From the TicoTimes.net daily online edition
By Mike Faulk
Nica Times Staff
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Fewer than 100 protestors organized outside the Globo radio station Tuesday morning to protest the government's closure of the pro-Manuel Zelaya outlet Monday following an executive order limiting rights of free speech around the country.
José Luis Calix, a volunteer for the resistance movement, said the decision by de facto President Roberto Micheletti to close the station was a human rights violation.
"We no longer have the right to stay informed," Calix said.
Andrés Sierra, a fellow protestor, said the de facto government is only interested in silencing dissent instead of promoting dialogue that would end the conflict.
"The resistance media have been shut down, and the media that attack us have been allowed to continue," Sierra said.
Micheletti spokesman César Cáceres insisted outside the de facto president's house Tuesday that the decision to temporarily close Globo was not political, but aimed at preventing more violence from breaking out.
Globo's broadcasts were shut down following an on-air interview with Zelaya Monday in which he called for sympathizers around the country to descend on Tegucigalpa for "one final struggle."
“Of all the protests leading up to this decree, not one of them was peaceful,” Cáceres said. “(The Resistance Front) tried to create a sense of terror among the population.”
The Honduran Congress has called on Micheletti to lift his executive order, a demand the de facto leader seems to be considering. According to Honduran daily La Tribuna, Micheletti promised to discuss the matter with the Supreme Court, the Supreme Elections Tribunal and presidential candidates in order to reach a decision on the decree.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Could Honduras media crackdown backfire?
My first contribution to The Christian Science Monitor.
Could Honduras media crackdown backfire? | csmonitor.com
I also have some photos up from some events yesterday and today's protest, right here
Could Honduras media crackdown backfire? | csmonitor.com
I also have some photos up from some events yesterday and today's protest, right here
Saturday, September 26, 2009
En Tegus
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - "El pueblo Hondureño esta despertando!" Hector, my taxi driver from the bus station, said as we splashed up and down the capital city's potholed streets. "The Honduran people are awakening!"
The resistance is strengthening. Government officials, the engineers of the coup against former president Manuel Zelaya, los golpistas, are committing atrocious acts towards the people and democracy, according to Hector. He flips the radio to Radio Globo 88.7 FM, a pro-Zelaya station, and turns the volume up. Silence. He says the government took 88.7 FM off the air "because they are the only ones who speak the truth!"
This was my welcome party to Honduras. The curfew had already set in by the time I arrived, at 6 p.m., and the only place anyone was driving at that hour was home. He dropped me off at Hotel Granada, a comfy and cheap little place not too far from the city center. I hadn't eaten dinner and didn't realize how early the curfew set in, so I was sitting in my room starving, though comforted by an e-mail from my dad informing me that the Alabama Crimson Tide beat Arkansas 35-7 this afternoon.
Finally I went downstairs to ask the clerk if there was somewhere, anywhere to get some sustenance. He said the convenience store next door was closed but taking walk-up customers. Outside of there I met a young man who's name I didn't catch, but when I said I was hungry he said the restaurant he works for was still open and I followed him to it around the corner. After talking with the guards for a second in front of a retractable fence in front of the establishment, they unlocked it and let me in. I had some gringas and a beer while I watched the bar staff put up a sheet between one half of the bar and the street. People picked up their beers and went behind it, so I decided to follow just as a cop car full of big guys with big guns rolled slowly by.
A Salvadoran man turned Honduran citizen was sitting across from me and leaned over to speak to me in very broken English. I offered to speak in Spanish but he refused. He told me Zelaya is a very corrupt man, a trafficker of narcotics even. He and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez both. Zelaya isn't interested in being returned to power to satisfy the will of the people. He just likes the power. He said the political instability here isn't as bad as the former president would like people to believe.
"I'm from El Salvador. I lived through the war there," he said, pausing, then raising a finger and smiling. "This is not a war."
It's clear to me this city is full of people with opinions who want to be heard. Buildings are spray painted with graffiti in favor of both Zelaya and his replacement, Roberto Micheletti. One TV station airs nothing but the hard government line, saying Zelaya is trying to bring foreign powers in to meddle with Honduran politics, subverting the will of the people, etc. Another channel lets people call in, half of them railing against the golpistas' violations of the constitution and the other half lobbing the same accusations at Zelaya. Both sides are adamant, and it's hard to know who's telling the truth.
It looks like I'm going to get a crack at it though, along with the countless other foreign journalists here. My editor at The Nica Times has already told me he wants me to file something from here this week, and, it's official, I'm going to be The Christian Science Monitor's man on the ground here.
I may be in Tegucigalpa a lot longer than I thought, which is fine with me, because things are happening here. Even the empty streets are buzzing with that intangible that's getting my adrenaline up. I'm meeting up with my eventual roommate and Bloomberg stringer Blake Schmidt tomorrow, and I'm hoping he can help me get caught up to speed on how things have been here. I've got a lot to digest and not much time to do it in. I've got to hit the ground running.
The resistance is strengthening. Government officials, the engineers of the coup against former president Manuel Zelaya, los golpistas, are committing atrocious acts towards the people and democracy, according to Hector. He flips the radio to Radio Globo 88.7 FM, a pro-Zelaya station, and turns the volume up. Silence. He says the government took 88.7 FM off the air "because they are the only ones who speak the truth!"
This was my welcome party to Honduras. The curfew had already set in by the time I arrived, at 6 p.m., and the only place anyone was driving at that hour was home. He dropped me off at Hotel Granada, a comfy and cheap little place not too far from the city center. I hadn't eaten dinner and didn't realize how early the curfew set in, so I was sitting in my room starving, though comforted by an e-mail from my dad informing me that the Alabama Crimson Tide beat Arkansas 35-7 this afternoon.
Finally I went downstairs to ask the clerk if there was somewhere, anywhere to get some sustenance. He said the convenience store next door was closed but taking walk-up customers. Outside of there I met a young man who's name I didn't catch, but when I said I was hungry he said the restaurant he works for was still open and I followed him to it around the corner. After talking with the guards for a second in front of a retractable fence in front of the establishment, they unlocked it and let me in. I had some gringas and a beer while I watched the bar staff put up a sheet between one half of the bar and the street. People picked up their beers and went behind it, so I decided to follow just as a cop car full of big guys with big guns rolled slowly by.
A Salvadoran man turned Honduran citizen was sitting across from me and leaned over to speak to me in very broken English. I offered to speak in Spanish but he refused. He told me Zelaya is a very corrupt man, a trafficker of narcotics even. He and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez both. Zelaya isn't interested in being returned to power to satisfy the will of the people. He just likes the power. He said the political instability here isn't as bad as the former president would like people to believe.
"I'm from El Salvador. I lived through the war there," he said, pausing, then raising a finger and smiling. "This is not a war."
It's clear to me this city is full of people with opinions who want to be heard. Buildings are spray painted with graffiti in favor of both Zelaya and his replacement, Roberto Micheletti. One TV station airs nothing but the hard government line, saying Zelaya is trying to bring foreign powers in to meddle with Honduran politics, subverting the will of the people, etc. Another channel lets people call in, half of them railing against the golpistas' violations of the constitution and the other half lobbing the same accusations at Zelaya. Both sides are adamant, and it's hard to know who's telling the truth.
It looks like I'm going to get a crack at it though, along with the countless other foreign journalists here. My editor at The Nica Times has already told me he wants me to file something from here this week, and, it's official, I'm going to be The Christian Science Monitor's man on the ground here.
I may be in Tegucigalpa a lot longer than I thought, which is fine with me, because things are happening here. Even the empty streets are buzzing with that intangible that's getting my adrenaline up. I'm meeting up with my eventual roommate and Bloomberg stringer Blake Schmidt tomorrow, and I'm hoping he can help me get caught up to speed on how things have been here. I've got a lot to digest and not much time to do it in. I've got to hit the ground running.
Heading to Honduras
SAN SALVADOR - Some quick updates folks, as I have to get on a bus to Tegucigalpa in an hour.
The borders are open now, though there's a curfew from 7 or 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. every night. It should take me about six hours to get to the capital. From there I'm not sure where I'll be staying in the city.
My future roommate in Nicaragua is there right now covering the latest happenings for Bloomberg, and I'm hoping to meet up with him tomorrow if not tonight.
I've also put out some feelers for freelance and got a very promising response from The Christian Science Monitor (many thanks to That Trotter Chick for pointing me towards the right people). So next week I'm hoping to once again be a working, and most importantly, paid journalist.
In short, things are heating up after some very lazy and mundane days wandering this city aimlessly. Time to get back to doing the things I love. More updates to come from Tegucigalpa. Take care friends.
The borders are open now, though there's a curfew from 7 or 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. every night. It should take me about six hours to get to the capital. From there I'm not sure where I'll be staying in the city.
My future roommate in Nicaragua is there right now covering the latest happenings for Bloomberg, and I'm hoping to meet up with him tomorrow if not tonight.
I've also put out some feelers for freelance and got a very promising response from The Christian Science Monitor (many thanks to That Trotter Chick for pointing me towards the right people). So next week I'm hoping to once again be a working, and most importantly, paid journalist.
In short, things are heating up after some very lazy and mundane days wandering this city aimlessly. Time to get back to doing the things I love. More updates to come from Tegucigalpa. Take care friends.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
What happens in Honduras now stays in Honduras
SAN SALVADOR - The government of Honduras has closed its borders and airports. It happened after ousted president Manuel Zelaya snuck back into the country with the help of the Brazlian government, causing the de facto government quite a headache.
