Journal Remnants Page 1

Feb 24th
Woke up too early for my taste. Hector dropped us off and we were thumbs out along a rather empty stretch of Mexico outside of Puebla by 8AM. We had no map, just the name of the 'highway' we wanted to take- which we declined to write down for whatever reason. At this point, we really should be more efficient at traveling like this. By the time our first ride stopped I had already forgotten the name of the road, it was difficult to pronounce I remembered, and maybe had a 'Kla' sound in it? Angela wasn't any help, she said she thought I knew. Not wanting to keep our good samaritan waiting, I thanked the driver and declined the ride. He pulled away, looking puzzled. With no phone, no internet cafes, and no way to determine where we were going, we simply settled on East.

This meant we didn't have to be picky with our rides; we were already walking with the East bound traffic, we had determined that much, so as long as our potential driver didn't have either a weapon or his junk in hand when they stopped, we were going with. Our first ride was a classic style red Volkswagen Bug. Those cars are everywhere in Mexico and I was really beginning to dislike them. Unless the car was pretty empty and without passengers, getting myself, Angela, and our packs into the car was quite the task. But, we weren't about to turn down a ride based on that. Roberto was in his mid 20's and on his way to work, construction. Turns out he had went on a hitch hiking trip of his own in the not too distant past, along with another guy and 2 girls. He spared no details of his trip and told us about a ride with a truck driver that very nearly turned ugly when he couldn't have his way with one of the girls. Morale boost, thanks. He dropped us off at his exit and explained that ahead would be a fork in the highway with the right branch going into Oaxaca and the left into Veracruz.

Our next ride was in a VERY nice Dodge Ram. With the Dodge Viper engine and all of that. The driver wasn't the chatty type, another young guy about the same age, with tattoos and impossibly dark sun glasses. He was much bigger than me. I wondered if he was in the cartel or something. It was an expensive truck. It was also air conditioned and very fast, so I didn't care. He came up on the fork and without saying a word continued on to the left, so just like that, we were going to Veracruz. After 20 minutes and well more than double that in kilometers, he dropped us off and headed down a tiny road into some small town off in the distance.

We got picked up by a semi, hauling concrete blocks or something of that sort, right outside of Pico de Orizaba, a dormant volcano. This is the 7th most prominent peak in the world, containing permanent snow and a glacier. I wanted to climb it when we first sat in Puebla and looked at in the distance, talking about how we could do it and how awesome it would be. I still wanted to now, but it's a lot more menacing when you aren't 100km away. Our driver explained how a few people die each year climbing up it, saying they don't realize you can't just go walking up a glacier without the spiked shoes and a pick-ax etc. One day...

The ride in the semi was incredibly slow. I can't emphasize this enough. The road into Veracruz wrapped around the volcano, reaching what I would guess is close to the half the altitude. Clouds, not little pussy fog, but full on thick ass HUGE clouds were rolling down the sides of the mountain, making the drive wet, low visibility, and slow as the truck struggled to pull its load up the mountain. Just a few minutes earlier we might as well had been in the desert with not a scrap of shade to protect us from the oppressive sun and it's desire to cook us alive. Now I needed a coat. Every now and again a car would dart around us and its tail lights would quickly disappear into the thick white in front of us. That's about all we got to see for the next couple of hours with the exception of a break near the peak of our little journey up and down the mountain; unfortunately I wasn't comfortable enough yet with our driver to pull my camera out, and the view was amazing. Coming down into Veracruz was equally amazing though, my favorite part of Mexico so far, tropical trees, tropical breeze.

1 month later

Really keeping on top of the writing.

It was very much by chance I ended up in Tulancingo in the first place. Of all the places I read about or heard about, I never came across Tulancingo. The only reason I went there is because I was looking into hitch hiking Mexico, found a guy that did and even made a TV show about it, sent him a message asking about hitching Mexico, and after a few messages ended up coming to his town.

It's not a particularly beautiful city, nothing really out of the ordinary to draw it to your attention, not a ton (sometimes anything) to do. According to Wikipedia, it has 6 times the population of Morgantown, but it always felt smaller. Yet I was there for almost a month solid. Chalk that up to the people there, definitely made the stay worth it.

