Funky Breaks

To lighten the mood a little after the last post, here’s my latest mix. A generous dose of hip hop, funk, breaks, disco, and even some latin beats i picked up from the other side of the world.

Dance, enjoy, share, use it as a warm up for your weekend. But like my preview listeners said, don’t raise your expectations based on this when you go out and listen to that other dj.

Here’s wishing all animal killers meet a fate as cruel as they bestow. As they reap, shall they sow.

Cheers lovers, take it easy.

Arkana 2015

I was lucky enough to be at Arkana this year. A music festival at 3000m, safely nestled in the sacred valley. Trekked an hour to get there. No rules, no bullshit, just good music, good food, hippies, tents and lovers.

Chia magica.

Anticuchos: Cow’s heart kababs.

Parrillas: Steak

Desi Baba.

This dude, big in the chicago scene, was kind enough to let me jam along for a while.

Israeli boys prepping lunch.

If you need hi-res of any of these, hit me up.

Cheers.

Peddla

I was just sitting there minding my own business, pooped from an afternoon of dune-boarding, and there was this model shooting for her music video by the oasis in Huacachina. So i kept busy at this spot.

That was when this couple walked my way…

‘Hi’, the guy said.

‘Hi…’

‘We’re looking for a friend of ours… thought it was you.’

‘Your friend looks exactly like me, then.’, i responded.

‘Our friend has drugs to sell.’

‘Oh…’

‘It’s not you, right?’

‘I’m certainly not the friend you’re talking about, but i think he’s two blocks down and on the right.’

‘So, you’re saying you don’t have any drugs?’

Now if i said no, that would have been a lie. It was true that i did not have any drugs TO SELL. But I couldn’t lie.

‘Look man’, I said, ‘the guy you’re looking for is behind that pub. If you don’t find him, come back here and maybe i’ll give you something. Just a little bit. But I’m not the friend you’re looking for.’

That’s a common occurence this whole trip.

That, and ‘hey amigooo/Bob Marley… you want to buy paintings? jewellery? cannabis? cocaine…?’

They really progress quick.

If you’ve liked my posts, show me love with hugs and/or donations over at johnnybizzle.bandcamp.com; also pick up free tunes while you’re there.

Road Trip: Punta Hermosa

In stark contrast to the first four months in Peru, this last month in Lima has been quite leisurely. I mean breakfast-in-bed leisurely. I could get used to this but no. After getting a hang of getting back in a city, i was soon bored though. I had to get out. Lima might be the sweetest, most gorgeous city i’ve ever been in, but it’s still a city.

Sometimes the daily routine was as follows:

Then my partner in crime X, and I decided to hit the road, but on a strictly veg diet.

Now if you’ve read my earlier blogs, i’ve mentioned time and again how much i love the Peruvian terrain. It’s like a layered desert-rainforests-mountains-rainforests-mountains sandwich from the west to the east, lining the whole country. One good way to see this is to drive down the Panamericana, which is one massive expressway running down the length of the continent. Another way is to watch The Motorcycle Diaries. Since I’d already done the latter, i opted for the drive. So X hired a car, and we were off.

‘No fixed plan, just drive.’

We packed our gear and hit the road at 3 pm on a Thursday, now this was more than a month ago. Less than two hundred kilometers and two hours down, we could smell the Pacific. We decided to take in a little sea breeze at Punta Hermosa. And within minutes, we’d decided this was the first stop to this trip. Mainly cos some of the stray dogs here look like lions. And then of course, the waves and the sunset.

Here’s a few images from Punta Hermosa, which is pretty much Instagramer’s haven. See for yourself. If you want to see the full sizes, I’d recommend right click image and ‘open in new tab’.

Nobody’s watching. Punta Hermosa is literally a dead town. Maybe 50-80 people living in a 500 house colony.

Cos every ‘photographer’ needs to have a pic like this else he’s a fake photographer.

This man can whoop all your asses riding waves 8 meters high.

