The Loop

Well, as you know, we've come full circle now that we're back in Tucson. I would like to remind everyone that there is a huge map at the bottom of the page showing the path we've taken to complete the loop. Check it out.

Home Sweet Home

Or, The Revenge of "Please Open Your Bag, Señora"

This morning, after our long and (thankfully) uneventful overnight trip, we awoke in Nogales in the state of Sonora, just across the border from Arizona. We got the next available bus from the station to Tucson, and we headed to the frontera. The bus was actually just carrying the two of us--in fact, throughout the ride from Chihuahua we had no more than six passengers on our bus at any time. It was like we had bought some sort of personal shuttle service.

Anyway, we got to the border just in time for a change of the guard in our service lane. The border patrol guy who checked us and our bus was, for lack of a better word, an asshole. We might have called him something like pinche cabrón if we were still in Mexico, but I think the English covers it just as well. The guy acted like he was in a movie, accusing me of playing games with him (after he found out I was an attorney), and just generally being a jerk about the whole thing. Ironically, the sign behind him lauded the policy of cordial behavior by the border patrol. Cordial. Yeah, right.

Anyway, we tried not to dwell on the malvenidos that greeted our return to our own country (OK, I'm dwelling a bit, but we were really annoyed). The bus got us up to Tucson in another hour or so and there we were warmly greeted (finally!) by Emily's parents and taken home.

So, our wild adventures through Mexico have finally come to an end. We had an amazing journey, but we are both glad to be home, and we are looking forward to the adventures ahead.

Oh, and to our faithful readers: don't stop checking the blog yet! We have some closing information coming, including stats, a best/worst list, and maybe a few other things. Keep an eye out.

She'll Be Commin' 'Round the Mountian When She Comes!

After our very short night in Los Mochie's Michael and I boarded the Chihuahua to the Pacific train (Chepe) at 6:00 in the morning. The first hour or so wasn't so exciting, and was a little annoying. We asked the conductor to move us to a seat with a better window view as our assigned spot had half a window and a wall. We were told they would check and get right back to us, three hours later we still hadn't heard anything. After the second stop though, we got a hold of the right person and were relocated to awesome seats just as the sceneary really began to get spectacular. The ride lasted almost 11 hours due mostly to the really slow pace of the train, but it didn't feel long at all. We spent much of the time standing in between two cars and feeling the mountain air and taking in the scenery which included lakes, canyons, pine forests, rock formation, mesas, and other breathtaking works of art. There were lots of retired American tourists on the train making valient attepts to walk back and forth from their seats to the dining car without falling over. We ate lunch in the dinning car, the food wasn't anything special, especially for the price, but the views were just incredible! Michael, who has really been the designated photographer, took lots of pictures that we will post up for you once we get home. We were given about 10 minutes to hop off the train in Divisadero where we were treated to a view of the actual "Copper Canyon" which lends its name to the whole region, which is made up of a series of canyones which in total make up a larger and deeper gouge in the earth than the Grand Canyon. We may be partial because of our home state, but although the Copper Canyon was gorgeous, and nothing to turn up your nose at, we still feel like the Grand Canyon takes the cake when it comes to breathtaking views. It is possible to get on and off the train for as many days as you want up to three times with the same ticket and we would love to come back sometime and get off at more of the little towns along the way. The towns, more than being attractions in themselves, serve as jumpping off points for hiking, biking, camping, and generally enjoying the incredible outdoors.

