These three miles are, again, uphill, so I really must push my limits, but I’d much rather just pedal downhill, if there was any downhill close by. I just want to get to the end of it. I feel like I’m getting into an anaerobic situation; my body consumes more oxygen than it is getting. I know this feeling quite well from the thousand-meter races that I participated in when I was younger. My body is aching and my oxygen is low, but I must persevere until my body pumps out so much adrenaline that I no longer feel any pain . . . and so, while climbing up toward Danville, I find myself in this state for the first time in fifteen years.
After about two more miles I no longer feel any pain and I start pedaling with full force. Sweat is pouring from my whole body, but I keep going. I travel almost fifty-six miles that day. Sometime later I come to an area with farmhouses close to the road. I stop and talk to a calm, white-haired man in jeans who is repairing old cars in his garage. He listens to my story with interest, but hesitates when I ask him if I could spend the night camping on his land. For that, he must first speak to his wife.
Even without hearing what he and his wife say, it’s obvious that this question necessitates a lengthy discussion between the two. Matthew and Deborah first offer me water and, after eyeing me suspiciously for a while, finally decide to let me set up my tent behind their house for the night.
The retired couple leads a very secluded life in their small white house: while Matthew works a lot on his cars, Deborah is completely absorbed in the maintenance of her garden and reads the Bible a lot. That evening I sit with Matthew on his terrace and we exchange travel stories. He tells me of his travels through the United States in the sixties, sleeping in the back of his Chevy box van in the parking lots of supermarkets, and I can’t help but notice how my presence seems to reenergize him. Eventually, he even takes out his guitar and starts playing old Johnny Cash songs.
The next morning I wake up in my tent but can hardly move: the muscles in my upper and lower legs, back, chest, and shoulders are completely stiff. Today, I need to cover the same distance once again in order to make it to the next major city. However, it will be impossible like this. I move and cycle at a snail’s pace all through the day, occasionally cursing the entire trip. I never imagined that my adventure would be like this.
By evening, I at last reach the major city of Columbus, population 700,000. I enter the city and find myself in the middle of what appears to be a ghetto. Entire streets of houses are boarded up with plywood, deserted, and abandoned, while some buildings are gutted. Along the roadside, young men are casually hanging around. From the land of the Amish straight into a gangster’s paradise! Many of them are smoking small pipes; I am fairly sure that it must be crack, though I don’t want to jump to conclusions based on what various Hollywood films have portrayed.
At a red traffic light, one of the youths makes a gesture to me that can only be interpreted as a hearty “f*** you,” so I ignore the red light and quickly pedal ahead. Slowly, I feel like I am becoming something of a professional cyclist.
At the Greyhound bus terminal, I try to exchange my bicycle for a bus ticket so that I can travel faster and cover more distance going west. The hundred dollars that Ernie gave me is still not sufficient for a ticket to New Mexico. The assistant, supervisor, and manager do not show any interest in my traveling-without-money tales. They don’t even care enough to want to hear about the concept. What’s going on here? Everywhere else people have been very enthusiastic about my story.
In the waiting area of the terminal, the atmosphere is anything but comforting. A woman is screaming at the ticket seller. A man curses at the screaming woman. A strung-out Mexican guy runs completely mad through the terminal while provoking other travelers. Finally, an employee advises me to go to an organization called First Link. Apparently, at First Link they help pay for the tickets of needy travelers.
When I get there, a lady who seems to love meeting new people greets me. She talks and talks and does not let me utter a word. She talks about First Link, her role there, surely exaggerating how many people have gotten help in Columbus, and so on, without ever asking me why I’m there. Eventually she thrusts something resembling a phone directory into my hands, which contains the numbers of the organizations I am supposed to call. I try to explain to her again that without money I cannot make any of these phone calls. She still doesn’t seem to understand or care, so I go back to the terminal and again try talking to the manager, Mike. I call him Little Mike, like I hear his colleagues doing, because he is only five feet tall. I try to convince him to take the money I have and the bicycle in return for a ticket to the West Coast.
Little Mike merely has me thrown out of his office.
I finally manage to sell the mountain bike for forty dollars at a second-hand bike shop. The money I now have suffices to buy a bus ticket to Albuquerque, New Mexico—a distance of about 1,500 miles, but I will now be able cover it all in just mere hours. Finally I am making some headway!
I quickly run through the shops downtown and ask for food. The success rate is surprisingly high: 80 percent, just like in Antwerp and Montreal, something I didn’t expect in this city after my recent experiences. Of the twenty shops I visit, sixteen give me food. The McDonald’s on High Street is totally staffed by students from Ohio State University who go completely nuts when I tell them about my trip; they give me a few free burgers and talk about calling the local television station to have me interviewed. However, my bus is waiting at the station, and so I have to walk away from all the fun. I board the Greyhound coach with my trash bag full of food and relax for the next thirty-five hours. After all of the cycling and the trekking, any other means of transportation are more than highly welcomed.
Sitting on the bus doesn’t make my body ache or sweat or get sunburned; I am, as they say, a happy camper. The bus takes me through several states and time zones. I see the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, travel through Oklahoma City, and continue to follow the green landscape as it turns into the desert.
