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.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, January 4, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
First Impression / Story thus far
I've been in Tampico for one week now and this is a long post, a mixture of what has happened since I've been here and my thoughts on everything. This one is super long and even more random than normal, there's Mexico in general, the war on drugs, and a bit about the family I've been staying with.
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It's still loud. I haven't been able to get it on video yet, but several times a day there is a guy that rides around on a bike/food stand. He has an amplifier, of course, and it plays some weird music, with rapid Spanish and every so often he makes a weird noise into the microphone that to me sounds like he is trying to imitate a cow moo? It makes the dog next door howl anyway. They compliment each other nicely.
There are VW bugs EVERYWHERE. I have pictures where you can see 3 of them along one street. They are mostly the old herby the love bug kind; some look to have traveled about 3 million miles, others look brand new somehow and modified to be convertibles, and then there are some of the stupid new ones mixed in as well. I made a game the other day, with myself haha, but I was trying to see if there was any 4way stop I could stand at and not see one.. I think I found 2 intersections all day. No joke.
The car situation over here in general is very confusing.. along one block you can pass a couple VW bugs, a truck with 3 wheels and a boulder holding it up, some regular nice sedans, and a brand new Mercedes. No real segregation as far as cars go. Driving is NUTS. How many lanes is a given street? Well that depends, how determined are the drivers feeling and how many cars can fit side by side? Swerving across 4 'lanes' and darting in between buses to a fanfare of car horns is par for making most exits. Speed limits.. I saw signs here and there, and in places I hear they enforce it, but basically its down to drive as fast as you feel is ok. Pass people whenever they are in your way, small city street or major 'highway' it doesn't matter. Evidentially the traffic enforcement is a separate police department than the regular police, I haven't seen them anywhere yet but did talk to someone that received a speeding ticket.. so they do exist. Basically though, whenever you want someone to slow down in your neighborhood, you install insane car shattering speed bumps. People will slow down. Don't have the materials to put in a proper speed bump? Grab some thick-ass rope.
The buildings are something else. Everything is that weird concrete type material. Tecate and Corona signs or entire buildings painted with their colors and trademarks are as common as Volkswagons here. I'm not sure if ALL of them are actually bars, it seems like the ratio of people to bars would be 10:1, and I've never actually seen anyone going in or out of these places.. but it makes for an interesting looking place. The downtown area is my favorite so far, if not a bit overwhelming. Its similar to a mall, most shops are opened to the street and they pull down a gate when closed. The almost everything building is painted up as an advertisement for the shop on the ground floor or other things around the city and it just looks like nothing I've come across in America. Tons of people shopping everywhere, for everything. There was one stretch with a bunch of little food shops, selling things like hotdogs, bananas, corn, etc, but in front they had employees too, trying to flag people down. I didn't realize this at first and thought that one guy wanted me to come over to him for some reason, so I started walking that way before the dad told me we were going to eat later. My confusion must have been apparent on my face because he started laughing and explained that guy just wanted to sell me corndogs or whatever it was. I went to the touristico zone later.. it was just like any city in America, with the exception of crazy ass roads- Burger King, Blockbuster, Pizza Hut, Hilton, Marriott, and the like. Everything was priced similar to America, usually MORE.. I guess they figure if the gringos are going to insist on American everywhere they go, they might as well capitalize on it. There is one sign I wish I had gotten a picture of, the signs hanging over the highway pointing toward different cities, one had Ciudad Victoria, Veracruz, and APPLEBEES! Complete with their little apple graphic.
Speaking of food, its amazing. I've had beans and tortillas each atleast once per day in some form. And I'm not getting tired of them at all. They just happen to have a lot of dishes that incorporate them, in different ways. The mother here is seemingly always cooking something, I ate breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, supper, and dessert one day I think. The food prepared on the little street carts is insanely cheap, and much much better than all the American chains anyway (I haven't actually ate at one down here, just scoped out prices, I'm sure it McD's Mexico isn't much tastier than the American version). Tap water is not drinking friendly, and I actually made the mistake of drinking two glasses before someone caught what I was doing and stopped me. They have giant bottles of water that are delivered by bicycle, and the empties taken away. I had one small case of the Mexican mud butt but I'm fine now haha. It turned out to be an embarrassing ordeal, they did not have a plunger in the bathroom and I needed one.. so I had to stop people from going to the bathroom while at the same time trying to think of relevant Spanish words and trying to charade that I needed a plunger.. when they figured it out they all laughed and laughed and imitated my charading.. Anyway, the food is top notch. Nice juxtaposition.
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You don't have to look far to see signs of the drug war. Morning television, newspapers, or army troops- its very 'felt'. I've already heard of several drug busts, gun seizures, and murders. Most of this is among the cartels and whatever branch is trying to stop them, but there are civilians that get caught up in it. Everyone can tell you about it here too, read up on the Los Zetas or any of the other cartels or wiki articles for some crazy info on it. People can tell you the back story on the different cartels, which are feuding, where they are based etc. Drug use is far far less here than I thought it would be too, I've barely met anyone that drinks, no drug use whatsoever. The corruption is rampant and I've been told to keep 50-100 pesos in a separate pocket with my ID-- if I am stopped for anything I've been told to explain thats the last of my money, they will take it, and I'm free to go. This is with street cops. I had a discussion talking about the cartels and it seems everyones opinion is that the war on drugs, with all the money coming from America, is making things far worse. Typically the money and guns coming from America end up with corrupt officials or military personnel and the cartels. They have rocket launchers. Assault rifles- not the old AK47s, but the newest shit, like what our troops use. And helicopters. Woah. These are the bad guys, in real life, not some movie. Between what I've read and heard here I see why Texas and Arizona called for National Guard support, in case the Mexican government collapses and they are keeping the cartel armies from running across the border.
Seems like the opinions are pretty polar on legalizing drugs, I brought up the idea that if just marijuana and cocaine- which seems to be the main traffic- was legalized and regulated, cartels wouldn't have the income to continue doing what they are doing. That would in turn cut back the kidnappings, the bribing and corruption, and everything else. Some people agreed, some didn't, but everyone said it was America's fault. Between their retarded efforts of throwing more money, equipment and training at it hoping the military here will stop them (which really just seems to beef up the cartels more) and the American people for using all the drugs. At least according to the people I've met so far, most civilians don't use drugs here and all this is because of all the demand in America. Even when America DOES manage to grab one of the kingpins, it just stirs up so much shit that its much more dangerous than before. So they capture one of the main guys from a cartel, that just means that now you possibly have 5 guys all fighting for the new vacancy. You can read online and see the huge increase in violence along with the capture of key cartel men, new groups fight to replace him and retaliate against the government. The Mexican Navy had a huge shootout and got one of the top dogs (nicknamed the boss of bosses) here recently, only thing that happened was that a mafia SQUAD went to one of the police officers homes and killed his wife, daughters, mother, anyone related to the officer. OK I've went on long enough with that, but its so damn stupid. Anyone north of the border finding it any more difficult to find drugs?