The guy I was 'staying with' introduced me to half the town I think, between his family and his friends. I say 'staying with' because I bounced around with other people more often than actually staying with him, and got offers from a dozen more to crash at their places. Awesome people.

It was a month so lots of stuff happened- here is what comes to mind. Working for free drinks.
Sleeping in a bar. Girls. Lots of beautiful girls. Meeting lots of people. Pretending to remember all the people.

I was at a pool hall one night, and three random guys that barely spoke any English struck up a conversation with me, bought us drinks all night and we stayed till well after closing until they had to kick us out. That's a good summary for the people in general, friendly, talkative, curious why the hell I am there, fun times.

There are mother fuckers there too though. I was keeping my stuff at the bar, and some piece of shit got into the shelf up above the bar and stole my ipod. About a week later they came back for the ipod charger. Someone that was trusted to hang around the bar I assume, back behind it where my stuff was. Pretty frustrating.

I still haven't seen violence in Mexico first hand, but unfortunately one friend was jumped and robbed while riding his bike home, lost all his things and got a black eye.

I saw the pyramids at Teotihuacan, very sweet- much much bigger than I expected. Tons of pictures, actually tons of pictures of everything but I still have no way to get anything off of this camera. Sony blows. I got my first official hitch hiking experience in Mexico and a travel partner now. A girl I had met in the bar told me she always wanted to be on the Amazing Race and travel around- and she had hitch hiked around Mexico before. So we went together to Teotihuacan and hitch hiked, everything went well. She was in a crazy situation there so I figured shit why not and now we are traveling the country together. She knows less English than I know Spanish, it's been interesting.

What else.. tons of awesome food, some only found in/around Tulancingo. Markets with tons of bootleg, pirated, copied stuff, I bought a new movie not out on DVD in the US yet.. cost me a little over $1 US.

Mexico City - Tulancingo - Women - part.1

Damn it, I wanted to update often so I wouldnt have a ridiculously long post. But, I have a ton to cover since my last post so this is really long, again.

The rest of my time in Mexico City was good and bad. I made it to the Zocalo, its the biggest city square in the world I hear, and the Cathedral finally. I have plenty of awesome pictures of both, but I am still with no way to upload them, so until then you'll have to just trust me when I say they are amazing. The Cathedral was ridiculously huge, I felt like I was watching a movie or something walking into the place- the ceiling is I think a mile high, gold statues everywhere, everything looking very old and very expensive and very grand and all. I'm not religious so I didn't really have much to do, I walked around the place taking some pictures, being impressed, until I took some pictures of an area I guess it is rude to take pictures of, and I was asked to leave. It was the last area anyway so I was on my way out. And I got the pictures. So ha-ha.

The Zocalo was kind of funny. It was a warm day, 20 degrees or so (thats around 70 for you Americanos) and right in the center of the square there is an iceskating rink. It couldnt have looked more out of place, and from the people I talked to they have very mixed feelings on it. There is a LOT of poverty in the city, and the country in general, and people think that the money should have been used to help something to that effect. Evidentally though, the people in charge decided that poor people dont get to travel and they never get to ice skate so why not put an ice skating rink in for those who would never get to skate otherwise. Seems silly to me, I've actually never ice skated either, but I think if I was living in the conditions of some of the people here I would not be happy with this decision.

After that I spent a lot of my time getting really lost. Everyday I was lost atleast an hour a day. The only thing that kept me from freaking out was the metro, whenever I would finally find a station I could make it home again, but they are fairly spread out. One evening I was feeling like I knew the area well and decided to go find a 'gringo bar' I had heard about in the area- this was near sunset, and my rule had been be near home at dark but since I figured it was easy I'd be fine. I never found the bar or my way back to that station but I did get to go through an interesting experience- I need some type of hidden camera so I can record video without being the douche walking around recording things here- anyway, it was very similar to the black market area only MORE people and MORE commotion. It was dark, things were starting to close, and people were everywhere, shopping, or yelling for you to come in to their stores, or just shoving through people trying to get where they were going. This was Jan 6th.. here they have a kind of Christmas thing on Jan 7th I found out later so I guess that explains it, but it was still intense being lost in the chaos.

