Puerto Rico: In search of the light of the shining star

My little Mami

My relationship with Puerto Rico always feels complicated. And subsequently so are my trips there. I often have this sense of being in a space that is quite familiar, yet distant and foreign, which probably isn't particular to me. I think many of us first-generation mainland US-born Puerto Ricans have this sense. Linguistic barriers and bi-racial/ethnic identities further murky the waters of a clear sense of what Puerto Ricanhood means for me. I didn't grow up speaking Spanish, although it was often spoken around me for a number of years. My mother struggled as a child when she arrived in the United States* in the 1950s. Unable to speak English she was kept out of school for a year and attempted to teach herself with her neighbors' schoolbooks. Growing up discriminated against in the North Ward and Ironbound sections of Newark, New Jersey, she was adamant that I wouldn’t have similar troubles with English, which centered on a false belief that bilingualism causes language difficulties as opposed to reinforces cognitive abilities.

*A de facto colony of the United States I prefer to speak of Puerto Rico as a distinct nation

2010 Throwback: Me at University of Puerto Rico Protest. Check Video of event where police used pepper spray and brutally clubbed demonstrators with batons and shields. 

Like my mother initially with English, I’ve struggled to gain fluency in Spanish. A glutton for punishment and determined to master the language, I decided to conduct essentially all of my ethnographic dissertation research in Spanish. What a damn nightmare. But before I officially began this work in Cartagena, Colombia in 2011 I spent the summer in Puerto Rico. And one of the greatest frustrations at the time was speaking to people in Spanish and having them respond in English. This was done primarily in San Juan and sometimes by people who clearly couldn’t even speak English as well as I could Spanish. It just threw sazón on my wounded ego. 

But a noticeable shift happened during this trip to Puerto Rico in March. My challenge with Spanish has always been an emotional one, hardly about actual retention and processing. I only came to realize this while studying Portuguese in Brazil in 2001 and finding it easier (even though it is technically more difficult than Spanish) due to the lack of pressure and guilt. Since 2010 my time living in Colombia and Chile has helped to markedly improve my Spanish. While it is still an uphill battle towards what can technically be called fluency, or hell good grammar at times, my confidence has improved dramatically since 2010. So feeling a bit more like didn't have to be ashamed when I spoke brought about a comfort that allowed me to see the island as much more than an ancestral home. It started become more of an extension of myself. 

The journey began with my mother and I rolling out in typical goofball fashion. 

 
 

We kicked it with our amazing friend Sonia who has become so much like family to me over the years. And of course we hit up various beaches around the island because well hell, my soul is tropical and as my girl Marci said, “@machetesymiel is always on the damn playa. I like my fish frozen and shaped like stars muchas gracias.”

 

Mami, me and Sonia (Hey, Sonia!!!!)

 
 
There's always a laugh to be had with this one trying to take Usies. Oh mothers. 

There's always a laugh to be had with this one trying to take Usies. Oh mothers. 

I just have to throw this in here because my mother’s obsession with basketball kills me and comes out at the most random of times. This is us at Walgreen’s buying sunscreen on our way to Luquillo Beach.

 
 
 

I visited the town of my mother’s birth, Dominguito, located in Arecibo. By coincidence there was a festival going on and I had brought the family tree I’d obsessed over last year. I was determined to find information about my great-great-great-great grandfather, Jose Ramon Larrieu y Despiau, who was apparently mayor of Arecibo in the 1800s. There’s a legend about him that sounds like some shit straight out Love in the Time of Cholera, well probably because he and bunch of other members of my family all died of cholera. Given his French ancestry my fear is still that our family was plantation owners who fled to Puerto Rico from Haiti during the revolution. I can neither confirm nor deny this potentially shitty historical background. I ended up running into a woman who was selling her book on Arecibo history and I had to point out that she’d missed my great X4 grandpapa. It was a pleasant exchange in my opinion but my mother has since used this incident as an example of something that is just "very typical Melissa.”

