# What is the hardest/scariest thing you've faced on the road?



## syrinyx (Mar 29, 2017)

What's been your worst moment or biggest mistake or most painful decision or scariest hitch or most dangerous hike? Maybe a lost lover or solid dog? Keep it road related if possible. I want to hear about when you ran into a bear on accident and nearly shit your pants, not about your babushka dying back home in Jersey while you were fire juggling in Denver.


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## Drengor (Mar 29, 2017)

In Springfield IL, my ride into town let me crash on his couch for a couple days. He knows everyone. We'd go out to every bar and the servers would literally line up to say hi to him. Drinking and partying all night every night. We're on our way back to his house in the wee hours of morning, but when we get there it turns out someone is robbing his house. He took a bullet to the face, ended up losing an eye for it. Only time I've been in a gunfight. Whole lot of good my knife did then.

Dude's ok, recovering. Asshole's in jail. Dude's family gave me 50$ for saving his life.


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## kriminalmisfit (Mar 29, 2017)

There have only been four or five times I was really scared when traveling, the one that comes to mind first, is being dead ass tired walking along the Portland waterfront late at night during the rose festival. I was sneaking into the fenced enclosure for the festival to sleep safely and I was about to put my gear down and knock out when I heard a depraved voice scream, "HEADS UP DOGGY D!!!" Through the late night silence. I froze in my tracks put couldn't tell where the sound came from. I guess it was a tweaked, but he screamed the same phrase a couple more times and I ran the fuck away.


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## syrinyx (Mar 29, 2017)

Drengor said:


> In Springfield IL, my ride into town let me crash on his couch for a couple days. He knows everyone. We'd go out to every bar and the servers would literally line up to say hi to him. Drinking and partying all night every night. We're on our way back to his house in the wee hours of morning, but when we get there it turns out someone is robbing his house. He took a bullet to the face, ended up losing an eye for it. Only time I've been in a gunfight. Whole lot of good my knife did then.
> 
> Dude's ok, recovering. Asshole's in jail. Dude's family gave me 50$ for saving his life.


Holy HELL. On the bright side, you've both leveled up and definitely increased your valor by a hundred-fold. Really hope that guy recovers well and gets a sick eye patch. I myself am blind in one eye with no sick eye patch to speak of. 

I really hope you find no further gunfights in your adventures!


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## syrinyx (Mar 29, 2017)

kriminalmisfit said:


> There have only been four or five times I was really scared when traveling, the one that comes to mind first, is being dead ass tired walking along the Portland waterfront late at night during the rose festival. I was sneaking into the fenced enclosure for the festival to sleep safely and I was about to put my gear down and knock out when I heard a depraved voice scream, "HEADS UP DOGGY D!!!" Through the late night silence. I froze in my tracks put couldn't tell where the sound came from. I guess it was a tweaked, but he screamed the same phrase a couple more times and I ran the fuck away.


I've run into creepy ass shit like that in Atlanta. That feeling of your whole body freezing and all five senses perking up all at once is one you never forget experiencing for the first time. Fuck a tweaker at night traveling on your own.


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## wizehop (Mar 29, 2017)

Colon Panama 2008. We just finished renting a sail boat in order to sail to Colombia, and we where on our way home to pack and get ready for the journey the next day. It was me, my buddy Mitch, and Max and American we had been travelling with at the time. We had been travelling together for a good 3 months by this point, so needless to say we spent the walk arguing about ridiculous shit, as we'd all seen just about enough of each other.

I don't think 5 full minutes had even passed since leaving the maria when all of a sudden a group of kids in their early 20's came out of some bushes just in front of me. Before I know what was happening I saw one guy pull up his shirt and the next thing I knew he had his gun cocked and in my face. They gestured for me to give them my bag, which staring down the barrel of a gun seemed like the right thing to do in the moment.
So I started taking off my bag as the group continued further back towards Mitch and Max. One of the guys came over to help me take off my bag (such a gentleman). As my bag was coming off and I was trying to process what was going on, I was thinking about how my life was in this bag. My passport, money, yadda yadda, basically everything I would need to get out of there.
Even though the gun was no longer in my face by this point I was still in shock. I'm not used to starring down barrels of guns in sketchy ass foreign cities, so I was to busy trying to understand the situation to be afraid. It was this kind of surreal experience like was this really happening. Now at this point in my Life, Colon Panama was by far the nastiest retch of a place I'd had the pleasure of visiting (Haiti took that record soon after), so the thought of being stuck here with nothing was not high on my list.