In case you aren't familiar with the geography, I have to cross Honduras to get to Nicaragua from El Salvador.
So, with about one week left before I'm supposed to be in Nicaragua, what am I going to do? My editor (who helped write the TIME article I just posted about Zelaya) tells me to just wait, and that they can't keep the borders closed for very long. I don't know if that means I'll hang tight in San Salvador, which I just returned to after spending yesterday on the Pacific, or work my way south and hope something happens by the time I'm close to the border. I'm also considering finding someone with a boat to just take me around the Gulf of Fonseco, but I would have to find this hypothetical captain somewhere on the coast near the border and hope he doesn't charge me an arm and a leg.
Until then, I'll be running around San Salvador trying to learn more and maybe finally get a kick out of this big ugly city.
In case you aren't familiar with the geography, I have to cross Honduras to get to Nicaragua from El Salvador.
So, with about one week left before I'm supposed to be in Nicaragua, what am I going to do? My editor (who helped write the TIME article I just posted about Zelaya) tells me to just wait, and that they can't keep the borders closed for very long. I don't know if that means I'll hang tight in San Salvador, which I just returned to after spending yesterday on the Pacific, or work my way south and hope something happens by the time I'm close to the border. I'm also considering finding someone with a boat to just take me around the Gulf of Fonseco, but I would have to find this hypothetical captain somewhere on the coast near the border and hope he doesn't charge me an arm and a leg.
Until then, I'll be running around San Salvador trying to learn more and maybe finally get a kick out of this big ugly city.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Photo links
SAN SALVADOR - Where the motto must go something like, "If it ain't American, it ain't shit!" I'm being hard on this metropolitan city, but I've spent two nights in two different parts of town and seen at least one popular American chain restaurant for every local eatery. (And did you know that the Salvadoran currency is actually US dollars? It's true. They call it
dollarization.) I try not to judge a book by its cover, but for the time being I'm going to leave San Salvador on the shelf and head for El Salvador's Pacific Coast tomorrow. The most I've done today is get lunch with a girl from Los Angeles I met on the bus here and some language institute friends of hers. It was cool because we hadn't arranged it. I had just checked into my new hotel and as I stepped outside to look for some lunch I saw her and the group walking right up the street from me.
Such is the life of travelers.
Tomorrow I'm going to Playa Truco, which I think is an hour and a half from here. In the meantime, how about some photos? I know, it's quite exciting. It only took me I don't know how long to get them up. Here are some public links to photos from the trip I've added to Facebook. Enjoy.
dollarization.) I try not to judge a book by its cover, but for the time being I'm going to leave San Salvador on the shelf and head for El Salvador's Pacific Coast tomorrow. The most I've done today is get lunch with a girl from Los Angeles I met on the bus here and some language institute friends of hers. It was cool because we hadn't arranged it. I had just checked into my new hotel and as I stepped outside to look for some lunch I saw her and the group walking right up the street from me.
Such is the life of travelers.
Tomorrow I'm going to Playa Truco, which I think is an hour and a half from here. In the meantime, how about some photos? I know, it's quite exciting. It only took me I don't know how long to get them up. Here are some public links to photos from the trip I've added to Facebook. Enjoy.
Mobile, Ala., to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Guadalajara to the Mexico-Guatemala border
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Arturo ama lava
ANTIGUA, Guatemala - My trip to the Pacaya Volcano here started out with a story about a kidnapping in Fez, Morocco.
Chris from Berlin was traveling Morocco sometime last year with a friend when it happened to them. They had made some seemingly friendly and well-connected local friends over their few days there, and one day agreed to meet them at their house. Not long after they were inside they were told all exits had been closed off and that the two were now being held for ransom.
The two Moroccans didn't get physical, pointed no weapons at them and apparently handled the whole thing less like kidnappers and more like a restaurant manager detaining two people who couldn't pay their bill. Their biggest weapon was being Moroccan and the fear Chris and his friend had of who the police would believe if they chose to fight their way out. After a whole day of negotiating they finally gave the guys almost everything they had on them and were let go. They left Fez immediately.
The story left me pensive for the rest of the hour-long ride in a packed van of international tourists. I was in Morocco when this happened. But it's not just that, his experience is something a well-intentioned and overly trusting traveler could be forced to go through anywhere in the world. I've gone to strangers' houses before and never once felt like I was in danger, but you just can't know. When it works out it just adds that much to your experience. In fact, anytime someone can trust a stranger and it works out well, it's very reaffirming for one's world view about people in general. Maybe one just needs to keep in mind that the world isn't as mean or kind as he or she thinks it is.
Speaking of mean, I had to rudely ignore a bunch of very sad-looking children at the base of the trail to the volcano, all running up to us trying to sell walking sticks hacked from tree limbs. I said no to the first stick, and the kid holds up another one, which is exactly the same, and when I say no to that, he holds up the third one, also just like the others. He and the other 10 children did the same thing with every tourist there. Men also line up at the trail with horses, which they try to sell as "taxis," and then follow groups up the hill waiting for someone to fall or twist an ankle and request a horse. For that reason the entire trail is covered in horse shit.
Our guide was a very enthusiastic Guatemalan man named Arturo. He's native to the community where the trail started and said a lot has changed since he was a child. That's because the earth moves, spews and trickles there 24/7. The uphill (er, volcano) hike would take about an hour, half would be through forest and the other half on an empty black mountainside shrouded in gray clouds.
As soon as we were out of the woods it was like being on another planet. Black ash and rock everywhere, a sheer drop off on the right side of the walking trail and too much cloud cover all around to know how far or just where the drop would take someone. There was no sky, and somewhere in front of us you could here what sounded like large metal gears grinding slowly in the mist. We had to step over a line of jagged black rocks that interrupted the trail, Arturo said the result of a bigger unexpected eruption several years ago.
Soon we saw a red glow in the fog, a few minutes later we were standing in front of a slow moving red blob that shed steaming hot rocks left, right and forward. The clouds cleared overhead and we could see the smoking cylindrical peak of Pacaya.
I took my picture just a few feet away from the blob, having to run back after it was taken when it spat a hot glowing rock that rolled downhill towards where I was standing. We went around it after that and climbed up the side on a pile of tiny brittle volcanic rocks that sank under me and crunched as if I were walking in a bowl of cereal. At the top was a flowing river of lava, and some friends of mine in the tour group proceeded to cook marshmallows over it and gave me one. We sat there for maybe half an hour, some people made sandwiches, some people stood around throwing rocks at the lava river, and one German guy peed on it.
The clouds had gone elsewhere most of that time, but came swooping back up the mountainside just as it was time for us to walk down. The sun set quickly, I didn't have a flashlight, and it resulted in a long trip back down the mountain full of nearly disastrous falls and my feet covered in horse shit as a souvenir. At one point I was even separated from the group and wasn't sure where the front of the group was until I heard the sweet lifesaving music come from Arturo's cellphone speaker
Billie jean is not my lover
Shes just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
When it comes to nature tourism, few things are better to me, more thought provoking or awe-inspiring than volcanoes. It's the living, breathing, moving earth. A perfect visual of the natural change our planet has undergone and how it continues to push forward. I've seen a few before but this was the first time I was ever able to get close to the lava.
I also couldn't help but be a little proud that my trip up the side of this volcano started in Alabama, even if that girl from Michigan (who hasn't asked me anything else about myself but continues to offer me a laundry list of tips/orders on how to be a good traveler, since I must be inexperienced at this) thinks it's funny. Everything I have done or will do on this trip started in Alabama. Bamaragua.
Chris from Berlin was traveling Morocco sometime last year with a friend when it happened to them. They had made some seemingly friendly and well-connected local friends over their few days there, and one day agreed to meet them at their house. Not long after they were inside they were told all exits had been closed off and that the two were now being held for ransom.
The two Moroccans didn't get physical, pointed no weapons at them and apparently handled the whole thing less like kidnappers and more like a restaurant manager detaining two people who couldn't pay their bill. Their biggest weapon was being Moroccan and the fear Chris and his friend had of who the police would believe if they chose to fight their way out. After a whole day of negotiating they finally gave the guys almost everything they had on them and were let go. They left Fez immediately.
The story left me pensive for the rest of the hour-long ride in a packed van of international tourists. I was in Morocco when this happened. But it's not just that, his experience is something a well-intentioned and overly trusting traveler could be forced to go through anywhere in the world. I've gone to strangers' houses before and never once felt like I was in danger, but you just can't know. When it works out it just adds that much to your experience. In fact, anytime someone can trust a stranger and it works out well, it's very reaffirming for one's world view about people in general. Maybe one just needs to keep in mind that the world isn't as mean or kind as he or she thinks it is.
Speaking of mean, I had to rudely ignore a bunch of very sad-looking children at the base of the trail to the volcano, all running up to us trying to sell walking sticks hacked from tree limbs. I said no to the first stick, and the kid holds up another one, which is exactly the same, and when I say no to that, he holds up the third one, also just like the others. He and the other 10 children did the same thing with every tourist there. Men also line up at the trail with horses, which they try to sell as "taxis," and then follow groups up the hill waiting for someone to fall or twist an ankle and request a horse. For that reason the entire trail is covered in horse shit.
Our guide was a very enthusiastic Guatemalan man named Arturo. He's native to the community where the trail started and said a lot has changed since he was a child. That's because the earth moves, spews and trickles there 24/7. The uphill (er, volcano) hike would take about an hour, half would be through forest and the other half on an empty black mountainside shrouded in gray clouds.
