Antigua to Miami to Tulsa to DC

It has been many months since my last post. In the words of Inigo Montoya “Let me explain...no, there is too much...Let me sum up”

Antigua

Chris and I decided to make one last stop before coming home. Antigua is only about an hour outside of Guatemala City and most tourists end up there at some point. It’s one of those cities that, the minute you arrive, you know exactly why so many people keep going there. It is beautiful, surrounded by volcanoes, and filled with nice people who don’t seem to have been corrupted by all the tourism.

Miami

Finally, we flew back to Miami. The first night we just wandered around our old stomping grounds on South Beach. It looks pretty much the same except with way more skyscrapers and chain stores. The highlight of the first night was a huge colada we got from David’s Café.

I spent most of the time combing the classified ads and taking advantage of the free internet at Panera (my mother has dial-up!). I also got lucky and was able to see Jeannette and Melissa. We met Jeannette at Jackson’s Ice cream (of course). Melissa was in town to throw her mom a surprise party. I think I got there just in time to rescue her from a meltdown.

When not job hunting or visiting friends we were reading through the stack of books we bought - including Barack’s newest, Edwards book on poverty, and Richardson’s autobiography. We even stopped by at a (rather poorly attended) John Edwards event on Key Biscayne where a very exhausted Edwards made a quick speech, shook everyone’s hand, and disappeared.

Tulsa

The job search was taking a bit longer than anticipated and my mother’s house is in bfe. We decided to ditch the rental car, and the state of Florida, and head back to Oklahoma to see the cats (and Rick and Stacey of course).

Again, I spent most of the time combing ads and sending resumes, but we did get invited to a family wedding. Every time the priest would say something about the wife obeying or keeping a nice home for her hubby, I would give Chris a nudge and make a face - much to the amusement of Chris’s father.

Washington, DC

We finally settled down again. We are in Washington DC with our new jobs, new apartment, and old cats. Loving DC and already plotting our next trip. More on that next post.

Onward to Tikal

We finally made it out of Guatemala City and headed north up to Coban. Chris told you all about the amazing pools at Semuc Champey on his blog.

He did not; however, tell you about my injury. I had managed to hike up the mountain to the overlook, even though I was up most of the night sick, wearing a skirt, and felt like passing out half the time. (I swear, I really was sick. It’s not just because I’m pathetically out of shape.) I also managed to walk along the slippery rocks without hurting myself. When it came to climbing slippery ladders through dark caves, I wisely passed, as Chris and I had not brought our first aid kit and (as you may know) I am a complete klutz. Our guide took us to a lovely spot on the river to wait for the people in our tour who did the cave thing. There, Chris enjoyed himself on the rope swing (see pic). I wisely passed on that also. Then I spotted a really cool looking bird. I walked over with my camera to take a picture and BAM, fell right on my ass, hard. I had gravel imprints on my butt for like two days. It hurt so bad, I wasn’t even embarrassed about falling on my ass and having to hold a cold bottle of coke to my nalga (that’s butt cheek in Spanish) for twenty minutes.

The next day Chris and I had a seven hour bus trip to Tikal. That’s seven hours on a chicken bus with a big, swollen nalga. Luckily, there were many sites along the way that distracted me from the throbbing pain in my ass. (No, I’m not talking about Chris.) I saw six houses in Guatemala’s version of a gated community. The unique part? There was a gate, but no walls attached to it. One of my favorites was a naked baby sitting in a tub by the side of the road, having the time of his life. not another person nearby. We also got to cross a gorgeous river on our amphibious chicken bus. Actually, we were on a rickety barge that managed, by some miracle, not to sink from our weight.

Finally, we reached Flores, a very cute little town on an island, in the middle of a lake, not far from the ruins of Tikal. Upon arrival, we were followed around by a very creepy cab driver who kept trying to tell us that if we didn’t make our Tikal reservations with him, we wouldn’t be able to go the next day. He also told us the hotel we were going to was going to be booked and that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. O.k., I made up that last part, but you get the picture. He was a big liar. Luckily, the woman at our hotel was fabulous. We had a nice meal, made our reservation for Tikal through her, and passed out (me trying not to sleep on my still-sore nalga).

The next day we hit Tikal, the reason for this several day journey. I’ll let Chris post the pictures of the ruins. Although they are impressive, the really cool thing about Tikal is the setting. It is in the middle of the jungle and the place is crawling with monkeys. Normally, monkeys don’t come anywhere near close enough to take halfway decent photos without a really good telephoto lens. Luckily, Chris and I found the Jim Carrey of monkeys. The minute he saw us, he dropped down a few feet and started showing off. He was still kind of high up and backlit, so the photos are a bit fuzzy, but here’s one of my favorites. In Guatemala, when something is cute, they say “que mono” - which also means, what a monkey.

After Tikal, we decided to skip twenty more hours on a bus and take a flight back to Guate. That way we could get back to Xela the same day and start packing for our journey home. More on that next post.

Hot Showers, Cold Receptions, and Tall Tales

I’ve been slacking again. Chris and I are back in the states, but first I’m going to catch you up on our last few weeks in Guatemala.

The picture is of the super-fabulous showerhead at our ridiculously extravagant hotel room in Guatemala City (where we needed to stop before we went on to Coban and Flores.) I post it so that you can compare it to the deathtrap in our apartment from my earlier post. Prior to going to Guatemala, we suffered through weeks of little or no water. On the rare occasion that we did get a trickle out of the showerhead, it was almost certainly not hot. Also, Chris was getting zapped whenever his hand got too close. Needless to say, we were not enjoying the water situation. When we went to Guate, we decided to do it up. We stayed at the Westin.

After we sterilized ourselves in the Westin shower, we went out for an overpriced meal at a nearby Mexican restaurant in Zona 10. On the way, we ran into a guy who told us (in English) that one of the nearby taquerias was better than the other. You don't run into many English speaking black guys in Guatemala, so I figured he was a tourist like me. I smiled, said thanks, and moved on. On our way back to the hotel, he approached us again. Turns out he is a Garifuna from Livingston, Guatemala. He once lived in the U.S. At first, he lived in San Francisco. He described in amazement the train in San Francisco that goes underneath the bay. “Its name was Bart,” he said. He also lived in Phili for a while, until some guy at Home Depot (where he worked) turned him in to immigration. He has been trying to get back to the U.S. ever since. The last time he tried, he made it to Tucson and was picked up by the border patrol. He waited in a federal prison for a month and then was deported to Guatemala City. After a time, he was released from Guatemala City jail, but he had no money and no way to get home. Livingston is a hefty trip from Guatemala City. He had just been released that morning.

