MRP art exhibition – 2006

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A cold beer never felt so freeing – Cartagena, COLOMBIA

A cold beer never felt so freeing; only two hours ago I was busted for grass and sweating it in a Colombian police station …

So there I was finishing photographing the huge Spanish-colonial San Felipe fortress from the old city walls of Caribbean Cartagena shortly as dusk collided with the rushing traffic and three teenagers smoking pot on the riverside walls, having left this scene as a dodgy dude approached me and decided to give him the berth before I lost my entire camera bag when a cop on a motorbike sees me, slows, turns and is suddenly searching me and then a flash from fuckin’ last night.

Hooker and that small but obvious stash and papers in my Marlboro box  and after my left pocket searched the gear is found. He grins or was it a growl, I dunno cos I knew I was in the shit having carried it around all day having forgotten all about it. BUSTED.

For a few minutes I tried to reason with him that I had fuck-all dope but he kept insisting I get on the back of his motorbike and go to the station and after he threatened to handcuff me on the street, traffic and bunged up buses slowing for the spectacle, I agreed to go for a ride.

I remember my unsmiling resigned expression mirrored on astonished locals watching as we whizzed down alleys avoiding the rush hour. 

At the small station it was all go as he showed another officer his catch, his small haul equal to a joint or so. They searched my camera bag thoroughly, taking interest my condoms and quizzing the crystal silica bags and I knew it was getting bad cos I had two expensive Sony digital cameras for them to play with, ponder, plunder; one guy wanted-to know how it worked and away he was outside with the video camera and I was seriously wondering how insurance would respond to the claim of busted for drugs, both cameras stolen by the cops.

But seriously the searched me extensively for more gear and were pretty shitty but when they couldn’t find any more they still talked about 5 days jail and that was a relief; thought it would be longer.

They asked for my passport and they were amused when I didn’t even have a copy (it’s illegal here not to carry ID) which I wasn’t carrying but they they seemed to warm to me when I showed them some of my tourist history books of their city and when they found out I was from Nueva Zealandia I felt hope at paying my way out trouble but with such expensive cameras on me I had no way of pleading poverty.

Yet my poor Spanish really helped me faint incomprehension but the word PROHIBITO is very clear. I agreed, Si Si.

They asked, how much I paid for it and where it was bought and I had to tell them a pro had bought for us and that it was only a small packet for around 5000 pesos – less than $2.

The other cop returned from outside my camera for me and I knew things would improve as they found no more gear and the measley amount wasn’t worth their time.

He asked if I wanted libertadade for a price. I emptied my pocket of local cash expecting to be stripped of everything before official processing began and to my surprise he handed back my dope and I left the station complete with cameras but minus about $US 15 in local pesos. 

I guess my friendliness, the tiny amount, maybe simply their money making activities saw my release … I thanked him and gave him the nice one / everything’s okay Brazilian thumbs up gesture and with a sense of life again and a bewildered smile I walked stunned by my escape, down the street.

I smoked that menacing, forgotten joint back in the guesthouse courtyard and now, reflect … never has a cold beer felt so freeing.

> photos of Cartagena & Colombia

Street sleeper – Rio, BRAZIL

The smell makes me sick … and if YOU’re here, you’d probably puke.

This aroma isn’t just that sweet, sickly street stench of rubbish and car exhaust left festering under a day of Rio’s baking sun and constant humidity but something still alive, well, sort of … it comes from the broken-line of street sleepers crashed on the pavement a few feet from my hotel entrance …

In particular there’s an old white guy, gray-haired, skinny-sick, with a black-blood-bandaged-leg of rotten pus stench – FUCKIN’ WATCH OUT – pull ya throat in fast; am passing on fried chicken for a week; would rather eat shit than approach this guy again.

Like so many societies gripped by severe contrast, Rio’s beauty is often thwarted by its share of the planet’s serious social issues …

On a bus with the smell from hell – CHILE

Thought I’d woken to someone shitting on my face; my sleep interrupted by a fuckin – truly, fuckin’ – horrendous stench while travelling the dull bus journey back to Chile from southern Argentina.

Others – the few foreigners around me at the rear of the bus were pulling the most-ugly faces and near vomiting, truly, as I realised the smell was coming from the on-bus toilet, opposite me.

Jokes were exchanged – including the dead rat one – to the point of despair, for the smell was terrifying. One young Brit stated it was now the 6th flush of the toilet we’d heard as he struggled to open the unopenable-locked, A/C bus window as his girlfriend gagged beneath her scarf as the smell of shit absorbed our entire world. SMELL FROM HELL; never have I encountered such an evil sensory commotion.

