The best of San Miguel de Allende and onwards.

Tomorrow we are riding east, by northeast through the Sierra Gorda biosphere where we are going to go camping with some fellow couchsurfers Ben and Buffy. Xilitla is our ultimate destination in this our last stab into the interior of Mexico. 

Mexico's rugged interior has been spectacular for motorcycle riding.
Only once did we find ourselves on a dead straight road between Monterrey and San luis Potosi.

I am expecting the riding to be excellent for the next couple of days. The Sierra Gorda biosphere is a nationally protected region comprised of one third of Querétaro state. It is host to three bio regions, epic mountains and spectacular valleys. At the northern tip is Xilitla and the surrealist landscape, Las Pozas, of James Edwards. I don't want to spoil it with some preview pictures so wait for us to get to Mexico City to update you on this adventure.

After Mexico City our route will head towards the Pacific Ocean. This will be the second time we visit the Pacific Ocean on this trip and will be a highlight of this epic journey. We will probably follow the coast down towards the border of Guatemala before heading back inland, and across to the Yucatan Peninsula. 

There are still loads of things to see in Mexico, plus we are only starting to really get into our Spanish speaking groove. Our importation permit on the motorcycle expires at the end of June, so I think we will probably stay in Mexico till then. It really depends on where we next pickup work. In Mexico City we will be chasing a couple of journalism leads, but that depends on how long we can find hosts. Couchsurfing has been great so far. We have one host lined up for the first week, and we are looking for a host for a possible second week if we can get a good lineup of interviews and article pitches for the English speaking publications. If you have any contacts we should know about in Mexico City please fill us in.

Here are the best photos of San Miguel de Allende:

The central garden,

La Parroquia,

Treats.

Benjamin

Some Loving, Some Blog Hating & Nature Photos

One of the reasons that this blog didn't start up until Ben and I realized we were just disappointing our future selves by not documenting this trip, is because I have a really difficult time with negotiating my liberal arts degree of 'critical kindness' towards all things new, different or unique; and my desire to write out, document and share my love of small handmade and hand delivered stories to other human beings.

To casually display the fight against the existentialist struggle.

I told our host, Gaby, in Monterrey, that I was working in my head on my 'What I Am Going to Say About Mexico That is Honest, Not Stereotyping; Kind, But Critical.' This is part of that series of thoughts. 

Today, via my college email address, I received a bulk-letter from one of the administrative bigwigs at Tulane, my alma mater, telling students to use caution, and check the state.gov website for travel information about going to major Mexican tourist areas and the Mexican frontera. Drugs, death, violence, pickpockets and rape! Frankly, short of Tijuana, all of the cities listed on the website seemed charming compared to New Orleans, New York City, Chicago, and sure as heck better than Gary, Indiana. What are we (Americans) telling ourselves about the outside world? Are we writing these blurbs about our most dangerous cities, when all of those out-of-state college students just showed up in New Orleans for Mardi Gras this year?

...

Right now, Ben has the whole darned motorcycle apart, up the street (Carlos and Nasul's house is located on the hillside, and the immediate surrounding blocks are pedestrian stairwells only, paved with large stones held together by cement and loosely attached, somehow, to the mountain), so we haven't been driving anywhere for the last couple of days. 

Therefore, every few days we walk down to the markets and go to buy groceries. Zacatecas is an old town, and it is difficult to build modern day grocery stores into the city--there are no streets that run straight and buildings, stairwells too, tend to just pop out of nowhere, built on top of other buildings, buildings that are dug into the sides of the mountains surrounding the main valley of the city.

These markets tend to be mixed results for us--sometimes three days of delicious groceries or an incredible lunch comes for less than three dollars (or 45 pesos). Other times, we are ripped off--less than a pound of rice for 20 pesos, or a $1.33. This may not seem like a lot, and in a way, it isn't, either economically or emotionally. But in some ways, it is. We watch and listen, as we get ripped off by someone--we know whats going on and they know that we know. Everyone is clearly aware. What we're paying for is more than just some white rice, we're paying for years of bad blood between two countries, for a child's education, our stilted Spanish, for our blue eyes. In this is the critical kindness. I don't blame this individual for overcharging me, and I let him do it, willingly. It is easy enough to say no. But it doesn't help him if I say no, and it doesn't help me if I say yes. Overall, no one is winning in any of these situations. How do you call someone out on this without skirting around the obvious reasons that you are being ripped off? 

...

One night, my friend Anna and I were waiting for the streetcar in New Orleans. A woman came up to us and asked us for money for a cab. Her boyfriend had just beat her up and kicked her out of the car. We gave her everything we had short of the small fare for the streetcar back Uptown--did we want to be scammed and do the right thing or not give her money and possibly let this woman try to walk home by herself in the middle of the night?

...

It makes me really nervous to fall into the travel blog/travel writing hole of essentializing groups of people and blaming them for historic, political and social events outside of their reach, or summing them up into quaint exoticized moments in my life. These stories may seem negative, but they're really about the difficulty of walking a fine line between forgiving, comprehending, and criticizing. How do you humanize a person, a place or a country without generalizing or being unfair (in either a good or bad way)? How do you write a story about something without taking advantage of the person who made the story--the climb up the hill or the noteworthy news?

