Moraline's "Corrida at Malaga"

I remember the ear as if it were my own, sliced by battle. I do not remember the lost years, but, but the living years. How you chased girls in Croatia, how you ran with bulls and then brought to Spain a true fan of the great battle and sport. Yes, your tail of sailing off a cliff in the desert of Spain, landing on thistles, concussion, broken ribs, covered in blood, slowly and painfully truing a wheel, a farmer giving you bandages, and sleeping in a room with a head injury alone for a week. How many meaningless years go by before we realize just a few memories are all that matter, but not a few memories but the journey that led to them, the courage to toss comfort into the bull fight and not only kill this soft comfort but to get it to fight back, to pierce it multiple times, to get it to bleed, to slice off comfort's ear, and to kill it with a clean sword, walk away, then journey to the next fight.

Morning

on being a champion

It is difficult to recall being a champion--it is painful. All champions fade or eventually fail, and the feeling of winning is often paired with the feeling that, indeed, what was just achieved is the highest watermark. Suddenly, there is the cold sea once again in winter, and the fields in which you claimed victory and now wet and cold and frozen. Your moment winning is now gone. Now the roads are empty, and it will be difficult to ride into town. You may as well freeze, because this will feel better than the memory of being a champion.

Garzon to San Agustin

To ride into a city: go through the main drag, through the 'center' of town, and despite fatigue, need for protein, need for water, need for rest, be tough and focused. You have to let the main drag end, ride one block to the left, double back two blocks, and then zip-zag that pattern for three blocks, then cross back over the main drag and hit it up 3 blocks same pattern. This may seem too much at the end of the day, but you get a few things:
1) You see more of that city than a tourist over most days. You not only got your hotel without settling for the tourist trap, you saw your groceries, eating hole, street food, ladies, churches, places of god all around.
2) You bless the city, for yourself, you made it known you are welcome here. You earned it. Backpackers don't earn their miles. They must walk back for their do-over. Then they might earn their "back-packs"--what the fuck they need in that big ass bag.
3) The town square and the side street have the women at night hustling for their men. If you know the language and culture, you're not a foreigner, you're a new man to these women. Welcome.
4) You see the areas where you might not want to hit up alone at night. This is a tough call, and notice I don't say 'good' or 'bad' parts of town. These are the best places, especially if you subscribe to Moraline's take on the failed state--Moraline points out that you see the real beginnings and genesis of man and culture in the failed state and even more so in the outskirts of the failed state, like in Cali all along the edges of the military airport (I have never been, didn't have the time, but Alejandro pointed it out). It's a tough call because it's best to wander into these places and let people judge your heart. If it is good and open, you might make it. Let's take a look at this, because it seems counterintuitive, and if you haven't been to a gypsy ghetto at 2 a.m. in the dark in Sofia, where all tough Bulgarians say don't go, then you maybe don't realize that the only thing you come packing with is your heart. Think of it this way: Chopper Reid can take 5 men, if he is lucky, if he has the fight of his life. But if he's in a village, no escape, too many men, a whole clan and tribe loyal to one another, what does he do? He brings his heart. Many people will never get this, and think it's naive. But people will judge your heart. One of two things happens, no, three. One, they spit you out because you should not have come. You leave with less or more, depending on how you see it, but you can get roughed up, harassed, robbed, beaten. Second option is that they leave you alone because you have a good heart and want to pass through and they leave it at that. Maybe it's late at night, very late, and no one is up and no one should be awakened. It's a compliment to your heart if this happens. Third option is that you are welcomed and accepted into the 'dangerous' neighborhood. You will never grow stronger ties or stronger friendships. They sense what your risking but they also sense you want friendship with all types of humans and although you do want to learn their story and although the language difference is there, they can see you you observe and learn and do not judge and human beings can feel when they are being treated as an equal human being, when you look at people and seem no differently.

The point of cycling then is to see the rough places, go into them, and have your heart evaluated. If you can learn a new village or barrio, you will have the sweetest prize of any explorer.

a tourist

The city is new to me now. I see it as a place and people, not a history, not a context, not a country. I am a Colombian set free in a fancy place--fancy on its own terms, organized, mostly gringo. "Hay mucho gringo," that's how the cop in San Agustin said it.

