Adelantero, An Adventure

For those of you who are still reading, I’m currently hard at work.  Most every day, I take a trip to my local coffee house, and over a cup of espresso and a muffin, pound the keys of my laptop into a fury, writing what I hope will become the fictionalized account of my book.

I’ll be posting some of the real stories I’ve recorded during my travels that I neglected to write up at the time, so in a way you’ll all get a chance to vicariously time travel with me.  Isn’t that much more exciting than travelling vicariously in real time?

So, stay tuned, this space should be filled with curious forays into the world on the road.

On the 30th of October, having made it to Zagreb, Croatia and then to Belgrade, Serbia, I decided I would like to head southwest to Bosnia for a few days before returning to Zagreb for my last week in the apartment of my friend Zach, from college.

The following is what I recorded in my notebook on the way and the adventure that took place once off the bus.

I think the bus ride from Belgrade to Sarajevo is the best way to experience the Balkans. In the comfortable security of an aging German bus with peeling cyrilics painted on the side and a less-than-expert driver, you can feel every bump on the poorly paved Serbian roads magnified by the bus’s own shaking and rattling along the route. Occasionally coming close to hitting pedestrians or other vehicles handled by equally poor Yugoslavian drivers, the horn blasts over and over. As the mountains approach, the roads get worse, and so does the queasiness, even for one who’s never been seasick.

By this time it’s likely beginning to get dark and the desolation of second world poverty becomes clearer and darker. The abandoned buildings, the economic decay, as a way of life is slowly and painfully rendered irrelevant. But these humble farmers, referred to as “peasants” by townfolk, have no new industry to turn to in the decaying economy of the war-torn Balkans. The people themselves are rendered irrelevant.

In this way, second world poverty is so much more miserable than in the third world. The thirld world is full of poverty and I have experienced much of it, at least as it is in the Americas. But the land always gives. It’s possible to maintain an existence of meaning in Guatemala, even if life is only subsistence farming. There is always a way up, or at least a way to keep from going down.

In Latin America at least, the people are a new people. Born of the old Americas and the colonialists. There is only building and growing. It is hard, but life has its rewards. There are resources o reap and opportunities. But here, these are an ancient people and their tried and true way of life is dieing.

Later:
And yet, sometimes a good thing goes wrong. i would still argue that this bus ride is a very good way to see the Balkan misery, but it is not, alas, the trip to Sarajevo. The six to seven hour busride from Belgrade to Kosovska Mitrovica is everything already described, and more. Not only is Balkan misery showcased, but also its political turmoil as illustrated by the destination: a smouldering town on the Kosovo border policed by the UN in armored vehicles with razor wire fences.

Not for the first time in my Balkan voyages did I wonder where the landmines were.

But by fortune or misfortune, I failed to figure out where I was until the last bus back had left, meaning I had to stay the night, giving me the chance to see the town by day, a unique opportunity.

There is a steady patrol of UN Police SUVs, then later a caravan of three slowmoving vehicles including a van, jeep, and pickup with an occasional troop-carrying truck, all filled with sleepy UN soldiers and police officers from some country, carying rather large assault rifles. And they drive up and down the streets, though what they’re looking for I can never tell.

I looked sketchy enough, sleeping on the bus stop bench, yet instead of being stopped by the UN, I was accosted by a carful of vigilantes who decided to search my bags. They asked for no documents which screamed “I am not a legitimate law enforcement officer!” yet I let them do it, ready to deal with a less pleasant situation should it have arisen. They gave me back my bags, and left, telling me there were no drivers in the busses (which I could clearly see) and that I should go to the “polet” which had no meaning for me. I didn’t leave.

But the night did not yield easy sleep. Helped in no small part by my nightcap espresso, I was party to every passing car or patrol until I finally slipped off for a few hours of sleep.
Next morning, in a cafe:

Even this little cafe, one of many in Eastern Europe, shows the decay. It’s beautiful. Stone tiling, tasteful colors, a welcoming atmosphere, yet at my corner table I am the recipien of an age of graffiti. It’s mostly scrawled names. “Vlado ‘92″ is featured twice, no three times, and it looks lik a whole party of friends signed their names, though a bracket linking them and noted “1/4″ is rather confusing.