Any of you who know me are aware that I am pretty skeptical, but I believed this guy's story. Maybe it was the fact that I was on my way back to a down-covered bed in a $150 a night hotel room (in Guatemala mind you) or on my way from a $65 dinner at a snooty L.A.ish restaurant, but we gave him enough money to chicken bus it back to Livingston. Someday, we’ll go to Livingston and see if Carlos ever made it back.

Carlos said that Guatemalans are incredibly racist. In his opinion, way more racist than estadounidenses (that’s us). I cannot confirm or deny, but I can attest to the fact that anyone who deigned to look at Carlos did not look kindly. I can also confirm that Chris and I got some very snooty looks in Guatemala City. These were not anti-gringo looks. They were “should I be giving a room to these people” looks or “are those people appropriately dressed for our snooty L.A. wannabe restaurant” looks.

Guatemala City is like L.A., but with even worse traffic. Avoid it. But if you must go, I highly recommend the bed at the Westin. It was the best sleep I’d gotten in about two months.

Atitlan Adventure

Last weekend, Chris and I headed over to Lake Atitlan. You can check Chris’s blog for a description of the harrowing journey. This is the lake. It is huge. Since we were mostly in the clouds, we weren’t able to see the other side. It was like the calmest ocean you ever saw. It reminded me a bit of Lake Tahoe, except cheaper and with Mayans, and much dirtier hippies.

We arrived in Panajachel the first day (me a little out of it from the Dramamine I took before our chicken bus ride). Pana is filled to the brim with dread-locked white kids, most of whom appear to be tripping on something. We wanted to get out of Pana as quickly as possible, but first we needed money. We went to every ATM in the entire town. None of them would let us take out money. We were trying to take money out of savings (because I forgot to transfer money from savings before we left). After going from ATM to ATM and getting very cranky, I finally remembered that I had disconnected the savings account from the ATM card. Duh! No one should ever let me do anything after taking Dramamine.

Any ATM aggravation disappeared once we got on the boat to go to the town we were staying in. That’s Chris enjoying a boat ride. Riding across the lake is amazing - cool air, surrounded by mountains and pine forests (and, of course, ridiculously huge vacation homes). In the mornings, the lake is so calm, you just glide through the water. The town we were staying in, San Marcos, had a lot of yoga people and meditators. One place offered “transformation therapy” which allowed you to be released from childhood traumas, get a glimpse of your dharma and meet your inner-healer, among other things. Chris and I did not indulge.

Aside from the yoga studios and a couple stores, there is not much else in San Marcos. To keep ourselves amused, we hopped over to a couple other nearby towns. Santiago is a pretty large town that we hit on market day. It is known for its paintings and galleries, as well as the usual textiles and whatnot. Here’s a pic. It is definitely a tourist oriented market. Everyone shopping was from the US or Germany or the UK. . We also went to another town called San Pedro. There, the locals were putting on a little karaoke concert. Only problem was, the “stage” was the outside of a store and the audience sat on bleachers across the street. Every time a truck drove by, it drove right between the performers and the audience. Very low budget.

Chris and I really wanted to swim in the lake, but when we went down to the rocks near our hotel, there were a bunch of teenage Mayan girls bathing. They were in their bras and had shampoo in their hair. Somehow this was a cultural line that Chris and I just could not cross. I can’t explain why. I jumped right in to the ocean with half naked people on South Beach, no problem. Bathing suit, fine. Topless, fine. Bra and shampoo, can’t do it. Instead of swimming, Chris decided to fly. Here’s one for the Chris’s most embarrassing pictures collection.

Now that I have embarrassed Chris, I must also tell you that he is the only person that bothered helping people in and out of the boats. This included one older Mayan woman carrying a huge basket on her head. The basket looked very heavy. Turned out it was full of Cup-a-Noodles. Traditional Mayan Styrofoam?

On our way out of the area, we passed by the hotel we were thinking of staying at. It was filled with retirees out bathing in the lake. Picture a scene from the movie Cocoon, but with a boatload of tourists gliding by.

Shana Xela

Well, a couple of days turned into a couple of weeks since my last blog entry. We’ve been busy recovering from all our travel. This is Quetzaltenango (Xela), a city of a few hundred thousand in the middle of the mountains and volcanoes of Guatemala. The surrounding countryside is all mountain pine forests and little villages where women in Mayan dress herd goats and where little kids in school uniforms run by the side of the road. (Unfortunately, they run about two feet away from crazy truck drivers who like to go 80 mph on windy mountain highways, but that’s another story.) Xela has everything a girl needs - cheap restaurants (Guatemalan, French, Italian, Middle Eastern...), good coffee, internet cafes galore, and hotels. Unfortunately, some of the hotels and hostels are pretty damn gross. (See Chris’s Blog).

We took it easy at first because we were tired from all those long crazy bus trips and because we are at a really high altitude. Just climbing a little hill was wiping us out. After a week of lolling around, we decided to sign up for Spanish lessons. That’s Chris concentrating really hard on his lessons. We signed up at Miguel Cervantes because it was cheap, had rooms for rent, and didn’t require us to live with a family. Turns out we probably would have been better off living with a family. The place was repugnant. All I kept thinking was, my mother would die if she saw this. Luckily, our Spanish lessons were better than our accommodations. Five hours a day of one-on-one lessons. We reviewed a lot of grammar, but we also just chatted. Daniel, my teacher, told me all about “Guatelinda” (pretty Guate) and its problems. For those of you who don’t remember, Guatemala had an ugly war in the 80s - hundreds of villages destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people disappeared, tortured, and murdered. Ugly stuff. Even uglier is the fact that the people responsible are still involved in Guatemalan politics, one general is currently running for president. Yuck. I also taught my teacher a few things. He now knows that there are lots of poor people in the U.S., that many felons can’t vote, and that Hilary Clinton doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning the presidency. (O.k. that last one is only an opinion - for now.)

The people in Guatemala are incredibly nice and friendly. The waiters and waitresses introduce themselves. If you look lost, strangers will come up to you on the street and ask if they can help. I think in part the difference is that the economy here doesn’t depend on begging for tourist dollars. There are tourists, but only a few and they are mostly studying Spanish or volunteering. Another thing I notice is that, unlike in Mexico, not every advertisement is filled with families that look like they came straight out of Scandinavia. The Guatemala City paper is a little more Euro-centric, but the local paper is filled with people that look like the locals. And, unlike in San Cristobal, the indigenous women aren’t accosting you to buy trinkets. They are just going about their business like everyone else. (Which is not to imply that there isn’t racism here. When I find the place where that doesn’t exist, I’ll let you know. We can all move there.)

