Mexico's Pacific Coast

We'd been together in Mexico for almost exactly 24 hours before we ended up on the business side of a police cordon with or faces painted strange colours surrounded by anti-government banners.  This kind of thing happens to everyone, right?

Our couchsurf host in Hermosillo was a really interesting guy we´d have loved to spend more time with, and took us to a response to the Independence Day celebrations from Yo Soy 132, a democracy focused human rights group in Mexico.  It was staged as a 'funeral for democracy', complete with coffin and stilt walkers, which is why everyone was wearing black and painted like Eric Draven from The Crow.  In general, they're a very cool group worth looking into, and it was really interesting to learn more about activism in Mexico.  The local chapter we got to meet do a huge range of different things, from symbolic marches to direct actions such as lifting the barriers on toll roads.

A good chunk of the journey we've made over the last week (and there's been quite a lot of it so bear with us) has involved drivers choosing between two roads.  It seems pretty common in Mexico to have a toll road and a free one running almost exactly the same route.  And the tolls are VERY expensive.  The free roads are much more scenic and from our point of view great as they're much better for being nosey, but if you needed to travel it could be very frustrating as they take a lot longer and the 'cuota' roads are not something most people can afford most of the time.

Our little funeral never actually got into the main square where the celebrations were going on, due to a large group of police with black masks and guns telling us with impressively straight faces that we might intimidate people.  And in doing so presumably take their job.

There have been police everywhere.  Columns of vehicles, with maskedf and armed cops hanging off the back.  And that's when it's not actual army troops clogging up the roads, in numbers sufficient to invade a small city.  It's not just at the border where you kind of expect it, while passing through the little state of Nayarit, we were confronted with billboards such as this everywhere;

I mean, just LOOK at it.  It says "For the first time in history, a police commited to Nayarit" (that's a google translate translation I will stress).  But look at them.  It screams 'we are the baddies'.  You know when film and game dystopias have police state propaganda on the walls, it looks like this.  Even the Greece's Golden Dawn would probably think it was coming on a little strong.  The little tank thing in the left of the poster is called "The Rock" by the way.  To the left of this poster federal cops dressed exactly as in the posters were molesting drivers and when I lowered the camera, a fully loaded army jeep went by.  And this is the non-dangerous bit.  The whole state had the creepy feeling of the sound of marching jackboots being just on the edge of hearing. - C


Off we hitched on Monday, and made it to Los Mochis that night.  We'd hoped to take the copper canyon railway from here, but would have had to have waited several days a combination of that and cost made us decide against it so after exploring the town which doesn't have a lot of unique parts to it apart from being where the railway goes from we set off again.

One guy did pull over by the side of the road to point out the exact spot where bodies were found, as part of telling us to be careful.  But they were cops, which is slightly different (regardless of how you feel about cops, they're in more danger from drug cartels than most people).  In general, we got picked up by a lot of families and small pick ups, and learned that you don't need fluent Spanish to be able to understand the lecture about how you shouldn't be hitch-hiking because there's a lot of bad people in world and the lecturer in question has kids your age, because its the same in every language.  But everyone has been really nice and we're south of Sinaloa now anyway, and the atmosphere is much more safe and comfortable.

That night after Los Mochis we enjoyed roast chicken (pollo stands are ubiquitous here) and endless fresh salad and stayed in a truck with a driver we'd made friends with the day before.  We ended up waiting most of Wednesday in the loading yard he was at as it took hours for his truck to get loaded.

We were both feeling ready to leave the states and its great to be in a place so completely different, where you can just wander round and talk to people and learn so much.  There's also amazing street food on pretty much every corner which is always a bonus.

Our trucker friend left us in Mazatlan, which was the first proper resort town we'd been to.  Immigrants from the US are a much higher population there (easily recognised by the golf-carts decked out in varying styles of cool.  No really.), and although the town was beautiful and the sea warm it was kind of weird to have two types of buses in the town, some with air conditioning and more expensive running from the big hotels to the historic centre and then normal ones locals actually use to get around.  The migrant women running the English/Spanish library were very nice and helpful though and helped us get our bearings.  We ate more great food, watched weird arty films in the main square in the evening, and hiked back off to another layby the next morning.

Santiago Ixcuintla was our next stop, and it's a bewitching town.  Wonky buildings all squished together and small houses right in the centre of town next to restaurants and yet more cheap, fresh, friendly food stalls.  The light and atmosphere are hard to describe.