(Video Disclaimer: I had not spoken Spanish in 3 mos. #TheStruggleIsReal)

Me, my mother and Sonia hung out in Arecibo for a while. Some of it was quite beautiful and being there was refreshing. 

 

#CarefreeBlackGirl Puerto Rico

 

But there was this other side to being in Arecibo that reflected the struggle of the island, one that tourists don't see or care to see. I was struck by the emptiness of the center of town on a Saturday and the abandonment of so many properties.

Yet even amongst the abandonment there were people still trying to make a life in spaces that had lost a sense of vitality, in some ill way like a fetus trying to grow and survive in a mother who has passed on.

First cousin once removed with first cousin twice removed. I think that's how that goes. 

We headed to Dominguito and visited my mother’s first cousin who lives in the house once owned by my great-great-grandmother, Concepción “Concha” Rodriguez. I spoke with Junior and other family members who lived nearby about the family tree and although I’d met a few of them before I didn’t feel as connected as I did this trip. I had a sense of who people were, going back for generations, and that made their faces light up. I listened to stories of our family and looked at artifacts of my great-grandmother’s.

Great grandmother, Concepción “Concha” Rodriguez

My great-grandmother's Singer sewing machine

 

Wait, is that antique bottle called, Old Colony?? 

My mother went back home and I got to spend a few more days basking in the glow of the island. I got to spend time with people who I have grown to appreciate (one of whom will at some point be featured in the memoir... LIBRO!) and see places I’d known over the years.

 

El Morro, San Juan, Puerto Rico 

 

View of La Perla, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Image of political prisoner, Oscar López Rivera

Piraguas cart 

Where Kola Champagne was created. San Juan, PR

 

Wonderful San Juanero artist, John Melendez, whose light-hearted nature makes me crack up every time I see him

 

 

 

 

 

I was on a quest to buy this serigraph this trip. I first saw it during my summer in Puerto Rico and I had to have it. I shopped around for it and sadly couldn't find it for purchase this time.

 

 

However, I did manage to come up on this gem of a silkscreen that I had to cop for obvious reasons. 

 

"Machete Boricua" by Novo 69/80

 

The struggle for a place in the world is one that is constantly being battled by Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans everywhere. Puerto Rico was one of Spain’s longest held colony (if not the actual longest). It was then almost immediately seized by the United States in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American-Cuban War and has been a de facto colony ever since. Now the island is deep in the throes of a major financial crisis (for a breakdown, check out Ed Morales’ article). As Morales points out, the colonial experiment has clearly failed. American imperialism has rendered Puerto Rico neither foreign, nor domestic. The Immigration and Nationality Act gave Puerto Ricans statutory citizenship, yet the nation remains in limbo without the rights of sovereignty or true US citizenship stemming from the 14th Amendment and statehood. As I struggle to find my own place on La Isla del Encanto I can’t help but to wonder what does all that's happening now mean for its identity and its future? What future will Puerto Rico carve out for itself? What will continue to be imposed upon it? What role do people like me play, those of us who have Puerto Rico in hearts but a life outside of it? My hope is that the we'll see the light before my issues with identity become meaningless because there will be no unique Puerto Rico with which to connect.  

 

La Bandera, battered and bruised, but still flying

 

The "Oh Sh**, I Traveled To 10 Countries In 2014" Review- Part 8 Kyoto & Tokyo (#9 Japan)

This is it (breathy MJ voice), the very last installment of my 2014 travel year review. I'm still behind two trips for 2015 and will be leaving to travel for 5.5 weeks next week. But I'm pleased to have gotten this far. I will not have this blogging lag... AGAIN! (in my mind that time I just sounded like Eddie Arcadian)

So I roll out of Tokyo and take a bullet train to Kyoto.

Welcome to Kyoto!

Now for some reason I immediately became turned around when I left my hotel. Lost, I wander down the street. What do I stumble upon? In true Machetes y Miel fashion, a protest. I don't know why this happens as often as it does. I think I'm somehow lured to all the emotion and passion of those fighting for a cause. This particular event was an anti-nukes protest in front of the Kansai Electric Power Company.