I think our favorite person in town has got to be Magda. She works for the Black Cat hostel (where we stayed for a week). Every morning I would go down to have their phenomenal French toast and we would bug Magda for all sorts of info about Xela. She knows everything. Chris calls her our Guatemalan OB1. I’m not sure how she would feel about that. It was Magda that helped us find an apartment. We moved in the day before my birthday. It is 1,100 quetzals a month including electric, water, etc. (That is about $150). Only problem is, our water only works about half the time and we only have hot-ish water in the shower (none in the kitchen or bathroom sinks). The hot-ish water in the shower is via a weird contraption that has all sorts of wires coming out of it (see pic). It heats the water right before it gets to you. It looks like a death trap, but so far no electrocutions. We had to buy a little fridge and tiny stove, but they didn’t cost much. Now we can actually wake up and have a cup of coffee and some breakfast. Also, we don’t have to share a bathroom. (Yippeeee!!!) We cleaned the shit out of the place, but after living at Miguel Cervantes Pit of Filth, this place seems like...my moms house. Ok, not really.

Speaking of my birthday, we went to a french restaurant and ordered a three course meal and wine. We managed to spend like $30 on dinner. Do you know how hard it is to spend $30 on dinner in Guatemala? Really hard. A couple days before my birthday, Xela had a music festival with everything from rock to salsa to an accordion player. We mostly watched the rock stage. There was Guatemala’s version of Green Day and a very Santana-influenced group. There was also this very morose girl band (that did a pretty good cranberries cover). The most entertaining part was that all the hippie tourists were wearing Guatemalan bags and belts, while all the Guatemalans looked like they were about to try out for Metalica. I love how culture travels.

That about brings you up to date. We haven’t traveled around the area much as we have been studying and trying to settle in a little. Now that we have an apartment, we hope to go to the volcanoes, the little towns, the hot springs, Lake Atitlan, the ruins...all that jazz. Hopefully Ill have more exciting things to post soon.

Bus Trips and Bambi

Much as we liked Mexico City, we were glad to leave it behind. All that running around was exhausting. (I know you all must feel very sorry for us.) The bus from Mexico City to San Cristobal de Las Casas (pictured) was about 13 hours long (ouch). We arrived at the bus station early and killed a couple hours playing 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon. We connected Tupac, Jackie Chan, Corey Feldman, Audrey Hepburn, Wesley Snipes, James Belushi, Demi Moore, and McCauley Caulkin. I was personally most impressed with Audrey Hepburn. I believe we did her in 6. The bus ride was hell. We had the same driver for the entire trip. I don’t even remember him stopping. He drove like a crazy person. We were on a two lane winding highway. At one point, the fog was so thick, you could hardly see out the window. I was convinced that, if I looked behind the curtain to see the driver, it would have been the Cryptkeeper. I could almost hear him laughing as he drove us unsuspecting travelers off into the abyss. I wasn’t the only one worried either. Two women were staring intently at the road. It was the first time I ever saw locals look worried on the bus. I finally just popped a half a Valium and got a few hours sleep. We arrived in San Cristobal at about 10:00 in the morning, exhausted and starving. (Thirteen hours on that bus and not so much as a bag of peanuts. Don’t ever take ADO-GL.)

San Cristobal is the kind of place where travelers are accosted the second they step foot in town. We had flyers shoved in our faces and person after person follow us with arm-loads of trinkets. You can’t escape in restaurants either. There are no “no soliciting” signs in Mexico. You sit at your table eating and, between bites, say “no gracias” over and over until you can’t take it anymore and buy some crap you don’t want or need. I’m currently wearing a pastel-colored anklet. I hate pastels. After we choked down our (kinda nasty) breakfast, we hopped in a cab and went to our hotel (Media Luna). The hotel had a courtyard full of flowers and was very beautiful. The guy working the desk was a middle aged man from Oklahoma (but who lives in Texas). He sells oil drilling parts and army gear to people in Nigeria, but he was there helping his girlfriend run the hotel. He didn’t speak a word of Spanish. (I had to translate for him with two other guests.) Bizarre. He tried to give us special, down-home Okie treatment, but any efforts he made were undone by the lady who runs the place. She is quite the princess. (We came back from breakfast one day and watched as she ordered the guy cleaning rooms to stop in the middle of what he was doing and go wash her little fufu dog instead.) We originally made reservations for three nights, but they booked other people and we only could stay for two. Good riddance. San Cristobal is beautiful, but there are just too many tourists. No place on earth can stand to have the entire economy based on kissing ass and pleading for pennies. None of the people seem very happy. The food was generally pretty blah, although the coffee was finally improving. (They grow coffee in the state of Chiapas, where San Cristobal is.) The best thing in town was a printing cooperative we toured. They take used paper, flowers, leaves, dye etc and make notebooks, cards, wall hangings and other paper products. They’ve been doing it for decades and it supports about thirty families.

What we really went to that part of Mexico for was to see the Mayan ruins at Palenque. We had to take another long winding bus ride (about five hours), but this driver was sane. We stayed at Cabanas Safari in, as the name suggests, a little thatch-roofed cabana. The place is owned by a veterinarian and his family and is on a large piece of property covered in tropical plants and full of animals. It reminded me a lot of Florida, full of palm trees and crab grass and those bushes with the little red flowers all over them. Unfortunately, it was like Florida in August - hot as balls. The cabana had no air, so Chris and I took a lot of cold showers. The best part about the hotel was, by far, the company. We got to eat breakfast with a funky chicken and a deer (named Bambi, of course). As you can see in the pic, Bambi likes toast and will come right up to the table and give you kisses in order to get it. I doubt toast is good for deer, but who can say no to deer kisses?

