prague

beautiful prague once more. or should it be prague p.l.c. too commercial, too touristy. i lived here with helena two years ago, when we came back from the bosnian rainbow gathering together, surviving her well dodgy czech driving skills to arrive at her loft apartment in branik, a southern suburb of prague by the vtlava river. we found ourselves in a relationship, then i found an english teaching job for the winter semester in a private language school in the centre of prague. it was an experience; i tried to learn this fiendishly difficult czech language and managed not to feel too bad about the freezing winter weather. helena cooked traditional czech meals, which to be honest, were pretty bland compared to the spicy indian stuff i was cooking up for us. although i'm definitely a fan of the fried cheese! trips to the countryside and to the mountains north and south... it was an eventful six months. and then the relationship broke down and the inevitable return to the road.


i was happy to eat her 'bland' beef stew and dumplings that she had made that first evening, after a day and a half hitching from cadaques. the last days i got a stiff neck which put me in a bad mood. in fact, i hate to be sick in general. i tried some massage, and then used my tiger balm ointment, and when these weren't working, the hard stuff: ibuprofen. these are the only two things in my first-aid kit. i'm just missing some tea-tree oil, and a global-wide health insurance package.

still, being disabled meant that i had time to catch up with the blog-work. helena bought me a tent, worried that i would catch my death of cold when eventually i make it to the carpathians. i protested like mad, but i should be grateful; i was missing a tent only a few days ago! and looks like its gonna piss down like mad all weekend so we've cancelled the plan to go to the solstice celebrations in the countryside with the mad old shamanic drummer.

hitch-hiking

since i first began as a student, and with the turning-point europe tour in the summer of 1985 where i caught the travel bug, hitch-hiking has become a way of life. then the motivation was a lack of money and a desire to meet people. the reasons are still valid now. whole books i could write about my hitch-hike adventures over the years in many diverse countries. suffice to say for the moment that if it wasn't for a train breaking down in falmer and the later purchase of two hitch-hiking books by simon calder and ken walsh, i could easily have drifted into being another cog in the wheel of a materialistic capitalist society!

i stood at the main road into and out of cadaques at the edge of town and extended my thumb, trying not to feel a little resentment at the closed mentality of the tourists passing by fast in their cars. 30 minutes and a french couple of son and mother stop to take me as far as rosas. a chance to pick up some hitch-hiking food of biscuits and peanuts before waiting 10 minutes or so for a lift with a young spanish couple living in barcelona. they took me to the figueres bypass road. and another 20 minutes before i get a lift as far as la jonquera, the spanish border town. lots of french and other tourists here stocking up on the relatively cheap cigarettes and alcohol. antonio and his moldovan passengers dropped me off at one of the petrol stations lining the main road, but i had no luck asking here. so i tried at the roundabout just up the way, and here the traffic was going slow enough to be able to ask through the open windows of some likely contenders. wasn't long before i spot some english plates rolling up and stooping low, i ask: "driving to france?" "yes". "any chance of a lift?". "yeah, why not." tom and barbara were an elderly english couple living in north wales, holidaying in this part of the world. they were driving back to where they were based in canet-en-rousillon, on the coast by perpignan. happy to be chatting again in english with a right-on couple. they offered me a bed for the night but i thanked them and said i had to be pushing on, it was a long way to prague. they kindly drove me out of their way to the other side of perpignan on the road out to narbonne, from where i stood on the fast dual carriageway. luckily, i only had to endure this for 15 minutes before a small car pulls over across the slip road and over to the narrow hard shoulder. the two young moroccan lads took me to narbonne, they weren't very talkative, probably cos they realised that my french was not so hot. my mind was now so accustomed to speaking spanish that trying to bring back my better french was proving to be a challenge. better to keep quiet and enjoy the countryside views. i had to walk into and out again in narbonne to get to the motorway junction at narbonne east. on the way, i met two lithuanian backpackers, also hitching but to narbonne beach. it seems that of all the hitchers that i see these days, and that's not many, most come from eastern europe.

at the toll station, i stood and stuck out my thumb. it would have been good to have a sign, but i reasoned that it was very easy for the drivers to pull up after they collected their toll-ticket and ask where i wanted to go. and about 20 of them did, but they were all going in the other direction! finally i got someone going to beziers. eric took me as far the services on the motorway, as these are normally much better than the junctions to hitch from. here i took the opportunity to sit at a picnic table and eat the pasta meal i had made at juan's before i left. i had just finished and brushed my teeth when a guy comes over to where i was sitting. he had driven in and was having a food break too, and i asked if he was going to montpellier. and did he have room for one more? it turned out marc was driving as far as lyon. he was living in biarittz, and his roots were from the "european indians", the basque people. my french was coming back enough for us to hold a decent conversation. he told me the history of the basque, their land, and their language... that it was one of the five oldest language groups, predating latin and ancient greek. and that they were also connections with another ancient language group, sanskrit. it was all very interesting stuff. i asked to be dropped off at rambert d'albon services, the last before lyon.

