Ok, strange title I know but is basically the direction of travel I have taken so far in my just over 1 week of Mex style adventure. From Pachuca to Mexico City to Cuernavaca to Guadalajara and now I am 17 hours south of Guad in Oaxaca (Pron. Wah-ha-ca). But more importantly see the wiggerly line in the above picture that is the strengthening Australian dollar against the Mexican peso, not so important to most but it was at its highest level for a long time on Thursday.
In continuing, Mexico city an absolutely massive city with a population similar to the population of Australia (23 billion) but in a space a hell of a lot smaller;
- City 1,485 km² (573.36 sq mi) - Metro 7,854 km² (3,032.4 sq mi)
But an efficient and functional metro system (that Melbourne could certainly learn something from) helps to ferry you around quite easily to pretty much anyplace in the city that your heart could desire. If not take on of the ever present taxis or autobus's. The other major feature of Chilangolandia is the Zocolo, blogged about previously, but this time when I was there, the worlds largest ice rink happened to be there too. And the first night I arrived I spotted a line up next to the rink, thinking that skating on the worlds biggest rink could be a bit of fun, I lined up too. But it turns out I was wrong, when I finally got in, I discovered much to my surprise that I was to watch The Nutcracker on Ice, performed by a Russian ballet troupe accompanied by the Mexico City Orchestra. An interesting night to say the least. Other sights visited by your worldly author include Frida Kahlo house, The Anthropology Museum and the UNESCO listed national university UNAM home to a student body of 100,000.
Also performed a day trip of sorts to the Chilango paradise of Cuernavaca, where DF residents escape the smog for the weekend and gringos infest the shops. I was in the town for only a couple of hours then I made my escape to; Xochicalco a fantastic example of a early Classic period religious and trading centre and the ball courts were pretty sweet to boot.
The next resting place of my well used backpack was the slightly northern city of Guadalajara birthplace of the legendary Mariachi, where 4 days were spent getting to know the very people friendly city. Also there I met some pretty cool other backpackers, such as Lina a Korean girl I had met in DF and Meg a fellow Melbournite, both of whom where making a solo trip all the way down to South America. Various sights seen like the ridiculously large market, that two friends got lost in, and I got slightly disorientated for 2 hour and food poisoning from. But a new pair of sunglasses was purchased there as the black pair of Cervantino had finally died a couple of weeks before after being superglued back together 5 times. I felt yellow to be an appropriate colour. Day tripped from here to the town of Tequila home to the mexican recognised drink, nerded it up on a factory tour, asking all sorted of steam, water treatment and pressure related questions. Had had our 10 free shots at the end of the tour, a good 7 more than any other members of the tour group. Also got to quite naughtily taste the 65+% pure tequila before it was cut down to sell-able quantity, good times.
And now I am in Oaxaca, for a couple of days to sample the local food and no doubt have my way with some of the vast quantities gringa.
Musical sample this week is from of course mariachi (well, kind of),
Finally have finished work and now the travel has begun. The vague plan at the moment is to go from here in Mexico City, south to Chiapas and Yucatan and then onto Belize and Central American adventure.
Musical post is from Kinky a band from Monterrey, whom played in Pachuca last weekend, I did not actually go to the concert but to the after party where the lead singer and some other local DJ's played sets until 5.30am, it was a good night.
With work finishing this week and leaving Pachuca next weekend I felt it to be a fond farewell to knock out some notes and highlights of my time working in Tizayuca and living in Pachuca.
Weather While the end of summer and the beginning of autumn was a dreary and wet occasion, autumn this far above sea level (2400m) is a wonderful dry cold, topped off by the thin as dust and sand everywhere around work, every time a bus or other vehicle goes past a quality noseful is inhaled accompanied by distinct level of temporary blindness. Mmmm you don’t know winter in Mexico until you get to cough up a lungful of silt and wiped the sand out of your eyes for the 50th time. But on that note, temperatures in Mexico have actually been at all time lows, with some areas being -3C and other places being at a record -10C and winter has not even began yet.
Work So it turns out not being fluent in Spanish was slightly against me in working over here, due to only about 6 people at the factory being fluent enough in conversation English. But I can say I am now the master of my own domain, which was proposal review and economic comparison in the latter half of my contract. Thus my technical Spanish has improved 10 fold, but I still have the occasional difficulty in deciphering a menu when going out for lunch.