There is a lot of fear, from the cartel as well as the army. Two houses down from where I'm staying was raided by the miltary, they had the assault rifles, 8-10 soldiers, and two vehicles with the monster machine guns mounted on them. I tried to take a picture and again everyone was quickly said no no no. I noticed that all the soldiers but one did have a face mask on, makes it harder for the cartels to go and wipe out their family like the guy recently. But I am still determined to chat a soldier up atleast if not get a good picture. I did manage to walk past and slyly slip my camera out of my pocket to get a shitty pic, another from the roof of the house where you can see a guy manning the mounted gun. Everyone here is very against my hitch hiking, somewhat against my travel to specific parts of Mexico in general. However, they haven't even seen most of the places I want to see. In that respect it's kind of similar to America, I remember getting picked up hitching to Chicago, and they asked me why on earth I would want to go there and I must be crazy its so dangerous.. when I asked, they had never actually BEEN to Chicago. It's a shame that the cartels and all that are going on down here because there is some amazing stuff I've already seen, and I'm psyched as hell thinking about the places I'm going to see, and there are people that live with this stuff in their backyard here and they might never go out and see it.
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The family that I'm staying with has been awesome. 3 daughters, 1 son, and the 2 parents. Everyone has picked up a noticable amount of English since I've been here. The father speaks it fairly well but everyday he'll ask me several words and their meaning- he'll then write them down on a list he's keeping to learn the new words. The oldest daughter can understand english pretty well when I talk to her but she doesn't speak it so much- when she does she has almost no accent, pretty impressive. The mother doesn't really know very much english at all but she tries the most and is the sweetest woman. She's retired now, she did something downtown with the local government. They explained it kind of like a secretary but I saw her picture on a billboard downtown so I don't know. Anyway, she gave me a little bracelet today with all the Mexican Saints on it, like a souvenir she said and to stay safe :) The dad here wears the pants pretty hardcore, the middle daughter (she's 17 I think) had snuck out one night to see her boyfriend and she sneaks out to the clubs etc, but the mother asked me not to tell the father, which I didn't.
The father is pretty cool though, he likes learning English as often as possible and I downloaded a copy of Rosetta Stone for them. I was traveling with a bottle of jaegarmiester and I broke it out one evening telling him it was German liquor. He kept calling it German wine though and drank it from a wine glass with some ice? He ended up getting pretty drunk that evening which was funny. I've had maybe 3 or 4 shots since I've been here, but with New Years Eve coming up and a couple things I have planned I'll be seeing the party side of Mexico.
damn theres more to write but this is longgg and I'm tired. I need to keep a proper journal then I can look everything over and write down the interesting parts in a shorter and more coherent blog.
---------------------------------------
It's still loud. I haven't been able to get it on video yet, but several times a day there is a guy that rides around on a bike/food stand. He has an amplifier, of course, and it plays some weird music, with rapid Spanish and every so often he makes a weird noise into the microphone that to me sounds like he is trying to imitate a cow moo? It makes the dog next door howl anyway. They compliment each other nicely.
There are VW bugs EVERYWHERE. I have pictures where you can see 3 of them along one street. They are mostly the old herby the love bug kind; some look to have traveled about 3 million miles, others look brand new somehow and modified to be convertibles, and then there are some of the stupid new ones mixed in as well. I made a game the other day, with myself haha, but I was trying to see if there was any 4way stop I could stand at and not see one.. I think I found 2 intersections all day. No joke.
The car situation over here in general is very confusing.. along one block you can pass a couple VW bugs, a truck with 3 wheels and a boulder holding it up, some regular nice sedans, and a brand new Mercedes. No real segregation as far as cars go. Driving is NUTS. How many lanes is a given street? Well that depends, how determined are the drivers feeling and how many cars can fit side by side? Swerving across 4 'lanes' and darting in between buses to a fanfare of car horns is par for making most exits. Speed limits.. I saw signs here and there, and in places I hear they enforce it, but basically its down to drive as fast as you feel is ok. Pass people whenever they are in your way, small city street or major 'highway' it doesn't matter. Evidentially the traffic enforcement is a separate police department than the regular police, I haven't seen them anywhere yet but did talk to someone that received a speeding ticket.. so they do exist. Basically though, whenever you want someone to slow down in your neighborhood, you install insane car shattering speed bumps. People will slow down. Don't have the materials to put in a proper speed bump? Grab some thick-ass rope.
The buildings are something else. Everything is that weird concrete type material. Tecate and Corona signs or entire buildings painted with their colors and trademarks are as common as Volkswagons here. I'm not sure if ALL of them are actually bars, it seems like the ratio of people to bars would be 10:1, and I've never actually seen anyone going in or out of these places.. but it makes for an interesting looking place. The downtown area is my favorite so far, if not a bit overwhelming. Its similar to a mall, most shops are opened to the street and they pull down a gate when closed. The almost everything building is painted up as an advertisement for the shop on the ground floor or other things around the city and it just looks like nothing I've come across in America. Tons of people shopping everywhere, for everything. There was one stretch with a bunch of little food shops, selling things like hotdogs, bananas, corn, etc, but in front they had employees too, trying to flag people down. I didn't realize this at first and thought that one guy wanted me to come over to him for some reason, so I started walking that way before the dad told me we were going to eat later. My confusion must have been apparent on my face because he started laughing and explained that guy just wanted to sell me corndogs or whatever it was. I went to the touristico zone later.. it was just like any city in America, with the exception of crazy ass roads- Burger King, Blockbuster, Pizza Hut, Hilton, Marriott, and the like. Everything was priced similar to America, usually MORE.. I guess they figure if the gringos are going to insist on American everywhere they go, they might as well capitalize on it. There is one sign I wish I had gotten a picture of, the signs hanging over the highway pointing toward different cities, one had Ciudad Victoria, Veracruz, and APPLEBEES! Complete with their little apple graphic.
Speaking of food, its amazing. I've had beans and tortillas each atleast once per day in some form. And I'm not getting tired of them at all. They just happen to have a lot of dishes that incorporate them, in different ways. The mother here is seemingly always cooking something, I ate breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, supper, and dessert one day I think. The food prepared on the little street carts is insanely cheap, and much much better than all the American chains anyway (I haven't actually ate at one down here, just scoped out prices, I'm sure it McD's Mexico isn't much tastier than the American version). Tap water is not drinking friendly, and I actually made the mistake of drinking two glasses before someone caught what I was doing and stopped me. They have giant bottles of water that are delivered by bicycle, and the empties taken away. I had one small case of the Mexican mud butt but I'm fine now haha. It turned out to be an embarrassing ordeal, they did not have a plunger in the bathroom and I needed one.. so I had to stop people from going to the bathroom while at the same time trying to think of relevant Spanish words and trying to charade that I needed a plunger.. when they figured it out they all laughed and laughed and imitated my charading.. Anyway, the food is top notch. Nice juxtaposition.