As soon as we were out of the woods it was like being on another planet. Black ash and rock everywhere, a sheer drop off on the right side of the walking trail and too much cloud cover all around to know how far or just where the drop would take someone. There was no sky, and somewhere in front of us you could here what sounded like large metal gears grinding slowly in the mist. We had to step over a line of jagged black rocks that interrupted the trail, Arturo said the result of a bigger unexpected eruption several years ago.
Soon we saw a red glow in the fog, a few minutes later we were standing in front of a slow moving red blob that shed steaming hot rocks left, right and forward. The clouds cleared overhead and we could see the smoking cylindrical peak of Pacaya.
I took my picture just a few feet away from the blob, having to run back after it was taken when it spat a hot glowing rock that rolled downhill towards where I was standing. We went around it after that and climbed up the side on a pile of tiny brittle volcanic rocks that sank under me and crunched as if I were walking in a bowl of cereal. At the top was a flowing river of lava, and some friends of mine in the tour group proceeded to cook marshmallows over it and gave me one. We sat there for maybe half an hour, some people made sandwiches, some people stood around throwing rocks at the lava river, and one German guy peed on it.
The clouds had gone elsewhere most of that time, but came swooping back up the mountainside just as it was time for us to walk down. The sun set quickly, I didn't have a flashlight, and it resulted in a long trip back down the mountain full of nearly disastrous falls and my feet covered in horse shit as a souvenir. At one point I was even separated from the group and wasn't sure where the front of the group was until I heard the sweet lifesaving music come from Arturo's cellphone speaker
Billie jean is not my lover
Shes just a girl who claims that I am the one
But the kid is not my son
She says I am the one, but the kid is not my son
When it comes to nature tourism, few things are better to me, more thought provoking or awe-inspiring than volcanoes. It's the living, breathing, moving earth. A perfect visual of the natural change our planet has undergone and how it continues to push forward. I've seen a few before but this was the first time I was ever able to get close to the lava.
I also couldn't help but be a little proud that my trip up the side of this volcano started in Alabama, even if that girl from Michigan (who hasn't asked me anything else about myself but continues to offer me a laundry list of tips/orders on how to be a good traveler, since I must be inexperienced at this) thinks it's funny. Everything I have done or will do on this trip started in Alabama. Bamaragua.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Stale brains and butter
ANTIGUA, Guatemala – I’ve found comfort, friendship and more reasons to love Guatemala ever since I arrived here, which was far too long ago for me to still be hanging around Antigua. I planned on leaving today, but couldn’t decide where my route leads to next. Que sera sera.
The drawback of busing from Alabama to Nicaragua is that one can get tired of moving so much, especially when there’s so many things out the window you want to stop and see. Guatemala has far too much to offer for the time I have here, and apparently it’s all gone to this colonial town and its thriving international community. Chela, Semuc Champay, Rio Dulce, Tikal, etc. They’ll have to wait for some other adventure.
Speaking of adventure, I’ve done most of it at night here, then spent my days laying around, walking lazily to artisan markets and then coming back for more napping before hitting the streets again after dusk. For example, things got wild at Café No Se last night following a really good pianist/traveler's rendition of Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," the whole thing ending with two British guys, two Canadians, a girl from Connecticut and myself storming the fountain in central park at 3 am and getting strange looks from stray dogs. Yes, there are photos.
But with that night now gone and over and my brain seemingly going stale on this pillow, all I can do is lay here and play Michael Jackson for the maids in my dorm room right now at the Gato Negro Hostel. They said it’s musica bonita.
Some girl from Michigan who just checked into the room chuckled far too hard and for far too long after I told her I’m from Alabama. The only other time I met someone from Michigan traveling was in Costa Rica, and he wouldn’t talk to me at first because, as he later revealed in a disparaging lecture on everything that was wrong with my Fatherland, he expected me to just be some redneck. He was from a city where they have better standards than the ilk of Alabama, called Detroit, one of the most prosperous, safest and least corrupt cities in the world. Its nickname is The Equality City.
The funny thing is that everyone chuckles or looks at me with great surprise when I say I’m from Alabama, be they from Michigan or Israel or Belgium. There’s usually something they want to say, but if it’s not Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” then it’s something bad and they just bite their tongue. You can’t judge someone for his or her race, sex, disability or social class, but it’ll never go out of fashion to mock someone for where they’re from, and no one has to deal with that on a global scale more than people from the South.
The girl from Michigan just informed me, sort of like a tour guide would say to people stopping too often to take pictures, “It’s going to rain tonight, so sitting in bed while it’s dry probably isn’t a good idea.” Who the fuck are you? Now she’s barking something about what I need to know if I cross the border into another country. Thank you so much for this unsolicited advice, I almost want to show you what I’m writing so you can know the exclusive, refined and intellectual group of followers of Bamaragua will see what a pompous pile of shame you are.
I had set out today to write a colorful essay about my hike up the Pacaya Volcano the other day, but this turned into something else didn’t it? I’ll tell you about that later today, maybe after I decide where I’m going next. I’m at a cozy yet precarious part of my adventure. I need to be in Granada no later than two weeks from now, but I’ve easily covered three-fourths or more the distance between there and Mobile, where I started. I could even take a grueling overnight bus to Granada from Antigua if I wanted. Most likely tomorrow I’ll head across the border to El Salvador and hit the capital, San Salvador. Either that or head northeast to Honduras and spend a few days at the ruins in Copan.
Time to find someone in the street and get me a luncheon.
The drawback of busing from Alabama to Nicaragua is that one can get tired of moving so much, especially when there’s so many things out the window you want to stop and see. Guatemala has far too much to offer for the time I have here, and apparently it’s all gone to this colonial town and its thriving international community. Chela, Semuc Champay, Rio Dulce, Tikal, etc. They’ll have to wait for some other adventure.
Speaking of adventure, I’ve done most of it at night here, then spent my days laying around, walking lazily to artisan markets and then coming back for more napping before hitting the streets again after dusk. For example, things got wild at Café No Se last night following a really good pianist/traveler's rendition of Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," the whole thing ending with two British guys, two Canadians, a girl from Connecticut and myself storming the fountain in central park at 3 am and getting strange looks from stray dogs. Yes, there are photos.
But with that night now gone and over and my brain seemingly going stale on this pillow, all I can do is lay here and play Michael Jackson for the maids in my dorm room right now at the Gato Negro Hostel. They said it’s musica bonita.
Some girl from Michigan who just checked into the room chuckled far too hard and for far too long after I told her I’m from Alabama. The only other time I met someone from Michigan traveling was in Costa Rica, and he wouldn’t talk to me at first because, as he later revealed in a disparaging lecture on everything that was wrong with my Fatherland, he expected me to just be some redneck. He was from a city where they have better standards than the ilk of Alabama, called Detroit, one of the most prosperous, safest and least corrupt cities in the world. Its nickname is The Equality City.
The funny thing is that everyone chuckles or looks at me with great surprise when I say I’m from Alabama, be they from Michigan or Israel or Belgium. There’s usually something they want to say, but if it’s not Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” then it’s something bad and they just bite their tongue. You can’t judge someone for his or her race, sex, disability or social class, but it’ll never go out of fashion to mock someone for where they’re from, and no one has to deal with that on a global scale more than people from the South.
The girl from Michigan just informed me, sort of like a tour guide would say to people stopping too often to take pictures, “It’s going to rain tonight, so sitting in bed while it’s dry probably isn’t a good idea.” Who the fuck are you? Now she’s barking something about what I need to know if I cross the border into another country. Thank you so much for this unsolicited advice, I almost want to show you what I’m writing so you can know the exclusive, refined and intellectual group of followers of Bamaragua will see what a pompous pile of shame you are.
I had set out today to write a colorful essay about my hike up the Pacaya Volcano the other day, but this turned into something else didn’t it? I’ll tell you about that later today, maybe after I decide where I’m going next. I’m at a cozy yet precarious part of my adventure. I need to be in Granada no later than two weeks from now, but I’ve easily covered three-fourths or more the distance between there and Mobile, where I started. I could even take a grueling overnight bus to Granada from Antigua if I wanted. Most likely tomorrow I’ll head across the border to El Salvador and hit the capital, San Salvador. Either that or head northeast to Honduras and spend a few days at the ruins in Copan.
Time to find someone in the street and get me a luncheon.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Land of volcanoes
PANAJACHEL, Guatemala - Mexico ate my dust around lunchtime. I'm now sitting pretty on the balcony of Mario's Rooms overlooking a dark and empty Santander Street, hungry rain dogs howling up the block.
I stayed in San Cristobal for an extra day just because I had hardly done anything with the constant downpours (it's the rainy season, you know) and something about that town just makes a traveler enjoy being there, even in solitude. I met a poet from Chicago named Quinten Kirk outside what became my favorite cafe (the city is full of them thanks to all the coffee plantations on the outskirts), Cafe Yik; ate some pad thai served up by a Mexican-born Indian Hindi; walked up the side of a small mountain; and commissioned a van to take me to Antigua, Guatemala today.