 

Anti-nukes protester. He and his sign are oddly super adorable given the circumstances.

 

My goal was to get to Guion and Sanjo for shopping and somehow I made it even though I was wayyyy further than I thought.

Teramachi Shopping Arcade

children in kyoto at mall

Can I just tell you that the vintage chain CHICAGO is pretty much my everything?? I hit up the one in the Teramachi Shopping Arcade. Do yourself a favor and make this happen when in Japan. They've got all types of vintage, from Hawaii 5.0 shirts, to 70s booty shorts, to fly ass Kimonos.

 
 

Now I'm not Japanese but I'm going to venture to say that this shit is insensitive. But maybe it's just me. 

Obligatory McFlurry Abroad Pic

Kyoto Tower

Yasaka Shrine

The next day I hopped on the bus and went to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Nijo Castle. It was lovely, in spite of the fact that it started to rain buckets right after I arrived. 

The rest of the day reminded me of the potentially interesting turn of events that can transpire when you're wandering the world alone. I got on the bus to head to my next destination and heard two guys speaking English. Somehow we struck up a conversation and before I knew it we were hitting up shrines, cemeteries, temples and bookstores and dining together (Hey Calvin & Tony!). Our first stop was Nanzen-ji Temple.

 

Me at Nanzen-Ji Temple. See, new friends mean no shitty selfies! Hooray! 

 

Then on to Ginkaku-ji Temple. 

Me at Ginkaku-Ji

Me at Ginkaku-Ji

My awesome traveling companions, Tony and Calvin, interior design & architecture students hailing from China via Canada and Canada. 

My awesome traveling companions, Tony and Calvin, interior design & architecture students hailing from China via Canada and Canada. 

Next stop, Honen-in Temple. 

Internationally known

 

 

 

Colonel Sanders kyoto

I was fairly templed-out by this point (no offense). We hit up a bookstore which sounded interesting online, Junkudō. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What would Colonel Sanders say about this? Hmm, probably something racist.

And speaking about race and racism, I was actually quite taken aback by what it felt like being a Black person in Japan. For one of the first times in my life I actually felt raced in an unfamiliar way. Now Japan is one of the most homogeneous societies in the world, so it's not as if I felt I belonged. On the contrary, I felt very much an outsider, but an invisible one (which I wasn't a huge fan of either). But walking around as a person racialized as Black is typically about more than just being different. It is this constant feeling of being perceived as othered AND simultaneously lesser. Obviously the degree of this is very location-contingent and based on your awareness of what's happening around you. My time in Japan was limited. But I came to sense that anti-Black racism might be a bit less pervasive there than in places I've traveled around the world. It might be experienced differently or revealed in ways unbeknownst to me, but it was nice to walk into places and not feel that my Afro-descendancy would automatically be deemed as categorically inferior. People were exceptionally nice. Of course they could've been talking shit behind my back but I appreciated the overt kindness everywhere I went.

GHANA chocolate sans cartoons of people from Africa. Kudos.

GHANA chocolate sans cartoons of people from Africa. Kudos.

 

Even the packaging of this chocolate, presumably derived from Ghanaian cocoa, caught my attention. Note how it's not simply called "Afrika Dark Chocolate" as the German company Balhsen did. According to them "In the heart of Africa you will find an incomparably aromatic cocoa bean." Where the hell is the heart of Africa? #AfricaIsNotACountry Note how there's no caricatured brown person depicted on the front to connect the person's flesh to the brown color of chocolate (I'm looking at you Nestle). It might seem minor, but these kinds of advertisements and packaging produce, reproduce and reinforce associations we have about attributes and groups of people. And it was refreshing not to be bombarded by such imagery, if even for a spell.  

I also marveled at the co-existence of cultural practices or ideologies that I would consider somewhat contradictory. For example, the scary/cute dichotomy pictured below. On the one hand you have a culture that has produced bad ass Samurai Warriors, a culture that has also historically been ruthless when it comes to combat and has practiced genocide. Juxtapose this with the obsession with all things hyper-adorable and I don't know whether to be worried or get my teeth checked for cavities due to all the sweetness. 

