| So much shit has happened since I've left Austin, Tx. but I'm going to go ahead and jump to one story which is by far the most serious and exciting. It all starts one day when I was riding west on highway 90 leaving Alpine,Tx, it was a really windy day and I was struggling to hold 6 mph. With the wind increasing and gusting up to 70 mph I couldn't even pedal downhill, literally soo I decided to hitchhike. After about 30 min of trying a truck pulls over and says their heading to El Paso about 100 miles up the road and I'm like hell yea! I load my bike in the back with their two dogs and then jump in the cab to find two more pups in the back. These were two nice people a guy and a girl heading home to their ranch just south of El Paso. We chit chat and make small talk over the next 100 miles till we get to the town of Faben, Tx which is about 1 mile from the border of Mexico. This is where they make their turn for their pecan ranch, they let me out at the shady gas station and head home. Now I'm in the small town of Faben and I automatically feel the sketchiness from being 1 mile away from the city of Juarez,MX which had over 3500 murders just last year and is deemed the most dangerous city in the world. I mean fuck just days before they beheaded over 45 police officers and placed the heads around town to warn the locals not not not to mess with the cartel. So I ride around this shady town in search of a place to guerrilla camp and can't find anywhere that I feel safe and with only about 45 min left of daylight I know I need to figure out something. I head back to the gas station at the edge of town, the only place that feels remotely safe. After about 20 min of being at the gas station a middle aged mexican man who looks like a rancher of some sort comes up to me and tries to give me a few bucks, I'm like no thanks I just need a safe place to sleep tonight. (Names have been changed). Jorge(the mexican man) says his brother lives right in town and I can sleep there. Knowing where I'm at I am a bit hesitant but its my only option so I load my bike into the back of his pick up and get in the truck. He tries calling his brother but no one is answering so Jorge says I can sleep at his house which is 5 miles back east in the town of Tornillo, Tx even closer to the border and even more dangerous. With no other options and Jorge already heading down a back road towards his house I am just hoping for the best. We get close town which isn't really a town just shanty house's and and occasional market here and there. On the way to Jorge's house we make a few stops at other house's where transactions are being made while I sit in the truck in the pitch black with the lights off and with Jorge's wad of money you can guess what was going on. So after a few more stops Jorge says it would be better if I stayed at his friends house at the edge of town. And by edge of town were talking about 200 yards from the border. By now I'm like fuck I have got to get out of this but already being driven down multiple dirt roads in the pitch dark and being about 10 miles from anywhere safe it was going to be hard. We finally pull up to this shady ass trailer in the middle of nowhere where we go inside. The trailer has no water and no electricity and is in really poor shape. I automatically notice the huge shrine of half lady Guadalupe and half grim reapers and skulls. Then out walks this mexican witch doctor and him and Jorge start speaking spanish to each other making me pretty nervous seein how I don't speak spanish. The witch doctor pulls out a handful of weed and puts it ona piece of newspaper with some rolling papers and tells me to roll it up to prove that I'm not a cop. Now at this point I know if I roll a bad joint it could mean my life, you better believe I rolled the best fucking joints I've ever rolled in my entire life. After their approval Jorge opens a cooler which is full of Busch beer 40s and hands me one and tells me to drink. We then start on the joints talk about paranoia when you actually have something to be paranoid about. Also while all this is going on Jorge has just been doing line after line of coke. About an hour goes by and another dude comes in and all three of them are just speaking nothing but spanish and multiple phone calls are being made a I can tell plans are being made. I try to go outside and call Dana but I am followed and when I call her I can't speak of the situation I'm in because I'm being listened to. They keep feeding me busch 40s and joints but for every 40 I drink I probably drink a whole nalgenes worth of water as to not get too drunk. With my machete out of reach and all three of these dudes packing heat I am heavily out armed and seriously freaking the fuck out. At one point I tell Jorge( who is the only one who speaks english) that I would rather stay at his house and he says " this is where you stay, you work for me now". After that was said I knew I was in deep shit and needed to escape. I don't speak much spanish but I understood enough throughout the night that they were going to take me into mexico tomorrow and force me to ride back through the border with a bunch of drugs....fuuuuck. The three guys and I continue drinking and smoking till about 3 am, I continued to partake just as to not raise supiscion. When finally one dude leaves for the night, then Jorge gets a phone call and says he has to head out and he'll be back in the morning. Once their gone the witch doctor does some chants and rubs some bones together over the couch I am supposed to stay on. He then lies down and passes out. Now I know I need to get the hell out of dodge but carrying my 150 pound bike out of the trailer will be way too loud. Then around 5 am inspiration struck!, a train comes flying down the railroad tracks right next to the trailer actually shaking the trailer, so under the cover of a roaring train and still under the cover of night I grab my bike and get out of the trailer without being heard, fuck yes! Now I still had to figure out how to get back to I-10, I head to the main road and turn left know that if I'm heading away from the border I'm heading towards Interstate 10. I swear I've never riddin so fast in my life. With the sun peaking up through the mountains I finally make it to I-10 where I continued to ride down the interstate 40 miles to El Paso just to be safe. There's alot more to this story but thats the jist of it. Now without further a do, a regular blog update. |
