After several years of living on the beach in Costa Rica, I decided that I wanted to ride a Harley Davidson Sportster from Seattle to Panama. It was the beginning of September. Marijuana laws were changing in Seattle. The weed was amazing, lot's of indoor hydroponic mind blowing shit. I bought a couple of ounces for my journey South through the United States. I stopped along the way to visit friends in Oregon, California, and Arizona on my way to the Mexican Border. I'd smoke them out when I rolled into town. I didn't want to cross the border into Mexico with Marijuana on me. So, I did my best to hand out samples and smoke as much as I possibly could before crossing over into Juarez, Mexico from El Paso Texas. By the time I arrived there I had only one joint left. I casually smoked the tasty treat before getting on my bike and riding into Mexico. No border control! No checkpoint! No Police! "Well, damn!", I thought. I should have saved some of my kind bud. I had no idea it would be so easy. They didn't even make me stop my motorcycle. Some guy in a booth just waved me through.
I met up with my German girlfriend, Marie, in Juarez to start the journey to Panama. We spent a couple of days there preparing for our journey. The first night we tried to find weed. Let me preface, this by saying I can find weed almost anywhere. The past five years I've done a whole lot of globe trotting and I've been a daily pot smoker since I was 15 years old. I am 40 now. I never had a problem to find drugs in a matter of hours after arriving in a new city. I figured this place, that supposedly had a raging drug war, would have a thriving drug culture. At least, a thriving Marijuana culture. Even, Mexican ditch weed should be easy to come by. It took us two days to find a tiny, over priced and under quality little bag of pot. We found out by asking some folks at a Tattoo shop. They were nervous about selling it to us. I thought it was humorous how up-tight they were, after having been in Washington, Oregon, and California.
We made our plans to travel down the Carribean Coast. We traveled long and hard across the Mexican Desert. At night, it was good to smoke a joint and chill after the hot and tiring travel. The little bit of weed we bought in Juarez quickly diminished as we made our way toward Chihuaha. The roads got worse and the towns got poorer. We finally ran dry of our tiny stash in Palacio Gomez. It was a quaint little Mexican town. We headed out for beer and started asking arouind for pot. We were recieved with kind of a blank stare like, "Huh?" There weren't any white people or tourists to be seen, anywhere in town. We attempted for several hours to find some herb. No luck. We went to the parks and asked the Hotel clerks. Nothing! Damn.
Onto Monterey, we crossed the mountain and into the city.Bam! All of a sudden we were in deep, high speed traffic. It reminded me of Los Angeles. Cars were zooming every where. It was madness. Surely, we could score some weed here. We ended up staying in a hooker hotel where they charged by the hour, commonly known in Central America as an "Auto Motel". We asked the front desk guy. Nothing. We wandered the streets, for a little bit in the seedy part of town looking for something to smoke. Still nothing. I kind of needed my daily weed, so I was a little agitated at our current situation.
The following day we headed for the Carribean coast. Maybe, the surf towns on the beaches had more to offer? We meandered East, finally, arriving in the old historical town of Tampico. No tourists. No white people. No money. No market for weed. We asked every glossy eyed derelict we could find, if they could point us in the direction of some smoke. We were, at this point, a week or so without marijuana. Marie was determined. She went out in the early evening on a mission to find us some pot. About an hour later, she returned and said, "I didn't get any weed. They thought I was a hooker and just offered me money for sex." Probably not the best idea having my pretty white girlfriend wandering around after dark. But she's an adeventurer and can handle herself pretty well. However, safety versus the weed desire played out in my head for sure. It was around this point when I thought, "I should write an article for High Times about how there isn't any weed in Mexico." Now we had something to look forward to in every town we stopped. Could we find weed? Or, couldn't we?
We began our journey South down the coast. The ride itself was nothing short of spectacular, but the country seemed economically depressed. Everything seemed like it had just stopped in the mid 80's and had never been updated or painted again. We passed amazing coast lines with nothing but run down buildings and peeling paint. There was one point in the journey when he hadn't seen other white folks or tourists for 2 weeks. It was mind blowing to think how the tourists from North America just stopped traveling to Mexico. It had been abandonded by the almighty dollar. The market for the common young street hustler just wasn't there. Neither was the market for thieves. We encounter no theft on our trip. There wasn't any one with enough to steal from... so the market for thieves and marijuana basically evaporated down there. It was strange.
