On my eventual return to Mexico we were informed that despite our outstanding idea and quite masterfully prepared proposal Burning Man are not going to support our Temple for Peace for 2025. This in retrospect was good news. The application process was extraordinary and we have no regrets. It saves me 8 months of intense stress and as things have turned out it would not have been the best use of my time. It is nice to know we have a quite amazing project already planned and costed up our sleeves should we ever need one.

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And now the news.

It is with a very heavy and somewhat broken heart that I must advise that our La Colina Project is having a time out. After a long time coming Jayne and I have decided to move on with our lives separately. It’s been an extraordinary ten years . Few regrets except all the things that failed to bring us closer. 

The purpose of this blog has always been to document our time in Mexico together.  That time has very sadly come to an end so we will both be moving on somehow yet to be understood. The blog as we know it, is therefore,  taking a hiatus.

I am taking some much needed time out to heal from what is a huge decision and all its implications. I write this from the UK on my way to Ethiopia and South Africa. Back to UK to celebrate my sixtieth birthday ( 60 th !!!) in March then onto Bali , Afrikaburn then Ireland in May.  I hope to meet you on this journey or somewhere else . We are forever grateful that you have followed our adventures.  

The only truly consistent thing is change.  

So be it.

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During my time in Mexico I learned a lot. One of those things is that there is an opinion that I  can write a little so I have been making time to do so.  When my good mate John had his stroke a few years ago it reminded all of us about the impermanence of things including memories. 

I have been known to tell a few stories now and again and have been blessed with an extraordinary life. The thought of losing my memories and endless stories scares me. John  has inspired me to write down a number of  tales about my life entirely separate from my day to day blog.

At the last count I have over 30 of them with another 20 to complete. They are unrefined accounts of a selected few of my previous adventures around the world.  I have been encouraged to find a platform to either publish them or create a podcast where I read a few .  Endless possibilities. I shall keep everyone in the loop.   In the meantime as a coda I have an example here which outlines my time in Berlin 1989.  Comments welcome.

         Berlin 1989

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The world was changing again and the most significant political happening of my life, so far, was happening in Germany.  The Berlin Wall was coming down.

In 1961 the Berlin Wall was built by the German Democratic Republic during the Cold War to prevent its population from escaping Soviet-controlled East Berlin to West Berlin. For 28 years the wall divided Berlin.

East Germany militarized the entire border with the West, laying more than one million land mines and deploying around 3,000 attack dogs. The wall was nearly 12 feet high and approximately 27 miles long, with 302 guard towers and 55,000 anti-personnel explosive devices.

Between 1961 and 1989, at least 140 people were killed or died at the Wall in connection with the GDR border regime: 101 people who tried to flee through the border fortifications did not make it.

For reasons, I don’t fully understand the GDR has advised its citizens that they are now able to cross the border into West Germany without getting shot in the head. People are pouring across the new border and taking bits of the wall with them.

I am, somehow, compelled to join in and see this for myself.

At the time, I’m a fledgling 24-year-old CEO based in Northern England building a number of engineering companies around the world. The businesses are in their infancy and money has yet to appear so I’m living on a tiny budget waiting for future riches.  It’s a lot of work but offers me endless opportunities to travel.

It is the odd time just after Xmas but despite that I have managed to create a business trip to Germany centered around a visit to meet a client in Lyon, France and a strategic partner in Nuremburg, Germany followed by a few days to get to Berlin to arrive on New Year’s Eve. Despite having little or no spare cash at all, it feels that this will be the place I need to be.

This is a rare opportunity to travel with my younger brother David. We haven’t spent much time together since I left the bosom of my family at the age of 17. We leave on a cheap flight to Lyon with a plan to take trains onwards the 500 miles through Switzerland to Nuremburg and then the 300 miles onwards to Berlin.

Our travels start well and I managed to do my business in Lyon quickly.  After some saucy pike dumplings we head for the first of many trains North.  Trains in mainland Europe were notably cleaner, more comfortable and eminently more punctual than their British counterparts. We cross the Swiss border and eventually arrive in Zurich. It was late and the train stopped for the night. No trains to Nuremberg till the morning. This is an unplanned stop and Zurich is an expensive city. We find no hotel rooms within our meagre budget.