-----------------------------------------------------------
You don't have to look far to see signs of the drug war. Morning television, newspapers, or army troops- its very 'felt'. I've already heard of several drug busts, gun seizures, and murders. Most of this is among the cartels and whatever branch is trying to stop them, but there are civilians that get caught up in it. Everyone can tell you about it here too, read up on the Los Zetas or any of the other cartels or wiki articles for some crazy info on it. People can tell you the back story on the different cartels, which are feuding, where they are based etc. Drug use is far far less here than I thought it would be too, I've barely met anyone that drinks, no drug use whatsoever. The corruption is rampant and I've been told to keep 50-100 pesos in a separate pocket with my ID-- if I am stopped for anything I've been told to explain thats the last of my money, they will take it, and I'm free to go. This is with street cops. I had a discussion talking about the cartels and it seems everyones opinion is that the war on drugs, with all the money coming from America, is making things far worse. Typically the money and guns coming from America end up with corrupt officials or military personnel and the cartels. They have rocket launchers. Assault rifles- not the old AK47s, but the newest shit, like what our troops use. And helicopters. Woah. These are the bad guys, in real life, not some movie. Between what I've read and heard here I see why Texas and Arizona called for National Guard support, in case the Mexican government collapses and they are keeping the cartel armies from running across the border.
Seems like the opinions are pretty polar on legalizing drugs, I brought up the idea that if just marijuana and cocaine- which seems to be the main traffic- was legalized and regulated, cartels wouldn't have the income to continue doing what they are doing. That would in turn cut back the kidnappings, the bribing and corruption, and everything else. Some people agreed, some didn't, but everyone said it was America's fault. Between their retarded efforts of throwing more money, equipment and training at it hoping the military here will stop them (which really just seems to beef up the cartels more) and the American people for using all the drugs. At least according to the people I've met so far, most civilians don't use drugs here and all this is because of all the demand in America. Even when America DOES manage to grab one of the kingpins, it just stirs up so much shit that its much more dangerous than before. So they capture one of the main guys from a cartel, that just means that now you possibly have 5 guys all fighting for the new vacancy. You can read online and see the huge increase in violence along with the capture of key cartel men, new groups fight to replace him and retaliate against the government. The Mexican Navy had a huge shootout and got one of the top dogs (nicknamed the boss of bosses) here recently, only thing that happened was that a mafia SQUAD went to one of the police officers homes and killed his wife, daughters, mother, anyone related to the officer. OK I've went on long enough with that, but its so damn stupid. Anyone north of the border finding it any more difficult to find drugs?
There is a lot of fear, from the cartel as well as the army. Two houses down from where I'm staying was raided by the miltary, they had the assault rifles, 8-10 soldiers, and two vehicles with the monster machine guns mounted on them. I tried to take a picture and again everyone was quickly said no no no. I noticed that all the soldiers but one did have a face mask on, makes it harder for the cartels to go and wipe out their family like the guy recently. But I am still determined to chat a soldier up atleast if not get a good picture. I did manage to walk past and slyly slip my camera out of my pocket to get a shitty pic, another from the roof of the house where you can see a guy manning the mounted gun. Everyone here is very against my hitch hiking, somewhat against my travel to specific parts of Mexico in general. However, they haven't even seen most of the places I want to see. In that respect it's kind of similar to America, I remember getting picked up hitching to Chicago, and they asked me why on earth I would want to go there and I must be crazy its so dangerous.. when I asked, they had never actually BEEN to Chicago. It's a shame that the cartels and all that are going on down here because there is some amazing stuff I've already seen, and I'm psyched as hell thinking about the places I'm going to see, and there are people that live with this stuff in their backyard here and they might never go out and see it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The family that I'm staying with has been awesome. 3 daughters, 1 son, and the 2 parents. Everyone has picked up a noticable amount of English since I've been here. The father speaks it fairly well but everyday he'll ask me several words and their meaning- he'll then write them down on a list he's keeping to learn the new words. The oldest daughter can understand english pretty well when I talk to her but she doesn't speak it so much- when she does she has almost no accent, pretty impressive. The mother doesn't really know very much english at all but she tries the most and is the sweetest woman. She's retired now, she did something downtown with the local government. They explained it kind of like a secretary but I saw her picture on a billboard downtown so I don't know. Anyway, she gave me a little bracelet today with all the Mexican Saints on it, like a souvenir she said and to stay safe :) The dad here wears the pants pretty hardcore, the middle daughter (she's 17 I think) had snuck out one night to see her boyfriend and she sneaks out to the clubs etc, but the mother asked me not to tell the father, which I didn't.
The father is pretty cool though, he likes learning English as often as possible and I downloaded a copy of Rosetta Stone for them. I was traveling with a bottle of jaegarmiester and I broke it out one evening telling him it was German liquor. He kept calling it German wine though and drank it from a wine glass with some ice? He ended up getting pretty drunk that evening which was funny. I've had maybe 3 or 4 shots since I've been here, but with New Years Eve coming up and a couple things I have planned I'll be seeing the party side of Mexico.
damn theres more to write but this is longgg and I'm tired. I need to keep a proper journal then I can look everything over and write down the interesting parts in a shorter and more coherent blog.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
to Mexico, part dos
Crossing into America the first time was pretty surprising. The Mexican side of the bridge had a full on army and everything but I didn't have to stop to talk to anyone, I just walked on through. I knew it obviously wouldn't be like that going into America, but I didn't have anything with me, wearing just a t-shirt and jeans with my passport in my backpocket, so I thought it'd be a trivial thing. Not so.
Walking into the building that handles the people crossing on foot, there were two lines leading to border patrol agents. Off to the right was a room with somewhere north of 20 hispanic people sitting, waiting to be processed further or searched I do not know. Further down was a closed door with no window and no label like all the others, just an agent standing at the door with the big blue latex gloves on. I could guess pretty easily what that was all about.
I was still thinking about the man that had hissed at me and if Mexico was such a great idea when it was my turn in line to see someone. The agent wasted no time in making the intense atmosphere worse. I told him I had just crossed into Mexico earlier to see what it was like. He asked what pharmacy I went to- he opened with that. I decided it'd probably be best if I didn't mention that I actually did go to a pharmacy with my friend and just said I didn't. Well what drugs am I smuggling across? 'None, sir.' I had no bags or anything to search. I thought about the ominous man in blue gloves and unlabeled door just a dozen feet away or so and made a point not to look over there. 'Well why the hell is an American walking INTO Mexico, then an hour later just walking back out?' My voice actually jumped when I answered next as I told him I ate lunch with my friend. 'Who's your friend?' I messed up and said Rodrigo, the guy behind me in line. He called Rodrigo over and put together that I spoke basically no Spanish and he spoke basically no English. 'How the fuck are you friends if you can't even speak the same language? What's going on here?' I knew I hadn't done anything wrong but I was replaying all the horror stories I'd read about dealing with crossing US borders and the intensity of the dude questioning me and the room full of people taken to the side and the damn guy with the latex gloves.. I said we just met, then Rodrigo chimed in and talked to the guy for a solid couple of minutes in Spanish and we were free to pass. I assume he just explained everything, but unfortunately I couldn't communicate enough to figure that out.
