2/8-14: San Cristobal-Jose Luis's Galactic Station

Jose Luis

I loved Jose Luis’s place immediately! His was a large guest house in a farm-like setting that  reminded me of Asheville, North Carolina. The house consisted a large main room which worked non-stop as the kitchen, dining, and living area and maintained a rural Montana or New Mexico vibe. The wood floors creaked constantly enhancing the rustic, frontierish ambiance.

I found Jose Luis to be one of the youngest 57-year olds I’d met. He spoke good English thanks in part to having lived, married and had children in the US, and acted as though we’d known each other for years. I thought it was because he had met Chris in January, but this was just how he was with everyone! 

Jose Luis's Place

2/8: San Cristobal-Inadequate Introductions

Chiapas

Chiapas is an incredibly beautiful, fascinating place whose history, including the Mayan ruins in Palenque, draws visitors from around the world. Its very pheromones seem to exude the essence of authentic and unapologetic revolution, revolt, and independence. While Tuxtla Gutierrez is now its capitol, San Cristobal is the political and spiritual center of the local Mayan/Mestizo population, and an epicenter of the Zapatista movement that became a sensation for successfully revolting against the Mexican government in 1994. Images of Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, and Subcomandante Marcos are never far away and have even become an important part of the areas primary industry: tourism.

This is by no meant as a comprehensive historical account, but briefly the Zapatistas (EZLN) brand and market themselves as an indigenous movement demanding to simply be left alone to live their traditional way of life unmolested by the Mexican government. During the '94 uprising, the Zapatistas occupied four cities in the mountains surrounding, and including, San Cristobal. After a bloody battle in Ocosingo, in the mountains a few hours northeast of San Cristobal, they eventually reached an edgy compromise with the federal government ending outward hostilities, but tensions continue today due in large part to what international watchdog groups described as a brutal government repression of the uprising. Examples included aerial bombardment of indigenous villages surrounding San Cristobal, torture, summary executions, and mass graves with much of the violence perpetrated against the unarmed, indigenous population of the area. Being there 17-years later, it was eerily common to see fully armed troops stationed at various points around the city, particularly El Centro.

2/7-8: Cancun to San Cristobal-Mexico Real

Regrettably, there are areas where we as Americans have utterly failed. Public transportation is one of them. When Americans think of Mexican buses, they think of sweaty, overcrowded, chicken-filled, mechanically questionable jalopies lumbering down underdeveloped, bandit-filled roads. While I’ve heard they do actually exist, the general stereotype is horseshit. Settling in aboard the Cristobal-Colon coach bound for San Cristobal, I thought of the South African woman I shared an overpacked Greyhound with in ‘08. She found American buses disgusting, the customer service appalling, and put the blame squarely on Greyhound’s virtual monopoly. Although Cristobal-Colon is a Mexican second-class line, it’s one of several to choose from and in direct comparison, Greyhound is clearly the cattle car company in the conversation!

2/3-7: Tulum, Mexico

Checking out of the hostel and running around took most of the morning, and by the time we settled into our early afternoon bus south, I was ready to be rid of Cancun. In retrospect it was probably a combination of things: hearing Chris rave about how "expensive" it was in Cancun although, compared to the US, it seemed dirt cheap to me, plus an extreme curiosity to see what "real" Mexico was like as opposed to the place where all the signs were also in English.

2/1-3: Cancun, Mexico

My flight's path was over the Gulf of Mexico directly to the Yucatan Peninsula, and seeing the shoreline I was struck that, other than Juarez across the Rio Grande from I-10 in El Paso, I was finally glimpsing something other than Terra Americana/Canadia for the first time since briefly living in Germany when I was 15. As the plane descended, it was clear from the air that this was indeed another world; one I was eager to see with my own eyes as opposed to the controlled electronic agenda-driven snapshots we are inundated with in the States.

Mexico: A Prologue

Despite simmering on a hidden backburner for a year or two, the notion of traveling to Mexico and the rest of Latin America is something that never went away. A trek to Peru was one of my original ideas well before 2008 when Chris and I spent countless hours bouncing adventureman ideas around his Denver apartment imagining such an adventure. As you can imagine there were the endless questions about things such as safety, corruption, the culture, and language barriers. Then in February '09, when I reconnected with my "long lost" family, the travels made it clear that they had their own ideas about where I would be going and why.

A Patricide

As is typical, the preceding Waiting for the Miracle idea is mostly distilled from my own experiences, so there is one glaring caveat to the subject that I should address.

That sense of waiting is something that had just always been there. I have never had a real point of comparison so my cause may be different from someone else's, yet I know "waiting" isn't rare. I've seen it in several other people: it seems there comes a time, perhaps with the realization that time's no longer our friend, when we begin to see that the miracle just isn't coming and we'd better get off our asses and start looking for answers ourselves. 

Waiting for the Miracle

Baby, I've been waiting,

I've been waiting night and day.

I didn't see the time,

I waited half my life away.

There were lots of invitations

and I know you sent me some,

but I was waiting

for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

I know you really loved me.

but, you see, my hands were tied.

I know it must have hurt you,

it must have hurt your pride

to have to stand beneath my window

with your bugle and your drum,

and me I'm up there waiting

for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

- Leonard Cohen

It seems as though some among us who are actively seeking their own answers are determined to seek their validation and enlightenment via mentors, sages, cultural shamans, or even personal saviors rather than through the experience of meeting the personal challenges required to win a hard-earned wisdom.

Avatars and Cheese

Over the last two-years, there were numerous times I’ve caught myself making decisions so that my "story" would be better. The blog had become a bit of a hybrid creative-outlet/ego-feeder; something I too closely identified with. I liked the idea that I was doing something that others either couldn't do or were afraid to, and naturally that appealed to me! Telling the story has, at times, shadowed why I'm doing it. Nothing personal, but what I'm doing should have nothing to do with entertaining anyone else!