Today’s youth, confined to a turbulent and war-torn border town run by the UN. Kosovo je Srpsko indeed. What meaning can that possibly have for these kids?

The cafe fills and so far it’s mainly high school kids. All over Serbia I think the same thing. Where are these kids going? What does Serbia have to offer them any more? A scrawled name on a cafe wall is the only testament to their existence for the rest of the world.

Smoke curls into the air from most of the table, willing an early end to a directionless life. In Eastern Europe, the world spirals down and down in a controlled descent to decay. Trademark - Western corporatism. In Latin America, the world spirals into chaos and out of control, but not specifically down.

No degree in medicine can help me deal with this.

Alex
31 October, 2008

Well, I’m not going to lie.  This is going to be a bit tricky to explain to all of you.  Last you all heard from me, I was in Panama City, writing to you from a Lebanese restaurant down the street from my hostel.  Now…well, now I’m in Switzerland.

I stayed in Panama City for nearly two weeks, during which time I searched in vain for a ship to carry me to Colombia.  Yachts, container ships, nothing.  My enthusiasm quickly waned as I grew to hate the new corporate bank state that is Panama post-1999. 

Then the worst news came.  Perhaps not all of you are aware, but the primary purpose of this adventure was to carry me to Argentina where I would start medical school.  I made an appointment with the the Consul at the Argentine Embassy in Panama and over an exquisite cup of espresso, was told that while I could study for free in Argentina, the state hadn’t opened up any spaces for foreigners to study medicine in the last two years, being a rather expensive education.  I would learn if there was a chance in October.

Hopes somewhat dashed, I looked for new options.  I have travelled fairly extensively in South America already, and going to Argentina, a country I have already seen, has less of a point if I have no real reason to be there, so I decided somewhat impulsively to head to Europe, a continent I have not yet explored.  So I mailed the bike home and flew to Budapest with only a backpack.  From there a bus to Munich, dutifully avoiding Oktoberfest, then hitchhiking to Stuttgart, Zurich, and finally here to Lugano, Switzerland.

I’ve got a few months left before it’s heading home, and I’ve got a lot of European and Near East nations to traverse, and lots of exciting people to meet by hitchhiking.  After seven rides, I’ve already met some fantastic and interesting people, including an Angolan living in Switzerland, a German-hating German ex-expat formerly living in Spain, a German film actor, and a couple of less interesting folks.  Wild!

As the story of Panama City continues to unfold, permit me to regale you briefly with not this final chapter of Act I of a Panamerican adventure, but rather to begin with some reflections upon the very first.

Mary and I crossed the bridge outof El Paso in late afternoon.  No customs, no passports, only a toll for the bridge and a “move along” kind of wave from some men with assault rifles.  In a moment I had left a foreign and strange feeling city and entered a familiar town.  Every Latin American city is the same in so many ways.

The roads in Ciudad Juarez were in poor shape, the buildings were crumbling slowly, there were vast lakes across some avenues, and the army could be seen here and there.  Yes, all Latin American cities are the same in so many ways, and it was comforting to know that I could find a hardware store, replacement auto parts store, and a place to buy a coca cola on every street, even though I had need for none of these things at the time. 

Mary remarked about how few Americans visit Mexico, even though it´s just a hop, skip, and jump away.  Even when they do, it´s to visit Cancún and the beaches.  Never the border towns which are so close.  The Mexican culture is there in Juarez, probably more than most, but most are not interested in seeing that.  Beautiful mountains and beaches and ruins and rainforests hold more splendor. 

But Juarez, I was warned, is dangeous. There are drug wars there! they told me.  But I saw none of this and no doubt it was my excitement about starting such an adventure that made me so fearless as I biked, in the dark of my first Mexican night, through all of Juarez.

I write to you now fully seven countries away.  It is time now, as I wait for my passage to South America, that I might reflect upon it all.

