dust to dust

Estado de San Luis Potosí, México - 19.05.2021

I’m not sure about all this. I left my family and friends back in reality to chase something that I couldn’t put my finger on. I got tired of that life. Itchy feet, I suppose. I left in a sort of panicked frenzy. Drop of a hat. I had to get out of there. Nothing happened, nothing went wrong. I just needed a change.

I’ve spent the past five months wandering aimlessly around the back arse of Mexico. Floating from town to town, looking for a consistent flow of distraction. Cities, mountains, people, music, alcohol... Shiny objects. New ideas and promises of a happier existence. Not an awful life for a 19 year old.

I fled Dublin with a backpack, a few pairs of socks and underwear, four well-worn t-shirts, a pair of cargos, a pair of shorts and a bank balance that made even my closest friends question my sanity. This trip was designed for intensity, not longevity. I was sure of that. Since leaving, I’ve accumulated three books, a chess board, two journals, a guitar, a tent and a yoga mat. Too many useless things for one person to carry around, I didn’t care. Everything has its purpose.

Carlos did though, he cared enough to stop and see if I was okay. In these last five months, I don’t think I’ve even done that for myself. He spotted me today at about three in the afternoon, dehydrated, sunburnt and slightly delirious, walking under the desert sun, following an endless road that likely led to nowhere and lugging around my belongings as if I were my own mule. I couldn’t have been walking too fast at that stage, I wouldn’t have been hard to spot. One step at a time. I kept telling myself. One step at a time…

Two days ago I was in San Luis Potosi, a small city in the North of Mexico. I wasn’t impressed by it at all. Excessive quantities of concrete, a lack of interesting quirks and the hostel I stayed in just happened to be a corrupted den of drug abuse... Opium being the poison of choice. The whole situation was deranged. After a few days there I knew it was important to leave before the desperation of that city began to gnaw away at my will to exist. So I fled yet again.

Itchy feet. Drop of a hat.

There was talk in the hostel about a small mining town that had nothing special about it. It’s hidden up in the mountains, surrounded by nothing but desert and well away from any sort of traditional tourist route. Out of excitement, I looked up the bus routes, to see if there was a way for me to get there safely, in a reasonable amount of time. There wasn’t, at least not according to the internet. There was a train station in the town, but I couldn’t tell if there were trains going from where I am to where that is, so I decided to walk.

In these last two days, I’ve walked an unknown distance, through an unknown number of towns, past an unknown number of cacti. I lost track because I didn’t bother to count these things. Keeping track of performance metrics on this sort of journey – like distance, or god forbid step count – is a surefire way to lose faith. There are some things worth tracking however, certain tallies that, by keeping them, will keep your mind sharp and your head on your shoulders. Potentially dangerous snakes, for example, I’ve come across six of them. Along with four dead dogs, two living ones (one angry, one friendly), a dead horse and a lot of living ones. I started counting horses before remembering that horses are a performance metric out here in the Mexican desert. It is cowboy territory after all. I stopped counting after three.

Since my final breakfast in the hostel – coffee and toast – I consumed a packet of custard creams, four slices of bread with synthetic ham, a large plastic bag of questionable cheese and a fraction of the total amount of water required for my body to continue functioning at a reasonable level. It’s important to keep track of these things to ensure you are fueled to continue. I was not fueled. I continued anyway.

I ran out of suncream weeks before and I had no sombrero to keep me cool. The sun took its toll on me and my poor guitar, which didn’t have a case and was carried in my right hand. Constant direct sunlight is not good for a guitar. It warps the wood and makes it lose its tuning far quicker than usual. I never kept a tally of how many times I’ve tuned my guitar, but at this stage it must’ve been at least a thousand times. I don’t think that guitar was ever really in tune. It wasn’t all bad though, not having a case means I could play as I walked and keep myself entertained.

One more cup of coffee for the road.

One more cup of coffee, ‘fore I go.

To the valley below.

Both nights I rested in my tent, pitched on the side of the road. The ground was cold and hard, the occasional car would drive past and I found it difficult to sleep thanks to an overwhelming paranoia. There’s nothing interesting to keep count of when inside the tent, meaning there were no tallies to be done during sleepy time, which is probably why I was so paranoid. I could have kept track of the times I thought I heard a snake, or a lunatic, but I didn’t feel that these sorts of tallies would ease my worries or sharpen my mind. Instead I just tried to sleep, grateful to take a break from walking.

