blog.fogel.ca

I bailed from Mexico City back to SFO, and down to Palo Alto in 24 hours. I tried to save a love that was apparently already lost. I don’t regret bailing on Mexico, I don’t regret leaving to go in the first place. I do wish the cards had fallen differently. At least life ain’t boring.

I was expecting some culture shock upon getting back to the States, but I didn’t have have to wait that long. The International Terminal at the Mexico City airport has got to be the richest place in Mexico. Patron everywhere, diamond jewelery, beer on tap… wow. I’ve been searching Mexico for three weeks trying to find beer on tap.

To get back to SFO, I first had a Méxicana puddle jumper to Puerto Vallarta. My ironic in flight magazine:

I guess God’s got a sense of humor.

I didn’t leave the airport in Puerto Vallarta. I had to do a bunch of paperwork because I didn’t have a tourist card. If you go to Puerto Vallarta for vacation, I’d really recommend heading a few hours north or south from town. Based on the airport at least, Puerto Vallarta didn’t feel like the ‘Querida México’ I had just spent three weeks wandering across. It’s more like a (bad) extension of the OC. The airport was overran with spoiled children, white women with too many face lifts, trust fund babies, and a scattering of general d-bags… like this one…

Doesn’t everyone wear their sunglasses inside?

I took Alaska Air back to beautiful cloudless San Francisco… no complaints. Every time I go travel, I find myself coming to the same conclusion: the Bay Area rocks. A beautiful place with jobs galore, tons to do, friendly people. It’s good to be home.

Me: “¿A donde va este camión?”

Dude: “México.”

Me: uhhhhh….. that’s funny, I thought I made it to Mexico a few weeks ago.

Yeah, it’s definitely confusing at first. In Mexico, Mexico City is usually referred to as just “México”. I was ready for “La Cuidad” or “D. F.”, but noooooo…. Contextual speech processing is difficult when you you’re picking up maybe a third of what’s going on around you.

Anyway, Mexico City is the second largest aggregation of brainy bipeds to happen, well, in the history of our planet. And given that intelligent life looks like a pretty rare occurrence in this whole ‘universe’ thing, Mexico City may be the second largest, most complex self-sustaining (on the timescale of years) physically localized reaction/interaction/resonance of energy/matter to have occurred ever, and perhaps ever will. And that would, in my opinion, make it a ‘big deal’.

The bus from Acapulco to Mexico City passes through some of Mexico’s most beautiful countryside. The toll highway is completely spotless. It’s landscaped for hundreds of miles, there are tunnels galore, and perfect pavement. You won’t find a road this nice in California. I continue to be amazed at how unbalanced Mexico is… why the F is this highway perfect when just yesterday in downtown Acapulco I was walking by people (literally) decaying on the street? Arg. Anyway, it’s hard to get good scenery pictures with an iPhone, but the countryside is so beautiful that I did get one to come out. This is a random hill…

The highway also went by the tallest mountain I’ve seen in my life thus far, Popocatépetl. It’s hard to see in this picture, but Popocatépetl is there in the background, sitting tall at 5,452m (17,887 ft):

¡Y México (D.F.)! Believe it or not, I only got one picture in Mexico City. This is the National Palace from the Zócalo, at night.

No pictures, but the Mexico City metro is pretty awesome. It doesn’t compare to NYC’s though. It’s pretty much like any other metro in the US of A, except one distinction. There’s nobody asking for change. No beggars. Instead of beggars, the ‘bums’ walk up and down the cars trying to sell stuff. Gum, cd’s, tamales… I wonder if that’s because people won’t give change away, or if it’s because people are too embarrassed to beg, or what? Well, for whatever reason, if you go up the Pacific coast to one of the richest cities in the world you’ll find some 5-10 thousand people asking you for change. Say what? Something doesn’t match up here.

The main thing that struck me about Mexico City… I was expecting more of a New York experience. Mexico City is really nothing like New York. There’s many more people in Mexico City, but it doesn’t achieve the densities you find in Manhattan. The streets are definitely paved and functional, and there are occasional skyscrapers, but nothing like the land of 50+ stories you find in Midtown. Apparently Mexico City’s got money now, but that’s a relatively new occurrence, and I guess time’s still needed for the infrastructure to catch up.

A bunch of bus!

Manzanillo is down on the pacific coast a little south of Guadalajara. The trip from Guadalajara down to Manzanillo is mostly surrounded by fields of blue agave, aka Tequila in plant form.

It actually did rain for a few seconds along the way too – that’s one day with rain per three weeks. Not bad.

