Going Dutch

It seems to have become a ritual, a migration possibly, around the beginning of June each year, a tall and pale man makes his way to the Caribbean and finds himself on an island or peninsula where he is free to drink and swim and eat as much as he can in a what could easily become an American display of gluttony and piggishness if not for his loose grip on his self control, it is the 8 or 10 days out of the year when i allow myself to drink with abandon, to often be the first guy at the bar smiling politely at the bartender as they set up for the 10am opening... of course i'm also a degenerate stoner and so my first order of business on every new island is the finding and procuring of the ganja.  And this year was no different...

This year the island was a rocky little place called Curacao, the new capital of the Dutch Antilles, the three rocks plunked down off the coast of Venezuela called Aruba, Bon Aire, and the aforementioned, nestled away in a spot practically untouched by hurricanes and with less rain in a year than my fair home city gets in a spring month... the wonders of the interwebs provide all the information you need to at least get one pointed in the right direction but with the boyos and their mamacita in tow it is always a challenge to find the free time to do my due diligence in finding the herb, the net had provided me neighborhoods and clubs and what not but i needed something easier and so i took special note of the beach stand paragraph, the one that said it could usually be found somewhere nearby, now the employees of these resorts can also be good at finding and procuring goods but i've also come to learn it depends on the country and the resort, some go through great lengths to make you go outside and some are a bit more lax, i clocked a couple of young chaps who definitely had the look but more on that later...

After hitting the ground on Wednesday by Friday one of the boyos had gotten a touch sunburned and since the boyos wear their asses out by going non-stop all day my nights are usually confined to reading or wandering into the casino and finding the roulette table, but on this day i needed some of that aloe gel shit made expressly for those of us pasty white types of Scotch-Irish descent, and since the little shop at the resort had closed i inquired about anything in walking distance and was told about a grocery store which was a ten or fifteen minute walk down the road, it was just the break i needed to get out and about, besides since my first trip abroad way back in 1998 i've always had this thing for walking about in foreign lands, i like it, it gives me a feel for the place and so i smiled at the bell hop and made my way toward the street...

Right on the other side of the resort was a public beach with a little restaurant and a dive shop that was closed, i took a wander towards it and said hello to the restaurant owner who asked if i was looking for dinner, declined his offer and began walking back toward the street while scanning the beach area, from behind a wall appeared a guy with long braids and extending off the top his head and running down his back, the Spidey senses immediately went off and i turned and smiled and walked toward him, i said hello and he said hello and i began a friendly repartee where i asked him if he knew where i could find some "chaiba", the native word for grass on the island, he smiled and said he did and then i asked about prices and what not and when/if i could get it, explained i was heading to the grocery up the street, he told me it was 10 Guilders for a loose joints worth (a loose joint being about two joints), i smiled and said i'd take 5 and pay in American money and throw in an extra 10 for his trouble just to let him know i was serious, i understood i was paying tourist prices but i believe that's the price of being a tourist, there was a moment of disbelief on his part as a big smile crept across his face and told me to meet him back there in half an hour, we shook hands and i was on my way...

I headed back up to the street and walked along with the Caribbean Sea crashing into the rocks on the shore to my left and a local neighborhood across the street to my right, i took of my shirt as i walked through the night as a sticky layer of island sweat began to cover my body, i passed people on their porches evading the heat of their little houses, i passed local bars with people talking and music playing and fans blowing, some stopping to look at the tall, shirtless Yank striding past, i passed betting parlors and locals out walking, i finally rounded a bend and saw the grocery store and made my way over... i'm always fascinated by supermarkets in other countries as well, i like leaving my American bubble and seeing how the real world lives and wandered the aisles looking at things both familiar and not, grinning at how all the athletes gracing the products were South American or world futbol stars, finding the aloe gel i grabbed a bottle and then grabbed two little beers and made for the exit...

The walk back was uneventful. I gazed at the houses and the people both inside and out, i noticed how spartanly they were furnished, i noticed one had a big American flag that seemed to act as a curtain for a back door, i listened to the sound of the ocean and opened my little beer which i drank in seconds to help cool off, night really providing no respite from the heat of the day, i walked on keeping my fingers crossed that it would work out, i still had close to a week left, it wasn't that i wouldn't consume my fair share of booze but i liked a change of pace, after gallons of Amstel and Polar beer, dark rum, and the occasional Mudslide or two i liked to kick back with my joint at night (and/or the morning too), the bulk of my drinking done from morning to early evening, after years of being an amateur i could now drink like a professional and maintain a buzz of varying degrees without the worry of hangover but i knew that without the grass sooner or later i'd tie one on and i swore about a year ago to be done with hangovers, maybe after 30 years i've learned something but more likely it's because i've always liked drugs better it's just that booze was the easiest one to get... and so i walked on in some strange reverie and without noticing i had come back almost to the beach stand, i looked up and heard a whistle and there stood my new found friend Ligi, i could practically make out his gold tooth shining in the moonlight... to be cont...