Context in beginnings

Statues of little scrawny dogs silently yipped at us as we cruised out of Chihuahua's painfully obvious, horribly tacky new street art exhibit and back into a streak of tar in the uninhabited desert hills. The anticipation of silence in one final night in a tent in a Mexican desert taunted, and we forgot entirely to purchase food for the evening. Fasting, we marveled at a star or two, watched headlights of determined drivers in the distance, and crawled into the stench of our naught-cleaned-in-a-year-and-a-half sleeping bags.

Then came military checkpoints who still didn't care that we didn't have license plates (just as long as we didn't have any drugs). Then came Juarez. Big bad Juarez. Juarez that gets a bad rap from incessant mafia and drug-lord activity, and from a mysterious string of female murder victims that reflects a true Juarez as much as Al Qaeda reflects the entirety of Pakistan. Coming from San Diego, years back, I whizzed through Tijuana hoping I would have no reason to stop, or no break down for fear of imminent danger surrounding me. Now, coming from the South, Juarez seemed little more than a harmless (to the passer-by) expanse of ugly industry. Dust. Grime. Mexico mixed with a splash of Office Depot, McDonald's, and urban sprawl.

As I walked across the border bridge for a reconnaissance mission, I nearly got into a brawl with the toll-takers. Something along the lines of "I PUT IN THREE STUPID PESOS" "IT DOESN'T TAKE 0.50 CENT COINS" "THE SIGN SAYS IT DOES" "IT DOESN'T" "Do you have a peso to trade me?" "No." Woman behind me hands me a peso - in the form of two fifty cent coins from her HUGE stack of fifty cent coins. "It doesn't TAKE fifty cent coins." "It doesn't TAKE fifty cent coins?!" People in gridlock strech the line further and further behind me. Panic. I jump the turnstyle.

After a brief moment of contemplation of how to handle this situation that may or may not have been covered in training, but that has certainly never occurred in reality, I am swept back to the gate and to the end of the line. I procure US cents, and I mosey through.

Needless to say, the experience has done little for my mood of dealing with bureaucratic nightmare in getting a good across the border that is, after all, mine and that shouldn't be subject to any more regulations, after all, than would be a ceramic cat souvenir. So as I roll up to my home country - that elusive enigma whose name has filled so many "nationality" blanks in customs forms worldwide - I subconsciously expect hassle free, even enthusiastic welcome. But, it turns out, in the "land of the free" customs agents are just as obnoxiously unhelpful and power-thirsty as in, say, Sudan. Even after they agree to acknowledge me as a living, breathing being, they shun others who might happen to interrupt with crass rejections - usually to find the interruptor to have a genuine, valid purpose for interrupting. And no one knew what the hell to do about bringing a motorcycle across the border.

My respect for the "Department of Homeland Security" pretty much obliterated, I take one last glance at the pictures of our nations' dictators hanging above the waiting room in a manner I had thought to be reserved for cult of personality backwards societies like Syria or Kenya. Just short of the requisite monarchical "his excellency" there they sat, a huge fuzzy Bush and a smirking stiff Dick watching me as I cringed. My first glimpse of the United States of America was, luckily, short lived. I trotted back to Mexico information-less and disturbed.

By the time I finished with round two of smug Customs non-information the sun threatening departure. Useless Mexico Guidebook proclaimed the cheapest place in town to roll in at 28 dollars, so we implemented our fail-proof, refined "drive around and look" method. Within minutes, we had a keyless room in a brothel run by the most feminine gay Mexican I've ever witnessed; complete with drawings of penises on the walls, a smidge of old urine in the toilet, and interesting stains on the sheets. The sign read (in translation):

"4 people all night 200 pesos
2 people all night 100 pesos
1 hour 35 pesos"

"No key? Is it safe to leave our stuff?"
"Oh YEAH. NO ONE is going to bother it....just don't leave any money."

Reassured we were in good hands, we celebrated just how close we could come to the United States before we shack up in the most disgusting room of the trip over a glass of Horchata and a few tacos, followed by cruising the pedestrian mall and reading of the latest round of bombings we'd just missed in Mexico City.

The Mexican equivalent of the DMV was remarkably more efficient than the US version of the same nightmare. In fact, they even agreed to expedite our license plate process, which would expedite our insurance process, which would allow for easy crossing of the border into the most free and open society in the world that requires payment for every service or non-service imaginable (even if we had managed to get Trasera to the northern end, import tax would certainly kill us). One woman promised my plates by the afternoon, after my title was verified. The head honcho pushed it back to the next day, but still seemed friendly and helpful.