I read today an article in GQ about Juarez and it showed me the Juarez I was too excited to notice.  There have been over 500 murders in Juarez so far this year.  500 murders.  Ponder that a moment, do a little bit of math.  But it´s still not the Juarez I was warned about, still not the Juarez of the New York Times.  In America know nothing about Mexico.  Reading that article today, 4,000 miles from the place itself, I felt much as I had when I climbed the slums of Lima two and a half years ago and really did see. 

It makes me realize that this is no voyage of discovery.  I am not finding myself by stepping out of my comfy American life;  I have already done that.  It is just an adventure, like mountain climbing or deep sea diving.  Some thrills, some great views, and a lot of hard work.  And I feel that with that realization, some of the value has been lost from the trip, if it ever was there to lose.  The destination, it seems, and getting to it is all that has mattered.  Panamerican adventure only because I pass through the Americas, not because I have allowed them to become part of me, and that is what I thought it was for.

What has changed?  Why do I not let all of America embrace me as a son, cry its thick spring-fed tears over my shoulder and tell me its dreams and nightmares? I hope I can learn again.  Maybe becase now that I carry all that I own with me always, I have more to lose and guard it more carefully.  Certainly, now that the bike is safein my lodgings and I wander the streets with little, I see more and I am affected more.  Even in my modest hostel, surrounded by travellers, I hang close to the bike, enveloped by my own thoughts, giving little of myself.

Sweet Mexico, tonight, so far away, I hurt for you!  And I hurt for not feeling it before.  Again and again it is illustrated for me why I will never live contentedly, why I will always hate some part of me for cowardice if I do not give all of myself to you.  I will give my life for yours.  Some day I will.  And so it is that I will never live in peace until I no longer live, perhaps.  There´s too much work to be done, too much of myself that belongs to the world. Tonight, once more, I dedicate myself to you.

A doctor from the Sudan, once when I last felt this, before I began again to warm to the sweet scents of comfortable life, told me I was the type of person who is “across the border.”  That my ideas and heart knew no borders, no arbitrary lines of demarcation. I could think of no greater compliment.  But stamps in my passport are no assurance that I deserve it. It is every day that I must decide to cross the border again. 

Tonight I am across the border once more, and let no thing let me amble back across it again.

As written on Monday, 11 August, 2008 over a cup of Capuccino in Tapachula, Mexico.

Today, the fates have worked against me in their small way.  Only some small number of miles from the Guatemalan border lies a city by the name of Tapachula. It´s a fair sized city, as Mexican cities go, and I pedalled into town with every intention of collecting some wired money and heading out as soon as possible.  After all, the excitement of crossing a border is considerable and there´s no sense in delaying it. It should also be noted that there are only a few advantages of being in a city.  These include the ease of internet access, coffee shops, and abundant food.  All of these luxuries can be had quickly enough, as they were today, and then a city may be left behind in peace.

I bought some food and set off through the city, minding pot holes and puddles, looking for a Western Union agent.  It wasn´t long before I spotted the vast yellow monolith down a side street showing me where I might find an Elektra store.   Elektra is the local answer to the question of where one can buy most electronics and a motorcycle in one shopping trip. It is also a convenient location to collect money wired from abroad.

Inside the Elektra I found a cramped sales floor filled with televisions, motorcycles, and washing machines. Along the back wall were a series of cubicles and teller´s windows.  I stepped toward a free window and began the process of collecting money.  As it would turn out, all was not well, and a small discrepancy made phone calls and consultations necessary on the other side of the protective banker´s glass.

I leaned on a washing machine and watched women´s weight lifting and men’s single sculls on the fifteen televisions against the other wall.

By and by, a man sitting comfortably by a sales desk hailed me.  In heavily accented English he asked me if I was Mexican.  Naturally, I told him I was not, and indeed an American.  The largely one-sided conversation that followed was full of strange details about this curious man´s life that I will try to recount to you.

Seated in his plastic chair in an old t-shirt and pair of weathered slacks he asked me first if I was in the area to buy cocaine and marijuana.  “No, no,” I told him, “I´m just travelling through.”  I looked myself over.  In my salt-stained cycling jersey and shorts, with my bandana, sunglasses, and one and a half months of beard, did I look so much like a drug trafficker?