We stopped on this journey at the town of Creel, which is probably the most popular of the stops and for good reason. We stayed at a hostel, Casa Margaritas, that included both breakfast and dinner in the cost of the room and had a very cozy comfy warm bed, good for the cold nights. The scenery around Creel was spectacular. It is pine forest mixed with planes and incredible rocky formations. We rented mountian bikes to explore on our own rather than opting for an organized tour. Michael had a really bad cold (which he has now passed on to me, and is sadly not totally over it himself either), and was coughing and sniffling, but was a total trooper in staying out on the bike for almost 4 whole hours). We saw two small rock groups called the Valley of the Mushrooms and the Valley of the Frogs, which were neat but seemed a little like scrapping for tourist attractions. One of the rocks really did look like a frog though, we were skeptical as to the natural origions of all of the mushroom rocks though, since one of the biggest had cement around its base, making it look a little like it had been fabricated. The third area, the Valley of the Monks, however, was breathtaking. In the native Tahamurah language, the name of the area translates to Valley of the Erect Penises, to give you an idea of the form that the rocks take. The rocks were towering columns, and the lichens gave them huges of green and yellow along with the grey of the rock and the stunning blue of the sky behind. We also made a quick detour in the Cave of San Sebastian, which was one of the most awkward parts of the ride. The cave is actually the home of a Tahamura family, and one of the young boys stands at the opening of the home with a small basket with a sign asking for donations. The girls sell woven pine baskets inside. As we approached no one greeted us or explained anything about the site or about themselves or seemed to really acknowldge the random foreginers wandering into their home. Mind you this was on the map given to us by the hostel and is included on many of the packaged tours, so we weren't just randomly wandering into someones house either. The attemps by the native cultures to capitalize on the growing tourism industry makes for some strange and somewhat awkward encounters. The tourists bring money which is good, but the closing in on these cultures of the modern world also brings about a lot of problems and the loss of many cultural traditions.

In town we bought lots of the pine woven baskets some from sellers on the street but most from a shop which uses its proceeds to support the Mission that provides health care for the Tahamura people in the region. We met lots of nice travelers during our two dinners at Casa Margaritas. These meals felt a lot like summer camp, everyone eatting together at long tables and being served the same meal, the quality of which was about equal to summer camp fare.

On Monday morning Michael had an interview via Skype with TUSD. We had asked the local computer place to open a few minutes early so that he could be ready and waiting for them but as happens in Mexico, they weren't open still at 9 when they normally say they open. I was running all over trying to find somewhere to at least let me grab the number off an email so we could try the interview committee by phone. I found one at 3 Amigos Tours, but by then the other cafe had opened and Michael had started to make contact. There were a few sound difficulties at first, but by around 9:15 they were moving comfortably through the interview. He felt okay but not great about it and is hoping he gets the chance for a second interview in person, without a copy machine running behind him and the stress of Mexican bussiness hours hangging over his head.

At 1 we caught the bus for Chihuahua, which felt to me a very long ride. The bus had way less leg room than usual and a yucky bathroom. On top of that the driver was showing a trilogy of Charles Bronson films, which were really inappropriate for a bus with children (and me) on it. Lots of violence, bad language, and sex, and various combinations of these. It took a whole hour from the time we got into the city to when we finally arrived at the bus station. This city is HUGE. The area of it feels even bigger than Puebla, although Puebla had a bigger population. We bought our tickets for the bus home to Nogales then took a cab to our hostel. We are right across from the train station, very convient if we were getting back on the train, but a little far from the center of town, despite the websites promise that it is just 5 minutes from the center. As it turns out that is okay because now that we have found the center it isn't super exciting. What is exciting are my boots. I have wanted cowboy boots and have been waiting for Chihuahua which is renowned for its boots to get some. Sadly there is much greater variety for men than for women and while the men have colors ranging from lavender, pink, and teal to blue, brown, and yellow, women's boots are mostly black, brown, or pink and there are very few in each store. I ended up finding a pair I really liked though at Jar Boots, which seemed to have the best selection of women's boots of everywhere we looked (which was a lot of stores, ask Michael, he was a trooper about shoe shopping with me). Sadly, the store that sells vanilla seems to have moved or went out of bussiness. After lunch we will look around to see if we can find some elsewhere.

Tonight our bus leaves at 7:30 to Nogale and gets in around the same time tomorrow morning. From there we will take a bus back up to Tucson and our Mexcellent Adventure will have come to an end. This won't be our last post though as we have the bus journey and more photos for you when we get home. We can't wait to talk to you all in person soon!

Things We're Looking Forward To Back Home

With less than a week separating us from the good ol' U.S. of A., Emily and I have been thinking about the things we're looking forward to most about home. Here they are:

1. Our Cats! We miss them so much.

2. Potable tap water. One thing that you will never find in Mexico: a drinking fountain.

3. Our wedding rings. Yes, we have our temporary ones (I'm on my second temporary ring after the first turned my finger green), but it's not the same.