In fact, it wasn't until after we payed for the ludicrous "telefone call fee" that the issue of our permanent address in Mexico arose to the forefront of idiocy. Our photo copy of "Maria's" phone bill (a woman at the insurance office turned into "my aunt") and her driver's license just wouldn't suffice, according to some. According to others, it would. According to the person to whom it should accord, everything was peachy. But according to the person who somehow was put in charge of me, I needed proof of employment in Mexico. And residence. The fact that I don't work in Mexico, I pointed out, means that I was "jodido." No no. "You just need proof of employment." Stunning.

We bailed to plan B pretty remorselessly, and hovered around Ciudad Juarez searching high and low for a used lot, or anywhere suitable to easily sell our ride. Gradually, the sun beating down upon redish white skin backed up by zero water intake and frustration drove us both insane, with convenient outlets in each other. The sandy patch on the road that left us scraped up with a broken side-view mirror on the pavement didn't help.

Just as we were ready to zip southward again towards the massive expanse of sand dunes where we might be able to camp for the night, we received one last lead. Despite the fact that this lead sent us in some heinous back-roads maze that eventually led to a shop where we'd already been, but where they "were broke," the opportunity to stop and argue with each other for a while on the roadside allowed just enough time for a Mexican-American with hundreds wrapped up in his pocket to zip by and throw some at us. Right then, he slopped us in the back of his blazer, and dropped us at the Bridge across the trickle that remains of the Rio Grande.

"So how many countries did you go to?"
"I think 26."
"Pakistan and Zimbabwe are some pretty crazy countries."
"It's been a great year."

We almost puked when we ran into the big green welcome to Texas, "proud home of US President George W. Bush" sign greeting our arrival. On the Texas side of tomorrow, life was exactly the same. Stores hurled their merchandise onto sidewalks turned unwalkable; signs professed spanish language; skin remained almost exclusively brown; and tacos still abounded around the streets that, admittedly, had much more sparkly signs.

Culture shock did shock, however, as the Green Mile gauntlet leading to El Paso sported at least three Payless Shoe Source stores in the course of no more than 4 blocks. Slowly, spaces opened up in the night as the border removed itself directly from our lives. The central plaza brought completely quiet streets, a few drunks (white), and realizations of the sketchiness of our own safe-haven from which so many people fear departure.

A few laps around silent dark streets had us wondering where the action was, and we wondered if we shouldn't recoil back to whore-house bliss in Juarez for one last night. Admitting unacceptable implications of an anti-climatic march back past the "limite de los estados Unidos de Mexico" sign, we gave up. Then we met a cop mysteriously guarding a street corner.

"If we put up a tent right here, are you going to give us a ticket?"
"Shit, no. I don't give a $%*(. Put it right there."

And so we camped, smack in the middle of downtown El Paso, passing conversation with the antithesis of the just-graduated or summer in college pale-skinned American stereotype that dominates the traveler mind as for 16 months it is the only American he knows. A cop (security guard, really) working two jobs to save for the holidays, stuck in his childhood home town without escape - poised to join the Marines in January to fight off boredom and entrapment. His genuine interest in our story, coupled with restrained reaction masking justaposing envious emotion form the perfect, kind welcome to the United States. He is the America that I love.

Oh, and the reason he was on the street corner? The building next to our tent had practically burned down while we slept in the brothel as squatters had lit a small flame to keep warm. The cop that rolled by at 1, after cop #1's shift was up, didn't find us so interesting or, well, human. "You guys get out of there right now or I'm gonna arrest you."

Damn.

Never fear, we dealt with strong copper very diplomatically (sort of) and an hour found ourselves on a much more appropriate street corner away from the evidence of any recent infernos. Stuffed into sleeping bags, this time tentless, we leaned on our packs and arose with the dawn, officially bums.

Apparently, we looked the part too. For after breakfast in the Tejas Cafe where they serve french toast alongside mondongo and empanadas, we befriended a true blue bum who quickly associated us with his own. "Does the Amtrak go to Denver?" Yeah. And if you go down here to the christian church, they'll pay for your ticket. And the soup kitched in just over there. And down that way is the Salvation Army. And over there you can get some good free clothes.

So this is what rock bottom feels like.