There's a cultural centre there for the native people from the surrounding area, the Huichol.  The project is a grand attempt to empower oppressed groups and promote native art.  There are various venues linked to it, but the centre in Santiago Ixcuintla is a pretty run down house without a big sign and most people in the town don't seem to know what or where it is (and instead directed us to the nearest source of Huichol Hot Sauce).  Which is only indicative of some of the problems indigenous people face the world over, of course.

From Santiago Ixcuintla we also took an afternoon trip out to Mexcaltitan, a tiny circular village on a man-made island that's only accessible by boat.  It's possibly Aztlan, the place the Aztecs originally came from.  Also, we saw herons and iguanas and weird cows.

That evening we sat in the square, C teaching J how to make the little flowers from drink cans, selling them for whatever people wanted to give.  We were surrounded by children in no time, one of whom was working selling toys and things in the square and we taught him how to make the flowers too, which made him very happy.

Quick and easy hitching got us to Guadalajara yesterday and we're staying with another couch surf and just heading out to explore the city.  And hopefully resolve the little question of still not officially being in Mexico...

No More Deaths

We´re reuinted again, in Hermosillo, Mexico.  Tomorrow is Mexican Day of Independance, and in honour of this so far there are some children blowing trumpets under a tree in the main square.  By midnight tonight it's supposed to get more exciting...

This blog is mostly to try and put out some thoughts about our experiences with No More Deaths in Arizona.  Please click the link if you want more background on the organization- its much more comprehensive and succinct than we could be anyway.

We each spent two weeks in a camp about 13 miles from the U.S/Mexico border.  Whilst No More Deaths run dozens of different projects on both sides of the border and work with undocumented people at every stage of their interactions with the state, the day to day routine in camp is one of taking water and food out to various points in the desert, or taking hikes along trails carrying food, water and medical supplies.  The water, food, socks and other supplies from the various 'drops' move as people pass and pick them up,

and the work feels incredibly valuable as, put simply, people die in the desert all the time, thanks to a border policy that has purposefully created this situation in order to control (though not, whatever they may say, to stop) undocumented migration.

13 miles doesn't sound like very far.  In one sense, it isn't.  But the terrain is very hilly which can double the distance walked, and add to that the facts that people travel at night, sick, tired, dehydrated, and that their walk begins long before the border and ends much further north than No More Deaths are camped, and you have a lethal situation.  Before you even begin to introduce drug cartels, competing smugglers, bandits, rape and of course the Border Patrol.

Many people probably don't think of the desert as hilly- or green.  But at the moment, it's monsoon season and its both.

The monsoon brings more water, but its own dangers from flooding or disappearing trails and slippery rocks.  And pretty much all the plants which excitedly start blooming and growing are in some way spiky or sharp.

For us, what this meant was about ten days, with training and discussions either side, in the camp, waking early and spending our days hiking, stocking drops or keeping things running in the camp.

It's hard to draw any general conclusions or thoughts.  It was interesting to experience a totally different border to what we're used to, and to see how the organisation operates.  J would also like some credit for not completely flipping out about having to share a camp with a few of these:

We also met a lot of inspiring and interesting people (and some weird and scary wildlife).  Two weeks felt like just enough time to get your feet on the ground, figure out how things worked and start to get to know people.  But if we'd stayed any longer the temptation to get totally absorbed and stay a LOT longer would be hard to resist.

Anyway, then J said goodbye to everyone and took a bus down to meet C, who has composed a few poems about pelicans but not been eaten by any, and spent his time learning how to make these

out of aluminium cans, using only nail scissors.  A tourist paid 40 pesos for two of them.  If and when we return to the UK, anyone reckon we could make a fortune selling ones made out of Irn Bru cans to Americans and calling them Flowers of Scotland?

Well.  Tone successfully lowered from humanitarian aid work, we're off to explore Mexico.  It´s pretty big.  This morning someone let us use their computer and bought us nommy tacos, so we're hoping thats a good sign.