I was picked up at 8 am and took the van with eight other random travelers who had all booked tickets to random spots across north and central Guatemela. On the way Matt from England and two Hollanders were talking about a place we would pass three hours prior to Antigua called Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_de_Atitlán), and how gorgeous and fun it is. When we got here I told the van driver to just drop me off in the middle of Panajachel, and that's what happened. I think I spent 9 hours total traveling from San Cristobal, with about an hour of that being checking in and out at the border. My hotel/hostel/hospedaje is just called Mario's Rooms, and that's really all it has, aside from this balcony, where I may or may not be picking up the wireless service of another nearby business.
A few things I can already note in difference between Mexico and Guatemala:
1. I don't feel as safe here, and most of it I think has to do with Panajachel. The more I read the more I learn this is the most touristy town on the lake, and that explains why I can't walk five blocks without 12 different people following me either trying to sell me everything you could imagine or trying to con me out of my lunch money. I really can't stand being such a huge target. I came here for a cultural experience, not for the locals to treat me like a piece of meat wrapped in money. I finally had enough during dinner when this old Mayan woman (yeah, probably the least deserving of the persistent salesmen to get pissed at) wouldn't leave my table and started wrapping her scarves around me. I slapped the table, leaned in, looked her in the eyes and said "Dejame en paz, por favor!" or, "Leave me in peace." She looked pretty dejected after that so I said "I'm sorry, good luck." I can't wait to just get out on the lake tomorrow.
2. The beer here is not as good as it is in Mexico. This is pretty simple. Gallo, one of the most popular beers, meaning Rooster in English, is god awful. Cabro, another one, meaning Goat, is tolerable.
3. Mexico was cheaper, which is surprising given its relative stability compared to the government and economy here.
4. I do like Guatemala already, even though I keep bringing up Mexico like the girl that got away.
It's very late. Even the dogs have gone to bed. Buenas noches.
I stayed in San Cristobal for an extra day just because I had hardly done anything with the constant downpours (it's the rainy season, you know) and something about that town just makes a traveler enjoy being there, even in solitude. I met a poet from Chicago named Quinten Kirk outside what became my favorite cafe (the city is full of them thanks to all the coffee plantations on the outskirts), Cafe Yik; ate some pad thai served up by a Mexican-born Indian Hindi; walked up the side of a small mountain; and commissioned a van to take me to Antigua, Guatemala today.
I was picked up at 8 am and took the van with eight other random travelers who had all booked tickets to random spots across north and central Guatemela. On the way Matt from England and two Hollanders were talking about a place we would pass three hours prior to Antigua called Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lago_de_Atitlán), and how gorgeous and fun it is. When we got here I told the van driver to just drop me off in the middle of Panajachel, and that's what happened. I think I spent 9 hours total traveling from San Cristobal, with about an hour of that being checking in and out at the border. My hotel/hostel/hospedaje is just called Mario's Rooms, and that's really all it has, aside from this balcony, where I may or may not be picking up the wireless service of another nearby business.
A few things I can already note in difference between Mexico and Guatemala:
1. I don't feel as safe here, and most of it I think has to do with Panajachel. The more I read the more I learn this is the most touristy town on the lake, and that explains why I can't walk five blocks without 12 different people following me either trying to sell me everything you could imagine or trying to con me out of my lunch money. I really can't stand being such a huge target. I came here for a cultural experience, not for the locals to treat me like a piece of meat wrapped in money. I finally had enough during dinner when this old Mayan woman (yeah, probably the least deserving of the persistent salesmen to get pissed at) wouldn't leave my table and started wrapping her scarves around me. I slapped the table, leaned in, looked her in the eyes and said "Dejame en paz, por favor!" or, "Leave me in peace." She looked pretty dejected after that so I said "I'm sorry, good luck." I can't wait to just get out on the lake tomorrow.
2. The beer here is not as good as it is in Mexico. This is pretty simple. Gallo, one of the most popular beers, meaning Rooster in English, is god awful. Cabro, another one, meaning Goat, is tolerable.
3. Mexico was cheaper, which is surprising given its relative stability compared to the government and economy here.
4. I do like Guatemala already, even though I keep bringing up Mexico like the girl that got away.
It's very late. Even the dogs have gone to bed. Buenas noches.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The next frontier
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico – That’s a mouthful, but it's got a nice history behind it. Fortunately the people here just refer to this lovely colonial town as San Cristobal (http://www.gonomad.com/destinations/0601/sancristobal.html),.
The second part of the name is noteworthy. It comes from Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican monk and bishop of the Chiapas state from the mid-to-late 1500s, who fought much of his life to preserve the rights of Mexico’s indigenous population. Learn more about him here: http://www.lascasas.org/. Still interested? The city was also one of the launching points of the Zapatista rebellion in 1994, http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/mike/mexico1994.htm.
I also came here because I heard it’s beautiful and colonial and it’s less than four hours away from the Guatemalan border. This is my last stop in Mexico. Tomorrow I’m hoping to make it as far as Antigua, Guatemala, but I’ll have to find a bus to the border, probably get across the border on foot, then find a bus terminal that will hopefully have what I’m looking for. I meant to get to the bus station today to figure this out, but it’s been raining like hell.
I thought sweat would be the theme of my trip but so far it’s been the rain. Day plans got wrecked in Mexico City and Oaxaca as well because the rain just wouldn’t stop. The metro rail actually flooded one day after I left Mexico City, http://mexicometro.org/news/. Then some Bolivian religious extremist hijacked an airplane and landed it in the Distrito Federal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8247472.stm), but I don’t think it had anything to do with it being the rainy season.
I always miss the crazy stuff it seems, except for that time a terrorist strangled me eight years ago (http://bamaragua.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-relation-to-suspected-american.html). I got an email from Andrea Elliott of The New York Times after the Press-Register reported on my incident with Omar Hammami. I actually thought the PR article was kind of weak, so I'm not going to bother posting it, but more importantly, you heard correct, I was interviewed by The New York Times. I set up a time in Oaxaca to call Ms. Elliott in a wooden phone booth at a calling center a few blocks down from the hostel I shared with my Australians. A gave the reporter's cell phone number to the woman at the front desk, who then dialed it and told me to wait in the phone booth. Once Ms. Elliott (notice my clever use of NY Times-style attribution on second reference) answered on speaker phone, the woman motioned for me to pick up the phone in my booth and it transferred. I've made a lot of international calls, and none have ever been that complicated. It was actually a fun interview, we spoke for maybe 30 minutes, and we talked everything from terrorism to Arby's roast beef sandwiches. Her article on Omar should run sometime in the next few days.
It’s incredibly cold here in San Cristobal. I don’t know what the current temperature is, but I was chilly even at lunchtime. I didn’t pack a jacket because I expected things to only get hotter after Monterrey, but it has been the opposite. The farther south I go the colder it gets. I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this that I don’t feel like looking up right now, but I won’t complain about how cold I am. I know the heat is going to find me somewheres.
The one thing I have done today is visited the barber. Even sitting down this old man had to stand on his toes to cut the hair at the very top of my enormous skull (seriously, I can’t even wear hats), but I think he did a good job. He actually cut the sides and back first, and took his time. I decided he was prepping himself for the hike to the top. The barber shop is just one door down from the Hotel Villa Real, my haunt for the last two nights. It’s not bad for $23 (U.S.) a night. I have a TV with no remote, a shower with no shower curtain and free wireless Internet that can only be picked up in the garden, where it’s raining, and I’m forced to type this in Word at a rickety old desk. It’s only a few blocks up from the travelers’ scene, where I was surprised to find small narrow streets lined with restaurant after bar after café after hotel after souvenir shop in all directions.
I had gone out last night to find a bar where I could watch Mexico play Honduras in a qualifier for the 2010 World Cup. I settled on a Cuban-themed bar named Revolucion where all the tables and chairs had been put in rows facing the big screen TV. It got packed after the first half, neither Mexico nor Honduras had scored, and it was getting tense. Sometime around the 80-minute mark Cuahtemoc Blanco scored on a penalty kick and the bar erupted. People ran in from the street to hear the news and see the replay. Mexico would win 1-0 and the crowd celebrated.
Why can’t we have this in the United States? Our team is in the lead right now in the World Cup qualifier standings for our division, which includes Mexico, ranked second. Come on people.
This is probably my last post from Mexico, and I’m sad to leave it behind. I had high expectations, but I think Mexico beat them. Despite its struggle with poverty and political strife, and it's occasionally tense cultural relationship with gringos, there are few places I’ve gone where the people have been so proud, hospitable and understanding of foreigners. I have only rarely felt alone here, making good friends in Guadalajara and in Mexico City. Ah, my sweet Australians. They sang me an Aussie drinking song at a Lucha Libre-themed bar in Oaxaca our last night together. Some Belgians we met that night also sang a drinking song of theirs to honor me, but I don’t speak Freedom. I mean French. The Australian one went something like:
“Here’s to brother Mike, brother Mike, brother Mike.
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
He’s happy, he’s jolly, he’ll skull* this by golly!
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
So skull mother(lover), skull mother(lover), skull…”
*skull = chug
I continue to be amazed at how I’d never come here before and how I don’t even have room on this blog for everything that has actually happened in the last 26 (or 27?) days.
My experiences here are just preparation for what’s to come. I’m on my way to four more countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) and now have less than a month to arrive in Granada. I’m going to rest up tonight and take off tomorrow. It’ll probably be a few days before you hear from me again. Take care.
The second part of the name is noteworthy. It comes from Bartolome de Las Casas, a Dominican monk and bishop of the Chiapas state from the mid-to-late 1500s, who fought much of his life to preserve the rights of Mexico’s indigenous population. Learn more about him here: http://www.lascasas.org/. Still interested? The city was also one of the launching points of the Zapatista rebellion in 1994, http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/mike/mexico1994.htm.