All these strays here sell as exotic pets back home.

Like I said, instagramer’s haven.

Just random photographers at a surf contest.

If you’ve liked my posts, show me love with hugs and/or donations over at johnnybizzle.bandcamp.com; also pick up free tunes while you’re there.

El Sauce

I’ve met some amazing souls through this trip. This one’s about a couple with hearts of gold and smiles to match. Over a month ago, Leo and Erika came to Tarapoto. They had spent a few days in town when they got invited to Sauce (sau-say) by some nice folk. They asked me to join them. I really love these two and i know them since December. But that’s still a much longer story for another day, my Mancora days. This one’s about Sauce and Laguna Azul. Should’ve been posted earlier but i was going through some shit around the time and was in no mood for the interwebs.

The best rides are the unplanned ones, yeah? So i quickly packed my bag with minimals, and headed out of my hostel with them. Leo said we were hitch-hiking, so we walked to the outside of Tarapoto town, where a pick up truck driver said we could sit on the rice sacks in the back, for 3 peruvian soles each.

An hour later we were at a small river crossing, one of the inlets of the Amazon river, and got across to the hills on the other side. From there it was a 4 hour trek uphill to Sauce, but Leo the expert got us another pick up truck to hop into, this time for free. Sauce was smaller than i expected. Barely 900-1000 people town. We grabbed a boat and headed to the isolated corner of the blue lagoon, which had one restaurant, some touristy shops, and the home of a very peculiar family, who rented the space out. By 5 pm, the restaurant and stores shut, and almost all the inhabitants, except for the family, were off on a boat to the town-side of this lagoon. We had the whole corner to ourselves, with 14 hammocks to choose from, a wooden deck to jump off into the lagoon from, a baby cheetah, and an anaconda, among a bunch of other animals to play with. Since the resto shut down before sunset, we asked the family if they were ok to cook for us, which they did. Other times we grabbed sapote fruit from the trees lining the area, and sapotes are just amazing. In the afternoon we got grilled tilapia fish from the restaurant. Those were orgasmotron.

We spent the night in hammocks. The days in the water. And smoked a lot of weed. Cut off from civilization, electricity, and all forms of connectivity for days. When you get time like that to yourself, it’s amazing how much one can spend inside one’s head, fixing and fixing and fixing a lot of buried problems. Bringing them out and fixing them good.

Here are some of the images from that serene little getaway in the heart of the amazon.

I want to get a pick up truck real bad, and a chauffeur so i can ride in the back.

And to the isolated corner of Laguna Azul, or The Blue Lagoon, we go.

Erika can make grown men blush, take these twins for example. Guy on the right couldn’t stop hammering his fists together while his brother was talking to her.

He just couldn’t stop.

Their mom cracked up at how soft they’d gone in their knees.

Or how they kept fidgeting with their noses, almost in sync.

Later their mom told me she worked for Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in Lima. And this was around the same time Mother Teresa was in the news thanks to some illiterate BJP half-brain back home, so i was a little dumbfounded at the mention.

But back to Erika and the blushers.

A boatman once saw a 20 meter long anaconda in this very lake. He didn’t go back to work for almost three weeks.

The first boat of tourists from the civilized end started at 9 am.

The man of the house. Took a lot of convincing to allow me to take his picture. The wife totally refused.

The UHMAZING sapote tree.

Leo and Erika are currently riding a bike down the Argentine coast. One day I’ll take them around India.

If you’ve liked my posts, show me love with hugs and/or donations over at johnnybizzle.bandcamp.com; also pick up free tunes while you’re there.

J-C

The first 7 days in the jungle in Cumbaza, there were 4 of us.

(L-R: earth, fire, air, water)

Then two of them left. The two that said goodbye were the ones who could speak English. Now the ones left were J-C, who speaks 3 words of English, and me, who speaks 3 words of Spanish. The only English he spoke were filler lines from hip hop songs.

‘Yeah! Come on!’, Notorious BIG.