Speaking of which, I met a 'friend' at a festival they have setup in one of the parks downtown for the 7th. It was like a carnival, selling everything you can think of, the game booths for popping balloons, and the rides. Their rides are WAY more awesome than our carnivals by the way, some were borderline themepark awesomeness but I didnt want to stick out even more by riding one. Anyway, so I was sitting down around a giant fountain, eating and studying some spanish and this guy that had been sitting near me struck up a conversation. He had pretty good English so we talked for awhile then he showed me around the area, all the historic buildings and telling me the story behind everything. Gotta give him that, he knows the history of everything and I half expected him to ask me for money at the end as some sort of tour guide. He didn't however and we parted ways with plans to meet up tomorrow to show me another area. Day 2 with my friend would take a sharp turn towards WTF. He was laying the ground work for it for awhile tho, asking how I was making money etc etc. Then he told me a story about a friend of his that made money by basically being a gay prostitute. I figured what was coming next and so we started heading back toward the metro cause I said I had seen a cibercafe earlier and wanted to use it. Sure enough he starts telling me how much money I could make being a handsome gringo and all and I had to politely say no. He kept pressing and I almost told him to fuck off but didn't want to offend the guy and managed to come up with an excuse and split. I wondered around a bit more and randomly got on TV afterward, I'm not sure what it was about exactly, there was a gorgeous woman, a giant rat man, and I think an alligator, asking me about the 7th of January and its meaning, then I think making jokes about me being from Sweden and then Canada? They played with my hair a bit and said more things too fast for me to understand, but I had a pretty huge crowd watching so it was awesome in that respect.

I ended up leaving the next morning, earlier than I had expected and without cellphone due to some drama I don't have time to get into. Actually I don't have time at all, this will have to be 2 parts again.. I have to go to the bar I'm working at now ha. Adios.

Birthday Party and New Phone

I was feeling a bit weird yesterday getting back to the apartment. I hadn't really talked to Gabby's room mate very much yet and I knew he was having a big birthday party so I didn't know what to expect- being a lone gringo, knowing no one. Turned out to be amazing though, especially after a few beers. Most people knew enough English that I could have a conversation with them, and everyone was really cool. Managed to theorize on the meaning behind some of the art here and even got into a discussion about drugs and religion. I'm going to keep in contact with a couple people and plan to meet up and adventure around the city before I leave. It was definitely a motivator to learn Spanish faster and I think that is what I will do for a while today.

oh yea, got a mexican cell, 5525108500. i think if you want to call it from the US you have to dial 011 then 52 then the number. txts work too but unless its time sensitive just txt 5305394734, i can still check that one online and reply without wasting my credits.

New Years and Mexico City

I didn't end up making it out of Tampico before New Years, but that turned out alright. I volunteered to help clean up the roof after we were talking about me sleeping up there one night- I never ended up doing it. The cleaning process was pretty funny though; Roberto had gotten ahold of a new pressure washer and seemed to be looking for any excuse to use it. After blasting the roof and sweeping all the water off, he decided that it would be a good idea to clean the stairs down through the house with it too haha. 2600 PSI was splashing water all over the walls and everything in the vicinity. The wife looked very unamused with the happenings but Roberto, unphased, said that since the walls were already getting wet we should power wash them as well, which resulted in several places now being without paint. I also managed to get mildly shocked as we power washed walls that included electrical outlets and light switches.

After all the cleaning it was time to start the New Years festivities. Señora cooked up a huge meal, but it was being saved until midnight. I finally got to drink some, got Roberto to help me tackle a bottle of tequilla. After many many Speedy Gonzalez impersonations, firing fake pistols in the air and other drunken nonsenses we were allowed to eat early, about 11pm or so. Everyone was dressed really nice, even Roberto managed to get all spiffed up, it was interesting to see how families in Mexico do the new year thing. The fireworks were going off pretty constant from about 10pm on, but at midnight the entire town went crazy. It sounded like a warzone as every house had what I assume was an endless supply of the earth shattering firecrackers. To top off all the explosions and the car alarms that were all going off because of them, there were the colorful explosions in the air coming from random places all over town. I got a couple videos but I doubt they do it any justice, it was an experience unlike anything I've seen before. All the random people in the streets were giving me hugs and saying Feliz Año.. it was awesome. I got my backpack out and went around the block carrying it with all the other people taking their luggage around the block- we are all supposed to have good luck traveling this year now :)