I also came here because I heard it’s beautiful and colonial and it’s less than four hours away from the Guatemalan border. This is my last stop in Mexico. Tomorrow I’m hoping to make it as far as Antigua, Guatemala, but I’ll have to find a bus to the border, probably get across the border on foot, then find a bus terminal that will hopefully have what I’m looking for. I meant to get to the bus station today to figure this out, but it’s been raining like hell.
I thought sweat would be the theme of my trip but so far it’s been the rain. Day plans got wrecked in Mexico City and Oaxaca as well because the rain just wouldn’t stop. The metro rail actually flooded one day after I left Mexico City, http://mexicometro.org/news/. Then some Bolivian religious extremist hijacked an airplane and landed it in the Distrito Federal (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8247472.stm), but I don’t think it had anything to do with it being the rainy season.
I always miss the crazy stuff it seems, except for that time a terrorist strangled me eight years ago (http://bamaragua.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-relation-to-suspected-american.html). I got an email from Andrea Elliott of The New York Times after the Press-Register reported on my incident with Omar Hammami. I actually thought the PR article was kind of weak, so I'm not going to bother posting it, but more importantly, you heard correct, I was interviewed by The New York Times. I set up a time in Oaxaca to call Ms. Elliott in a wooden phone booth at a calling center a few blocks down from the hostel I shared with my Australians. A gave the reporter's cell phone number to the woman at the front desk, who then dialed it and told me to wait in the phone booth. Once Ms. Elliott (notice my clever use of NY Times-style attribution on second reference) answered on speaker phone, the woman motioned for me to pick up the phone in my booth and it transferred. I've made a lot of international calls, and none have ever been that complicated. It was actually a fun interview, we spoke for maybe 30 minutes, and we talked everything from terrorism to Arby's roast beef sandwiches. Her article on Omar should run sometime in the next few days.
It’s incredibly cold here in San Cristobal. I don’t know what the current temperature is, but I was chilly even at lunchtime. I didn’t pack a jacket because I expected things to only get hotter after Monterrey, but it has been the opposite. The farther south I go the colder it gets. I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation for this that I don’t feel like looking up right now, but I won’t complain about how cold I am. I know the heat is going to find me somewheres.
The one thing I have done today is visited the barber. Even sitting down this old man had to stand on his toes to cut the hair at the very top of my enormous skull (seriously, I can’t even wear hats), but I think he did a good job. He actually cut the sides and back first, and took his time. I decided he was prepping himself for the hike to the top. The barber shop is just one door down from the Hotel Villa Real, my haunt for the last two nights. It’s not bad for $23 (U.S.) a night. I have a TV with no remote, a shower with no shower curtain and free wireless Internet that can only be picked up in the garden, where it’s raining, and I’m forced to type this in Word at a rickety old desk. It’s only a few blocks up from the travelers’ scene, where I was surprised to find small narrow streets lined with restaurant after bar after café after hotel after souvenir shop in all directions.
I had gone out last night to find a bar where I could watch Mexico play Honduras in a qualifier for the 2010 World Cup. I settled on a Cuban-themed bar named Revolucion where all the tables and chairs had been put in rows facing the big screen TV. It got packed after the first half, neither Mexico nor Honduras had scored, and it was getting tense. Sometime around the 80-minute mark Cuahtemoc Blanco scored on a penalty kick and the bar erupted. People ran in from the street to hear the news and see the replay. Mexico would win 1-0 and the crowd celebrated.
Why can’t we have this in the United States? Our team is in the lead right now in the World Cup qualifier standings for our division, which includes Mexico, ranked second. Come on people.
This is probably my last post from Mexico, and I’m sad to leave it behind. I had high expectations, but I think Mexico beat them. Despite its struggle with poverty and political strife, and it's occasionally tense cultural relationship with gringos, there are few places I’ve gone where the people have been so proud, hospitable and understanding of foreigners. I have only rarely felt alone here, making good friends in Guadalajara and in Mexico City. Ah, my sweet Australians. They sang me an Aussie drinking song at a Lucha Libre-themed bar in Oaxaca our last night together. Some Belgians we met that night also sang a drinking song of theirs to honor me, but I don’t speak Freedom. I mean French. The Australian one went something like:
“Here’s to brother Mike, brother Mike, brother Mike.
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
He’s happy, he’s jolly, he’ll skull* this by golly!
Here’s to brother Mike, who’s with us tonight.
So skull mother(lover), skull mother(lover), skull…”
*skull = chug
I continue to be amazed at how I’d never come here before and how I don’t even have room on this blog for everything that has actually happened in the last 26 (or 27?) days.
My experiences here are just preparation for what’s to come. I’m on my way to four more countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua) and now have less than a month to arrive in Granada. I’m going to rest up tonight and take off tomorrow. It’ll probably be a few days before you hear from me again. Take care.
Pierre Sendero: Thoughts in a transit
There are few freeways in Mexico that mirror our Eisenhower Interstate System (under God), but the few they do have are a pleasure to ride.
The few. The 12-hour overnight bus ride to San Cristobal de Las Casas from Oaxaca, on the other hand, is full of speed bumps, cattle and military checkpoints. I can’t even sleep on airplanes, much less buses tearing ass up some of the worst roads in the Western Hemisphere. The sudden stops, the crying children, the asshole who fell asleep and spilled his drink under the seat all over my duffle bag. I was alone. I’m still alone. I’ve been alone for several days, just busing here and there, getting a room by myself and then finding a plazuela in town and a café with a good balcony. I like it because I’ve grown tired of people. People are my job, so knowing them inevitably starts to feel like work.
I get sick of strangers sometimes, even if they’re probably good people, even if they’re attractive women, and especially if they spill water over my only god damn change of clothes! Sometimes it’s always the same conversation: Where you from? Where you going? You a student? Oh, social chameleon? That’s your job? What’s your name? You went to Mazatlan? Did you surf? You didn’t surf?! Maaan…What’s your name again?
Pierre. And yeah, I went to Mazatlan. I had to fight off a god damn boogie board gang by myself while Faulk and the actress Roby Packer were sick and huddled around a toilet for the week living off Saltines and Gatorade. It was at Olas Altas Beach, right in front of Hotel La Siesta, where Jack Kerouac spent happier days stoned off his ass and not once had to deal with mongrels like those guys. The waves are high and strong in this beach alcove, as the name suggests, but they don’t last long and so boogie boarding is the preferred method of attack.
Attack. By that I meant the waves, but it’s the same instrument they used against me. I had fought my way through enough pounding waves to get into the deeper, calmer water where they build up and my enemies in wet suits lay waiting. I was getting looks, but I assumed it was because I was the only gringo out there and I was just body surfing without a board. Those guys were far off, as I had planned, but it seemed they were closer every time I went under water and came back up for air.
Soon these young Mexicans had surrounded me, they refused to say anything to me, but lined up right in front of my waves. I returned the stink-eye and swam farther down shore, but as I looked back I realized they were following parallel to me, like lions stalking prey through the grass. A wave was about to break right in front of me and I had the perfect chance to catch it. I turned towards shore, felt the undertow start to drag me under, and swam up to the crest of the wave just as it tumbled over. For a few seconds everything in front of me I saw through tunnel vision made of white foam, then it overtook me and I was flipping in circles under water trying to find a place to put my feet.
When I stood up another wave knocked me back over. I got up again, and a third wave was coming, only this time the boys in wetsuits had caught it and had me in their sights. One came from the left, the other from the right, boards pointed down, three feet in the air above me, a wall of white foam starting to mount. I had heard about surfer gangs in Hawaii and Costa Rica, even Australia, but I didn’t think boogie boards gave people that same tribal burst of testosterone. The waves had me disoriented but I had to think quick. At the last second I decided to run towards them and then dove under the wave. I heard a loud smack before the roar of the ocean filled my ears and knocked me side to side. I waved my arms but wasn’t going anywhere. I was being pulled out to sea. So ended the life of Pierre Sendero.
So I thought. The current finally let go and I swam up for air, my eyes and nostrils burning with salt water. I had gone a good 20 yards down the beach from the gang. They were searching for the two bastards who tried to take my head off. It seems they collided after I took a dive and the boards were in pieces rolling up towards shore. That was the last time I looked back. I ran up to shore, grabbed my towel and sprinted for the hotel. The clerk was shouting something in Spanish as I slid across the lobby leaving a wet, sandy mess for him. And screw him too. The air conditioner had been broken for days and if he wasn’t going to fix that I figured I should leave him something to do.
But this story started on a bus, on a shitty road, a thousand miles away from Mazatlan. It was 2 a.m. We were seven hours into the ride with five more to go. I had slept 30 minutes when the bus driver pulled over at a late night comedor and said it was his dinner break. I went into the restaurant, surveyed the crusty old empanadas, the salsa bowls with flies hovering over them, and the despondent look on the server’s face as he wiped his nose with an open palm, and decided to just buy a bottle of water. I went for a walk around the bus and leaned up against the back of it and pulled out a cigarette. It was cold out. I shared the spot with a Mexican in his mid-20s named Francisco. I asked for a light and he offered me his cigarette, then I smelled something bitter.
“Te gusta la mota?” he said smiling. “You like weed?”
“No, gracias. Eh, tengo gripe,” I said. “No thanks, I have a cold.”
“Mentira…” he said, handing me his lighter. “Liar.”
