30/04/2004

Rainy Season in Mexico and other rants

Seems the rainy season has arrived a month early but you won't hear any complaints from me. The temperature is still perfect. The rain is a relief. It cleans the air, which is really bad in Mexico. I love Mexico and am furious at it in the same breath. If you're from Mexico, what's up the all the trash E*V*E*R*Y*W*H*E*R*E? Don't you guys even see it? It blows my mind. Do you think good, old Mother Nature can just wave a wand and it will magically disappear? And the air pollution. I mean, what's up with that? Your country is a paradise and you shit all over it. And Mexico City? Holy god!

But don't get me wrong. I love Mexico. It's an exotic, fragile place and the people I've met are friendly, direct and real. I'm sorry for you the US is so near by, the Big Polluters, the World Stink Pot. Our government is run by a bunch of war craven bullies with the world's largest cache of weapons of mass destruction at their disposal. Some neighbors!

So, the internet cafe is closing now. G'night.

21/04/2004

Oaxaca City

We've been in Oaxaca about a week now and Mexico for a month over all. We have a small apartment on the balcony overlooking a community courtyard stuffed with hundreds of potted plants and two huge, old fruit trees that grow far above the building. Mexico is truly an exotic place, a must visit. We drove down through the colonial, mountain route because it was Samana Santa (Easter week), a national holiday which runs a week then turns into spring break for another week. Don't travel during Samana Santa unless you already have reservations and plan to stay in one place. It was a mad house. We would have driven down the pacific coast but didn't want to deal with the crowds. The mountain cities were crowded as well but not as bad as the coast. We just weren't up for sharing the beaches with mariachi bands and little kids selling Chicklets. It gave us a chance to see internal Mexico though and I'm glad we did it this way now. I feel like I've seen a lot of the country for the short time I've been here.

We came into Oaxaca via the mountain route from Veracruz. It's an incredibly lovely, steep road over peaks up to about 9000 feet at their highest. The only problem is the Mexican drivers are insanely dangerous, even on nice, wide highways. On narrow, mountain roads it's anybodies guess what will happen. Busses pass busses on uphill curves and it's all uphill curves to Oaxaca. The worst part was over the sea level farm lands outside of Veracruz. It's a short distance but pure madness. The road is choked with sugar cane trucks which aren't merely trucks, they are trucks pulling sometimes 4 or 5 trailers with ten foot high racks which are stuffed twenty, maybe thirty foot high piles of sugar cane. The road has two lanes and is muddy and narrow but at any point, there were 2 to 6 lanes of traffic made up of cane trucks, busses, taxi cabs, pedestrians, bicycles, burro carts, hand carts, and us.

So far I've taken over 3000 pictures so will be posting a few on my website when I get the chance. We're still settling in here. We found the cool internet cafe a couple of days ago and they're letting us bring our laptop here and plug into their connection for half the cost of using one of their computers... .50 an hour. Great deal. Eventually, I'll try uploading to my website.

Yesterday we visited 4 ruins in the valley, some whose origins date back about 3000 years. This place is full of pyramids. I photographed one site right along the road in a plowed field, part of it had a damn telephone pole sticking out of the middle of it. Currently I have pyramid fever and suspect that every mound is a possible pyramid.

14/04/2004

Tuxtepec

We´ve been in Mexico about 3 weeks now and are currently in the city of Tuxtepec which is in the state of Oaxaca.
We´re leaving for Oaxaca City in the morning. I´d write more but I'm on a funky connection and it´s taking too much time. In brief, our big adventure yesterday was getting two traffic tickets. One was fair. We did run the red light leaving Veracruz, even though we were completely in the flow of traffic I figure we got tagged as the rich gringos, which is a real drag. The second ticket was completely bogus. We were simply pulled out of traffic and given a ticket. It was all for the bribe, very friendly, very everyday in Mexico. The cops stood around chatting and laughing during the "negoiation".

22/03/2004

Yahoo maps

North 0.1 miles > east 0.1 miles > north 0.2 miles > west 1.1 > south 809.78 miles through the briefly green California spring. The animals lazing on the velvet green knolls and grassy ravines north of San Francisco look like citizens of forever. We creep through the beginnings of LA's rush hour and, although Yahoo's a bit off on the mileage, we reach San Diego about 12 hours after starting out and found our way to the night's motel. Tomorrow we're getting some last minute work done on the Jeep then taking off again. Next stop, Tuscon Arizona en route to Mexico.