Manzanillo is now the busiest port in Mexico, passing up Veracruz a few years ago. Even so – the port looks like a little toy compared to Oakland’s monstrous shipyard. 4 big cranes in Manzanillo… maybe 20 in Oakland? Manzanillo is centered around it’s seaside zócalo with a big metal swordfish.

Manzanillo didn’t feel very gringo-friendly, I think it’s because it’s really an industrial port city at heart – and proud of it. I took off for Acapulco the next morning. 12 more hours of bus down the side of the big beautiful pacific to Acapulco. The highway was slow and windy, lots of military checkpoints, small villages lacking basic infrastructure, and… miles and miles of stunning, deserted, secluded beaches.

And Acapulco! The first thing you notice about Acapulco is the taxis. The whole city is literally covered with little Volkswagen Bug taxis.

Acapulco’s central zócalo….

The bay of Acapulco is beautiful, even if it smells bad. The mountains nestle right down to the water – a truly beautiful city (from far away).

Acapulco from up close… being blunt, Acapulco is the filthiest, most polluted, most depressing, most crime ridden place I’ve ever experienced in my life. I have a completely new perspective on West Oakland. You think you’re hardcore? In downtown Acapulco, the bums have are literally rotting away on the street. The air is thick with diesel smog. The water is brown. Sewage. Insects. The very first guy I talked to, a taxi driver in the bus terminal, was selling cocaine. Everyone up here in the Bay Area, everyone from the prostitutes in the Tenderloin through the crackheads and gangbangers up and down Oakland’s International Boulevard – we’ve still got our basic needs covered at a level that the general population in Acapulco can’t assume. We have clean water. We have clear air. We have a functional sewage system. Our bums survive. We have welfare. Social Security. I don’t want to say we’re pampered, because that implies that we’re soft, and have something to be ashamed of because we’ve managed to get our basic needs under control. But we do need to realize and remember that even though there is significant variance in the level of privilege we’re born into in the first world, from the perspective of the other 4 billion, we’re really all one and the same. There’s a lot wrong with our society in the States, there’s a lot to work on and a lot to change, but it’s essential to remember how much we’ve done that’s right. There’s a level of pride in the States that’s warranted by our successful creation of community… but yet for some reason doesn’t exist. Keep working to improve, but allow ourselves to recognize and celebrate good we’ve created! </rant>

It’s been a little while since the last entry, sorry! Time to play catch up again.

Guadalajara is the second biggest city in México with about 4 million warm (well, at least living) bodies, coming in at about 70th worldwide. It may not be the biggest city in México, but it’s often referred to as the most ‘Mexican’ city. Tequila and Mariachi bands come from Guadalajara. That, and the population is more on the indigenous side of the spectrum than Mexico City.

The bus ride from Mázatlan to Guadalajara is a smooth 8 hour trip. It’s mostly one big climb up into the mountains. The countryside the toll highways cut through is for the most part empty of people. The small rural villages that do pop up are still working on basic infrastructure stuff like ’solid walls’ and ‘a roof not made of palm fronds’. Best I could tell, there was electricity in every village I saw, but not in every neighborhood or street (’street’ being a relative term kinda like ‘path’).

Anyway, the cities (like Guadalajara) do for the most part have modern luxuries like pavement. However, as you can see in this picture of a suburb of Guadalajara…

Those baize and black cylindrical looking things that you can see on every roof – those are water filtration systems. This is your loud warning – don’t drink the tap water. If the locals aren’t drinking it, you shouldn’t either. (I had to test this anyway, and yeah, it did a number on my internal flora and fauna. Thank God my guardian angle hooked me up with some antibiotics before I left San Francisco.)

I stayed at the HI in the Centro Histórico in Guadalajara. A great hostel for a those traveling alone – a very welcoming group of people, the hostel was organizing activities for guests several times a week. This is the HI crew out for a few drinks at an outdoor jazz club:

The Centro Histórico (or all of Guadalaraja for that matter, or even this whole side of México) is centered around the Guadalajara Cathedral. Construction on the Cathedral started in 1561, which would be about three generations before the Mayflower landed up near Boston.

It’s totally not kosher to take a picture inside the Cathedral, but if there’s one good thing about using an iPhone, it’s that you can discretely break the rules…

BTW, if you’ve never been in a real cathedral, it’s worth your time. This was my first experience, and I was expecting it to essentially be a very big church. That’s like comparing a 152 with an A380. I just wasn’t prepared. The effect of the detail on the stone, the high ceilings, the organ filling every last corner and crack with full, powerful sound – it’s stunning.

Around the Cathedral are four Euro-style plazas, called ‘Zócalos’ in México. They’re open air and everyone is just hanging out. There was free wifi for my iPhone, but I didn’t see anyone busting out a full laptop. I did run across some sort of military flag ceremony though.

