Lenhart | Mexico
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Jason's Journal

Mon Jul 21 13:31:00 2003
I haven't written nearly enough about food. My favorite thing to do while trvelling is eat the local food. Mexican food ranks among my favorite cuisine. Mexicans also cook their food well. Last night Jason and I ate at a place on the street in Tuxtla Gutierrez. We each ate two prok tacos in a corn tortilla and a "Taco Gringa"--flour tortilla with pork and cheese. Mexicans rarely add lots of stuff into the basic dish that they serve you. Rather they deliver several bowls of condiments. Last night for example there was a dish of lime, a dish of chopped cilantro and onion and a dish of some delicious hot green salsa.

Pezole is the classic example of this culinary tradition. While in Zihuatanejo we went out for Pezole. Zihuatanejo has a Pezole tradition: nearly all the local eateries prepare Pezole on Thursday and Saturday. Pezole is a fairly simple pork hominey soup. The broth is fairly think. In the region of Gurerro there's a unique style of pezole, pezole verde, which involves adding mile green chili in the cooking process. I like pezole verde better than pezole blanco, which is the pezole you find in other regions of mexico. Anyway, Zihuatanejo takes its pezole quite seriously and we got pezole eating lessons for the guy at "Any." Pezole is served with no fewer than seven condiments in Zihuatanejo. Chopped onion and radishes are added to the pezole first. Then chopped jalepeņo. Ground oregano, which you should pour into your palm and then grind further so as to release more flavor, is added next. Chili de Arbol, which is supposed to be hot as hell, is added next. Don't use your hands or risk getting it in your eyes latter. Then you add cheese and avacado chunks to your liking. I added lots of avacado. Finally, add some cheese. That is how I was told to prepare my pezole. It is served with pork rinds, chips and tiny tostada like things. The man says you are supposed to use both hadns when you ea pezole, one for the soup and one for the sides. After each bite of soup, have a bit of a side. Repeat until stuffed.

Tues 22 Jul 13:13:34 2003
I am in San Cristobal de las Casas. I've accomplishd another goal.

The Zapatistas suspended communication with the Mexican govornment today. This is in response to the federal elections held at the beginging of the month. There are Zapatista dolls for sale on the street, and Zapaista pens, and Subcomandant Marcos T-shirts. The dolls don't talk with the mexican government either.

We met a very nice woman namd Sarah at our hostel. She's is working to get a PhD in History with an emphasis on Mexico. She wen to Brown and we have a number of mutual friends from there (via St. Anthony Hall.) Sarah, Jason and two other guys from our place, Mark and Andy, wen out last night. San Cristobal likes to party. Where have you been that Monday is a party night? I've been to San Cristobal. We kept getting beer at two for oe prices. In Mexico this means they bring you two beers ever time you order one. This also happens with Tequila. On a Monday.

We aren't driving anywhere today. Naps and trips to the market. We're going to see a Myan village tomorrow.

The drive into San Cristobal is beautiful. San Cristobal is 2100 meters above sea level, in a valley, and the drive enters the clouds on the way up. The air cools me here.

Thur Jul 24 2003 13:18
San Cristobal has been great. For one thing, I've stopped leaking water. Mexico is hot and humid and in the below 500 meters, I sweat profusely. In San Cristobal, I sleep with a blanket and wear a sweater at night.

My will to write is flagging. Maybe that's because the cgi code I wrote broke and updating this page has become more work. (The cgi thing is quite mysterious. Computer programs aren't supposed to stop working after they've worked. I sure it is my fault. But that doesn't maek my life easier. I need to learn to write php.)

The only problem that San Cristobal has is that there are too many minging hippies. The town has a sizable tourist population from all over the world. Unfortunately, about thirty percent of them believe dreadlocks and patchouli exhibit a sense of style. There's one other problem, which involves the church, saint's days and fireworks at five, six and seven in the morning.

We're headed to a Mayan village today. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to photograph any of it.

We're taking a bus over night to Playa del Carmen tonight. The bus is alot more expensive than driving, but it allows us to sleep and travel at the same time. We will stay for a night, go snorkelling or diving and hangout on the beach. We got the Doņa Rosita, the woman who runs our hostel, to let us park my car at her place for three nights.

Thu Jul 24 16:58:30 2003
I added captions to all my photos the other day.

