Sé hablar español

Orale, ayer fue el primero día que sentía actualmente como yo sé hablar español. Afuera con unos amigos, hablando sobre bebidos tropicales hecho con mescal, me dé cuenta que estaba hablando mas o menos en fluidez. Puedo comunicar ideas complejas de la vida, nuestra situación, etc. sin tropezando por muchas palabras, y si, Pablo es muy paciente pero yo puedo decir que yo he aprendido un nueva idioma. Que increíble. Y el pensamiento que sigue entonces es, "soy un ser humano mas poderoso que sabía."

Este día antes de despertando tuve un mal sueño. Fui atrás en Nueva York. Gente no amable, ni feliz, y un lugar con mala energía. Me amo Nueva York como alguien puede amar una novia con quien le no esta en amor nunca mas. Con un sentido de nostalgia, una reminiscencia cariñosa de unas veces, pero con un deseo a mover adelante. Al despertar, la realización seeping into my reality que todavía estoy en Mexico, que lejos de Nueva York, el nube de pánico comenzando a alejar, me dé cuenta and at this junction I would like to switch back to English to facilitate some poetic waxing.

I realized that I was desperately afraid of the possibility of being forced to return to my homeland. How absurd and ironic, but indeed it fills me with a sense of dread to picture the gray-cast cityscape stretching, towering over me, imposing me with its concrete impertinence. I would be reduced to sickly, desperately, grimly forcing the utmost layer of my facade into a nightmarish attempt at geniality, hardly even feigning happiness, solely attempting to morph my present situation and the energy permeating my emotions through sheer Sysiphean force of will. Eventually I would see fade the dull residual glimmer of peace and calm that had alighted upon my heart here, in the open sea-salted wind brushing across thousands of gallons of crashing ocean, past my half-nude corpus up into the high dunes and black cliffs overlooking a Pacific sunset that has burned into my memory, for as much time as will pass until one day it is eclipsed by another even more memorable, more entrancing, more warm--or by the dust of years of forgotten dreams.

I've found a peace of self here, or away from New York, perhaps in fact my prior situation. The clarity of my presence now is a gift I can't compare. What a delight to feel so fortunate for each element of your morning's reality that makes its way through the fog of sleep as you shake away a bad dream.

Update, 12:49AM:

Also, later today I smoked some weed, which helped me get over sort of freaking out about losing my only bank card. I still feel pretty high and mellow. The weed here is pretty good. Did some nice drawings. The people here are good and kind, for the most part. Pleasant energy abounds.

I'm listening to Belle and Sebastian's Late Night Tales: http://tinyurl.com/z33aac5

Now I'm going to douse myself in bug spray and watch the latest episode of Better Call Saul.

Sweet dreams, all

P 30-3 U

I'm in beautiful Puerto Escondido, staying at Hostel Shalom. Last night I got pretty drunk and swam, naked, with some lovely French women in the deserted waves of Carizzalillo Beach. I highly recommend getting drunk and swimming naked, unless your health is a concern.

Tonight, perhaps I will get lucky with one of two Italian girls who are staying here. I'll try to curb my drinking a bit, though. I still feel a bit hung over and it's already dusk.

Surfing is a new staple in my life. It's absolutely delightful. I feel incredibly calm and happy afterward.

Sooper pumped to leave Valladolid and get to Puerto Escondido. I hope it lives up to my expectations. I'm in contact with a hostel on workaway, Hostal Shalom. It's near three different beaches with various degrees of surf breaks, including a calm, swimming beach.

I'm tired of the daily situation here in Valladolid. It's gotten repetitive and I'm itching to move on. Today I got scolded for chopping down a plant in front of the house (there are several and I was told to cut them down--apparently I was somehow expected to know to leave this one) even though I'm fairly certain it had been dead for some time. I'm ready to put this place behind me. As quaint as Valladolid may be, I haven't been enjoying myself here very much, all told. I did get some decent pictures here, though, I think. I only recently replaced the battery for my camera's light meter, so who knows how the previous rolls came out...

Let's get some waves and some more sun, maybe a couple margaritas. Maybe I could sip them out of a coconut? That would round out the fantasy nicely.

--P 7-2 U--

Valladolid

I've been here in Valladolid for 2 weeks now. The first night, I was horrified to discover that my room is facing the street, where taxis, clattery, old VW bugs and straight-piped single-cylinder motor bikes roar past my window almost relentlessly. The din hardly seems to end for a moment, it only fades and then rises again as one vehicle passes and another approaches. There are also rather loud packs of dogs roaming the streets of Valladolid at night. The neighbors' dogs take watch over the street corner, and when a pack of strays trot past, they initiate thunderous barking matches, which can carry on for a long time.

The second night I had earplugs, and fell asleep soundly with a vague acknowledgement of the likelihood that I'd sleep through my alarm. I did. The next morning I was aware of some eyebrow-raising as I lumbered into the kitchen at a tardy 8:30 and hazily procured hot coffee.

Thus began my stay here in this lovely home. The backyard is outcropped with igneous rock, which I immediately took to exposing wherever possible. Maria, my host, watched in nonplussed incomprehension, but I was vehement that they possessed a stark beauty, sun-bleached for I-don't-know-how-many hundreds of years before being covered by the rich, dark soil through which, due to my efforts, they began to peek.