There were underpasses which were warmer than over ground but full of proper dodgy gangs of well-established street punks who were less than welcoming. We were threatened in a number of languages before we found the Rolex store.  To welcome well-heeled customers the front of the entrance door leading into the shop was covered in posh textured rubber which was many times more comfortable than freezing pavement. We drank whisky from the bottle and huddled in the doorway until the sun rose and warmed us up a few degrees. We dragged ourselves exhausted back to the train station.

The adventure becomes a bit too real when we find ourselves hitching over a mountain in a proper freezing snow storm. Visibility was only a few yards and our travelling attire entirely unsuitable for the conditions. We had worked out that the journey to Nuremberg by train involved a huge 10-hour loop through Frankfurt but the road only took 4 hours. Our sleep deprived minds decided it’s a better idea to hitch a ride.

Getting a lift out of the city was easy but by some miscommunication we didn’t end up in Stuttgart but were left on a cold mountain road with snow hitting us painfully and horizontally. We were absolutely bitter cold. Luck saved us as just before we both froze solid a French guy stopped and rescued us into his delightfully warm car. We thaw out slowly and arrive at Stuttgart station where we regain our senses and take a train to Nuremberg through Munich.

We arrive gratefully in Nuremberg after grabbing a few hours’ sleep. My brother throws our bags off the train . There is distinctive noise of breaking glass then my suit carrier with all my poshest clothes within starts leaking red wine onto the platform.

After demolishing a heap of steaming Bavarian roast pork (Schweinebraten) and local gingerbread (Lebkuchen) we spend a glorious night in an actual bed. The following morning, we spend some hours sponging wine out if my suit and buying a fresh shirt.  My meeting is at the outskirts of town. I end up at a vast old German factory that dated back almost a hundred years. 

It’s clear where the red brick walls were patched up after long past bombings. Nuremberg was severely damaged in Allied strategic bombing from 1943-45. On January 2, 1945, Nuremberg was systematically bombed by the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Air Forces and about ninety percent of it was destroyed in only one hour, with 1,800 residents killed. Somehow this place was spared.

It’s a good meeting despite my slightly dishevelled look and having a distinct odour of cheap red wine and soap. I’m relieved and excited to pack my now redundant stinky suit into the bottom of our bags and prepare for our journey to Berlin. We have nowhere to stay and no plan but it should be an adventure.

We arrive in Berlin at around 5 pm on New Years Eve.  It’s December so it’s already quite dark. People are running around wildly and drunkenly throwing fireworks. The station echoes with explosions and shrieking. The atmosphere is one of enthusiastic highly chaotic energy. 

We know there are no hotel rooms available in Berlin that night but have a plan. We find a reasonable looking hotel and we approach the desk confidently and ask for our reserved room. When the girls behind the desk finally confirms that there is no such reservation we look outraged at their mistake but also crestfallen and desperate enough for them to take pity on us and allow us to leave all our bags in their hotel lockup until we find another hotel. It works like a charm. We head out into the packed city.

We buy vodka and become part of a vast crowd heading toward the Brandenburg Gate which sits on the collapsing border of East and West as part of the wall itself. It has come to symbolise the new emerging Berlin. It’s early days and East German soldiers are still stationed next to the wall and the famous Checkpoint Charlie (the only crossing point for allied forces and foreigners.)  They look scared and bemused and completely confused by what they are supposed to be doing. This is not helped by pretty girls approaching them to offer kisses and push flowers into the barrels of their guns.

The wall is still standing but large chunks are now missing. It is covered in graffiti and hundreds of folks with hammers bash off  pieces to carry away. The Brandenburg Gate is impressively huge and surrounded by an aluminium frame of lighting rigging. The world media is installed underneath protected by police from the West and soldiers from the East.  There are a few brave souls dodging the lines of security and managing to climb the scaffolding. David has vanished in the massive crowds and so I store my vodka under my oversize woollen jumper and plan my next move.

It took all my height and weight and both elbows to get through the crowds to the outside perimeter of the gate. The security  appeared so overwhelmed that it took very little effort to watch until a gap appeared and I walked up to the scaffold and instantly climbed up. My timing is perfect.  Others have had the same idea but I head up the 26M  ahead of everyone.  About a dozen others attempt to follow me.  The top section is not connected and is difficult to get to. A leather gloved hand reaches down and grabs my arm.