It rained our second afternoon in San Cristobal, so we read books. I enjoyed a trip around the market after the rain stopped. I didn't take any pictures because I have heard that someone told the Mayans that the gringos are here to steal their children and, for this reason, they don't like cameras. Many of the people in the market were Mayans and I didn't want to offend them, or make them think that I wanted to steal their kids. I had at least one photo oppertunity: a kid sleeping in a pile of belts. We spent alot of time with Sarah, the girl here to study women's participation in Mexican politics and revolution. She taught us good spanish slang. 'No mames' means what 'you've gotta be fucking kidding me' means.

We went to that Mayan village today and toured the church. There are no guides or people who explain the rituals. Here's what I saw. The architechture of the church resemebles that of a European church on the inside, but is distinctly mexican on the outsdie. Thought the floor was tilled, it was covered in pine straw, except at the altars, of which there were about twenty-five. In the front was the main altar with a statue of Jesus, and all around the sides, and in the middle where ordinarily one would have seen pews, were altars to saints. Every altar had at least onehundred and fifty candles before it and most had someone praying and chanting in Mayan. The worshipers often had something with them that they involved in their ritual, such as eggs or coke. Yes, Coca-cola. I have been told that Mayans believe that burping expels bad things and they often drink coke as part of rituals. The eggs, uncracked, were rolled around the body of one woman while she prayed. We did not see any live chickens, but hear tales that they are used in healing rituals on Sundays.

Fri Jul 25 21:09:59 2003
I can hardly remember where I left off. There was a long bus trip over night and through the morning to Playa del Carmen.

Before we got on the bus we ate at a small place on the street in San Cristobal. There was a big wood chopping block on which a man chopped pok chops that were sitting out in the air after having been cook. Delicious chops, but thinking about how infrequently that block got washed gave me an idea. "We should get a shot of Tequila before we get on the bus. Nothing can live in Tequila." The bar-pizzaria we steped into seemed to know what we needed. i have never seen such a big shot of tequila. After we drank that, we got a little more. All told it must have been four or five ounces. We did not get sick.

The bus ride took three hours longer than advertized. I have heard that Mexican buses are quite nice and quick. I have evidence to deny the latter. As for the former: perhaps your average Mexican standing at five feet four and one half inches would agree; I know of at least two corn-fed american boys who disagree.

Playa del Carmen has divine beaches. The sand isn't sand, but fine bits of coral. It doesn't get hot. The water is this color:
amazing


Sat Jul 26 17:01:19 2003
There were no sharks. Not even ones significantly smaller than me. I suppose that I can survive failing to meet my goal of see ing a shark bigger than me.

I went snorkelling yesterday. The snorkelling in Playa del Carmen is pretty great. We travelled north of Playa about 3km on a small catamaran and were dropped into the water on the north side of a reef and then snorkelled to the south end, which took about an hour. There were tiger-stripped fish, and gold and white fish with blackspots that look like eyes, and iridecent fish. I followed a school of fish that seemed to change color from indigo to pale blue.

I have heard that Cancun is unsufferably touristy and that playa is better. What I had imagined Cancun being is the gringoriffic hell that Playa seems to be. Playa is great for what it is great for but that is a limited domain. I am not disappointed to be leaving. What Cancun is, I know not, nor have I the desire to know.

We spent our afternoon chilling in our hostel. We met a charming girl named--I asked how to spell this--Zucu. She's the kind of person that I love to meet when I travel. (Most of the people I've met are.) She's spent about a month here learning spanish. I gather that she intends to travel the world before she's thirty and do it again before fourty.

When I get to San Cristobal tomorrow, I am going to find a laundry. (It will not be for the first time. But it needs dong again.)

I never mentioned Johny Cochran. He moonlights as a lounge-salsa singer in San Cristobal. I have a photo you can see soon.

Sun Jul 27 12:24:46 2003
The bus ride from Playa to San Cristobal was as bad as the ride the other way. No wait, worse. The overhead lights didn't turn on. That meant that I couldn't read. Then they showed a movie, in english with spanish subtitles: Armagedon. I hate that movie. I despise Jerry Bruckheimer. There is a special level of hell where you have to listen to people saying histrionic and dumb things and Jerry Bruckheimer will get it all to himself for eternity.

Coffee in mexico is impossible. At first the burned water that they serve with breakfast is just a little endearing. Then you want a really cup of coffee, something that tastes good. There is none of this in mexico except in cafes, but I have yet to find a cafe that is open for breakfast. Sigh.

I think we will start back toward to US soon.

Mon Jul 28 12:07:13 2003
I have started to crave food that I can't get in Mexico, like bowls of pad thai, olives and greek food. I want a salad. This hit me bad last night when a nice lady was selling olives in the plaza in San Cristobal. Oohh! Olives. Only these olives were pickled in tequila and honey. They were not the salt spanish or greek olives I was looking for.