In her ad, she asked that volunteers spend a maximum of 5 hours a day, five days a week, working in exchange for accommodation. I realized the second day that more was expected of me. The third day I brought it up with Maria, the homeowner. She seems to have confused the words "minimum" and "maximum".

I awoke early the next morning and again began working with Andrea, an Italian contractor who lives part-time with Maria as a volunteer. He begins working at around 8 am--not traditionally my favorite time of day, but waking early is one of several changes I had hoped to adopt during my travels and it has begun to feel natural and somewhat indispensable.

Andrea spends 8 or more hours each day working. He and I responded to the same ad, but like Maria, he had misunderstood the definition of the word, "maximum". I did not travel to Mexico to labor in the sun all day laying concrete and power-washing old paint, only to retire at the end of the day too exhausted to take in any sights. Many of the natives would move to the states for such a job opportunity, but I come from a different culture and I possess a greater sense of entitlement. So there you have it. I began to resent my situation. My visions of gliding across crystal-azure waves on a hand-made surfboard and drinking from coconuts had been dashed for the time being, although I'm still optimistic.

Front of house, before restoration

I was beginning to feel trapped: my insurance settlement from a motorcycle that was stolen last summer--most of my vacation funds--still hadn't arrived, and I didn't have a comfortable wad to carry into the broad unknown. I had to count my pesos carefully. I wasn't sure I wanted to stay, but I didn't have a choice.

There wasn't much life outside of the day's tasks, so I grew bored, but worse, I was lonely. The change from constant contact with friends--socializing, partying, relishing my time alone--had lapsed into the opposite. I had to struggle to sense the gist of a conversation between my housemates. I found their sense of humor quite different, or perhaps I wasn't communicating effectively.

Fortunately a friend of Maria's arrived two days after I did. Pelucas (which translates to "wig"), a boisterous, ribbing, friendly Spaniard showed up at the door as we were sitting down to eat dinner. He's here to paint a mural on the wall facing the house's backyard. He shares Maria's bed, and they have remarkable chemistry, although I sense she imagines a future that he hasn't considered.

Pelucas (that's my hat and glasses--Burning Man gifts/ground-scores)

His work, 7' tall or more

The next weekend I visited some New York friends in Tulum, a strip-city that reminds me of Bourbon Street in New Orleans: catering more to tourism each year, bending away from its traditions and cultural roots to meet the desires of foreigners. I had to ration carefully while they enthusiastically chugged dirt-cheap margaritas that I wasn't sure I could afford, but I was delighted to speak in my native tongue, and we had nice conversations. We drank and smoked schwag, and I grew tired around 1. My hostel was pleasant, and the host was friendly and made me feel welcome. My bunkmate snored loudly, but I finally silenced him with a "Shut the fuck up!" (more of a thought that happened to escape my lips) that jarred him from his slumber and when he found a new position, the roaring ceased. I've resolved to always carry earplugs.

Back in Valladolid, I began to sense a palpable air of disapproval arising from my housemates over my apparent laziness, although I was fulfilling the terms of the advertisement Maria had posted, and usually exceeding them. This frustrated me until recently, when the insurance settlement I've been waiting on finally arrived.

I have a choice now: I'm free to leave, but I prefer to stay here until the project is complete out of responsibility but also because now that I no longer feel trapped I actually quite like it here. It's still loud at night, but I'm getting used to it. Part of the reason I'm traveling is that I've become aware of the repetition and lack of perspective that comes with a comfortable, predictable lifestyle. It's thrilling to see how quickly the mind and body adapt to your environment, especially when you're expecting change.

I hope to evolve into a worldly being.

This past weekend I spent in Mérida. Upon arriving at the bus station, which has wifi, I discovered that my bank account was several thousand dollars fuller, thanks to my insurance settlement coming through. I meandered around the city center in search of the spectacular and humbling Catedral de Mérida, which was built with staggering difficulty, mostly by hand with exquisite, timeless craftsmanship in the 16th century. It was easy to find since it towers high above most of the city. I felt like an alien wearing the skin of a Catholic, trespassing, although tourism is welcomed and quite common there. Despite my secularity a sense of rich awe and respect was commanded by the booming, ethereal tones of prayer and massive pipe organs that filled its tremendous, vaulted depths.

I took a taxi to a casino. I waited a few hours for a poker game to commence, but no one was there to play with. The more novice dealers were taking turns practicing dealing to their coworkers, who were playing each other for valueless chips. They invited me over to spend my time waiting with them, and seeing the way they bet made me optimistic, since even though I knew there was no actual money invested, there was clearly some competitive sentiment. I optimistically took their lack of skill as an indication of what I might expect to encounter when playing locals with real money. Eventually, when I realized the likelihood of a real game ever occurring was slim, I cashed out the $2,000 MX chips I had purchased but never actually even seen at an 8% tax loss and returned to the city center, rather agitated.