Absolute panic and disgust as a German guy punched open the roof-top vent to – as he said – “help inhalation”. Crowd anticipation mounted for the smelly fucker to exit and show himself … come on ya cunt … Die … then it happened. And we burst into hysterics – exiting out of the bog was a slim, beautiful, blond Latina.

I let out a few comments that got others laughing: “Fuck, that chick’s got one dangerous arse … Man, lucky, her boyfriend’s a sensitive, caring guy”.

The bus attendant – urged by gasping passengers – entered the hazard zone – hell-of-a brave guy – and sprayed some cheap scent, on which I commented “Great, the smell of roses and shit,”.

That wasn’t enough to quell the stench. So he returned with bleach to extinguish the rotting-pig - the wafting ammonia fumes stinging our eyes and nose.

Following that nasty adventure I made it to the Torres Del Paine National Park, stunning for its horned peaks, turquoise lakes and glaciers, where finally, I could inhale deeply …

> photos of Chile

Head off the edge #2 – Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

What jumping out of a plane didn’t achieve for me, jumping out of a moving car in Buenos Aires has … checked back into reality: maybe I’ll stay a while.

It started as a quiet beer on Saturday night with Murray (a Scotsman I’d met in Bolivia 3 months ago) but into the evening someone notified us that it was officially the first day of Spring and hence a huge party would consume the city all night.

He was right: 4 am and people pumping in the street, even homeless folks wasted in happy huddles. From the pub I progressed to The Big One – not talking penis size but BsAs biggest discotheque to see the UK DJ collective: The Ministry of Sound. Crowds from teenagers to transsexuals, business looks to punk. An din this 3 storied-cathedral I E-ed my way across the morning til the finish at 10 am to then taxi across BA to an after-hours (BA has numerous after hours clubs, open 10 am – 10 pm).

Drunk beer on a comfortable couch upon a sunny rooftop glasshouse of the club that Sunday, amid stark-eyed smiley clubbers and everyone, it seemed, was snorting coke or smoking grass or drinking; or all three.

I met an English-speaking Argentine of Syrian decent – we talked of my experiences there in ‘89 – and his friend, a big guy – looked Samoan -  from somewhere I forget in the Pacific. They were loaded with stuff, which they shared, and I returned their generosity by buying them rounds of beer.

Over the hours, tons of people joined our sofa area, including a – seemingly, small time – mafia boss, and a pock-marked, dark shades, sinister hitman-looking guy. (Both guys looked like shady movie roles). And over the hours many men and woman came over and paid their respects, check-kissing this boss, and introductions to them for me, them dudes asking which woman I wanted, I declined and was happy to just get wasted, for the moment. But substance offers were accepted across the afternoon.

I happily offered to keep buying beers, big bottles shared out among a growing crowd around me. Strange mix of middle-age cool dudes, old surfers, oldish sluts, young skins and techno teens. People came and went as did the hours because next I remember being in an underground club located in an old mansion. Must have gotten there with the two shady types but don’t remember how … got talking with a range of people including this nice chick who wanted me to return home with her and her boyfriend for a threesome. I agreed. 

We left the club together but so did those two shady guys but now also with a large skinhead.

So there we were waiting in the deserted street for a taxi. Six of us. I asked what was going on and they said maybe something to the effect of sharing the taxi home, dunno exactly.

After about 10 minutes we got a taxi but the driver was only willing to take 5 passengers. Two taxis would have been the obvious solution. But no, it left empty, and I don’t know what was said but the boyfriend, coerced, I suspect, left for the club and I got very suspicious and now, somewhat bored and concerned with these thuggish characters. I’d decided (around 1.30 am) it had been time to leave back in the club when I gave the boss money to buy beer and he didn’t return (equal to about $US 20) the change; when challenged he said that he’d returned it.

Now a police car passed and I flagged it down, and the chick followed me across to the car, and speaking in English she asked what the fuck I was doing. (Most Argentineans don’t trust the cops here, who had been linked to various kidnappings and other crimes in BA since the economic crisis hit last December.) I said it was to protect her; I didn’t trust the potential of a rape. Her reasoning convinced me to back away from the cops, that she didn’t seem worried. The cops took off and the guys now looked at me. What you do that for, the boss asked. I apologized, by dismissing it, “Sometimes I get crazy …”; “cops often give you a ride in NZ”.