We ate an interesting lunch and tried to talk a little more. He told me he has no family and he lives out of his truck. He works pretty constant though and makes about $800 week so I'm not sure where he spends his money. Well at that time I wasn't sure. I spent the rest of the daylight hours walking around with him asking random questions I could put together with my book while he visted various people throughout the town. I did manage to indirectly get some details on my future friend taking me to Tampico too and that it wouldn't just be a free ride.
Back in the truck Rodrigo tells me he is going to a whorehouse in Mexico. He told me his girl was 36 years old and cost $30. I was very curious to see what the place was like, and what a $30 girl looked like, but didn't think they would like nonpaying guests, so respectfully declined even when he offered to pay for me. I did need to take care of a tourist card, its basically like a travel visa for Mexico, so I told him I'd walk with him part way. We paid our 65cents and walked back across the bridge, this time taking an immediate right into the Mexican immigrations, not a requirement like the US. I was kind of surprised- and I almost suspect the attendant was being a dick to spite me- but I get up to the guy there, and upon learning I don't speak English, he huffs and says no espanol, why are you coming to Mexico. Evidentally he wants me to think thats the only English phrase he learned because after that he would do nothing but speak rapid Spanish to me while I stared at him blankly. WTF guy, its a border, with America, that means its probably going to be Americans that need to see your ass time to time to travel into Mexico. Good thing Rodrigo came, he saw my dilemma and came up to the booth and talked to the guy. I know the amigo part came into question again, but I coudn't pick up much else, eventually I was given a form to fill out for 180 days in Mexico. Thats the most you can get and its the same price as a shorer stay so might as well I guess. I then found out that 7days or less meant you didn't have to pay any fees and you could have it renewed? When I got back to the front I lucked out and got the same angry guy. He was NOT going to let me switch to 7 days and I insisted that I was only going to be there a week. He said something about 6 months to 7 days, and motioned for me to follow him. More drama with this damn border crossing. I tried to just repeat una semana and he demanded I 'pay NOW'. $267 pesos. Odd amount, I only had dollars so we walked back out to the front and into the next little area where they had a bank setup. I paid my US dollars, $21 I believe, and the man stamped my passport and told me to wait there while he went back to his little area. Rodrigo was motioning fairly animated at this point to go to him and so I quickly walked over as he started walking out the door. He said 'go back now' so I did haha. The US side was pretty tame this time, I just said I was coming back from dinner with a friend from Mexico. And no sir, no drugs.
I'm not sure if my friend paid $30 per hour for his lady or for the session, but I guess he got his moneys worth, I waited around in his truck for solid few hours before he came back. I was asleep on the top bunk when he got in and started to drive, ookk then. We stopped outside of an animal clinic, thats the only thing with an advertised sign anyway. He said we could get showers there and he went to get his first. HOURS went by. It was into the AM when he came back, evidentally he had another girl there somewhere. I didn't take a shower. I went back to sleep.
4 AM and it's time to head to Mexico. I was dropped off in the middle of nowhere, alone, and fearing that I had been tricked for whatever reason. About an hour later the next guy finally shows up and we cross into Mexico. Another guy is picked up and I move to the bed of the truck. Driving around the border town on the Mexico side in the bed of a truck was definitely something else, I got a couple of pictures and some video but I seemed to have a lot of people looking at me, on the street and in cars behind us, and I got scared and put it away. Some more switches took place, people getting in and out, ask me about all that sometime... we stopped at a couple places along the way when we were in route to Tampico, got my first food from a roadside shop on wheels, they are everywhere, and cheap. We went to a friends of the driver, who runs a funeral home. I didn't know this at the time and I was lead into a room with coffins stacked up and he told me to choose one. They found my reaction hilarious evidentally. The guy actually liked scaring me the best he could for most of the ride, telling me all the bad things that happen in Mexico, about possibly getting kidnapped and not having the ransom money then they'd sell my organs on the black market one by one till I died. Every town we stopped in was a 'mafia town' unless it was extra rundown and sketchy, then he'd say 'ok we are here Tampico.' There was a huge bunch of mountains you could see for over an hour as we approached, it looked amazing but he swore that there were lions or tigers there and it was unsafe. I flat out did not believe that, but he never admitted to making that up like a lot of the other things he told me. He still today will tell me I can't go there because lions and tigers. We arrived at my new friends house at about 5pm.
Walking into the building that handles the people crossing on foot, there were two lines leading to border patrol agents. Off to the right was a room with somewhere north of 20 hispanic people sitting, waiting to be processed further or searched I do not know. Further down was a closed door with no window and no label like all the others, just an agent standing at the door with the big blue latex gloves on. I could guess pretty easily what that was all about.
I was still thinking about the man that had hissed at me and if Mexico was such a great idea when it was my turn in line to see someone. The agent wasted no time in making the intense atmosphere worse. I told him I had just crossed into Mexico earlier to see what it was like. He asked what pharmacy I went to- he opened with that. I decided it'd probably be best if I didn't mention that I actually did go to a pharmacy with my friend and just said I didn't. Well what drugs am I smuggling across? 'None, sir.' I had no bags or anything to search. I thought about the ominous man in blue gloves and unlabeled door just a dozen feet away or so and made a point not to look over there. 'Well why the hell is an American walking INTO Mexico, then an hour later just walking back out?' My voice actually jumped when I answered next as I told him I ate lunch with my friend. 'Who's your friend?' I messed up and said Rodrigo, the guy behind me in line. He called Rodrigo over and put together that I spoke basically no Spanish and he spoke basically no English. 'How the fuck are you friends if you can't even speak the same language? What's going on here?' I knew I hadn't done anything wrong but I was replaying all the horror stories I'd read about dealing with crossing US borders and the intensity of the dude questioning me and the room full of people taken to the side and the damn guy with the latex gloves.. I said we just met, then Rodrigo chimed in and talked to the guy for a solid couple of minutes in Spanish and we were free to pass. I assume he just explained everything, but unfortunately I couldn't communicate enough to figure that out.
We ate an interesting lunch and tried to talk a little more. He told me he has no family and he lives out of his truck. He works pretty constant though and makes about $800 week so I'm not sure where he spends his money. Well at that time I wasn't sure. I spent the rest of the daylight hours walking around with him asking random questions I could put together with my book while he visted various people throughout the town. I did manage to indirectly get some details on my future friend taking me to Tampico too and that it wouldn't just be a free ride.