Before we went to see the ruins, we took a tour of the tropical forest with a Mayan guide named Geronimo (like the Apache). Those of you who know my complete lack of interest in greenery will be surprised to learn that his tour of medicinal plants was actually pretty interesting. We saw plants for snake bites, antibacterial plants, poisonous plants used for stunning fish, and a tree with peeling red bark that they call the “tourist tree”. He neglected to point out some of the special agriculture we passed, but Chris managed to spot it anyway. The forest was filled with Tarzan vines and snakes, but surprisingly free of mosquitos (dry season). He found some howler monkeys for us to hang out with, but my zoom lens wasn’t quite up to the task. Finally we ended up at a beautiful waterfall where Chris and I took dozens of dorky pictures, this being one of them. We finished our tour of the forest just when it was getting to the hottest part of the day. It must have been 100 degrees, all of them humid. Chris and I went through about 6 bottles of water, a gatorade and a coconut (we drank the milk). Even though we had to stop every few minutes so I wouldn’t get heat stroke, the ruins at Palenque have taken first place in my list of most impressive ancient cities (a position formerly held by Uxmal). It’s just amazing. Most of the buildings can be climbed on and quite a few can be climbed inside as well. They are all built into the mountains in ingenious ways. By the time we finished climbing around in the heat, I was exhausted. After a cold shower and a nap we went out to dinner in Palenque town (less picturesque, but more pleasant than San Cristobal). We tried some plantains stuffed with cheese (like Mexican blintzes) and a local drink called pozol. If Yoohoo was unsweetened and full of corn meal, it would taste a lot like pozol with cacao. Once was enough on the pozol, but the plantains were scrumptious.

Another winding bus ride from Palenque, a couple more nights in San Cristobal (at a much nicer hotel) and we booked a ride out of Mexico. We have been in Quetzaltenango for almost a week now and it looks like we are going to plant it for a bit. I’ll give you the lowdown on that in a couple days.

Ciao.

Mexico City Mania

We spent two weeks in Mexico City. It so happens that those two weeks were the ones when most Mexicans head to the beaches on vacation and so the city was less crowded than normal. Still, I think reports of the dirt, smog and traffic in the city are highly exagerated. The traffic was way better than L.A., the dirt way less than downtown Miami and the smog not all that bothersome. True, we rarely saw blue skies, but twilight was purple instead of cobalt - cool. Most tourists (us included) end up hanging out in a few areas. The historic center has a lot of the museums and government buildings. If you want sex shops, gay bars and multicolored hair; you go to the Zona Rosa. Condessa is an outdoor café and yuppie scene. And if you want to shop at Hugo Boss or Louis Vuitton, you head over to another area called San Angel. Mexico City has about three times as many people as New York, but there are very few skyscrapers (earthquake zone). As you can see, it just kind of goes on forever. Luckily, the city has invested heavily in its public transportation and you can get anywhere easily and for about 20 cents. In fact, they have the cleanest subway I have every seen. It doesn’t even smell like piss. (Take that New York.) I’m guessing that the armed guards in every subway station may be deterring any potential subway pissers.

Which brings me to another thing about Mexico City, there are armed and uniformed people everywhere. The first day we arrived, we saw truckloads of riot police and heard what sounded like tear gas. People were protesting changes to the government pension system (some first steps toward privatization). There were more riot police than protesters (and there were a lot of protesters, as you can see in the photo). Mostly the police hung back looking bored. I was surprised to see reports in one of the papers the next day that said the protesters caused “chaos.” We didn’t see any of that (unless you consider the closing of a few museums for lack of employees “chaos”). Aside from riot cops and anti-piss subway patrols, there are tons of traffic police. All of the traffic police are women and they are all cute as a button. They must use 1970s flight attendant criteria for hiring them. I saw many men checking them out. They aren’t just for show though. It takes some coordination to get 22 million people to navigate the streets without killing each other. I did feel very safe in the city, but sometimes it was a bit like a police state.

The art in Mexico City is amazing and abundant. If you went to a museum every day, it would take half a year to see them all. Of course, by then they would have changed all the exhibits and you would have to start all over again. Mexican artists are most famous for their murals and some of the best murals can be found in the Palacio de Bellas Artes. This is the Orozco mural in the Palacio. That’s a prostitute eating Chris’s head. The Palacio is actually a performance space and the place where we saw the Ballet Folklorico. It was touristy, but fun. Believe it or not, one of the most impressive musicians was a harpist and one of the most impressive dancers was a guy with a lasso - who knew. I won’t go listing all of the museums we went to. Suffice it to say that we hit as many as three in one day and are now well versed in everything from the origin of man to sixteenth century Flemish painting.

Quite a few of the museums in Mexico City are located in the Bosque de Chapultepec (Mexico City’s version of Central Park or Golden Gate). The park is huge and full of people (even during the week). We visited a few museums in the park, but my favorite thing was the voladores outside the Museum of Anthropology. Traditionally, on the gulf coast of Mexico, people would climb to the top of a huge tree, tie themselves to the top by their ankles, and spiral down on long ropes. It’s some sort of religious thing, I think. These days they use a metal pole and they have a little spot on top for a flute player, who provides the soundtrack. It takes a long time and, for someone not deathly afraid of heights, is probably meditative. Here’s a pic of them spinning. I hope you can tell how high they are. It’s crazy. Of course Mexico also has tons of other parks and plazas. Near the historic center is the Alameda. Way back when, inquisitors tortured heretics there. (Sing along now - “Inquisition, one two three...” History of the World? No?) Today couples lay on the grass every afternoon, napping and necking. That is where Chris took that photo of me posted on his blog.

Another park-like place and must-do on every tourists agenda is Xochimilco. Before the Spanish came along, Mexico City (then Tenochtitlan) had canals instead of streets (like Venice). Colorful boats still travel the canals in Xochimilco, except today the canals are dirty and crowded and the people steering the boats no longer wear traditional outfits (or have much fun). I don’t mean to paint a completely bleak picture, because it is still worth a trip. There are boats selling beverages and food and boats full of musicians. You haven’t lived until you’ve been serenaded by a 7 piece mariachi band balancing precariously in a small wooden boat. You can tell the locals/pros by the loot they bring with them. Instead of going to a park, Mexican families pack up their coolers and head to Xochimilco. The boats have long tables surrounded by chairs and are a great place for a family picnic. Then you can hire a mariachi or marimba band to ride alongside you and it’s a party. This is a picture of Chris and I on the boat.

One of the coolest things about Mexico City is how many layers of history are all piled up on top of each other. Modern glass buildings built next to five hundred year old churches, built on top of thousands of years old Aztec ruins. Somehow it all works. Of course, a lot of the most impressive structures have some kind of religious significance, whether Aztec or Catholic. We saw lots of churches, including the Basilica de la Virgin de Guadalupe. (For the whole story, check out Wikipedia.) The place is enormous and a bit like Epcot - except all Virgin, all the time. Some people were walking up the steps to the old chapel on their knees. We thought about following suit, but I didn’t think anyone would believe me when I told them how I got the knee scrapes. Our first stop was to get Chris’s mom a rosary at the gift shop. It was packed - like a religious WalMart the day before Christmas. Afterwards, (as you can see in the pick) Chris braved the crowds and got the rosary blessed in a religious sponge bath. What a good son. Not all of the religious sites are quite that nuts. There are a few old convents that have been converted into schools, hotels and museums - very tranquil. Of course some of the coolest religious sites were the pyramids, the remains of one being right in the middle of the historic center. You can look at thousands of years of history in one glance.