Jan 1st was a laaaazzzyyy day and it was pretty cool to kick back relax, eat, and watch tv for a change. Exchanged information with everyone, promised I would come back, and caught a bus at 11pm to Mexico City. If you have ever had to take a greyhound or bus in the US, the buses here are WAYYY better. When we got on the bus we got a little care package with food and drink, there were several TVs, with individual headphones, the seats had plenty of room between rows and you could lean your seat way back. And like a third of the price or less than a trip that far would cost with Greyhound. The guy that sat beside me spoke really good english, just finished college, and was going to stay with a friend in Mexico City until he got a place. He told me about all sorts of stuff in Mexico and helped me get from the bus station to the place I was staying here in the city. The main streets are even crazier somehow but the subway system is AMAZING!! You never have to wait more than a few moments to catch a train going wherever you want to go in the city, and its 25cents US to go anywhere. Most of the stations have lots of food options and stores you can shop out without exiting the turnstyles so you can hop back on the train without paying again. I ate breakfast up on the street at a little stand. Delicious fried tamales and drink for two people, just under $2 US. Awesome.

I did manage to lose my phone or get pickpocketed, but I was on constant watch for that so I'm thinking it slipped out of my pocket somewhere along the way. I met up with Gabby, whom I'm staying with, and hit up the black market area with her and her boyfriend so they could get a few things. I could write an entire post on the black market, it was overwhelming. Constant shoulder to shoulder people, hard at times to just walk through a store or down the block. Stolen or pirated things everywhere.. people on the streets yelling for attention trying to sell copies of all the latest movies or software.. if you ever want an audiosystem it would almost be worth getting to Mexico City somehow because they savings in speakers and audio was insane. Gabby has a Macbook with a broken display so we were looking around for one of those, which would be a rare part in most places in America to have in stock. Here, not the case. Electronics stores had stripped computer parts lining the walls, it was very odd to see disassembling TV's, motherboards from computers and anything else you could think of all hanging on walls but they were there. One place had the display but kept insisting they take the laptop in the back to install the screen, which Gabby wisely refused. She said they would try to take out whatever parts from her computer they thought they could get away with. Eventually she got it all figured out for like a TENTH of what Apple wanted to fix it. Their shit is always overpriced anyway, but still.

Back at Gabbys she showed me some of the amazing videos she and her boyfriend made, they are time lapse photographers and get paid to go hang out in beautiful places all day while they take enough pictures for the video. I'll put some up online, probably when I finally put up the pictures I took.. one of these days. I planned on going to the beach with her this morning but we found out as we were leaving it was $100US a night, and neither of us knew what kind of setup it was, if I would be able to camp out on the beach there or how far I'd have to go, blah blah. So she left me her keys and I'm chilling in the city for a few days till she gets back.

I walked around FOREVER today, extremely lost, and I am realizing how big this city is. I actually ended up going in a circle at one point somehow, its not like I just took a bunch of lefts, but while trying to make it home after an hour I wound up in the same intersection I had been in earlier this morning. Practiced my Spanish a good bit, found not too many random people know English here- oh yea, Gabby speaks really well but with an Australian accent at times which is so awesome to make jokes about. She offered me a job with her this next week helping setup for a shoot near Cancun but we were pretty drunk I'm not sure how much of that was serious, but if so, thats where I'll be next! If not I have another job offer to work in a bar about an hour outside of the city, probably next to nothing pay but free drinks and alcohol while I'm there. So many awesome people. I haven't really had anything bad happen or see anything, lots of shady areas and shady people but I just avoided them. Most people I asked though have had something happen to them.. one guy was driving along in a good part of town and was stopped at gunpoint, they took his car, all his money, laptop etc. Couple other people were mugged on the street. So I'm ready to move on to some more exciting nature areas, definitely like to come back to the city and spend more time when I master Spanish. Back to exploring and trying to roll that R.