I’m hoisted to the top of the gate where stands a huge statue. Quadriga– a chariot drawn by four horses and driven by Victoria the goddess of victory.  My helper is a German guy dressed in leather. He is older than me. We sit together for a long time drinking vodka and smoking cigarettes looking out on the people gathering below. He has tears in his eyes. “How many borders have you crossed this year” he asks me in slow broken English.  It’s a good question. I have been travelling a lot in the past few years. I can’t honestly answer him. It’s too many to remember. He looks at me and softly tells me that this is the first border he has ever crossed in his life; and it’s in his own country.

The view from the chariot is hard to take in. As far as we can see are people heading towards the gate. Hundreds of thousands of them.  From the East and from the West it appears that everyone who is able are congregating at our feet. We are the focus of the world.

One of the few of us that have made it to the top shouts out that it’s approaching 1 am. Midnight had passed us by. Its 1990.  We wish each other the best and embrace. We all recognise that we are in a very special place at a very special time. It occurs to me that midnight in the UK is a few minutes away. I climb up to the highest point I can. Victoria is holding a staff with a wreath on the top. The centre of the wreath has a cold metal cross within and on top of that is an eagle with wings extended.  I manoeuvre myself so my legs are wrapped around the wreath and my body rises above the eagle. It’s the stroke of midnight in the UK. Any image taken at that moment in time will show me in my baggy white jumper, hands above my head, throwing peace signs to the watching media and the millions of people below.

It is unlikely I will find David again until the morning but I decide to head down and sit on the wall while I still can. The decent is hampered by now dozens of others determined to be where I have just come from. Don’t blame them but there is very little room up there. I climb down over the climbing bodies going up.  Security has all but given up. There are just way too many people. I scramble to the wall and find a place where I can stand. It’s not a secure spot, easy to fall from and again getting overrun with drunkenly enthusiastic revellers.

I climb down and head back to the gate. If I can get up to the top of the scaffold my new mates will no doubt help me back up. Seems an extraordinary place to spend the night.

The whole of the gate is overrun. Hundreds of bodies are swinging from the aluminium frame trying to get to the top but unable to make the last few meters.  Those on the top already have stopped helping others up as there is no room left.  Despite the obvious futility I leap onto a cross member and monkey swing my way to an upright where I can join many others trying to ascend.  It’s three swings in when I’m propelled at speed downwards. The cross member has broken lose from the frame. I hit the ground hard on my back and am temporarily winded. I lie there and watch as the aluminium struts buckle and snap around me. People fall. More people fall onto them. Where the most people are the frame collapses in on itself taking everyone with it. It’s carnage.

I’m on my feet and the formerly East German soldiers in their shiny polished helmets are shouting at me aggressively. Was that my fault ??  Was I getting arrested ?? It’s clear that there are casualties. I try and help one guy who seems to have crush injuries. He is not breathing well and can’t move. His lips are blue. His wife is next to him screaming. I try to help but she beats me away.  There is a young lad with his leg at a strange angle in a lot of pain. He is English and very happy to hear my more familiar voice. I gather some boards that are lying close by and use them as a stretcher to get him out of the way. It’s not long before ambulances arrive. How they have gotten through the crowds is a mystery. I load my new friend into one. He is a Tottenham supporter but I let that go.

When I arrive back in the chaos there are two bodies lined up next to one another. One is the guy whose wife has not left his side and is now howling with grief.  The other is a man, older than me, dressed in leather. My chariot companion. I never knew his name but I will never forget him.

The injured have been whisked away somewhere. The dead remain as a reminder to the tragedy. I wander slowly away towards our luggage. I am exhausted, cold and a little drunk. It’s a surreal journey. There are people passed out on benches stone drunk.  Some have pissed themselves creating impressive and dramatic clouds of steam around them in the freezing night air.  No more fireworks. A grey cold early morning trudge back home.

I drink coffee and smoke endlessly until David turns up at the hotel.

We retrieve our luggage and agree to leave Berlin as soon as we can. He spent all night with a girl. She took him across the border and showed him her city and then returned him in the morning. Something that was unheard of only weeks before. We sit on the train and watch Berlin pass by as we swap stories. My grubby white oversize jumper has traces of blood on the sleeve. Was that my fault ??? That question haunts me to this day.

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