“Just travelling?” he asked.  “So you´re just going to get some money then off you go again?”  We had shifted to Spanish by now, as my command of the language was better than his english which he said he had learned by teaching his kids from a book written in both languages with stories in is such as one “about one woman with loads of kids who lived in some sort of old shoe.”  I said yes and recounted briefly the theft of my wallet.  “And they won´t give you the money?” I had been waiting for the bank staff to clear up my difficulties for twenty minutes now, and recounted briefly my Western Union woes.

“No drugs at all for you?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head a little.

“I used to drink,” he told me in a serious sort of way, and for the second time in a month I heard the tale of an alcoholic who´d turned around.  “1978.”  He pronounced each syllable with deep meaning.  “Thirty years ago exactly, and not a drop since then.  It was because of my wife, you see.  I hit her, and that night I promised her I would never drink again.  I drank all sorts of things: tequila, whiskey, brandy, but I haven´t touched any of it in thirty years. 

“I hit my wife, like this.”  Here he began hitting his own face lightly.  “And cut her here,” he indicated a line across his forehead, “when I hit her with my foot. They took me away but I didn´t go to prison.  My friend was with the police , and he told me ´I won´t send you to prison but what you´re going to do is go home and tell your wife you´ll never drink again.”  I thought to myself that being far outside of justice, this was also an interesting look at the idea of Machismo in Mexico, but held my tongue.  “I did,” he went on.  “Never again, I told her. It was a test of will power.”

As quickly as the subject arose, it was gone.  “Where are you from?  I mean, which state?”

“Wisconsin,” I told him.  “In the north, near Canada.”  I had taken to telling people I was from New Mexico, as somehow it is difficult to communicate to people that while I´m travelling from New Mexico, I am from Wisconsin originally.

“Ah,” he said, “I have to kids right across the border from Chihuahua.  One´s a lawyer (he said a lawyer of rights, licenciado en derecho, but I´m uncertain how this translates) and the other is the kind of lawyer who puts people away.  They tried to get me to come to the states with them, but I wouldn´t go. They got me papers, a passport, a visa, but nothing would take me away from Mexico, I said to them.  ´I love you,´I said, ´but I´m staying here.´”  I smiled at this.  I had heard many stories of people whose children or other family members had gone to the US, even some who´d gone and come back to Mexico, but this was a new take on the issue.

“I´m a mechanic of building machinery,” he told me, shifting topics again.  “I´m the master of a building firm; I have twenty-seven men working under me.  Some of them do cocaine and marijuana.  They ligh up a joint and as soon as it´s done, out comes another.” He mimed taking a cigarette out of his breast pocket lighting it, then repeated it several times. “And the others,” he pretended to snort cocaine from the sales desk.  “I tell them, ´you can go and die, but not me.´ And one of them did.  From the cocaine, I saw it- blood and black coming out of everywhere,”  I grimaced as his hands showed me mortal secretions flowing from his nose and eyes.  “It´s terrible stuff.

“But what about your money? Aren´t they going to give it to you?” I looked over at the window.

“I hope so, let me check.”  I moved off, to be told it needed to be fixed stateside.  It had begun to drizzle, and it looked like a long night was ahead of me once again.

“You´ve got to head back to the city, then turn at the first traffic light,” he said.  I had just pedalled five miles from Tecoman to get to the beach and the sun was just about to set.  I sighed and continued talking with the three young cyclists I´d met on the waterfront.  Soon they left to head home.

I spent the night on the waterfront, hammock slung between two palm trees, a strong ocean breeze blowing fiercely over me all night long, rattling the palm fronds over my head.  I´d wasted three hours that afternoon biking in circles around town, first following the misleading signs to the grocery store, then trying to find my way out of the acursed city to the highway leading east.  I´d asked locals for directions, but all they succeeded in doing was to further perplex me as I got lost again and again.

At last I saw a sign to Playa Real, a beach, next to a little symbol for highway 200, the one I was after.   I checked my compass to find the highway leading south, not east.  Puzzled, but happy to be leaving the wretched town, I pedalled into the sinking sun.