Back in the truck Rodrigo tells me he is going to a whorehouse in Mexico. He told me his girl was 36 years old and cost $30. I was very curious to see what the place was like, and what a $30 girl looked like, but didn't think they would like nonpaying guests, so respectfully declined even when he offered to pay for me. I did need to take care of a tourist card, its basically like a travel visa for Mexico, so I told him I'd walk with him part way. We paid our 65cents and walked back across the bridge, this time taking an immediate right into the Mexican immigrations, not a requirement like the US. I was kind of surprised- and I almost suspect the attendant was being a dick to spite me- but I get up to the guy there, and upon learning I don't speak English, he huffs and says no espanol, why are you coming to Mexico. Evidentally he wants me to think thats the only English phrase he learned because after that he would do nothing but speak rapid Spanish to me while I stared at him blankly. WTF guy, its a border, with America, that means its probably going to be Americans that need to see your ass time to time to travel into Mexico. Good thing Rodrigo came, he saw my dilemma and came up to the booth and talked to the guy. I know the amigo part came into question again, but I coudn't pick up much else, eventually I was given a form to fill out for 180 days in Mexico. Thats the most you can get and its the same price as a shorer stay so might as well I guess. I then found out that 7days or less meant you didn't have to pay any fees and you could have it renewed? When I got back to the front I lucked out and got the same angry guy. He was NOT going to let me switch to 7 days and I insisted that I was only going to be there a week. He said something about 6 months to 7 days, and motioned for me to follow him. More drama with this damn border crossing. I tried to just repeat una semana and he demanded I 'pay NOW'. $267 pesos. Odd amount, I only had dollars so we walked back out to the front and into the next little area where they had a bank setup. I paid my US dollars, $21 I believe, and the man stamped my passport and told me to wait there while he went back to his little area. Rodrigo was motioning fairly animated at this point to go to him and so I quickly walked over as he started walking out the door. He said 'go back now' so I did haha. The US side was pretty tame this time, I just said I was coming back from dinner with a friend from Mexico. And no sir, no drugs.
I'm not sure if my friend paid $30 per hour for his lady or for the session, but I guess he got his moneys worth, I waited around in his truck for solid few hours before he came back. I was asleep on the top bunk when he got in and started to drive, ookk then. We stopped outside of an animal clinic, thats the only thing with an advertised sign anyway. He said we could get showers there and he went to get his first. HOURS went by. It was into the AM when he came back, evidentally he had another girl there somewhere. I didn't take a shower. I went back to sleep.
4 AM and it's time to head to Mexico. I was dropped off in the middle of nowhere, alone, and fearing that I had been tricked for whatever reason. About an hour later the next guy finally shows up and we cross into Mexico. Another guy is picked up and I move to the bed of the truck. Driving around the border town on the Mexico side in the bed of a truck was definitely something else, I got a couple of pictures and some video but I seemed to have a lot of people looking at me, on the street and in cars behind us, and I got scared and put it away. Some more switches took place, people getting in and out, ask me about all that sometime... we stopped at a couple places along the way when we were in route to Tampico, got my first food from a roadside shop on wheels, they are everywhere, and cheap. We went to a friends of the driver, who runs a funeral home. I didn't know this at the time and I was lead into a room with coffins stacked up and he told me to choose one. They found my reaction hilarious evidentally. The guy actually liked scaring me the best he could for most of the ride, telling me all the bad things that happen in Mexico, about possibly getting kidnapped and not having the ransom money then they'd sell my organs on the black market one by one till I died. Every town we stopped in was a 'mafia town' unless it was extra rundown and sketchy, then he'd say 'ok we are here Tampico.' There was a huge bunch of mountains you could see for over an hour as we approached, it looked amazing but he swore that there were lions or tigers there and it was unsafe. I flat out did not believe that, but he never admitted to making that up like a lot of the other things he told me. He still today will tell me I can't go there because lions and tigers. We arrived at my new friends house at about 5pm.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
to Mexico, part 1.
Evansville, Chicago, St.Louis, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Louisiana, Henderson, Austin.. lots of excitement in the USA that will be written about sooner or later, but I gotta go with whats fresh now.
to Mexico
I left Austin Saturday morning planning to go to Laredo TX and camp out somewhere, wake up early, cross into Mexico, and be in Monterrey before dark. My Austin host, Katherine, took me with her to San Marcos where she dropped me off. I got some supplies at the stores and started walking toward a good spot to pick up a ride. Amazingly a truck pulled over in front of me, a guy with his 2 daughters. He said he figured I was going somewhere long distance because of my pack and he was feeling Christmasy. I was dropped off at a truck stop with a built in McDonalds, so I went in and got a cup of water and ate some snacks I carry in my pack and decided to walk back to the interstate because there weren't many truckers going in or out of there. No sooner than I sat my pack down and stuck my thumb out I had another ride. And I had heard Texans were dicks as far as hitch hiking and those things were concerned ha. This ride was a bit further, probably a half hour, and he even went out of his way to get me to a bunch of giant truck stops outside of San Antonio. I met a couple my age that had hitched from Seattle with a truck carrying a trailer loaded with cars. Evidentally he let them sleep in one of the cars and eveything.. I have yet to get a ride like that. Anyhow, we chatted for about 10 minutes or so and they managed to find a ride to Houston about the same time I found one going south.
My driver, Rodrigo, knew very little English. I had bought a pocket spanish book earlier in San Marcos and that was practically all the Spanish I knew. Turns out he wasn{t heading to Laredo, but Brownsville, and he said he could take me right to the border. We rolled into town about 9pm, well after dark. I had been scanning the area for a covert place to setup camp for the night but I was feeling pretty nervous. Luckily, Rodrigo said I could sleep in the top bunk of his truck. He seemed like a nice guy, from what little bit we managed to converse, and I decided that was the best option so I took it. He woke me up at 8am to take me to breakfast. My first authenic Mexican meal- granted still on US soil, but I was the first English speaker they seemed to have had in quite awhile. I ordered bacon and eggs, one of the few things I knew how to say, and got scambled eggs, cheese and bacon together, french fries, refried beans, and a stack of tortillas. It was AMAZING. Sounds odd, but I loved it. It's funny, I had just heard from someone who spent time in Mexico that after they ate the real deal, Mexican food in America was disappointing. I see where they were coming from. After breakfast, Rodrigo said he had to go meet a friend and that I could go back to his truck and sleep some more if I wanted.
I explored the city a bit, walked toward the border, and met a couple of homeless guys along the way. Americans that slept on the street, the only English speakers I met in Brownsville. I'm not sure why they were there, I guess it's a warm place to be homeless. I chatted up a few, one guy told me he was about to cross the border and walk across Mexico to train for Iron Man. Another, said he lost his passport and was considering crossing and having it mailed to him in Mexico to cross back to America. The entire area was pretty sketchy I thought at the time, bars on things and run down buildings. Border patrol was everywhere. When I got back to the truck I could not get the truck door open, the handles were messed up, you had to stick yourhand in through the window and slam on the door while pulling to open it.. I got a few looks doing that and decided that with nothing on me as far as ID, I didn't want to get in trouble with the police or anyone else, so, I decide to call everyone in my phone and update them on the happenings.
