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So smooth, such humming, greased gears to get here...
Only but two other anglos on the lesser known airline in bankruptcy flight.
A red-eye, cattle car full of families and me flying down to Mexico.
( I keep thinking of "Flying Down To Rio", with me as Fred Astaire... should have seen me dance down the plane's stairs. )
Infants wrapped on laps, people leaning over my aisle seat to "coo-coo, ka-choob" the little one. The kid slept like a baby... Not me. Too much going on, so many new sounds rattling around my non-translating head. The back of the seat translated loud and clear. Hard. Like a board that somehow ended up going down my backbone... It really added to the idea I was going somewhere I hadn't been. I looked outside and even from the take-off it felt and looked different.
Zowie this is okay!
Dennis had said of his flights to lands of unknown language that he just walked into a different door and came out not having a clue what folks were saying... It happened to me at the counter, before getting close to a door. The nice people there barely had a clue what I was saying and I sure wandered along to the obvious as my only direction known. Like a rolling stone, I followed the groups and families, tied up boxes and ladies with wonderful wraps. Only Anglo so far but the kindly and compassioinate smiles at my look of complete befuddlement warmed. I figured they'd had it so much tougher however they or a grandfather or father ever had coming to to this scary, expensive, bright and threatening country, where I felt comfy, other than going through Sebastopol when the cops are out stopping everybody. They were the ones who dared and kept their heads in the middle of a hostile, mess of loud, sometimes mean looking whites that couldn't even talk Spanish. Even when you talked slowly for them.
So here I was trying to learn Spanish listening carefully to the safety talk by the Flight Attendents... something Išve ignored for the last couple dozen years... I'd thought I had it by memory but this was a challenge to come up with the words for what they were saying.
Later I missed the Captain's wit I've come to anticipate so, waiting for take-off or letting folks know they're over The Grand Canyon. When we came down the steps in a completely different country than where I was before, the attendent said goodbye on the tarmac... It was dark and foggy, it could've been in Casablanca... I could've been Bogart, she Bacall... I feigned American stupidity (whatta stretch) by asking in halting English, "Did I miss anything important from the last Pilot announcement...?" She hadn't a clue what I was asking and with a very warm smile wished me a pleasant stay in her country.
Got it. New kid in Oz... Toto under my arm, I walked away in a somewhat moving group led by stragglers. Slackers at the head of the thinly strewn line were falling behind the uniformed and radio beholden airport fella.
I was the first foriegner to press the button releasing the a red or green random light indicating a customs search.
Red!
Rats... or rather, Carumba!
I'd nothing to fear but the entire unknown magic of Mexican History, Culture and Customs.
Well the Customs Lady unzipped the cheap, nylon satchel, and smiled, pointing to the exit.
Done? Well, okay... Not too shabby. But! What next?
As a complete, and probably more incomplete than most, ignoramus of buses, coinage (I had NO pesos) or really anything at that point (or now, really), I drifted to the only place with people milling arouind at 6:00 in the morning, the Cab Stand...
As a former Cabbie in a Adirondack town, where I more or less spoke the language, I enjoy cab rides, as the taker or took. In a bus, you can't see that much, you're cramped and I wouldn't really know where to get off. I felt I'd saved enough on the bankrupt airline's cheapfare last minute special to anyone, that I could splurge on a ride directly to the town where I was to meet a wedding full of friends.
(A-The guy at the cab stand-)******* (Spots like the astricks are notes for me to fill-in when I get a chance) Once he woke up He seemed to want to do a super job since this was a monster fare, away from the dispatcher, flying down the highway and free as a bird! Once he woke up, that is... He'd been snoozing in the car when another guy, helping me find my cab, banged on the window rousting him from a good sleep. It took a bit for sweet sleep to release him. Well, the local news, chirpy banter and interesting sites pointed out to me by my driving companion were lost in a the communication breakdown, then sadly by my no comprendez, into a quiet ride.