Francisco, a teacher from Oaxaca on vacation going to see his family in Tuxtla Gutierrez, sat across the aisle from me, but didn’t rub me as the type you’d find smoking weed behind a bus at 2 a.m. The bus driver started up the engine and Francisco came running up the steps, stumbling down the aisle, shrinking into his seat, reeking of pot.
We slept for another half hour until more speed bumps jolted me out of my trance. Then we stopped. The lights came on. An army officer carrying an assault rifle boarded and was having a heated conversation with the bus driver. Francisco had also woken up and was terrified out of his mind. The window seat next to him was empty and he crawled over trying to find a way to open it and dump his stash. No luck. He started tapping his foot, his face was flushed. Just a matter of time before they brought the dogs on. The officer began walking up the aisle and Francisco looked like he was going to cry. Drug wars are a volatile and unpredictable force. Rarely do they separate good from evil. A drug war separates people who use drugs and sell them from people who don’t, with the belief that you have to crack a few eggs for the greater good. Francisco is a school teacher, he educates the youth, leads an honest life, but at that moment he was starting to feel like an egg in the government’s omelette. Whatever lofty goals drug wars seek are unattainable. Things will go back to the way they used to be, just give it time.
The officer stopped, for some reason I’ll never know, just a few rows away from Francisco, then turned around and got off the bus. Francisco was still breathing the fresh sweet air of freedom very deeply, and glad to have his yolk in one piece. I waited for the lights to go out, the checkpoint to be cleared and then reached across the aisle and slapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.
I spent the next few hours staring out at the dark countryside, the silhouette of a nearby hill occasionally coming to me like some ghostly apparition. I thought about home. I thought about a woman. I thought myself to sleep at some point and I awoke on a half empty bus in what I could only assume was the Tuxtla bus stop. Francisco was gone, his scent fleeting. In an hour I would reach my last stop in Mexico, San Cristobal, where I would get some much deserved isolation and rest before boarding another bus on this endless journey.
I don’t even know why I’m here. I haven’t learned anything I didn’t already know, unless you count the boogie boarders, and how ridiculous is that? I don’t expect you even to believe it. But I like Faulk, he asked me to go, and I owed him one. He’s here somewhere in town, but I’ve been ignoring his e-mails. We’ll get back to work adventuring tomorrow. I needed a vacation.
The few. The 12-hour overnight bus ride to San Cristobal de Las Casas from Oaxaca, on the other hand, is full of speed bumps, cattle and military checkpoints. I can’t even sleep on airplanes, much less buses tearing ass up some of the worst roads in the Western Hemisphere. The sudden stops, the crying children, the asshole who fell asleep and spilled his drink under the seat all over my duffle bag. I was alone. I’m still alone. I’ve been alone for several days, just busing here and there, getting a room by myself and then finding a plazuela in town and a café with a good balcony. I like it because I’ve grown tired of people. People are my job, so knowing them inevitably starts to feel like work.
I get sick of strangers sometimes, even if they’re probably good people, even if they’re attractive women, and especially if they spill water over my only god damn change of clothes! Sometimes it’s always the same conversation: Where you from? Where you going? You a student? Oh, social chameleon? That’s your job? What’s your name? You went to Mazatlan? Did you surf? You didn’t surf?! Maaan…What’s your name again?
Pierre. And yeah, I went to Mazatlan. I had to fight off a god damn boogie board gang by myself while Faulk and the actress Roby Packer were sick and huddled around a toilet for the week living off Saltines and Gatorade. It was at Olas Altas Beach, right in front of Hotel La Siesta, where Jack Kerouac spent happier days stoned off his ass and not once had to deal with mongrels like those guys. The waves are high and strong in this beach alcove, as the name suggests, but they don’t last long and so boogie boarding is the preferred method of attack.
Attack. By that I meant the waves, but it’s the same instrument they used against me. I had fought my way through enough pounding waves to get into the deeper, calmer water where they build up and my enemies in wet suits lay waiting. I was getting looks, but I assumed it was because I was the only gringo out there and I was just body surfing without a board. Those guys were far off, as I had planned, but it seemed they were closer every time I went under water and came back up for air.
Soon these young Mexicans had surrounded me, they refused to say anything to me, but lined up right in front of my waves. I returned the stink-eye and swam farther down shore, but as I looked back I realized they were following parallel to me, like lions stalking prey through the grass. A wave was about to break right in front of me and I had the perfect chance to catch it. I turned towards shore, felt the undertow start to drag me under, and swam up to the crest of the wave just as it tumbled over. For a few seconds everything in front of me I saw through tunnel vision made of white foam, then it overtook me and I was flipping in circles under water trying to find a place to put my feet.
When I stood up another wave knocked me back over. I got up again, and a third wave was coming, only this time the boys in wetsuits had caught it and had me in their sights. One came from the left, the other from the right, boards pointed down, three feet in the air above me, a wall of white foam starting to mount. I had heard about surfer gangs in Hawaii and Costa Rica, even Australia, but I didn’t think boogie boards gave people that same tribal burst of testosterone. The waves had me disoriented but I had to think quick. At the last second I decided to run towards them and then dove under the wave. I heard a loud smack before the roar of the ocean filled my ears and knocked me side to side. I waved my arms but wasn’t going anywhere. I was being pulled out to sea. So ended the life of Pierre Sendero.
So I thought. The current finally let go and I swam up for air, my eyes and nostrils burning with salt water. I had gone a good 20 yards down the beach from the gang. They were searching for the two bastards who tried to take my head off. It seems they collided after I took a dive and the boards were in pieces rolling up towards shore. That was the last time I looked back. I ran up to shore, grabbed my towel and sprinted for the hotel. The clerk was shouting something in Spanish as I slid across the lobby leaving a wet, sandy mess for him. And screw him too. The air conditioner had been broken for days and if he wasn’t going to fix that I figured I should leave him something to do.
But this story started on a bus, on a shitty road, a thousand miles away from Mazatlan. It was 2 a.m. We were seven hours into the ride with five more to go. I had slept 30 minutes when the bus driver pulled over at a late night comedor and said it was his dinner break. I went into the restaurant, surveyed the crusty old empanadas, the salsa bowls with flies hovering over them, and the despondent look on the server’s face as he wiped his nose with an open palm, and decided to just buy a bottle of water. I went for a walk around the bus and leaned up against the back of it and pulled out a cigarette. It was cold out. I shared the spot with a Mexican in his mid-20s named Francisco. I asked for a light and he offered me his cigarette, then I smelled something bitter.
“Te gusta la mota?” he said smiling. “You like weed?”
“No, gracias. Eh, tengo gripe,” I said. “No thanks, I have a cold.”
“Mentira…” he said, handing me his lighter. “Liar.”
Francisco, a teacher from Oaxaca on vacation going to see his family in Tuxtla Gutierrez, sat across the aisle from me, but didn’t rub me as the type you’d find smoking weed behind a bus at 2 a.m. The bus driver started up the engine and Francisco came running up the steps, stumbling down the aisle, shrinking into his seat, reeking of pot.
We slept for another half hour until more speed bumps jolted me out of my trance. Then we stopped. The lights came on. An army officer carrying an assault rifle boarded and was having a heated conversation with the bus driver. Francisco had also woken up and was terrified out of his mind. The window seat next to him was empty and he crawled over trying to find a way to open it and dump his stash. No luck. He started tapping his foot, his face was flushed. Just a matter of time before they brought the dogs on. The officer began walking up the aisle and Francisco looked like he was going to cry. Drug wars are a volatile and unpredictable force. Rarely do they separate good from evil. A drug war separates people who use drugs and sell them from people who don’t, with the belief that you have to crack a few eggs for the greater good. Francisco is a school teacher, he educates the youth, leads an honest life, but at that moment he was starting to feel like an egg in the government’s omelette. Whatever lofty goals drug wars seek are unattainable. Things will go back to the way they used to be, just give it time.
The officer stopped, for some reason I’ll never know, just a few rows away from Francisco, then turned around and got off the bus. Francisco was still breathing the fresh sweet air of freedom very deeply, and glad to have his yolk in one piece. I waited for the lights to go out, the checkpoint to be cleared and then reached across the aisle and slapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.
I spent the next few hours staring out at the dark countryside, the silhouette of a nearby hill occasionally coming to me like some ghostly apparition. I thought about home. I thought about a woman. I thought myself to sleep at some point and I awoke on a half empty bus in what I could only assume was the Tuxtla bus stop. Francisco was gone, his scent fleeting. In an hour I would reach my last stop in Mexico, San Cristobal, where I would get some much deserved isolation and rest before boarding another bus on this endless journey.
I don’t even know why I’m here. I haven’t learned anything I didn’t already know, unless you count the boogie boarders, and how ridiculous is that? I don’t expect you even to believe it. But I like Faulk, he asked me to go, and I owed him one. He’s here somewhere in town, but I’ve been ignoring his e-mails. We’ll get back to work adventuring tomorrow. I needed a vacation.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Hostels, hostiles, and pyramids
MEXICO CITY – This city is too big to know in four days, especially when I’m growing tired of sightseeing.
Yes, those are beautiful old buildings. Yes, the city has a great history. Yes, I would like to stay here longer. No, I can’t.
The pride of my time here was getting to visit Teotihuacan (http://archaeology.asu.edu/teo/), the ancient city of pyramids and temples that was built hundreds of years before even the Aztecs came to dominate the highland basin. The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world and climbing the steep 248 steps to the top made my lungs well aware of it. The view was spectacular from up top, with little monarch butterflies fluttering around seeming to comfort visitors by promising they never have to climb those steps again.
