Two weeks of speed-traveling

Relaxing in Queretaro

After that interesting weekend of mind-exploration I turned to calmer pace, away from conciousness-altering substances. The city of Queretaro was next on my itinerary, a beautiful city whose historic center appears with its charming colonial style on UNESCO's World Heritage List. A delightful small-sized city to walk around in, almost like my hometown Antwerp, but of obviously not as nice. First I had a bit of trouble finding a couch to crash on, so I stayed in the city's only hostel where there was little to do. Eventually I had a chat with a guy from Phildelphia, U.S., who was teaching English and another guy from Australia, who had been busted in Peru, or another South American country, for being caught under influence of cocain resulting in a few days stay in a juvenile penitenciary where he was stripped to his unnies and hit by prison guards. I learned that night to be careful down south. Apparently it's not a safe haven to do 'naughty' stuff. The next day I fixed a couch with a guy of the same name, Diego. That was interesting, because he kind of reminded me of myself. Not so much on pass-times but more his character, way of thinking and his musical preference. I always thought I would I hate an identical copy of myself, but in this case I didn't. Well, he wasn't exactly a perfect copy of me, although I found our similarities rather funny. In fact, Diego was pretty cool. And so were his friends, who I met at his university where accompanied my host to his classes (He studies Communication). Why not? It's an interesting change to the classic touristic activities. Eventually I only attended one class about Twitter... Seriously. Twitter. The whole hour the professor talked about how managing a Twitter account. How to post shit and modify your page with colours and all. I'd heard about PhDs on blogging. But twittering? When did that thing gain the sufficient importance to take in a whole semester on university level? After that intrigueing coterie it was time for audio-editing or something like that. Actually it was more of a 'fun hour' whererin Diego showed me a few of his radio-broadcast short-stories about aliens and the like. After 20 minutes or so, we skipped back to the playground. The rest of the morning/afternoon we spent drinking cheap beers in a bar where we had to wait an eternity for our tortas (Mexican sandwiches) because the cheese had turned bad (???). So much for school...

So with a severe stomach ache as a result of that torta I once again said my goodbye and hopped on a bus towards Mexico City, the capital of the country. Now, every time I sit on one of those long-distance lines I always hope to nail half a book down. But that has been proven to be quite difficult on Mexican buses. Usually they impede my reading plans by showing the worst Hollywood box office hits at high volume so that every reflectionary thought or attempt to use the brain for intellectual purposes becomes difficult, if not, annoying. Or, it's nighttime thus the busdriver dims the lights and the personal lights don't work properly. On that bus ride in particular the indigestion made thinking too hard. Anyway, none of that is of significant importance.

Welcome to El Hoyo

Once we drove into the vastly-extended city one of its most common known clichés - actually more a charactaristic - manifested: its traffic. Quite in the beginning I had observed how lousy drivers Mexicans are, but it's even worse in the capital. Although it's not entirely due to their lack of traffic insight, rather a direct consequence of too many people living on a too small space. We had entered some kind of industrial area where it was totally normal to see enormous trailers with heavy loads trying to penetrate traffic in opposite direction. Forget about lanes. They are marked alright, but they are obsolete. And yes, their are traffic lights. But those too are ignored so that extra police officers are required to guide the frenzy drivers with safety. More on that in the section dedicated entirely to the capital later on. Finally arrived at the busstation I reluctantly took a cab to the apartment of the Palomino brothers, cousins of a Belgian friend who like me also enjoys both nationalities, Mexican and Belgian. That same night Adrian, the older of the two, had invited three friends of more or less the same age for dinner. Although I was still suffering from a raging war inside my guts, I stubbornly decided to join in with the gourmet pizza they had ordered. And what do you know? The pain disappeared. And didn't really eat little. So now I learned whener I my digestion organs are fucked up, I have to eat even more. Excellent! Eating has become not only a main source of expense (even more than beer!!!), but also daily necesarry objective next to visiting museums and such. Street food is incredibly cheap out here and they are litteraly everywhere, which makes resisting it very hard. Good thing I have a fast metabolism, or else I would be fat bastard already. For now, I don't mind being avaricious. "You only live once", a good friend of mine told me not so long ago.