Sure was a difference between Oakland and Leon right off the bat. In pre-dawn dark, some on-coming drove without lights, some had lights out right, left or really neat home-made lights. The roadside signs and stuff were painted on building walls, like murals. It sank in when leaving open high desert, driving through a little town. People waiting for buses, walls falling down. Walls, walls, walls... Walls with wooden doors. That's a delight that's stuck. What's behind the walls? Elegant courtyards? Cramped rooms with many generations? It could be either next to each other.
The cab crested a hill and a city was nestled below an eastern horizon meant for John Ford Westerns.. Buttes rising vertically, flat-topped for miles, cut sharply into a different direction. Ford could do Buttes... He could do clouds. No clouds now, so Buttes would have to do. We passed the city that I later heard was as gorgeous as any Dennis had seen in all of Europe. Guanojouto.
The linguistically frustrated two of us flew on, passing the few trucks and cars with some abandon, not nuts, but some. I just looked around the whole wide view. Zooming into the sunrise through canyons, arroyos, past cattle grazing here and there, apparently on nothing. Every mile we'd pass someone in the middle of nowhere going who knows where.
(B-More vistas, wide,wide-****)
Over another crest and out there is a valley, lake and roads leading up into darn serious hills. Above is a town. Rising above the town are steeples and other big church stuff. We hit cobblestones and much more traffic, it getting closer to after 7am.
The driver had tried to tell me things but I was as dumb as a bag of hammers. He stopped and asked brother cabbies how to get to the center of town. It took some explanation for my out of town driver to get the new kid in town, into town. Cars blocked up behind the direction giving cab as well as us, with nobody getting upset. We bumbled the cobblestones road up further and further.
Steep streets.
Walls on both sides with ceramic street numbers and house names. Sometimes street names were painted on the corner walls, sometimes it was a little more serious. We ended up riding past a tall and taller stone Church-Cathedral--Jeezus it was so big you can call it what you want-- Bascillica thing.
Zowie!
Halfway circling the square, I told my by now pal, that this was just fine. He got a fair tip for the States but I later found he would remember this ride for a while, in his local tip story circles. Part of my steerage fare for the un-sleeping hours on the plane.
I had two places to head to check on the friends from afar.
(C--La Connection, Hotel call with Delia-Farley...*****)
What a great swing into a new country and culture... friends already there. Friends who I see on the streets at home, folks I wave at when driving the winding back-roads around our hills, and palaver with in the coffee joints every morning.
Good Golly, I flew into Mexico on training wheels and now I'm finding handrails on the sidewalks...
{Pause, take a breath}
Stop the presses...
Dennis doesn't do coffee.
The man from Sonoma County figured for over 15 minutes, maybe he ought not disturb a tender, tenuous balance between feeling peaked or tiping over into grim.
But it's only 8am. and while at The Roadhouse in Bodega he'd be on number 2, with some notes written on the cup's side in stubby pencil, this was San Miguel. Things start later, watch the kids playing, parents sitting and watching in the Jardin, the garden and Bandstand in The Plaza. When they end, I can't say. Too late for this bear way way away and out of the woods. Haven't plumbed the later hours yet.
But so far, Dennis is un-caffienated today.
So I'll go on with this and keep an eye on Dennis' Cafe Americano intake, partake or what-not.
The Plaza in front of the magically lit Bascillica (The Parrochia) is filled with famlies and all their parts until midnight Sunday. The ten piece brass band was knocking them dead later than I could postpone nap-time 'till breakfast.
People walking streets, sometimes the two anna-half foot wide sidewalks. Sharing the walkways with dogs, constant taxis and the ever-present washing and old broom sweeping. Friendly people who seem to put up surprisingly well with the huge American presense.
The fumes from the San Miguel bus traffic can be rough. Combine that with the altitude and we got here a darn real wasted American presense. Sick from heights, not food or water. Altitude and dehydration. It took Monday from Friday to hit, but at least it was mild. So far today, after surviving a walk from the park, I was too tired to go another step.I left first with a spring in my step and some blisters in my boots. Too much cobblestone wandering for these feets. But! Valkerie, Val-ker-RAH...etc,., etc., etc....
