Planes, Trains and Automobiles

After more than 6 months traveling, this little story sums up my state of mind.

I am the lucky occupant of a cigarette-smelling room at the Motel 6. It is freezing because of the air-conditioning. It is across the street from the Rochester airport and I can hear the planes as they land. This was not supposed to happen. I am not supposed to be here. I should be driving my car, which is in long-term parking, to my family cottage on Lake Ontario and then home to California. But, alas, that is not what fate had in store for this unlucky traveler.

My day began at around 8:00 a.m. in the San Francisco airport. The Monday crowd was especially large and the United self check in line reached farther than I want to remember. This is pretty much when the day began to suck.

First I waited in line to check my bags. Then, as the time ticked away, I decided not to check my bags. So, I walked to a ticket consol for people with carry-on luggage. But, of course, the computer proceeded to not work. Then a black phone on the wall began to ring. I picked it up and a female voice guided me through the process of getting a boarding pass. A boarding pass came out of the console.

My next hurdle was security. I had no place to put my knife, which I usually put in my checked bag. So, I went through with it, hoping they’d not notice. But they noticed it, and then they noticed my canteen full of water. I was told, by one of the two ladies searching my bags, rubbing everything inside with explosive detector fabric, that I couldn’t drink or pour out my canteen. They would have to keep it and my knife. I could go outside, pour out my water, mail myself my knife, and then come back through, I was told. But then I would miss my plane. So I left it all.

I just made the flight. When I finally sat down in my seat, I took a well-deserved sigh of relief.

Usually I take all this kind of thing in stride. I go slowly through the motions that, point by point, seem to push most travelers over the edge. I take off my boots and belt and hat and throw all my change and my cell phone and my computer and my chap stick in a plastic container. None of this bothers me. I walk through the metal detector and the new blower machine and still, no problem. And, although this time I was growing close to screaming FUCK! when they took my knife and then also my canteen, I held back.

But then, sitting in that airplane, looking through my bag, my hand jingled my car keys. I pulled them out to put them in my pocket. I looked at them. They did not look right. They were too few, to light… to missing my fucking car keys! As the plane lifted off, I searched and found nothing in my pockets or anywhere else. And then I had a minor freak out. You know the quit ‘FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!’ you say to yourself.

You can imagine how the rest of my lay over in Boston, and the subsequent flight to Rochester, went.  But that was not the end of my woes.  Once in Rochester, what to do? I thought, well, it’s not that bad. I can rent a car and drive to the cottage. But no, no, no, I have the luck to arrive when some god-forsaken festival is going on and every single rental car agency is out of cars. There were, like, ten.

So I sat and thought. Then I searched my bag again. Then I went back to the rental car places and asked if they might just have one car for me, just one. On my third try I actually got one. The women behind the desk asked for my license, which I handed over and then a credit card. I gave her my debit card. I would be sleeping in the cottage in an hour. But then, then she said I needed a major credit card or a return ticket. “I don’t have a return flight,” I said. “I am driving my car across the country.”

“Sorry,” she said. I wanted to cry.

There I was back at square one, or what ever square I was at, and it was like 11:30 at night and I was at a loss. What to do? What to do? Maybe I could break into my car and hot wire the thing. That didn’t sound like the best bet. So I thought, just go to a motel and come back tomorrow with a locksmith. That doesn’t sound so bad.

 At the cabstand, outside, I was told it would cost ten dollars to drive me to the Motel 6, just across the road. When the cab pulled up I asked if he might be wiling to bargain. How bought seven bucks?  He just looked at me like I was a cretin and said, “I waited an hour to take you across the street and now your complaining.” Then the he made to shut his truck. “Ten is fine,” I said and he drove me to the motel 6 for ten dollars. 

Oh the joys of travel. 

 

Lucha Libre

At the center of the small, darkened arena, in a circular well of light, a gestulating wrestler stood on the third wrung of the ring’s corner post, invoking the crowds’ cheers. She and her teammates equally excited and reviled the crowd: some parrying insults with challenges to audience members and others spreading their arms to receive the cheers of their fans. These female wrestlers were only part of the spectacle of Lucha Libre or Mexican free wrestling, which included a line of curvy and scantily clad women, masked men posing like Greek god’s on to much wine, a crowd flinging insults and finally a wrestling match that more resembles a choreographed macho version of modern dance than anything like actual fighting. I don’t know why, but I had been expecting real wrestling not the Latin version of Hulk Hogan.