I decided to say fuck it and fight for my shit, since well, I really didn't have a choice. Which I did, the whole time expecting to get shot. Somehow in the moment getting shot was better than being stuck with nothing... At this point the action was all behind me and I couldn't see where the gun, or any gun may or may not be pointing. I just remember thinking "as long as it doesn't hit my spine I'm good".
Long story short, Max ended up giving them his bag, and was even nice enough to reach into his pocket and give them his wallet with cash and credit cards. They seemed happy with that and left without even touching Mitch who was holding a camera.
Now Max was a pretty tough talker and wanted to do all these risky endeavours the hole time, like hike the Darien gap. Yet in typical fashion the loudest mouth folded the quickest. Add in that earlier when taking out his share of the cash for the boat, the bank machine took the money off his account and didn't give him any cash. So its fair to say Max wasn't having a good day.
Me and Mitch on the other hand were stoked about the whole ordeal. We kind of live for this shit so of course we were ecstatic...Max not so much.

A couple weeks later I was reading in a paper about a couple from Quebec who where riding a bus in Honduras when some armed men came on demanding everyone's wallets. The boyfriend refused and they shot him in the face killing him instantly...So you never know.


+++

I don't know if your asking this as a way to scare yourself out of travelling, but I just need to say in all my years both here and abroad I have almost never been in any danger I didn't go looking for. The world is a much safer places than people are led to believe.


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## Rob Nothing (Mar 30, 2017)

My back started to hurt when I was working this physically demanding job last summer. it scared me pretty bad, honest.


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## Ranger (Apr 12, 2017)

I've got a story for you, I couldn't make this shit up if I wanted to... So I'm squatting outside town during my second northern winter, it's a particularly harsh one -40 or worse and constantly snowing. Come back to camp one night and my dog is missing which doesn't add up as he was very loyal. Next day I come back to camp, still no dog but my dirty pots and pans I'd set outside to keep critters away had a coil turd frozen on top of them and I smell urine around camp. By now I'm really wandering what I'm dealing with but have few options just staying warm is a struggle. So that evening I went to bed and was woken by foot steps in the middle of the night that happen to stop just outside the tent. For a moment there's silence as I realize the gravity of my situation, then I tore out of my sleeping bag as fast as I could, clicked on a head lamp and grabbed a full size axe. At first glance I thought what I saw was a Badger and this realization comes to me that my dog is dead and this critter shit on my dishes and pissed everywhere claiming my camp. Without hesitation I charged out the door axe in hand wearing nothing but boxers and boots at -40 screaming Ill fucking kill you! What turned out to be a large Wolverine was surprised enough to start up a tree maybe 20' and there we are facing off and it's obvious he does not want to stay up the tree! The only thing I could do was start beating on the tree with the back of the axe which made him climb higher. For a moment I didn't know what to do next so I did what seemed natural, he had clearly claimed my camp by marking with urine so I whipped my cock out and straight up pissed on that tree all the while staring at this pissed off Wolverine overhead and holding a large axe in one hand! Well I don't know what possessed me to do that but that mean ass wolverine went straight to the top of the tree and flipped out we're talking snarling, gnashing teeth and then a weird distressed huffing. By now the adrenaline is receding and I realize I'm freezing literally(remember I'm only wearing boxers and boots?) so I head back in the tent and curl up in my sleeping bag. It seemed like I laid there for hours until that fucker finally came down and when he did he jumped from high up and ran off never to be seen again but neither was my dog.... I guess you could say I'm meaner than a Wolverine!


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## roguetrader (Apr 12, 2017)

2 situations spring to mind.......

first one - bumped into a few old friends and ended up hiking a few miles up a trail to find a nice spot and smoke some DMT - the small girl of the group had a combined fit / overdose / extremely bad reaction after two big hits and basically went purple and almost died in front of me - all while I was intensely tripping my balls off...

second one - i gotta be a bit vague here - buddy witnessed a murder next to where we were camped at a huge week long illegal rave - although I saw nothing myself the people responsible thought I had and harassed / intimidated me for 2 days in very bizarre ways - i think they wanted to steal my van to put the body in - heard later after the party a lot of vehicles got pushed together and burnt out in that area - still not quite sure what exactly was happening but the whole experience scared the shit out of me.....


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## briancray (Apr 12, 2017)

Riding trains outta Eugene in January during a snowstorm where I nearly lost my toes due to shitty boots.

Walking through West Memphis late at night to catch a train to Springfield, MO.