So another taxi came and we all got in. I made sure that I was beside the door, with the chick to my right. Not sure if I had said that I want to get out or stop or what.

But my intuition set off the final alarm bell so I opened the door as we drove down a deserted main street, around 2 am. The chick grabbed the door, the bald bouncer also, and locked to the lock. “What you doing; are you crazy? I thought you were intelligent …” she said.

Can’t remember answer or how soon before I next reacted but I think seconds as we turned – hence slowed, into another deserted main street. My light said: GO. Everything so fast. I whacked the big guys arms away from the lock, somehow opened the door and leaped from the moving car to land running and wobbling but somehow still upright.

How’s it possible – upright. Stood stunned, wow, what happened, staring at the taxi stopped about 40m ahead with its red rear lights staring back at me … then it drove off … I don’t know how I landed unscathed or how I got the nerve but just reacted – there was no thought beyond OUT NOW. I remember saying as I exited: “Bye Bye. Fuck you!”

Less than 24 hours later and I’m still trying to recall the exact patterns of thoughts and movements but they are lost to the speed of things. It wasn’t a dream. Be easy to explain if it was … But seems like it. Rushing with crazy, confused adrenaline I couldn’t believe what had happened as I sat in another cab heading into the downtown for some comfort in a club girl.

I was so fuckin’ hyped; shocked; disbelieving. What with no sleep for 40 hours, taken Es, and an ongoing menu of dope, drink and coke, no food, you could say that I had an active imagination; but then amid the haze came that gut clarity that said, Danger, GO. 

It ended with whisky and a lovely, dark-haired Peruvian woman, 23. She was wonderful fun, and very beautiful. We shared loud, simultaneous orgasms across Monday morning. 

Now, Tuesday: woken from a deep sleep and have changed down a gear or two as I wonder which direction is next … after weeks in BsAs am bored by the clubs, cocaine, and sex-for-money chicks … need a new hit – for a few weeks, anyway.

This latest misadventure has encouraged me to Hit the Road –  time for some fresh air, time to travel again, maybe a back-to-nature trip; cos cities can make people crazy …

Head over the edge #1 – Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA

Was wanting to sleep but had a hot arse too close to my face  … she sleeps as the traffic rakes the street downstairs as I lust over this bottle-blond’s varnished nails, her lightly tanned neck and wrists chained in gold – maybe I’m not her first customer … maybe it’s not love, afterall.

I can remember – bits, anyway, of last night; she sucks so well – but not her name. Half a dozen beers, a bottle of red and half a litre of whisky and not even a headache now – yeah, age has blessed me with a tolerance to alcohol: getting old’s fun.

I’m 36 soon. An old cunt (or maybe, just a cunt). In a recent e-mail Mum asked me how I intended to celebrate my birthday and I had to reply nothing different: Drunk and in bed with a babe (it’s not my birthday for 2 weeks but I thought I get in shape for the event …).

Been doing a lot of soul searching these last few days. You know, age and getting old and what’s my life about shit. 

Thought it time for a change … Surprise. I’ve found Jesus – thought I read the bible this evening – yeah right; or maybe I’ll marry this bleeding blond – intense fucking bought her period on prematurely – beside me. Wrong again TV game-show losers, not you, my friends, but the glamour-hungry wankers on TV which I have with the sound down; yeah, I’ve finally found the meaning to life: to CONTINUE.

With that insight clarified I drink another beer on this fine non-stop afternoon… and solemnly swear, to continue to be a toxic prick addicted to sex, stimulants and wandering. MUM: a thought: maybe you should censor this for the grandparents: I feel it may get …

Check the flesh. Today -  “I shot the sun … “  yeah, right. Actually I’m hallucinating. BUT I believe I’ve been in Buenos Aires a month and have been a total slut (Do sluts pay for sex? Cos I’ve been cashing in the pesos rapidly in hope of getting automatic entry to heaven, you know, my charitable, selfless work supporting women internationally … )

Ahh, yeah … Actually all the chicks I’ve been with here have been pros. And all of them have been very loving … I remember her name now, cos she’s just left at 4.13 pm. Shayla, a some-what Arabic name. She wants to ring me … PLEASE, yeah, habitacion viente-ocho (Room 28). Before she left, like the other ladies, she cleaned my room: ashtray emptied, condoms disposed from the floor, even, folding my clothes. A very inclusive service – indeed (house keeper and lover). 