You don't want it wit' Samurai Takayama Hikokuro. 

 

I never thought I'd say this, but this is some cute ass rice -->>

Also fascinating to me was the fact that it's a non-tip society yet Japan had by far the best customer service I'd ever seen in my life. Maybe they pay fair wages. But even that wouldn't necessarily produce better treatment of customers. I also watched as parents appeared to dote on their children, yet you don't hear about Japanese children behaving overly "spoiled." A number of people discussed with me the way that Japanese culture has a particular affinity for all things new. For example, houses are not expected to be passed on to family members, but instead you are supposed to build new homes. Heirlooms are not favored, which is one of the reasons the markets are amazing because people are getting rid of awesome shit (also may be a function of limited space). So you have a culture where people don't believe in things lasting for a very long time, yet there is also this emphasis on quality and a tangentially-related value, a reverence for the elderly. I'm sure everything has a sociological and historical root that I'm unaware of but I found it all so interesting to dissect. 

 

In the cut in Kyoto

 

The night right before I met Tony and Calvin I ate alone and remember thinking how much I wanted something very basic like dinner conversation. So I was particularly pleased to be able to dine on some great Okonoiyaki with these guys. 

The next day I headed out early on the bus to Arashiyama, determined to find this bamboo groove I'd read about.

Women in traditional dress in Arashiyama

My fav pic of the trip

My fav pic of the trip

I'm lost in the woooooods (straight Bon Iver style) 

 

 

It's sort of tough to find your way when these are the guide posts. 

 

 

 

 

But eventually I somehow made it!

 

"Deep thoughts-Deep woods" selfie

 

Then it was back on the bus to the Shinto Fushimi Inari Taisha Shrine where I climbed all the way to the top, like a G. 

I appreciated the hell out of these directions. Let's hear it for squats.

 

Long-legged in Japan problems

 

 

Back on the bus I went.

The next day I returned to Tokyo via the bullet train. Ya know what? It's fast.  

 
 

In Tokyo I hit up Toji Temple and Kobo-San Market.

 

The artist behind my beautiful handmade screen

 

The Japanese are NOT about that darker skin. Gloves, umbrellas, long sleeves, skin brighteners/whiteners, whatever it takes to keep it light. 

Japanese Brownness Prevention 

These products are from Muji but they don't seem available on the US Muji website. Don't know if whitening is supposed to be synonymous with brightening but it would appear that it's NOT just about brighter skin. 

 
 

I kicked it in Ginza, the 5th Ave of Tokyo.

 

Ginza

 

 

 

I hit up the humongous Uniqlo in Ginza. My favorite part, this sign. ---->

After the ground toilet situation I know that sometimes you just need a little help with unfamiliar territory.

 

 

 

My last night in Japan I had a bit of a moment... 

 
 
 

A bag in Ginza that was talking to me.

 

It's been real, Nippon!!!

The "Oh Sh**, I Traveled To 10 Countries In 2014" Review- Part 7- Yokohama & Tokyo(#9 Japan)

Here it is (a groove, slightly transformed...my bad, force of hip hop habit), the second to last installment of my 2014 Travel Year Review. Aw yeh, aw yeh (Rock dat! See what I mean...). 

So I made my way from Prague, Czech Republic to Tokyo, Japan via a 5 hr layover in London. Once again my short term goal was to sleep when I could in order to stay awake when I arrived in Tokyo at 9am and not lose a day. Because my conference was in Yokohama I had to make my way from Tokyo Narita Airport to Yokohama via train. There are various kinds of lines in Japan making it particularly challenging to navigate initially. Multiple train companies mean that if you decide to buy an unlimited card for one system it may not actually take you where you want to go because another company may operate that line you actually need. Not fun or convenient, but manageable. I stayed at a very bare bones spot called Hostel Zen, small single room with a shared bathroom. Nothing to write home about. The first two days I did the Yokohama and International Sociology Association conference deal. 

 

Yokohama, Japan

 

 

 

 

 

This is what the subway map looked like.

