Hitchhiking Around The World

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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

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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.

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

“S

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.

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 bestfriend 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 haggardlooking 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

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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.

“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

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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

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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

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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 oddtasting. 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

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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 switchpoint. Upon arrival, I do my “bag-not-on-the-bus” routine for the taxi driver. He nods and points at his taxi.

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“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.

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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

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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

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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 “discohitchhike” 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

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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.

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12:51PM, JUNE 19, 1991

I

have managed to travel through Costa Rica and now Panama. Here, just south of Panama City, the PanAmerican 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.

“Can you give me a ride in your canoe?”

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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

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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

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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

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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 pingpong-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.

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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.

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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!”

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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.

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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 14year-old kid chased him through the village with a machete. That’s a good host!

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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“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.

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“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!”

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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.

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“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.

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2:40PM, JUNE 27, 1991

“I

heard about your mishap the other night,

Adam. You okay?” asks Sergio, the young guy that lives next to my hotel.

“Ya, it was a close one.”

“You have to be careful around here, everyone thinks that Americans are rich.”

“So I’ve seen.”

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“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.

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“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.

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“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.”

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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

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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

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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.

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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

T

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.

“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

I

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?”

“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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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

S

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.

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, midsentence 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

A

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.

“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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Author (center) showing father and sister proposed route.

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Raft of bananas in Jurado, Colombia.

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Momma’s son behind shack in Jurado, Colombia.

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Momma and son, Benny, in front of shack in Jurado, Colombia.

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Momma’s son watching author wait for boat in Jurado, Colombia.

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Village children playing in Jurado, Colombia.

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Young girl sweeping in Jurado, Colombia.

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Author (second from left) and Nelly (second from right) at Hotel El Faro in Buenaventura, Colombia.

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Creek where author was nearly discovered by Nicaraguan rebels.

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Author (right) working at Stop n’ Go in San Antonio, Texas.

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Author with fellow cold travelers Caroline and Kelly on Greek ferry.

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Author on ruins in Greece.

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Author posing with nude mannequins in Athens, Greece.

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Author playing army in Fulda, Germany.

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Mike and Eli in van driving to Spain.

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Author in van shortly after running out of gas.

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Author (front) with Jeremy (in van) arriving in Pamplona, Spain.

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Author self-portrait in Pamplona, Spain.

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Laura (second from left) with friends in Pamplona, Spain.

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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 “donutlady” 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.

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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

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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.

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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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2:23AM, MARCH 5, 1992

A

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.

“We’re closed!” I yell.

“Let me in!”

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“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

I

’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.

“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

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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?”

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“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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

T

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.

“You shouldn’t touch the ends of the loosies,” the man says.

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“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.

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4:40PM, MARCH 17, 1992

I

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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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“$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.

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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.

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“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.”

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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

W

e are now somewhere in the French countryside when I notice us rolling to a stop.

“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

T

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.”

“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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3:18PM, OCTOBER 21, 1995

I

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;

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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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