A game of chess

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Amsterdam, 05-10-1990.

- So you really gonna do this, Hans? His question seems obsolete considering the bulky backpack leaning against the wooden table, the countless discussions we had these last couple of days about my up-coming trip...further away as ever before in my young life, all the way to Ecuador and Las Islas de Galapagos, maybe a short detour into Colombia as well...

Two big pints of frothy Heineken cover both sides of our chessboard, a iron astray full to overflow and the burning spliff in James's hands adding to the already laden air heavy with the sweet aroma of Ganja green leaves, outside the opaque window I can discern a fat Bahama shorts clad tourist having a massive arguement with a wintered African prostitute, the expensive camara she tries to pry from pinkish sausage-like fingers betrays me that the African fury is not all that keen on Americans back home goggling over her blood red lingerie covering her stark contrasted git black flesh on sale behind a red illuminated glass window smack right in the notorious Red Light District in Amsterdam...

The chessboard between us here in the Old Church coffeeshop - they do have a alcohol licence - is testimony to our continual battle of wits, male bonding over a wooden board covered with wooden pieces with fancy names and carved into figurines that have become entities all in their own...

- And that funny little female me is gonna pay for it all, that little plump Finnish lady we met last winter in Mexico, short, plump, straw blondish thin hair and pale skin with horrible red blotches covering her roundish face...just like me but then female.

I can clearly detect the jealousy underneath his irony, the twitches in his face betraying his true feelings....but then he is right to be jealous. In mere hours I'll be over that amazingly huge body of salty water called The Atlantic Ocean, on my way to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, five days of waiting for Aino to arrive, a two or maybe three month trip to the other side of the world paid for in cash by a love starved Finnish female we met last year in mexico...

- Yeah, you have a right to be jealous mate, checkmate by the way!!!

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Photos

Galapagos frog
seen during my trip

Galpagos turtle
seen during my trip