Japanese Subway Map

 
Lost in Translation, the Afro version 

Lost in Translation, the Afro version 

 

 

 

 

And subsequently, this is what I looked like. If you don't know what this look is, some would call it "confusion."

The conference opened with some sociologist zingers and Michael Burawoy dropping knowledge of sorts.

These performers did their thing. 

 

The next day I played conference hookie and ventured out into Tokyo. It was both cool and exhausting. And not exhausting necessarily because of how tired I'd been from traveling to four countries in Europe before my arrival, which was only made worse by my overpacking. And not just because of all the people dipping and diving around Tokyo, because come on, I live in NYC. But just what it took out of me to navigate such an unknown space alone. I think it's important to punctuate this a bit, not to cause travellers' panic, but because it's crucial for many as they venture out dolo in the world. I've discussed this before. Understand that it's not uncommon to feel a sense of unease. Just leaving the hotel takes a certain degree of courage, figuring out how to get from A to B, how to feed yourself, how to work through being such a visible outsider, how to be someone in a strange place. All of these feelings had been swirling around within me and at this particular point I really became officially over solo travel.

But hey, I was still fortunate enough to be in Japan. Gotta keep it moving. I did just that and ran around Tokyo. First stop, Shibuya.

Shibuya selfie

Shibuya

 

Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan

 

Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. I couldn't tell if these were those "Black Style" folks I'd seen footage on. Their color was bananas. Well I guess more like coconut shells technically but you catch my drift. 

All I know is that this woman's face behind them sums it up.

You never know what kinds of stories you'll hear when you're abroad. The nature of the circumstances leads you to converse with people you may not have otherwise. This is Catherine Fisher. She and I struck up a convo over accessories in a department store. The article I hold in my hand came out the day before we met. She'd just released her book, I Am Catherine Jane, which details her survival and fight as the victim of rape by a U.S. Navy sailor in Yokosuka. I told her I would share her story. 

Me with Catherine Fisher, author of I AM CATHERINE JANE

I ate then made my way on foot from Shibuya proper, I guess you could say, to the Harajuku section of Shibuya. I captured this video on the way because it is distinctly what I call a "sound of Tokyo" in all its cutesy and kind of annoying splendor. 

 
 

Before I went deep into the Harajuku neighborhood I went to the Shinto shrine Meiji Jingū, something completely opposite of the above video. It was this peaceful, green oasis in the middle of the city. 

 

Me with Barrels of Sake Wrapped in Straw at Meiji Jingū

 

These were the personal prayers and messages of gratitude for the deities enshrined at Meiji Jingū which I could actually read and stood out for various reasons. 

 
 
 

Shrine Selfie. Wait, that sounds disrespectful. I mean that is what this is though, but...I don't know. 

 

Then it was off to the fashionable and festive, Harajuku neighborhood of Shibuya. 

 

Smells like teen spirit, Tokyo

 

I call the next series of pics "???"

And these are from the "you're welcome" collection.

Women Only Subway Car in Tokyo, Japan

I rolled back to Yokohama on the "Women Only" car which I'd discussed in the article I wrote on street harassment for The Shadow League some time ago. It was a reminder of what things have been put in place to protect women from the sort of unwanted touching I'd experienced on the subway car in Chile.  

 

The next day I distributed my work at the ISA conference in Yokohama.

Pokemania lives on

Pokemania lives on

I'd always thought the Pokemon thing in Japan was exaggerated. Turns out, not so much. They really do STILL love them some Pokemon in Japan. It was everywhere.

During the wee hours of the morning I wrote the only blog post I would come to write while actually in Japan called "Scars." I think the shit is deep, but what the hell do I know? 

I always appreciate a good travel mash up. Meeting up with the Danish girl I met in Ecuador in Copenhagen. Kicking it with my Colombian crew in New York. Hanging tough with one of my New York besties in Cairo, Egypt. I had two great mash ups in one day in Japan. You may recall this lovely cast of characters from the Vienna, Austria trip only a few weeks earlier. We all met up for lunch at the conference. 