lyon looks like hitcher's hell. it's a prejudice i hold. i've never been to lyon, i've only ever seen it from the window of a car or truck going along the motorway du soleil. and many times on a map when i was figuring out how to get around it. a while ago, a new autoroute bypassed lyon to the east to link up with the motorway going to germany. i remember one occasion when i didn't take this into account and carried on hitching up the autoroute du soleil to beaune services, and getting stuck there trying to connect to the motorway going east. in the end i had to take a lift to the next exit, walk about 5kms and hitch 30kms or so.... a long wait but one in which the driver took pity on me and drove out of his way to find the services by the small country roads... and jumping the fence, i got into the services. and met corinne, who drove me to as far nurnberg... and later became a girlfriend... another story.

back at rambert d'albon, i looked around for a place to kip. under some trees. a restless sleep, a light drizzle got me to change place to shelter more under the trees, and then drizzle turned to full-on rain, and so i moved again, to the handicapped toilets to keep dry. at six, still bleary-eyed from not much sleep, i ventured out to start the day's hitching. i was hanging out near the shop entrance asking almost everyone if they were going in the direction of bourg-en-bresse. and everyone said not at all. three hours. i was seriously thinking about putting plan b into operation. the one about getting out at the exit at beaune etc. then i spot the spanish plates, and a young guy walking up to pay at the shop for the petrol. "hola, buenas dias", i started. and asked if he was going north. i had my map at the ready and he started to point at lyon, then besancon, mulhouse, germany.... "hablas espagnol?", he asked. "bueno, mas o menos", i replied. "where do you want to go?" "to germany", i said. "me too", he replied. "perfect, do you have room?" "yes, i just get something to eat". "perfect". lucky me. douglas, 26 year-old columbian tight-rope artist working in a circus in mataro, spain. back to speaking in spanish, douglas finally confided in me a problem he was mulling over for a while. "as i don't know you so well, i can confide in you and ask for your help and advice", he said. "if i'm able", i replied. and so he related to me the predicament he found himself in. he was driving to germany to pick up his daughter, 7, and son, 4, from the mother, a cuban woman now living in berlin. he had himself lived there with them before he had split up with her a couple of months ago, and this was an opportunity to pick up his kids in baden baden and take them back to barcelona for a week. during these 2 months, she had gone back to cuba and got into a relationship with an italian guy. not so bad, as he had himself got into another relationship with a columbian girl in barcelona, who was now pregnant with his child. he still had strong feelings for the mother of his children, but his family was also in favour of his relationship with the columbian girl. should he break off the relationship with the cubana for good? and continue with the columbiana, who wanted to have his child, whom he had only known for 2 months? "no se, tio", i replied. "i don't know, it's complicated alright, but if you have already broken up with the cubana, you should not then want to go back with her." he agreed, but his heart still had feelings for her. and also for his new love. love does not listen to reason. we sat listening to the latin songs, and i drummed along to some. he was driving quite fast through the rain that seemed to have accompanied us all through france. and he also had not much sleep, having left barcelona at 3 in the morning with a break to sleep for an hour or so. finally we made it to germany and past freiburg to the services before baden-baden. i thanked him a lot and gave some parting words of advice: "listen to your heart". but now, on reflection, it sounds like bad advice because, from experience, i have learnt that even feelings of love can lie.