‘Alright! Yeah yeah!’, Diddy.

I thought that was the end of human conversation for me. I was prepared to start talking to the trees and the animals.

But, necessity, invention, and all that. We eventually coined our own language. The first night we spoke in the dark until four candles died out. After that it was a breeze.

When i first met J-C, i was intimidated. All of 6’2″ and built like a raw steak. Fists twice the size of mine. I thought he was a local thug in Tarapoto. Turned out to be a gentle giant. This is him trying to have his next fb profile pic done.

He’s a funny guy. There was this time he told me once, when i opened my laptop, he said electronics were not a good idea while in the jungle. Spoils the energy, he said, with a very serious face. Then he went back to his cell phone, on which he spoke for over 3 to 4 hours in a day. Or the time he said the animals in the jungle were a peaceful bunch. They harm nobody. Then he bumped into a massive honeycomb and was chased around the place by over two dozen bees. Imagine a guy the size of an american football player, screaming and running from a bunch of bees. I wanted to help but i was busy rolling on the floor laughing till no sounds came out my mouth.

Soon he was my ayahuasca consultant, he’s been to over a hundred ceremonies in the last four years. And as fate would have it, i became his relationship counsellor.

The hours he spent on the phone, all those calls were from his girl. Around 7, maybe 8 a day. He looked in anguish after every call. So finally i asked him if everything was ok. He let out a deep sigh, sat next to me.

‘Bijou… my woman. Crazy.’

Common problem. What happened J-C?

Every time J-C talks, there’s more action and hand motions than words. Hand motions like he’s swatting imaginary mosquitoes around his head. Cos he’s trying to figure the English words in his head, while muttering Spanish words, till we both come to the conclusion as to what word he was trying to get at.

‘She 35… but *hand motions*… mentalty…? mentalty…?’

Mental? Mentality?

‘Si! Mentality.. *hand motions*.. only 15.’

Aaah.

‘Sheeee… *hand motions* inseguridad? insecure? insecure? She vaaery insecure.’

Ya, insecure.

‘Insecure…*hand motions*… jayloos.. ego… aaaand vaaery*hand motions* arrogante’

Yeah, yeah, you’re getting it. Arrogant, si.

‘Sheeee…*hand motions*… Bee polar’

Bi-polar.

‘Bipolar, bipolar, si!’

He went on to tell me how it’s been a hard year, yadda yadda, she never understands. All she wants to do is go out and get coked out, smashed, and then cry.

Cry.

Cry.

And then go out get smashed again.

Told him ‘know when to draw the line’. You can try to help someone as much as you want, but not at the cost of your own peace and freedom. He’s fighting the good fight. His ordeal is, he’s the one who introduced her to drugs, and now she doesn’t know any other way. So of course, he believes if he doesn’t help her get out of it, bad karma.

J-C used to be a hydroponic dealer in Lima. For 10 years, if you bought the best weed in and around Lima, or anywhere in Peru, possibilities were they came from his terrace.

10 years. 400 soles for 28 grams the going rate. That’s about 10,000 – in rupees. When i told him the price of weed in India, his jaw hit the floor. Of course, that’s not even a fraction of the quality though. 10 years he was THE man to go get your stash from.

Four years ago he was sitting and flipping channels when he saw his friends on TV. Busted by the cops, with a jar he had sold them as evidence laid out on the table. He ran to the roof, and destroyed everything he had. The neons, the pipelines, the systems, and over 500 plants. Bags and bags of seeds and soil he’d imported from Amsterdam and Canada. All, incinerated within a couple of hours.

In four days he was out of Lima, that was in 2010.

This is him today, after our time in the jungle.

I’ve always wondered, why is the weed in India so shitty, man?

Poncho and Pierre.

Wyatt bought a poncho. If you were an 18 year old Colorado boy traveling across South America, i guess you’d do the same. It looks hilarious though, when all of us are down to our minimums, dude bobbing his head to the tunes playing in his beats by dre, huge poncho sweeping the floor, walking around the bar like a P.I.M.P… leaves us all silent for a few seconds.

