonder of the world spoke green in the baby aisle of which previously I had never ventured down before?  I no longer run backwards in the cornfields, but slide effortlessly on luscious grass fields leaving ‘El Bano’ like a 64 Pink Chevy pulling out of a car wash.

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My mother’s biggest weakness was she too often put people before her and never got the same care and love back when she needed it rendering her weak and broken. I’m prepared to help anyone but I’m certainly not going to be taken advantage of. You must know who to direct your positive energy too for its continuous flow or you will feel bitter and cheated and hatred to others. Walk away is my advice, don’t keep banging your head against a brick wall, climb over, smash it down, or follow it until you find a door to walk through making sure to slam it shut and throw away the key.

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Bunk beds and pink sheets made me feel my youth again although I much preferred my He-Man collection over Barbie Dolls and a husband without a penis. Poor Ken! How’s a women ever gonna learn with that little rabbit nose stump? And what the hell have they both got to smile about if he hasn’t got his manhood? Poor design feature! Society is so fo*ked up. Just look at the toys we are given to play with as kids. Action men and guns for boys, no wonder so many young teenagers are brainwashed into joining the army. And is it a wonder why so many teenage girls want to get pregnant having spent their childhood raising a plastic baby that really cries when it’s not fed by invisible milk and learning how to behave well in a toy kitchen making sure to put the pots back in the right place at the end of the day? The computer games of today teach young children how to lead a battalion into war and fictional characters like the tooth fairy still exist. For Christ sake, don’t blame it on drugs when a young girl jumps from her balcony, maybe she thought she could fly? It was probably our parents on drugs that thought of the tooth fairy anyway. As for Father Christmas, don’t be so cruel; tell them it’s a farce while they are young because I was truly devastated when I found my dad on Christmas morning passed out on the couch with the whiskey and half eaten mince pie and Santa pants stained with piss around his ankles. And we get mad when our kids lie to us. Shame on you!

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Everything seemed perfectly relaxed, the colorful cocktail shirt serving up a delightful array of exotic fruit juices with a smile as big as the ocean he faced, big white teeth atop chiseled beach bodies smothered in the perfect coco skin, a year in the gym certainly pays off in this climate. I felt somewhat like a punctured tire, worn out from my endless journey over difficult terrains, the only firm grip I had left was on my cold beer which probably should have been a coconut shell filled with a healthy beverage. Balls to it, if you think my white freckled out of shape body is weird you should check out Blackpool beach during summer, now that’s a sight.  My E.T shaped man boobs frizzled into a lovely reddish glaze like a pair of cows bollocks swinging in the rays, yet my angelic talcum powder skin tone actually seemed to be working with the ladies who I caught on occasion having a wee goosy gander! Maybe it was because I was the only one wearing surfing shorts and not those little tight gay hot pants that show the veins in your penis. Or maybe it’s due to the mistaken motto of ‘once you try black you never go back’? Well I’m telling you now, ‘once you try white, you won’t give a shite’!

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Suddenly I found myself in a complicated predicament. My feelings for Anita grew stronger each day and I wanted to spend the little time I had in Uruguay with her as well as time with my uncle and Ryan and host Martin. It’s been over a year since I felt in love with a woman and two years since I’ve been with family and now I found myself having to juggle between the two. I admit traveling for so long can be lonely and when an opportunity arises to spend time with attractive young women who shares so much in common with me then I have no choice but to surrender my soul even though I know I have to leave at some point. This is something I never really contemplated when I left home and it’s impossible to imagine I could ever meet someone who could join me traveling for so long or wait for me to finish. So what do I do? The same as any other man I suppose, act now think later. I had overstepped the emotional barrier the first time I laid eyes on Ana and found myself caught in a tractor beam being pulled closer to the death star, my Lightsaber fully extended all the while my Yoda screaming to me to ‘use the force’ and turn away now while I still have the chance. I’ve never been a great listener.

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My uncle is the closest soul I have to my father and although my father wasn’t keen on hugging like me, my uncle’s ‘bear like hugs’ more than suffice. Often people who knew my father will say how much they see of him in me as I see him in my uncle. There’s no escaping the family mannerisms and throughout any blood line no matter how different the person, characteristics will always have similarities good and bad. The miracles of genetics are the subliminal signals alerting you that a soul close by has shared a valuable and honest moment in or before your life. If an atom is split, both halves will continue to mimic each other no matter how far they are separated. If one halve turns to the right, the other will follow, a phenomena called non – locality. A theory yet to be explained by any science local to what our minds perceive! We could say then that the qualities shared with family are our localities. Looking deep into my uncles eyes, I felt a piece of home again.

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If I could afford to travel this way all the time I wouldn’t hesitate. The full reclining bed was perfect for my knee, blankets and pillow made for a dainty sleep and my own private curtains even posed the possibility of ‘choking the old chicken’ but I didn’t want to push the boat out too far.  I was a little disappointed having strategically booked the back seat, which is usually next to the place where the wine is stored yet it wasn’t in sight? However the young waiter guy was rather generous with the wine and even served us a glass of champagne before our late night movie. I was rather surprised then when he joined me on the back seats to watch the movie and cracked open a bottle of champers just for us.

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