Different speeds, different distances...

Felt so strange, loading our back packs into a trunk. Seat belts on (even in the back seat). A stereo? My last 3 or 4 trips through Mexico have been lugging my too-old, too-small, very uncomfortable back pack from one side of a city to another, and then from where the colectivo won't go any further to where you might have a snowball's chance in hell of being seen by a car speeding by at 80 - 100 kilometers per hour, and then sometimes a few kilometers more because the spot just doesn't "feel right." Hitchhiking: intense realizations, ground-down-on-the-pavement perspective, long days, dehydration, truck drivers, desperate appreciation of shade. Now, I was in a 2-door Cavalier with all new tires, sometimes the driver, sometimes the passenger, trying to take photographs with a camera I don't understand at the scenery moving way, way too fast outside the window. We didn't even see any hitchhikers the entire ride from el DF to Puebla to Oaxaca to Puerto.

5am we left el DF one Monday. The car was freezing. Turns out the fuse that was thought to fix the heat just wasn't that one, I suppose. It brought back almost-painful memories of fall fruit picking, of every single vein in your body aching for the sun to push the blood back through it, and the utter magic when the first ray shoots over the mountain. Never mind that it will still be another hour or so before the sun's warmth reaches your bones, that is THE SIGN. We got to Puebla, and as we were running on approximately 2 hours of sleep, we took a nap at Tio Miguel's house, who had driven us to Puebla, ostensibly so that we could sleep in the back seat. Only the cold!

Back on the road. We're not good, serious road-trippers yet. We stop after about 15 minutes to eat. Luckily, we did. Quesadillas that made one forget about the proximity to diesel fumes, oh my that flor de calabaza, can't get enough! Sufficiently enchilados, we got back on the road. Don't want to drive at night. We do anyway. After all the curves and the sunlight that seems to be funneled directly into our eyeballs by a poorly designed windshield (thanks GM) and the dust and the sometimes sticky, stagnant, serious calor, we arrive to Oaxaca, late. Tired. That kind of tired where someone talks AT you, and you don't even know if your eyes are open or if your jaw has dropped to the floor and you have distant, wispy thoughts that maybe you're too old for this, in complete disregard for your lack of sleep, food, water. Our host, a couchsurfer, very friendly, very hospitable, soon realized this and lights out.

What alegria the next day to find a dear friend, Claire. Suffering under the beady-eyed gaze of the same Lebanese boss in San Cristobal, we became friends quickly. What was first a survival-mechanism became the basis of our now 3 year long friendship. And here she was, finally outta San Cris! I was happy to see her and even happier that it wasn't in San Cris and almost in tears happy that we could travel together like we'd always talked about, even if it was only for a day and an hour out of Oaxaca City. We took pictures of the Arbol de Tule outside the gates. Why pay 5 pesos to go inside when the tree's so big it barely fits in its fence?

We nearly choked ourselves on thick dust winding through houses with fences out of cactuses, up up up into a mountain, back down the mountain, where the hell is HIERVE DEL AGUA, and suddenly we were there. It's surreal, I don't think I could aptly describe it, but when Claire said it felt like it was the end, a place where you simply couldn't go any further, the end of what she didn't know, but the end...I had to agree.

Tlayudas in the belly, deep sleep.

quepo

A veces olvido que el mundo sea tan grande. Que por cada vez que cierro y abro mis ojos todo el mundo se muere y vuelve a nacer. Que por cada vida hay estrellas infinitas. Que mi corazon late con el ritmo de la luna. Al olvidar esto, me siento enorme, sin posibilidad de caber en ningun lado, y cuando me doy cuenta que el mundo es tan grande quepo perfectamente bien.

Winter

Winter is only beginning. I can't imagine what the rest of it will bring. In a few short weeks, cold has begun to seep into my bones, pushing all my body warmth into my heart, which now is beating with a new determination and speed. My mind is unsure about this new rhythm and wants to understand, because, ultimately, all decisions come from the mysterious and faithful heart. So where are we going? Brain awaits an answer. Heart beats ever faster and stronger, almost like laughing, doesn't respond, looks up at the sky. Brain can't even follow her gaze because now she is looking beyond the sky and no one else can follow.

And in the blood, cells carry the simple message, "Everything will be okay. Everything is always okay."

strange winds.....

Last night, many people couldn't sleep. Tossing, turning, vivid dreams, all that wind mixing up the energy, mixing up our minds. Today the full moon keeps a peaceful watch over a still valley, things are changing so fast. I'm struggling to stay focused on "now," when the future seems too rapidly approaching and the past peeks out from everything like a dark color under a first coat of paint. I don't know how much, honestly, I will miss this place. How that can be when it's a place I've put my hands deep into the dirt, my breath into the trees, my sweat and tears into the rivers, I don't know. I'm leaving so much of myself here, maybe I'll miss it more than I realize. Ah, this restless fall.

soul/sol

I spent 3 weeks in an orphange/ashram in Tepoztlan, Mexico. Fresh air, healthy food, yoga in the mornings, surprising mountains, children's and childlike smiles, odd jobs.

Then another month in Mexico City. Smelly air, lots of traffic, surprising volcanoes, los Simpsons, sweets and excessive amounts of delicious/not-very-healthy food, art making.

I'm not born for the city. After a few weeks there I developed a horrible cough and a tiredness in my body that I couldn't kick. Let's get out! I said...