There's been a confused cafe shared with the counsel from the good ol' U.S. of A. Upstairs an Internet Provider due further consideration.
I'd stopped there on my right quick upon Mexico touchdown. The first day , shoot... the first minute I found the wedding group- Sweet Ms. Delia had called down the hill saying her Father, the presiding wedding Clergy, needed help getting a file from a new iMac translucent into and out of a printer so he could read it at the next day festivity. AND, his talk of comfort, thought provoking stimulation or whatever Unitarian leaders say Sundays as preaching. God- I doubt any self-respecting Unitarians would be so bossy or so sure of a position as to preach... Anyway, after a straight-forward greeting from Farley, the father, Farley The Unitarian spoke. It wasn't working and without a needed Mac part he should have had, it wouldn't fly. We figured a way was needed to print off a Mac file, but the whole town was hooked on Pc's.
Pause... You know it can be extrapolated to a couple different directions when noticing the phone book has a zillion Catholic Churches but no listings for the solo Unitarian. So I went down the street with a sad story of a lonely Unitarian needing a Samaritan who prints Macintosh.
So... The shop upstairs from The American Counsel said it wasn't at all normal, but there was a Mac in back they could use to help.
Salvation!
And when I was apologetically whining about a tic in their web-site I'd seen in the States, they cared and asked for suggestions and ideas. Well... what do you know. It wasn't their site I was pissing and moaning about... ho, ho, ho... Maybe taking a little time to think before bellyaching is a good idea on both sides of the border.
Down the bumpy cobblestone road stuffed in a king-cab import truck, heading out of San Miguel on my first trip out. Again, on the way to the bus, we saw known faces who blew kisses and waved so-long from the sidewalk. It was Carol & Laleini who put on the Contact Improvisational Deance Performance in The Jardin Bandstand.I waved too, but smiled as I'd figured to be back in a few days, only taking the five hour bus ride to visit a Coffee Farm owned by relations of a friend of Michael's.
I told Farley I was lookking forward to hear Sunday's Preaching... Didn't say preach.
Wasn't sure about the five hour bus ride though as we had a slow-motion family style start. I knew it would be an atmosphere filled with small people noise, a pre, almost teen boy, and Dad who's mind might be with butterflys or 16th Century Agri-nomics as the toddler, "O", wanders into traffic or over a ledge. That would be the tough nut for me... I go bonkers over parents who unnecessarily allow kids into difficult spots. Whether crashing valuables or falling off walls, I can't take these scenes. Scenes I knew I'd see. I'd put in my mental pocket the easing, loosening thoughts of a slinky... just follow the flow, bounce off the rock. Kids are flexible, they bend and generally don't break. Yeah... well, at least I meant okay in the conscious stream. I figured choking back my fright would be the ticket price to wander through a world I'd never otherwise see. Yep, there's be some swallowing ahead. And patience with the meals and noise, meals and spills and stop and start departures... Lighten up... you're travelling with others, in general and kids as a highlight. No schedule, no worry... But! Because of each & all the travelling friends, it would be a time spent so well, so full.
From the San Miguel Bus Station on, it was non-stop, rolling commotion. "The Bus is outside waiting..." pick up a calvary troop's load of baggage and off we go toward a greenstripe bus in a long row of the same. Questions, answers in another language. Looks from woman, mothers, looks consoling Karen with her armload of baby, two year old shadow, and Stewart. Then there's me doddering along bewildered. I tried to keep in line like a baby duck. "Quack, quack,quack..." Mike walks with his head up, sort of oblivious of us, almost sniffing the air like a hunting dog... Eyes above the turmoil and confusion of it all. Tickets handed, bags stowed below, heading out to Querettero, a town I couldn't pronounce, much less knew where it was or where anything was from there. Our crew trundled back to the back of the bus. Somehow, we swept up the attention of most all the other riders. It was easy to settle into the seat and drift along with the brown washed scenes flowing along the road. Up the winding hill from town, following a slow, big truck and another bus.