3 hours passed. I finally managed to get in the truck and was charging my cellphone, planning to walk across the border as soon as it was decently charged. Again I got lucky and Rodrigo pulled up in a pickup while I was waiting on the phone to charge. He had a friend that was going to Tampico, a good 6-7 hours south into Mexico, the next morning and he could take me with him. I thanked them both very much and the plan was set.
Rodrigo asked if I wanted to walk into Mexico with him, which of course I did. We paid 0.65 to walk across the bridge and into Mexico. I was taking pictures until we hit the Mexican side of the bridge and walked down to the gates- there were soldiers in full out gear, assault rifles, etc. I wanted to get some pictures of them but Rodrigo insisted immediately I put my camera away. A bit freaked out, I did. My first impression of Mexico still stands, at least as far as cities and villages, and that is that it is LOUD. I couldn't help but think of a Mitch Hedburg bit about limiting everyones use to 3 car honks per month. I wonder if he ever went to Mexico? This wasn't even a big city, but there was almost constantly a sund of a horn somewhere, and the music haha. We went into a tiny one room pharmacy so Rodrigo could pick up some medicine, and they had at least 6 speakers pointing out into the street, BLASTING some Michael Jackson. This was the typical business setup.. interesting. The buildings all have a distinct look to them also.. flat roof, flat sides, that weird concrete with metal bars running through which you can often see due to the broken concrete. I pulled out my phones and sent a couple of text messages, which drew the attention of a nearby guy while Rodrigo chatted with someone he knew. The guy was staring me down and I quickly put the phone in my pocket, he was not deterred. I walked closer to Rodrigo and not sure if I should make a big deal about this or not just asked Que Pasa to get in the conversation with Rodrigo and his friend. The glarring man then hissed at me. Like a cat. I was feeling pretty fucking nervous and immediately walked back to the boarder and all the men with guns.
I'll pick up soon, I'm helping with dinner tonight.
Feliz Navidad!
to Mexico
I left Austin Saturday morning planning to go to Laredo TX and camp out somewhere, wake up early, cross into Mexico, and be in Monterrey before dark. My Austin host, Katherine, took me with her to San Marcos where she dropped me off. I got some supplies at the stores and started walking toward a good spot to pick up a ride. Amazingly a truck pulled over in front of me, a guy with his 2 daughters. He said he figured I was going somewhere long distance because of my pack and he was feeling Christmasy. I was dropped off at a truck stop with a built in McDonalds, so I went in and got a cup of water and ate some snacks I carry in my pack and decided to walk back to the interstate because there weren't many truckers going in or out of there. No sooner than I sat my pack down and stuck my thumb out I had another ride. And I had heard Texans were dicks as far as hitch hiking and those things were concerned ha. This ride was a bit further, probably a half hour, and he even went out of his way to get me to a bunch of giant truck stops outside of San Antonio. I met a couple my age that had hitched from Seattle with a truck carrying a trailer loaded with cars. Evidentally he let them sleep in one of the cars and eveything.. I have yet to get a ride like that. Anyhow, we chatted for about 10 minutes or so and they managed to find a ride to Houston about the same time I found one going south.
My driver, Rodrigo, knew very little English. I had bought a pocket spanish book earlier in San Marcos and that was practically all the Spanish I knew. Turns out he wasn{t heading to Laredo, but Brownsville, and he said he could take me right to the border. We rolled into town about 9pm, well after dark. I had been scanning the area for a covert place to setup camp for the night but I was feeling pretty nervous. Luckily, Rodrigo said I could sleep in the top bunk of his truck. He seemed like a nice guy, from what little bit we managed to converse, and I decided that was the best option so I took it. He woke me up at 8am to take me to breakfast. My first authenic Mexican meal- granted still on US soil, but I was the first English speaker they seemed to have had in quite awhile. I ordered bacon and eggs, one of the few things I knew how to say, and got scambled eggs, cheese and bacon together, french fries, refried beans, and a stack of tortillas. It was AMAZING. Sounds odd, but I loved it. It's funny, I had just heard from someone who spent time in Mexico that after they ate the real deal, Mexican food in America was disappointing. I see where they were coming from. After breakfast, Rodrigo said he had to go meet a friend and that I could go back to his truck and sleep some more if I wanted.
I explored the city a bit, walked toward the border, and met a couple of homeless guys along the way. Americans that slept on the street, the only English speakers I met in Brownsville. I'm not sure why they were there, I guess it's a warm place to be homeless. I chatted up a few, one guy told me he was about to cross the border and walk across Mexico to train for Iron Man. Another, said he lost his passport and was considering crossing and having it mailed to him in Mexico to cross back to America. The entire area was pretty sketchy I thought at the time, bars on things and run down buildings. Border patrol was everywhere. When I got back to the truck I could not get the truck door open, the handles were messed up, you had to stick yourhand in through the window and slam on the door while pulling to open it.. I got a few looks doing that and decided that with nothing on me as far as ID, I didn't want to get in trouble with the police or anyone else, so, I decide to call everyone in my phone and update them on the happenings.
3 hours passed. I finally managed to get in the truck and was charging my cellphone, planning to walk across the border as soon as it was decently charged. Again I got lucky and Rodrigo pulled up in a pickup while I was waiting on the phone to charge. He had a friend that was going to Tampico, a good 6-7 hours south into Mexico, the next morning and he could take me with him. I thanked them both very much and the plan was set.
Rodrigo asked if I wanted to walk into Mexico with him, which of course I did. We paid 0.65 to walk across the bridge and into Mexico. I was taking pictures until we hit the Mexican side of the bridge and walked down to the gates- there were soldiers in full out gear, assault rifles, etc. I wanted to get some pictures of them but Rodrigo insisted immediately I put my camera away. A bit freaked out, I did. My first impression of Mexico still stands, at least as far as cities and villages, and that is that it is LOUD. I couldn't help but think of a Mitch Hedburg bit about limiting everyones use to 3 car honks per month. I wonder if he ever went to Mexico? This wasn't even a big city, but there was almost constantly a sund of a horn somewhere, and the music haha. We went into a tiny one room pharmacy so Rodrigo could pick up some medicine, and they had at least 6 speakers pointing out into the street, BLASTING some Michael Jackson. This was the typical business setup.. interesting. The buildings all have a distinct look to them also.. flat roof, flat sides, that weird concrete with metal bars running through which you can often see due to the broken concrete. I pulled out my phones and sent a couple of text messages, which drew the attention of a nearby guy while Rodrigo chatted with someone he knew. The guy was staring me down and I quickly put the phone in my pocket, he was not deterred. I walked closer to Rodrigo and not sure if I should make a big deal about this or not just asked Que Pasa to get in the conversation with Rodrigo and his friend. The glarring man then hissed at me. Like a cat. I was feeling pretty fucking nervous and immediately walked back to the boarder and all the men with guns.
