The Adios Post (and Happy Birthday, Dad)

Due to popular demand, I have returned to recap the final couple weeks of my life in Mexico.

LA ULTIMA SEMANA EN SAN MIGUEL

The last week in San Miguel. The whole week was one long goodbye, more or less, which made it borderline unbearable because of my previously expressed preference for the quick and painless see-ya-and-flee-ya style farewells. Donna, Amanda, Helen (another volunteer), and I went out to dinner at El Rinconcito (The Little Corner) on Wednesday night and I had a delicious spinach and shrimp quesadilla as my final nice Mexican meal. Thursday was the big send-off. My last day at the daycare. Saying goodbye to the kids was heartwrenching. Despite the best efforts of the maestras, most of them didn't understand what it meant that I was leaving for my home far, far away, never to return. A few intelligent outliers did, though, which only made it worse. My swift escape at the end of the day was facilitated by my plans with most of the daycare staff to go out for drinks that night, thus reducing my number of immediately necessary goodbyes. For some things postponement is always preferable. My bee-line exit turned into more of a fruit-fly-line exit as the moms who knew it was my last day expressed their gratitude and I made sure all of the teachers were invited out that night, but I finally broke free. Over the last 8 or 9 years Casa/Hogar de los Angeles has had over 800 volunteers so I know the majority of the Mexicanitos have already forgotten about me, but I don't anticipate forgetting a single name.

DIA DE ACCION DE GRACIAS

Thursday (the 25th) was also Thanksgiving, as all of you proud, red-white (cell)-and-blue blooded Americans should know. Amanda and I went to Michael's house to have dinner with his very entertaining, very Texan family. Poppy also came to represent the integral British side to Thanksgiving, and Ozvanny came to remind us all that we were still in Mexico. A hired group of Mexican cooks provided the traditional American dishes (minus gravy...) and a father-daughter duo played live music for us, all set in the nicest house I have ever been in. Michael had fun telling the other guests that I voted for Obama. I didn't actually vote this year, so my typical honest response of "You know that's not true!" was usually enough to quell any impending confrontations. We may not see eye-to-eye on everything, but his family is amazing. Fun, quirky, and unwaveringly hospitable in true Southern fashion. I couldn't imagine a better way to have spent my first Thanksgiving away from home. Unfortunately we had to cut the night short to make our date with the teachers. We met them back near the daycare for micheladas. Micheladas are enormous Mexican drinks made of beer and a bunch of other stuff. The first one I ordered had mango, salsa, chili, and whatever else they put in a michelada. The second one was tomato juice, salsa, chili, and whatever else they put in a michelada. Sadly I had gorged myself on turkey at Michael's dinner so I was kind of a downer the rest of the night. The maestras got just drunk enough to keep me awake before slowly filtering out back to their families. Amanda and I ran back to the center of town so I could say bye to Ozvanny, Michael, Poppy, and my life in San Miguel. The next morning I was off to Mexico City.

MEXICO D.F.

I met Stu at the airport in Mexico City late Friday afternoon. I was like "what's up" and he was like "what's up" and we headed off to our Hugo's (our Couchsurfer) house. For those of you who don't know, www.couchsurfing.com is an amazing website that has people all over the world join to offer up their house for travelers to stay in free of charge. Hugo is a 30-year old Shell employee with a comfortable apartment and a disposition to match. Friday night he took us to the Lucha Libre matches (masked Mexican wrestling). It wasn't impressive, but it was fun. On Saturday Stu and I took the bus out to Teotihuacan, the ancient Aztec city. Well, the Aztecs named it Teotihuacan but it's old as sin so lots of people have been there... te Teotihuacan people for instance... Anyway, the ruins were breathtaking. The sheer size of the stone buildings on the expansive site would impress anyone (except maybe a blind man in a wheelchair whose companions refuse to push him around the site or describe it to him). Having just finished reading Aztec made it much more interesting for me personally. The next day we took a Turibus around Mexico City for the most efficient city tour possible. We saw the tallest building in some large area, a huge dog sculpture, and some more ruins (Templo Mayor) right in the city center. It really is the best way to get oriented with a city of that size.

