Mex(h)ico

What did I do this week? I think we went to Mexico. Man, I've got to get back into writing this stuff again. I don't want to forget it.

Well.

Saturday we got up at 5:30 to catch a bus to mexico. 3 buses later we're there.

That sounds really not so bad. But it literally took 3 different busses to get us where we needed to go, which was actually pretty good when you think about how far that is. First we rode 2 hours to San Marcos, then caught the bus to Malacatan (I think) which was about 2 or 3 hours. That bus actually took us all the way to the border, where it was hot and gross and shady. We were planning on staying the night, so I brought a full backpack that managed to be really heavy, even though I thought I packed light. For so long we've been only going places that are cold, I just assumed to take a sweater and my rain coat (always) and I wore a jacket, then we get there and it's amillion degrees, duh. YUCK. Sooo. we've been all concerned (more me than Hugh) about the 90 day limit on our tourist visa, which had expired 3 days before, and I was very afraid that there would be some major money, we'd be detained, wait in a million lines, I don't know, be questioned viciously in Spanish.. But we get there, go one place go to another, pay a bit of money and that's it. Claudia stayed with us to translate and make sure we didn't get screwed, and there weren't any problems. The border though, gross. We got out of the bus and were surrounded by trash and the smell of rotting garbage, along with the obligatory dogs and so many dudes that were practicing their nonsensical english catch phrases on us. Then we're bombarded by a hundred men waving money at us trying to get us to change our Q's for pesos. One guy Claudia bribed into helping us navigate the offices in return for a gauruntee we'd change our money with him. He was wearing this badge around his neck, and shoved it in the pocket of his shirt when he was within sight of the officials at the station. These are just dudes who bring a bunch of bills and probably a concealed weapon to the border every day hoping to slight tourists out of some bucks in the process of changing. Anyway, the Guatemala side is horrible and stinky and crowded and scary, and then we go through the buildings of the station to Mexico and it's clean and fresh, the road is well paved, and nobody's harrassing us. About the opposite of what you think of (or see on tv since I don't live in a border state) about the border with Mexico/US. AAAAnd we walk to this line of little stores and restaurants and jump on a bus, and sweat our teeth out, and drive about half an hour through the department of Chiapas, Mexico, to whatever city we went to which I can't remember, and got out. Ugh. Heat and crowds. It's more like a busy american city than what I'm at all used to in Guatemala. There are wide sidewalks and functioning roads, and all the cars aren't belching black smoke, and there are people everywhere. It was a Saturday after all, and we were in central park. We walked around looking for an affordable meal and landed on this taco joint where I admittedly had some of the tastiest tacos and orange juice I've had in a long time, definitely since coming to Guatemala. We decided there that we weren't going to stay the night, it was an uncomfortable city with not much for us to do, and unbelievably expensive. The Quetzal is in favor of the peso, and the prices were still way out of what we could do, even just for some tacos it was way more than we'd have to pay here. So I lugged around this big bookbag for nothing, which sucked. We walked around the city for a bit, looking for some wire for me. I've been trying to find the "alambre alpaca" (really, nickel wire) for a while to make these mandalas that this guy at Yoga House showed me how to make, but I need really hard wire for it and I can't find it anywhere. What we discovered is that a. you can't get alambre alpaca there, and b. Mexicans speak way different spanish. It was very direct and forceful, and almost rude. When a guy selling pirated movies is putting on the bargain in Guatemala, he says "tell me how much you'd like to pay for this and I'll see what I can do." In Mexico, the guy said "how much you want to give me?" It caught Claudia off guard. I did buy a long necklace of red bean beads from a hut on the sidewalk, and got Claudia to bargain it down 10 pesos. I wanted the beads. They're significant in Mayan culture because they're abnormal. Red beans come from white or black bean plants, and when you plant them they make white or black beans, and when you cook them they turn the same color as white or black beans, but they're one of those unexplainable phenomenons of nature that's supposed to remind you that God is always making miracles, or something to that effect. Plus red has a special significance, being the east, the sunrise, and the figurative aspects of passion, power, love, aggression, etc. So I've been trying to collect them, and got a good couple hundred off this necklace.

Well, we had about enough of the heat and the culture and headed back to the busses after only really about 2 hours. We literally only came to Mexico to get our passports stamped and eat some tacos (and sweat.) When I got back on the van to get to the border, I noticed my bookbag was open and didn't think about it, just shut it thinking I'd managed to pull it open when I climbed in. (2 busses later, I actually thought about it and got pretty nervous about my camera, which was the only thing of value in it. Rest assured, when I got home, I checked and everything was still there. I've learned, and everyone else should too, that if you're carrying a big bag, you're a big white target, and at least being dumb and bringing winter clothes afforded me the advantage of stuffing a sweater and two jackets on top of everything worth keeping. In the other pocket that was open I only had toilet paper and tampons !HA!) We got to the border where we were harrassed again by guys waving money at us, and we changed it, and then realized later I was one of those tourists that they slight out of 50Q, which sucked, but I was too hot and tired and nervous to get in a Spanish argument about money. Keep it just leave me alone. We rode one of those karts that has a moped in the back that's connected to a rickshaw in the front to the gate where we got some passport decoration (hooray!) and another 90 days here in Guatemala. Then passed back into the nastiness of the no-man's-land of money changers, cat-callers, and English-language-offenders, yet another van for who knows how long. Another chicken bus to San Marcos, another chicken bus through San Marcos, another chicken bus out of San Marcos! another bus through Minerva!! and HOME at 8:30. All that fun (NINE BUSSES WORTH OF FUN) in only 14 hours. I feel like we weathered it pretty well. By the time we got back we felt like our butts had been flattened a little bit, and definitely felt a lot closer.. physically.. to our fellow Guatemalans. Really enough affection to last us for a long time. And well that was that.