Una Tortuga

08/04/08

Yesterday, I had one of the most unexpectedly surprising days. It started as a slow, boring day. I did not feel like going downtown, so I walked to the nearby park. I went to my secluded area by the stream and sat down to read. About an hour later, around seven teenagers showed up and walked about fifty feet down stream where there was a rope swing hanging from a large tree. One by one they swung and dove in. One kid, climbed a fifteen foot tree and jumped in.

An hour or so later, a group of four kids and one teenager showed up further down stream and were working their way up. The oldest of them had a net which it looked like he was using to either fish or clean trash out of the creek. The littler kids had sharpened steel rods and industrial-strength rubber bands which they had fashioned into slingshot fishing poles. I can't remember the actual name for this method. The kids each had a few fish. They were scavenging along the far side of the creek, digging through the shrubbery. I returned to my book.

A few minutes later the oldest of the fishers started yelling at the kids who gathered around him. He pulled out a large turtle that looked like a snapping-turtle. Its shell was probably a foot in diameter and very flat to the ground. The guy brought it a shore and threw it up onto the land. The turtle immediately scuttled much faster than he expected and I thought was possible. He pounced on it again, grabbing it by its sides to avoid its head. The kids gathered around and the other group of swimming teens came over. I pulled out my camera to try to vaguely take pictures from my bench. It's difficult for me to do anything vaguely and they all immediately noticed. The kids started talking to and about me. “Para el periodico?” pointing at my camera. “No, por que quiero recuerdo, no mas.” After this the hunter held up his captive and posed. The other kids began shouting “un de toto” and they all climbed over another bench striking a pose and holding up gang signs. By this time a third group of teens had showed up. This group was the equivalent of Mexican thugs, wearing baggy shorts passed their ankles, fancy shoes, and different haircuts.

Everyone was excited about the turtle. One of the hunting kids asked me if I had some money. “No”, I lied. Everyone was asking me more questions than I could understand or answer.

Some of the thug kids asked me if I smoked pot, drank, or did cocaine. “No, me gusta refrescos y jugo, no mas.” He pointed to one of the hunting kids who was holding a small bottle up to his mouth and inhaling. I guess he was huffing something. One of the other kids grabbed it and took a drag. These hunting kids were like ten to thirteen years old.

The guy with the turtle by now had began trying to kill the turtle. He tried to place the head under the bench leg, but the turtle kept pulling his head in. He put the bench on top of the turtle's back and instructed one of the young fishers to shoot it in the head with his rubber-banded fishing rod. He did and the turtle began bleeding, but the rod hadn't gone all the way through the head. At this point the main fisher ripped a shirt into strips and tied it around the turtle, leaving excess on top to form a handle. They then put the turtle into a bag and continued further up stream.

The swimming kids took off as well, leaving me and the thugs. They asked me what bad words I knew in Spanish. I told them. They reminded me of a few others and taught me some that I hadn't learned yet. In return they asked me to translate these words into English, so they could try to repeat them. I obliged them. At this point they either became bored or realized how awkward I was with what was going on, and left. I finished my chapter and returned home as well to watch the Cards lose in extra innings.

Mas gordito

Today at lunch, my family told me that I'm getting a little bit fatter. They are happy and laughed.

me extrañaste?

06/04/08

I found out that I did not get accepted to JET. I sincerely thank God for answering this prayer. Lately, I have been filled with much anxiety about my life, where I'm going, what I'm doing, and I was starting to fear relocation to Japan and starting all over with a new, unknown language.

Yesterday, Paloma and Azael showed me how to make flautas. I skinned and shredded the chicken, wrapped them tightly in tortillas, and fried them. Meanwhile, they did all the women stuff like making sauce and talking about guys.