5
ALL-AMERICAN
GIGOLO
We arrive in Albuquerque, New Mexico, early Sunday morning. I step off the bus and feel pretty good, given that I have just slept for two hours in some previously untried acrobatic positions. Now it’s time to find some food, so I head to the nearest McDonald’s. The successful experience I had just two days ago makes it seem promising and fills me with confidence; I, instead, only get thrown out.
A man standing outside of the door starts to preach about how everyone is accepted in the local Baptist church. I am in no mood to attend a church service; I am hungry, plain and simple. However, he won’t let me get rid of him and insists that I meet him at the Noonday Church at, appropriately, noon. Since I haven’t much planned for this first day in Albuquerque, and it’s slightly less than 95°F in the shade, I reach the church at noon sharp.
There is a line of at least 300 people in front of the church, all filing into the house of the Lord. I can see that the majority of them are homeless. A generous meal of beans and steak is waiting for everyone inside. After a sermon by the priest and a few songs, I devour my lunch within minutes. With a satisfied stomach, I begin to take notice of the characters and scenarios around me. A wearied woman who looks like she is in her fifties, but whom I learn is, in fact, only in her thirties, has a rubber strip tied around her arm and visible track marks. Behind her is a policeman with a pistol ready in case any violence breaks out. In front of me are two guys who strategically hold newspapers in front of their faces while I am filming with my video camera. The man sitting next to me advises me to pack away my camera immediately, because he suspects that the gentlemen across from us may be wanted criminals.
On the far-left side of the main room I also notice some hairdresser’s chairs—the type you’d find in a salon. Apparently, after eating, everyone is entitled to a free haircut. Meanwhile, there’s a lottery draw taking place and the names of the winners are announced over the microphone. The prizes are dona
tions by the local shops, so they are generally different every day. This is all very new to me, and quite fascinating.
While hanging around in the church, surveying my surroundings, I start up a conversation with fifty-seven-year-old Joseph. He has been homeless for almost two years but looks surprisingly well groomed: tennis socks, sports shoes, a clean T-shirt, and a new baseball cap. How can this person be homeless? I wonder, as he doesn’t fit my mind’s stereotype. He invites me to spend the day with him, and I waste no time in accepting his invitation. While we explore Albuquerque, he shows me the contents in his sports bag: a razor, shaving cream, shampoo, a toothbrush, and other toiletries—all packed in a neat fashion—along with extra T-shirts and trousers. He also smells considerably more pleasant than the others.
Joseph tells me his life story, about all the events that led him to his current situation, and I listen attentively. I learn that he joined the military when he was sixteen years old. Just when he was supposed to be sent to Vietnam, he refused and was sacked. He then got a job as a truck driver and supported his wife and two kids for thirty years that way. Eventually, his wife could no longer put up with his drinking habit and they divorced. Shortly after, he was let go from his company, and became a full-blown alcoholic. His cousin took him in for two years as a sort of babysitter until his cousin’s wife kicked him out. Since then he has been sleeping in homeless shelters or on park benches. “The churches in the United States,” he adds, “take over the responsibility of taking care of the poor, whereas in Europe it’s taken over by the government.”
In the afternoon he shows me his free voice mail box where people can leave messages for him. He also introduces me to the clerics who provide the homeless with places to shower. Finally, a shower. It is very, very much needed after my long bus trip, to say the least. We continue along to the Good Shepherd Mission, which offers free dinners, and there’s at least 300 people trying to get in. However, the seats are limited and the atmosphere feels aggressive. Joseph tells me that many of the needy here have done time in prison.
For the night he offers me three possibilities: first, under the bridge of the city freeway, but I run the risk of being robbed there. Second, I can take a bed at the Good Shepherd Mission. He explains that I have the best chance there because seven nights are allotted to each new visitor. Finally, I can sleep in the park between the military hospital and the military base. The choice is obvious to me since I don’t want to get robbed, nor do I want to take a bed away from someone who actually needs it when I’m merely conducting a no-money experiment. “Take me to the park by the hospital,” I say.
The hospital is on the outskirts of the city; there are hardly any people in the park at night. Every once in a while we see a couple making out at the nearby parking area, or a truck secretly dumping garbage into the hospital container. I want to set up my tent, but Joseph stops me by waving his hand. He says it is too risky because the police can spot us. I agree and look forward to a warm, open-air night admiring the starry sky.
This optimistic thinking is short-lived; at midnight it starts to rain. There is no chance of staying dry, even after we pull our sleeping bags under the trees. The dampness, the constant fear of getting robbed, and the risk of getting caught by the police all leave my mind exhausted. At one point, the thought of taking a bed at the shelter doesn’t even feel so bad anymore—at least then we would be dry and with a roof over our heads. Totally drenched, I try to sleep but only manage a mere few hours, and wake up at three in the morning feeling miserable. How must Joseph feel? Joseph, who has been doing this day in and day out for two years?