20/03/2004

Oregon, ready or not

We finally launched, at least partially. We're in Oregon saying hi and good-bye to family and getting some last minute trip related things done. I can't begin to go over the hubbub since my last post here but it was, in a word, frenzy. Not that I spent the entire time preparing for the road. Knowing forced withdrawal was immanent, I was busy cramming in as much computer time as possibe. We leave for San Diego on Monday, 5 am. Then Mexico.

18/03/2004

Leaving Reno

Leaving Reno in the sun's long rays. To our left, the western range still harbors remnants of snow. Above its peaks, an armada of wedge shaped clouds is sailing east. To our right, our shadow flails in the roadside sage . Soon it will be dark and the thing will be absorbed. A phantom beginning, only the ahead will tell the story. Mexico. Sometimes you have to go north to get south.

11/03/2004

Trip

I should be packing, getting ready for this journey, but here I sit writing to you, the occasional wayfarer stumbling by in the theoretical future. It's kind of crazy. The curling pages of my 5 x 8 yellow pad sits by my side ready to catch whatever "must do" flits through my head. I'm not the legal type. The 8 X 10 yellow legal pad is too much for me. The 5 x 8s are okay though. Cheap. So far, I've crossed out 2 items. Not a good start. Mr. Lee is slashing through his lists. He has 3 full size legal pads for 3 different categories. In fact he just breezed by with the latest update. He just got off the phone with Rich from Lofty Shelters. Rich is the owner. We bought our tent from him about a year ago. It's great. A real money saver in the long run, but like any gear, it's the accessories that bite you in the ass. We needed a spare handle. We lost ours on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere Utah last summer and, if we hadn't found it via a seriously serious back track crawl over several miles of dirt road rimming steep cliffs over which anything that falls...disappears....our trip would have been over. The handle is the key. It cranks up the tent. Losing the handle is like losing the keys to your car. No. Worse. A vehicle can be hotwired. Losing the handle to the tent is the end. Pry the tent open and that's it. Kaput. No tent. Even driving would be fucked. So a new handle is on the way and Mr. Lee gets to check one off his Jeep list. Me? I've just burned another 20 minutes writing this. And why? For what? Okay. I've gotta stop. Back to work.

The Early Bird and Mexico

Okay, let's get one thing straight here. I'm not actually afraid to go to Mexico. No really. No more than I'm afraid to get up in the morning. I have to admit, getting up in the morning has been a problem in the past. A big problem. But that was then and this is not then... and getting up is not such a problem. In fact, I'm generally pretty enthusiastic these mornings and have been for a good long time. I won't get into it here but trust me when I say I do know what it's like living under the covers, literally. Anyway that's enough to bring me around to the other half of my duel topic, the Early Bird.

The Early Bird in my tiny world happens to be a Magpie. I doubt you've heard but I consider myself quite fortunate on this account. If I'm up earlier enough and quiet enough, there is often a solitary magpie having breakfast in my bird park (read "dirt back yard") before anyone else gets there. Even during the recent snows, there was the one set of big claw prints weaving through the snow, following the seed trail buried below. As a child, the adults made a point of what they assured me was F*A*C*T. The early bird always gets the worm. This is another myth I have lived to witness reality prove otherwise. At least here, the Early Bird here doesn't generally get the best part of the meal. Why? Because she's too early. I put out the goodies... the scraps of bread, new seed, the occasional lump of moldy quiche or cheese and break the water in the ice after she's come and gone. Is there a lesson in this? Sure. Why not? I can squeeze a lesson out of just about anything, even for the Early Bird. Eat breakfast twice.

06/03/2004

Reluctant Traveler

We're leaving for Mexico in two weeks, Oaxaca City to be exact, which is located in the mountains of Oaxaca. The plan is to meander through Mexico, camping as much as possible along the way, stay in Oaxaca City for a month and then perhaps drift down into Guatemala or go to Belize for a bit but that depends on how we (I) am doing. This is something I wouldn't be doing on my own, first because I couldn't afford it and second because I'm lazy and a chicken. Lee is the mastermind. A lot of people would be ecstatic over an adventure like this but me? I tremble and groan. I'm pathetic. Ah well. I've lived through the worst of times I guess I can survive a little kick ass fun. Lee is an angel and I, well I am one strange bird.

29/02/2004

Happy Leap Year!

Good-bye February.