PUERTO ESCONDIDO

Sunday night marked the departure for the first of many overnight bus rides as Stu, my tattoo, and I embarked on our way to Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. Beach time was a must. We were in Mexico, after all. Puerto Escondido (Hidden Port) is a touristy but very laid back town with a couple pristine beaches. It also gave us a chance to sit around and unwind for a couple days. The beach was relaxing and the hostel was nice but the Australian hostel owner, Steve, was a few poorly delivered jokes short of a Ben Stiller movie, if you know what I mean... Every time we saw him his first words were "Hey who are you boys!" He seemed to be the victim of a permanent mid-life crisis, but he ran a pretty cool hostel. Our one adventure in Puerto Escondido was an early morning sport fishing/dolphin watching/turtle swimming boat ride with three yawn-inducing German girls. One of them, the vegetarian, was horrified when Stu caught a giant fish within the first 10 minutes of the trip. I don't know what part of sport fishing sounded appealing to her, but it didn't seem to be the part where the Mexican boat driver bludgeoned Stu's fish to death with a crudely carved tree branch either. Nobody caught a fish after that, but we saw a bunch of dolphins. On the way back to shore I told the driver I wanted to swim with a sea turtle, so he said we'd find one. The plan was to dive in the water, swiftly commandeer the turtle, and use it to pull me wherever I steered it. Dive in the water: check. I was warned about the danger of the sharp shell and given no pointers on technique, so I was really never even close. After three failed attempts the driver said he'd catch one for me. Of course it was no effort for him to stick the rudder handle between his legs as he took off his hat and shirt, prepare a roap with a loop in it, cut the engine, dive off the moving boat, and lasso the turtle's fin to keep it from swimming away from me. Swith the turtle with a bad guy and it was straight out of a James Bond movie. After that swimming with the turtle was child's play. As he pulled the turtle on board to give everyone a closer look it made a comical attempt at biting me as it was dragged past me in the water. Once on the boat, the driver showed us the strength of the turtle's jaw/beak combo by letting him bite the stomach out of Stu's fish. So much for dinner. The major events of my brief swim on the turtle's back were something like this: Grab turtle's shell. Turtle turn toward boat and swim straight down. Let go of turtle immediately. Totally worth it.

SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS

San Cristobal is in the Southeastern state of Chiapas. Chiapas borders Guatemala and is famous for its indigenous population and handmade textile industry. It will be remembered by me for its two peso tacos. We mostly just walked around in San Cristobal, stopping at a couple churches and some local markets. The town would be great to live in, but as a tourist you really don't need more than a day or two. Everything is really lively and colorful and it just has one of those natural easy-going vibes.

PALENQUE

I think Palenque was the consensus favorite stop of our two-week voyage. Palenque is a city in the rainforest of Chiapas. The city itself is nothing to blog about, but the Mayan ruins and rainforest waterfalls most definitely are. We rented a room in this bungalow complex in the forest right outside the pyramids for $10 a night. The Palenque archaeological site was the best of the three we saw, mainly because it was in the rainforest and I love the rainforest. It seemed an unlikely location for a city to develop, which is maybe why it didn't really last all that long. There are plenty of well-preserved paintings and carvings and all the venders you could ever want. The venders are actually a point of interest, though, because of their foreign non-Spanish languages and their extremely colorful art. From the Palenque ruins we took a van to the Misol-Ha waterfall. My camera died at the pyramids so I have no pictures of Misol-Ha, but it's a pretty typical towering rainforest waterfall with a cold swimming hole at the bottom. Behind the waterfall is a 40 meter deep cave in the rock that you can explore for 10 pesos, but you can see practically to the end without even entering. From there we took the van to Aguas Azul, the most famous of the Palenque-related waterfalls. Aguas Azul is a string of shorter waterfalls with lots of pools for swimming or bathing. It gets its name (translated as blue waters) from the clear blue color of the water. Many people live along the waterfall and appeared to be using it for daily bathing activities. We hiked along the falls for around 30 minutes before concluding that they never ended. That's when we finally stopped for some food and a couple souvenirs. The next day we walked aimlessly around the city of Palenque waiting for our third and final overnight bus to leave. While waiting I finally got up the courage to try some disgusting tacos. I ordered two tripe tacos, one tongue taco, and one brain taco. I finished everything except the brain taco, which I ate half of. Horrificly nauseating, but I'm smarter because of it.