The next day Matti, one of my roommates from Antwerp, came to fulfil his promise of visiting me on my trip. When he told me he was coming over obviously I was sceptical. The man didn't even make it to Pamplona, Spain at the time. However, he totally surprised me late September when he informed me that he had bought a plane ticket to Mexico City. And there he was. Isn't that nice? I sure think it is. At the airport while I was waiting a struck up a conversation with an old guy who together with his ex-wife was awaiting his daugter's arrival from Germany. He impressed with his knowledge both French and German. Few Mexicans can even say the basics in English. How insignificant as it appears, I had a warm conversation with him about this and that. The arrival hall is filled with people with interesting stories, I found out. One can really feel the warmth of hope followed y reassuring joy of reunion. There is also a touch of despair, impatience for the longed-one to appear majestically out of the slide-doors that seperate the waiters from the travelers. In fact, the moment when someone walks through that door reminds me almost of a rockstar appearing on stage with everyone gazing at him. The hall is nice place to be. Everyone shares a common feeling of happiness which is seen in their faces or manifests in their loud screaming whenever they see the awaited. I did so myself. "Matti!!!", I yelled at full voice, standing on top of the seats. And you know, I felt as happy as a little child when he sees his daddy back from a business trip. Quickly I derived from his look that something was wrong, something I had easily predicted before. Completely confused, he stepped trough the gate with ni backpack. The man had succeeded in skipping the baggage claim-part and the succesive control. Really. What the fuck, Matti? Anyway, that little incident resolved quickly so we could greet appropriately.

Homewards, on the metro (a segment I will discuss extensively in the short-story), my friend was inmediately confronted to the big city's madness. Unlike buses and trams in Belgium, or elsewhere in North West Europe, where silence and discretion are holy, public transport here is the complete opposite, another world. Especially in the capital. One after the other, vendors selling all kinds of things from chocolates, nuts, scissors, crappy toys, crossword puzzles, etc. walk in and out yelling promotional descriptions of their merchandise in a highly irritating tone that characterizes many Defeños, or capital citizens. I had just started to adapt to metro life but for Matti that was a first shocking, mostly hilarious confrontation with Mexican frenziness. More on subterranean mind-cracking blues later on.

Fake enclosed paradises

We didn't stay long in Mexico City because Matti had only a limited amount of time to explore the country, i.e. nine days. Next stop after the capital was Puebla, yet another charming city only two hours away. The main reason we went there was to visit one of Matti's friends Jente (that's a girl's name), who studies as an exchange student, kind of like the Erasmus program but cooler. Interesting about that visit was the social environment she and her housemates resided in. Their communal house is located inside a condominium, a sealed-off and - depending on the residents' income - heavily-guarded complex of houses and/or apartments. A main charactaristic of those condos is the perplexing difference in the overall feel. By that I mean the difference in houses, streets, cleanliness, safety and most of all people. For instance, the street where it was situated was a characteristical dirty, but very charming Mexican street with loud music, a variety of food stands and third-hand cars. The condo - I like to refer it as a concealed prison - was completely different, reminding of a neat, sterile Amirican suburb. No traffic, kids playing on the streets, big, clean cars,... It's quite a change. I understand that people of certain (upper) social classes feel the need to shut themselves off from the plebs, the ordinary, maybe out of unjustified fear or plain contempt. How cosy such a complex can be, to me it's a ridiculous, pompous tiny utopia for people who need armed guards to seperate them safely from the "dangerous" streets of the poor. Just imagine. It was quite tough outside, between them beaners and low-salary workers. Man oh man, was I shitscared... And when I thought that Jente's community was over-the-top, you should have seen the other one we went to where we were invited to someone's birthday. Tongues say that at least three families of narcotraficantes, or drug-traffickers, reside in there. Well, based on the guards equipped with M16s and shotguns I'm ready to believe that. But anyway, the birthday party was held in an enormous house with ridiculously giant TV. Goddamn, you should have seen it. You could make five medium-sized TVs out of the material used for that one. It burnt your eyes and you could almost feel your brain cells suffering a horrible death from the extreme radiation coming out of the tube. Their wealth was so in-your-face that I didn't feel quite comfortable between the rich kids. Luckily they were very nice and apparently interested in my double nationality. Our stay was of short duration. Jente wanted us to see 'Container City', litteraly a city of containers stacked up to three stories high housing restaurants, bars, clothing shops, clubs and so on. It was pretty cool, actually. The place attracted loads of hip youngsters and foreigners. First we stayed at a bar where a long-haired DJ was playing Daft Punk-style beats. I was more attracted to the container next to us where a band was rocking out. In fact, I had become incredibly stoned from the weed that friend of Jente's gave us. 'Orange crush', or something, it was called. Whatever it was, I was fucking high. I hadn't been so high since Austin. But that in parentesis.