A visit to the Amtrak station proved how horribly long a bus-train-bus trip to Denver would be, but yielded an excellent two-hour conversation with the clerk - during which time not one single other customer came to inquire about anything. His friendly welcome left us with another great welcome home, as well as with 4 AmTrak snack packs complete with more plastic packaging for individual servings than you would need to build a plastic shack in Ethiopia.

Eventually, our orange sign grew less and less ambitious as it dwindled from "DENVER" to "LAS CRUCES" - or from 700 miles away to about 40. And we landed in Anthony, even closer to the empty dullness of desert El Paso. But then the adventure began as I crawled into the bed of Mick's truck with a dresser, while Jenny settled into the cab, and we whizzed 75 mph on I-10 in the wrong direction. Inklings of illegality dwindled as a stifling-society-esque border patrol road block didn't care about me at all - aside from to check that I was not a Mexican.

All three non-drivers in the truck realized the "wrong direction" dilemma, but Anthony is apathetic and, apparently, shy. Jenny thought I duped her into "seeing more of New Mexico." And I was stuck in the cab. When finall Mick realized he was driving into the sunset, he pulled a U-ey right over the interstate median and back toward I-25 we went.

Finally in Socorro, I took just enough time to visit the restaurant in town as it took to marvel at the rich history exemplified in pictures of headdressed natives and to scarf down a terrible previously frozen patty of gross. We slept in the newly brisk air, mildly freezing in the same stank of our uncleansed bags before awaking to an invitation for coffee and pancakes in the Canadian's camper van in the next spot over - which really put a damper in 8:00 departure plans, but really did a lot for happiness and life.

When we finally did procure a ride sometime around midday, it came in the form of Marvin. A drifter of sorts, he heads out to random corners of the United States for two years at a time. Fresh off of a challenge to live through a Phoenix summer, he's made his way to Lordsburg, New Mexico for a spell. His 16 brothers and sisters haven't been together since the 70s - and regardless of his beliefs, he's out there building up kharma going out of his way (he came back for us) to pick up two cheap travelers on their way home. And to buy them lunch at the Flying J.

He dropped us just north of Alberquerque at a gas station where a subaru heading from parents' homes in Phoenix to Wife and kids in Nebraska promised to deliver us all the way to Denver, Colorado, USA. We responded to his inquiry of reasons for Mexican travel with the briefest possible summary of our most recent lives, as always. And he asked no follow up questions. Not one.

The seven hours of almost exclusive silence, however, were welcomed. I watched as the night overtook the desert and the plains, wondering at what there is to learn in such a diverse land whose history I had always had a profound talent for ignoring. As we cruised past Indain Reservations cum Casinos, I longed to stop and ask questions. I longed to investigate the rural towns we rolled by. I longed to exit from the interstate for more mindful meanderings on slower highways. But life here is fast, and we had already begun to adjust in our own goals. Home.

He dropped us off on Speer and Wewatta. As we walked through downtown, up the sixteenth street mall, I felt like I was almost afloat in travel. My own town I was seeing for the first time, noticing new buildings, seeing lights high up in skyscrapers, and making effort to at least glance at the Indian heritage flaunted in souvenirs in shop windows. As pedestrians casually, easily spoke English to each other expected comfort or shock at the normal never materialized, while their words brushed past as though a still-foreign tongue. In a disconnected way, their indifference to our presence left their language as drifting and unreachable as Swahili or Qechua. And yet, I'd been here before. Or somewhere like here...

Over a beer, Jenny and I attempt to review all our goals for arrival and reassimilation, until then captured only in prose. We found instead that those words were inappropriate. They were future, and this was now. Arrival. We threw about a few toasts, and sent a shot over to a random birthday celebration across the room where festivities were oblivious to the climax our existence had just achieved. We paid our tab. We climbed aboard the RTD #6 bus. We climbed off. We wandered three blocks past memories of the old captured in familiar houses; and past memories of the old destroyed under the foundations of new ones. We came to a yellow brick home on 3rd and Kearney. We walked up to the picture window and saw the backs of two heads. I reached out. I rang the doorbell. And we were home.



The journey continues...

