Of Zapatistas and Zorrillos

We left Mexico City on the Friday morning so as to increase our chances of reaching San Cristobal by Sunday lunch-time (as it's 570 miles or 917 km).  The first day we got all the way to Coatzacoalcos through many dramatic showers and lightning storms, in the back of several more pick-ups which is a pretty common way to travel in Mexico.

 We spent a lovely evening with our couchsurf there, where she and J traded hola-hoop for juggling lessons.  J wants to get one when she returns and, incidentally, is still also keen to learn to play the harmonica, possibly both at the same time.  C seems unimpressed (can't imagine why... - J).

By the next evening we were in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.  Aside from being awash in posters of the new governor gushing over his victory in the July election (at an unknown cost to taxpayers for the advertisements or even if it was solely from party funds, denial of advertising space for anyone besides him), it was nice but like a lot of cities that mostly exist from the latter half of the 20th century, a bit of a generic, industrial spawl.  We set off early again but unable to escape the taxi swarm (a continuing problem hitching on the edges of cities, involving frantically signalling to them that we don´t have money for them, whilst other drivers assume it is a taxi we want) we caught a cheap coach to San Cristobal and eventually worked out how to get out to the school at Oventic, which was another hour or so out into the stunning Chiapas mountain, up where the mist forever lurks and many of the maize fields are nearly vertical.

Wall of our classroom

What can we say about the school?  For those who aren't familiar with the Zapatista struggle, the Wiki overview is here.  But it is much more than another 'People's Front of Revolutionary Liberated People' that plagued the world 40 years ago(1).  It's about community building, and developing true direct democracy and autonomy for communities that have been ignored and denied access to state resources when they haven't been outright repressed and attacked.  The school is situated with several other projects, co-operatives, governance centres and educational resources that have been built on practically no resources.

So, we were going to learn both Spanish and about the organization of the communities and of similar struggles in Mexico.  And we learnt a lot about both, the practice of just talking in Spanish and not even being allowed (although one of the promotores running our classes spoke English) to ask for help in English, for hours each day, being really good or using more more of the language.  We shared a lot of ideas and talked politics and organisation with very interesting people- albeit in imperfect Spanish (J even had to try and explain her education in Spanish at one stage, not always easy even in English).  There was also an amazing library and film collection to bury ourselves in.

The two weeks over, and the only problem a couple of bouts of what might have been salmonella and certainly wasn't a giggle, but only lasted a day, we descended the hills again, feeling like we were emerging from a dream into the real world.  In reality, it's more like the other way around.

We stayed with the same host again back in Tuxtla, who is very lovely, and the next day went to the zoo.  It's more interesting than most because all of the animals in it are native to Chiapas, so its got a much more real and regional feel to it.  Also some of them, like this guy:

are just roaming around loose.  Not this guy though but he doesn't seem to mind:

We're not sure tapirs can mind anything.

On Sunday we hit the road again

I'm currently a big nerd about evening light and pictures of roads- J

for a lengthy hitch- google maps claims it is seven hours from Tuxtla to Oaxaca City and it takes longer because of windy mountain roads.  We made it though, including a ride with a family of fourteen crammed into a pick up and a car (it got even more crammed when we and our huge bags joined them), and a lot of nonchalant whistling as we cruised through some immigration and military checkpoints (2).

Yesterday lunchtime we picked up the keys for the flat we're staying in for the next month.  This came about because it was cheaper to get it for a month than to get a 'vacation home' for a week or two.  With at least two if not more friends joining us soon Couch Surfing would be very tricky and it's nice to have a base for a while.  It feels dead luxurious with a shower and a ceiling fan and bedsheets and everything.

We're off to explore a little of Oaxaca today having stocked up on food we can cook yesterday and in J's case become wildly excited over the amazing chocolate you can get here.

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(1)  And like anything that constantly repeats certain credentials  (our 'free' market anyone, which the 2007 crisis and forced bail-out demonstrates is't free in any sense of the word) usually is the opposite of what it says.

(2) Those with good memories will recall we were officially advised to remain 'illegal'.  But we're not convinced a checkpoint is going to believe that.  

Ciudad de Mexico

It's confusing, you see.  There are three things people might mean when they say Mexico.  Mexico the country, Mexico the state, and Mexico the city.  So since Guadalajara there have been signs for 'Mexico'.  Which was a bit disorientating as we could have sworn we were already there.  But given we usually lack a coherent plan and have ended up all kinds of places so far we couldn't be totally sure.

This week, after hitching with a trucker who turned out to be going to Mexico State (luckily its around the city), but dropped us off at a bus, we have definitely been in Mexico City.  Which is also in Mexico, so we've been there too.  But not Mexico state.