Last night, I went to a party at Azael's house. I was walking there from Paloma's at like 8pm and I found myself behind a garbage truck. There were two men following the truck on either side of the street throwing little, grocery-bag sized bags into the back of the truck. The truck driver seemed in a hurry to get off work and enjoy his Saturday night as he was driving much too fast for the men to keep up. The further behind they got the further they had to launch the trash bags into the back of the truck. It was really funny walking behind them. They reminded me of kids playing as Michael Jordon and Larry Bird shooting all threes.

The party was ok. It was pretty small throughout the night. A few of my friends from couchsurfing came: Reynaldo and Vincent (I think). It was good. I made my first friend who doesn't speak English. I think that's a step in the right direction.

Today, I was walking home from the Metro with my nose stuck in “Farewell to to Arms” and missed a turn and got lost in my own neighborhood. I kept walking and realized I was like a block from my house on the opposite side that I usually take. Anyway, Ernest Hemingway is that good. I'm only like 35 pages deep, but I'm loving it.

Not too much going on here. I see that my Cardinals are doing well with out me. I think I have a job interview Tuesday with GoEnglish!

Roadtrip Days 7-9

25/03/08 Roadtrip Day 7

We got up early. Hung out with Octavio for another minute, then drove back to Zacatecas for the Bob Dylan concert. He was playing a free outdoor show for their cultural weeks party. I think he was the grand finale. We knew it was gonna be packed, so we wanted to get their early. We got to Zacatecas and found a miracle parking spot at 2:30. We were a little surprised to find out that the line was already like 4 blocks long since he wouldn't go on until 8:30. We at some super spicy gorditas at Dona Julia's and got back in line. We killed time by reading and playing cards. Some Mexican guys were there from DF making a documentary and they interviewed me apparently because I'm a gringo and therefore automatically interesting. Whatever. Well, they said cameras weren't allowed in the concert, so I left mine in the car. Of course, when we got in, we were the only two there without cameras.

We did have really good spots. On the floor about 10 rows back and dead center. Bob Dylan played for almost 2 hours, I think. Honestly, it's probably a lot cooler to say that you saw Bob Dylan play for free in Zacatecas than to actually be there. The show was ok, but his voice is shot and worn-out. It was definitely enjoyable though just for the experience and to see all the other stupid people like us camping out all day for it. After the concert we went back to Wendy's for enchiladas then went to Juan Pablo's office and crashed.

26/03/08 Roadtrip Day 8

We got up and went out for tortas de bistek y queso with Juan Pablo. They were really good, but it was funny because his girlfriend Valeria refused to eat them because she calls it the typhoid hut or something. I kept telling her how good it was and offering her bites of mine and she would refuse and I'd act really confused until she got red and announced that she didn't like it loud enough for the workers to hear. JP, on the other hand, swears by this place. He told us a story which I think is great, but will likely offend most of my friends. He brought two of his friends there and they don't eat beef for religious reasons. JP wouldn't let them miss out though, so he told them not to worry because the meat was actually horse meat. They happily indulged then and loved it. JP you sonuvabitch, I love you. We left Zacatecas at noon for Real de Catorce which is rather off the beaten path. It was mostly highway, but then we had to drive 40 minutes on the worst roads we've encountered yet, more rough cobblestone. It was very scenic though, winding through mountains. The road ends at a tunnel which you pay $2 to drive 2 miles under the mountain and end up in Real de Catorce. It's another old mining town. I guess it used to thrive, but since they shut the mine down it's just a beautiful, dead, isolated town. It's gained recent fame as the Brad Pitt film the Mexican was shot there.

We parked and found a hotel for like $17 which was really nice except it smelled moldy something. We walked around town and found a small diner where I got puerco asado and Gaby got chili reyenos. It was a really small place, but it had a super high ceiling, so they had built a loft and stuck the cook and dishwasher upstairs by themselves. They would raise and lower dishes and food using a tray and pulley. So great. We went to this really cool church which is actually the church of Francisco de Isisi. It's kinda funny because in Italy our whole family was looking for stuff with this guy on it, because my mom's friend Robin is obsessed with him. Then I accidentally stumble on a church dedicated to him in the smallest, hidden town in Mexico. Jeff had told me that this guy became so frustrated with preaching to the public because no one would listen to him, so he kinda went crazy and went out into the wilderness to live and preach to the animals because at least they would listen. I think that's great. After the church we explored the rest of the small city including the bull ring and graveyard and main street full of vendors selling tortillas, t-shirts, and ugly jewelery. We went back to the hotel and showered for the 2^nd time of the week and slept.