A lot of historic buildings have been turned into restaurants, like the Casa de los Azulejos (House of Tiles), home to one of the Sanborns restaurants (a local chain). This is a picture of it. Café de Tacuba is another must on every tourist agenda. The place has been going strong since 1912. It was jammed with people waiting for a table, but worth the wait. Not only was the restaurant gorgeous (dark wood, stained glass), but the food was some of the best we had in Mexico City. If there is one area where Mexico City still has a bit of work to do, it is the food choices. Granted we were only there a couple weeks and didn’t spend a lot of time in areas with better restaurants (like Condessa), but a lot of the food we had just wasn’t that good. Maybe I’m a little spoiled from living near San Fran where every restaurant is delicious. The best food we had in Mexico was, hands down, at Marcela’s house in Irapuato. She really needs to open a restaurant. As Chris mentioned on his blog, we ended up at Starbucks a lot. At least we never went to McDonalds. I don’t care what anyone says. Starbucks is the best. I hope they have one in every city, town and jungle we arrive in. (If other people want to compete, they need to start putting heroin in their frappuchinos too.) We also hit an Olive Garden-like chain in the Zona Rosa. The food sucked, but they seemed to be the only people in Mexico City who knew how to make a proper frozen drink

Of course, you don’t have to go to a restaurant to get food in Mexico City. There are street vendors everywhere. In fact, it seems like everyone in Mexico City is selling something. Every sidewalk is half taken up by vendors. If the vendor is particularly popular, you can just forget getting by. The market went on forever. It was streets and streets of stalls. Each stall had a different item in every color imaginable. There was a stall for ribbons, a stall for incense, a stall for garden hoses.... It’s not just stalls either, people are selling things walking around the streets, walking around the ruins, walking through the subways... Everywhere we go someone is trying to sell us something from; candy to a sad story. My most intense purchasing experience was definitely the day I went to the pharmacy for more anti-malarials. It was insane. First you wait in a line for the pharmacist, who gives you a prescription. Then you wait in line at one of the cashiers to pay. Finally you go to the counter where you need to pick up your prescription. You have to hand the girl your paid prescription form and then she gets the meds. It is bedlam. Dozens of people are holding up their little slips of paper, pushing, trying to get the girl to take it from them. It resembles the stock exchange scene from the movie Trading Places, except with little old ladies shoving each other to get their medicine.

Shopping madness and some disappointing meals aside, I liked Mexico City a lot and hope I can go back and catch the hundred museums we missed the first time. Aside from the museums and the history, I think the other great thing about Mexico City is how everyone seems to take things in stride. For example, one day we were on the subway and some police came on and evacuated us. (We found out later the subway was closed for repairs.) Everyone just got off the subway and got on the two-block-long line for the bus. No one even grumbled, everyone just took it in stride. Maybe it is in part because no one seems to be in that big of a rush. I was really surprised to find a city of that many people who just stroll. New York it ain’t and it ain’t trying to be, which is another great thing about the city. Some places we’ve been, Vancouver for instance, don’t seem to have their own personality. Mexico City has taken indigenous customs, Spanish religion, french subways, U.S. music, and German companies and combined them into something completely its own. And you can always tell cities where the people know how great their city is. Everyone knows they are living in the center of it all.

We are currently in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala which puts me a couple weeks and a few cities behind on my blogging. I’m going to try to catch up this week. Ciao.

Whiling Away the Days in Irapuato

We arrived in Mexico City on Monday. I’ll have lots to tell you about that next post. For now, I’ll just catch you up on our weeks in Irapuato. Irapuato is hot and dusty. Although it was founded around 500 years ago, most of the old buildings were destroyed in a flood. Like all Mexican towns, there is an old church and a town plaza. They recently gussied up the plaza with a big fountain and light show. That is pretty much as close as Irapuato gets to a tourist attraction. Not surprisingly, there are no tourists - particularly in Los Cobos, the neighborhood where we stayed. Naturally, Chris and I were a bit of a spectacle. It made picture taking somewhat awkward. This is a sneaky shot we took from the roof of Marcela’s house. (We stayed with Chris’s, brother’s, wife’s, stepmother - Marcela.)

Marcela and Rafael’s house is in a neighborhood called Los Cobos. Like a lot of places in Mexico, Los Cobos looks half-done and worn-down at the same time. Most people build onto their houses as they have money, so everyone has rebar sticking up from their roofs (for that second or third floor they plan on adding) or partially constructed walls jutting out here and there. Marcela and Rafael’s house is big. We had a bedroom all to ourselves. This is a photo of it. Note the separate beds. Apparently, word has gotten out that we’re only fake-married. See the Jesus picture on the wall? (You cannot escape him. He’s everywhere in Mexico.) I don’t think he approved of us moving the beds together. Also, note the mosquito net. There were many flies and mosquitos in Irapuato. Chris had a nightly war with them. He went MacGyver on me and made a fly-swatter out of a hacksaw blade, some paper and some duck tape. (Duck tape fixes everything!) I hope that karma thing isn’t for real or Chris is in big trouble.

Every morning, we were woken by the crowing of roosters at the crack of dawn. Sometimes some sheep would join in and they would sing a little melody together. Later on, people turned on their radios full blast to the tune of what sounded like Mexico’s version of polka music. As they did not have a phone (much less internet) where we were, Chris and I often ended up at one of the local internet places. Near the house was a small shop where kids gathered for little LAN parties. Mostly, I must admit, we went to a little coffee shop in the mall. In fact, we spent so much time in Irapuato’s new mall that I felt like I was 14 all over again. The mall was kind of an interesting place. Marcela says it is for rich people. I definitely saw a lot of social climbers. We also saw a boy band playing for a bunch of screaming adolescents. (Some things are universal.) They had much of the usual mall stuff - Dominos pizza, Subway sandwiches, a Levis store. I even saw a Bar Mitzvah photo frame in one of the stores and bagels, cream cheese and lox offered in one of the restaurants - so there is probably at least one Jew in town. In addition to the mall, we made one shameful trip to Wal-Mart and several shameful trips to the Wal-Mart restaurant. (Yes, they have a restaurant.) What can I say, I’m a whore for free wireless. I’ll go wherever they give it to me.