OAXACA

Oaxaca City, Oaxaca was the last real stop on our tour. On our arrival day we used whatever energy we had leftover from the bus ride to wander around the city. It's the biggest city we visited after Mexico City but, like Chiapas, it has a large indigenous population which helps make it more than just another big city. It also has a set of ruins on a mountain overlooking the city that we saw the following day. Monte Alban, an ancient Zapotec capital, is another archaeological site worth visiting if ever provided the opportunity. In some ways pyramids are just pyramids, but the three sites we visited each impressive in quite different ways, more for their natural settings than their historical or tribal origins. Hopefully the pictures will get some of that across.

BACK HOME

Uneventful for the most part. We spent our last night back in Mexico City with Hugo, ate some delicious tacos de pastor as our last Mexican meal, and took the subway to the airport the next day. Our first airplane was delayed just enough to make us miss our connecting flight in Atlanta, so my first night back in the US was spent on the wrong coast. But the hotel was comfortable and we were hooked up with some extra food vouchers. The plane ride was uncomfortable and included no free movies, so I played trivia against some other random passengers. Did you know Gerald Ford was the only person to serve as both vice president and president without ever being elected to either office? Well a lot of you probably did actually.

BERG'S EYE VIEW

- Ancient ruins would be way more awesome if they dressed up a bunch of indigenous people in era-appropriate clothing and had them walk around re-enacting the lives of former inhabitants. The most awe-inspiring part of seeing ancient artifacts is trying to imagine them being used in real life!

- In another Berg's Eye View I complained about Mexican people assuming I couldn't speak Spanish. Hugo explained to me that it's actually just the Mexican inclination toward hospitality. All they want is for me to feel at home at comfortable. It's a nice sentiment, but not totally convincing considering all the travellers there who spoke no Spanish.

- Although politics might be good indicators for some aspects of an individual's personality, for many intents and purposes politics are just politics.

- Subway systems are by far the best form of public transportation.

- Conservative people are not smart enough to recognize their own biases. They attributed the attacks in India that week to Obama's recent victory, saying his less aggressive approach to terrorism (the Middle East) opened the door for the attacks. It was irrelevant that although Obama has already assumed everything presidential except the title, technically Bush still has the power to prevent/respond/whatever, as was the fact that 9/11 happened during Bush's actual first year in office. Really Bush saved us by not letting 9/11 happen again. Of course there are equally ignored biases by all other political groups, but why would I want to recognize those?

- Mexican subtitles are really well thought-out. For instance, on High School Musical 2, when the songs are translated to Spanish, they are still made to rhyme. That way if you want to read the subtitles out loud it's still like a real song.

- Twilight might officially be the least enjoyable movie I have ever seen. I'm sure I have seen "worse" movies... meaning worse in a technical sense... but all of those "worse" movies have some redeeming entertainment value that allows Twilight to fall below them. To explain would require a new blog post, longer than all the rest combined. For any of you who enjoyed it, I am thoroughly insulted that you could like both that film and this blog.

- Blogging is so much easier than e-mailing.

ON THAT NOTE

The Blah Blah Blog is officially terminated. I hope those of you who made it this far found it to be, at the very least, a worthwile break from work.