Eyes

Hm, well writing’s ground to a halt, but music seems to have taken over; looks like I’m now a fully-fledged accompanying guitarist for my girlfriend Perlilly, at gigs and also busking, which is our bread and butter (£150 in less than two hours last Saturday). Also put a whimsical ad up looking for band members for my own stuff – The Toddlanders – and amazingly got loads of replies and had a couple of guys over the other day who were well into it. Hard to believe, really, but sort of exciting – bar the responsibility of it. One’s this awesome piano player who used to be an Elton John impersonator. Man, he can rock! So that’s sort of curious and interesting and fun…

In other news, I had laser eye surgery at a place in London, and that was pretty cool. I did get nervous beforehand, but once I got in there and he started the whole thing of cranking my eyes open, sticking the vacuum tube on, sending the little lawnmower across the slice off my cornea, and zapping with the laser – which sort of smells like burning hair – I was loving it. In fact, I got the giggles several times throughout and the surgeon said I was the first person he’d heard it described as “fun.” My eyes were a bit painful afterwards, but within thirty minutes we were out walking the streets of London and I was seeing things half a mile away when I couldn’t see more than about twenty feet before with any degree of clarity. Very odd. And surprisingly simple.

And Perlilly was a veritable angel the whole time too.

A few days after that, though, things got a bit weird at home, some tensions between her mum and I that weren’t getting resolved. That sort of dragged on for a week and more, until we got down to sorting it out last night. And a few hours of chat and all is well again. It’s remarkable the power of a good, frank, open and honest discussion, done in the spirit of clearing the air, and knowing that even though it may be hard, it’ll be much better soon. She’s an awesome lady, too.

I don’t really know what I have to say; I’ve had a lot of thoughts about various things lately, but the blog seems to be sort of waning. Writing seems to be sort of waning too. What I need, if I am going to do it, is somewhere to go where I can forget about the things here, because I do just seem much more interested in Perlilly and her music at the minute – she’s probably going to go places with that – and, you know, it’s a lot easier to do that than get down and make the effort to do my own thing, which probably won’t come to anything anyway. So maybe I should just let it go. Except I know I won’t.

I guess I’m just a very lazy man! :-)

Mexico trip #2

5. So I ended up staying in Xela for 3 weeks - all because of the coincidence with Coco! - and it was a really beautiful time. Strange, 'cos it's not exactly the most picturesque or peaceful place in the world (me and my ideas that I'm a nature lover) and it does stink of diesel, like most cities in this part of the world, but, I swear, by the end of it I was sincerely in love. My heart got opened by Xela; I coulda stayed a long time. But, as ever, I moved on...

6. And despite thoughts about making my way overland to Peru - thoughts that still haven't died - I hitched back north to Mexico, and made San Cristobal de las Casas by nightfall; it was sort of a touristy town (looks exactly like Antigua de Guatemala) and I stayed for all of two waking hours (slept under a caravan). Then I got picked up by my first woman - a mother and daughter team of teachers who were also, coincidentally, the first smokers that had picked me up and made those glorious Palenque ruins. Ah, what a place! Had been prepared to be disappointed by what a few people had told me - and maybe the lawnmowers and hawkers do take a bit of the shine away - but it was just wonderful. And one day there turned into four, and eventually I managed to fulfil this desire I had of spending the night there by sneaking in past the guards with their machine guns and flashlights and all night long I stayed up the top of the Temple de Las Cruces while an enormous lightning storm lashed down the rain and blinded me with its glory. And, sure, I stripped off and laughed and threw my hands in the air in what was probably my greatest ever shower. Who wouldn't?

7. Then I tried twice to hitch north to Villahermosa - but instead of getting picked up inside of five minutes like normal, I waited for over an hour and it just didn't seem to be happening. Also, I had a bag of beads and other jewellery-making things that a Mexican girl I had befriended had left in the hotel in Palenque ($4 per night), and I knew she lived in San Cristobal. Plus, I was being haunted by these visions of a big river half-way back that way that I just thought might be ripe for a spot of raft-building and a two or three day float. So back south I went, and back to the river where I wandered around for an hour in mud looking at trees to lash together, pointlessly, and when I gave that up I got in a pickup truck and there waiting for me was this young Israeli guy, Yair.

8. And so I had a buddy! And for a week me and Yair travelled together, hitching madly to San Cristobal - getting picked up once by a Mexican guy who then drove us in the wrong direction back to the bus station (it was Sunday morning; he was drinking beer) where he paid our fare to San Cris - and sleeping on roofs, and investigating terribly dangerous options for travel (such as the aforementioned "train of death" down in Arriaga), and generally having a wonderful time. Ah, what japes! Like - when pickup trucks wouldn't stop for us just jumping on them anyway and laughing madly and rejoicing in the laughing Mexicans too! Or comically losing each other on the highway and then racing to Puerto Escondido, where we were joyously reunited on the beach to share our respective stories of truckers and gifted pineapples and more and more madnesses! And PE itself, with its enormous fish dinners, and even more enormous deserts. And then we said goodbye in Zipolite, where someone nicked all my money.

9. And now I'm in Oaxaca; got here last night, on the invitation of a friend we met in Puerto Escondido. Been to the ruins at Monte Alban; slept in a doorway; ate a kilogram of yoghurt for the meal you have immediately after breakfast (can't remember the name of it) and seem to have lost about half the things I came to Mexico with. Which means my bag is basically empty, save for a sleeping bag and that crazy snorkelling mask I keep on carrying. Good times have been had! A mad month in parts - after the settled bliss of Xela - but good, nonetheless. Oh, how I love my life and the pictures of it that I have right now in my head! Like - eating an entire pineapple by the side of the deserted highway while the mountains look on and the sun slowly sets. Brilliant!