4. Throwing toilet paper into the toilet. Isn't that why it's called "toilet" paper?

5. Cell phones. This ones a bit mixed: we like the freedom of not having our cell phones, but it's nice to be able to just call and talk to friends and family when we feel like it.

And a special category: FOOD. First, we miss cooking for ourselves. It's been ages since we've prepared a proper meal. We also miss certain kinds of food that we can't seem to find here, such as:

• Vegetables (iceberg lettuce does not count, Mexico!)
• Gluten-free baked goods (well, one of us misses them)
• Sushi
• Thai food
• Cheesecakes from the Cheesecake Factory
• Pizza from CPK
• Korean BBQ
• Good (even normal) chocolate

For those of you who have the pleasure of seeing us in our first weeks back, I hope you enjoy some or all of these things, because we will be hoping to eat them with you. (My stepfather, when talking with me about restaurants we might want to visit when we come into town in a week and a half, very amusingly offered to take us to Rudy's, the local--you guessed it--Mexican food joint. I think Emily and I will need a couple of weeks' recovery after our return before we eat Mexican food.)

Random Thoughts

Here are a whole lot of random thoughts on Mexico that I've been saving up for a while now. Brace yourselves.

Night drumming: For some reason I've had the impression lately that, no matter what city we've been in, as soon as Emily and I are ready to call it a night a huge festival is starting outside. Namely, there seem to be people constantly drumming outside at night. Sometimes they even have horns accompanying them. It's like there's always a parade somewhere, but they wait for the tourists to go to sleep so that they can get started. (I will note that last night, the drumming we heard was very good Japanese taiko drumming, and we actually watched a fair amount of it before we heard the rest from our conveniently nearby room.)

Bus Money: If you're riding the bus in Mexico, bring extra money with you. Why? Because there's always the chance that someone will come on the bus selling something. Oftentimes it's food (snacks, meals, ice cream); sometimes it's a dubious cure-all like the guy selling Grandma's special tea that fixes all of your ailments; sometimes people even just come on the bus to beg money from the passengers. The only busses that won't let vendors on are the deluxe lines. Everything else is fair game.

No Returns or Exchanges, Please: I have a book in Spanish that I bought in Playa del Carmen. It's a best-selling thriller, translated into Spanish from the original Portuguese. It is still sealed in the plastic that most books in Mexico come wrapped in, and I haven't read it yet because I've been too busy reading books by Latin American authors. I decided at some point that it would be a good idea to try to exchange this book (after all, it's still a brand-new best-seller) for store credit somewhere to get other books that I'm more interested in reading at present. As it turns out, bookstores in Mexico will not exchange books unless you bought it at te particular branch of the store in which you're trying to make the exchange. It doesn't matter whether it's a little local shop or a big chain with stores throughout the country: if you're not returning it exactly where you bought it, you're out of luck. If you don't have a receipt because it was a gift, you're also out of luck. It's a very frustrating process. The moral of the story is be very careful about picking books to buy in Mexico, because you may just be stuck with your choice forever. (Thankfully, I'm still interested in reading my book one day--it would be worse if I just didn't want it all.)

Literature in Translation: Speaking of books in Mexico, there's a strange trend that we've noticed here in book translation. Namely, besides translated the book itself, they also translate the names of the authors into Spanish. Jules Verne, for example, becomes Julio Verne. Alexander Dumas here is Alejandro. Overzealous translators, maybe?

Strange Creatures: Scientific evidence proves that ancient Mexicans must have been strangely-built folks. Note the tremendous stairs that one has to scale at any given archaeological site in Mexico: we know from the construction that ancient Mexicans must have had tremendously long legs. Note also, however, the short doorways throughout ancient (and even modern) Mexico, which demonstrate the overall small stature of the people. The race of people must have had 4-foot-long legs and about 1 foot total for the torso and the head, that much we know for sure. I would speculate additionally that ancient Mexicans could, with their frog-like structure, jump incredibly high.

La Michoacana: We haven't visited there during our trip, but Emily and I have decided that Michoacan must make very good ice cream. We assume this because 9 out of every 10 ice cream shops here is called "La Michoacana." No, it's not an ice cream mega-chain. While there was a small La Michoacana chain in Oaxaca, the stores in the rest of the country don't appear to be related. And every city, no matter how small, has at least one La Michoacana. In Mazatlán, there were two La Michoacanas on the same block, separated by one other store. Mexico must have lax trademark laws (as if we didn't already know).