As long as that's all clear.

Mexico city is big.  And it's busy and fast paced.  It's the only capital city we've visited so far and definitely one of the largest.  We're back in a world of crowds, a big underground metro, markets you could lose an elephant in, political graffiti, and a huge variety of people (with a tendancy towards loads of goths.  This actually makes sense when you consider the catholocism, which mixed with indigenous beliefs has created such a death-oriented society.  Add to that rebellion through fashion and consumption and the post-everything apathy of big cosmopolitian cities.  So they're everywhere, and it is far too hot for so much black, thick make-up and layers of metal and leather jewelry.  Yes, we both spent years in crowds of teenagers who didn't look so different.  It's not that we dislike it.  That's just it- they're ADORABLE.)

Also, the whole place is VERY slowly sinking, because it used to be a lake and has been filled in but then drained leaving insecure silt.  The cathedral is visibly wonky.

On our first night here our hosts took us out for some pulque, which is a fermented cactus drink that was invented by the Aztecs.  Except you weren't supposed to drink more than one cup or the god of four hundred rabbits possessed you and you went bonkers.  Ignoring this warning, we enjoyed several.  It has to be consumed within 24 hours of brewing or it goes off, so really we were doing the bar a favour.

Split between the next day and Tuesday we went on a mural hunt.  As we've said, they're a huge art form here and they're really amazing and interesting.  The Nacional Palace and Palace of Fine Arts are both free, and so is the Colegio del san Ildefonso on Tuesdays.  There are lots of artists but two big names are Orozco-

and Riviera (Frida Kahlo's fella)

that picture may not be totally clear, but thats because I had to use the Landscape setting and still didn't get it all in.  I just wanted to give an idea of the SIZE of the thing.  It's in the National Palace and is about the history of Mexico from prehispanic times to the 30s.  It's interesting that it's in no way slavishly devoted to Mexico, and there don't appear to be many good guys.  It's hard to imagine the UK allowing something criticising the wealthy of the country and the church and showing rape and murder of indigenous people to be up in such an important building for the state.  It's kind of strange, as it's not like the Mexican state has been any different in its actions to many others.  But it seems they have much less idyllic view of their history.  Perhaps its because at the time it was a very socialist country, and socialist art is different?  We certainly like how realistic and literal Riviera's pieces are (though still very aesthetically driven).  Orozco's need a little more context and some of the others stray a bit into the abstract for our liking.

On Sunday we also explored the Museo de la Revolución, which is under the big monument to said revolution.  It was going to be a gigantic palace for someone with lots of money and power but they only got as far as one big dome before the revolution happened, which was a bit awkward for a while until someone thought of turning it into a monument.  It was free on Sundays (some things are free only for residents or Mexicans, which we understand but means we had to skip a few things) and the info in there is really detailed.

On Monday, we visited Teotihuacán (the challenge is pronouncing it after a few pulques).  It was one of the first big urban and religious centres in mesoamerica, a contemporary of Ancient Rome and bigger than it was at the time.  The people there had no writing so we know little about them.  Yes, its completely stunning, and we're basically only looking at foundations and ruins.  It was deserted (lots of theories and most of them involve politcal unrest and some kind of uprising involving the burning of rich powerful men's houses, hooray) five hundred years before the Aztecs showed up the area, before the heyday of the Maya away in Chiapas.

We spent the whole day there and there was plenty to see, and a lot of walking.  It's so hard to know anything for sure about the place.  For hundreds of years the biggest temple has been called the Temple of the Sun, but now the theory is its much more likely to have been a storm and water god, and the Aztecs assumed it was the Sun God just because they were big on him.  How would it really have felt to be there?  Even if we knew the history better like we do in some other cities, you never really know.  In a hundred years if anyone digs up London they'll assume Starbucks was essential to government, we worshipped a God called Gap and everyone thought the Shard skyscraper was dead important to their daily lives (anyone heard of it and not lived in London?  Didn't think so.).  You get a sense of the majesty and size of everything, and a powerful sense of the years.  Even thinking about how little we do know seems important.

Wednesday, at the Museo de Anthropologia, it was information overload.  It's an amazing place.  It starts with the evolution of mankind as a species, introduces anthropology, and then talks about all the different peoples of prehispanic Mexico up until the invasion by the Spanish.  Upstairs there are just as many sections on where the peoples of modern Mexico are now and how they live.  We spent six and a half hours there and did not see it all properly by a long chalk.  It's interesting to see how eurocentric our education always is about these things.  Not that the museum has escaped its own social context, but they have made a real effort to explore so many different groups.  In Europe, you hear a lot about the Aztecs, but they were only around, mostly killing other people, for about two hundred years before the Spanish showed up.  South of them the Zapotec had huge cities lasting twice as long as that and the Mixtec developed metallurgy.