Rumbo Norte

In the first step in our campaign to end discrimination against credit-card debt, we adopted Gandhi's "be the change" mantra and bought a motorcycle. A yellow motorcycle. A small, 100 cc, chinese-built Jinsheng motorcycle. Rationality aside, our newfound debt has had absolutely spectacular effects on our lives, as we have zung through the silver cities northwest of Mexico city to find a land of colonial remnants where money seems to flow from the pores of cobbled streets. We have found that in Mexico, unlike South Africa, cars will actually change lanes to pass a motorcycle. We have found that in Mexico, the little yellow lines on the atlas are not terciary roads, but 4WD dirt, rock, gravel, mud tracks over mountains where horseback men sporting sombreros and cigarettes dangling from the most impressive moustaches I've witnessed reside. And we found freedom from the exorbitant prices charged by bus companies who insist that every traveler wants reclining seats, heating or air con, movies, and comfort to instead hop on back of Trasera, as she has been dubbed, and roll 45 kilometers on a single liter - albeit slowly.

And in the meantime, as urban cultural metropolis turned rolling silver citied hills turned expansive cactus'd deserts, we were whisked swiftly away from the Mexico of memories. Here, there are no tourists - no swarms of Americans searching for sun and relaxation, or for anything else for that matter. There is not free-flowing booze, there are no real tourist attractions except reality itself; and the forced realization that northern Mexico looks like New Mexico in Architecture because they were, not long ago, connected in the same line on the map. Northern Mexico looks like New Mexico in Geology because they are still connected despite GW's ambitious plans for walled segregation.

As we weaver through the hoards of chevy's, fords, and jettas as the only motorcylce duo to be seen for miles, we also wonder at how we had associated Mexico economically with the likes of lands where none can afford cars or trucks, when this 100 million strong population throws a trillion dollars around its economy every year. Perhaps this money just flops down from the US - as a vendor in Jerez explained, "No one here hasn't been there. We used to sleep on the floor, then we brought money from there and bought beds." Indeed, virtually every single person we meet has been in the US for years (a slight change from the typical "my cousin lives in Chicago" bouncing around the rest of the globe), and has now returned by force or choice to this not so underprivileged land. As we thrust our minds back home, we ache to ask immigrants the questions - "WHAT is so bad about Mexico that you want to leave it so badly?" My guess revolves around revelations that not all are built to see opportunity. Around the world, people line up to complain to us about lack of opportunity in their own country, while right next door their neighbor is making his way to wealth, or whatever other success he defines. Just that in Mexico, perhaps even more than the rest of the planet, the US brand of Opportunity shines so brightly so as to convince the masses that chance only exists north of the border - so they ignore the less glaring options nearby. And as they emmigrate, money drips.



Culture, too, drips. As we moved northwards, and closer to November 2, we inquire repeatedly "What do you do to celebrate the day of the dead?" and the responses invariably were "I don't know. Go to the bars. Some people make altars. You should go to Michoacan, maybe chiapas." Far from the imagined reality of returning spirits and souls, we found kids dressed like scarecrows and skeletons wandering the streets of Jerez, Zacatecas asking for Candy (though the "Oremos Oremos queremos los muertos" is much more pertinent than "Trick or Treat"). People stroll by the five or so three tiered altars of offerings constructed in the central gardens only mildly interested - and none of the interest stems from belief that dead will return, but rather from the chosen personalities to whom altars are offered. Cuahtemoc, other aztecs, a journalist from the 18th century - each with an explanatory page or two posted beside. In Jerez, Dia de los Muertos has become historically interesting rather than spiritually invigorating.

But what else is to be expected in this land where Aztec Calendars on coins or persistence that the US society lacks history are, essentially, ignoring that half of the blood here we historically share. So as European values infringe further on ancient Tenochtitlan, we should not be too surprised, (or, perhaps, disturbed for that matter as the true crushing of culture occurred as the colonies up north were setting up shop.) Just don't tell the Mexicans in Zacatecas, speaking spanish, proclaiming their Aztec heritage.

Some genuine history does exist, it seems, in the hills of the Copper Canyon. Here, perhaps 300 miles south of the US border, the Tarahumara women sport traditional dresses with ruffles and folds reminiscent of the high Andes. Along a pot-hole-less road, men walk from town to town amidst pine forests, and hoards of travelers sit silently amidst their baggage awaiting the next bus. Here, we understand the ideas roaming through the minds of Argentinians who thought Bolivia was so very far removed, while our traveler minds grouped the two together. Here, in Mexico, we find the boundaries our own minds had drawn around our comfortable home existences.

One year ago, I could not have told you where Chihuahua was. Today, here I am in the big city, 3 hours south of the border, ready for the push home in whatever way the big bad bureaucracy will let it unfold.