...but the village wants to give me something other than products to buy, something that I can't use. So I just sit there, writing postcards that are not sincere and are not funny, trying to make something happen in the mind, something revealing, shivering at the thought of being back soon to the life I had before (isn't travelling life? yes-- and no), in the house that isn't mine and to a job that isn't going to be mine. What a folly, what a waste, to stretch the rope so, and still being attached to it. I kill a small fly with a quick slap. The insect's body is smeared across the palm of my hands, bits of it are trapped between my fingers. I don't feel nothing, no sense of success or relief. If only they stopped to play the music and we could go down to the lake and look at the stars and talk about life and other stronzate without the need of the booze, the radios, the yelling laughs of the lost moments [probably in San Pedro, Atitlan]

Outside goes on the happy and sad music of the band hired by the local association of vendors. In front of the stage, only the drunks dare to dance, while a large platoon of people by the beautiful, colorful clothes stands in silence, looking and listening. Everyone is shy, and also, the mexican music playing is obviously not their music. The town, voided of tourists (us two are the sole representatives of the category) appears finally as a shred of truth after all the set-up stages for gringos, but the truth is nothing special. Not that special places really exist. They should not be considered as such, probably, and the only decent question is always: what I am doing here? For many the answer seems always to be, I am here to drink cheap, to take pictures, to buy stuff. I don't think I am different from anyone else. I am a stranger, and I don't have a good reason to be here, no special keys in my pockets. Because the force of tourism is such that you cannot pretend not to be one.
The town around the music and the market, dirty and old and vexed by cars, ugly restaurants, ice cream place, hardware store, and two white churches on the opposite sides of the square, around the market stretch on the pavement of the square, around the forever dried fountain. Everything is obvious like in any other country of the world, like in Puglia, or in Somalia, what is that, being people? [in Chichicastenago]

When the night falls the faces become confused, the cars in the streets impel the passersby with imperious honking and the little kids disappear behind the corners of the streets. My wet clothes are wavering up on the roof of the hotel in the cold night wind, and I can see my blue pants slapping in the dark night, glowing orange from every side. What I learned from this trip? What questions! nothing, nothing of course [in Copan]

The Wanderer. Success through smallness.
    Perseverance brings good fortune to the wanderer.

Changing yin at the bottom means:
If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things,
He draws down misfortune upon himself.

Changing yang at the top means:
The bird's nest burns up.
The wanderer laughs at first,
Then must needs lament and weep.
Through carelessness he loses his cow.
Misfortune.

-- I Ching, Hexagram 56

Internet says that the Greyhound to Sarasota costs 135 dollars. I kind of hoped it was cheaper but I guess it's okay. I just printed the timetable even though I still can't buy the ticket until I know that I can actually walk with this knee. I don't know what's going to happen if things don't get better, unless it's my intention to let NYC devour me alive for my money.

I am actually tired of the way money is sucked from people here in the city. It's not for the money, I'm game going for broke, I haven't been doing much else in the last years, but the ways, and the reckless lack of sense of proportion, that hurts my nerves.

In the meantime I'm on for the craiglists rideshares too (Ok, I lied in the ad, it's not that I love to drive. Unless I'm on secondary roads and I can go as slow as I want.)

I am trying a funny cream for the knee that is called "bengay", it is meant for joint inflammations and similar things and I'm trying to believe in it. Although, they should probably write on the boxes that, after you rubbed whatever with bengay and you still have some on your hand, you better not touch, you know, there. I tend to have this reflex when I'm alone in bed thinking and doing nothing, looking up at the ceiling or whatever, touching myself. Bengay sort of roasts your genitals alive if you do. I mean, it could also be pleasurable for some, but I think it's one of the classic side effects you should be warned about.

Greyhound says that there are eighteen destinations between here and Sarasota, and three transfers to make. To read the list of the city names gives me a momentary feeling of upcoming adventure, and fuzzy unreasonable expectations. But they're probably going to be all big cities taken over by cars and business, where all the good things, if any, will be hidden to someone like me. Be in the city like from behind a window. Get off the bus to pee and have coffee and get on it again, like the cliche wants.

It doesn't matter. The ways of the trip don't matter. So many things don't matter since when I left. Had I to write down a list of the things that don't matter, or matter in a very different way now, it probably would come a list as long as the list of cities touched by the greyhound bus between here and sarasota, florida in a little more than a one day ride.

-- in picture, above: a different sort of bus running through the village