Tim and I bought tickets for the match at Mexico City’s smaller and central arena, not far from the zocalo. The vendors of wrestling paraphernalia occupied the street fronting the arena: dolls, masks, posters and even videos filled the make- shift stands.

Inside we took our seats on hard concrete bleachers and bought beers and looked down on the ring with excitement. The crowd beside us was mostly families with their young children. More little girls and boys muscled their way past us then beer-bellied bruisers.

In the pit-like arena’s center, a line of almost naked women flanked each wrestler on their way to the ring. Each made his own way on to the ring, some flying over the ropes, others hurdling underneath. Once on the drum of canvas they began a series of postulations that lasted a good five minutes. As their opponents entered the arena, two or three wrestlers stood atop the ropes and raised their arms or pointed their arms diagonally into the air as if they were lightning bolts.

When the fight did begin it was a confusing cycle of events. There were rounds, it seemed, and even moments of triumph and loss when the referee pounded the mat with three pats to indicant that there had been a pin. But the confusion of the fight, with three or more wrestlers on each team, some flying through the air or throwing their opponents against the ropes, made any attempts to make sense of the match futile. Trying to figure what team was the winner was equally difficult as the match spilled into the audience or saw simultaneous pins.

It was the good guys, usually better looking and dressed in lighter colored costumes, who won out in the end. The bad team – long hair, dark costumes – in ever match, began by claiming the first victory. But the match would end with their loss and long moments of melodramatic anger over this unfair and one-sided victory.

Some matches were better acted, with more of a flare for theatrics, while others were clumsy in their slow moves and uninspiring acting. But others were both subtle and spectacular in their gravity defying acts of mock violence and their enthusiastic playing of their parts.

It was the last match, which topped the night. The match began in the regular process of posing wrestlers that we had come to expect with entry of Ivan “the Russia” flinging the sweat from his chest onto the crowd. But soon this match degenerated into a chaotic circus of flying bodies and body blows after a midget dressed as a blue monkey entered the scene. Soon the midget was in the arms of a giant wrestler who began smashing his face on the corner post of the ring. On the other side of the ring, two wrestlers careened into the crowd, but softly. Soon this last match was a montage of bodies flying through air, above the ring, two wrestlers wide, as they slammed each other down on to the bending floor.

This round of fighting was almost practiced enough to seem real: the wrestler with his knees clamped to his opponent’s head, spinning in an arch, was just this side of violence. You could almost believe that the wrestler on the floor holding his head in pain was really in pain. But soon that thought returned from where it had come. Another choreographed bounce against the ropes revealed the match’s falsity as the wrestler to-easily moved himself into his next position. He was almost dancing with his opponent as if they were both actually in some other competition spinning in pairs across the floor, dancing.

 

More Tales from Mexico: El Bribe

Tim drove through Ensenada leaning over the wheel of his van with his elbows out like wings. He didn’t have his glasses on so his squinted up face awkwardly peered at the passing street signs. We were looking for a tire shop so as to fix our van’s last illness. Both of us had our eyes on either side of the road, and neither of us was looking at where the road ran into the hills.

That is when Tim ran an unseen stop sign, but we didn’t know it yet. We knew something was wrong when we heard the siren. Whoop, Whoop. Tim pulled the van to the side of the road and we waited. “Ya that’s a cop,” I said, as we tried our best in that strange and useless way people try to prepare for an interrogation; cleaning up the trash at our feet, putting on our shoes.

The officer stood in the frame of Tim’s window with the kind of look a parent gives a naughty child. “You gringo’s never learn,” it seemed to be saying. His gaze slid away from ours behind the aviators that shielded his eyes. “You know you just ran a stop sign back there,” he said. He pointed backwards. “No, officer we didn’t see that,” we said looking at one another and then back, in wonder, as if what he spoke of was a mirage that had appeared after we had passed it. “I will have to give you a ticket,” he said. We nodded in agreement.