And now for something completely predictable

With J out in the desert where everything seems able to draw blood, I am left in Mexico and in control of the blog.  We shall probably write something about the desert together when reunited so I shall mull some of my solo ventures in text form

First, I waved farewell to J and went for a stroll through down town L.A. in search of the Greyhound terminal.  Wait, hold that.  First of all the library. L.A. library was very big and had lots of books which of course makes me happy.  However the first thing you see is a library store, there are lots of little ´galleries´for a dozen or so pictures, and everything is reached by escalator.  It kinda felt like a giant, sterile mall.  I´d go further that and say it´s a mall.  Why do airports have galleries and malls have art exhibits anyway? Who are they trying to fool about the bland, soulless nature of their existence?  You can´t install these things and claim the intellectual and poetic credit for them because you squeezed them into one of the identical unit (whose only merit can be described in cubic metres)  between some post-ironic(1) clothing outlet were people pay lots of money to look like they haven´t (it´s called Dereliquet I´m told)  and a stall selling food whose origin is indistinct but can be entirely eaten without having to chew.  They had orchestra halls and galleries in concentration camps.  Incidentally I´ve been reading some of Tadeusz Borowski´s short stories.  Seriously recommend them in all their screwed up horror.

So, I left the mall which posed as a library, and went down town.  This was all fine, though police were on every street corner.  Not in a organised way and nothing was happening it seemed, just lots of cops, including in the disturbing offspring of a police van and a hummer.  I was not allowed to take a picture of it, which is odd because it´s not like the thing was undercover anyway.  Anyway off I went in my Greyhound to Arizona for desert aid with No More Deaths,(2) about which I will say more when J is back from her time there.

So skip two weeks (or a fortnight if you prefer) forward, I meet J for about five hours to catch up and then it is the 1st of September when I have to be out of the Land of the Free(TM).  I am only 100km (signs are back in km here, something which I have no doubt upsets many an right-wing Fox news host.)  from the border which is eminently doable.  Even with distractions (3).  Greyhound may only go to the U.S. border apparently but there is another company will take me all the way to Hermosillo the Sonoran capital and far from the border.  But then it turns out that union fat-cats are trying to get me unceremoniously cast from America by having a public holiday which the treacherous bus company observes. Which seems unfair given the fruit-picking we did we did in Canada (which I say freely since even if the long bright red coated arm of the Canadian law enforcement were to pursue us, well, they´d be Mounties (who aren´t even mounted these days).  In short it´s Labo(u)r Day weekend.  This is no problema (see, Spanish?  Oh yes, for those who don´t know already I have zero (or cero) Spanish.  J has all the language skills, in every language.)  So, I got to the border with the aid of labo(u)r wrath risking Greyhound, which I proceed to cross on foot.  An American asks me what´s in my rucksack.  He further asks me how long I intend to be in Mexico and what my business there is.  I reply that my business with Mexico is between Mexico and myself, that as an American his job today is to thank me for my custom and wish me a good day.  He counters with an investigation of my passport.  It is legal.  However he doesn´t stamp it and I am sent on my way.  He also claims that if I want back into the U.S. I have to stay 30 days in Mexico which is very much NOT(4) what the guards said on the Canadian border coming in.  It´s almost like they don´t know what they are doing.

Through a turnstile was Nogales.  There was no Mexican customs/immigration.  Since I´m now several hundred kilometres past the border and have been so for nearly a week, it is now fair to say I appear to have accidentally entered Mexico illegally.  Which is a lot easier than going the other way across that line.  I´m not even sure who to report this to at this point.

Anyway, unsure of hitching around here, the bus to Hermosillo was very cheap.  It is the capital of the region and features some pretty colonial buildings (Colonial is a style of building here I guess, like Gothic or Victorian, but I still wince when tourist things say how ´wonderfully Colonial´a town is).  The bus that took me there only went north and south so I wandered around a bit as it grew dark, unable to discern where the town centre was. And the people I asked gave different directions.  Eventually I found a hidden corner outside the front of a bank (which given it was Saturday it wouldn´t be open tomorrow) and nestled down.  At one point 7 pick-up trucks with cops went by with sirens wailing.  They have a little frame thing in the back that 3-4 cops can stand holding on to, which makes cost effective and temperature sense i guess, but it did give them a kind of militia look.  Waving their guns around added to that as well.  Other than that it was a quiet if twitchy night and my elbows were bitten some two dozen times by mosquitoes in the night.  The next day I find the centre of town and the tourist info hut, but it didn´t open for several hours which gave me a chance to hang about, enjoy cold, cheap iced tea and chat to street folk.   The tourist info person seemed confused by the idea of the library and all commercial Internet sources were shut as it was Sunday so I just found the bus station and took a bus out west to Bahia Kino.

On an unrelated note, you know those people who leave their estate and money etc.to their pets? Do the pets pay taxes on those things?  Where does that fall into ´No taxation without representation´ arguments?