It was past ten at that point and I was tired, so I found Hostel Zocalo. It faced the center, and I was fortunate to have a room to myself for the same price as a shared dorm, about $10. The ceiling was nearly twenty feet high. This had been a government building in an earlier era, and was built with no expense spared. Tall, wooden doors opened onto a small balcony overlooking the city center, where I ate breakfast and read the following morning. That night I met a few young women from Monterrey and drank beer with them on the roof while we struggled to communicate, but laughed with each other nonetheless.

The next morning, after I had eaten and finished a second cup of coffee while the center buzzed below me and the sun began to peak, we headed to a cenote an hour out of town on a colectivo.
The cenote near Valladolid was 30 pesos--this one was 100, and another 80 or so to get there and back. It was worth it. The colectivo drops you off at a dusty corner somewhere an hour outside of town, and men are waiting with crude vehicles, made from a large box with wheels and seating for two welded onto most of a puttering motorbike, where its front wheel would normally go. They aren't hard to tip over, I'm sure. Twenty minutes later, we arrived at a group of palapas with small horses grazing the sparse, tan vegetation. The four of us seated ourselves inside one of several carts that run on tracks into the rocky, scraggly forest, and a horse began to draw us along. The cart lurched forward, we sprawled across each other, and my Coke sprayed everywhere. I think I got some cool pictures, but just now I was rewinding the film and something went wrong--I may have exposed those shots. Oh well, more to come.

Selfies commenced. I have never seen someone take so many. I would say maybe more than 100. There was a selfie stick. Later that day, I would begin to imagine bashing one of the more repeat offenders over the head with it.


The first cenote was huge. We descended into a three-foot-wide hole in the ground down a forty-foot wooden ladder, taking selfies the whole way. The clear blue water shimmered with streaks of light that pierced the roof above, which was comprised of massive stalactites. I imagined a violent river of magma churning away, thousands of years ago, cooling to form a crust at its surface before receding into the depths of the Earth, and leaving colossal chambers behind.

The second and third were also very precarious and similarly rewarding. The last required me to withdraw my trusty headlamp, which has been indispensable on this trip, and we swam through the clear water at the base of a cave, exiting nearby. Its entrance was by way of a claustrophobic hole at the base of a large tree, through a gap in its roots, which transitioned into a tangle of branches so knotted and meandering that if it they hadn't had leaves, the tree could have very well appeared to be upside-down.

When igneous rock has been smoothed by running water, or better yet: layered over as well with sediment, it provides delightful, smooth and positive pockets to hold onto if one is inclined to see how high they can climb inside these caverns. A slip or over-reach will usually result in nothing more than a pleasant splash into the clean, warm water below. I took advantage.

The fellow directing our horse-drawn cart was adamant that we each give him 20 pesos for the lifejackets that we'd used. I had hardly used mine, and we were all pretty sure no one had told us about this hidden expense in advance, so out of principal I refused to pay. I believe I was overcharged twice during our trip that day, not including this failed attempt, and I firmly believe that if I hadn't been with my gullible, spineless companions, I'd have made out a bit better.

I returned to Valladolid late last night. I was on a midnight bus full of sleepy travelers. I wasn't able to get very comfortable. I always adopt a position where pickpocketing would be virtually impossible, and I keep my bag strapped around my leg. Great relief sank in when I finally found myself sliding into the clean sheets of my bed. The dogs weren't bad, or if they were I didn't notice.

I'm beginning to really think forward to Oaxaca. Puerto Escondido sounds especially nice, and should make a nice jumping-off point from which I can find a cheap place I like. It's located on a well-regarded Pacific surf break...

I'm getting some funny ideas... maybe involving adopting one of these strays

Base Tan

Hola!

Welcome.

2/2-2/14:
New Orleans: Super cool. Sorta not my vibe during Mardi Gras week. If you can't stand the heat, though, get out of the kitchen--and when in Rome... Let's just say I went to the best party of my life (MoMs Ball), though overall I enjoyed it more when Wednesday rolled around and I was able to relax a bit. Incidentally, on our way home from the party, as my friend and I were walking through a dark, scaffolded area in the very early morning, a guy asked us if we'd like to buy a knife he had for sale. We did not.

The architecture, many of the people, the trees and the culture there are all vibrant and beautiful. I lost $200 in the casino playing poker, and I want to go back for more. I recommend New Orleans to all who enjoy culture--especially music--nature and tranquility.

New Orleans: Que padre! Durante la semana de Mardi Gras, no está mi cosa favorita, pero si no puede tolerar el calor, no está en la cucina! Y cuando está en Roma... Solo decimos que yo fui a la mejor fiesta que he estado en todo de mi vida, pero yo esté alegre cuando Miércoles llegó y yo pude relajar un poco. De paso, cuando mi amigo y yo estuvimos caminando de la fiesta a la casa a través de un area de la calle muy obscura, un hombre nos preguntó si nos gustaríamos a comprar su cuchillo. No compramos. 

La arquitectura, mucha de la gente, los árboles y la cultura todos estuvieron vibrantes y bonitas. Yo perdía doscientos Dólares en el casino y yo quiero regresar por mas. Yo recomiendo a todos por viajar a New Orleans si gustan cultura--especialidad la música--natura y tranquillo.