I met the last lady in the same club as Shayla, she’s an exotic dancer for it’s an Arabic / Greek-theme night – sex, not disco – club. The other woman, Angelina, has left yesterday for her native Brazil and wanted to take me with her … tempted but probably would’ve been disasterous (reading my past serious relationships with loving but crazy pros: RE: Erica, Indonesia.). Both ladies are bottle-blondes with dark eyes (and shaven pubes) as was the one before these two.

I’m seeing a trend here … I usually adore dark skin and dark hair … but all the woman here are white and of Spanish or largely Italian origin. In fact BsAs is the whitest place on earth: I’ve counted four blacks, 2 dozen indigenous brown Andeans and a million whites in a month in this city of 11 million. Surely, the least colored city in the world (in the large downtown districts, anyway). 

Last week I tried to get it together by leaping from a small plane. SKY-DIVING. Tumbling, falling -and freaking, yeah, floating fast at 210km/hour for 5000 feet … parachuting the last 5000 to land fuckin’ ecstatic. Wonderful hit, but it didn’t last long. I believe I’ll take the slow, emphasis slow, ferry across the River Plate to Montevideo, Uruguay – soon, another country to kick my latest mind-less addiction.

Must leave Buenos Aires, where the prettiest – white – woman in the world reside (forget my raving about Santiago de Chile some months ago; BsAs is it. Immaculate bodies and supermodel looks – pity I land all the fat chicks – not really, anyway, Latino women are the true goddesses). Heaven help me in Rio; God save me in Colombia … (where life’s, and the powder’s too cheap and the girls too easy). Ahh, fuck it: life’s to be explored …

Went to a football – soccer – match in a huge stadium of manic supporters: I have the Latino fever; the passion.

At 36 I’ve resolved to go all out … Breasts or bust … Having not slept for days (or is that, daze) you can dismiss this ramble as shit; maybe, one day, I’ll grow up.

My 36th birthday resolution: NEVER SURRENDER (or not for another year, at least).

Love flowers & &&, &, something real sexy – MRP

PS: Maybe I should write a book titled: ‘How to Impress Whores, DESPITE Having a Beer Gut’  

Fuckin’ tourists! – Cusco, PERU

FUCKIN’ TOURISTS – I wish Bin Laden was here to lessen the pollution …!

Thought I’d start on a different note – cos not everyday am I feeling in love with the world and I don’t want to mislead you about the nature of 2lst century travel, nor of the moods of this traveller.

Often these past weeks I’ve really had to try hard to stay enthusiastic about being on the road. The nausea started in northern Bolivia and has heightened dramatically here in Cusco, Peru.

THE PROBLEM, my problem, is the masses of stupid fucks here.

I can understand the attraction of Cusco but the people it attracts are generally dull … those middle-aged package sheep who go to pretentious plaza cafes accompanied by their aloof attitudes. Or the classic American campus geek on a summer school outing, shrieking loudly and bitching about her friends.

At a series of Inca ruins yesterday I encountered some examples. There were these harmless chicks who just sat upon a mountain vista of a almighty ruin and reading novels (nothing related to S America; one was by Nick Hornby and I wondered why bother being there? After all you tend to read to be transported elsewhere).

Another harmless, gormless couple had stripped off to undies, and were sunbathing (and not a swimming pool or beach in sight).

One group of 4 English toffs passed me without acknowledging me or my greeting but later when they were fumbling about for 10 minutes trying to find the other way down from the Inca rock, a little panicked, and ‘not wanting to damage their cameras’, I pointed out the route and they suddenly turned ever so pleasant.

But what really set me on-fire was when some old American guy started screaming and waving me away with his hands: Outa my photo! I didn’t even see him – so crowded was the site: each person sharing a turn to interrupt another’s shots. Anyway, I gave him a loud - “Fuck off! You’re not the only one here, ya cunt!”

That same cunt was at the site less than 10 minutes as he was swished away within his stupid-arse tour group. And he’d have his photos and boast over some sycophantic dinner party that he’s been there, that he’s experienced Peru.

So call me a travel snob, a complete wanker or a ignorant leper, but it seems that tourism is strangling special places, rapidly depleting the world of any real travel adventure and intelligence – so get there now friends, within the next 10 years to your dream destinations. Or don’t bother (unless a war breaks out: then perfect travel, those early post-war years).