We arrived in Tuxpan right around Christmas time. I vividly remembered how many bright, shiny and crappy Xmas decorations there were everywhere. The town was dirty and crazy. We asked a cabby if he knew where to get weed? He said that he did and to get into the taxi. We then proceeded to drive around the ghetto, him knocking on doors and asking sketchy people standing on corners. I will sidenote: we were offered cocaine in every place that we visited, but that's not what we wanted. We just wanted some weed, man! After about an hour of this ghetto tour, the driver returns us to our hotel free of charge and empty handed. What the fuck? This was becoming humorous. I updated my FaceBook staus daily on our journey, "Still no weed!" My friends in the Pacific Northwest would send me pictures of themselves holding up giant buds to make me jealous. Or explained how they were so high every night. It was frustating. Didn't Mexicans get blamed for introducing Marijuana to his Northern white neighbors? Seemed silly now, none of them were using or selling it. Times do change, apparently.
From Tuxpan we made our way farther down the coast. We stopped in a little place called Casitas just before Veracruz. The strip was completely deserted. Multiu-million dollar resorts just left to die. The money left this place in a hurry and didn't leave any of itself behind. We pulled into the only small Hotel that seems to be open, "Hotel Cocoloco". It was owned by a 50 year old Swiss man named Marteen. He had bought an RV several years ago, parked it on the beach and never left. We were his only guests in quite some time. Definitely the only white ones in an even greater time. Some other motorcycle adventurers here and there. We asked if he knew where we could get some weed. He laughed, "Weed? People can't afford weed here. In fact, very few people along this coast can even afford cigarettes." He was a good sport and told us where, maybe, we could get some weed... down the beach or in the next town. We headed out that first night to the boat launch down the beach. There were a few drunkards stumbling around so we thought that we'd finally found the place. Some old guy comes up to us in the dark, and asks if we need anything. Marie explains we need some weed. He says it's 10 bucks, but one of us needs to come with him. I wasn't about to leave my shiny Harley, and Marie had been in worse situations. She's got the soul of a gansta. So, she went off through the palm trees headed toward some shacks. About 20 minites go by, Marie and the old man come back. She's still holding the money. Damn still no weed! Unbelievable.
We buy a bunch of beer and head back to CocoLoco. We're sitting on the beach, listening to the waves, getting drunk and discussing how much better this experience would be with a big fat joint. I decide to head into the next town to find some fucking weed, man. Marie stays home on this run. I drive about 40km or so to San Rafael, I start asking around. It's getting late, almost midnight. I find a late night cantina blaring latin dance music. I swing open the door and walked up to the bar. The bar maid is a 50ish latin man with shaved eyebrows, lipstick and a horrible messy black beehive wig. He keeps brushing his fake bangs out of his eyes. I do a 360 degree glance and notice I'm in a late night gay/transvestite bar. They were drunk and rowdy. I had a shot of whiskey. Wasn't my first time in a gay bar, but realized I had my work cut out for me getting some weed without having to see some guy's dick. But, I was determined to bring me and my girl some weed home. For the next hour, I used my best Spanish trying to locate some pot. They kept telling me a guy was coming soon. I was fed free shot after free shot, with my shiny blonde hair. I fended off advances the entire time. When, finally, the dude comes in. They all point him in my direction. He introduces himself, then invites me across the street into his old closed up garage space. He pulls out a big bud and smokes a giant joint with me. I ask him if I can buy some. He tells me that he doesn't have any to sell just to smoke with me. Then his story... he explains to me that he used to make a lot of money growing weed on his farm, but now it's worthless. He shows me some kind of Lima bean he's growing and explains to me that he now grows these, because it's worth more these days. He brings out photos of his gangsta past. Days long gone by. I asked him why he thought it changed. He said, "The white man left. People can just afford food now. No one has any money here. It used to be booming." The same thing that Marteen told us. He was gracious enough to left me take the roach back to Marie, which I let her savor.
Veracruz was next, it was a port city, so hopes were high. A gorgeous town with old Spanish and French colonial architecture. Marie and I were starting to argue a bit. So in a fit of frustration I exclaimed, "I'm getting some weed come Hell or High Water, Today! We need it!" We went to the giant park in the center of town and started looking for the sketchiest folks we could find hanging around the place. Finally, a lead! Finally! A young Mexican man in the park, with long hair, said that he could help us. He led us through alleys and crowded streets, finally stopping in an open air market. They were selling all kinds of shit, food, shoes, toys, bootleg DVDs, etc. He said, "Give me 20 bucks." He walks up to a street vendor and returns with an ounce packed into hard bick form. I was so happy to have that shitty brick weed in my hands. We went back to the park and smoked him out as a "Thank You". We spent a couple of days there, due to he fact we were so high after having been sober for so long.
