Alright then. I'm coming to you (not live) from a half-crippled bus racing towards Mexico City. Crippled as in the AC keeps breaking down and this large, possibly mentally handicapped German man keeps taking his shoes off and everybody keeps telling him to put them back on. Yeah.
Almost every time I get on one of these buses, I'm astounded at what low-quality cinema they screen. Right now we're watching The Prince and Me II: The Royal Wedding. I mean, come on now. The normal fare is about on par with this one…something with Sandra Bullock, Kevin Bacon, or just off-brand romantic comedy. Like, these are the films that you watch for a few minutes and wonder who in the world shelled out the dough to actually make them. Mainstream Hollywood churns out some pretty poor work, but the second rate stuff just makes me want to jump out of one of these big emergency exit windows and roll as a bloody mess into the much more interesting dust on the side of the road.
My time in Mexico has basically come to an end. A few days to hang out in Monterrey and that's all she wrote. Though I was pretty apathetic about my return before, the closer it gets, the more excited I am to get home for the holidays. The last ten days or so of travel in the have been fun--relaxed, even, which is something I was not expecting. But with the end of the journey coming up quickly I've been feeling a bit restless to finish it off…I don't know why. It's like the clock is ticking and I would rather it just end so that I can pick up another clock with a less urgent time frame and start a new adventure.
Despite the urgency factor, my time in the south has been a real blessing. And I believe I'll recount a little bit of it to give you an idea of what I've up to. (random thought: Eric Clapton really doesn't sound like a Brit when he sings.)
The Last Days:
The last days in Cuernavaca consisted of a lot of revisiting of people and places. The nights were filled with goodbye parties and movies with the family. During the free days I developed a reading habit. I would go into town in the morning to a sweet coffee shop above a artsy theatre, open up the old laptop, and read philosophy to possibly the best soundtrack I've found in Mexico (Moby, Emmylou H., Band of Horses, Nora Jones, Manu Chau, Sufjan Stevens, Bob Dylan, Arcade Fire…). Now as some of you know, I've never put much stock in philosophy and certainly never had the compulsion to read it for pleasure, but I figured that it couldn't hurt. And if I was going to knock somebody like Plato or Hobbes, I decided I ought to at least know a little bit about why I'm knocking them. I stumbled upon a website run by some professor that made it really accessible so I've been having a ball poking , prodding, taking notes on (and yes, learning from) a pretty interesting list of folks.
After the morning lectura, I would go to a restaurant on my short list of awesome places to eat, eat, and thank the folks for feeding me during the semester.
Taxco:
This former mining town now renowned for it's silverwork is a peaceful, if touristic, spot not far from Cuernavaca and the perfect first step south. I stayed at a cheap hotel where I found an eight-ball of cocaine under my bedspread. I thought to myself what a deal the 70 peso room would have been if I was a coke addict and briefly considered finding a buyer for the drugs, thus financing my stay. But I didn't. I left it in a whole in the wall for the next lucky person.
I spent most of my day in Taxco reading in some homey little cafes and walking up to take in the view. I spent a good bit of the night playing guitar around the main plaza. The next day Scott (roommate) and Joseph (Luxembourg) came up to town and we had lunch before I boarded a bus to Acapulco.
Acapulco:
I arrived at dark and found out that the bus to Huatulco didn't leave 'til 2am. This meat Saturday Night in Acapulco. I stashed my gear at the station and went to the Costera with my guitar to see what I could see. I swam in a resort pool, played guitar on the rocks in the bay, watched some bungee jumping, generally enjoyed myself, and ended the night with a coffee, a pen, and a little notebook.
San Agustín:
After 12 hours of transit, my return to San Agustín was exactly how I pictured it. I rolled up to Charly's Place and welcomed like a long-awaited hero…that's just how the folks are. In no time flat I was laid back in a hammock by the bay, chatting away with a icy cold Indio in my hand.
Whereas the time before I paid for very little, this time I paid for nothing, every night I got several invitations to dinner and/or drinks and every morning I ate breakfast with Charly and his family (who were not there in September). A bonfire, a seaside hike, and several life lessons later, I was on my way to Pluma Hidalgo.
By the way, looks like the the royal wedding went down just fine, but not after some unbelievable hijinks and tear-jerking suspense.
To Be Continued...
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