The Cab ride in from the airport early in the quiet morning traffic had been my only other foray into a more real Mexico. Is this where the bus passes on a blind turn and we all become statistics? Do we get held up by caricature bandits? Or Cops? Federales... I doan need no stinkin'... Soes a stupid American's back-pack fall off the luggage rack killing a Campesino?
It was a smooth, easy ride up the hill and along the higher plateau, dryer with green irrigation fields plopped down and spotted with little Corona signed markets and wide drives for bus stops. The ride hasn't ended in a fiery crash during the first thirty minutes and I really start to relax. "Quack, quack, quack...
If I was in love with Mexico from the first couple days, every mile rolling by in the bus just reinforced the whole affair. People walking, standing by the road. Kids of so many ages laughing and playing. The amazing wide high horizons. Even in vloser valleys, this is a mighty big country. I wonder if I'm reacting the same as how the first time folks feel about Montana, Colorado or Utah... Europeans always come out of it saying how big America feels to them. This time, I'm the one in awe. Arms to reach out as far as your imagination can stretch, as far as a yell can holler. Wide and wider eyeball scenes.
After a bit, we look over a valley, city stuff pointing out from the maze of brown. We start passing big buildings, manufacturing size with English logos and stylish signs writ on the sides. American and some European companies making things for themselves. The New Holland farm equipment, tractor making place, was so spiffy. So clean and bright with lots of lights. OUtside were numbers and numbers of men and women walking in for work. OUtside were the American style "Grounds" of the "Plant". Green and manicured just so fine. Outside of the glass encased showroom for big shiny Tractors were ten or fifteen new ones sitting outside, parked like displayed diamond necklaces in a fine jewlelry store. Placed and adjusted just so... "Tweak that ones wheels a little to the right, no... too far..." Like a bunch of big work places, there was a soccer field alongside. Way in the back of the field, by the far goal were five or seven big dump truck piles of landscaping soil. Black, rich, good cut-grass growing soil that farmers could never afford. Like litle play figures, three guys with wheelbarrows were moving the soil from one end of the field to the near goal. Little bitty piles showed where they'd dumped the morning's effort. Humongous tractors, loaders, scrapers sat not far away. Machines that could empty Pennsylvania coal country in a few days, just sitting there in the sun. But that was the point. They were for Pennsylvania. Or Texas. Or anywhere but around here.
The bus kept going past more and more shiny anglo biz shops. Volvo had a mighty cute storefront. There was a neat incongruency between the Mexican businesses and the imports. The imports seemd so plastic, so un-real and out of place. The Mexican were lived-in, down to earth, sometimes a little too true to be talked. Dogs would be hanging around. Kids playing with scrap iron or whatever. Auto repair, any repair much less manufacturing was done out of doors. On the ground. In the red and brown dirt, the grounding of the work.
But if the stuff was going on inside, it was dark. A smokey dark, spared of the white pristine light, flavored with the pulsing glow of a single yellow bulb. Shadows ebbed. The texture of a room pumped with the change as the power in the place rose or fell. It would rise and fall with a rythym, a beat, fade low, fade up. The refrigerator folowed the tune. Electricity here had a flow, a time, it's signature, her ring... every house, shop or store pulsed with it's own.
Off to the left was the older section of the pink, dome and stone town. Querretero was the state capital, humming along with investment and slow to the downtown observer. Everyone seemed to be in molasses. It really has the look of a cartoon. Maybe it was just that one afternoon that friends told me about. I haven't a clue, I didn't go into town. Only the bus station for me. We went by a big stadium, round with Pepsi signs on the hill to the right. Boom, there's there Bus Station. Bright, shiny, everything to put one at ease in a flourescent, glass and depot upholstery seat.
