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
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
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