Transit geeks out there will be happy to know Guadalajara has a small but functional metro, similar in size to San Francisco’s.

I didn’t get a chance to ride the metro, but I did take the local bus across town to and from the Nueva Central Caminonera and el Centro. That went straight through the neighborhoods. I unfortunately didn’t get any pictures worth posting… but the feel of the regular neighborhoods of the city was unlike any city in the US or Canada. The streets are very narrow, the sidewalks are covered with people, and the traffic drives extremely fast. Stop signs are, seriously, yield signs. Red lights – nobody coming? Just like a pedestrian on market street – the bus slowly inches out and then bamn! hit the gas and cut across the intersection. All righty then.

The commerce is organized differently than in the States. If the US has generally been moving toward the ‘one store has everything possible’ model, in Guadalajara they use the ‘this neighborhood only carries this particular good’ model. So if you want anything to do with fabric, you go to the fabric neighborhood. Every store there will have fabric and threads galore. If you want tires or rims, go to the tire neighborhood. The hostel I stayed at in the Centro Histórico was in the money changing neighborhood.

One of the good things about traveling around continually lost is that you occasionally blindly run into something awesome. That happened in Mazatlán.

Día de la Revolución celebrates the start of the Mexican ‘Revolution’ of 1910. Of course, the guys who won decided it was a ‘revolution’ not a ‘civil f-ing war’… all rightly then. Approximately 1 of every 15 Mexicans were killed in the 7 years of war. But stats and fancy numbers always lie anyway right? So let’s celebrate! Everyone and their mother was down on Mazatlán’s malecón. The parade went several kilometers from downtown toward the tourist district (Zona Dorada) and lasted all afternoon.

They do this cool thing with the military-style bands… the drummers are all women and the horns are all men. No wussy flautists needed here!

Mazatlán itself is a very admirable city, significantly larger than La Paz. I only ended up only spending one day here, but in that one day I did manage to get totally fried on the beach…. this picture being the bad part of a good beach.

There’s all kind of resorts going up in the district between downtown and the Zona Dorada (gringoland). Construction in México is different than in the States….

If those look like big sticks holding up the molds for the cement forms, that’s cause, yes, those are big sticks. If it looks like those guys are working some 5 stories up without any safety equipment, that’s cause they are. And if it looked like that guy who fell off the 5 stories the next morning was dead, well, yes, he was definitely dead. I didn’t take a picture of his body, something about respect and stealing someone’s soul.

Baja Ferries…. that’s funny. I could swear there was a more common term for ‘Ferry’ in Spanish.

It’s an 18 hour ferry ride from La Paz over to the mainland. The ferry doesn’t actually leave from La Paz proper, rather Pichilingue. It’s a 20 peso (~$2 USD) and 20 min bus ride from the Camionera del Centro (dwnt bus station) to Pichilingue. A seat on the ferry will cost you 800 pesos. It’s an overnight ride; 250 extra for a bed.

The whole operation is relatively professional, with security guards and random searches, assigned seating, the whole deal. Kinda like flying, except really slow and wet.

Leaving Pichiligue circa 4pm el lunes….

Yours truly…

Sunset over baja…

Sunrise!

And… coming into the Mazatlán Ferry terminal at around 9am the next day.

I should mention that sleeping in the ‘Salon’ was refugee-camp style. Choose what’s of most value to you, tie it to your body or put it under you, find a good spot on the linoleum floor, and enjoy the sound of babies taking turns crying all night long (hence why there’s that picture of sunrise). So unless you’re on some silly journey of self-deprivation, pay the extra 250 pesos and get a bed.

Cena y Desayuno are included in your ticket, and actually aren’t all that bad. There’s a bar on the ferry with your standard fare of light Mexican Cervezas.

It’s good to be moving on from La Paz! It’s a nice small city, but too small for 9 days…. 4 would have been enough for me. Oh! and no picture, but there were some dolphins jumping along next to the ferry on the baja side of the Sea of Cortez. Very cool.

This is my last catch-up post. Lotsa pictures.

If La Paz is famous for anything, it’s the Malecón (the walkway/street along the water) and the sunsets. Even though La Paz is east side of baja, the water lies to the northwest of the town due to the Bay of La Paz. How convenient… the sun sets to the northwest in this part of the world.

And the Malecón…

La Paz is the only real Mexican city in southern baja. The Cabos are resort towns, and nothing else here is big enough to have the vibrancy of a city. In ‘El Centro’ (downtown) the streets are packed and alive with people everywhere. It’s hard to capture the feeling with pictures, but this is a start.