And we did. At (adopted) mom and dad's insistence we took a bus to Puebla, staying with Miguel, Omar's uncle. I immediately liked him for his jokes and generosity, especially when he pinned down Omar, letting me tickle him until he was about to explode. I wish we could have spent more time, but there's always the return trip.

From there we hitched to Oaxaca. A series of rides picked us up. The first, which only took us about 10 minutes up the highway to the toll booth, was a pair of women, one middle-aged, and one older. We chatted with them, carefree and excited about our trip, and when we get out the older woman handed us 100 pesos, wishing us well. Our angelito was with us, for sure. From there we got a couple more rides, one with a truck driver who proudly displayed a "Amo a mi gorda" bumper sticker on his dashboard, and another with a serious man who sells vaccines for chickens. The ride that actually got us into the city was with a Portuguese/Mexican couple who live in Spain and were also taking their first trip together. Nice folks, all of 'em.

Oaxaca is a city I love but never have adequate time to stay in. I had far too much desire in getting to the beach and so we only stayed one night, graciously accepted into the home of hard-working activists. Early the next morning, we talked with Diego, a friend of mine now for a couple of years, about community radio, conflicts, and hopes in Oaxaca. As always, I was impressed by the dedication of people there to create and improve and fight without ceasing.

We caught a ride to the beach in one swoop. We waited for about 5 minutes, decided we needed water, went to the store, waited another 15 seconds or so and boom! A ride straight to the beach! Though, straight isn't the most adequate word, because we wound 'round and 'round and up and down the Sierra de Oaxaca in the back of a pick-up for about 7 hours before feeling our skin start to get sticky, feeling the ocean breeze.

Again we were received in a way that makes me humbled to have such amazing friends. How does a gal get so lucky?

It was late when we got in, so my first thought in the morning was to see the sea. Finally. Months and months of dreaming didn't prepare me at all, I realized, when I saw the immensity of the ocean stretching out before me. We've been on the beach for 2 weeks now and I still feel the same way every time I see it.

Como tú

Yo como tú
amo el amor,
la vida,
el dulce encanto de las cosas
el paisaje celeste de los días de enero.

También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan,
de todos.

Y que mis venas no terminan en mí,
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.

--Roque Dalton

One of the nicest things about Mexico is how warmly people receive you wherever you go. Abby and I got to Mexico City a few days before New Year's Eve and were immediately adopted by Omar's family. Omar's mom welcomed us with enchiladas in green sauce, yummmmmm.

New Year's was a nice change from the typical party-all-night in the streets to which I'd been accustomed in the States. It was more of a family affair. We all ate dinner together (pozole! yummmmm) and when midnight struck we drank a tiny bit of wine and ate 12 grapes. That's not to say that we didn't party all night, because we did, but it was all at home with cousins and aunts and uncles and brothers of all ages. At around 6am we were too tired to salsa dance anymore and went to bed.

It's been cold in Mexico. January and February are always cold months throughout Mexico but this year was much colder than usual. Even when we tried to escape the weather by going to Cuernavaca, normally much warmer than the city, we found grey skies and cold rain. Eck.

Our first few weeks we spent relaxing in and out of the city. I sought out foods I had missed: quesadillas, gorditas, tlacoyos, licuados, tacos...Aaahhh, so delicious and so abundant.

We also made a trip to the Caves of Cacahuamilpa, enormous caves in the state of Guerrero, just across the border of the state of Morelos. The guide told terrible jokes and led us deep under the ground, where she assured us that if an earthquake were to take place we would be safe.

Making it across the border

So, after banging on the doors of a Greyhound bus that was pulling out of the station, Abby and I were able to board and relax for the ride to the border. Border procedures are simple. We were the only non-Mexican citizens on the bus and all we had to do was get off, get a piece of paper that is our "tourist visa" and the advice that we "have to pay the visa fee when we leave the country" and then, back on the bus. Crossing the border, our bus driver turned on the radio loud and I sighed, relieved to finally be in a place where music in public is not forbidden.

Our bus got us as far as Nuevo Laredo, just across the border. The bus station we arrived at didn't accept credit cards and neither of us were carrying cash so, with our backpacks and smaller-but-still-heavy food bag, we walked 3 blocks to another bus station that let Abby charge our tickets and off we were to Monterrey, where we arrived to one of the most beautiful sunsets I'd seen. Clouds hung low over the distant mountains and in intermittent holes in them, red, orange, and yellow sun rays fell onto the peaceful, outstretched desert. In Monterrey, we got tickets for the next bus to Mexico City, deciding to just make the whole 12 hour trip in one night, and, still without cash, we ate what resembled a dinner out of our food bag. I finally talked to Omar, who assured us he would be meeting us at the bus station in the morning.

We boarded the bus, watched a dubbed-version of Ratatouille and soon fell asleep. The ride was long, but I've gotten used to bus travel and didn't have much of a problem sleeping. Still, in the morning I was really out of it and it wasn't until we were walking away from the bus that we remembered: the food bag! I ran back onto the bus, but, alas, all of our Michigan food goodies were gone. Eh.

We waited beneath a giant Christmas tree for Omar, who arrived about 20 minutes after we did because his dad's VW beetle wouldn't start and they had to push it up the street to get her started. We crammed our backpacks and us in the back seat and Omar's dad drove us home, making jokes the whole way about how his house was high in the mountains and very cold, with only the stars for the cieling, and that we had better like living there.