I went halfway up the slightly smaller Pyramid of the Moon, as far as visitors can go, and met an older German woman while I sat on the steps looking out over the Avenue of the Dead. She asked me where I am from, and when I said Alabama, this was her response:
Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me
I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.
So there I was, sitting on the Pyramid of the Moon, getting serenaded to “Oh Susanna” by some German woman. She said she has friends in Montgomery. Bamaragua, friends. Bamaragua.
I made my excursion with four Australians I met at Mexico City Hostel (http://www.mexicocityhostel.com/), a five-story hostel in a fantastic colonial building near the Zocalo, the city’s main plaza. It can hold 100 travelers and the mood there went anywhere from international university co-ed dormitory to an all-out madhouse. My Australian friends were all normal (by my slightly more eccentric definition) and I also made friends with a banker from Vermont, a businessman from London and a jazz singer from Amsterdam.
Then there was the Slovenian kick boxer who slept in my room. He had no cartilage left in his nose so he could push it in flat on his face. His knees and elbows were banged up and red I think not from his past battles but the current ones he was looking for on the street and at our hostel. He was upfront in drunk, broken English saying he was looking forward to the next time he could fight someone. He accused a Japanese guy of stealing his wallet but it was found stuck in the couch in the lobby before anyone got hurt.
As for the Japanese guy, the first time I saw him he was napping on one of the bunk beds in my room in the afternoon. He slept on the top bunk near the doors that led to a small terrace outside and I passed him to step out and check out the view of the city. I opened the door and I as I was closing it turned around to see my dorm mate laying there with eyes wide open, wider than you can open yours, staring fiercely right at me. Underneath his chin a yellow teddy bear he was clutching tightly beneath the covers was peeking out at me. He didn’t say anything.
“What. The. Fuck,” I thought to myself before closing the door.
An older man from New Zealand was also staying in our hostel. I don’t know how long he had been there, but I never once saw him leave. He would either be in the lobby reading or upstairs watching movies with a group of younger travelers. I only spoke to him briefly, but he told my Australians he was just traveling the world to have time to think to himself. Getting out and actually seeing and doing things, he said, is just an afterthought.
I couldn’t get one good shot of the Zocalo because there was some large event recently where they are only now dismantling the huge tents that take up the plaza. My shots are mediocre, and I forgot to bring my camera with me much of the time I was walking around the historic center. At least I have some good shots of Teotihuacan. I also have great shots of my Australians. (That, yes, I will one day get to put up.)
Speaking of which, my Australians are some of the finest cunts I’ve ever traveled with. Did you just gasp? I learned by hanging out with them that in Australia cunt really is a term of endearment, interchangeable with the word friend. Someone tried to tell me this before, but I thought they were joking. It may have changed my life, or just promised me a whole lot of trouble for when I get back to the States.
My next post will come seven hours south of here, in the city of Oaxaca, my Australians in tow.
Yes, those are beautiful old buildings. Yes, the city has a great history. Yes, I would like to stay here longer. No, I can’t.
The pride of my time here was getting to visit Teotihuacan (http://archaeology.asu.edu/teo/), the ancient city of pyramids and temples that was built hundreds of years before even the Aztecs came to dominate the highland basin. The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world and climbing the steep 248 steps to the top made my lungs well aware of it. The view was spectacular from up top, with little monarch butterflies fluttering around seeming to comfort visitors by promising they never have to climb those steps again.
I went halfway up the slightly smaller Pyramid of the Moon, as far as visitors can go, and met an older German woman while I sat on the steps looking out over the Avenue of the Dead. She asked me where I am from, and when I said Alabama, this was her response:
Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me
I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.
So there I was, sitting on the Pyramid of the Moon, getting serenaded to “Oh Susanna” by some German woman. She said she has friends in Montgomery. Bamaragua, friends. Bamaragua.
I made my excursion with four Australians I met at Mexico City Hostel (http://www.mexicocityhostel.com/), a five-story hostel in a fantastic colonial building near the Zocalo, the city’s main plaza. It can hold 100 travelers and the mood there went anywhere from international university co-ed dormitory to an all-out madhouse. My Australian friends were all normal (by my slightly more eccentric definition) and I also made friends with a banker from Vermont, a businessman from London and a jazz singer from Amsterdam.
Then there was the Slovenian kick boxer who slept in my room. He had no cartilage left in his nose so he could push it in flat on his face. His knees and elbows were banged up and red I think not from his past battles but the current ones he was looking for on the street and at our hostel. He was upfront in drunk, broken English saying he was looking forward to the next time he could fight someone. He accused a Japanese guy of stealing his wallet but it was found stuck in the couch in the lobby before anyone got hurt.
As for the Japanese guy, the first time I saw him he was napping on one of the bunk beds in my room in the afternoon. He slept on the top bunk near the doors that led to a small terrace outside and I passed him to step out and check out the view of the city. I opened the door and I as I was closing it turned around to see my dorm mate laying there with eyes wide open, wider than you can open yours, staring fiercely right at me. Underneath his chin a yellow teddy bear he was clutching tightly beneath the covers was peeking out at me. He didn’t say anything.
“What. The. Fuck,” I thought to myself before closing the door.
An older man from New Zealand was also staying in our hostel. I don’t know how long he had been there, but I never once saw him leave. He would either be in the lobby reading or upstairs watching movies with a group of younger travelers. I only spoke to him briefly, but he told my Australians he was just traveling the world to have time to think to himself. Getting out and actually seeing and doing things, he said, is just an afterthought.
I couldn’t get one good shot of the Zocalo because there was some large event recently where they are only now dismantling the huge tents that take up the plaza. My shots are mediocre, and I forgot to bring my camera with me much of the time I was walking around the historic center. At least I have some good shots of Teotihuacan. I also have great shots of my Australians. (That, yes, I will one day get to put up.)
Speaking of which, my Australians are some of the finest cunts I’ve ever traveled with. Did you just gasp? I learned by hanging out with them that in Australia cunt really is a term of endearment, interchangeable with the word friend. Someone tried to tell me this before, but I thought they were joking. It may have changed my life, or just promised me a whole lot of trouble for when I get back to the States.
My next post will come seven hours south of here, in the city of Oaxaca, my Australians in tow.
Friday, September 4, 2009
My relation to suspected American terrorist Abu Mansour al-Amriki
A Bamaragua exclusive.
MEXICO CITY - Today's entry is not about travel. It's about a 10-second strangle hold that suspected American terrorist Abu Mansour al-Amriki, formerly Omar Hammami, once put on me when we were students at Daphne High School in 2001.
It's not a big deal, but today in retrospect I think it's more interesting and more telling of what was to come than some of the articles that have been posted on al.com, not to mention the fact that current Daphne High School principal Don Blanchard told FOX News that Omar never got into trouble in high school (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,546510,00.html).
It happened I think right before or right after we were supposed to serve as delegates in the Baldwin County Model U.N. of spring 2001. He would always talk about Islam in class in a way that walked a thin line, sometimes even standing up for Osama bin Laden. He was very vocal but could hardly stand it when anyone disagreed with him, often shouting at other people in the class and having to be shouted back down by our teacher to let other people speak.
I was a freshman at the time, and he was a senior. I was also a practicing Buddhist, if you can believe it, and so we had our occasional disagreements over the role religion should play in people's lives. However, our disagreements were never personal, and we actually got along alright. But we weren't actually arguing about anything the day he attacked me.
I was sitting in the back of the room talking with a good friend of mine, the only other freshman in the class, not paying attention to a discussion between Omar and our teacher at the front of the class. Then he started saying something I couldn't understand, but I legitimately wanted to know what it was they were talking about. My way of getting to that was immature, but I didn't realize that a. He was speaking Arabic and b. He was quoting the Koran.
"What's that? Labelelala?" I asked looking across the room at him with a smile.
His calm face turned sour and before I had even noticed it he was on his feet and running around desks toward me. I stayed in my seat just staring at him having no idea what he was about to do. Then he put his hands around my throat, clamped down as tight as he could so that no air was coming in or out and just stared me right in the eyes. I didn't put my hands up. Even though I was a freshman, Omar was actually half my size. I just stared right back at him while everyone else in the class was shouting at him to stop.
He let go after maybe 10 seconds and stormed out of the classroom. The teacher went and found him and the principal was brought in. Omar was suspended for three days and then came right back to class. I remember when he came back to school he came up to me, or was maybe told to come up to me, and apologized. We had this conversation in front of the teacher, and at the end of it as we started to walk away, he turned to me and pretended to come at me again with his arms half-way out. He did it with the same smile on his face that now people across the world are seeing in Abu Mansour al-Amriki's propaganda videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87CEciLBRqM&feature=related). I responded with a very awkward laugh, and that was the last we ever said of it.
We avoided any real conversation with each other the rest of the semester, then he graduated and the next fall went on to become president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of South Alabama, just weeks before 9/11. It was that event and his role in the Muslim student community that first got his name on the front page of the Press-Register, and much of what he said at the time being sympathetic towards the victims is now being referenced in almost every article you see.
At the time, I was never sure if my feelings about Omar, or al-Amriki, had more to do with Islam, which I was fairly ignorant of, or if it really was that Omar was in the process of developing a very dangerous personal philosophy based on his own interpretation of the religion. It appears now, as the U.S. government is looking for Omar somewhere in Somalia, that maybe his case really is the latter. I never could have imagined he would take it as far as he allegedly has, but that looks to be exactly what has happened.