Me: I’ve suddenly been enlightened: I’ve finally realised that I’m just another dickhead like the rest of them (and even stupider, for being here during the height of the peak season). It’s all so clear now: I need a beer …

> photos of Cusco, inca sites, Peru

Trek to the last inca city – Vilcabamba, PERU

I set out with a local guide and a mule and a mule-lad to trek to Vilcabamba, the last and lost Inca city, located in a distant, hidden, rainforested valley, and a full three days of walking remote trails away …

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Bus blues – BOLIVIA

It should have been a straight-forward overnight journey on a comfortable modern bus on a sealed asphalt highway (unlike many of Bolivia’s main roads).

It started off well when I was in the Santa Cruz bus terminal and the guy at the kiosk where I’d just purchased a ticket assured me that the bus was indeed ‘con bano = with toilet’.

Excellent: to kill the 3 hour wait til the bus departed I hit a koisk, and consumed beer.

Full of piss … some hours later to my dismay I watched the bus arrive – late, and it had NO TOILET and didn’t even resemble the new-look that the pictures touted.

But fortunately, or unfortunately but fortunately for me the bus got a puncture within 10 minutes of departure and so I had my first piss-stop against a wall amid the shanty suburbs.

And fortunately again because I got a badly needed second piss as we waited an hour to get the wheel sorted.

Maybe less than 2 hours later we’ll stopped again to see along the road from the rear of the bus a long diesel trail. And I took another piss – now the middle of the night; icy, there we waited some hours while the drivers tried to block the leak with plastic sheet, banging amid the rear engine compartment, unitizing this gringo’s torch, for vision.

Meantime back on the bus people were sleeping or trying to cos one guy was snoring like a fuckin’ bulldozer and unfortunately was seated directly in front of me with his seat fully reclined.

I had two choices: sit and agonise or stand outside and shiver, and listen to men bashing engine … for a good hour I wanted to strangle the fucker in front of me; I was so exhausted. Was wondering if my water-bottle could plug his gabbling gob.

And then I realised I had earplugs not in pack but with me in my fleece pocket – and they helped for a half hour or so.

Another bus of the same company had stopped and offered us spare gas.

But then it was delays at an army checkpoint for an hour – drug searches – and now morning and freezing on the bleak Altiplano, the bus broke-down again.

There’d been no meal stop but plenty of stoppages.

Fellow passengers were getting riotess – one woman really bombarding the drivers.

Somehow, we got going again but at a crawl – loaded trucks were passing us whilst travelling uphill but at least we were moving.

Approaching a stalled line-up of vehicles around 9am was ominous … A blockade: meaning there’s a local political problem so vehicles and objects are sprawled across the road with protesters in attendance and that no vehicle may pass in either direction (for the day, or many days) … the road’s cut and so we have to walk to Cochabamba … 15 – 20 km away.

I trudged away along a highway devoid of vehicles but crammed with refugee-like figures struggling with belongings in the cold, crisp air.  Snow on the surrounding peaks but sunny.

Luckily, for me the past few weeks I’d travelled very light (just cameras and day-pack, leaving the bulk of my gear in La Paz while I did an Amazonian round-trip).

There were a few cars on the move, cutting into side roads, avoiding the next blockade (there were about 5 road blocks spread towards the city in intervals of about 5 km). I tried but soon gave up flagging down the few packed passing vehicles.

Then someone stopped, unsolicited. What a mind-fuck. It’s the monster snorer! (and his wife). How they’d gotten a car I don’t know but they took me about 5 km before turning off before the next roadblock. Ironic encounter: I really wanted him to die some hours earlier … It was a long walk, without food for 24 hours, without sleep, and chilly, passing through other blockades and witnessing violence as male protesters punctured the tyres of an unlucky taxi strike-breaker, and beat dents in the vehicle.

Eventually, I got to the out-shirts of the city proper, where services were running normally, and hopped into a mini-bus to arrive in the plaza and from there got a cheap hotel and a long shivering session while fully dressed in bed. A few hours later I was fine.

Nothing like the unpredictability of travel to sharpen the senses …

Prison visit – La Paz, BOLIVIA

My solitary Sunday was absorbed by a visit to La Paz’s San Pedro Prison.

No I wasn’t arrested for drugs or acts of public indecency, rather it was a straight forward tourist kinda thing.

There’s a guy, Fernando, English speaking, who’s been in the slammer here for 4 years for possessing 4 grams of cocaine, but he admits he’s actually been a drug dealer all his adult life; he got busted to now serve his present 8 year sentence. But he’s been organizing these tours of the goal, with the help of the corrupt prison governor – who he pays off with tourist dollars to shorten his sentence; his final 4 years have been reduced to 1.5 years and decreasing as his bizarre tours continue …

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