Working in the project engineering department, I discovered I may not be cut out for this type of engineering, Most days I felt like an over qualified accountant, making numbers look pretty to decide on the cheapest proposal. One of my favourite time was this month where I had a mild disagreement with one of the Project Managers over the use of BioGas from Anaerobic reactor for the mill’s wastewater. He was adamant that the cost of flaring was not justified and we should just vent the 400 m3/hr of gas (80% methane) directly to the atmosphere…. (mainly because in Mexico there are no regulations or requirements in the emissions of methane) Apart from the devastating environmental impact of all that CH4 contribution to the greenhouse affect, the explosive risk of that much methane was fair mad. With a Flammable Range (Explosive Range) of 5- 15% while now where near the range of Acetylene or Hydrogen there was a definite safety issue looming should the direct vent go ahead. If anyone want to know, burning the biogas to generate electricity is relatively clean (as long as the exhaust gases are scrubbed for H2S) and safe way to make a positive use of the generated BioGas.
It was definitely good to get the experience working in Mexico, not just with the cultural and language differences but as further self improvement to see if I could work professionally in a foreign country. While not a absolute success story I feel I contributed meaningfully to the company, they got to practice their English in reading my (quote: very useful) reports and I got to learn how a recycled paper manufacturer operates.
Español My Spanish definitely did not improve as fast as I had expected, I can read alright now, the extent of my writing is MSN and sms’s, I can understand most of what I am hearing but speaking is a whole other ball game. Main reason being with the student wage I was being paid I could not afford to get any sort of lessons, so I bought a Spanish language book and dictionary. This obviously was not the most ideal way to learn the language, but it worked kind of, I just had to guess at the pronunciation of most words. The other major hurdle was my accent, a challenge in itself for the locals to understand, at first I just though it was because they were unused to an Australian accent, then I heard another Australian speaking Spanish and decided, it was definitely the accent.
Pachuca With a population of 250K it is a little big town, but still the ever gargantuan shadow of DF (Chilangolandia) just up the road reflects upon the ‘Windy City’.
Things I did in Pachuca: - Got a mexican girlfriend - Friends with some Cartel (Narco) kids, we discussed their gun collections (AK47, 9mm, antique shotguns, 50 cal pistol) - Did not get arrested - Lived in 2 different houses over 4 months - Went to a random after party in an unfinished garage, DJ´s from the bar set a complete sound system with decks and it went off - Drank tequila y beer - woke up in strange houses - went to just about every bar in town - saw the sights and generally enjoyed my time here
About Pachuca: - Old silver mining town - Football in Mexico originated here from the Cornish Miners - The Cornish pastie (paste) and its Mexican variants sold absolutely everywhere, with a town up the road (Real de Monte) renown for the quality pasties. - Giant French designed clock tower in the middle of the town - All the hotties migrate from here to DF, could explain why the quality is way low to the ground - People buy a bottle of spirits and then dance around their table at bars - My first house was near the hooker pick-up area, funnily enough close to one of the universities
And off to travel I will go in exactly a week, time to see Mexico.
En el Camino To be a backpacker that has not read ‘On the Road’ is akin to being a child star in the 90’s and Michael Jackson not touching you in the bathing suit area, I just felt I missing out on something.
I first heard of this book when I was in a little fishing village in the northern reaches of Norway back in 2004, at least 3 other backpackers at this hostel had the book, one of them was even a german translation. So impressed was I of the way they spoke of this book I decided that I must read this novel fellow traveler held at such a high pedestal. 4 years later I finally read an electronic copy during my lunch times at work was impressed, the tale books along at a very frantic pace. I would certainly believe the rumor that Jack Kerouac wrote “the scroll” in 3 weeks on Benzedrine, with such short sentences and the actions jumping, chopping and changing it makes you feel like Sal, always on the go to the next town. I’m not going to review the book, for that has been done enough times before , but I will say that I definitely dig the seminal Beat generation ‘manual’. The only thing I will do is present some choice quotes that I extracted while reading, as I felt some of them to parallel my own thoughts of travel and being in Mexico.
Kerouac, Jack - On The Road
"Mañana" she said. "Everything'll be all right tomorrow, don't you think, Sal-honey, man?" "Sure, baby, mañana." It was always mañana. For the next week that was all I heard -- mañana, a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.
- Living in mexico you can really get a love / hate relationship with this word since time being such a relative concept. Case in point, getting paid at work, I never thought it would be such a challenge for the bean counters to pay me on a regular date each month, clearly it was, on average they were between 1 week and 2 weeks late, yah. But, sexo in noche y mañana. love that wake up call.
This can't go on all the time -- all this franticness and jumping around. We've got to go someplace, find something."
- Sometimes you just get sick of all the moving, the new places, the next church, etc you just want to lie in bed and do fuck all. Static not flow.
Dean had a sweater wrapped around his ears to keep warm. He said we were a band of Arabs coming in to blow up New York.
- Prediction of the future….?