...

I spend a lot of time, looking at the florae and the terrain on our trips. A lot of the time on the motorcycle is spent between towns; it makes the metropolitan area from New York to Boston seem claustrophobic. It is hard to catch pictures of plants while we're moving, 

most of the on-motorcycle pictures tend to be of distant objects (ok, mountains). 

So I've been trying to take pictures of interesting plants more often,

so that I can show at least what some of the plants are like, the more "exotic" ones that catch my eye.  

I wish I could give names for these plants, but you'll just have to appreciate them for what they are. Included are some photos of the mountains I've loved, too. Just so you can start to feel the expansiveness of Mexico, the rolling desert plains and mountains we've been travelling through since we left the United States. 

We had to slow down for these sheep. I would say that half of the animals we've seen have not been penned in. But they tend to be a little smarter, the cows, the horses, the chickens, etc. and they realize that there is no food to be found on the road.

 

I actually was able to catch a picture of one of small dust whirlwinds that suck up the dry ground. Everytime we crest a mountain, there are dozens of these to be seen on the horizon:

Grapevines in the desert for Ryan:

Galveston-->Conroe-->??

Tonight is our last night in Galveston for a while. We went to Pho 20 (ha, ha) for dinner and we saw Margaret and Travis there. And so we ate first dinner with them. And then Lindsey and Sandra walked in, but we were about to leave, so we didn't have dinner with them. Ben and I know maybe fifteen people on this island. And four of them walked into the same restaurant tonight.

Then went to the Panaderia on Broadway across from the Vietnamese restaurant and got some really delicious pastries. The best part was that the lady running the cash register didn't speak English and for like the first time EVER (except with maybe Mama Anaya, my childhood friend Liz's Ecuadorian mother) Ben and I got to speak in Spanish with someone who actually wanted to talk to us in Spanish! This may sound like I am being a ridiculous gringa, because, well, I am. But to be able to have someone listen to you and be nice to you and speak slowly for your benefit is just SO GOOD. Like warm fuzzies. Because she was thrilled that we spoke Spanish (however badly) and pleased that we took the effort to talk to her even though someone was willing to translate for both sides. We were thrilled that she would take the time to listen to us and was so nice and understood that our toddler Spanish required us to speak stiltedly. Or maybe it was just because she was such a sweet lady and she smiled at us and you don't get people this nice on an everyday basis selling you these huge delicious pastries called "besos" (kisses), "concha blancas" (white shells), and "tortugas" (turtles). Then we went back to see Katie and have second dinner/dessert which was vegetable soup (oh so good on a cold night!) and delicious pumpkin bread with a million mini chocolate chips. I am still ill from over-eating two hours later.

We are going to be coming back here soon though, for the Galveston Song Off! on a Wednesday after the New Year. It is tentatively looking like it is going to be held at the Old Quarter Acoustic Club down by The Grand Opera House during Open Mic Night. In case you or someone you know would like to participate: you have to write a song about Galveston. I, being totally inept at "real" music, am making a song for tape. Similar to how some songs are made for a string quartet, this is a song that I am making on Audacity and that I am going to burn onto CD so that I can hit play and stand there awkwardly as everyone stares at me.

IT IS GOING TO BE THE BEST!!! I WILL POST IT HERE AFTER IT DEBUTS.

Anyways. We're off tomorrow for Conroe, Texas to spend the night at Katie's house (Katie is a Couchsurfer and our current "neighbor." John is her boyfriend and the Couchsurfer we're staying with who lives next door.) I heard there is going to be a bonfire and it is going to be cute and I imagine because everyone is musical (except me; except when I get to sing "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" while inebriated) there will be music, too.

More on that when it happens. In the meanwhile, I am skirting cleaning work while Ben cleans to "Hey Jude." I imagine his little black turtleneck sleeves are rolled up and his handsome, muscular arms are in soapy water. Ahem. :D

Also! A photograph of home from Jared, who I guess is in New Orleans right now?:

If you can't figure it out, it is the streetcar (I presume the St. Charles line) decked out for Christmas. It always has little garlands tacked to the forest green exterior, too and it rattles up and down the track. It is just adorable and makes me miss New Orleans and everyone I love in it.

One of my least favorite things about travel is missing the people and places you've visited, even if it was just for a short period of time, sometimes just a layover. Facebook photographs are even worse--all of your damned friends having fun without you; the photographs are almost taken close together enough that you can see the jerks dancing in their kimonos if you flash through the images quickly enough. On certain days when the wind hits you with just the right amount of chill and humidity I can be brought back to a midnight stop at a railroad station on the border of France and Spain or a particular day in Connecticut where I was working on the high school newspaper or a cold winter bike ride in New Orleans in glitter eye makeup and a ridiculous outfit (not necessarily Mardi Gras, probably just any old Friday night). And sometimes I am even transported to the lousy days that I'd rather not remember. Whatever and whenever they were, I am a sucker for nostalgia and I leave a little piece of myself everywhere I go and I just can't seem to collect them back up. I think Galveston is growing on me like that.

Love, Jen