Jason, Sarah and I found one of the best bars in San Cristobal last night, Magueys. Why one of the best? Nice help, good beer (Bohemia is the best mexican beer, followed by Montejo. Bohemia is almost deserving of the name.), Mezcal. OLVIES! Good salty spaish olives. And chili cacahuates. (Penuts.) And chili lime grasshoppers. In case you are wondering what a chili lime grasshopper is, its a grasshopper fried with chili and lime. I have pictures of me with them in my mouth. I was disappointed we didn't manage to find room for Oaxaca on our intinerary because I wanted to eat moles and tried fried bugs, which are a traditional Oaxacan dish. But I found chili lime grasshoppers in San Cristobal. Bugs are good.

We are headed to Palenque to see Mayan ruins.

Mon Jul 28 12:09:50 2003
I think that we need to turn towards the border soon.

Mon Jul 28 20:15:14 2003
Palenque is hot. According to what I've read, the finest ruins of Mayan civilization stand near Palenque. That is for tomorrow mnorning. After that we will leave Palenque and travel to Villahermosa or further west. I don't expect much from that trip. A short stay, leave in the moring, whatever. Like I said, we're staring back toward the border. I am not sure what that will involve that is exciting. We've decided that we will cross the border into Texas and use US Interstates on our route to Tucson. I dream about US interstates these nights. My knee hurts after a few hours of driving in Mexico because I'm constantly opperating the clutch. The roads in the southern portion of mexico are winding, broken, and frought with topes.

We've lost our patience with the little children selling things to us in restaurants. "Compraaaaalo, Compraaalo" they chant: buy it, buy it. "No." I suggested trying to sell them things when they do this. Jason tried to sell a kid his snorkel for five pesos the other morning. The kid backed away, offered one pesos, and then left when his offer was rejected.

We gave a french girl a ride to Palenque. She turned out to be sick with a cold. I do not like being in a car with a contagiously sick person for four hours. I will forgive Charlotte if I don't contract whatever virus she had.

Tue Jul 29 19:45:52 2003
Plans are easily changed. I was dragging my feet home from dinner last night, thinking it would be a bore of an evening. There was a note under the door of our room. Michelle, Lisa and Rosie saw my car and decided to invite us for drinks or dinner at a restaurant called "Don Mucho". Well, well. That put the spring back in my step. We caught a cab (no drinking and driving, especially in Mexico) out to this restaurant. It was in the jungle halfway to the ruins. We drank beer, Sauvignon Blanc (Chilean, never under any circumstances is one advised to choose Mexican wine over and alternative), tequila. You can imagine that we had nice time. The trouble with the jungle is that there aren't many cabs there. Neither Jason nor I managed to sleep in our own beds last night. That sounds more scandalous than it is. Since we couldn't get a cab, Michelle, Lisa and Rosie let each of us take a single bed in the cabaņa while the three of them shared the double in the room. We offered to sleep on the floor but they wouldn't have it.

It sounds like our british friends had a nice time since we'd left them. I certainly think that should have had a nice time today. (Well, maybe not Rose, as she developed a mexican stomach malady.) They joined us at the Palenque ruins in the early afternoon. We got there a little earlier than they. Palenque is gorgous. We crawled up and down a dozen zigurats. Crawled maybe a bit extreme, but these things are monstous and steep. I could ramble, but I should advise that you just see the photos.

Having said all that, here's how plans changed: I'm still in Palenque.

Tue Jul 29 20:13:06 2003
I lied about the photos, but it isn't entirely my fault. The upload conection I had got very sick about 60 pictures into my work.

Thu Jul 31 18:10:04 2003
The car overheated somewhere on highway 145D headed north from Villahermosa, about 63 km from Vercruz, where we'd planned to stay last night. It never stopped overheating, though eventually it stop starting. 230,400 miles and never a major breakdown until now.

Night fell, there wasn't a damn thing to do but hitch a ride to the nearest town with a mechanic and hotel. For all the love god had shown me yesterday, I'm surprised we're not still stading behind my car waiting. A taxi appeared after an hour and gave us the ride we were looking for. He was prety insistant that we shouldn't leave the car on the road until morning. So we told the police about the car. They would arrange towing and we should meet them at the car, they told us. We did. The mexican police tied my car to a police truck with about six feet of rope. I had to break and steer while they pulled me. This is one way in which mexico differs from the US: the police act as tow trucks in horribly unsafe ways. The next morning we went back to the mechanic. He said that he couldn't work on the car. (By the way, this entire transaction was carried out by Jason, whose spanish has improved greatly since we got here, but is still well short of fluent.) What the hell, "Can we sell you the car, 5000 pesos." They wouldn't take it, but they knew someone who would. Great. That person wouldn't buy it, but he could work on it. Great.