Mike was on top of the counter, figuratively, checking bus times, and routes to Xilitla. I hadn't any idea where we were going, much less how it's pronounced or what transfered may be needed. Quack... I followed O and Stewart around the Depot. Karen sat with Maj, the baby, and baggage. That was most likely a rest for her. Sigh and settle, wait for the next charge out to a bus. I kept Mike's ticket routine in the corner of my eye as I would somehow be coming back this way sometime soon, sans any speaking talent. But, it was fun wandering after a two year old O. Stewart kept throwing interesting things in front of his attention span. O attracted all the female folks, they'd coo and smile and point O out to other little kids. Finally they paused long enough at two twin quarter a ride car machines. They had the pesos for the thing and were in bliss momentarily. O wondered when anything really cool would happen. The thing just chugged and rocked a little. It was a lot more fun going up the road where he lived. The little kid stuff was going delightful.
A rush and here we go to a waiting bus! Lumber the mounded baggage, hand over tickets and find some seats in the back on our way to a place I still have to look up to have any chance to spell, other than it ending in "quilpan". It was to the south. Directions, I have down fairly good. This was a longer ride, uneventful other than a yellowing and easing of the bright sun as it got later in the day. Softer light on the fields. People walked like they were on the road home from working all day. Guys hanging around outside of shops or businesses were hanging around a litle more seriously. Goats were being herded back to a home from the fields by old ladies with sticks and dogs. The Corona signed Bar's with big signs that said, "Bar" on the side, had a lighter, more frivolous crowd outside. Not darker or all that, just getting past the work day time. And the bus kept going who knows where, I didn't know.
Hola! Wherever it was we're going, we must be there because the bus is stopping and Mike's getting up to head out. So I will too. There seemed to be a question of whether to keep going to another un-pronouncable town or stay here for the night, long enough to learn this town's name. A question that didn't get addressed, much less answered before the bus to that place, the same bus we were on, left into the dusk. We packed into a cab, with string tying the larger duffel bags with tents, into the back of the cab's trunk. The guy was darn nice, showing us some terrible looking hotels on the main highway through town. Asked about the older section of wherever we were, He steers into a very pleasant place of a Square and it seems quite the okay. All through this the question was being bandied about the next town, and maybe jump back on a bus, getting there in the real nightime. Sure, why not... But! Kids and dinner apparently was a major good idea. The driver was asked and gave a good place for chow. Let's invite hom to dinner so we don't have to untie the trunk and get another guy! That was easy. So this was the first dinner with smaller people for me, other than the sandwiches in a depot.
Not in any way was I leery, for a dislike in kids. But in another life in The US, I live by myself, and it isn't a factor in enjoying a meal. Or drive. Or stuff. Just isn't in the daily routine. By a long stretch. l spill stuff on a keyboard and it's part of the dumbo section of the day. One of the dogs wags a tail spinning a dish over and I don't get upset with the good dog. Shouldn't be any different with smaller or younger humans...
I'd found the next town, said to be more Indian, in the mountains and green was called Thomas and Charley's. It sounded that anyway. Sort of like a cute Bar name. So I kept thinking of the place like that. Taumazoncharle could have been a cute Bar for all I knew which wasn't and isn't much. But it sounded just fine when we were in a flat town with little obvious to show for itself. Hmmm... That sounds more ethnocentric cruel than I'd rather be. Modify that last judgement, ok? I can't find the eraser. Thanks...
We drove through the rest of the old town, our backs to the nice old hotels by the plaza, back past the crummy motels we hadn't liked and back past the Bus Station, down the road we'd come in on earlier. There we parked at an big open Bar-B-Que Chicken place. The open-air attitude was perfect after the bus and cramped cab ride. Wandered for a bit through all the neat stuff for sale then settled down to chow. Easy menu idea... Chicken! Pollo sounded fine and dandy for all. I started to catch the rythym of meal time con familia. The limonda had become my catch all beverage. Coke or a like sweet soda was the main hit of most of Mexico, or so it seemed in the goodly share of these circumstances.