27/03/08 Roadtrip Day 9

Gaby told me there are two things you can do when you visit Real Catorce. 1) Go into the dessert and take peyote or 2) Take a horse ride. After much debating and several games of thumb war we decided upon the horse ride. We found a guide who said he would take us for an hour and a half for $10 a piece. We made sure that it would be $20 total as I have read stories about guides who will take you on the tour and then afterwards say that you must pay the rent for their horse as real. He said $20 total and of course we could tip him if we enjoyed it. We started out from the center of town up small, winding horse trails that led up the mountain. Riding a horse is pretty amazing. You feel it lunge when he's going up and you feel every little stutter step when he's shuffling his way down the rocky terrain. We made it to the top of a small mountain and tied up our horses. Then the guide took us in an old mining tunnel. He warned us that people can camp in the cave and often try to explore on their own and fall in deep pits and die. It was pretty great and he gave us some little geode rocks that he found and offered to help us find peyote. After hanging out at the mine for about 20 minutes we started our way back and stopped at another little place with a great view of the city. We returned to the city and tipped the horse guide as he was really stellar. Ate some more little tacos and started our drive back to Monterrey. Oh yeah, we were really low on gas again, so we asked where the city's gas station was. They don't have a “gas station”, but there's this guy who has big jugs of gas in a shed, so we bought some gas from him. It was fun, because he stuck a big tube in and had to suck on it to get it started. Then we made it back home safely and life is back to normal.

To summarize the trip: 9 days and 8 nights, 2 showers, stayed in 5 cities, and a total of $150-175 a piece. My favorite part of the trip is how we had an original plan, but everything changed. We had 3 cities we wanted to go to, but when people recommended other places for us, we were very eager to change our plans and had an incredible amount of flexibility that allowed us to do this. If things hadn't played out this way, I would have missed 2 of my favorite cities – Tamasopo and Real de Catorce.

Quick update

Today I have a really good story that I need to update you guys about, because it was really exciting for me.

I was driving to Monterrey Tec to meet Gaby. I have never been there before, so I was navigating as best as I could. When I got to Garza Sada it was only one way going the wrong way. I got on anyway, heading the wrong way and I got in the far left lane because here you can make u-turns anywhere there is an opening. I couldn't find an opening and I saw that the road turned into a highway ahead and split, which I didn't want to get on. I swerved over 4 lanes to get off before it turned into a highway and got off on a side street that would allow me to u-turn under the highway.

Well after crossing 4 lanes, this cop on foot saw me and began chasing my car waving his clipboard in the air. I should have just kept going because I was way past him, but it was funny and I felt sorry for him on foot, so I pulled over. He came up to my car and asked for my information. He was super nice and asked how long I was in Monterrey and what I was doing. I explained that I am usually a good driver, but the road is confusing. He understood and said that it was a shame that he would have to give me a ticket ¨for such a minor infraction¨. He was clearly waiting for a bribe. I asked how much the ticket would be for and he said 400 pesos ($40). Then he repeated it was a shame to write a ticket for such a minor infraction and how he really wanted a soda. I said, ¨Lo siento, pero no entiendo.¨ He again repeated that he didn't want to give me a ticket. Maybe we could work it out some other way. I repeated, ¨Lo siento, pero no entiendo.¨ After he had straight up asked me for a bribe 4 times, I decided that he had earned it and opened up my wallet to offer him $5. He gave me that look like ¨$5, really?¨. I pulled out $10 and he said, ¨No ahorrita¨, because an old lady was walking by my car. After she passed I handed him the $10. He asked for more and I was like ¨no¨. He was ok with that, he shook my hand, gave me a big smile, and told me to enjoy my stay in Monterrey.