Then things turned weird. “But we don’t give tickets here,” he continued in his broken English. We had no reply.” So,” he said, “we are going to have to go to the station to pay the fine.” He paused. We nodded to each other and thought this was the best plan. We had heard that the thing to do when pulled over in Mexico is to go to the station so that it is harder to be forced into a bribe. So we naturally thought that this meant we were not going to have to pay a bribe — this officer was honest.

Then he asked Tim a strange question, “How do you feel?” It was as if he were asking him several contradictory questions all at once: How is your health? Are you nervous? Does this feel legitimate? Well officer, he might have answered, I’ve had the shits for three days, and you make me nervous, and this does not feel legitimate. We were perplexed. The three of us hovered in a moment of silence, Tim and I only able to shrug our shoulders as if looking for direction in this matter from the police officer, staring down at us.

After a long period of very uncomfortable silence, I said something to the cop in Spanish, and he whipped around the front of the car and stood, now, in my window, looking down at me. In Spanish he gained a new confidence, as if he could more deftly use the subtly of language to take our money. “How do you want to deal with this?” he asked me. I still didn’t exactly understand what he was about. I said, “How do you want to deal with this?” And then all of a sudden we were on the same page. He smiled and said simply, “How much do you want to pay?” He was asking for a price. He was negotiating almost. I was just glad the ambiguity was over with. Now we could get this thing done and be gone. I said, “How about twenty bucks?” and he agreed. The next thing I knew he was handing me a folded slip of paper, not unlike a ticket, and telling me to put the bills inside the paper and hand it back. As I fumbled with my money belt he looked to his left and right as if making sure the coast was clear. I slipped over the folded paper and its hidden bills. Then he let us go. Thank you officer we told him as he walked back to his cruiser with our twenty bucks.

 

The End of the Road

After almost three months and more than 2,000 miles on the road, a plane will fly me home on May 30th, ending my journey through Mexico. I will fly, in a matter of hours, over the cities, mountains, deserts and seas that took so long to traverse overland. It feels a little like cheating after such a slow progress. But it is my ride home, and I intend to take it.

What to say about such a varied and surprising collection of places? Mexico has more often than not been much different than expected, and almost always the opposite of rumor. Never robbed, beaten, kidnapped or even really harassed, (except for that little bribe I was encouraged to pay to the Ensenada police) my journey has been almost without any “real” problems.

Of course, I have dealt with all the things that any traveler must, – mis-communications, sickness, loneliness, fear, joy and confussion – but my fortunes were not much more than what, in a vague way, I had expected. Of course, there was also the unexpected: The rat that fell on my bed – or jumped – as I slept in a cabana on the Michoacan coast was not part of the plan, and neither was the killer flew I had while stranded on a beach in Baja.

After moving south for so long, through much of Mexico, what has changed most is the loss of a kind of fear that was all to present when I first crossed into Mexico at Tijuana. It was a partially informed, gossip-filled, fear of the unknown: bandits on the roads; taxi kidnappings; drug killings on isolated beaches. It was like I had a little nervous man in my head warning me not to go down any unknown path. Don`t go down that lonley road. Don`t turn into that town not on the map, off the radar screen.

Now, that is mostly gone. Coming upon places that are new, having to navigate worlds unknown to me, has become more of the norm in my day to day. I think this comfort is good and bad. On the one hand, it lets me enter into places I might not have entered before, and with confidence. On the other hand, I find it has perhaps lessened by capacity for awe and wonder, my ability to revel in the exotic of the new.

Yet in order to gain the confidence I needed, I had to accustom myself, acculturate myself, to the foreign. This was a process of normalizing or numbing the strangeness of a place, which in turn made Mexico less foreign.

To navigate through foreign countries, worlds, ideas and cultures you need a bit of wonder, which in a way drives you forward, and a sense of comfort that gives you the confidence to go into the unknown without fear being your only rudder.