I spent a good twelve miles the next morning riding in more circles before asking once more for directions.  “Just follow this road here straight; it´ll take you to the highway.”  I rode down the street.  Pavement gave way to uneven stones, giving me a headache and jerking my bike all over, and finally turned to a dirt track which ended in an impassable wall of dirt.  I´d found the highway, but it was closed for road work.

I cursed loudly in spanish, english, and guaraní.  Only in Tecoman, the Godforsaken city of absolutely no urban planning.  I dragged the bike over the excavated earth ad pedalled on past the workers and machines anyway.

My bad mood cleared once I´d escaped the cloud of misdirection hanging over the city and twenty miles passed serenely.  I was well in the tropics now- palm trees and dense vegetation greeted me on all sides.

Having wasted my morning in the city, it was well towards midday when I spied the ominous peaks ahead of me.  Hoping the highway would just skirt them instead of summitting them, I advanced.  I spent a good half an hour at a military checkpoint having my things examined and showing the interested soldiers where I´d travelled on my map, and finally reached the foot of the mountains.

It´s one thing to climb desert mountains.  They are monotonous and unforgiving, but dry and usually breezy.  In mid-afternoon mountains covered in tropical forest are not to be reckoned with. 

For five hours I climbed hills, turned switchbacks, and sweated.  I have never had so much sweat on my body.  Great rivers poured down my arms and chest.  I had to take off my sunglasses because they trapped heat over my eyes.  At last I had to stop.  I lay in a gutter off the road, dying.  Slowly I dried out and rehydrated.

Time and time again I would round a switchback and see the top of a hill, making me believe I was finally at the top.  Time and time again I would reach the descent only to find it thirty feet long and leading to another longer climb.  Up and down lost all meaning.

But some trials have great rewards reaching far beyond what anyone might expect.

As the sun began to sink low over the peaks and I began to eye the dense tropical forest nervously, thinking I might have to spend the night, I reached the last bottom of the last hill.  The mountains were behind me.  My ecstacy overwhelmed me as I realized I was back at the beach, and lo! Here was a public park for enjoying the water and camping!

The bike rolled down the road and I stopped by the entrance to the beach.  “It´s twenty pesos to pass onto the beach over here,” a man in a vest with some initials on it told me.  I looked puzzled.  “The sea turtles are here today.” 

“Right now?  You´ve got to be kidding,” I assured him.  But as I looked over, sure enough, the beach was covered with little dark lumps moving across the sand.  I dug in my pockets for some coins, payed the man, and set off with my camera, incredulous at my incredible  good fortune. 

Sea turtles come to lay their eggs once a year at the very same stretch of beach where they themselves were hatched.  They return with uncanny precision every year in a window of about three days, dig a hole, and lay their eggs before heading back off into the waves.  I wandered among them in awe as local volunteers collected the eggs to take to a hatchery farther down the beach.

Some fifteen marines were on the beach, Mexico´s guards for these endangered animals.

“Did you get some good pictures?”  asked Angelo, a sergeant with the marines when I began to head back.  “The light was just great with the setting sun in the background.”

I assured him I had.

“Every year they come to this beach.  There are thousands of them and it´s only about four kilometers long,” he told me as a sea turtle ambled past him towards the campground.  He picked it up and sent it off in another direction.  “There´s another beach down that way,” he pointed east, “where they´re even bigger than these.”  I marvelled at life.

He pointed to the turtle that he relocated.  “This is an old one,” he said.

“How can you tell?”

“See the shell? It´s got some cracks in it here and here.  It´s probably eighty or so, a big adult. Some of them are real young and just hatched here a few years ago.”

We talked about turtles and mexico until I figured I´d better go set up camp, and headed off, still marvelling at life and my good fortune.

There are advantages and disadvantages to arriving in Guadalajara on a Friday evening.  Upon entering downtown, exhausted and having just suffered an inconveniently rebellious screw which had loosened, threatening to send my rear rack careening into the wheel, I passed unceremoniously through the heavy traffic and into the heart of the city.

I am rather fond of old Spanish colonial architecture and wasn’t disappointed.  The old cathedral, government buildings, theatre, and homes remained as ever, testaments to days long gone.  I passed live music in the plaza, an old man washing dishes in an ornamental fountain, and children enjoying the beginning of the weekend, tossing balls, and watched by their parents.