And nearly getting dumped on loaded gravel in Cocoa, FL after riding FEC late at night...we fell asleep thinking it was headed to JAX...wasn't a good idea.


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## Shwillam (Apr 12, 2017)

roguetrader said:


> 2 situations spring to mind.......
> 
> first one - bumped into a few old friends and ended up hiking a few miles up a trail to find a nice spot and smoke some DMT - the small girl of the group had a combined fit / overdose / extremely bad reaction after two big hits and basically went purple and almost died in front of me - all while I was intensely tripping my balls off...
> 
> second one - i gotta be a bit vague here - buddy witnessed a murder next to where we were camped at a huge week long illegal rave - although I saw nothing myself the people responsible thought I had and harassed / intimidated me for 2 days in very bizarre ways - i think they wanted to steal my van to put the body in - heard later after the party a lot of vehicles got pushed together and burnt out in that area - still not quite sure what exactly was happening but still scared the shit out of me.....



I doubt she was actually dying if it was pure DMT. Its nearly (if not completely) impossible to fatally overdose from dimethyltryptomene (not sure if I spelled thAt right)


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## roguetrader (Apr 13, 2017)

@Sirius - what i am trying to say is that an excessive dose led to a bad reaction - she went rigid like people sometimes do during a seizure and also swallowed her tongue - this totally blocked her air way and she didn't breathe for a long, long time - turning a horrible shade of blue in the process

I've often wondered why the DMT had this particular effect on her - she was a lifelong party animal and had tried every other drug except this one.... she later said she blacked out for a few seconds after each pipe which I've never heard of with DMT... also we had just eaten a large barbecue of dumpstered food and i wonder if something in the food or drink combined with the DMT to cause the MAOI Inhibitor effect which is known to cause problems for some people


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## Shwillam (Apr 13, 2017)

Sounds like a negative reaction to the MAOI
Damn that's scary man


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## Hitchham (May 2, 2017)

I was hitchiking in Latvia and ~50 years old christian couple picked me up.they had a lot of crosses and icons in their car,i was surprised,the whole car on the inside was like a little church.but the scariest thing for me was that they had 5 fukcking giant wasps in their car!!!and they didnt even seemed to care!! Wasps are truly my biggest fear,the whole way i was panicking inside,but i kept it cool .that was like 40minutes


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## AlwaysLost (May 2, 2017)

roguetrader said:


> 2 situations spring to mind.......
> 
> first one - bumped into a few old friends and ended up hiking a few miles up a trail to find a nice spot and smoke some DMT - the small girl of the group had a combined fit / overdose / extremely bad reaction after two big hits and basically went purple and almost died in front of me - all while I was intensely tripping my balls off...
> 
> second one - i gotta be a bit vague here - buddy witnessed a murder next to where we were camped at a huge week long illegal rave - although I saw nothing myself the people responsible thought I had and harassed / intimidated me for 2 days in very bizarre ways - i think they wanted to steal my van to put the body in - heard later after the party a lot of vehicles got pushed together and burnt out in that area - still not quite sure what exactly was happening but the whole experience scared the shit out of me.....



Why would u stick around? They already murdered one person..I'd be halfway across the country by hook or by crook.


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## roguetrader (May 2, 2017)

@AlmostAlwaysLost - the description I give above is the 'hindsight' version - at the time I'd been awake for days on amphetamine / ecstasy / hallucinogenics and was having a hard time holding on to reality anyway.... so I was in no condition to drive out of there plus all the entrance roads were completely blocked as far as I could tell...also the word murder wasn't used til I saw the witness a few days later, at the time he just said he'd seen something really bad and didn't wanna hang around - how the fuck he got his car out I don't know - it was total vehicle chaos - 20,000 people - 44 soundsystems - and a real dark atmosphere : loads of violence and robberies happening - put me off that kind of party for life....


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## AlwaysLost (May 2, 2017)

roguetrader said:


> @AlmostAlwaysLost - the description I give above is the 'hindsight' version - at the time I'd been awake for days on amphetamine / ecstasy / hallucinogenics and was having a hard time holding on to reality anyway.... so I was in no condition to drive out of there plus all the entrance roads were completely blocked as far as I could tell...also the word murder wasn't used til I saw the witness a few days later, at the time he just said he'd seen something really bad and didn't wanna hang around - how the fuck he got his car out I don't know - it was total vehicle chaos - 20,000 people - 44 soundsystems - and a real dark atmosphere : loads of violence and robberies happening - put me off that kind of party for life....



Ahh I get it, that sounds like one hell of a party


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