 

The Sierra Norte or Juarez

After three days of walking across the Sierra Juarez Mts., north of Oaxaca, my legs feel like wet knotted rope. Tim and I trekked through a region called Pueblos Mancomunados, which is a series of 8 Zapotec communities high in the mountains of Oaxaca. For almost 400 years these communities have run their own affairs.  There home is high up in the alpine, around 10,000 feet, where you can look in any direction and all you will see is more mountains. Since 1615 these self sufficient villages have been bonded together. And their political system is akin to direct democracy and has been practiced since before the coming of the Spanish. Land is equally apportioned here and mutual aid a common factor of life. When disputes arise, village assemblies gather in order to solve the problem.

With guides leading us through the mountains and canyons we got a close look at this region. We walked a total of around 70 kilometers through rough mt. terrain. For instance, on the third morning of our trip, we left the town of Amatlan and walked directly up a very painful hill. There were no turns on the trail, it just went straight up. But aside from the pain, it was beautiful country; from pine forests to oak covered hills to deep ravines. We got back to Oaxaca very tired and in the mood for hamburgers.

On another note: Freda and Tim left town today in their trusty van for Guatemala. I waved goodby as they drove off.

 

Oaxaca

A Family on their way out of Mexico City

The road from Mexico City to the state of Oaxaca goes up, and then up again, and finally down.

In the still light of the early afternoon, the bus chugged through the massive outskirts of Mexico City and then up into the surounding hills. Covered in green pine trees, the forested landscape was Mexico City`s opposite; I saw men walking behind mule trains.

Once the road rose above the torpid haze of the Valley of Mexico, and then passed the plump pine-tree-coverd hills, storm clouds rose above the plain that reaches across much of the state of Puebla. Some rich ranch land spread across the flatland here and then everything became dry and cacti covered. The small trees that did rise beside their prickly friends seemed thin and frail and grew out in a flat shape at their tops. The land that wasn`t covered in brush or cacti was almost chalk-colored and corroded, streaks of rain water ran down barren hills, dragging topsoil away. The plain was being drenched by a heavy thunder storm and muddy rivulets ran their course.

Once into the state of Oaxaca, past Puebla, we came upon more mountains. The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca raced above and below us in such steep defiles it seemed they might drop at any moment. Not much held the soil in place here except more of the cacti and small brush and trees that had covered much of Puebla.

Oaxaca city was wet. The sun had set, and all that could be gleaned of the city was the dull light of houses climbing up blackened hills. My cab driver maneuvered his way through the small dark streets, hunkered down in his VW bug, wrapped in a long rain coat. He told me that tonight was the year`s first rain.

In the Zocalo, children raised their hands to the sky as if in thanks to the gods. Their happy faces damp with rain drops. Hidden forms under umbrellas passed across the square. It was as if a long held tension had been released and the population was in celebration.

Outside of my hotel room, competing sounds mixed with one another; the beat of Ranchero music playing against the muffled sound of a soccer game; cheers, announcers, scoooooooore. Tarps – blue, orange and clear- covering much of the road, slopped water onto the sidewalks. Raw light bulbs ,hanging from street vendor booths, struke the darkness violently, creasing across the street in shards of light. Cabs squeezed down the crowded street as a shop women flung her baby by the arms to the um pa, um pa of a nearby stereo.

On Monday this mood may come to and end; the state`s teachers plan a strike. In the past, teacher strikes in Oaxaca have been anything but calm.

 

Mexico City

The Zocalo´s barren expanse of grey pavement stones mirrored the sky´s grey hue just as the rain began to wet the streets. As the last few stragglers ran across the plaza, a mob of cars spun around them, leaning into the turns as if on a race track.   The crowds hid from the rain, congregating under the arcades around the plaza. They looked out from under stone archways as the rain began to wet the paving stones. By the time lightning and thunder began to shuddered across the sky, Mexico City´s largest public space was empty. The rainy season had finally come, at least to Mexico city.

That night, looking south from my fourth-floor window, the view was clear across the darkened valley; I could see lights spread across the distant hills. The day´s smog had been blown away by the storm. I heard crickets.

But by the next morning, the hills were obscured behind a hazy smog that tickled my iritated throat. Aside from the pollution, Mexico city presented a much different reality than expected. Its colonial churches, tree lined avenues and cobbled streets all created an atmosphere as human and approachable as any well maintained city.

