More Irapuato/ The Start of Mexico City

More Irapuato/ Mexico City

Guanajuato was an incredible city and I loved every minute of it, but it was time to move on. We caught a cab on our last day and back into the mountain we plunged away from the happy little city. Back to the bus station we went for another uneventful bus trip – no movie this time. We arrived in Irapuato and traveled back to Marcela and Natalie’s house. Let me just say that I will miss Natalie greatly. She is just the cutest!

I would consider the neighborhood that Marcela and Natalie live in to be very poor although I would not consider them to be necessarily. Their house is always pristine and they always have food in the fridge, gas for the stove, electricity, hot water, and clean drinking water. I do not think that many of the surrounding persons could say the same. Many children walk around with dirt from head to toe and many live in aluminum shacks with no doors and partial roofs if any. The roads are all dirt and are littered with garbage. The creek that is one hundred yards away from their house is nothing more than a stagnant “muck pit” filled with garbage and excrement that fills the air with a putrid smell. When the wind is blowing the direction of the house it is quite the shock to the nostrils. It does not stop the cow and sheepherders from walking their animals around nearby and from grazing in the grass that grows around it – I’m surprised anything grows around, but am positive nothing is living in it. I thought about Santa Cruz and the pristine dump that smelled like roses with an ocean view.

There was a makeshift bridge that crossed the muck pit. It was constructed of two large trees, wood cross planks, and aluminum sheeting over the top. I was quite impressed with Melanie the first time we crossed the bridge (and every time thereafter). She simply asked if it was secure and walked right across. When we were loaded up with all our belongings it was kind of a hope and pray situation that that thing would hold us. I laughed as we were walking up to it when leaving that it would be kind of funny if the bridge cracked in half as we were waving goodbye to Natalie and Marcela, who were standing in the road watching and waving. I wish we could have taken a picture but it just seemed too awkward.

“Wow look at that pit of grossness in your neighborhood, care if I take some pics and pose in front of it?”

On the day we arrived back a young man named Carlos which I think is the son of one of Marcela’s relatives brought over a little mini-poodle cross that he had rescued off of the street and Marcela said it was okay for him to leave the dog in her backyard temporarily. The poor little thing was covered in cuts, sores, and bites. It also had sunburn from head to toe along with ear mites and probably scabies (although I did not do a skin scrape). Everyone left for the day and I couldn’t help myself from taking care of the sad little waif. I bathed her, disinfected her, cleaned her ears, and put Neosporin on all of her cuts. We bought some revolution the next day to treat the ear mites, scabies, and fleas. The difference between when we left and when he first dropped her off was a sight to behold. She started out as timid and miserable and ended up playing fetch and climbing up in our laps and licking us to no end. Natalie named her “Cebollita” (lil’ onion) – and I think they are going to keep her.

So back to the bus station we traveled, where we caught a bus to Mexico City. I sat and listened to music while Melanie peered out the window the whole time. We arrived in Mexico City and went to collect our bags. I thought it was amusing how the sixty-year- old ladies shoved past me to give their baggage ticket to the luggage boy and then ironically I was stuck walking 2 mph behind them toward the exit. We made our way to the taxi stand and paid for a secure taxi to our hotel.

We got in the taxi and the driver started talking and laughing. He was talking so quickly that neither of us could understand him. I nodded and laughed along with him anyway. The taxi ride was quite thrilling as it was 5 – 6 lanes wide, that is, if there had been lanes. There were no lanes and everyone was driving like a maniac – squeezing by large trucks, swerving, merging traffic cutting in. It got my heart pumping but I tried to look as nonchalant as possible. We arrived at our hotel near the historic center and made our way inside.

The name of the hotel is “Casa de Los Amigos”. It is an extremely inexpensive hostel-type Quaker commune. We were greeted by a nice young man and filled out our paperwork. He showed us to our room and asked if he could carry the box I was holding along with my guitar and backpack. Little did he know that it was a box-o-books and that it weighed about 40 lbs. He almost fell over when I handed it to him – lol. We slept very well that first night being thoroughly exhausted from traveling.

Before we crashed out though we went for some dinner at a sidewalk café just down the street. The food and the service were great. While we were waiting, however, an old lady approached our table and held her hand out and asked for a donation. Neither of us had any change and I told her “No, I’m sorry” in Spanish. She instantly changed from sweet loving grandma to pissed off, swearing bitch – “maldito, cabron, etc…” as she stomped away to the next table where she transformed to sweet loving grandma once again. I had never been cussed out by a grandma before and was quite shocked.

We woke up the next morning and had a nice cheap breakfast that they served down in the kitchen. Although it is supposedly a Quaker community they didn’t even serve oatmeal! Everyone at this place speaks mostly in English as well, which isn’t helping my Spanish progress. We walked around the city for most of the day after breakfast. There was some kind of very large protest going on which was a little unnerving. We kept our distance for a while until we figured they weren’t protesting gringos and then we moved in. The police force was immense. There was bus after bus of cops. There were also riot police in full riot gear. We really wanted to take pictures, but not such a good idea if you want to stay out of Mexican prison. I thought it was all extremely exciting. Melanie got a few good pictures of the protest that I’m sure she will post.

We walked around that night a little and went to a corner café to eat dinner. There are quite a few more gringos and light skinned people walking around here compared to Irapuato, so I don’t feel like nearly as much of a poltergringo walking around at night. We had some excellent sandwiches and went back to the hotel were I wrote this entry and then crashed out for the night. We have two full weeks here in Mexico City and if the rest of it is anything like the first two days it’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Just for fun here is another Natalie pic:

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

Until next time,

Chris