Chiles, anyone?

And the beaches… if you head north out of town (actually farther down the baja peninsula) beaches dot the coast. It’s great – they serve beer on the beach. I spent a few days down that way. Playa Pichilingue…

Playa Tecolote…

Shuffle your feet in the sand as you go out into the water… you got to scare the sting rays away! No joke. I found myself carrying this guy Odin back to the bus cause he got stung and couldn’t walk. Apparently it’s an intense throbbing pain that lasts about 3-4 hours… then you’re back to better.

I took an intensive spanish course in La Paz for a week at the Centro de Idiomas, Cultura y Comunicación, which is a language school in La Paz. The school was ok… the lesson plan wasn’t tailored enough to fit my deficiencies. But helped me a butload anyway.

I met this dude at the school, Athony who’s doing México by bike. He said he’d ran into about 10 cyclists or so coming down baja from Vegas. Well, next time I come back to La Paz there’ll be one more cyclist coming down that road.

In Mexico, they take the bus like Americans take the plane. It’s the defacto intercity mode of transportation. But these aren’t like greyhounds or Muni. In Mexico they have three strata of bus travel.

1. Ejectivo. Super special. You’ve got the whole flight attendant type helper going up and down the isles, super deluxe chairs, bathroom on board, movies etc. This is a plane on wheels. Minimal stops.
2. Premerio Clase. This is your standard long-distance fare. They’ve got a bathroom on board, (bad) movies playing, will take the toll roads, stop in most towns along the route. Any place over say 5k people will be served by a first class bus.
3. Segundo Clase. This is the bus that avoids the toll roads, has no bathroom, and will stop wherever people want to get on or off. Well, ’stop’ is relative. The driver will slow down, appraise your physical ability, open the door, then either let you jump on the moving bus or if you look like you’re already starting to decompose, actually stop for you.

If the Primero Clase is 5 bucks an hour, the Ejectivo will be 8 and the Segundo Clase will be 4. Primero Clase is your sweet spot.

I took ABC (Autotrasportes de Baja California) from the central station in TJ to the central station in La Paz. 24 hour ride, but sooooo much more comfortable than the 10 hours from SF to SD. Two drivers, they’d switch back and forth so we could keep going 24/7. I actually got to La Paz rested and ready to go.

Baja’s for the most part what you’d expect: desert. The most treasured resource is shade. Catus everywhere. There are some dusty pines up at the higher elevations along the ridge, and it does get quite cold, but for the most part it’s hot hot hot (it’s hitting 90F and this is november).

One bad characteristic photo of what baja looks like out a bus window:

I didn’t have more than 15 min to get out of the bus along route. If there was anywhere I’d have liked to have more time in it’d be Mulegé.

If you get the opportunity to go to Tijuana, don’t. Well, not unless you know what you want and you know you can get it in TJ. Tijuana is one of those very odd creations of our modern world, the product of the juxtaposition of one of the wealthiest nations on earth (that loves to restrict civil liberties unnecessarily) and well, México. The Mexicans I’ve mentioned TJ to always respond with ‘No es México’. All right, so if you’re not going to take responsibility for it, who will?

But in any case, you can take the light rail from downtown SD to the border, and walk across the border. To cross the border, you literally walk through some gates. There’s a button you can press if you want to. It makes a light turn green. The light is unrelated to the gates. Welcome to México.

Update: You’re supposed to get a ‘Tourist Card‘ if you’re going farther than the border towns. Whoops.

Update 2: Leaving México without a ‘tourist card’… they hand you a document saying you lost it, you sign it (asking unnecessary questions is not recommended), they stamp it, then let you go. It appears it’s a relatively common occurrence.

Immediately upon crossing the border, there’s an army of taxicabs looking for gringos. I managed to doge them all and busted out the 15 min walk to the Avenida Revoluncíon, saying ‘No gracias’ every 10-12 paces. Then it gets worse. Every second guy on street is trying to get you to buy Viagra, pour tequila down your throat, get a girl (or two), and he’s definitely got your drug of choice. They’ve got the one-two punch method down, where the first guy tries to get you to buy a watch, or a beer, and before he’s done, the second guy will join in – but he one-ups the deal – he’s got girls and cocaine. Anyway, I found a good bar up above the street where I got some really, really bad tacos, some coronas and a shot of bad tequila (the bad tequila is free with your order of bad tacos). And I snapped some pictures of the street…. the burnt out disco in the second one, with the ‘Se Renta’ sign on it, captures the essence of TJ nicely.

I didn’t stay in Tijuana, I got a cab over to the central bus station and started the 24-hour adventure that is the Mexican bus….