I'll pick up soon, I'm helping with dinner tonight.
Feliz Navidad!
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Louisiana to Evansville
I have been unable to resurrect my laptop so I'm finally rewriting what's happened up until this point.
Oct 25th- I put on my headphones and headed out the door in Cotton Valley, LA sometime much later than I had hoped. I walked to the edge of 'town' and found a spot in the shade for what I thought would be a long wait. Luckily I was only there for a couple of songs before I had a prison guard stop and take me to Dixie Inn, about 20 miles south and right on the interstate. There I waited FOREVER on the east bound on ramp as a half dozen cars or so maybe went by over the course of more than an hour. Eventually someone headed west stopped and told me that most people from Minden (the town a couple of miles up the road) got on at the next exit and I should try there. A solid two and a half hours to and through the town and I was at another on ramp, in the dark. Pretty exhausted and disappointed in traveling 25miles or so total for the day I didn't even bother trying to get a ride in the dark. The local highway, the interstate and the on ramp formed a triangle which was raised up enough that I was confident that no one would see me without looking for me so I setup a tent on the top of the hill and got on my laptop for a little bit and fell asleep. I did manage to find an interesting souvener beside the road, right at the beginning of the on ramp.
Oct 26th- This new exit wasn't a lot better. After about an hour of no rides again, I walk down the exit and stand along the interstate where all the passing traffic can see me- illegal in most states. It paid off. Not more than 10 minutes along the interstate I got a ride from David, he was on his way to Nashville TN to see his kids. Perfect example of why I like hitch hiking, we ended up having some very interesting conversations, exchanged emails and we still keep in touch. He ended up altering his route drastically to take me through Memphis where we would part ways. That ended up being somewhere in the neighborhood of a 7 hour ride. By chance my dad was coming south and passing right through West Memphis so I met him at a truck stop and we got to chat and eat some dinner. At this point it was going to be dark soon so I walked down the road to another truck stop and went into the driver's lounge. I watched some tv and dosed off there.
Oct 27th- At about 5am or so a larger Mexican guy sit down beside me and woke me up. It was still early so I was trying to go back to sleep but he wanted to make small talk so I sat up for a minute to chat. When I told him what I was doing he told me he was leaving in about 20 minutes going the same direction I was and he offered me a ride, I didn't even have to ask. That seemed kind of odd but I had been talking to him enough that he seemed cool and I had a knife and pepper spray on me. Unfortunately he was either not very good with directions or was trying to dodge a scale I'm not sure, but he was getting off the interstate after only about 40 miles to cut across some state road which I did not want to bother with so we parted ways there. Now the sun is just beginning to rise and its raining. It was not the best start to a day, I was tired and now wet and cold. I contemplated waiting the rain out in the Walmart nearby but after checking the weather saw it wasn't expected to stop anytime soon. So I sucked it up, put my hood up and blasted the ipod. I got a ride fairly quickly there, from another guy named David, who I would also ride with for a couple hundred miles, and we also keep in touch. What are the odds? David let me out right near the Illinois/Indiana border where I got a ride from a wild old guy named Tom. He was a war vet, paratrooper with a ton of jumps under his belt. He had gotten kicked out of the army and was on his way into Evansville (my destination) to party and meet up with his black stripper girlfriend. Very interesting guy. Tom dropped me off at a gas station downtown where I was picked up by my couchsurfing host Blake.
Oct 25th- I put on my headphones and headed out the door in Cotton Valley, LA sometime much later than I had hoped. I walked to the edge of 'town' and found a spot in the shade for what I thought would be a long wait. Luckily I was only there for a couple of songs before I had a prison guard stop and take me to Dixie Inn, about 20 miles south and right on the interstate. There I waited FOREVER on the east bound on ramp as a half dozen cars or so maybe went by over the course of more than an hour. Eventually someone headed west stopped and told me that most people from Minden (the town a couple of miles up the road) got on at the next exit and I should try there. A solid two and a half hours to and through the town and I was at another on ramp, in the dark. Pretty exhausted and disappointed in traveling 25miles or so total for the day I didn't even bother trying to get a ride in the dark. The local highway, the interstate and the on ramp formed a triangle which was raised up enough that I was confident that no one would see me without looking for me so I setup a tent on the top of the hill and got on my laptop for a little bit and fell asleep. I did manage to find an interesting souvener beside the road, right at the beginning of the on ramp.
Oct 26th- This new exit wasn't a lot better. After about an hour of no rides again, I walk down the exit and stand along the interstate where all the passing traffic can see me- illegal in most states. It paid off. Not more than 10 minutes along the interstate I got a ride from David, he was on his way to Nashville TN to see his kids. Perfect example of why I like hitch hiking, we ended up having some very interesting conversations, exchanged emails and we still keep in touch. He ended up altering his route drastically to take me through Memphis where we would part ways. That ended up being somewhere in the neighborhood of a 7 hour ride. By chance my dad was coming south and passing right through West Memphis so I met him at a truck stop and we got to chat and eat some dinner. At this point it was going to be dark soon so I walked down the road to another truck stop and went into the driver's lounge. I watched some tv and dosed off there.
Oct 27th- At about 5am or so a larger Mexican guy sit down beside me and woke me up. It was still early so I was trying to go back to sleep but he wanted to make small talk so I sat up for a minute to chat. When I told him what I was doing he told me he was leaving in about 20 minutes going the same direction I was and he offered me a ride, I didn't even have to ask. That seemed kind of odd but I had been talking to him enough that he seemed cool and I had a knife and pepper spray on me. Unfortunately he was either not very good with directions or was trying to dodge a scale I'm not sure, but he was getting off the interstate after only about 40 miles to cut across some state road which I did not want to bother with so we parted ways there. Now the sun is just beginning to rise and its raining. It was not the best start to a day, I was tired and now wet and cold. I contemplated waiting the rain out in the Walmart nearby but after checking the weather saw it wasn't expected to stop anytime soon. So I sucked it up, put my hood up and blasted the ipod. I got a ride fairly quickly there, from another guy named David, who I would also ride with for a couple hundred miles, and we also keep in touch. What are the odds? David let me out right near the Illinois/Indiana border where I got a ride from a wild old guy named Tom. He was a war vet, paratrooper with a ton of jumps under his belt. He had gotten kicked out of the army and was on his way into Evansville (my destination) to party and meet up with his black stripper girlfriend. Very interesting guy. Tom dropped me off at a gas station downtown where I was picked up by my couchsurfing host Blake.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Progress and Observations
Almost three months since I started this, first update.