We also went to the fair a couple times. The fair was huge and packed on the weekend. Unlike in the U.S., you don’t buy a bunch of tickets or a wristband to go on rides. You have to pay for each ride cash. The first time we went, it was with some of Isela’s family, who had been kind enough to pick us up at the bus station. We mostly just walked around looking at the exhibits, many of which related to strawberries. Irapuato is Mexico’s major strawberry producing region. The second time we went was with Marcela, her daughter Natalie, her neighbor Mari, and her niece. Here is Natalie on the carousel. After the rides we went to watch the rodeo. Mostly, it was a singer riding around on some very sad-looking horses that he made bow, dance, lay down, and do all sorts of other sad tricks. He had to try and make himself heard over the death metal band that was playing on a nearby stage. There was also some bull riding. The bulls go around the ring for a few seconds and then just stop. It looks like they have to force them to get crazy. Natalie’s favorite part was definitely the fireworks. My favorite part was when they got some guys from the audience to chug beers, run back and forth across the ring, and spin around in circles with their butts in the air - all of which they did for a few cans of free beer.

Mostly we avoided the crowds and hung out at the house. We read and wrote and occasionally did whatever chores needed doing. This is Chris doing laundry in a bucket with some baby shampoo. The clotheslines where Chris hung our stuff are attached to an old swing-set. The swing-set is on the roof, which struck me as a little bizarre. (Rest assured, no one actually uses the rooftop swing-set of death.) The nice thing is, it is so hot and dry in Irapuato, your laundry dries fast. (Which is good, because you don’t want it out there long enough to collect a layer of dust, thereby defeating the purpose of doing laundry in the first place). Seeing a guy do laundry was quite a shock for some. When Natalie first saw Chris doing laundry, she told her mom “look, he washes clothes like a girl” (in Spanish of course). Marcela says Mexican men never do laundry. I told her I thought that was very said. But truthfully, not many men seem to do laundry anywhere. Seriously guys, would you just walk around with stinky, dirty clothes all day?

The best part about Irapuato was hanging out with Marcela, Natalie, and Mari. Natalie and Chris became great friends (although, most of the time, neither of us had any idea what she was saying). Natalie thought Chris was hilarious, especially his Elmo dance. Sadly, I don’t have photos or video of that. I do; however, have a video of Marcela and Natalie. Our stupid government is preventing Marcela from being with her husband and older daughter in California. While they wait for years (literally) to hear something from someone, we made a little video so their family back in the states can see them. As you will see, Natalie is a superstar and, like most superstars, she was able to do a lot with a very poor script. Just click on the picture and it will take you to the video.


http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=1073182877999399833&pr=goog-sl

The second best part of Irapuato was the food. Marcela is a great cook. She taught me how to make pozole, chilaquiles and tinga (although it won’t be her fault when I try to make them and they suck). Chris and I tried to return the favor by cooking a couple times, but judging by the pained expressions on their faces as they ate, I don’t think it was a hit. Julia Child I’m not. Although the food was one of my favorite things in Irapuato, I do have a few food complaints.

Complaint No. 1: Why do they have to change the formula for everything. Aunt Jemima pancake mix (here called hot cake mix) has corn in it - totally different consistency. The mac and cheese has nacho cheese sauce. And the lasagna noodles are all these bizarre, square-shaped, thin “no pre-cooking required” things.

Complaint No. 2: In Mexico, the only available eggs are some scary frankeneggs that are not refrigerated and say “fortified” on the label. True, as Chris pointed out, they don’t come out of the chicken’s ass refrigerated. But I’m pretty sure they don’t come out fortified either.

Complaint No. 3: The cost of a quart of Haagen-Dazs, $12. (Yes I bought it. I was desperate dammit.)

Complaint No. 4: The coffee is the pits. Everyone uses instant Nescafe, even in restaurants. No one seems to have heard of half and half. It’s milk or Coffeemate or nada. Also, the only sugar around is that brown hippie stuff that smells bad.

More on all the excitement in Mexico City next post. Ciao.

Mummies and Mariachis in Guanajuato

Chris and I just got back (to Irapuato) from four days in nearby Guanajuato. In the photo is a real mummified baby, one of many dead people on display at the mummy museum in Guanajuato. There are hundreds of mummies - large mummies, small mummies (the smallest mummy in the world in fact), hairy mummies, anatomically correct mummies... The mummies are all in glass coffins lining a labyrinth of neon-lit rooms. Add some techno music and it would be a rave gone terribly wrong - except that people don’t bring their children to raves and quite a few families were at the mummy museum.

Mummies aside, Guanajuato is a beautiful city of sorbet-colored buildings climbing up mountains. Because many of the above-ground roads are too small for cars, there is a whole system of roads that run underground, inside the mountain. I’m not just talking about tunnels, I’m talking about a full grid of streets with signs, intersections, sidewalks and everything - all under the city. Since so many of the streets are car free, it is much quieter and cleaner than your average city. Everyone walks and, much of the walking being uphill, it is quite a workout. We found this out on our first full day when we hiked to the top of the Pipila. The good news, everything is gorgeous, and there are plenty of spots where you can use picture taking as an excuse to stop and catch your breath. (That’s Chris looking over the city from the Pipila.)

There are lots of museums, stores, and shows in Guanajuato, but the best thing is to just chill out and people watch. Everyone is very cosmopolitan, young and stylish. There are punk rock teenagers with studded bracelets, skate rats with checkerboard sneakers, little kids in school uniforms with Spongebob backpacks, university students in designer jeans, and exchange students in hippy clothes. (What is it with the skirt over the pants thing? I really want to know.) Occasionally, a tourist will come by. You can recognize the tourists by their pale/red skin, khaki-colored clothing, hideous shoes, and panama hats. They are usually carrying an extra 30 to 50 pounds and resemble an overstuffed beige sofa. We watched the parade of people from several different outdoor cafes and shady park benches. The local students prefer to people-watch from the steps of the Juarez Theater. It’s like one huge stoop.

We treated ourselves to a nice hotel right on the Jardin de Union, in the center of it all. It had a king-sized bed, wireless internet, and what I now consider to be a luxurious bathroom (fully functional, clean and including a hairdryer). From our room, we could hear music from the Jardin (garden) down below. There is a rotunda where bands play every night. There are also dozens of mariachis, who all seem to know each other, and who gather around and talk until someone hires them for a song. You always know which mariachis go together because of their matching outfits, like a life-sized game of Concentration.

