Mezcalando

Biznaga: Sometimes I look around at the other travelers, swirling around me in comfortable walking shoes and sun-blocking hats, guidebooks and cameras in hand, a supportive backpack on their backs, their eyes anywhere but where their feet are falling, and I try to imagine myself traveling like this young couple or that lone elderly woman. It's quite difficult. Once I did travel hostel by hostel, utilizing a guide book to locate museums or parks on a little map that I would later tear out and stash in my pocket, filling my days with activities and photographic opportunities. This trip has been very different and now I can't imagine traveling in any other way. We set out to arrive in a city, find folks on couchsurfing or Hospitality Club, and after a series of emails and phone calls, we seek out a perfect stranger's home for our free housing. For food, rather than even bother to seek out cheap cafes or restaurants, we instead head to the local market and buy fruits, vegetables and tortillas, or even more simply, a tamal or a quesadilla (or a tlayuda, in oaxaca). For filling up our time, we make friends with our hosts and their friends, wander around and meet strangers in the street, or look for the cheapest live music venues we can. Also, our talks about the Bee posters connect us with folks in almost every city we visit. I suppose speaking the language helps some but I can't help but wonder why more folks don't travel this way. It's far less stressful (except for perhaps with the lodging), at least for me, especially in terms of not having expectations for how the day will go and only expecting that good things will come of setting out each morning and relying on instinct and the knowledge that each day is a new day. On this trip each day has not only been just a new day but often a new adventure in itself, a new life, or a new way to see the world. Is it as easy to be transformed by traveling without having this sort of freedom? How do other people find ways to truly connect with the lands through which they pass? And with the people they meet? These questions run through my mind but then I realize, to each their own. I prefer to move along at the speed of the energy around me with patience and curiosity and asi ando de maravilla.

Mapa: Oaxaca has been an interestingly difficult city to navigate for all of us, though its relatively small size should be simple. Yet, it has been incredibly easy to find things we are looking for in another sense, such as a spontaneous desire for a certain taste or a warm bed to sleep in. I feel very comfortable here in that sense because I can move around knowing that I ultimately don't have much to worry about. I suppose I should have this feeling in all places I am in but sometimes I don't and here I do, and it feels nice.

Preguntas: People keep asking me what things I've seen in Oaxaca or done. Nope, in my week in a half I haven't visited a single museum or lugar turístico, other than Monte Alban. Then they ask, well what do you do each day? Although they don't say it, they implicitly also ask, "What's the point of traveling if you won't spend money or take pictures?" So, what have I been doing? Well, I've been to the market enough time to know exactly where to go for either a tamal, a pair of pants, or a piece of sweet bread. I've met Oaxaqueños from many different walks of life and had good talks over beer or coffee or a home cooked meal. We did 2 pláticas about the Bee posters with, mostly, folks from the states who are here volunteering with various projects. We've seen an amazing guitarist whose laugh and smile could change anyone's life. One of our friends, whom we met while traveling, was brought on stage en La Nueva Babel to sing some of his own songs and the intercambio in that cafe will always be a bright memory of this trip. Mole and chocolate in themselves have been worth waking up in the morning for. Pleasant surprises meet us at every corner and even unpleasant surprises just push us towards other things we could not have expected but end up fine or good or wonderful in the end. I spent two days just moving around between visits to the organic market where I saw almost every person I've met in Oaxaca so far, worth it for both the food and also for the women who makes the tostadas there who asks every woman who approaches her, Que te doy, mi reina. What can I give you, my queen. My, the people in Oaxaca are some of the nicest I've met.