The megalopolis nightmare city that you think of when you think Mexico City does not appear to exist. While their is smog and there are crowds, it is much less of a crowded place, it seems, than Manhattan. The subway is cheap and easy to use, the streets feel safe and the bustle is only what you would expect in any capital city.

A day after I arrived, the city´s spiritual, political and historical center was crackling with a healthy amount of activity. Shoe shiners, harmonica players, beggars, tourists and street vendors filled the side walks with the constant song and dance that is street life.

Under the shadow of La Catedral Metropolitana, drums rang out and half naked shaman with plastic ceremonial costumes held cauldrons of smoking incense and rubbed down tourists, locals and old ladies, even, with cleansing herbs.

Nearby, the excavated ruins of the once magnificaent Aztec Templo Mayor spread across a large piece of uneven ground like the decaying carcase of an animal; the remnants of what the Spaniards did not destroy opened up like an onion.

A hundred yards away, the national palace with its serious colonial facade, patrolled by armed guards, stared squarely down at the Zocalo.

To the the east of the historic district, the city´s high rises ran along the spine of Reforma. This grand, tree- lined boulevard, studded with towering monuments, tares across the city in a diagonal slash. To its north and south the fashionable districts of Roma, Zona Rosa and Condesa spread under leafy streets. Here the hip set eats late night dinners in overpriced sidewalk cafes.

Walking across town, taking a cab or the subway, I was continually surprised by not only the city´s variety but also by its distinctness; Mexico City feels so, so… un-Mexican. It feels very much like a Buenos Aires or Barcelona or any cosmopolitan city, which, no doubt, it is.

Mexico City´s politics differ from much of the nation´s as well. With a left wing government, progressive policies here serve two purposes: to serve the electorate and to oppose the ruling PAN party. Here are a few examples. Abortion was made legal here, same sex marriage too. And unlike the rest of the country there are an abundance of women police on the streets here.

 

Lake Patzcuaro

Lake Patzcuaro

It was a sultry, cloud filled, kind of day. The air was thick. Penitents draged their knees across the floor of Patzcuaro´s basilica. It looked as if it might rain. Haze lay over lake Patzcuaro like cheese clothe.  And from the launch that pushed across the water towards Isla Janitzio, the distant mountains could hardly be made out. 

The boat´s yellow benches were filled with uniformed students. Their chatter buzzed below the hum of the boat´s motor. A few tourists sat, peering through their sun glasses at the brown lake. 

A Purepecha women (the local indigenous group)  sat down beside me with her little boy and husband. She carried a large metal wash basin from which her little boy pulled a toy truck. She sat kicking her feet, as they dangled above the floorboards. A red and black checkered skirt fell across her legs and a white hand-knit cotton blouse peaked out from under the shawl she had draped over her head. The purple and black fabric covered her face from the wind. She quietly laughed as her husband, perhaps, told her a joke. 

The boat dropped us at a dock at the foot of a steep little island. A paved foot path, edged by stalls and restaurants like some kind of gauntlet, led to the isalnd´s peak.

“Pasale joven. Tenemos, comidas, ropas etc.,” called the women lining the path as if they were reciting some incantatory prayer. Then the women would turn back to their needle work; bright thread sewn in patterns into large splashes of white cotton that would become their dresses. I could hear, but not understand, their perepecha as they spoke amongst one another.

Mexican day tourists laboured up the island, many capped in goofy over sized sombreros they´d purchased at one of the nick knack shops. The island´s peak, crowned with a huge statute of Morelos, had a panoramic view of the lake below.

A Statue of Morelos

As I leaned against the statue´s base, looking across the lake, a little boy meandered up and asked me for “monedas” as he drove a wooden toy truck against the statue. I asked him what he wanted the money for and he told me for pencils. Then, with his toy truck, he made like he was writing letters against the stones of the statue.  I gave him six pesos and told him not to eat to many sweets. He said, “Thanks,” in English.

The boat ride back across the lake was filled with the songs of a three man ranchero band: two men and a boy. They performed for a Mexican family who were drinking Cuba libres. A middle aged Perepecha couple sat to the bands´ back with their eyes closed. As the base thumped and the drums rolled, families aboard the boat took snapshots of their children and looked out across the water. 