Disco on wheels and turds

After the weekend Matti and I decided to go to Uruapan. For what reason I don't remeber anymore. The fact is that our stay there was pretty useless. The most interesting part was the bus that took us to center. Another thing remarkable to public transport is the versatility, actually more artistic freedom, bus drivers have to pimp their vehicle to the max. One basic addition that almost every driver makes is the instalment of a hi-fi audio system to play their favourite music - far too often irritating ranchera. And not seldom do they play the music at high volume so that you have to scream to ask the bus's direction. Interesting. In my country people - including myself - look up annoyed whenever a 'cool' adolescent walks in with his favourite, degenerate commercial horseshit cracking from their shiny cell phones. Now, the bus my temporary travel compagnon and I were on was a level higher in relation to its 'pimpedness'. Not only were the lights dimmed with only epileptic, crappy discolights flickering about, the guy behind the wheel played the most cheesy hits from the 80s. Yes, indeed. Just imagine listening to Boy George's 'Karma Chameleon' or 'Gold' by Spandau Ballet while sitting calmly towards your destination. For those who not know those names, below I posted their videoclips. You'll surely recognize them, and most likely, hopefully, laugh at the situation I described just now. Of course, the bus driver was outfitted according to his musical taste, as well as accompanied by two equally ridiculously dressed buddies. Matti and I laughed at this astranging observation, unlike our fellow passengers who clearly felt uncomfortable sitting in a kitsch discoteque on wheels.

The rest of the night we spent in a cheap hotel partly because there were no nearby bars open at that hour, partly because Matti had become ill. No stress, we had to wake up early anyway to catch a bus to our next stop. The only tell-worthy anecdote of the following morning was Matti's deposit of excrement in the bathroom. For some reason why I don't know - and quite honestly don't want to know - his feces spread out a horrible, horrible stench - like death - so potent that it pulled me out of my bed right away, stumbling towards the window to grasp fresh morning air and succesively clear out the nauseating smell from the room. That was one stinking turd! I think if there existed a competition for the most sickening piece of shit excremented from a human rectum my friend would not even receive his trophy as a result of fainting the jury and the entire crowd in his all-destroying perfume and consequently banish the game for the sake public health. What eventually happened was, Matti vomited. Maybe from his illness, most likely from the stench. It was the peyote's olfactory equivalent of utter repulsiveness.

Tourists vs. locals

After that ordeal was done we caught a bus to a small village up in the mountains called Angáhuan inhabited by the Purepechas, the local indigenous people. Angáhuan is the closest start-off point for visitors interested in climbing the Paricutín volcano where until a decade ago it was still possible to find hot lava inside the crater. Obviously, many tourists but not too many had come to that town for that purpose. When we arrived we were immediately attacked by annoying tourist-catchers trying to sell us guided horserides to the volcano. I always distance myself when they smell me, but we had to find a specific adress of a guy renting out a couple of lodges for tourists. From that moment when we asked for directions áll the way to our lodge - not kidding - the touristmongers followed us until we finally came to a feasible deal for the horses. Quite honesty, I wasn't too keen on renting a couple of horses to visit the mountain. I always feel stupid with those things. But Matti persuaded me and in the end turned out to be quite fun. However, the whole negotiating process, bargaining, waiting, got me on my nerves. In fact, I hate those situations. I hate being treated as a numb tourist supposedly loaded with cash and stupid enough to believe seller's pretty talks. Eventually, we reduced the price of 700 pesos to 400 pesos which I think was still too much. With that burden over, we climbed the horses and initiated the tour. In the beginning, still in-town, I felt completely ridiculous, almost embarrased. Being myself is already obvious, but riding a horse through a dark-skinned, curious town made me feel like emphasizing my tourist status by placing myself on a throne to show everyone I was exactly not one of them. Once we left town I felt no longer like that, and was immersed in the exciting feeling of freedom riding a horse at galloping pace through beautiful nature scenery.

Once we got at the foot of the volcano it was time to climb. It didn't seem too high and in fact it wasn't. But the loose, grainy soil made walking incredibly difficult. With every step I took I slid down several centimeters. That was very irritating. So irritating that I got mad, fucking angry. It was definitely the least fun ascent I've realized. All that suffering and cursing and hating fades away like snow for the sun when the top is finally reached. The 360º view is ever-rewarding. Completely exhausted, I lay waiting for my pall to appear. Poor guy. The same morning he was sick as a dog and there he was fighting mind over body. On top of the hill we talked about philosophical matters wherein Matti couldn't withold to mention Nietzsche's allegory of the mountain which roughly explains how from all bad things good things protrude. Without a doubt, I'm a man of mountains. Maybe from the sea too, but I haven't had the chance to experience similar contemplative moments at the beach.