i walked over to where the trucks were parked up and spotted the czech plates. and right on cue, the pigs were cruising alongside before stopping a bit ahead. they got out and asked for my passport and radioed it in. the other looked at my drum... "you play music?" "yes yes, i'm a musician, visiting friends, i'm going to prague..." all very friendly and correct and 2 minutes later they returned my passport and wished me a good trip. the truckers were still asleep and i went to the pumps and waited there. and lo and behold, another cop car, this time with blue markings, comes to a stop in front of me. as they got out, i told them that their colleagues had just controlled me, not 2 minutes before. he didn't know about it, he said, in good english. what, you don't keep in touch over the police radio? they were different police, they said, the green markings were federal pigs and the blue were local pigs. so you still want to see my passport? yes. i gave it to one of them and he radioed it in. "wilkommen nach deutchland", i said to the one waiting with me, and he laughed. at least he could see the funny side of it too. "unglaublich", i continued, and he seemed to shrug apologetically. i got my passport back, it was all very polite and correct, and they wished me a good trip. i took another tour of the parking, changed my sandals for boots, the first time this trip, and went back to the pumps. and i couldn't believe my eyes when i see a green police jeep come to a stop alongside me. i started to laugh as they got out. "sorry for laughing", i said, "but you are the third set of police to control me in 10 minutes". "really", one of them said. and started to excuse it by saying the border areas are well patrolled etc etc, and still i had to show my passport again. he took it and radioed it in, and i chatted with the other one in english. just then, i spot a car with czech plates at the pumps and i asked if it was ok if i talked to the driver about a lift, seeing as i wanted to get to prague. "yes, no problem". " i'll just be a minute", i said, and went to ask the driver. today was definitely my lucky day! yes, he was going to czech republic, yes he was going to prague, and yes, he had room for me. "the police are just controlling my passport", i said, "i'll just be a minute". i went back to the where the pig was and told him of my good news. the other was taking ages to radio my details, but finally he got out of the jeep and handed my passport back. he took a look at my pack and asked, "anything to declare?". "no, nothing, i don't drink or smoke". "no knives or pepper spray", he went on. "no, not at all". "ok, have a good trip". all very polite and correct and serious in their very important job of hassling hitch-hikers. i took my pack and drum and started for the car, but the driver pointed to the parking area. and he pulled in next to the pigs. i put my pack in the boot and got in the front and the big peugeot 607 rolled out onto the motorway. jan was czech but i had forgotten all my czech since i lived there a couple of years ago. but we found a lingua franca... french. jan was an engineer, before he worked for renault, that's why the french. he was driving back to prague after dropping off a motor part for a rally car in annecy in france. "practically, i haven't slept at all", he said. "yeah, just like me!". oh no, i thought, no chance of me grabbing a quick nap... have to make sure old jan doesn't grab one himself whilst he's driving! and he was driving very fast along these speedy german autobahns. "wilkommen nach deutchland", i thought to myself. i could see that he could control the car very well, and that the car could handle the speeds of up to 210kph... but his leg was going into spasms now and then and twitching uncontrollably... sure sign of not enough sleep. we stopped off now and then and he treated me to soup and many coffees... we were both wired on this stuff to stop the micro-sleeps... (i once fell asleep at the wheel for a second or two in sweden with eight sleeping passengers and a trailer full of stuff... it was my lucky day too that day!) we went through the entire cd collection and i was drumming as much as i could in accompaniment... and counting down the kms to prague. we were making good time, not surprising really because the traffic was light and the speed was high. finally, jan dropped me off at zličin metro on the outskirts of prague. "thank you very much", i said in czech. "and thank you", he said, "if you weren't with me, i may have fallen asleep and who knows..." i found a young couple and asked to use their phone, and within an hour, helena came to pick me up and take me to her place in branik.

la isla de port lligat

the island of port lligat. it was the first place i came to in spain. i had just finished a grape-picking season in roujan, south france and went to try my luck in switzerland. there i met another english traveller, moving around in a converted ford escort van. he told me about the squatted island in spain, free camping and fiestas, free food recycling from the market etc. and so, as no work materialized in switzerland, i headed down to spain for the first time. i hitched into figueres and stood looking at the map and found cadaques to be at the end of a small peninsula, in the middle of nowhere place. i was tempted to give this what appeared to be an off-the-beaten-track of a place a miss and head on down to barcelona when i overcame my fear and walked to a likely hitching spot. the road into cadaques was, and still is, an amazing climb with many curves in the hilly peninsula, and when finally you reach the pass at the top and start to descend, you see the sea and this beautiful white-walled town sitting in front of a bay boasting a large shark-fin shaped rock island. i had asked for the island of port lligat and got directed to the small village of port lligat nearby, where salvador dali grew up and painted, and from there, i walked along a path along the mainland and camped for the night when it got dark. in the morning, i had continued along the path coming up onto a road, and finally stood overlooking the island with its large house, old stone tower and boat house set in front of a small beach. i walked down to the water's edge and shouted across to the island. a head with glasses appeared in the window of the tower. i couldn't understand what he said, but i saw the head disappear and a naked figure scrambling to the beach before swimming across to a small boat adrift in the sea. he started to pull on the rope which moored it to the shore and came across to my side. he asked me something and i assumed it was if i wanted to come across. so i got in with my pack and juan el barquero ferried me onto the island.