"Whither goest thou?" echoed Dean with his mouth open. We sat and didn't know what to say; there was nothing to talk about any more. The only thing to do was go.
- ‘cause sometimes talk is cheap, and action is what is needed
It's a Victorian police force; it peers out of musty windows and wants to inquire about everything, and can make crimes if the crimes don't exist to its satisfaction.
- Although in reference to US cops, this definitely applies to the pinche policia aqui
What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? -- it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.
- What is written is the gospel truth
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.
- Road is life, hells bells dat be it
Suddenly he bent to his life and walked quickly out of sight. I gaped into the bleakness of my own days. I had an awful long way to go too.
- Self development a continuous changing notion for me
We saw great stacks of pesos on a table and learned that eight of them made an American buck, or thereabouts. We changed most of our money and stuffed the big rolls in our pockets with delight.
- Based in the 1950’s (ha) now 13 peso to the $, thank you US economy collapse.
The musical post for this week is not mexican, but the metal giants from Brazil...Sepultura. They play DF tomorrow, so I thought it fitting to post.
Of late I've decided to try and travel locally as much as possible, so this is the summary of some the places that I've checked out in the past couple of months. Huasca y Basilica A relaxing Sunday of local travel
Huasca is a town of somewhat more classical style as far as mexican towns go, unlike the more modern style of concrete boxes mascaraeding as a habitable abode for people. This basically means the the beautiful looking town is packed to the gills with tourists from DF admiring the wonderous nature of the cobblestone streets, the colours of the buildings and the sights and sounds of the market where every single vendor sells exactly the same things. Clearly the modern sales approach of product differentiation and niche marketing has not taken off in this town of old world charm.
Then we traveled onto the local example of ecotourism, the Basilica, an interesting array of hexigonal rock formations (see the pics for a better view of poorly described rocks). With a large waterfall running through the middle of this unique natural attraction, it made for some very picturesque photos. And after a hard day of doing relatively nothing, it was time to sit down and relax with a nice cocktail of Clamato y Cerverza (tomato Juice and beer with a dash of chilli, lime and salt), which unusual as it sounds tastes alright.
Veracruz aka why hurricane season is not a good time to travel to the east coast
This trip was one of the rare examples where it was planned more than just the day before, Anna my ex-corridor compadre from Sverige happened to be studying monkey's in the little town of Catemaco on the east coast. Thus it was decided that we should arrange some sort of old style meet up to reminisce and discuss our shit lack of spanish skills. Being the eternal cheapskate that I am I opted for the cheaper 2nd class overnight bus from Pachuca to our destination of choice, Veracruz. Rather than paying 100 peso more and being comfortable I decided to make this sacrifice, and figured sleep would kill off any badness that could occur. (Mind you some overnight bus routes in Mexico occasionally get held up by bandits, I forgot to check if this was one of them). But yet again being the over 6ft foreigner has yet again worked against my sexy self. As soon as the bus left the station the overtly kind person in front of me decided to recline their seat back as far as possible leaving me with a semi permanent imprint of the indentations from the seat in my knee caps. The bus also managed to go from boiling hot when we left Pachuca to fucking freezing cold on arrival to Veracruz. As per usual the 2nd class bus was an experience in itself, music blaring all night and the lights going on and off as people entered and exited the bus. It was reminiscent of one of the many bus trips i took in Thailand, just lacking the chickens.
Onto the actual weekend itself, when I arrived it was drizzling, humid and generally pretty damp this continued for the entire 2 days we were there. A side note, at the time I had a cold which had manged to block up my head well good, turns out it is not a good thing to go from 2500m above sea level to normality. I couldn't hear out of my left ear on arrival, and it took 5 hours for the pressure to normalise and my hearing to return, and when it did it was quite a cause for celebration. I killed some time in the local cafe waiting for my amigo to arrive and my hearing to return, drinking a couple of very good local coffees which the state of Veracruz is renown for. When Ana arrived is turned out that she was just recovering from Dengue Fever, something I also got to experience when I was in lived in BKK, so it was decided with my cold induced lack of hearing and her recovering medical condition that we would take it easy for the weekend with nothing to strenuous. Due to the hilarious level of rain, the large majority of this weekend was spent inside cafes drinking coffee to avoid the precipitation and when it did stop for the occasional hora we would rapidly see some sights around town or by the seaside. Some highlights definitely were seeing the locals busting a move in the street, eating the specialty of the region Filete de Pascado veracruz style, checking out the local bar scene and speaking in english. The return bus trip was not as entertaining as i opted for 1st class this time and got to see some quality movies on the 7hr bus ride back. Now anyone who has not taken a bus in mexico will have missed out on the cultural experience that is 3 Jean Claude Van Damme films. something everyone has to do at least once in their lifetime.