For some reason the transaction felt more natural and pleasing than the majority of my visits here to the local grocery store.

Roadtrip Days 5 and 6

23/03/08 Roadtrip Day 5

We packed up and left Media Luna for las cascadas de Tamasopo. The drive was crazy and scary. Windy, twisting roads full of signs warning “peligrosa curva”. We even went through a town called Valle de los Fantasmas (Valley of the Ghosts). When we got close to Tamasopo we stopped to eat and I got ripped off for the first time – that I'm aware of. A lot of places here don't have menus, the waitress will just tell you what 3 or 4 items they have for the day. So we ordered not thinking anything of it. We got a lot of food. It was Enchiladas Potossi with beans and a rubbery steak. After we ate we asked for the total and she said $15. Every meal we've eaten so far had been between $6-10 for the both of us. So we were kinda pissed, but whatever, live and learn.

When we drove down a steep hill into Tamasopo. We found a nice little hotel for $20 a night which we decided to get instead of camping as it was a bit chilly and overcast and neither of us had a hot shower yet during the trip. After cleaning up we went to explore the town and search for gas as we were close to low. We came to Tamasopo as is reputable for its waterfalls, so we searched for some. We found 2 small ones that flowed into a little lagoon. We got in and walked around, but it was too cold to fully submerge.

Then we continued on our quest for gas, we passed a huge rodeo which was packed. It was $10 and passed on tickets, instead joining the cheap locals who gathered around to watch from outside the fence. That lasted about 30 minutes until we got the boot with the rest of them. The small town didn't actually have a gas station. You could either buy gas out of a shed where people stored it in big juice jugs, or, as we chose to, drove 10 miles out of town on a small scenic road and found a gas station. It was sold out of unleaded and had only premium. Oh well. On the way back to town, we found a local baseball game and caught the last 2 or 3 innings for free. We had to pass through a gypsy camp to get to the game and 2 ladies began yelling at Gaby that they needed to read her fortune. She resisted and we made it to the the grass in right field where we watched the game.

After the game we went back to the rodeo area where there was a fair next door. We got really cheap taquitos – I think like $6 for both of us. We walked around the fair for a while, then went back to our hotel and watched Dodgeball.

24/03/08 Roadtrip Day 6

We woke up and found out where the real cascadas were, so went there early. These were the real ones that the city had become known for. I would estimate the largest one was 30 feet high. They all fell into several different pools. When we first got there we walked around and explored and climbed some little cliffs. Gaby slipped on a rock and hurt her hand, so she's all kinda messed up now. Today, again was a little cold and cloudy, but the pools were too alluring, so we inched our way in. Once we were all the way in and got to some of the deeper parts, little minnows began nipping at our legs. It tickled more than hurt, but it was so scary so I would either freak out or laugh a lot.

After swimming for about an hour, we left Tamasopo to begin our quest toward San Luis Potossi. When we hit the windy, scary roads it was dark, misty, and started to get very foggy. When we were at Valle de Los Fantasmas it was so foggy that you could only see at most 10 feet in front of you. Gaby cruised through it and we made it safely to San Luis. We walked around San Luis for a while, but it didn't take long to realize that it's super boring. We went out to eat and got Volcanes and saw Black Christmas which just came out here in Mexico. It was pretty much what we were looking for in a film. Then we went to our couchsurfer Ocatavio's house. He's pretty cool, so we stayed up talking about politics, education, America, immigration, and whatnot. After we went to bed, well at about 3 am, someone walks into our room and starts yelling stuff at us. It ended up being Octavio's mom who doesn't live there and no one was expecting. That was kinda surreal.