I wandered for an hour, starting from the center of downtown and working out, looking for a small hotel where I might stay the night.  It was dark by the time I found on that looked sufficiently cheap. 

Hotel Ontario was tucked away on a main street beside shops shuttered for the night and hidden behind a large tree.  I walked my bike inside and approached the desk.  A woman came over and asked what I wanted before having a good chuckle at my apparently comical bike.  “Is that your house?” she asked, laughing.  I shrugged and said yes. 

Eleven dollars worse off, I hauled my bike up the flight of stairs to a room at the back of the building.  Hotel Ontario is much larger than one would think, looking at the outside, but I found the room, turned the key in the lock and entered.  A tiny room greeted me on the other side.  In front of me sat a a reasonable sized bed.  I can be no judge of quality now that I have been sleeping in a tent for nearly three weeks, but it looked comfortable enough.  Off to the right I laid my key on a rickety dresser under an open frosted glass window with view of the top of another building.  With barely room to pass between the wall and the bed, I found the bathroom behind a shower curtain.  In typical latin american style, the shower head hung on the wall right by the sink and across from the toilet.  When you shower, everything gets wet. 

In all honesty, this was the only reason I had wanted a hotel room.  Not having showered since a generous convenience store employee offered me room in her house for the night on my second day, I decided it was time to clean myself up a bit.  Dust, sweat, dirt, and exhaust particulates clung to my skin making it difficult to tell where the tan ended and the filth began.  For days my legs, burned on my first days out, had been slowly peeling.  The dirt and dead skin keeping the sweat from making it out of the pores and onto the surface, instead forcing it into little bubbles under the layer that needed to come off.  I made an effort to remove all the skin, but I realized only a good washing would do the trick.

I emerged from the shower a new man.  Having dressed in real clothes, leaving my salt stained jersey and shorts to dry, I imagine the desk was rather shocked at the change as I came down to go find some food on the town.

So began my first real day of rest.  I had been reluctant to take a day off in the weeks earier because I was both behind schedule and also wading through the formidable Mexican desert of the North which left little in the way of diversion for a day off the bike.  Having made the mistake of not heeding local advice upon leaving Zacatecas three days earlier to take the slightly out-of-the way route to Guadalajara by going east before south, I found myself inadvertantly crossing the largest mountain range I have yet encountered.

Before arriving in the city of Zacatecas, I had already been climbing several days and when a cook with whom I chatted amicably for some time in a cafe assured me that it was just about all downhill to Guadalajara, I was beyond relieved.  I set off and at first was not disappointed.  For eight kilometers out of the city I just sat back and coasted down and down.  Once on the highway more descents were evident, but by the end of the day I was back to climbing

I set up camp for the night in the most beautiful of campsites.  Tucked next to a corn field and along a rolling stream, I found a little grassy patch shadowed by some large tree and mostly hidden from the highway above.  I slung my hammock, gathered some wood for my first campfire, and readied myself for a pleasant night.

The dew was thick upon my belongings as I rose in the morning and all I could do was wait for the sun to dry off the fly on my hammock before I could pack up and set off.  I was still tired and weary but I knew I had to get over those mountains some time, so I put on my audiobook version of The Phantom Tollbooth and pedalled away.  I climbed hills all morning and and afternoon and was relieved the next day to finally enter a town where I could stop, buy a coca cola, and rest. 

I could see mountains in the destance and assured myself that no civil engineer would build a highway over those if it could be avoided.  Surely there was some sort of Mexican Cumberland Gap here.  I set off again into the high sun.  What followed was the most arduous and strenuous physical trials of my existence to date.

My faith in the good sense of Mexican civil engineers waned as I climbed up and up, over peaks, and up some more.  My pace turned to grueling as my legs screamed out in protest and gave out great cries of anguish.  I came quickly to a point where I could only advance 200ft or so at a time before I needed to stop, get my heart rate down, and try to pay back some of my accrued oxygen debt, willing the lactic acid to leave my legs.  I dreamed sweet dreams of having great surpluses of Adenosine Triphosphate to power me , but they were only dreams.  My legs were gone.  I stopped right at sunset having just reached the state of Jalisco, 80km north of Guadalajara.

