Week Seven, More of the Mainland

Week 7

Mainland, Mexico

May 4^th- May 10th

(The region of Tequila, Mexico)

Day 43, Mon.: San Sebastian (south of Guadalajara), Jalisco, Mexico

After leaving San Blas we headed east to the city of Guadalajara where the family of Louis, Kindra’s dad’s employee, live. The drive east was nice and easy and we stopped on the way to pick up some local unusually shaped bananas. They were happy to have us stay in there home in a small suburb of Guadalajara called San Sebastian. Chuy, Lois’ sister greeted us at their front door and invited us in for dinner, a nice surprise after the long drive from San Blas. That evening we relaxed, and met the rest of the family including Louis’ dad and mom and Chuy’s adorable daughter Nayeli. Marcos, Chuy’s husband, informed us that it would be safer if we slept in their house at night and park the truck in a gated lot just across the street from the house where it too would be safe. Ramon, Louis’s father, invited us to see their ranch the next day. We chatted about politics, the swine flu, and Catholic Saints… we tried to follow and understand some of his stories (all in Spanish mind you), Kindra interpreted for me!! We were warmly welcomed and given a soft bed and our own room with a bathroom. After both taking much needed showers we went to bed.

(Luis' mom, me, his siter Chuy and her daughter Nayeli)

Day 44, Tues.: San Sebastian

The next day we slept in a bit and went for a walk to small neighborhood market and bought some fruit and bread for breakfast. Louis’ mom and Chuy made us a delicious breakfast, and we headed over to the ranch with Ramon. On the ranch they raise pigs, goats, chicken and cows and have a few horses. They also grow corn for the animals, alfalfa, parsley and beets. It was one of two ranches we would visit and a beautiful piece of land. The truck had been running kind of hot the last few drives through the mountains and I was not sure if it was just the elevation or the thermostat going bad. I purchased a new one just before we left Tucson and decided to switch them out just to be safe. Unfortunately I didn’t have one specific tool and was unable to do the repair without the help of a local mechanic who I asked for help the next day. After attempting to work on the truck. I took a long nap while Kindra went out to do laundry, buy a fan for the camper and some internet. We all had an early lunch/dinner of chicken sopa and sopa de fideo for Kindra (sin carne, without meat). Later that evening we went on a tour of downtown Guadalajara with Cesar (Chuy’s cousin) and Chuy. It’s a beautiful city and was nice to have someone who new it well to drive us around. When we got back to the house Kindra and I were a bit hungry and we remembered we had seen people selling assorted fried foods in the village square so we deiced to check it out. We had a nice conversation w/ the woman who sold delicious homemade potato chips and french fries. Then went back to the house for nice healthy dinner of chips and fries before bed!

(Guadalajara center) (Wallace's intro to goats) (John on the ranch with the cows)

Day 45, Wed.: San Sebastian

Again sleeping in the next day, we woke up to a nice big breakfast of chilaquelas, frijoles and tortillas mmmmmm!! Marcos called a mechanic down the street from the house that morning. He came to the lot where the truck was parked and helped me change out the thermostat that morning for only $50 pesos, that’s about $4 bucks!! We went to visit Ramón’s other ranch property where they make feed for the cows, raise roosters, have more goats and grow saud. I don’t know if I mentioned or not but back on the Baja the head to my Ashiko drum split while we were in the mountains of San Javier, I was totally bummed. Well anyway I noticed at this other ranch there were a number of old goat skins dried out in the sun. I offered to buy some of them and the nice man to whom they belonged said he would give them to me as a gift!!! What a nice surprise and now I can re-head my drum…again (pardo ate the original!!) That evening Marco and Chuy took us into the state capitol of Jalisco called Tlaquepaque. We walked around the town square and sampled some of our first street food, sweet corn tamales. Again it was a real treat to be taken to a place w/ people who knew the area. We are so grateful to have stayed with Chuy and Louis’s family. They were more than kind to us and sent us on our way with full tanks of water, a wonderful feeling of hospitality, and the love of a beautiful family. Our time in Mexico was truly enriched by the opportunity to stay with such wonderful people!!