One of the things I noticed in Japan is how often I saw people wearing things that were written in some seriously grammatically incorrect English. At one point I thought maybe it was purposeful, but in the end I thought not. Here the urban sociologists are posing in front of the trendy Urban Research Make Store. Wait, huh? Yeh, I don't know either. 

Later that night the mash ups continued as I got to kick it with my fellow urban sociology, PhD hustling cool kid, Nelson, in Shimokitazawa and Shibuya (Soon we'll be in Italy! Woo hoo!). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next stop, Kyoto!!

The "Oh sh**, I traveled to 10 countries in 2014" Review- Part 6 (#8 Prague, Czech Republic)

 

The  day after I left Vienna I was off to Prague, aka Praha! I was going to take the train again but everyone advised I take the Student Agency buses which were a fraction of the price and to some even nicer. I was so happy I did. They were exactly right.

I stayed at Miss Sophie's which was really lovely. I wandered around by myself the first day.

I hit up a bookstore and learned how to write Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and Kenya in Czech and now you did too. #YoureWelcome 

This ad just spoke to me because I have long felt that I can Bey like no other.

 
 

The next day I was fortunate enough to take the walking tour provided by the hotel with the fantastic Tony. We worked our way around the city.

Once the official tour was over Tony took us somewhere that the lush in me genuinely appreciated: a beer spot where each person controls how much beer they serve themselves and everyone has individual tabs. Brilliant? Or evil? You decide. 

 

Oh and to make matters even worse there was a competition for drinking the most beer between the tables. Yes, we killed it.

 

We then went on to one of Prague's "straight-friendly" cafes.  

 
 

That night I rolled out with a group of adorable queer fellas to a gay bar and then a club. There were some cuties up in that party. And every few moments I would catch myself thinking, “Hey, why isn’t he paying me any attentioooo, oh right. Fudge.” But I had such a cool time and in the morning I was off to Japan!!

 
 

The "Oh sh**, I traveled to 10 countries in 2014" Review- Part 5 (#7 Vienna, Austria)

Me on a train from Budpest to Vienna

My time in Vienna was simultaneously fantastic and senselessly annoying. The annoying elements are definitely LIBRO material and speak to so many of the other frustrations in life at the time. So let’s get to the less deep shit for now. I left Budapest and headed to Vienna via train. Here’s my first tip if heading to Austria from Hungary: pay to have an assigned seat. I had no idea that was really an option because the woman at the ticket counter didn’t inform me. And I found myself wanting to later return and tell her about herself, because what that meant was almost the entire trip I was on edge thinking someone would board and force me outta my seat. And since this wasn’t Alabama and my name isn’t Mrs. Parks I was gonna have to raise up out. Thankfully that didn’t happen, but it was anxiety producing.

I was in Vienna to participate in the Marie Jahoda Summer School of Sociology  at the University of Vienna. We weren’t put into housing and I decided to stay in the Wombat´s City Hostel The Naschmarkt   because, while it wasn’t very close to the University of Vienna, it seemed to be close to other places of interest, like the Naschmarkt. When I got to the dorm room at the hostel I casually checked the mattress for any signs of bed bugs. Tip #2 that I’m sure many of you know: always check the hell out of your mattresses when you stay in hotels, especially hostels. I’ll get more into this in a few. I explored Vienna a bit on my own that first day.

Hey, little Black girl in Vienna!

World Cup watching

World Cup watching

I don’t know what the hell this is about, but it looks a whole lot like cultural appropriation and racial insensitivity but maybe this is something Viennese that I’m totally culturally unaware about. One of y’all tell me. 

 
 

Oh and this one too…

 
 

That evening I met the two women sharing the hostel room, a psychologist from Brazil and a Québécois chef for Cavalia, which apparently is like the Canadian Cirque du Soleil but with horses. The next morning was the first day of the program and I made my way there via train. Public transpo in Vienna is on that honor code shit. You are required to purchase a ticket but there aren’t any turnstiles or people to show tickets. If someone stops to ask for your ticket you’ve gotta be ready to whip it out. But all it took was for me to see a few of the people I’d met who lived there enter sans ticket for me to just start rolling like them. I’m not saying I’m proud of it but man, the Euro was hurting my dollar holding pockets. 