Cast in the middle of nowhere once more, I had run out of water.  In mid afternoon the day before, upon seeing how much I was sweating and knowing I had only a liter of water left, I set myselft beside the highway in the shade to wait out the sun a bit, conserving water, and enjoying a lunch of macaroni with olive oil and balsamic vinegar to the sweet sounds of heavy trucks engine braking down the mountain.  Not even a kilometer from  my campsite the next morning I was washed with good fortune as I spied a mountain stream, full from the night rain, washing under the highway. 

By late morning I was speeding downhill, back into civilization.  Twenty kilometers of racing downhill brought me to the very bottom of a river valley.  Twenty-six kilometers to Guadalajara now.  I stopped to rest under an abandoned mango stall.  It’s all uphill now, I was told by a passing farmer.

Up and up  I went, ears popping through a light afternoon rain, drinking Tang and wishing for the end.  I passed some of the most breathtaking views I had seen on the trip but could hardly enjoy them for the exhaustion. 

And yet, has there ever been such a beautiful sight as the sprawling metropolis of Guadalajara?  Has there ever been a city of more splendor to the tired cyclist’s eyes?  I looked down on the overcast city, covered by dense smoggy clouds, dirty puddles in the streets, cars, buses , cement, ribar, commercialism.  Sweet, sweet Guadalajara, today you are my home.

There are twelve hours left.  New Mexico is threatening rain and thunder, but still I am packed and as ready externally as I can be for the road.  Internally, I suppose I’m as ready as I can be as well, but I can’t know until I’m actually in Mexico, on the bike, with every part of my life in my own hands. 

In twelve hours, I get in the car, pull out from Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, and drive south to the border.  Then it all begins.

The final despedida.

So far, lunch had consisted of a Häagen-Dazs milk shake on the sidewalk around the Santa Fe plaza. It had been a fantastic milk shake of Belgian chocolate and dark chocolate peanut butter ice creams, but the afternoon was nearing an end and we figured some real food might be a good choice, all things considered.

Admittedly the Plaza District is not the sort of place where one goes to find a diverse selection of cuisine. Nearly every street is home to a restaurant, but it takes some effort to find one serving something other than southwest food. We walked the streets and perused menus. Our winners turned to losers as we discovered restaurants had stopped serving lunch and were not yet serving dinner. In all honesty, we supposed, four o’clock is a bit late to eat lunch.

We succumbed to rationality and took a seat on a bench with our tourist map complete with a restaurant list and examined the possibilities. Options came and went as we noticed hours and prices. I’d just gotten off the phone with mom when we found our restaurant. I stood up. “Let’s go,” I said, and took off down the street. After a moment Lydia pointed out that I had no idea where I was going. We stopped to review the map. We were almost ready to set off again when I was accosted by two young tourists who insisted I was a European. I didn’t understand at first which no doubt helped the illusion but in the end they left. I reviewed myself and figured I did look vaguely European with my long hair, Greek fisherman’s cap, button shirt, low rise jeans with cuffs rolled, strange shoes, and the lit cigarette in hand. I smiled.

Five blocks away, we parked the car directly in front of our destination. Through the window I could see two people seated and we were relieved - an open restaurant. As we entered Los Mayas restaurant, we discovered the two were actually staff and after walking down a short entryway, we encountered an empty dining room with no host or wait staff to be seen. A casual glance through the open kitchen door gave us no further clues as the place was empty and somewhat dark.

Glancing at a menu liberated from a stack on the host’s desk we began to examine our options. Lydia’s vegetarian needs were assuaged on the last page and we returned the faux-leather book back to the pile.

A waitress appeared briefly at our side.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” she said in a mild latino accent before hurrying off again to parts unknown. We smiled sympathetically and held our ground

A moment later she appeared again and grabbed two stapled paper menus off the top of a different stack, thought better, and pulled two cleaner menus out of the middle before ushering us to a table. The table was clothed in a paper table cloth and adorned with silverware and cleverly folded napkins. A glass votive candle holder sat in the corner absolutely filled with hardened wax. A lonely tea candle sat atop the wax at a jaunty angle. We sat and the waitress hurried off once more. I paged through the paper menu (clearly the faux-leather variety was for dinner guests or those possessing some quality we lacked).