(The local mechanics helping John get the right tool)

Day 46 & 47, Thur & Fri.: Erongaricuaro, Michoacán, Mexico (Bosque Village)

From Guadalajara we trekked east into the mountains to a small sustainable living community called the Bosque Village. Located just outside of the town of Erongaricuaro, the village is set up in the mountains and the setting reminded us more of Colorado than Mexico. The elevation was a bit higher than Evergreen, CO at around 7,500ft above sea level. Brian and Marie welcomed us and we had a nice dinner of raw cabbage salad and lentils. The land that the village sits on is about 90 acres and has about 5 to 8 small cabaña/dorm quarters for residence and volunteers (and many spots for tent camping!). They use self composting toilets of which there were around 5, and they are fully into and practicing permiculture. Kindra and I had access to a small communal cabaña near the entrance where we ate breakfast for 2 mornings and did some light reading and a bit of yoga. We would have liked to have spent more time here and possibly volunteered but our time in Mexico was quickly winding down due to our Mexican auto insurance running out. We only stayed 2 nights but it was a refreshing, relaxing experience for sure, and we picked up our first “hitchhiker” her name was Emily. Emily was hitchhiking through Mexico down Central America and to Peru; we gave her a lift to Puebla, on her way to Oaxaca.

(The common room at the Bosque) (Composting toilets) (Our hitch-hiker Emily)

Day 48, Sat.: Atlacomulco, Mexico (near a national forest)

On our way to Puebla to avoid Mexico City we went south and stayed in a nice foresty area just outside of the town of Atlacomulco. Here we had a nice night and some good sopa de fideo in the camper w/ our new house guest Emily. There were some neighboring dogs (at least we think they were dogs, we doubt they were coyotes because we saw some dogs nearby earlier when we set up camp) that were hanging around the camper that night and bustling the leaves… a bit spooky! We headed out the next morning and again went a southern route to avoid the inner city of Mexico City.

Along the way we encountered the first of three authority figures of the day. While passing through a small town a local police vehicle pulled in front of the truck and signaled me to pull over. I pulled over and the officers explained that I could not have the goat skins on the roof unless they were in a bag, a little shaken but unscathed, I hopped up on the camper roof and wrapped the skins in a tarp and headed off after a bit of persuasion. The next, of our three encounters, was heading up a mountainous road where another local group of police signaled us to pull over, and informed us we were not permitted to drive a diesel truck on Sunday and we needed some sort of code to continue down the road that he would happily give to us for a “fee”. After explaining to the officer we had no money he proceeded to ask for the sunglasses clipped to Kindra’s sun visor, after which he inspected and realized they were cheap dollar store shades he waved us on. At this point the delays had taken up a bit of daylight and we were loosing time to get to our destination. We arrived just outside of town and decided to ask where would be a good place to camp from some of the locals. They then directed us to a vacant auto lot around the back of town. It seemed safe and a nice woman told us she would notify the local police we were staying there the night and to patrol the area for us. Later that night the Mexican police showed up and we all had a very friendly and comforting conversation about the town and our safety. A few of them spoke English, and Kindra and I learned what a “Sancho” is. I’ll explain it some other time.

Day 49, Sun.: Veracruz, Mexico

We left the next morning on our way to Puebla, we dropped Emily just outside of the city and she headed out to hitchhike down to Oaxaca. Kindra and I were planning on having some Mole in Puebla as we heard it was very good but were unable to find a good place to park and a restaurant where we could have Wallace so we headed to Vera Cruz. A girl that we contacted on Couch Surfers met with us and tried to explain where to find the restaurant, but to no avail, thanks for trying Zeo! We arrived in Veracrus just before the sun went down and finally found RV park just outside of town. We were worried to see no one there and the gates were locked… oh no! Kindra called the number that was in this great “Mexican Camping” book that we bought before the trip, it has been our bible! Someone came within minutes and we were in! It had showers, electricity, and a pool down the street that we could use. We had the whole place all to ourselves and were right on the beach. It was super humid and sticky though and a expensive! We decided one day was enough.