So Chrome and his entourage hit up the Garage and CB just ran the fucking show there, classed up the joint, chargin fewer pesos than is even reasonable, which always wins him a proprio grande.

Everyone was there, one of Moraline's Amazing Nights. A fellow asked if he could borrow the cognac glass for a sample he had picked up at a tasting, and he emptied most of his tasting in the cognac bottle and generously provided the rest to me.

I went to follow Chrome's entourage to PT, but then realized the beautiful blonde who had passed me an hour earlier and told me to ride with her in the night. I followed the night's skyline to the capital where thousands of riders rode in parade formation. I rode with them, my left hand steering and braking the only working brake and my right hand with my camera.

I stopped for some cognac off Speer and we rode for miles, all of us, I weaved through pueblos and ciudades and pueblitos, and everyone was different, all formed villages that lasted for minutes or hours or seconds, I crossed and passed and waited and rode with thousands, and the brown hair blew and the blonde hair was swept into my face the the dark black curly hair made it across her shoulders and over to her neck and then across her face again, some voices sweet, some tired, it was now 1:15, but the day was beginning. Near Vine and 17th I had picked up a flask of Jim Beam and shared it with riders as we weaved through the streets--the same course I race in many races, it was a homecoming, and Jim Beam refreshes everyone.

Eventually time disappeared, people called my name, I spoke to them, many I knew, some were new, I danced on the pedals through the crowd and into the night and carried my bicycle on my shoulder, up my stairs, into my new hotel, knowing to check my maps in the morning in this new city, in this foreign land that has welcomed me.

Never question a good ninja

I was perplexed at Miguel's chasing of women. Was it aimless, was it fruitless, at times it seemed his project existed simply to get women, and then at other times it was clear his project dominated his life, comprised his life. I had noted earlier that Miguel's project consisted of an alignment of values, a concept Moraline introduced. But what about the girl chasing? What about how he would observe how his ninjutsu, how his television ads for his dojo, were making him popular in the clubs?
I was sceptical, not judgemental, just sceptical, and had little time to reflect during my journey.

But he possesses a total alignment of values, and one of his key values is to have a son, and for this he must mate, and to mate he must find a woman, and if they are running after him in herds (they are) his job is easy. If women love him for his ninjutsu, and ninjutsu is his true passion, his project that is his life and dominates his moments, then women love him for his complete alignment of values--they are magnetized to his authenticity. He may well be an ethically perfect man.

So I will never judge a good ninja. A black ninja I shall judge and condemn and fight to the core. But a good ninja will fool you in the right and correct ways. Miguel can sense a man through a wall. He can avoid trouble and danger. He listens to the words and worlds of others and will make predictions.

Fever, pain, climbing, jungle

The fever is just now starting to break. I am so dizzy I cannot stand for more than a minute at a time. I feel bad that I cannot run with Chrome, but I cannot stand, so if I were to run with Chrome, I would have to stand for 1 minute, then fall down, then repeat--it would take a long time and it would be something other than running. The beautiful women at the forest would think Chrome had a retarded uncle.

Pain, as the short frenchman said, does not exist in the mountains or on the roadside or in the baskets of apples we browse at the market. As I cursed the mountains for yet another stretch of ascents, as the rain and mist and fog rolled in yet once again, the pain and fear and agony I felt did not, as I saw it, exist. I had to focus on the beauty of the mountains, on the prospect of a small village with wisdom that would cleanse my western mind. The main I felt was a phantom disease, yet this phantom disease, this fake thing that doesn't exist in the world to the right or to the left of this boulder which has fallen in to the roadside, is what typically drives the decisions and fears of many men.

What was Chrome's breaking point in the Castle? What was Moraline's breaking point on the ripio and in the wind? What were the coordinates of these breaking points, in their fakeness? Is this what we learn from suffering--that in our journeys, pain can never break us, because pain is is a fake basket of bread we carry with us which weighs us down without ever feeding us?

Today's climbing:part1