Almost hidden, amidst the crowd sat an old Purepecha women, alone, her shawl over her face. She gazed curiously from the protection of her shawl as it began to sprinkle over the lake.

Down Town Patzcuaro

 

Callejeros de las Streets

Mexican Payasos

The streets and plazas of Mexico are the place to make a buck, or a peso in this case. Car washers, street vendors, beggars and everything in between fill most public places in this country. Among this pavement panorama, street performers are in abundance; from mariachi and ranchero groups to dancers, jugglers and even clowns. They are collectivley know as Callejeros.

Payasos (clowns) Eric Pozos Perez and Emilio Lopez Felix (in the photo above) are both professional street performers. In some ways they represent the intersection between officially sanctioned art and Mexico´s ubiquitous street theater.  I met them in Morelia where they were teaching a clown class to kids through the Instituto Nacional Bellas Artes. 

Morelia´s Central Plaza Where Callejeros Often Perform

They spend much of the year following local festivals and fares around the country. But you might be surprised by their back grounds. Both are university trained performers. They work the streets instead of in theaters for several reasons: there are few jobs with theater companies and street performing gives them more freedom. And most years, they make enough of a living on the streets to supports their families. As they point out, if they wanted jobs that were about making a lot of money they wouldn´t be clowns. 

There have been other barriers to their profession other than money. “If you came here six or seven years back we couldn’t walk the streets,” said Lopez Felix. Either the cops would take what you earned or they would run them off the streets or both. The government didn´t want “rabble” filling the streets, they said.

But in the last five or six years their lives have become much easier since the government has removed many of the road blocks that formerly made street performing in Mexico a difficult and often frustrating profession.  Now, getting the permits needed to work, which are many, has become a much easier task. There is even a database which lists performers as well as fairs and events that need their services.

But these changes haven´t stopped local performers, who think they have some kind of monopoly, from trying their hardest to keep outsiders off their turf. The competition, it seems, never stops.

 

Morelia and the Mountains

The Tanned Me

After tanning myself to no end on Mexico´s Pacific coast, and trying to surf a bit, I now find myself in the western highlands. And what a different place it is. The air is lighter here, the light different. The smells less pungent.  And these two worlds are only a day´s car ride apart.

On the day-long bus trip up from the coast, from a surf spot called Nexpa to Michoacan´s capital, Morelia, I saw the landscape change from tropical palm-fringed vistas to pine forests and colonial churches.  As the bus wound its way upward, we passed first dry mountain-frindged plateaus and then climbed again until we had completely left behind any remnant of the coast; palm trees, coastal breezes, coconuts and all.

 

Sierra Madre Sur

The Plaza de Armas, Morelia´s center, was humming like a child on a sugar high the night I arrived. Celebrating crowds filled the streets and fire works exploded in the dark above the cathedral. Long arcades surrounding the square were filled with coffee-sipping locals watching the crowds pass by. The park-like square across from the cafes resonated with activity; the sounds of screaming children mingling with the rhythm of a band playing salsa.  Huge piles of animal balloons, bilious and teetering, climbed above the clamor. Above it all, the cathedral`s two silent towers lit up the night. It was May Day.

But plaza was not only filled this night in order to honor the working men and women of the world, for May is also the beginning of a month-long celebration of Morelia´s founding by the Spanish, 467 years ago.  That`s pretty old for a city in the New World.

While Morelia may be in Mexico´s heartland, this seems a very Spanish city. Its square stone buildings with massive wooden doors and its many church spires give it a very heavy, old feeling. And as the capital of Michoacan and the former capital of the Tarascan empire - the indigenous power here before the Spanish invasion - this high city has good reason to feel old.

The only smudges on Morelia´s colonial elegance and celebratory spirit were the hand bills pasted on walls throughout much of the city. The two dimensional face of Francisco Paredes Ruiz peered from these posters at passersby. Last September Ruiz disappeared from the streets of this city without a trace. While kidnapping is all to common in Mexico, many think Ruiz´s disappearance was no mere kidnapping. As the head of a human rights organization, Ruiz faught for human rights here in Michoacan and was no doubt a thorn in someone´s side.

A Church in Morelia