That’s us being dorks in a museum in Guanajuato. We are in Irapuato until the 26^th and then its off to Mexico City. (Chris’s blog will tell you a bit about Irapuato, but I want to get more photos (especially of Natalie) before I post. Ciao.

Tequila, tequila and more tequila

That’s me in Guadalajara. I am paying bills, but still happy. Not working is so nice. I’m in a pasteleria (cake shop) right below our hotel and am about to have a mocha and a big piece of napoleon (which will be delicious). They had free wireless and we took advantage as much as possible. When we weren’t eating at the OK Pasteleria, we were usually to be found at La Chata, a restaurant that has been around since the 1940s. They had great cheap food and it was right across the street from our hotel.

Speaking of our hotel - we stayed in a converted 130-year-old mansion. The lobby was beautiful, full of murals and character. The rooms were nothing to write home about, but perfectly adequate. The bathroom was the real treat. It was basically a shower stall with a toilet and sink inside. The good thing is, you could take a shower and take a crap at the same time. (Gotta be careful not to get the tp wet.) The truly talented could also wash some clothes in the sink while they did their S,S & S. How’s that for multitasking?

We stayed in Guadalajara for 6 days. It reminded me a bit of Miami. It’s hot (although not as sticky). There are lots of people, cars, malls and all the other crap that cities have these days. Unlike Miami; however, Guadalajara has centuries-old buildings and mind-blowing murals. Like most Mexican towns, they also have music and exhibits in the plaza every weekend and lots of free (or very cheap) art and entertainment.

The first day we were in Guadalajara, they were inaugurating a new governor and so most things were closed.. We spent the better part of the day chasing down a guitar string and a plug adaptor. (None of the guidebooks mentioned that most places did not have three-pronged plugs.) The next day we went to see the Jose Clemente Orozco murals, the reason for our stop.

This is a picture of one part of the murals, but it doesn’t do it justice at all. We were completely blown away. The murals are in a cavernous, ballroom-sized hall in what used to be an orphanage. Every wall and patch of ceiling (in between stone beams and arcs) is covered in murals about the conquest. To paint these murals, Orozco, who was disabled, must have climbed up a scaffolding at least forty feet high with only one hand and very poor eyesight. Amazing.

After the murals, we saw the cathedral. Inside they have the body of some martyred little girl in a glass case. She was apparently killed during anti-catholic violence. They have plastered her face so that it doesn’t look completely disgusting (at least that’s what I think they did), but she still appears to have a full head of hair. Her hands are repulsive, completely grotesque and gnarly. Creepy.

The highlight of our trip was a tour we took to Tequila. It was the first time I have ever been on a tour, but we decided that, since we wanted to partake in the town’s namesake beverage, it would be better if someone else drove. Turns out the tour was great. Our guide knew everything about everything (or at least made up really good answers). We went to the Jose Cuervo factory. Their tequila is terrible, but the factory is in a beautiful old hacienda. We got plenty of opportunities for tasting (everything from raw agave to aged tequila). As you can see, they made us wear hairnets. The nice thing is, after enough tequila, you don’t care that you look like the elementary school lunch lady.

The night we got back from tequila, there was a blackout. The entire block lost electricity. When we went out on the balcony, we saw tons of smoke gushing past the cathedral and other buildings in the main square. You can see it in the picture. The fire was still smoking the next day when we went by, but our lights were only out for a couple hours. Glad we brought flashlights.

That basically catches you up on Guadalajara. We are now in Irapuato. We have been here two nights and Isela’s family has been incredible. I’ll put up another post in a few days and tell you all about it.

Sad Goodbye to Chacala

That’s Chris on our balcony in Chacala (before he broke a guitar string).

We delayed leaving Chacala for a day. I gave Chris my stomach bug. Wasn’t that nice of me? Luckily it wasn’t too bad.

It was a very sweet and extended goodbye with Lupe and Pablo. Poor Chris stood there and smiled, trying not to fall over. In addition to carrying his two-ton backpack and guitar, he also had my box of books. Yes, I brought a box of books. I know. It’s a little crazy. I figure I will leave them when I finish them. Yeh, yeh. It’s still crazy.

We had to take the local bus/taxi into Las Varas first. (Picture on old minivan blasting mariachi music or love songs). The bus doesn’t have a schedule. It comes “cada rato” or “every little while” so we shlepped our stuff to a restaurant near the main road and waited. Eventually we heard the bus honking and went out to let him know we wanted on.

When we arrived in Las Varas , the Guadalajara bus was already there. We had to make a run for it. Luckily, the Chacala bus/taxi driver was nice enough to carry some of our crap for us and the Guadalajara bus waited.

So that is it for Chacala. We caught the four hour bus ride to Guadalajara, on which we saw the Adam Sandler movie Click (subtitled, not dubbed, thank goodness). The scenery outside went from Southern California hilly scrubbrush, dotted with a pueblo here and there, to golf courses and gated communities as we got closer to Guadalajara. We arrived in Guadalajara on Wed afternoon. We didn’t get a chance to do much yesterday as it was inauguration day for the new governor. More on Guadalajara next post.

This is the Life

That’s Chris playing soccer with some kids at the local primary school. On Friday, we went and spoke to the kids about where we are from. Chris spoke about being a vet tech and I spoke a little about Santa Cruz and showed them pictures. There is another couple staying here at the house. Shai showed the kids a computer program he designed to teach people Aikido. Shuli talked to them about her work on Sesame Street (or Calle Sesamo as it’s known here).

Saturday night we all went to a restaurant up by the local spa and feasted on paella, fresh bread and REAL coffee. (All you get in most restaurants here is instant coffee, my only complaint about Chacala.) On the way to the restaurant, we noticed some people had piled beach rocks to make sculptures (like they do in SF and Santa Cruz). Of course, on the way back I stumbled on what was probably one of those sculptures and twisted my ankle. Luckily, Chris caught me before any major damage had been done. What a klutz.

Yesterday, we took a boat ride along the coast. It was gray and windy and the waves were bigger than they have been, which made for a couple slight stomach-droppers. Along the coast there is a ton of construction. A bunch of rich people from the U.S., Canada and Guadalajara are building vacation homes here (now that there is a real road). I’m told they just stay in their gated community and don’t want much to do with the locals. They just use up the rapidly decreasing water supply watering the lawns and filling the swimming pools in their mostly empty houses. What a waste.

Aside from that, we have just been hanging out by the pool, reading and relaxing. Tomorrow, we leave Chacala and head over to Guadalajara. I’ll post a new entry as soon as I can.