Completely exhausted we returned to our lodge where our guide insisted on giving him a tip, whereas tipping is not obligatory in this country. We gave him what he wanted to get rid of him. Enough shit about tourists vs. locals. That same night we decided to make an evening stroll through the village, where both of us where looked at like never before-seen alien creatures. Well, that's mostly due to my friend, who measures about two meters, which is insanely tall for small Mexicans. Despite the cold mountain air at night we were suprised to see still many people outside on unpaved streets. To keep warm they simply made fires from lumber and what little garbage they found lying around. Even kids, who seem to turn that into a daily passtime. What was most surprising was the undefinable noise disturbing the otherwise calm, quiet life which characterizes a mountain village such as Angáhuan. The whole day through, from seven in the morning till late at night, a voice resonating from several installed megaphones orates some kind of prayer in the Purepecha language. What she or he said was unclear. It could be local news or advertisements. It became quite unbearable once the first voice was joined in by other male and female voices all reciting similar things in the same irritating tone but completely unsynched so that the whole resulted in a terrible, random cacophony. Which, is absurd for a small mountain village far away from the crazy city. A discrepancy, one might say. And so we concluded the evening with a cosy fire at our lodge. I couldn't help to think back of the peyote trip when I smelled the scent of burnt wood. During that trip I litteraly spent hours sitting in smoke. Definitely not healthy, but nevertheless an interesting Proustian memory.

'Got myself a new baby'

Next on our high-speed itinerary was Paracho, a Purepecha town known for its handcrafted guitars, supposedly the best in the whole country. Since I was still guitarless and the town was on our way to Guadalajara, we decided to halt briefly there so that I could finally buy a fine copy to satisfy my mental need. When you walk in through Paracho towards the center you'll see nothing but guitar shops. One less artisanal than the other. That was what I had feared before coming: not being able to seperate the wheat from the chaff. But than, completely unexpected, while we were strolling our the central plaza, this old man asks me whether I'm looking for a guitar. At first I thought he was just another begger asking for a coin. Aloof, critical (always), I argus-eyed inquired him on the quality of his guitars. He seemed very convincing, like all merchants do, and he proposed us to follow him to his workshop where his sons constructed the guitars. Once I saw that there was no shop, no window dressing, nothing, but instead a casual house with all the way in the back, behind the kitchen, the workplace I knew we had come to the right place. So did Matti, who reassured me by saying: "This is it, man." And indeed, pure handicraft. We had walked into a workshop the old man had built up in his younger days wherein he passed his guitar-building skills on to his five sons. Three of them were skillfully at work when we walked in, immediately pausing their duties to proudly show me their finest guitars as well as patiently listening and watching how I assessed their works of art. Because really, they were some fine pieces of woodmanship. Not surprisingly, the prices were in proportion to its quality. By one particular item I inquired about the price to which one of the craftsman boldly responded: "Esa está en 25." (That one is 25) "You mean, 25 ooo?" - "Exactly, we have one of 30 000 too." "Oh, right. Hmm, how about showing me that cheaper model, please?" Eventually I decided to buy the 6000 pesos guitar, roughly about 350 euros. From the ten prominent guitars who were hung up in a cupboard behind glass, that one was the cheapest. They had around 20 other guitars finished for sale presented in the rest of the room, which they didn't even bother to show me. Or they knew by instinct that I was looking for a decent guitar, or they swindled me in abuse of my ignorance. Either way, it's not a bad one. On the contrary, my new baby sounds magnificent and I grow more amorous by the day. She even smells nice. Now I hope they don't abduct her sometime during my journey. Together with my pictures (not the camera) and passports, she is the most valuable thing I possess at this very moment. Everything else may be taken away from me (although I sincerely wish that does not happen at any given time).

After the purchase we traveled to Guadalajara, Tequila and back to Mexico City. I'll just say it was fun, with a hilarious intermezzo in the birthplace of the tequila drink. Maybe I'll mention that later on. But for now you have enough reading material.

Voilà, yet another long one. I had much to write about and actually I'm still not finished. But have this as a nookie. Meanwhile I'll start on my short-story about Mexico City.

Till further notice,

Diego

(Thank you for your patience)