5.12.o3
cuautitlan izcalli
okay, so every time i try to type up the stories of my recent adventures in a hotmail message, i type for 20 minutes and then the message vanishes. this combined with weird mexican keyboards & mice and slow internet connections has caused me to storm out of several cyber cafes. i was so spoiled by my imac and dsl line at fluid. i know!
so i am so sorry i have not written to. here i go again...with yahoo mail and a bit of cut and paste...
the tv just said that it is the hottest spring in mexico in 50 years. i am at jorge's moms house. we just ate mole...soon we will take the 2 hour bus ride back to mexico city...we finally found an agreeable hotel, after staying at 4 different ones in the last 10 days. its perfect: old, a bit rundown with big rooms, walk-in closets & windows overlooking a tranqul park that's behind a 16th century museum.
mexico city is wild! i'll have been here 2 weeks on tuesday and already my new shoes are destroyed! i am constantly tumbling while looking at some beautiful old balcony or trying to identify the aroma of some tropical fruit and not paying attention to the 14 inch drop in the sidewalk...other that that and the never forgiving sun, mexico city is treating me very well.
there were holidays last weekend, so friday afternoon we traveled by bus to Veracruz, this old port city on the gulf known for dirty beaches and amazing seafood.
we arrived close to midnight and it was steamy! like walking into a sauna- and it being a holiday there were no hotel rooms. after an hour in a taxi another driver directed us to a "motel" - like pay by the hour style- it was actually fine, a little expensive but very classy with a mirror above the bed, a/c that sounded like a volkswagen, a place to hide your car, a neon paint job, and black lights (very cool cause I was wearing Day-Glo underwear & that psychedelic pink dress- always dressed for the occasion you know!). we sweated our way through the night and morning (the food: amazing ceviche style seafood salad with tons of chile & avocado, weird fried fish eggs, shrimp in chipotle & lots of cold beer!!)
...and hopped another bus for catemaco- 3 hours south through some mountains to this gorgeous lake. Again no reservations, no hotel room. While calling every hotel in the guide book, this cutie young taxi driver gave us puppy dog eyes and we ignored him...after hanging up the last time, we met Polo -who rented us a room in his house (after confirming that we were married?) and guided us all around in his taxi. Polo was very cool- had lived in texas & d.f. & was related to the whole town. Its so special being able to stay with a local family. You would think it would be awkward- i was a little worried...Polo & his wife had 3 children under the age of 4 and shared the house with their mother and its like 100 degrees with humidity. but no everyone is cool with lots of people under one roof. We were awoken to children playing. Then Polo's mother ran across the street to buy Nescafe for my coffee habit and gave me nata- the cream from the top of the milk on toasted white bread. mmmm.
On cinco de mayo Polo borrowed a cool custom van and got out his cd collection (mostly bass rattling stuff he had picked up in texas) took us to some waterfalls and the whole family to another little town that had a rural spa called a balenario- spring fed swimming pools in the shade of bamboo & mango trees. After seeing the falls, we picnicked with the whole family at the balenario . I felt like the only gringa to have passed through there in a while! Polo's mom made the local specialties: monkey meat (really a bbq pork) & freshwater snails in salsa & drank a giant beer called a caguama- literally a giant turtle, actually a liter of beer. it was so great! they were so generous!
we also stayed a day at a beautiful lakeside ecological reserve called Naciyaga. Home to the most northern tropical rainforest. i highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to chill out in nature. they have 8 or 10 little bungalows with hammocks & screen porches in the jungle on the lake. at night there was hardly anyone around. the only sounds were the singing of 20 million birds and other animals. Swimming in mineral water, a massage, a mud bath & the use of a canoe were included in the price $500 pesos (U$50) ...so far from nyc!!!