Not to make you green with envy, but

This is the view from the balcony outside our room in Chacala. From here, I get to watch the fisherpeople catch my dinner or the pelicans dive-bomb the ocean for their next meal. Some of the pelicans just sit on the fishing boats and hang out, providing fishing tips perhaps?

Our flight to Houston was uneventful. On our flight from Houston to Puerto Vallarta we were stuck behind a father and his two brats. I don’t know what was worse, the kids whining or the father hacking up a lung without covering his mouth. GROSS. We finally got off the germ capsule in Puerto Vallarta and made our way through all the drivers and hotel reps hustling for business. We found a taxi stand and worked out a price to go to Chacala (about 90 minutes north of Puerto Vallarta). Chris fell asleep almost immediately upon entering the cab. I was fully awake for every minute as we wound our way up a curvy two-lane highway through the mountains. Although there are no guard rails, people are kind enough to put up a memorial cross and some flowers every few kilometers. At least our cab driver waited until the less curvy parts before he sped past cars on our side and toward trucks coming directly at us on the other. (Take that, Nascar.)

We finally arrived in Chacala, exhausted. The sand and rocks called streets were throwing us all around the cab. It took us a while to find someone who could tell us where the house was. (I had copied a map from the web, but there are no street names here so it gets kind of confusing.) We finally found someone who directed us. They left the key in the door for us and the room unlocked. We had the whole house to ourselves. After checking things out, we locked the room and went down to the infinity pool overlooking the ocean.

After our dip, we went back to the room. We tried the key. The key did not work. We tried the key a million times, still nothing. There was no one around and we couldn’t even remember the first name of the woman who left the key for us. So there we were in our bathing suits walking the streets of Chacala looking for anybody - no money, no credit cards, no clothes, no shirt (Chris, not me). We came across some guys sitting outside a house and asked them if they knew a woman with the last name of lawler (or something like that) who worked at the Casa de Tortugas. Amazingly, they knew who I was talking about and tried to direct me to her house. Giving directions is very difficult when there are no street names, so he had us jump in the back of his friends pickup and they drove us over there. He called out in front of the house. (People don’t knock here, they just call out the name of who they are looking for and someone comes out.) A woman in the house told him that the lady we wanted was at her other job, in the next town. The guy (Chaco) was going to drive us out there, but when I explained to him that what we needed was a key, he took me two doors down to Lupe’s house. Lupe also works for the house and gave us (complete strangers) the key for the main floor. There we were able to get access to all the house keys. Gotta love a small town.

For the last two days I have been waking up to the sound of ocean waves and birds chirping. I’ve been eating seafood caught that morning and cooked up right on the beach and washing it down with an ice-cold beer. My greatest daily challenge has been the slightly uphill walk back to our house after going down to the restaurants to eat. I could get very used to this.

The Drive to Tulsa

Like the pic? That's Chris wearing some plant at a greenhouse in Tulsa.

Let me catch you all up on what’s been happening for the last couple weeks.

The plan was to rent a van, throw the boxes and cats in it, and (after a quick pit-stop to visit Miss in L.A.) drive like hell for three days until we got to Tulsa. We thought it would be a good idea to avoid traffic and do our driving at night.

Of course, everything takes about 10 times longer than you think it is going to take, even if you take that fact into consideration (Jan’s rule). Chris and I had almost no sleep the last couple days before we left and were completely delirious. We wanted to leave at 2:00 a.m., but did not end up leaving until after 5:00 a.m. By that time, there was already traffic. We took the 152 across the mountains. I’ll let Chris tell you about the endless fun we had on that little ride. I will recommend that, if you bring two cats on a winding mountain road where there is nowhere to stop and where agro pickups are on your butt, bring plenty of wet wipes.

We were supposed to meet Miss and Miguel for breakfast that morning, but there was no way we were going to make L.A. by then, so we checked into a motel in nowheresville (off of highway 5) and got some rest. Things went much better after that. We got to L.A. for dinner (even missed L.A. traffic) and then got back out on the road. We made it to Needles that night, Albuquerque the next night and Tulsa the night after that.

Not much time for sightseeing when you are driving with cats, not that there is much to see on the 40 anyway. I did; however, finally figure out when U.S. culture really pays off. When you are on a long driving trip, with no time to make any stops, the fact that everything is totally monotonous, predictable and right off the highway turns out to be pretty appealing. When Chris and I spotted certain types of shopping centers and then, just as predicted, there was a Starbucks right where it should be - we were so happy. I know there are some of you who gasped as you read that, but when you’ve been drinking gas station coffee for a day or two, a Starbucks latte is like a miracle from god (if you believe in that sort of thing).

Here is the other thing about monotonous and predictable chain restaurants. You know what you are going to get and you don’t actually interact with anyone. The one time Chris and I got off the Wendy’s-Applebees-Starbucks circuit, we ended up completely depressed. The stop was in a little one-street town somewhere between Albuquerque and Amarillo. I’m pretty sure it was still New Mexico. We found a “café” that looked like it might serve breakfast. Turns out it was a burger place. It was late, so we figured what the hay. After breakfasting on burgers, we overheard two locals talking. It went something like this.

“You still doing your antiquing thing?”

“No, with the economy the way it is, I had to get a real job. I still have a piece at so-and-so’s shop, but she’s going out of business. Times are tough. How’s your family?”

“My husband died a few months ago, third family member I lost in as many months.”

There was more, but by that time Chris and I were thoroughly depressed and had to leave in order to avoid a public display. You know how I hate those.

Here is the other thing that sticks in my head about the drive - Amarillo, Texas. The people there must be really nice. They must also have no sense of smell whatsoever, cause the entire town smells like shit, literally. The bathroom in Wendy’s smelled fabulous, but when I walked outside all I could smell was shit. Here is the amazing thing. The place has traffic, bad traffic. It’s just crazy - shit, traffic and chains.

I’m now in Tulsa. I know I’m in Tulsa, because (as I write this) there is Nascar on the television, flesh on the grill, and beer in the fridge. So as not to do Tulsa an injustice, I must also tell you that I managed to find a chain of organic grocery stores and a tapas restaurant. They also have something you coastal snobs don’t, an Amish community. We went to an Amish farm and got huge cinnamon roles. We also went to another Amish grocery for peaches and cheese and all kinds of other homemade loveliness. If you ever come this way, I would highly recommend a stop.

Aside from visiting and some minor driving around town, that pretty much catches you all up. We are leaving Tuesday morning for Mexico. I’ll blog when I get there.