The program was set up so that we spent our days listening to one another’s presentations on our various projects in our doctoral programs, had lunch in different places and a few evenings had things scheduled. I don’t know what it was about this group but we all genuinely bonded (Hey, Summer School Crew!). I felt like we all had gone to university for years together and not just spent 4 days running around Vienna like the less romantic version of Before Sunrise. By the end I had new buddies from the US, Austria, Namibia,  Germany, Greece, Italy, Albania, Turkey, Romania, Serbia, Hungary (sorry if I'm leaving anyone out!) and learned all different types of interesting information about the development climate in cities in these countries and more.

For our first lunch we went to Gangl.

And for dinner we all took a few trollies/buses to what is apparently the only vineyard located in a capital, Heuriger (Tavern) Zadowsky. This is where I had my very first Vienesse Spritzer, which of course I had to say over and over again in my best Viennese accent as I was properly taught.

We had a lovely time but in true-Valle fashion I had nothing prepared for my presentation the next day and needed to get back to the hostel to work. I was up all night, laying down for about 2 hrs then hauling ass to the university. My presentation was too long, as usual, and I ran through it likely confusing everyone, especially all my non-native English speakers. But when I was done I felt like I could conquer the world and could more importantly, eat, drink and be merry without the burden of work. We all kicked it after, exploring the city, then drinking and rapping for hours. Super cool.

Oh cuz suddenly I'm so mature??

 

I feel that if Nas and I saw one another in Vienna we would've fallen madly in love so I was deeply saddened to be missing this show by but a few days. #OneDayBooOneLove

 

So I get back to the hostel late and see the chef from my room in the lobby and she’s like, “have you been to the room yet?” Um, no. “We have bed bugs.” WTF!? No exaggeration: bringing bed bugs back to my home is one of my GREATEST fears. So it’s around midnight maybe and I’ve got to wash allllll of my clothes and put my suitcase in their freezer after it’s been sprayed with pesticides, just thinking, "is this my life right now?" This went on for hours. It was awful. I didn’t know if I’d gotten bitten but knew that sometimes bites can take a while to show or I may not react at all. The only good thing was that I had so little sleep the night before so hadn't been in the actual bed much. The Brazilian woman on a different bed apparently got to' up. I was over WOMBATS. They said I wouldn’t have to pay for the night. Ya think?? I spent hours trying to find somewhere else to stay. But it was the wee hours of the night and was having no luck. I changed rooms and couldn’t even stay for more than one night in the new room. I found one spot that I could only spend one night in a hotel. I had to go to the university in the morn then come all the way back to change hotels at lunch. Ridiculous.

We all spent the afternoon touring the Museums Quartier area.

 

 Here I am not buying whatever he is selling about gentrification.

 

 

 

Then we listened to a lecture by Ash Amin, who was participating in the summer school.

 

 

 

 

Then the gaaaaaames began! We took the bottles of wine from the event and just had a ball in the Museums Quartier.

I went to the new hotel and had to pack up allllll my shit the next day. We had our presentations at the Museums Quarter. One of the people attending the Univ. of Vienna was an awesome dude from Guatemala (Hey, Estuardo!!) and when I told him what the deal was he offered to let me stay with him for my last two  days. And I moved everything for a THIRD time to his spot and totally missed all of the afternoon presentations. Ugh. This was me looking and feeling like I was gonna pass out from exhaustion.

 
 

That night we headed out to Leopoldstadt (I believe was the neighborhood) to watch the Brazil v. Germany soccer match.

On the way I saw this street sign. And of course my "racism" bell goes off. Ding! I confer with those who speak Viennese/German and they confirm that this does indeed mean something related to black or little nigger or something that's a definite #racefail. I recall someone telling me later she got into an argument with her mom about it before. Can anyone tell me the exact translation again?