Anticipating the inevitable next step I glanced at the beverage selection. True to form our waitress was back with a basket of tortilla chips, a bowl of salsa, and an inquiry as to our choice of drinks. Lydia ordered a glass of water, and I asked about soft drinks.

“We have Coke, Sprite…” she trailed off.
“I’ll have a Coke,” I interjected, trying to save her any embarassment to be had either on account of her lack of memory of the soda collection or her restaurant’s meager selection. She agreed to bring us those things and disappeared.

Returning to the menu, Lydia decided to try a dish of cooked calabazitas, or little squashes, which would turn out to be zucchini, and other vegetables. I settled on the “Santa Fe Classic” of a chicken enchilada and two hard shell beef “tacos,” to be served with beans, rice, posale, and guacamole.

The waitress returned carrying our drinks and with a question. As it would happen, the cook had yet to arrive and would we wait ten minutes? We smiled understandingly and told her there was nothing to worry about, that we were in no hurry.

By this time an older waiter had materialized on the small stage by our table and was hard at work playing a CD of Mexican music on the sound system. Slowly this restaurant was becoming more and more charming.

We were seated outside on a patio covered by an aged tent. The exterior walls were made of pieces of wood paneling that allowed you the comfort of knowing that the street outside existed but not the discomfort of having to watch cars and small children pass by. Blue painted wood columns, every one split or leaning, supported the wooden structure of the patio, and atrociously misplaced murals and handles decorated the walls. On the stage two dilapidated and beautiful thrones were complemented by an empty microphone stand, an old CD player intent on making every album skip, and a small sound board endearingly perched on a music stand. Two large umbrellas covered a number of tables and we were baffled briefly by their purpose, being of course already under the large tent roof.

Our waitress arrived again, this time carrying two small salads “on the house.” We expressed some small suprise and thanked her for her generosity. The small dessert plates in front of us held each a small assortment of lettuce, escarole, and one of those red leaves whose name always escapes me. The dressing was suprisingly good and had a clear base of citrus.

At last the cook had arrived and we placed our order with the assurances that our food would be out “really quick.” I continued my assault on the basket of chips.

A family had arrived and the older waiter was clearly having great fun entertaining them. They ordered guacamole prepared tableside and a cart was promptly delivered, gloves put on, avocados sliced, and so on.

Before long the cook came out with our dishes and our waitress indicated in Spanish whose was whose. He was gone before thank yous could be properly applied. The plate before me was quite the suprise. In terms of presentation at a restaurant serving southwest and Mexican food, I’ve come to expect at most an oval plate absolutely covered, with burrito smashing up against refried beans and Spanish rice, everything topped with a smattering of cheese and maybe some parsley thrown in for good measure. In comparison, this dish was exquisite. On my square plate I found my enchilada topped with cheese. Above it a dollop of guacamole, slightly spaced. In the right upper corner my rice was stacked with a garnish of parsley sticking out of the top. Below it lay my two beef shells at an angle next to a cheese covered serving of beans. Every item was spaced and attention was paid to the negative space and juxtaposition. I stared for a moment.

I began the enchilada first and after eating through some of it, I had to stop. “How do you eat a hard shell?” I asked Lydia. “I never eat these and I never order them because I’m not sure if I should eat it with my hand or a fork.”

“With your hands,” she said.

As a more reasonable hour for dining approached, the restaurant began to fill. The speakers still effused Mexican ballads with a few gentle urgings and the occasional ” Ay! Mi maquinita!” from the waiter in charge of it. Full as we were, we accepted a free torta de tres leches from the house for agreeing not to pay with a credit card. As we headed across the patio towards the exit, our stomachs bulging with food, a chorus of gratitude rained about us from the staff.

The domain name is purchased, the blog is started, and it’s only a short time before I leave home for New Mexico, where I will stay for a little while before I take off on the bicycle.

Home is a difficult place to be when I’m standing on the edge of an undertaking as large as this one. I can’t really know what’s ahead but I can’t wait to find out.