that was how it started. the story with ingrida. the drive to salento and teruel before heading to the rainbow gathering in the pyrenees. alternative communites in spain like beneficio and matavenero. the squatting of an abandoned village. the beginning of a long slow depression which culminated in a drugged coma in barcelona. the return to the island with the group of ten in alex's van. meeting lotta and the berlin crew. meeting tim the drum-maker. meeting santi, at the house of the baron. the fiestas and the squat-island life whilst waiting for the return of a passport with the necessary visas, the hitch out from cadaques with magda and denver, the overland trip to india...


all these memories going around my head as i sat on the train from barcelona to figueres. i got lucky with the hitching, not even a minute's wait before i catch a ride with pedro, a butane gas cylinder deliverer. he takes me to the road to cadaques from rosas, and from there, a 5 minutes' wait before tony from menorca takes me into cadaques. straight to the island via el caials, where santi used to live, caretaking the baron's house - no longer. to the isla, and down the path, and yes, there's juan, as always, ferrying the tourists onto the island. the hippies don't come anymore, not since that summer when i was first there. when i had met up with tim again after the india trip, he had told me the story about the provincial goverment of girona buying up the island from the german owners for 110 million pesetas and incorporating it into the national park of cap de creus. so that was the death knell for hippy life. the rich have their nice places in cadaques, and the town hall has succesfully prevented any sort of an alternative scene here so as not to upset the paying tourists and locals who live from them.


juan the ferryman. at least he is still here. the unofficial custodian of the island. with his slim dark-tanned muscly figure and bespectacled sun-creased face, he ferries across all and sundry to his domain. for the tourists, he charges a euro for the 50 metre crossing. for the poorer ones, he takes us across for free. he has placed a bell there now so he knows if you want to come across. i helped him out a bit ferrying some people over whilst he chit-chatted with everyone in his slurry valenciano dialect. i can just about make out 50% of what he says. he told me of the visit from his daughter, who is now 12, and her mother from england. so even for juan, there was a story from that last summer of island occupation. he now lives in a house by the coast, looking after a place nearby the hotel rocamar and tao's place. and when it looked as if i couldn't pass the night on the island because of it pissing down, (and also cos juan makes sure nobody does as he might lose his 'job' cos of it) juan immediately offered a dinner at his place and a room to sleep. so after an afternoon basking in the sun and swimming a few lengths between island and mainland, and a walk around the island (you can see from the rocks where dali got his influence), we got into the juan-mobile, a small diesel pick-up truck. we recycled the vegetables and fruits, as always, from the supermarket. and so, after some delicious melon and mango and pear smoothies, we went to see the live music gig in the main plaza that night.

barcelona and busking and life

so hot again today, it's beginning to resemble andalusia now. we went to busk together, pontus and i, the other day, but both my two top places of cuitadella and paral.lel were occupied. no choice but the second paral.lel spot, i said, it's such a bad spot that for sure it will be free. and sure enough, going down the steps into the metro, we found our busking corner free. puntos has a great voice and plays really well, and we went through a few numbers... but we didn't even earn a puta duro. and then the pigs came. unbelievable. all the years i've been playing here, i never got controlled by the pigs. good cop, bad cop routine. bad cop asked us for our ids whilst chummy cop asks how the business was going! they said some people (from street level) had complained about the volume of our playing. and we have no amps! they asked us to tone it down and left, but we decided to leave this unlucky place. and said pigs were waiting up top to see what we would do. we went to plaça espanya, also occupied, and then pontus called it a day.

the other day, i also met another guitarist, and we played some rumba numbers together before the spot got taken. but we agreed to play the terraces along the promenade together and it proved to be better. "friday will be better", oscar said, as we agreed to meet up again. but there was no sign of him today, and so i played two 'farewell gigs' at cuitadella alone.

at the chilean mafia hq, things are not well... relationship problems abound. tomorrow i head for the costa brava and take some sun and sea at the place where my spanish odyssey first began all those years ago: la isla de port lligat.