I arrived and almost immediately people took pity on me and gave me tasty food.  The Gulf of California (which at no point touches the State of California though you can see Baja California across the Gulf when the weather is nice) is near body temperature warm even at night.  I set up the inner part of the tent on the beach as two separate people told me this was fine.  Then a storm hit about 2am.  10cm (that´s 4in for imperialists) of rain fell in two hours .  Everything was soaked and I just slung the remains of my tent and belonging´s in the ¨shelter¨of a villa´s wall and hunkered down till morning beneath the tent fly I had neglected to use.  Though the tent would have simply collapsed in the wind anyway.  The following night I slept under a trailer to protect me from the storm, which never came, but many mosquitoes did.  The following night I went into my tent as soon as it got dark at 7:30pm and sweated so much I think I lost weight.  Sitting on a beach has proven surprisingly difficult and stressful.  Not to mention having to carry all my possessions with me and move each night as several people with enough English to talk to me have warned me that people intend to rob me in the night.  I´m seriously confused as to who chooses a beach vacation at this point.  But I am trying to balance the bugs, heat and storms as beaches are one of the few places I´d feel confident setting up a tent without worrying it´s someone´s land.

Bahia Kino is a weekend beach for people from Hermosillo and Arizona.  This means that during the week I basically have it to myself.  There are pictures but I can´t get them off the camera here it seems.  I´ll work on that for next time. There´s hills and cliffs as well, with many pelicans and turkey vultures.(5)  While trying to explain to someone that I had seen two vultures eating the washed up corpse of a blue-footed booby, I had a bit of a language fail.  They didn´t understand me saying ´buitre´ which is vulture so I showed them my dictionary and pointed at the word.  Except they read the word underneath and confusion reigned for a surprisingly long time of their belief that I was claiming to have witnessed a blue-footed booby (of which there are none here so that was also difficult) being devoured by two vulva on the beach.                

So I have about another week before J and I are reunited.  I aspire to find some relaxing time (and a laundry place) between now and then. So not much will happen (hopefully), I mean looking at the above not much did happen last week.  But the blog is to be about our journey and I think accurately covers what travelling with me at this time would have been like.  Feel free to email J your condolences/sympathies if you wish.
  
       

Footnotes

(1) I have been wondering about what on earth post-ironic is supposed to mean.  I´ve considered that it exists simply because being ironic is so 90´s, but I am growing to opinion that it in fact means reactionary, conservative, sexist, racist white male who´s too much of a coward to just be a conservative like the non-college educated/living in New York, London, Montreal or Paris reactionary white males would call themselves.

(2) People´s remains found in the desert last year - 183

(3) Sonoran Dogs!  The link explains all.  All except why I eat it.  This cartoon does that.  Which brings up another point.  This is not the first time I have been haunted by the eerie description of my life and inner mental life by Wondermark. It is one of several sources who do this to me.  It is very distressing because you think you are a unique individual, a combination of genetics and experiences that cannot be replicated, that is the proverbial new thing under the sun and that your experience is thus both singular and valuable.  You later discover that not only are your thoughts, feeling, loves, hates and experiences are not only not unique, but are readily predictable and transferable into cartoon format.  Or that Raskolnikov stole your life 150 years before you lived it.  Not that I´ve killed an old lady, but if I did do so, I´d probably be thinking of Napoleon. Or many parts of David Foster Wallace´s writings.  And to top finding your personal thoughts and dreams stolen by people now dead, it is distressing that they are doing it so much better and more articulately and clearer than you could.  Of your own feelings!  I´ve written to David Malki about this and await his reply.  

(4) If you enter the U.S. (even when transiting) any time spent in Canada or Mexico thereafter is counted as time spent in the U.S. If you then return from Canada or Mexico and enter the U.S. again, this does not mean you have another 90 days to use. 

(5) Turkey vultures are a lot like punks it has been explained to me recently. They are great scavengers and never really kill anything.  In fact, their beaks are unable to pierce many animals hide and so they circle around it (since they often spot them first thanks to their good vision) until a hawk or some such shows up to do the lacerating job. They have no real predators, except for other birds of prey that sometimes eat their young.  To help prevent this, turkey vultures make their nests intentionally diusgusting, leaving piles of half-digested rotting meat around it.  If this fails and a predator does land at the nest, the vulture projectile vomits in the face of the attacker.