Near Puerto Escondido, Mexico
SEPTEMBER 1974
Dear Doris,
It was nice to find a letter from you at the general delivery Lista de Correios in Mexico City. It’s good to hear from you, even though I’m far from homesick as you mentioned. Give me another five years on the road here, then maybe I’ll have a quick thought of ‘home,’ but I doubt it. I thought I’d be homesick at first, like you said, but I’ve been aware for some time now that my home is wherever I am and nowhere else. I don’t really relish the thought of coming back to the USA, but when I do I’m gonna have to decide alot of new stuff, like how long I’m gonna stay. After all this traveling, I know I’m never gonna be the same guy who left, and if I ever do come back, I know it won’t be for very long. There’s still too many places to see and I’m meeting alot of good folks along the road to wherever I’m going and that’s as good a bunch of friends as I ever needed.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to make the money you lent me stretch as far as I can until I can find work on a ship. I’m living very cheap and getting along well by traveling on the top of trucks mostly and sleeping by the road and cooking my own food in a little frying pan I got whenever I stop somewhere for more than a day or two. Living on less than a dollar a day has its good side though, mostly because it brings me in closer contact with people than if I had money for busses and hotels and restaurant meals. Communication is more essential to survival than all the money in the world. I really wouldn’t want to be traveling any other way. Mostly I’ve been staying in small villages off the road and off the map. People are honest and simple and I learn a lot being around them. Even when I’m in the bigger cities, I manage to get by for under a couple of dollars a day, and much less when I’m hitchhiking from town to town. Sometimes people feed me and put me up for the night too. Mexicans are very hospitable generous people, nothing like Americans. I can’t wait to be able to speak enough Spanish to pass for anything but an American. It’s embarrassing being from a country where everything is made of plastic, including people’s souls. I’ve learned real quickly why the whole world thinks Americans are assholes.
On my way down the coast I walked around this crazy old town from 7am till way past midnight, exploring every nook and cranny. Now today i dont even have the energy to get up go out and eat, so i write to you now. This place is fantastic, like nothing i’ve ever seen. The whole town is like one big hyperactive flea market. Feels like Morocco or Hong Kong. But how would I know that, having never been to those places? Ha ha… All I know now is that I wanna go to em all someday. But first I need to get to Brazil. I met a guy from Rio the other day, don’t even know how that happened, just sat down next to him at a lunch counter in an open air Market in Mexico City and I dunno, we just got to talking and it turned out he was a Brazilian guy traveling through Mexico, just bumming around, like me. We hitchhiked down to Acapulco together. Acapulco sucked. Tourist trap. We split up after a day or two there when I realized that, as much as I dug his company and the fact that he spoke better Spanish than me, I really missed just traveling alone. I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t him, just that I needed to travel on solo. He seemed kinda sad, but what else could I do? He gave me his address in Rio for when I get down there, so now at least I actually know somebody there. But I guess I just don’t want any company on the road just now, like I need to sorta just float around on my own and not deal with people other than the ones I meet on the road. I don’t wanna get attached to any sort of comfort just now, not the comfort of having any regular friends at least. I had all that before I left, and where are they all now? Dead.
Ah, what bullshit all these little words are! I wanna tell you of my travels, the things I’ve seen and people I’ve met, but I find it hard to describe any of it now. The words all seem too contrived and poor and primitive, the very idea of even trying to convey what I see and do and feel with words anymore. Maybe when I see you again someday it’ll be easier to tell you about the stuff that’s going on now. But maybe not, maybe I’ll just forget it all. But I just cant get into writing anymore. I much prefer to be with people, talking, or better yet, just living, and feeling the impact of experiences and knowing together that that’s what it is…. The indians in some parts here don’t EVER talk, but they’re heavily telepathic. Anyway, maybe I really can’t tell you much with words, but I’ll try, and if you know the spirit, I know you can dig it. Most of the Americans I’ve run across in my travels are stupid hippie types — just a bunch of long haired touristas with backpacks instead of Hawaiian shirts, but to me they’re all the same. Gringos. I can’t relate to that at all. It’s strange, but I don’t feel like a gringo. More like a refugee maybe, or a Gypsy like my grandfather, your father. I feel like this is where I really always belonged; on the road. Maybe that’s why I was always so unhappy and ill-at-ease in America. It’s weird. Sometimes I think about how you always talked about your life in Italy when you were young, about how sometimes you regretted coming back to America. Now I think I know how you must have felt. Maybe it’s our Gypsy blood? Anyway, whenever I see gringos coming, I go the other way. I got nothing to say to em and I have nothing to do with them, a bunch of mercenary creeps with plastic souls. But that mercenary thing is just human nature I guess. Plenty of Mexicans are mercenary creeps too, of course, but that ugly spirit seems to flourish mostly in places like Acapulco where there’s lots of gringos. Americans just seem to bring out the worst in people wherever they go.
Anyway, after I got out of Acapulco, things got better and better the further south I traveled. Last week I hitchhiked down the coast all the way south to Puerto Escondido, a little fishing village on the southern Pacific coast — in ten years it’ll probably be another big Alcapulco-style gringo trap, but for now it’s still alot quieter and cheaper than other places… still there were too many people for my liking there. I got in around 9pm and after only a few hours, I decided to hit the road again. I musta walked south for 30 kilometers and didnt even see one damn truck. By midnight, I was just about to drop from exaustion when i spotted a small dirt turnoff from the road. On a whim, I followed it in hopes of finding a drop of water and a place to lay my blanket down and crash. But, instead of a drop of water, I found a whole river. After a quick swim and drink, I followed the river down another few kilometers till I came to the ocean. On the way I passed thru another primitive village. Small, about 20 grass huts with chickens and mules tied up and walking around all over, pigs too, and dogs barking as I passed thru in the sleeping darkness. Then I walked along another little dirt path through some coconut groves right down to the sea. Right at the edge of the trees by a deserted stretch of beach, there was a deserted hut with no inhabitants. I went right in and fell asleep and it musta been 6 am when I woke up and walked into the town and bought some fresh eggs and vegatables. I’ve spent the last four days right here, camped out in this hut, swimming in the ocean and bathing in the river, and the only people I’ve seen the whole time are some fishermen who stop sometimes on their way back to the village to offer me first choice of their catch. I had a whole lobster today for 8 pesos, about 80 cents, not bad with lime and coconut.
Your Son,
Jono
to reveal is to heal: other people. kicks ass, JS.