The next morning he tells me that he has hopes to fit back into society because the military will soon be paying out his pension. I want more details, as I get the impression that he has been waiting for this for a very long time. I decide to keep traveling west, and I promise that I’ll leave him a message in his voice mail one day. During our farewell, we both have tears in our eyes. It has probably been a while since Joseph has had someone keep him company, and I’m sad to leave him behind. At this point, I have no idea that I will receive a call from him months later, long after I am back in Berlin, with the great news that he has an apartment and is working again.
Soon, I am heading toward Las Vegas with Dan in his 1965 Mustang Fastback. It’s the perfect car for a road trip: not only is it easy on the eyes, but it is quiet and purrs like a kitten. Women can’t help but stare, and men come up to talk to us at gas stations. I found Dan through an advertisement on the couch-surfing website. His life is anything but boring: he is thirty-five years old and, up until three years ago, served as a pilot for spies in the military. He says that the only way he survived those eighteen-hour shifts was with caffeine and alcohol. After two years, he was so burned out that he decided to leave the service, and so, armed with proper compensation, he started his career as a day trader. He tells me how he was able to double his assets in just a single day, and triple them within a month. The business was soaring until the recession hit. In a short time, 70 percent of his wealth was lost; his remaining money is being spent on leasing installments, rents, and insurance. He decided to look for a new career, which he most certainly found.
Dan offers favors to older, wealthy women—a.k.a., sugar mamas. An all-American gigolo! It isn’t a personal sexual fetish—sleeping with older women—but rather, an excellent business. For this reason, he is traveling to California to visit a woman twenty years his senior. He tells me that her annual income is in the six figures and that she has requested for him to come to California to install her kitchen. “If I spend a few weeks installing her kitchen,” he tells me with a wink, “I can expect to get $10,000 to $20,000. I’m pretty good at installing kitchens.” He turns away with a grin.
We travel in the Mustang through New Mexico and Arizona for ten hours until we reach Las Vegas, Nevada. The landscape is stunning; I silently take in the sight of the majestic desert and huge rock formations flashing past my window. After a few hours, Dan is tired (probably more from talking than driving) and he lets me take over behind the wheel. Driving that Mustang on Route 66 toward the sunset is one of the best experiences (and soon-to-be best memories) I have from this trip thus far.
Early in the evening, we reach the Grand Canyon. Dan somehow has an entry pass for all national parks, so we get to enjoy the phenomenal view in the huge chasms of the canyon for free. The color of the setting sun makes the red rock formations glow. Dan and I sit beside each other in silence for the next hour admiring the view. It all feels so surreal, like a dream; when I think back to just twenty-four hours ago, it feels as though I have moved between two very different planets.
6
NO GIFTS IN
THE WILD WEST
Dan and I reach Las Vegas at around midnight. Before coming here, I had written to numerous couch surfers in the city to find a place to stay, almost without any success. Luckily, a woman named Elyssa agreed to my request, but according to Dan’s navigation device, she lived at the other end of the city.
When he drops me off in front of her house, she lets me in without any words or greeting, lies down on a recliner chair, and stares at me. Sitting next to me is a young couch surfer from India who is equally unsure of Elyssa’s behavior. He tries to start a conversation and break her silence by making funny faces; his attempts remain unsuccessful. She continues to stare at us, utterly expressionless.
I wonder whether Elyssa has taken drugs and is high or if she’s simply depressed. From what I can see, her apartment is a huge mess. Adding to this is the unforgiving stench coming from what can only be dirty kitty litter. I lie down with the other couch surfer on a bunk bed in Elyssa’s kitchen but can only sleep for three hours; I tiptoe out of the house at six in the morning, determined to find a hotel room for myself.
Las Vegas is a city that shouldn’t be there at all. Originally, it was a Christian settlement, but in 1931, the legalization of gambling in the federal state of Nevada laid down the groundwork
for the rapid growth of the desert city. In 1941, mobster Bugsy Siegel built the first hotel with a casino; today there are more than 1,000 casinos that border both Fremont Street and the Strip, each magnificently built next to one another and attracting tourists from around the world. Every year more than thirty million visitors come here, of which only 5 percent admit that they come only for the entertainment; that leaves 95 percent falling for the temptations offered by Sin City. Most end up trying to score with Madame Lady Luck at one of the gambling tables.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to get a free room in a city full of hotels (one would think). Unfortunately, that is not the case. I start my quest at eight that morning, first at the Rio Hotel, when the temperature is still at 86°F.
At around ten, at Excalibur, the temperature has risen to 95°F.
By noon, at over 105°F, I am politely directed to the exit of the Mirage.
Las Vegas may appear to be a happy place, but the fun is soon over if one has no dough. Many receptionists look at me with distaste, and some assume that I am homeless, a liar, or both.
Me: Excuse me, could I have a room for free, since I am trying to travel the world for free?
Receptionist: Sure, which credit card would you like to use?
Me: No money also means no credit card.
Receptionist: Sir, then let’s do it with cash.
Me: Traveling without money also means no cash.
The receptionist walks to the security guy, talks to him. He comes to me.
Security guy: Sir, I would really like to walk you outside, since it’s such a wonderful day.
How to Travel the World for Free Page 4
