Ay Chihuahua!

These updates are getting a little ridiculous...too much to write so that I'm basically bullet -pointing what could be whole short stories.....anyway....
We took the train from Los Mochis to Creel, which was a beautiful day-long adventure. Taking the Chihuahua-Pacific railway was in fact probably my favorite thing of the entire Guatemala/Mexico adventure. It was a 10 hour journey through canyons and over rivers and through tree and cactus and small squatty town filled landscapes. We stopped in Divisidero to peer into the canyon's depth and grab some gorditas before jumping back in the train and landing in Creel for a couple days. There we hiked around the area quite a bit--visiting some hot springs, walking around the wild chaparral landscapes of caves--still inhabited by the Tarahumara--interesting rock formations, strange trees and shrubs, and then of course the occasional Tarahumara person, who generally kept very to themselves unless they were trying to sell baskets. I wasn't sure if they were afraid of us, or if they really just wanted to be left alone.

Then a bus to Chihuahua, where we spent a couple days again wandering around in the crazy heat. We went to the Mexican Revolutionary war museum/the house of Pancho Villa, where we saw the car he was assasinated in, among other things. We got our last fill of aguas frescas (large watered down juices sold in huge styrofoam cups). We bought cowboy boots....


Then an absurdly long bus ride...hopefully the last in for long time, to Pheonix, where we are now. We spent 3 hours stuck on the border in Juarez, which couldn't have been less exciting, but I suppose that's good, considering the possibilities. I don't think it's necessarily hotter here than anywhere else we've been, but I think it's made worse by the airconditioning--the goings in and goings out really wares on a person. We've spent a good amount of time at the Desert Botanical Gardens which are AMAZING, and tomorrow we are headed to Tucson.

Mexico City, Vallarta, and Los Mochis!

As I have come to love to say: ¨I simply couldn´t be bothered¨ (a phrase stolen from Brittish travelers) to write in Mexico City... I was having way too much fun/was too tired. We truly did not want to leave the great capital city of Mexico. The wonderful metro system, the cheap street food, the abounding museums and parks and interesting streets to stroll, and our amazing hosts kept us more than amused. All that you hear about the danger and pollution of Mexico City must be hodge-podge to keep annoying American tourists away. One of the city´s initiatives to keep air pollution at bay is a law that people can only drive 6 days a week, and is enforced according to the numbers on the license plate (eg if the last digit is 5 or 6, the vehicle cannot drive on Mondays). I can´t say how well it has worked specifically, but I can say that I found the city to be quite clean and pleasant.

Highlights in Mexico City (DF) included: tacos de canasta (really cheap tacos sold on the street out of a basket), weekend breakfasts with our amazing hosts of barbacoa tacos and soup with various vicera on sunny picnic tables along the street, the Frida Kahlo house/museum, trying pulque, taking a day trip to a small town to see the National Puppet Museum, Lucha Libre (Mexico´s very popular version of WWF), lots of fruit with chile and lime, and strolling around the many town squares and large parks. The experience in the metro was always interesting--we were either crammed into full trains or entertained by all the venders hawking anything and everything from home-burned CD mixes to barking stuffed dogs to sharpie marker sets to gun shaped flashlights. I always wondered how they decided on that particular object to sell and how many hours a day they spent doing it...was this just what the did on the way home from their other job or did they spend hours underground going from train to train every day? And was there a subculture associated with this world? Do the people who wander the trains all day with their crap get together for a beer at some point? So much to ponder.

From there we took a miserable 12hr overnight bus to Puerto Vallarta, which was just as miserable. Hot. Sticky. Way too expensive. Tacky-touristy. We only spent about 36hrs there before we got on our next overnight 12hr bus to Los Mochis. The reason we went to Vallarta was to see our friends who had recently moved there and had had a baby, and so seeing them did make it worth it. We went to a very nice beach, took a nice little barefoot hike around some abandoned mansions, and spent time lazing around with the 2month old baby. They also inspired us with their beautifully designed plans to create a community off the grid, which will incorporate all ages, organic farming, healing arts, meditation, private space for each family as well as shared common spaces, and lots more goodness. So we will keep that in mind as we start to settle down somewhere here in the very near future...

Now we are in Los Mochis. The 2nd 12hr overnighter was much better than the first, perhaps because we were exhausted enough to sleep or perhaps because we were so happy to get out of the latter town. So we showed up ready to explore our new town, which incidentally has little to explore, and so it was a great place to just kick back and enjoy sipping on some juice in the town square. We decided to spend an extra day just to relax before jumping on the Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacifico (an impressive freight and passenger railway with 36 bridges, 87 tunnels, and 655km of track). Tomorrow we board the train at 7am and will cruise through the states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua to Barranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon), which is a series of 20 canyons which comprise a region 4 times greater than the Grand Canyon. I am super excited! Then to Chihuahua and finally...on to the US! We had originally planned on heading south all the way to Peru, but we wanted to see this canyon and we are super tired of traveling....so next adventure is finding a place to live...very likely in the southwest....very likely in Austin, TX.

I would also like to note that we have noticed an affinity for CCR music all around Mexico, which we´ve found both odd and delightful.

I super love Mexico....

Oaxaca

Well we adored San Cristóbal. I didn´t want to leave, but we knew we´d love every town in Mexico, and had better move on. We drank a lot of yummy Chiapan coffee and walked all over the lovely colonial town. We cooked our own breakfasts at our hostel from fun things we bought at the market and ate as much street food as we could...later in Oaxaca we ate even more :)

Next we went to Chiapa de Corzo, another colonial town alongside a big canyon. We took a lancha (a small speed boat) through the canyon, which took about 2 hours, and were delighted to see crocodiles, monkeys, tons of birds, and iguanas. We have in general been so delighted with the wilderness in Mexico--both in and outside the cities. There are great forests and fields and deserts and within the cities there are so many trees and plants. The hostels and restaurants are bursting with them. Everything in fact seems so alive. All the time you are hearing birds chirping and live music from near and far, and interacting with humans and dogs, and seeing luscious plants, trees, and fresh food being sold all along the streets. It´s like being in a jungle, except for the cobblestone streets.

Now we are in Oaxaca and we are again finding it hard to leave. The food is sooooo good here. The moles (sauces made out of various spices, nuts, chocolate, ETC) are incredible and entice me to eat meat, which I haven´t done in abundace (every day) for years. Hot chocolate is big here too, but I have to say I liked it better in Guate and Chiapas where it´s not as sweet. With the exception of a date at a fancy restaurant last night so that we could try the regional specialties of mezcaltinis (martinis with mezcal), prepared grasshoppers (chapulines), and a black fungus which grows on the local corn (huitlacoche), we´ve eaten strictly on the streets and in the market. We realized with our date, that it was actually the first ¨proper¨date so to speak that we had been on with each other.... our first ¨date¨ involved a walk in Albuquerque´s bosque with Justin pointing out coyote poop (what the coyote had eaten, etc) and then him making me dinner. We got dressed up as much as we could...he in hiking boots and his clean pair of Carharts and me in a summer dress and flip flops, albiet both with greasy hair :)

The buses are a lot less eventful (stressful/scary/uncomfortable) and certainly less diesel fumey than in Guatemala, all of which we are grateful for. We spend our days basically walking around the beautiful streets, eating, people watching, and reading about where we are. We´ve stopped taking any tours to conserve $$ and are saving our museum money for Mexico City.