‘Wyatt, how did you find us?’, Eliana, trying to fill out her forms and all those multiple choice questions that marketing types usually fill out.

‘Just walked in from the beach.’

That’s not among the multiple choices so Eliana frowns.

When i got to Mancora last week, i had no roomies at the hostel. In fact, the entire hostel had only 3 people living in it. Gabrielle, Lisa, and me. Pierre joined us 2 days later, the same day Wyatt moved in. Gabrielle and Lisa, the couple, shared a dorm. Gabry was the bar manager, and Lisa worked the bar too.

Soon Pierre and I took over bar duties as well. So we were the only 4 people at the bar, making drinks for ourselves. Eliana’s the manager of the hostel, and the staff includes Rosa the chef, Rosa the cleaning lady, Fiorella the cute day receptionist, Isaak the night receptionist, and Percy the bouncer/security. Every alternate woman in South America is a Maria, btw.

Three days later, Gabry splits for Ecuador, and Lisa leaves in another week. So, Pierre and I get promoted to bar managers.

A decade ago if you’d told me i’d be bar manager at a beach hostel resort in Mancora, Peru, i might have given you the benefit of doubt. But if you’d told me i’d be at work before 9 am every day, i’d have called you a lunatic. It’s true though. I do the morning shift cos i can’t seem to sleep beyond 8 am anymore. This is a far cry from the last decade that i was working… waking up any time between 10 and 11 am, sometimes 2 pm. I have actually managed to shock myself this time.

Up by 8, dive into the pool, grab an awesome breakfast of omelettes and fresh juice that Rosa seems to pour a lot of love into when she’s cooking for me, and I’m ready for the day. My shift starts at 10 and ends by 3. But i hang around at the bar until 1 am cos this is actually the best place in Mancora to hang out, The Point Hostel. We get visitors every day coming in for our happy hours, food, books, pool, pool table, volleyball, ping pong, beer pong, poker, champions league screenings, weekend football… People from all around the world, most of whom don’t know where Bombay is. But when you tell them, they have a look of shock on their face like ‘HOW DID YOU GET HERE’.

Pierre’s a 22 year old French boy. He reminds me a lot of Bhatia. Of course you guessed French when i mentioned his name earlier, i hope. Filled to the brim with sarcasm, wry humour, rude towards most people, smokes pot all day, pissed off if you disturb his ‘Dr Who’ sessions, seems like his folks baptised him with a vat of LSD…and generally just French. He keeps weighing the kittens under the bar every day and updating me. I’ve told him a hundred times not to touch the kittens but he won’t listen.

Holy shit Bhatman, Bhatia should’ve been born French.

Lisa’s here another 2 days, and then it’s just him and me managing this bar for the next month. Basically, we manage each other. As i type this out, he’s actually sitting at the bar filling out a joint.

When the whole conversation (‘meeting’) of taking over as bar managers was going down between Eliana, Pierre and me, i thought why not… free room, free food, 40% off at the bar for the rare occasion i feel like drinking. Yup, i’m a changed man.

Eliana read us a sort of contract. One that mentioned how to behave with guests, how not to be drunk at the bar, not to do drugs at the bar, not to give free drinks for sexual favours, not to have sex at the bar, etc. Pierre was most concerned about the being nice to guests bit.

‘I can’t be nice all the time i’m working, eez jest a warning. If they come and talk to me when i count drinks or making accounts, i weel not be nice. And exactly what drugs are not allowed? Are you paying me’

‘Of course, bar managers get paid.’

‘Oh, ok, i can be nice then. You should have said at the begeening that you  pay me.’ Then he whispers in my ear, ‘You ok with that?’.

‘Yeah’.

‘What’s that?’, Eliana.

‘Nothing, eez jest a meeting within a meeting. Ya, we’ll do it.’

Next week, this resort will be full till the new year. Fingers crossed.