Roadtrip Days 3 and 4

21/03/08 Roadtrip Day 3

We woke up in our sweet office-apartment to realize that we had no hot water. It took us like an hour to find out, or at least come to grips with that. Juan Pablo, Valencia, and her clubbing cousin picked us up and took us to a museum in Guadalupe – the sister city of Zacatecas. I'm still confused about what happened, but we didn't go in the museum and they all left Gaby and I in Guadalupe with the plan to pick us up in a few hours. We walked around Guadalupe and got some cheap, gross enchiladas. We returned to the museum and laid in the courtyard, lounging in the sun and reading. It was really fun though, because there was this gate going around the museum and it was a very busy street. So people kept passing and staring. Like staring. I've gotten used to a lot of looks, double-takes, and unbroken stares from kids. But this was another level. Gaby and I were just sitting in the grass reading, and everyone was gawking at us like we were caged animals. I couldn't help but laugh several times as people would walk past us without taking their eyes off us for the bulk of the block. I guess it was a combination of me being a white guy in a small Mexican town and the fact that people here don't really go to parks to read. They go to parks to let their kids run around on the grass that says “stay off” and eat, but sitting and reading is taboo or something. Well, it was really funny if you were there. After that for a while, we walked around some more. Gaby found this booth where you buy a little plaster object for like 50 cents and you can paint it for free. We both got dinosaurs and painted them. Which was fun. I gave mine to Marychewy.

Sometime during this JP texted us saying that the plans had changed and he wasn't going to pick us up from Guadalupe and we were pretty much on our own. We took a bus to Zacatecas Centro, which was another adventure as neither of us take buses regularly. When we got downtown we went to the Teleferico, which is just a huge cable car that takes you over the city on a zip cord to the Buffa which is like a big weird mountainy volcano thing on the other side. It was like one and a half hour wait, but we met some French couple and it was totally worth it. Rick Steves would say something like, “Full of film-consuming views”. When we got to the Buffa at the other side, we watched the sunset and I took way too many pictures again.

At this time we decided to go to Wendy's for enchiladas, because why not? On the way there, well you won't believe how fortunate we were, completely unexpectedly, we ran into this Easter Parade. It was so long and even scarier than it was long. There were drummer boys with hoods over their faces, Roman Soldiers on horseback, and all kinds of people in full KKK masks and robes of all colors. People carrying candles and like 5 different floats of Jesus at different stages in his life. It was a pretty rad parade called the “Procession del Silencio.” Stuff like this happened the whole trip, I feel. We'd just be wondering around aimlessly and we'd pass something super free and entertaining.

We ate enchiladas at Wendy's, then met JP at the town cathedral where the parade actually ended and people gathered to watch them arrive. JP was with his two brothers, who had just arrived because their uncle is very sick with cancer, and also two French couchsurfers, who couldn't help but hate me for being American. We all took a bus back to JP's house and his brother recommended a few more sites for our trip, primarily Media Luna which became our next destination.

22/03/08 Roadtrip Day 4 and Happy Birthday Gaby

Got up and took gross, cold showers. Said goodbye to JP and his family and headed past San Luis Potossi and to Media Luna, which JP's brother had recommended. We stopped at some hole-in-the-wall diner for the craziest tacos and enchiladas. I got chicken tacos and it came out like a salad, because they were smothered in all kinds of lettuce, tomato, and french fries. Gaby got Enchiladas de Potossi. They were both way too good. We also stopped at some big chain retail store as neither of us had proper swimming suits. Enclosed is a picture of mine. We had to drive 10 kilometers back on this really rough gravel road to get to Media Luna. When we got there it was a bigger stream with where a lot of kids and families where swimming or bathing depending on how you look at it. It was a very nice place, pretty lagoony and way too overcrowded as it's Mexico's spring break. We set up Gaby's tent, which was fun, because the zipper didn't work to close the door and the poles didn't fit in the holes. We improvised and it was perfect. Then we got in the water which was warmer than we were expecting and swam for an hour to break in our new suits. Somehow over the past few days Gaby's right foot is really messed up, most likely from all the walking around Zacatecas. We ate some more food and went to sleep early in our piecemeal tent as we were both cashed.