Tomorrow, we're leaving and headed for Chiapas, to study Spanish at the Zapatista-run language school (our classes start on Monday but we're still hitching so its better to be in plenty time).  We may not update for a couple of weeks.  This language school was a major part of our planning the trip and we're very excited to experience the home of one of the most inspiring groups in the world, and improve our Spanish while we're at it.  Wish us luck and we will see you in Oaxaca, where some friends are joining us for a bit of a change of pace :)

Guanajuato State

The city of Guanajuato itself is located in a ravine.  This means it is very vertically built, with lots of little winding alley-ways and tunnels for the cars.  The disadvantages of living here would be high rent, lots of tourists clogging the streets and no parking.  However as a visitor it was gorgeous though it looked straight out of Castille or Italy.  The network of tunnels snaking through the town and allowing access to the outside world were different though and definitely enhanced the idea of being transported to somewhere different.

Of course there was the very pretty and unreasonably numerous collection of churches, which seemed to have one cathedral per architectural fad.  As the location of the Cervantino, there is a definite Don Quixote theme; statues, T-shirts, bumper stickers, murals.  There is also a museum of Don Quixote iconography from paintings by Picasso and Dali, to pottery, chess sets (which J loved) and statues.  There were hundreds of them, from all over the world and all different cultures.  Some had replaced the windmill with a mushroom cloud, in one he led the refugees of the Spanish Civil War seeking a home.  It was amazing how big a symbol he has been to so many people.  And while the literature that Cervantes was satirising has largely not survived (at least not for popular audiences) Don Quixote has and has transcended that simple understanding to be reworked as a character and set of values in times and cultures far beyond the text.  Also it was free as it was Tuesday so that was great too.

In the evening our couchsurf offered to take us to Leon which is a much larger city nearby, and where he had lived until recently.  He had a friend we could stay with who was coming back to Guanajuato on Thursday.  He felt we had missed several things in Leon so we set off there.  We met his friend, who although she spoke a little bit of English, it was a great chance (and easier) for J to speak Spanish.  This was great as we are trying to learn Spanish and when people speak fluent English it's just much easier to do so, so these opportunities are a good thing.  Also, she (well, her dog) currently has a litter of ADORABLE puppies.

In the morning we wandered around the downtown of Leon, where there was a really cool art centre running all sorts of open classes and hosting local exhibits.  We also went the University Library, which while very large, had surprisingly few books in it given the space available.  But libraries don't hold books these days, they are rather Institute status symbols.

However there was a really good museum nearby, which had lots of interesting bits from the importance of food in Meso-American cultures, to mining in the region (Guanajuato supplied a third of the world's silver in the 18th century), to showing local examples of the architecture of different political periods (Colonial to Independence to Revolution).  During our walking around, we crossed a bridge over the large motorway running through Leon, where there's a cute local thing of couples putting their names on padlocks and attaching it to chains that run along the top of the walkway.  There were scores of them all the way along.

Thursday we knuckled down the difficult and serious task our couchsurf (back in Guanajuato) had set us; that is, of eating lots of tasty local food.  So we had bombas, which are diced pineapple and cucumber and jicama (which is very juicy and tasty), along with lots of fresh lime juice, (optional) dash of chilli powder and crisps and cheese on top.  This was followed by tequila ice-cream for J and rumpope (an egg-nog-like drink apparently drank on Day of the Dead) ice-cream for C.  Yay-ness all round.  We returned back to Guanajuato in the evening and chilled out in one of the squares, people watching and making flowers.  There was much to see as the city is heaving for the festival with all kinds of street theatre and music on each corner.  We chatted for a while with a guy from Honduras, who possessed a fine looking drum.  He told us we'd love Honduras as it is very pretty.  Also that many people there watch the Scottish football league as two of Celtic's players are Honduran.  Apparently this will assure us of a warm welcome.       

Today was another sunny day so we went out for a hike in the surrounding hills.  It was beautiful and the air was noticably cleaner than it has been in the cities, over the last week or so, we've both felt like we are getting the start of a cold a lot of the time and our mucus has been a little bit on the bloody side.  Locals tell us this is normal.  In Leon especially the massive factories are a somewhat obvious suspect, people telling us about the very nasty chemicals they have had to work with right in the heart of the city.  Since Mexico City is quite famous for it's pollution we'll see what that's like.