From Veracruz we were heading to Pelenque for the "Rainbow Gathering" for end of the world celebration, aka. the end of the Mayan Calender. The event landed just before Xmas on December 21, 2012. We slowed our pace and enjoyed our weed. We knew that we'd soon be surrounded by a bunch of naked, guitar playing, pot smoking hippies. We arrived in Pelenque on the 18th of DCecember. That night we stayed in a Hotel. We'd run out of weed again, but this was Pelenque. It was known for shamans, and hippies. This was the "Super Bowl" of shamans and hippies. Immediately, we noticed WHITE PEOPLE. We also noticed the natives in Pelenque were not nearly as friendly as the natives in the places we'd just been. Hmmm? Where the white men gathered, the place became uglier some how. Not nearly as many open arms or genuine smiles. We just thought it curious and thought about it, often enough, to remind ourselves that people were rude because they were around alot of other white people. Oh I am white by the way. So don't go slamming me as a whitey hater racist. Seriously, though, it was completely noticeable. More White People equalled more unhappy native people. Fucking weird. It was apparent there. Marie decided since I had scored the last time, that she would would take the Harley out to the hood to find some weed, I'd had a log day in a rain storm that I couldn't manifest away the day before. I could hear the Harley drive away from the basement of the Hotel. I sat there and smiled at what a cool girlfriend I had. She was off into the Mexican jungle "hood" on the shiny loud motorcycle. She was on a mission. It became a game for us. I'd been living in Costa Rica, the place had weed everywhere? Good weed? Well, no. But WEED WAS EVERYWHERE! Come on Mexico! Help a weary traveler out?
She did come back, and she came back with the same ditch weed that we'd had before. The next morning, we climbed on the Harley and headed out to the Rainbow gathering. We met up with some other free thinking rockstars, that we knew from Costa Rica, Gracie and Joseph. We cruised down the dirt road headed out to the campsite. There were throngs of freaky deaky people hiking into the jungle. As we road by, we got 'Devil Horn Salutes' the whole way for being the only ones on a Harley. We pulled into the gathering and attended orientation, some one asked where they could get some weed. The response was, "I think there's someone selling some around the gorunds." I laughed, thinking sure there was. We located Garcie and Joseph after strolling through crowds of naked men and women playing music and skinny dipping in the stream. It was like what woodstock must have looked like. It was different to say the least. We set up tent and went to the big bonfire. Joseph and Gracie told us there wasn't any weed to be found. I shared our story and smoked them out with what little we had. Joseph tried to help us find more, but we came up empty. I was literally shocked that we were, where we were, and none of these hippies had any weed. Everyone was on the hunt. That night was pretty cool though, other than the lack of weed. There was a giant drum circle with twenty or so drums all wailing away while two hundred, plus, people danced around a giant bonfire. All of a sudden, the place lit up like "green" daylight, went dark and then bright again. The biggest shooting star that I'd ever seen screached across the sky. The crowd roared. This place seemed like it had some magic happening. It was a really rough campsite. Marie and I opted to get back to the comfort of a Hotel. Plus, I really wasn't a "rock out with my cock out" kind of guy.
I thought for a little while about going and buying up all that guy's brick weed in Pelenque and selling it at the "Rainbow Gathering", but it just never materailized. I'm just not a drug dealer, I'm the consumer. We only returned to the rainbow gathering to get our gear a few days later. We ended up spending midnight 12.21.12 in a Mexican strip club instead, and was glad we did. That night, flash flooding and thunderstorms washed the rainbow gathering off the land. Pelenque town center was suddenly full of cold, wet, and broke hippies looking for cheap places to stay or warm showers. Everyone had a cold virus it seemed, as well. We found our friends. They told us of the chaos. I asked if they ever got any pot. They told me no, but explained that two young hippies went off to do what I wanted to do and got murdered. It made me glad that I didn't do that myself. The universe has this way of watching out for me. We said our good byes and headed toward Guatamela.
At the Mexico/Guatamala border we once again smoked the last of what we had to cross the border clean. It was a river border crossing. Myself and three other guys loaded the Harley into a small wooden river boat. We laughed about if we were going to be able to find any weed in Guatamala. We pulled up to a river bank with five or six police officers waiting on my arrival. I was nervous and stoned. Apparently, the cops just came to help me get the heavy motorcycle out of the boat. The boat captain had called them. It was quite a scene watching all these police officers help my stoned ass get my motorcycle up the heavy embankment. We'd made it all the way through Mexico, it was time to reflect.
I will mention in closing, don't be afraid to travel through Mexico. People were fucking awesome, and they could use some of their Northern neighbor's money in their pockets. It was a shame seeing so many beautiful beach towns completely broke and deserted. Oh, and bring your own weed with you, if you like smoking high quality marijuana. Welcome to Guatamala! Now let's get some weed.
