Monterrey, Mexico: Just like coming home.

The bus ride from Austin to Monterrey was an interesting experience. The deparure of my bus was scheduled for 14:15. In theory I came just in time to buy a ticket and hop on. But since the company is Mexican based, all their buses are on Mexican time. They're not late, they're on Mexican time, which is a huge difference. So we departed half an hour late. No big deal. It happens. But then, after an hour or so, the bus driver made his first stop at a Burger King. Of course, the majority of the passengers went in for their daily portion of healthy grease and fat, which resulted in yet another delay. I preferred to stay on the clean side (actually, more on the cheap side) and stick to my peanuts, half a pack of orange flavored cookies and one third of a bottle of water. That got me pretty much through the first half of the journey. From there on, we drove straight up to Laredo, a border town with Mexico. One of the reasons why I wanted to start this trip in the U.S. and not in Mexico - besides visit the cool city of Austin - was to experience the transition at the border from the former to the latter. And what an experience it was...

We arrive at the border and at first it seems the passage flows easily. But then we queued up in a huge line of buses, all of them wanting to cross the border. There was absolutely no movement in that line. The reason for it was that customs officers were replaced by the Mexican military and they were ordered to examine every piece of luggage that passengers carried. Each and every one of them. Not once, but twice. First via a scanner and afterwards by hand. And believe me, there were a lot of buses. So we're waiting there and the bus driver asks us where we come from. From all seven or so passengers there were two foreigners: a very amicable American woman in her fifties and me. We had to get off and pass through the customs office were would receive our stamp. While I was waiting outside in the warm glow of Mexican autumn I gazed head-up to an enormous copy the Mexican flag waving proudly at the very beginning of its territory and felt happy. Almost patriotic. Or better, melancholic. Because I might be the least patriotic person in the world. Looking up to that flag made me feel: "I am home."

Anyway, it was my turn to receive a stamp. I walk in this tiny shack and find a hord of jolly customs officials tranquilly eating their phone-delivered meals with the TV on. Right after me one of their runner boys walked in with the drinks they had ordered. Nothing pointed out that I was in a formal, strict environment until one of the guys asked me where I was from and what I was doing. Half talking to 'the boys', half dedicating his attention to me, I received not a stamp but a little note on which says I'm permitted in to the country. Actually, in retrospective, is wasn't more than: "Oh, ehm, right. You wanna enter Mexico? Well, here you go. Don't do anything wrong. Now lemme eat." And that was that. Don't expect a similar scene when you're entering the U.S.

That was the easy part. After that the bus driver, all agitated and out of patience, gathered us around him because he had a plan to avoid the long queue. "Santo desmadre, esto está rete atorado" (Holy chaos, this is hopelessly stuck), he sighed. He ordered us to pick up all our luggage and move silently in groups of two in between the the buses towards the luggage-checking. That way he would have an empty bus end therefor let through more rapidly than his collegues, whose buses were packed. Meanwhile I was translating his evil, cheeky briefing. Eventually, all that fuzz wasn´t necessary because he somehow convinced a military officer to let us through before the others. (Might he have bribed him?) We stood in line - which again took a very long time - had our bags checked and got on to the bus. The bus driver was clearly at the very end of his patience because he almost ordered me to get in. For just a few seconds he was Speedy Gonzalez with an overweight problem and a line too much in his nostrils. I loved that guy. The whole debacle lasted about two hours, increasing our already shameful delay. In that same town but at the other side of the river we changed to the bus that would take us to Monterrey, final stop. The last 2 and a half hours went by fluently and before I knew it we had arrived.

On the way to Monterrey I had managed to call one of my many cousins, Mariana, who in her turn called my uncle to tell him I was arriving in town. Secretely, I was hoping that my uncle Nacho, who lives and works in Monterrey, would host me without doubt. That turned out to be slightly different. I was waiting outside the bus station when suddenly he appears. My rejoicing of seeing him after five years was of short notice. First, he told me he had paid a hotel room for one night because he pratically didn't know what to do with me. Upon that I asked him whether it was possible to stayat his place. His answer was far from clear. It went something like this: "At my place? Oh, no. Ehm, that's not possible because, ehm, my work, and, you know, no, it's difficult." In other words, forget it. Later that week I learned, distracted as I am, that the man has a second family here on top of his other family in Guadalajara, thus meaning he has a second wife and perhaps her children. We, the family in Guadalajara, always knew it was something like that. Disgracefully, that's how it works for a great deal of Mexican families. A man marries a certain woman who is assigned to him by another family and bears his children in order to meet society's expectations. This is the 'perfect' family. Meanwhile, the husband's inherent machismo longs for more feminine pleasure and scavenges for a voluptuous mistress with whom he can do as he likes in all discretion, and perhaps procreating a second family. That was the case with my late grandfather too.

Anyhow, my point was that I couldn't stay at his home, most likely out of fear for scandalism. After he rejected my host request he immediately started to implement an indoctrination of fear on me. Apparently, and this is true, Monterrey is a fairly dangerous city for its narcotraffic-related violence. I was well informed on that matter way before my trip. The north of Mexico is in fact endangered, but that doesn't stop me from exploring it. Caution is a traveler's second best friend. Still, uncle Nacho didn't stop emphasizing how risky this town is and how worried he was. I tried to soothe him, without succes. He also told me that most of my family is worried about me for my way of traveling. I fully understand and appreciate it, but it shows their not known with this way of getting around. He paid for my first meal - a delicious Mexican style hotdog - and brought me to the hotel. I talked for a while with the guy behind the desk and went up to my room. There, in my confined space, I lay alone contemplating my arrival. It was one of two sentiments: on one hand, I was happier than ever to be back in good 'ole Mexico, but at the other hand, I didn't know how to process the whole thing with my uncle. I gave it a rest, and tried to focus on the bright side: I'm in Mexico.