MEXICO CITY - Today's entry is not about travel. It's about a 10-second strangle hold that suspected American terrorist Abu Mansour al-Amriki, formerly Omar Hammami, once put on me when we were students at Daphne High School in 2001.
It's not a big deal, but today in retrospect I think it's more interesting and more telling of what was to come than some of the articles that have been posted on al.com, not to mention the fact that current Daphne High School principal Don Blanchard told FOX News that Omar never got into trouble in high school (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,546510,00.html).
It happened I think right before or right after we were supposed to serve as delegates in the Baldwin County Model U.N. of spring 2001. He would always talk about Islam in class in a way that walked a thin line, sometimes even standing up for Osama bin Laden. He was very vocal but could hardly stand it when anyone disagreed with him, often shouting at other people in the class and having to be shouted back down by our teacher to let other people speak.
I was a freshman at the time, and he was a senior. I was also a practicing Buddhist, if you can believe it, and so we had our occasional disagreements over the role religion should play in people's lives. However, our disagreements were never personal, and we actually got along alright. But we weren't actually arguing about anything the day he attacked me.
I was sitting in the back of the room talking with a good friend of mine, the only other freshman in the class, not paying attention to a discussion between Omar and our teacher at the front of the class. Then he started saying something I couldn't understand, but I legitimately wanted to know what it was they were talking about. My way of getting to that was immature, but I didn't realize that a. He was speaking Arabic and b. He was quoting the Koran.
"What's that? Labelelala?" I asked looking across the room at him with a smile.
His calm face turned sour and before I had even noticed it he was on his feet and running around desks toward me. I stayed in my seat just staring at him having no idea what he was about to do. Then he put his hands around my throat, clamped down as tight as he could so that no air was coming in or out and just stared me right in the eyes. I didn't put my hands up. Even though I was a freshman, Omar was actually half my size. I just stared right back at him while everyone else in the class was shouting at him to stop.
He let go after maybe 10 seconds and stormed out of the classroom. The teacher went and found him and the principal was brought in. Omar was suspended for three days and then came right back to class. I remember when he came back to school he came up to me, or was maybe told to come up to me, and apologized. We had this conversation in front of the teacher, and at the end of it as we started to walk away, he turned to me and pretended to come at me again with his arms half-way out. He did it with the same smile on his face that now people across the world are seeing in Abu Mansour al-Amriki's propaganda videos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87CEciLBRqM&feature=related). I responded with a very awkward laugh, and that was the last we ever said of it.
We avoided any real conversation with each other the rest of the semester, then he graduated and the next fall went on to become president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of South Alabama, just weeks before 9/11. It was that event and his role in the Muslim student community that first got his name on the front page of the Press-Register, and much of what he said at the time being sympathetic towards the victims is now being referenced in almost every article you see.
At the time, I was never sure if my feelings about Omar, or al-Amriki, had more to do with Islam, which I was fairly ignorant of, or if it really was that Omar was in the process of developing a very dangerous personal philosophy based on his own interpretation of the religion. It appears now, as the U.S. government is looking for Omar somewhere in Somalia, that maybe his case really is the latter. I never could have imagined he would take it as far as he allegedly has, but that looks to be exactly what has happened.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Guadalajara y unas cosas
GUADALAJARA, Mexico - Hola a todos. One of my favorite things about this blog is getting to be drunk on the job. Did I say that? Sorry mom. It's past midnight here and I've just returned to Hostel Guadalajara (an excellent, excellent hostel) from a brief night on the town with my new hostel friends Patricia, from California, and Gerome, from France. I'm supposed to board a bus to Mexico City tomorrow, but I'm considering staying here one more night.
That's because I underestimated Guadalajara. I don't know how, but I was so busy enjoying the last few cities I went to in Mexico that I didn't have time to consider that this historic city of 4 million inhabitants might also have more than I can see in just two days. The problem is now that it's September I have about one month to get to Nicaragua and time is of the essence. I'm roughly halfway through Mexico and I need to budget my time perfectly to get to Granada a tiempo and experience everything I want to see along the way. The other problem is that I have fallen in love with this country and don't want to leave.
How is it that I've traveled to four continents but never once stepped foot in Mexico? That's not entirely true since a year and a half ago I went to the island of Cozumel with my mom, but the mainland is a whole different animal. I feel almost as safe here as I do in the United States. Haven't caught swine flu, haven't met anyone who has swine flu and don't even get me started on the drug war. There is a war going on in this country, no doubt, but aside from the occasional military checkpoint on the highways I haven't seen it. I'm not nearly as vigilant of my luggage in buses as I was in places like Morocco, Peru or Costa Rica. Part of it may be that I haven't been robbed in any of these trips and I'm feeling a little bold, but another part of me really just trusts the people here on the whole. It's incredible to think how many people (who I appreciate for caring) thought I was putting myself in danger by coming here.
The other international travelers I've met here in Guadalajara are of the same opinion. Some have been here for months and are trying to think of ways to stay longer. Every day it becomes more clear to them and to me that this country is just as diverse as the United States, geographically and politically.
I'm now reminded of a certain young man, who we will refer to as Sr. Cabron, I met two years ago through a mutual friend in Tuscaloosa. He swore to a table full of people that if you own a goat here you're considered a regular Mexican Paris Hilton. I told him he was wrong, but I hope he gets to come here one day and see for himself there are no signs hanging outside the banks advertising the current goat/dollar exchange rate.
That's the problem with how we gringos interpret life in Mexico. We live so close, yet in our minds Mexico is worlds away. Americans can say whatever they want about this country and there's not very many around who know better to stand up for the people here. I see it all the time. I hear it from people who genuinely surprise me with their views. One friend recently told me that Spaniards are "classy Mexicans," and I regaled her with the story of a "classy Mexican" who stripped down to his camo underwear in Madrid and chased after some female friends of mine until I went after him. If people thought I took what they said poorly then, just wait till I get back to the States.
But what was I talking about? Guadalajara. Si. I want to stay but I don't think I have a choice. Checkout here is at 10 am, nine hours away, and I don't think I'll be going to sleep anytime soon. I'm not doing anything else tonight, aside from sitting at this table in the lobby with some Mexicans enjoying a late night quesadilla dinner, but being alone and sleeping on a hard bed in a dorm room makes the lonely traveler think all he can think no matter how tired or happy he is. Then his empty mind just sits there on the pillow, and at some point lets go and falls into sleep. The nights are cool here, which makes the process easier. Buenas noches.
That's because I underestimated Guadalajara. I don't know how, but I was so busy enjoying the last few cities I went to in Mexico that I didn't have time to consider that this historic city of 4 million inhabitants might also have more than I can see in just two days. The problem is now that it's September I have about one month to get to Nicaragua and time is of the essence. I'm roughly halfway through Mexico and I need to budget my time perfectly to get to Granada a tiempo and experience everything I want to see along the way. The other problem is that I have fallen in love with this country and don't want to leave.
How is it that I've traveled to four continents but never once stepped foot in Mexico? That's not entirely true since a year and a half ago I went to the island of Cozumel with my mom, but the mainland is a whole different animal. I feel almost as safe here as I do in the United States. Haven't caught swine flu, haven't met anyone who has swine flu and don't even get me started on the drug war. There is a war going on in this country, no doubt, but aside from the occasional military checkpoint on the highways I haven't seen it. I'm not nearly as vigilant of my luggage in buses as I was in places like Morocco, Peru or Costa Rica. Part of it may be that I haven't been robbed in any of these trips and I'm feeling a little bold, but another part of me really just trusts the people here on the whole. It's incredible to think how many people (who I appreciate for caring) thought I was putting myself in danger by coming here.
The other international travelers I've met here in Guadalajara are of the same opinion. Some have been here for months and are trying to think of ways to stay longer. Every day it becomes more clear to them and to me that this country is just as diverse as the United States, geographically and politically.
I'm now reminded of a certain young man, who we will refer to as Sr. Cabron, I met two years ago through a mutual friend in Tuscaloosa. He swore to a table full of people that if you own a goat here you're considered a regular Mexican Paris Hilton. I told him he was wrong, but I hope he gets to come here one day and see for himself there are no signs hanging outside the banks advertising the current goat/dollar exchange rate.
That's the problem with how we gringos interpret life in Mexico. We live so close, yet in our minds Mexico is worlds away. Americans can say whatever they want about this country and there's not very many around who know better to stand up for the people here. I see it all the time. I hear it from people who genuinely surprise me with their views. One friend recently told me that Spaniards are "classy Mexicans," and I regaled her with the story of a "classy Mexican" who stripped down to his camo underwear in Madrid and chased after some female friends of mine until I went after him. If people thought I took what they said poorly then, just wait till I get back to the States.
But what was I talking about? Guadalajara. Si. I want to stay but I don't think I have a choice. Checkout here is at 10 am, nine hours away, and I don't think I'll be going to sleep anytime soon. I'm not doing anything else tonight, aside from sitting at this table in the lobby with some Mexicans enjoying a late night quesadilla dinner, but being alone and sleeping on a hard bed in a dorm room makes the lonely traveler think all he can think no matter how tired or happy he is. Then his empty mind just sits there on the pillow, and at some point lets go and falls into sleep. The nights are cool here, which makes the process easier. Buenas noches.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)