Presently the theory is that the head gasket blew when the car over heated which was a result of the fan ceasing to opperate or else some seal on a valve broke and caused oil to leak onto the pistons. We don't really know which. But the valve seals and head gasket need replacing, after which it may need further work to repair the fan system. Mexican mechanics are cheap, but parts are scarce. In fact, unavailable. We're told that maybe this place in Veracruz can have the parts by tomorrow. I am skeptical.

Jason and I are going to get a bus to Mexico City tonight and then a bus to Nogales. I don't know when, or whether, I will ever see my beloved Honda again.

At least that is the plan.

Fri Aug 1 19:37:22 2003
I sold my car for 5000 pesos, which is about five hundred dollars. I have no proof that I sold the car, which might be a problem someday. It is sort of bizzare to me that the fact that I don't have the fucking car isn't proof enough, but I am pretty sure that in the US, proof involves paper, not possession.

I didn't pay the mechanic for the work that he did. First of all, he started the work without the parts necessary to complete it and then failed to procure the parts. Second, the mechanic didn't do any of the work, his lacky did. I paid his lacky 300 pesos for driving me arund to find parts (which we didn't.) Mostly, he never finished the job, which is a breach of contract and I think entitles me to jump on the first bus out of Puerto Papalopan I could, which I did. We spent last night in Veracruz. I had itallian food for dinner. I should take that back, as the plate of food that I got resembled chef boy r d. We told the waiter "Esta terrible". I still had to pay six bucks. I am telling you, God is not very happy with me.

I should mention on the itallian food note that I had pesto pistachio spaghetti in Palenque that rivalled some of the best itallian I've ever had. That cost me five bucks. Jason had Gnoci that was just as good.

Veracruz is replete with prostitutes.

The bar we went to in Veracruz is of all the bars I've ever been in the wierdest. I have three theories:

  1. The place is a hangout for prostitutes (male and female) taking the night off.
  2. There is a special field that makes adam's apples invisible there but certain people there who are apparently women are lesbians.
  3. (1) and (2) are false and this entails that the principle of sufficient reason is as (1) and (2) are the exhaustive explainations for this place.


Fri Aug 1 19:56:23 2003
New photos from San Cristobal and the area should be up with captions in about one hour.

Sat Aug 2 12:46:54 2003
I lied aboutthe pictures. The php driven ware that I use for my photo gallery dies when I try to do captions about fifty percent of the time and it makes captioning difficult. I may not have the patience until I get I high speed conection.

I am in Guadalajara, I was in Mexico yesterday Afternoon, we left Veracruz in the morning. Mexico City is nicer than I'd expected. Mind you that I'd expected the most poluted, rotten city on earth. We're catchign a bus to Nogales in the morning and will arrive there 26 hours later.

I feel like there's not much left in this trip and that I should be figuring out what I haven't said about what I've done, rather than what to say about the present.

Bring toilet paper when traveling in Mexico. You might also consider bringing a toilet eat. Both of these are hot commodities around here due to their scarcity.

If you drive a car to mexico, drive a Volkswagon. They are common here as Volkswagon manufactures here and you can probably fid a head gasket when you need one.

Taking a cab in Mexico city thrills more than the best roller coaster. The cab drivers will drive three blocks in the a lane that is meant for traffic in the other direction if they can. The cab drivers are also funny.

Mexican men give great advice on how to meet women. Whistle at them, holler and make wet kissing noises. I learned this from Emilio and the mechanic whith whom we spent an afternoon not finding car parts. American women like it when you make wet kissing noises at them too, just ask Emilio.



Sat Aug 2 23:05:53 2003
The photos I promised are up now.

Mon Aug 4 21:34:17 2003
I have returned to Tucson. Alive. Did I accomplish my goals? I drove three cute girls from Zihuatanejo to Puerto Escondido. I haven't gotten malaria yet. I didn't see any sharks, hear monkeys nor smoke, nor even meet, a Zapatista. Some of those were ludicris goals anyway. My car broke down and surely a tacit goal was to return with my car. What about my immune system? Do you really want the details of all my bowel movements over the last three weeks? Email me.

I have a wicked travel bug. I would make that trip again as surely as I sold my car for 5000 pesos. Next stop, Cuba. All I need is money and time.

All of my picture are posted and have captions insofar as I plan to caption them. Click here.



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