El Vago en Suramerica

I was on the beach in Puerto Escondido with some good friends (i met them that night), all bien pedo, at about 5 am on Monday. One of the guys (Pablo), from a town called Pinotepa, about 2.5 hours north of Puerto, invited another american guy (Tim) and I to come home with him the next day. Neither of us had responsibilities, so we saw no reason not to. By 7 am, not having slept, we were on a bus north.

Pinotepa is a nice place. It isn´t a particularly interesting city, not a place for tourists. In fact, if a basketball competition wasnt going on while we were there, Tim and I would have been the only gringos in the city. Pablo lived down a dusty dirt road about 2 miles from the city center in a house with a tin roof. There you shower with a bucket, and you also flush the toilet by pouring a bucket of water into it to create enough pressure for the contents to travel through the plumbing system. They have 4 dogs and 8 kids in the house, and Pablo was one of 7 brothers.

The first day there I met many of Pablo´s friends, all of whom are really cool and chill. One owns a bar in the city center, and there was always somebody there, chilling or listening to music or drinking. We spent a lot of our time in Pinotepa there, as there wasnt much to do during the day. I also met up with a girl I had met in Puerto the night before, called Lirio. I really liked her, so we set up kind of a double-date the next day with her friend and Tim. That night there were about 12 guys drinking at the bar, and at about 3 am we all went to a mountain over the city where you can look down at the lights. I was riding with three other people in the back of a pickup truck, without question the best way to travel. Afterwards, we all had tacos. It was a real good time.

The next day we went with the girls to a pretty river and to the mountain again. At 10 pm they dropped us off at the bar, and assured us they would be right back after they got some money from one girl´s house. They never came back; im pretty sure it was Tim´s girls fault, because she had the car and was in control of the situation… we saw her the next morning wearing the same clothes and makeup, pretty sure signs she didnt go home that night. Well, we wouldnt really care if we hadn´t waited an hour and a half for them to come back for us.

The next day I headed back to Puerto, and it was another party night. I left on a bus at 7 the next morning for Huatulco, extremely tired and not having slept. I changed buses and went to Salina Cruz, then to Juchichan (?) then to Arriaga, Chiapas, then to Tuxtla Gutierrez, where i spent the night. Today I left in the morning for San Cristobal. This city seems to be a wonderful place. It is gorgeous, filled with pretty churches and colonial buildings… and im not saying that means shit about what kind of city it is… The indigenous culture is extremely apparent here, and the colorful dress and beautiful crafts make the place quite varied and interesting. Im ready for a party, though!

So my thanksgiving was spent traveling, but what can you do? At least I´m in Mexico, suckers!

Tell everyone whats up with me, cause im sure some people dont read this.

Love,
Dan

Well, I´ve finally reached the tropics. Even in central mexico it gets cold at night, and the landscape varies between desert and shrubland and forest, but until now I had seen few palm trees or coconuts. Here it is always hot, and the sun at midday is unbearable. The water is beautiful and warm, and the land is covered in green. I´m in Puerto Escondido on the pacific coast of Mexico, in the far south. I arrived on Thursday evening, and since then I´ve spent quite a bit of time relaxing on the beach and enjoying the waves for which this city is famous. I don´t surf, but here a big surfing competition is going on right now. Every day at 6 people head to the best surfing beach to watch the spectacle.

People party here like nothing ive ever experienced. I think it would be comparable to a spring break like atmosphere, staying out at bars until dawn every day then sleeping the day away, waking up several hours before dusk to chill at the beach a bit. On Thursday I went to sleep at 6, on friday at 7, and last night at 9 am. Ive spent most of my time here with foreigners which kinda sucks (lame gringos, mexicans are more fun), but last night I met lots of mexicans as well. There are these 4 alaskans who are cool, and Ive been chilling with them when Im out. This morning I went to the surf competition at about 7, but I fell asleep on the beach and I was feeling pretty awful, so I went to bed instead of sticking around till noon as I had planned.

Yesterday I was walking through the city at night and I stumbled upon an enormous gathering of people in a park, all carrying little yellow flags. I waited in the park with everyone, and a short time later Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a presidential candidate for the PRD, a liberal/socialist political party in Mexico, showed up in the park. He gave a good speach, and the whole gathering almost had a party atmosphere, with lots of music and ecstatic people. I learned quite a bit by this whole gathering, and it was a cool feeling to be the only gringo present.

In 45 minutes a dance festival is going to start, and Im excited to see what its like.

I was in Oaxaca for a couple (3?) days, and I really enjoyed the city. It was a fairly relaxed atmosphere there, and thought there was a lot to see, there was no sense of urgency. In Oaxaca is a gorgeous church filled with gold, and beside it is an excellent museum about the history and culture of Oaxaca state from the prehispanic period until the present. Oaxaca is an extremely diverse place, with a very large indigenous population; something like 20% of the state´s residents speak an indigenous language before spanish, and many speak little or no spanish. People dress colorfully, and the fiestas are unique and exuberant. One day there I stumbled upon a party by the Zocalo where a person would run in a circle in the middle of a big crowd with a wooden structure on his head that shot off sparks and fireworks into the air. It was exciting, but though people told me it was safe I was certainly not convinced. at one point a firework shot through the crowd and people had to jump out of the way. There were these crazy guys there who were drinking rum, and they adopted me as their “primo” (cousin) for the evening.

My first day in Oaxaca I met these two girls selling Mezcal, and i really liked them so I spent a while at their store that day. The next day I slept at their house, and on Wednesday I went out with one of the girls to a bar, and we became “novios” for the night. I was hesitant because she has a boyfriend in the town where she´s from, but I guess relationships only count for so much here…

Monte Alban, outside Oaxaca, is the most beautiful ruins I´ve seen yet. It is atop a mountain, and from there you can see valleys all around and big mountains in the distance. The setting was quite tranquil, and though you can see the outskirts of Oaxaca below, you there you feel like you are in another world.

I took a second class bus from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido, changing buses in the port city of Pochutla. It took 8.5 hours total, and it was a dramatic trip. Oaxaca is in a fertile valley, but we quickly entered a region of shrubland, then high into the densely forested mountains covered in pine trees, then south into the tropics. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. In the mountains I got off the bus and was shocked by how cold it was. When I went back to the bus, little chickens were scurrying around the floor of the bus. People would get off the bus in places where there was nothing more than a couple of shacks on the mountainside. That trip was by far the best bus journey of my travels so far.

And here i am. Right now, Im maybe halfway between the mexican-US border and Panama. Tomorrow I might go to a beach called Mazunte, and then I´ll head to Chiapas via 2nd class buses. The adventure is only beginning…

PS. I have a funny story to tell some people about when I slept at those girls house in Oaxaca… Ill email it or something.

PPS. The monitor on this computer is like a fucking strobe light and i think im going to have a spasm. If there are any funny sentences or grammer errors in this entry, its because my head hurts and I can hardly think, and when i look away from the computer it seems like the whole world is vibrating.

God bless us, everyone!
Dan

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