I like to think of myself as quite a calm person. The kind of person who will avoid getting anxious unless absolutely necessary, but the more I walked, the more I noticed myself beginning to worry more and more for my own wellbeing. How long can a human survive in a situation like this? I wasn’t sure anymore. A few days? A week? Two? It didn’t matter, I wasn’t in the mood to test my physical or mental limits out here and desperation was beginning to seep in like the unadulterated early stages of a psychedelic frenzy. This anxiousness is a good sign. I thought. It means my evolutionarily-induced survival bias is still working. I can still take care of myself. In an attempt to survive, I stuck out my thumb every time a car drove past, praying that whoever saw it would take pity and leave me a little closer to wherever the fuck I’m trying to get to. 

After walking for an unknown period of time on what must’ve been the third day of the trip, I heard what sounded like a deep voice shouting somewhere to my left. I craned my wide-eyed head to the side, like a drunk but curious owl, in an attempt to see the source of this grumble. Thankfully, it was just a pickup truck. If it were any real danger – a lunatic, for example – my reaction speed would’ve left me in serious trouble.

How long has that car been there? I wondered. 

Now that it had entered my line of sight, I also noticed the roar of its engine, cutting through the desert’s humbling silence.

The car is on. I thought. 

That is okay.

I was amazed by the stealth at which it slid into my sensory field. The engine was loud.

Is the car really there?

I wasn’t sure.

It was clear to me that if there was a car, with a running engine, there must have been a human there for me to deal with. Whether or not the human was real didn’t matter, what mattered was making sure that we became friends. By the time I had pieced this situation together in my head, I had been staring at the driver for a little too long without having said anything.

“Hola, buenas tardes” I said, eyes rolling to the back of my head.

I can hardly see. I thought. I hope he doesn’t notice that I’m unwell.

“¿A dónde vas, amigo?” Replied the stranger, putting a strong but caring emphasis on the word amigo.

He wants to know where you’re going. Said the calming voice in my head. The driver asked a  reasonable question, given the nature of the situation. I understood this.

“Estación Wadley''

Another two-ish days of walking would’ve gotten me there, as far as I was aware. There was no particular rush to arrive, but I had been hoping that a friendly character in a sand-covered pickup truck would eventually spot me and help carry the load. My legs were begging to give up.

My interrogator looked worried. 

“Wadley… ¿En serio?” He asked. 

Yes. I thought…

I am dead serious. 

His tone told me that he had little faith in my ability to survive the journey. He said the walk would take about a week. I began to question my own ability to survive it as well. To be honest, a week was longer than I expected and a lot longer than I was prepared to walk. I doubted his sense of distance and his estimation of my average walking speed. How do I know he’s telling the truth? I don’t, but due to my lack of research and ability to navigate the area, I had no idea how far away this place was and I was sure that he knew these parts better than I did. He’s probably correct. I was certain of that probability.

My saviour nodded to the back of his truck, the universal symbol for “get in”.

So I did.

When hitchhiking, you develop a keen sense for the intentions of an individual. I’m not sure how to explain it to you, but you learn to know when someone picks you up out of a desire to help. You can tell by the way they speak to you, the look in their eyes as they pull up next to you. You can tell by the state of their vehicle, the condition of their clothing. Their smell. 

I had a good feeling about my new friend, he told me that people call him Carlos. A fine name. The vibrations in his car felt positive. I could tell. I’m not sure to what extent I believe in things like “vibrations” and “energy”, but I’m sure that if you don’t learn to pick up on these things while out in the middle of nowhere, you won’t last long.

Carlos’s car was spacious, comfortable and in reasonable condition. The seats were protected by a fine brown leather that was cracked in some places and happened to be the same colour as my wallet. Familiar. The windscreen was clear of sand, bugs, and bird shit and he had one of those typical tree-shaped car fresheners hanging from the rear-view mirror. Vanillaroma it was called. I nodded my head in silent approval. Good choice, my friend.

There was about half a litre of water, sloshing around in a plastic bottle that sat in the footwell of the passenger seat when I got in. I noticed it straight away. This is a good sign. I said to myself. You want your driver to be well-hydrated, alert and able to focus when facing roads like these. I asked for a sip, realising that I hadn’t drunk any water since the night before and just the thought of wetting my tongue was enough to dilate my pupils and tickle my toes. Carlos let me drink without hesitation, he could see that I was unwell. My dehydration was no secret.

If Carlos is intoxicated in any way shape or form he is managing to hide it extremely well. I thought. He presented himself politely, there were no blood stains on him or his vehicle and the fact that he was kind enough to stop to offer me a lift led me to believe that he didn’t tick any of the typical boxes that a lunatic might tick. He even had a combover. Everything about this character conveyed trustworthiness. I felt at ease for the first time in weeks.