After our hike we went to the Museum of the Mummies, where the dry atmosphere and mineral-rich soil had caused very rapid natural mummification of some of the bodies buried here.  They're pretty interesting and creepy to look at, including little children, often ornately dressed up to give them into the care of particular saints.  Often the mummies have little stories told in the first person on their display case- kind of creepy and playful at the same time.  Mexico is famously cultural obsessed with death, and the museum and the huge, ornate, busy, slightly chaotic cemetery behind it seem to fit in with this.

There's a sense of life and continuance around the cemetery that we've never experienced in Europe.  People here who have also lived in the states say they have definitely noticed a difference too.  Like Europe, America hides the dead and dying and fears them, often culturally killing the old by cutting them out of their lives long before they actually die.  Here, you don't get a chance to do that among all the ceremonies, books, art and brightly painted dancing skeletons.

Guadalajara

We trundled out on Tuesday morning with no concrete plan other than to find pretty, old stuff, proving as the day progressed that if you set your goals at nice manageable levels you will not be disappointed.  Guadalajara is full of beautiful churches, theatres and monuments.  As the capital of Jalisco it is also home of tequila, mariachis, and charros (Mexico rodeo cowboys): lots of those ´what you think of when you think of Mexico´ things all in one place.

Some of our favourite spots were the weird melty steampunky statues/benches in one big square

and the murals by Orozco in the government building

Murals are a big thing in Mexico and there´s lots to be found- lots of famous ones were commissioned after the Revolution, but its also just a much more common art form at all levels.

We learnt a lot about the tequila that evening, as our host has several different kinds and introduced us to them over a nice dinner we made with our co-surfer (1).  In order to drink it properly you should just sip it neat, apparently.  J is in favour of this and decided it would be culturally appropriate to sip a lot of it.  Having said that you couldn´t do it with what you actually get in the UK, as it´s totally different and the method is usually to drink it so fast you can´t taste it.

On Wednesday, surprisingly devoid of headaches (must be the quality) we went to Guadalajara´s Museo Palentologica.  There was a special exhibition on about corn, which at first glance sounds very boring, but when you remember how completely integral to all the agriculture and human culture of the area it is it makes it really interesting in context.

On Thursday we went to ask immigration what we should do about not officially being here (in the Federal government buildin we dubbed the Kafkaquarium).  We could wait three weeks and pay 1,250 pesos which we should have paid on the border (if we´d personally hunted down the border guard from wherever he was(2)), and is included in your flight if you fly here, and get a tourist form.  Or we´ll be fined on the border when we leave.  How much? we naturally inquire.  She reckons its about 290 pesos and basically officially advises us to go for that.  Seems like they WANT you to not be official.

That evening we went to the oldest cantina (bar) in Guadalajara with our host and a whole crowd of couch-surfing friends and contacts of his.  A couple of guys from Japan (3) are also on a round the world trip.  Look how much more professional and shiny they are than us.

After a quiet Friday as J wasn´t feeling great (not enough tequila) we explored the Tiangus Cultural alternative market on Saturday (some good stuff from the local area, but a lot very similar to alternative markets the world over.  Plus the group of people doing some traditional native dances from the area being next to a larger group watching people play Guitar Hero was FUNNY- C.

On several evenings we made more tin-can flowers and chilled in squares (not at Tiangus Cultural though because there were much better tin-can things there).  It´s a really nice way of interacting with a new space.  You´re not demanding people watch you like busking, and you can still people watch.  But lots of different sorts of people come over and chat or want to buy them, and as they cost us nothing but rather enjoyable time we just sell them for whatever people want to give.

Sunday we went to see a charro competition.  Lots of pretty horses

and impressive tricks

and it´s pretty cheap and full of locals, obviously something people actually go to in the area.

Yesterday we hitched easily to Guanajauto, Guanajauto (so pretty they named it twice).  The majority of the journey we made in a big yellow school bus (minus children).  Our lifts had just appropriated it in Guadalajara and were driving ten hours back to Monterrey for reasons they did not elaborate on.  Such is life (which is still a famous saying among bush rangers)

Our host here showed us round last night and today we´re off to explore and find out what events are on at this month´s Cervantino Festival.


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(1) Our co-surfer was a very nice guy from Australia, but left a couple of days early because he paid to go and stay in a hostel where he could be sure of getting internet to watch the Aussie Football League finals.  Heh.  Australians.

(2) It´s not that Mexican customs doesn´t exist.  It´s all available and there for you to find, just like local bypass schemes

(3) Did anyone know in Japan you get vending machines with booze in them?!?! Really!  But apparently underage drinking isn´t a problem, which, combined with our very British and Aussie excited reactions to this news probably explains culturally why Japan is allowed that privilege and we´re not.

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.