Hitchhiking. I have traveled a few thousand miles riding with strangers now. It hasn't yet lost its novelty, in fact- I highly recommend it. I've rode packed in an car with more people than seats, in a hippie van, 18wheelers, RVs, the bed of a pickup, police cars, and my favorite- an ambulance. With a couple exceptions, it has been easy to get people to stop. And the people! That is why hitchhiking is my favorite mode of transportation. I've heard tons of interesting stories from tons of interesting characters. Despite what many people think and will tell you, the roads aren't exclusively traveled by rapists/murderers/thieves/crazies.
Couple of the most memorable:
I was walking along a busy four lane looking for the next gas station or intersection, not expecting anyone to stop because everyone was already traveling full speed. After what felt like 30 minutes walking down the road, a big white 'stalker-looking' van in the far lane swerves across all the lanes of traffic and stops on the shoulder. I ran up to the shady looking van, and scoped out the situation. It was a van full of guys from South America, they had just finished their construction job for the week and were on their way home, about 2 hours in the direction I was heading. So, I hopped in the back and we talked as best we could between their broken English and my nonexistent Spanish. When they stopped at a gas station, they came out with lots potato chips and beer and insisted I have some cervezas! After several beers and many miles, I ended up partying with two of the guys that lived together and sleeping on their couch that night.
While going from the New Jersey coast across to Pennsylvania, I somehow ended up going the wrong way and ended up just south of New York and all of that. So heading in the right direction again, hundreds of miles of course, and in the dark now, it didn't take long before the police stopped and questioned me. He turned out to be cool though, after the officer determined 'I wasn't an asshole' he gave me a ride almost an hour down the road cruising at 100mph. Before we went our separate ways, he even told me where the state cops would be and how to avoid them.
Just outside of Philadelphia, I was having trouble getting someone to stop going into downtown. Two tiny Asian women picked me up. They ended up showing me Chinatown, good places to eat, gave me ideas on what to do in the city, and went out of their way to take me where I was heading downtown. Too nice.
Couple of intense rides- a guy picked me up at EIGHT IN THE MORNING one day, and after a couple miles took a pint of whiskey out from under his seat and took a few big swigs. He said he was a 'functioning alcoholic' and on his way to work. He finished the bottle before we got off the interstate like 40 miles later.
I also had a ride with a guy who was more than a little passionate about politics. After he basically said he would kill all the dirty liberals and was preparing for some sort of marshal law situation by buying a stockpile of ammo- I joined him in the rant and 'agreed' with everything he said until we came across the first spot I could get out.
Setting up a home base in Louisiana now, where I can make easier trips West or wherever I want to go while getting everything ready for the journey out of the country.
“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”
Hitchhiking. I have traveled a few thousand miles riding with strangers now. It hasn't yet lost its novelty, in fact- I highly recommend it. I've rode packed in an car with more people than seats, in a hippie van, 18wheelers, RVs, the bed of a pickup, police cars, and my favorite- an ambulance. With a couple exceptions, it has been easy to get people to stop. And the people! That is why hitchhiking is my favorite mode of transportation. I've heard tons of interesting stories from tons of interesting characters. Despite what many people think and will tell you, the roads aren't exclusively traveled by rapists/murderers/thieves/crazies.
Couple of the most memorable:
I was walking along a busy four lane looking for the next gas station or intersection, not expecting anyone to stop because everyone was already traveling full speed. After what felt like 30 minutes walking down the road, a big white 'stalker-looking' van in the far lane swerves across all the lanes of traffic and stops on the shoulder. I ran up to the shady looking van, and scoped out the situation. It was a van full of guys from South America, they had just finished their construction job for the week and were on their way home, about 2 hours in the direction I was heading. So, I hopped in the back and we talked as best we could between their broken English and my nonexistent Spanish. When they stopped at a gas station, they came out with lots potato chips and beer and insisted I have some cervezas! After several beers and many miles, I ended up partying with two of the guys that lived together and sleeping on their couch that night.
While going from the New Jersey coast across to Pennsylvania, I somehow ended up going the wrong way and ended up just south of New York and all of that. So heading in the right direction again, hundreds of miles of course, and in the dark now, it didn't take long before the police stopped and questioned me. He turned out to be cool though, after the officer determined 'I wasn't an asshole' he gave me a ride almost an hour down the road cruising at 100mph. Before we went our separate ways, he even told me where the state cops would be and how to avoid them.
Just outside of Philadelphia, I was having trouble getting someone to stop going into downtown. Two tiny Asian women picked me up. They ended up showing me Chinatown, good places to eat, gave me ideas on what to do in the city, and went out of their way to take me where I was heading downtown. Too nice.
Couple of intense rides- a guy picked me up at EIGHT IN THE MORNING one day, and after a couple miles took a pint of whiskey out from under his seat and took a few big swigs. He said he was a 'functioning alcoholic' and on his way to work. He finished the bottle before we got off the interstate like 40 miles later.
I also had a ride with a guy who was more than a little passionate about politics. After he basically said he would kill all the dirty liberals and was preparing for some sort of marshal law situation by buying a stockpile of ammo- I joined him in the rant and 'agreed' with everything he said until we came across the first spot I could get out.
Setting up a home base in Louisiana now, where I can make easier trips West or wherever I want to go while getting everything ready for the journey out of the country.
“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Prologue
OK, so I'm writing a 'blog'. Through this I hope to keep in touch with family and friends around the world. Hopefully I'll have the time, energy and creativity to update it regularly. It's the first time I will try to keep a journal, and I'm surely not the best writer out there.
Basically, I want to travel the world. It's funny, I've been dreaming, thinking and planning this trip for so long now, and I don't even know the exact date I'll go or where. At one point, I had a structured route with planned destinations and times spent in each location. It's completely trashed, again, because every place I read about is a place I need to see.
But Greg, how long will you be gone? At one point I thought until just after new years. Or my birthday. Or 1 year. Or when I run out of money. I've decided to be just as flexible with when I'll be back as where I'm going- have to see what happens.
The only thing I do know is that I can't postpone this trip. That's the easiest thing to do. It's never the right time to go- it's easy to find excuses, semi-commitments, dangers, financial worries, career considerations. Shouldn't you think about your career and get a job, you're 22 man. The list goes on. Now, I just need to buy a backpack...
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine
Basically, I want to travel the world. It's funny, I've been dreaming, thinking and planning this trip for so long now, and I don't even know the exact date I'll go or where. At one point, I had a structured route with planned destinations and times spent in each location. It's completely trashed, again, because every place I read about is a place I need to see.
But Greg, how long will you be gone? At one point I thought until just after new years. Or my birthday. Or 1 year. Or when I run out of money. I've decided to be just as flexible with when I'll be back as where I'm going- have to see what happens.
The only thing I do know is that I can't postpone this trip. That's the easiest thing to do. It's never the right time to go- it's easy to find excuses, semi-commitments, dangers, financial worries, career considerations. Shouldn't you think about your career and get a job, you're 22 man. The list goes on. Now, I just need to buy a backpack...
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine
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