In the passenger seat, I struggled to formulate proper sentences – probably because I haven’t slept in a while – but I was determined to uncover as much of Carlos’s story as I could in our short time together. This isn’t a struggle with the type of people who pick up hitchhikers. They’re always big talkers and if there’s one thing that big talkers love talking about, it’s themselves. I refrained from speaking and let Carlos fill the silence with whatever he deemed appropriate, not because I was unable to speak, but because I chose not to speak. I’d ask the occasional question and make the occasional remark, but I wanted him to steer the conversation towards whatever topics he felt were important. After all, I’m not going to learn much if I’m the one doing all the talking.

Carlos works in his mothers restaurant. He has been doing so for the past forty years. He has a wife and daughter and he was delighted to show me a photo. He told me they were beautiful. I agreed. Carlos is passionate about football, he enjoys cooking and watching television. He finds it difficult to understand why I’m so eager to see so much of the world. Don’t worry Carlos, I don’t understand either. I thought. I would’ve said it to him too, but I decided not to. I was half asleep and I didn’t need the sound of my own voice piercing through the soothing sound of Carlos’s. There isn’t enough room in this car for all these different voices. I thought. Carlos will understand. He’s a good guy, a family man. He knows how to take care of people. He’ll take care of me. I’ll be fine…

“Gorditas” Said Carlos, snapping me back into reality.

What? I thought, leaving a gap of silence to let him enlighten me further.

I peeled open my eyes and looked over at him.

“We sell gorditas… The best damn gorditas in all of Mexico” He said.

That caught me off guard.

Did he say that in English or in Spanish? I thought. 

Does this man even speak English?

I wasn’t sure. 

All I knew was that up until this point, I hadn’t heard him speak any English.

Regardless of whatever language he used, I didn’t doubt him for a second. He spoke of his gorditas with unwavering conviction. It’s no easy task to take a meat-filled, corn-flour tortilla and make it sound as appealing as he does. I've eaten millions of these by now and never once have I finished feeling like I had eaten real food… But the best gordita in all of Mexico? I trust Carlos, I must try one.

According to the dashboard clock, we drove for just over two hours by the time we reached the tunnel. About 120 kilometres said Carlos. A distance that I would've had to walk if it weren't for Carlos and his magnanimous generosity. A distance that would’ve otherwise killed me.

The Ogarrio Tunnel was the only entrance into Real de Catorce, the resting place of Carlos and the only remaining village that stood between me and my final destination. The tunnel is a dark, 2 kilometre long abyss that was carved through the desert mountains in 1897 to help miners transport silver. Before that, the only way to get to where we were going was by either climbing over the mountain, or traversing around it. Carlos made it clear that the Ogarrio Tunnel was something to be grateful for. He would’ve made a fantastic history teacher.

We glided into the tunnel, sitting in silence and showing no resistance to the darkness that completely overwhelmed the car as it went deeper and deeper into the earth. The headlights illuminated nothing but a repeated blur of jagged stone on either side of the vehicle. The lead in my stomach that indicated forward momentum was replaced by a sensation of stillness, as if the car itself remained motionless, while the walls around us shot past at incredible speeds.

If you had asked then, I would’ve told you that we were in that tunnel, trapped by the darkness, for at least a couple of days. Any sense of time or space that I might’ve had once before, had completely dissipated. Is this it? An eternity of experiencing nothing but Carlos, the aged interior of a FORD pickup truck and a black hole that engulfed everything outside of this metal box? I let out a demented laugh, not because I found humour in the situation, but because laughter seemed like a human activity, and I was desperate for any way to reconnect myself to my body. Did I laugh out loud? I wasn’t sure. Did Carlos hear that? I looked at him to see if he had heard, or if that manic outburst had been my imagination. He hadn’t reacted. It must’ve been in my mind. I’m glad. I wouldn’t want him to think I was crazy. I can’t imagine they’re kind to crazy people, out here, in the middle of the desert.

I didn’t want to leave that tunnel. Part of me still wishes I never did. For a moment there, I had let go of everything else. Home, family, travel. There was no more Carlos and no more truck. I couldn’t hear anything anymore and all the emotions and physical sensation I would’ve had before were completely gone. My body stayed where it was but my mind was taken somewhere else. Somewhere easier to manage. Somewhere completely void of any distraction. Somewhere more peaceful.

A grey light appeared at the end of the tunnel and dragged me back into the car. I wish it hadn’t. I really fucking wish it hadn’t. I could’ve stayed in that horrible abyss forever, not knowing what was going on but also lacking the capacity to see that as a bad thing. There was nothing bad. There was nothing at all. Just pure bliss. Then there was the light. The light, to me, did not suggest safety. It suggested reality. Distraction. Fear. I despise that light.

“Aqui estamos amigo, Real de Catorce”. Carlos said. 

The car stopped for the first time since I got into it, leaving me feeling uneasy. There are no traffic lights in the desert. I realised. I don’t know why this shocked me, and why I only thought about it now, but it was important. One could drive for days and days out here without ever having to stop. Interesting.