A fair share of the talk was about the scenes we were heading into. It all sounded wonderful but vague. I couldn't really grab a handle on the prospect yet. Green was the central theme, as well as indigeneous folks wearing colorful clothes and a Zapatista political bent. The politics were as hard to grasp as anything. The point that sunk in was that the Zapatistas were trying to help the Indians gain a fair share in the expanding prosperity other Mexicans felt was open to all, but wasn't. Simplistic, but I was just trying to get an outline of the story. Staying out of the way was the obvious way to stay safe. I sank into the idea of a warmer, greener place, mountains and markets, smaller towns and closer people. I was on the bus. Well, first we had to finish dinner and get back on the bus.
Stewart figured a lime in his Coke needed some mixing, so he put his thumb on the top and shook the bottle. It exploded with a sugary bath of carmel coloring all over our very pleasant Cab Driver. It was time to leave.
Dusk getting further, bathroom trips dealt with and here we go, back onto the flat ground sided highway with dark blue mountains to the right rising up high into the evening sky. The road eventually heads more east as we rise and Venus is outside the bus' left side.
I try to close my eyes when dark cuts the scenery to moving stencils against the side thrown flash of bus headlights. I turn to tech from a different space and listen to a cassette. The turns are getting tighter, the road's curve drawn gravity pushes and pulls me from the window to the middle arm rest. In the night I can see the brush become softer, wider leaves and less desert tested. It isn't in a survival race to preserve every drop of moisture. . We're in a different clime alright. The air's different. It flows against your face. Not raw, there's a depth, a fullness next to you.
We've come up from the high desert plateau of the central region and climb into the 12,000 foot level. Then over and east, off the crest of The Sierra Madre. Dropping altitude to reach the sub-tropical, lush mountains.
Limbs and brush brush against the bus on the inside turns. On the outside curves, I look out the window and down. Way down. Way down there, stright, straight below are little bitty lights of a small town or village. Ninety degree straight down from the safety of my window. We're in a steep, steep section of mountain road so it seems. The foliage has turned to broader leaves, sillouted on the hillside side out the window.
There's a bathroom and stretch stop. We'd made tight turns slowing into a low lit town. Out to wander and the climate's different. Thicker, more humid. Warmer and the people are dressed less like Anglos out of K-MArt. They're more real to me. Don't know why. I guess I want Indians to be more independent of the greater culture. The Corona Bar was there, guys outside hanging around watching the bus come in. An open garage door filled with a family, little girl cooking over a propane flame. Mom is at the cigar box holding change. Brothers, cousins and all sorts of others giving ideas, teasing and watching the small T-V with aluminum foil on the rabbit ears. Stewart buys some candy from a home-made rack behind the fold-up kitchen table, garage-store counter. Girls and boys are staring at him. It continues as earlier. They can't figure out if he's a boy or girl. Nino?... No Nina?... rolled eyes, more stares, continued, if not even more interest. Long hair and delicate features make it a tough call.
There's a couple food stands. Single fellas from the bus seem to gravitate to the stand-up next to where the bus stoped. A Bar not far gets some others... A horse and burro were loosly tied by sisal rope reins to a open front door handle. The rest seem to head up hill, everywhere in this neat little town is up or down hill, to the open family garge sale food place we happened to hit.
It's geting later and still, out here away from bigger towns, people are out wandering around the town, hardly a wider spot in the highway, visiting, playing, chasing dogs who're chasing their tails. The food places have a glow surrounding them. The town is dark for the most part. Dim lights follow cement houses with people outside up the meandering, narrow streets down and up from the highway. Half the streets weren't meant for cars or trucks. More human and animal oriented. Groups of folks, groups of men, groups of women, divided again by rough age changes. Older, and real old. Younger and those who've found themselves on the farher edge of young. Kids and dogs played on and through the unseen loosely defined lines.