barcelona and busking

ever since the cities fathers decided that they wanted to 'clean up' the city of 'undesirable' activites such as squatting and street busking, barcelona has become a hard place to survive for travelling buskers. i cut my busking teeth here on the ramblas that year i first came to spain, and then it was with three small juggling balls that i had patched up. i didn't make much - even the beggar with the twisted limbs and back took pity on me and chucked some pesetas into my hat - but it was the impetus i needed to pull myself out of the huge hole of self-pity and depression i had dug for myself. from there, i befriended the street artists (one in particular, neus) and made contact with some travellers and led them back to the isla... before the overland trip to india. but all in good time.
barcelona and busking. now it's totally forbidden to drum on the streets, even for fun in the park, or to make fire juggling. some years ago, the town hall set up an association of street musicians. you had to register yourself with them and you got permission to play on the streets and in certain places at metro stations. except, of course, drummers were excluded from this elite group. i got myself registered anyway, and when the nice lady asked me what instrument i played, i told her i had a 'pitdesa'. pitdesa? it's catalan for 'pita de sat' of course. she wrote it down as i spelt it for her! i never bothered with the lottery of booking time-slots... i just turned up at the metro sites and if it was free, i played my rhythms. if not, onto the next place. i didn't dare to play on the streets, even though i had the permisso, i heard the police would just confiscate drums no questions asked...
nowadays, the association is still going strong and i tried to re-register a few years ago... except that they required the musicians to undergo an audition. with my drum...? not likely! but no worries. i still play at the metro spots and in all the years i've been busking at these places, i only ever got asked for my permisso twice. and the second time, the security guys didn't even bother to look at it.


last days, it's been pretty hard busking. not so much dosh. i met another musico de la calle, one argentinian guy called juan with acoustic guitar, and he agreed to play together. at the end of an hour or so playing, we made a measly seven and half euros. 'last year was better', he said. 'ahh yes, la crisis economica', i nodded in affirmation.
yesterday in the morning, i was forced to play on the seaside promenade cos the spot at cuitadella metro was taken. better to be playing outside in the sun, but less money and always an eye out for the pigs... and there's lots of them here too. la guardia urbana, la poliçia local, los mossos d'esquadras (catalan pigs), and rarely, la guardia civil (national police). and only 3 euros in about two hours.


later that evening, the cuitadella spot was free and the resonance in the subway tunnels makes the drum sounds literally pulsate through your whole being... and later at paral.lel metro, in all, about 3 to 4 hours and 18 euros. it's nowhere near fantastic, but for spain, it's what i normally average. solo drumming doesn't really capture people's hearts as much as some catchy tunes on a guitar, but the fate was such that i wasn't born to be a singer but a percussionist.

barcelona

since my first visit with franz and ingrida who had enticed me and spirited me away from that first encounter with the paradise island of port lligat, barcelona is full of bitter-sweet memories. it was the place of one of my lowest lows in the long years of travelling, still hung-up over the love taken away by that wild rainbow from lithuania. hanging out with a motley crew of misfits and winos and travellers and musicians and street performers and junkies and down-and-out bums in plaça real (or plaça surreal as i used to call it), i could've continued in that vicious spiral of cheap sangria and hashish joints into much murkier and inescapable black holes. i had found myself being brought round from my drunk and stoned stupor in the plaça by the priest from the caritas comedor (soup kitchen). fortunately, he had recognized me from the comedor, where all us penniless bums went to eat each day. but these are the darker chapters of my story, for another time too. now i am at the flat where i used to visit magnus - who is now in oz on his round-the-world odyssey - being hosted by his ex-flatmates pia and josé and ximé, the chilean 'mafia' in barna. living with them now are conni and fabio, also from chile, and also anna-lisa and puntos. all have made me very welcome here, it's been a hectic week for the chilean extended circle of friends with art inaugurations and parties... and in between times i check out my usual places for busking, and recycling vegetables from the boqueria market.

valencia

back in los mols, i spent the last nights in the yurt and once in the bender that geoff had made from the bamboo cane by the 'river'. a misunderstanding between me and dave made me miss the bus from sorbas to barcelona, but dave made up for it by driving me into vera just in time to catch the murcia bus. and whilst waiting for the connection to valencia, i got in a traveller's lunch of a barra filled with calamares in salsa americana followed by a banana. the one cheap train connection to barcelona had already gone when i got to valencia, and so the usual busking here. valencia, always a passing through place 'cos i never have enough to complete the whole trip from the south to barna. however, i managed to get rid of the moroccan dinars burning a hole in my wallet for a couple of years now courtesy of the czech guys at los mols. just enough to pay tim for the skin and for the two buses and train. worked out cheaper than the overnight direct bus from sorbas which i missed.
i got directed to the el carme district and befriended an argentinian 'glass ball' artist, passing them from hand to hand and around the body as if they weren't there... definitely a crowd-pleaser. i asked if he knew a squat here but he couldn´t help, his brother tried to find me a place but it looked like a paying backpacker hostel... asking some more likely-looking people and it seemed the centro sociale okupa was down by the beach, a long way off.... in the end i found a dark quiet corner hidden by some bushes and kipped rough, like a dog.
in the morning, i got the train, had to change at l'aldea-amposta, but finally got into barna-passeig de gracias in the afternoon.