Mazatlan Day 2

On our second day of beach side chilling we woke up lesiurely and had breakfast on the way to walk up to the lighthouse. The sign at the top of the very large hill we hiked up claimed that the Mazatlan lighthouse is the tallest natural lighthouse in the world. Our guide book says it is the second highest, until we hike up the tallest, we will go with the sign at the top for offical blog purposes. The walk out to the lighthouse was lovely, all along the malecon, or beach path, and then, up a hill that used to be an island but is now attached to the main land with a man made peninsula. The only unpleasant part was just before beginning the accent, you have to pass by the water treatment plant and it is pretty stinky. When we arrived at the top there was a giant iguana waiting at the gate to greet us. The wildlife fun continued as Michael tried to take pictures of the buzzard like birds soaring overhead searching for unsuspecting iguanas, or tourists who couldn´t make it all the way up the hill. After soaking in the view of the whole Mazatlan area we headed back down which was a much easier proposition. On the way down the steps we had yet another exciting wildlife encounter. We heard a slight rustle in the bushes and suddenly a snake lept out into the path in front of us. It was at least 17 feet long and we are pretty sure it was an Anaconda. Michael was only startled for a mere second before valiently whipping out the machete he has taken to carrying with us on our journeys, and lopping the snake into two. He saved my life for sure, and probably the lives of 50 or more children, Anacondas are known to eat two or more a night for months on end. When we recovered from our reptile encounter, we headed back down the hill for our hotel where we rested a bit before lunch. We ate lunch in a yummy juice bar type restaurant that served salads! Salads, as with many other vegtables are hard to come by here in Mexico in any quantity. It is one of the things I am most looking forward to on my return, is eatting healthy vegtables again. After lunch we swam first in the ocean then in the pool. The evening was fun too. There was a Taiko show nearby and Michael chatted with a friendly couple from the bay area and watched the group warm up while I went for a run. After a dissapointing sushi dinner we went back for the first half hour of the taiko show which was lots of fun and drew a huge crowd. It seemed to be part of the same arts and culture festival that the "humor" exhibition was part of that we saw the night before.

This morning we woke up and had breakfast at the juice bar again. I ate whole wheat waffel with fruit and cottage cheese on it, mmmm. Then we headed for the bus station and took a bus to Los Mochis. We arrived here about a half hour or so ago. The first city we have arrived in without reservations, and of course it was fine and we got a good discount at a hotel recommeded in the lonely planet. The bus ride was on a cushy line with foot rest seats and we watched "The Queen" and a Middle Eastern film called "The Turtles Can Fly," despite following what the characters were saying, we were a little lost by the plot, it took place during the first part of the current Iraq war, and we think a lot may have been lost in the dubbing.

Tomorrow morning the taxi driver who took us from the bus station will return to our hotel at 4:30 to drive us to the train station, which leaves at 6am. We will probably sleep a bit more for the first few hours which aren't supposed to be very spectacular, before waking up to soak in the scenery on our way to to Creel.

¡Fotos!

Here's another round of select photos while we work on getting a whole ton of photos uploaded to Picasa (which may not happen for a bit). Hope this will tide everyone over:

First, here's Emily in the Callejon del Beso in Guanajuato. Yes, she's alone in the shot, but I promise that we kissed later.

Here's Emily playing along in the Mummy Museum:

The two of us get in the spirit of Día de Muertos by eating some skull candy:


Here's Emily and her Uncle John during our visit to San Miguel de Allende and the house that Emily's dad designed (not shown):

The beautiful church in San Miguel de Allende during Día de Muertos celebrations:

The colorfully decorated panteón in San Miguel de Allende during Day of the Dead:

Emily and Michael put on their hard hats to explore the mine in Zacatecas:

Emily in front of el Cerro de la Bufa above Zacatecas:

Cool mural at the Palacio in Zacatecas--note how the painted mural blends into the stone carving underneath:

Picture of the old convent currently housing the Museo Rafael Coronel:

Inside the Museo, Michael poses with the other Miguel masks--the masks are of the archangel Michael.

Sunset as seen from our balcony in Mazatlán (jealous?):