The driver walks back from the Banos carrying his toilet paper. It goes back on the dashboard, facing the oncoming traffic through the windhield like the multiple Virgin of Guadalupe's, equally protecting us from disaster.
Time to get on the bus and back into the night.
More curves and seat sliding. The window was lightly slashed by boughs and brush from the hillside or a black night view dropped to little lights below. We were leaving the crest, off the high plateau. Dropping so many meters of altitude as we lowered into the banana lush steep Mountainsides.
Easing down the road, the grade flattens as we approach Tamazonchale. This seems to be one of the tiny towns I saw straight below the bus window just a while ago. Growling bus engine, compressed RPM's... A few commercial lights coming up. A main street, more stuff than the rest lately seen. A hotel, and taxis lazily leaned against in the midnight every-town promnade. Our circus lugs bags and piles on the sidewalk. Mike talks with a few folks standing around. Now this is more like it. Outside, out of the bus and there it goes. A town so different than the last stop with our cab-driver dinner-mate. The lush green goes way up right behind the street-side buildings. Way up into the dark. Green to mystery to to to black to stars. As is becomning the usual we stand out from the rest of the guys hanging out on the curb. We get into a cab. PAck into a cab, it's close. Drive to a few places. We start to get with the story. The hotels on the main drag are booked or so far expensive, it's a wonder they get sold. The driver has one last idea... Go for it we encourage. Back out the road once travelled, a turn, a driveway, a motorcourt as sweet as Clark Cable and Claudette Colbert would love. As it happened we were dead tired, took two little rooms for the night and slept.
After sleep, we woke with Banana leaves and a meandering foggy morning river out the window. Well, I slept. Stewart, my 12 year old room-mate, didn't get the best of the two beds. But I paid for both, so I didn't get too heartbroken. It took a long while to get moving. The change from high desert to humid lush jungle mountains was setting in. A long walk along the river. A thought of how it would be during heavy rains. Neck cranning the reach of the surrounding mountainsides. As lazy as the river, the day eased into focus. Back to the rooms as the rest of the combinations were waking up to this next stage. Baby, infant and the Wedding couple working on the good mornings and starting the basic day first mind-body explorations. It seemed as though this travelling dinosaur needed another brain in the tail just to get the whole package moving. I was ever-more the duck, walking behind, quacking, eyes wide, brainless.
Speaking with the motor-court, but here, hotel person, we got an idea how far from town we were. Not too far, but no phone, Cambio's every now and then, but jammed, as we found. Loaded with that info, we bundled the gear up to the road, piled it in a reasonable place and waited for a ride into town. And waited. Vans piled high with people sailed by. Pick-up trucks were filled. I got to watch a crew working on a big concrete culvert. Watched and nodded my head at the tough digging to place the thing. Quack.
Shoot. Let's hoof it into town.
The Parade didn't move too quick, not to lose stragglers to the drop-off to the river, or the traffic on the road. We passed little shacks of tin and leaves along the way. A lady sewing beautiful work on a white cloth. Chickens, turkeys and pigs just below the drop, the bank worked to keep the riff-raff out. It kept me out, but my golly, I was drawn in... fascinated, wanting to absorb all I could. Stumble, falter, eyes everywhere. A big spider was the attention grabber for Stewart. He drifted through the male-kid stage where he wanted to kill most everything alive. Exert power. Effect a change on his surroundings? I don't know. It just wasn't what my first response to a neat spider had been. Good thing for the spider it was already dead.
By the time a sidewalk came about, I was thinking that's okay. The travelling thing about lugging bags is not what I accept all that well. When I rode frieght trains, the first thing you do is stash the satchell in the weeds, then scope out the deal. That way you make your own identity. You come at someone neutral. 'Course around here, I come at folks screaming, "El Dumbo". My translation. I'm on a different locomotive down here.
**********************
Shhh... This is Xilitla, Mexico at sunrise... That's where the bus is heading... Don't tell Kurt.
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