We get to the bar to watch the game. And if any of you saw this game you know why we all looked like this…(great shot, Nikolav)

 

Watching Brazil vs. Germany World Cup match in Vienna

 

The shit was a tragedy. But it served Brazil right for displacing so many poor people to carry out these games! Yep, I said it. Hmph!

We all then made our way to Bricks where before I knew it we were hopping around and going HAM. Hilarious.

Our final day we had a few more presentations, lunch and said our farewells.

And of course we had to close with our soccer stance, in honor of the World Cup. 

The "Oh sh**, I traveled to 10 countries in 2014" Review- Part 4 (#6 Budapest, Hungary)

I  headed from Copenhagen, Denmark to Budapest, Hungary on July 3, 2014. The problem with writing this retroactively is that there are particular planning headaches about which I can’t give you great detail because I only vaguely remember them. Hell maybe, that’s for the best. But I’d like to help you avoid similar headaches if possible. For this Euro/Japan adventure I had to make reservations for 5 different spots (stayed in 6 places by the end) and because I can be a littllllle, let's say persnickety, I had to spend a great deal of time weighing between different locations and costs. But guidebooks and websites can go a surprisingly long way, even though they don't compare to the word of someone whose opinion you trust. 

So for those of you that don’t know, Budapest is the capital of and largest city in Hungary. Budapest was once two separate cities, Buda and Pest, before unifying in the early-mid 1800s. I had no clue and it only became clear when I was fortunate enough to have a friend of a friend tell me the following when looking for accomodations:

"She should probably look for a place around the 5th, 7th, 13th or some parts of the 8th district. Main thing: She should look for a place in Pest, not Buda."

The city is broken up into hella districts so this was quite helpful info.  I settled on one of the two Maverick hostels, Maverick City Lodge (24-26. Kazinczy Utca). It was cute, clean and hip and worked for the two nights I was there. I didn’t do much the first night but catch up on sweet, beautiful sleep.

The next day I met up with my fellow Columbia University doctoral candidate sistren, Yesenia, and her partner, Mark, and we ran around Budapest 'til we basically tuckered ourselves out. We stopped at the Jewish Quarter which was near my hostel. 

 
 

We made our way to the Danube River across the Chain Bridge and saw Buda Castle.

From the other side of the bridge we walked around historic Castle Hill in Buda.

These definitely required some historical context which we were clearly lacking. 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw the lovely Matthias Church...

Matthias Church

 
 

 

 

 

And that this is encouraged...

 

And why not get flipmode style on the edge of the Chain Bridge over the River Danube? Why not?

 
 

In search of a café I came across more folks of the African Diaspora getting their hustle on. And I love it but hmm, "Afro Exotic Beauty Shop"?? But hey, I don't know what it takes to make a way for a person from The Continent up in Hungary.  So let me not knock your perpetuation of Afro-exotification. As long as there's not some European behind the operation like, "yeh, let's call it that!" :-/ 

 

And of course here we have what should seem like a sadly familiar representation of the Black woman if you've read other posts of mine. Cofesa is a Spanish company apparently. In this one she's sort of Josephine Baker meets Aunt Jemima. Womp womp. 

 

Later that night we went out to eat with a woman studying in Budapest, Natalia, and then hit up what is part of a very cool looking bar scene in Budapest, the ruinspub. Is this part of some gentrification/displacement process? Don't know but it definitely has all the trappings of it. I hope not though because they were so damn funky. I believe the one we went to was Szimpla Kert "Simple Garden" (VII., Kazinczy u. 14.) one of the oldest and most popular ruins pubs in Budapest. Why I don't have any of my own pics from the spot, I don't know. 

 

But it looked something like this...

Szimpla Kert

Budapest was a lovely city from what I could gather from my quick visit. It was great having cool company to explore with for a bit. I know that there was so much more to see and I really wish I had hit up one of the classic spas. Maybe there will be another opportunity one day to get my Budapest bath on. 

And I'm not ashamed to say that in the end, one of the things I appreciated most was seeing this in a restaurant...

 
 

 

 

#JerseyGirl

The "Oh sh**, I traveled to 10 countries in 2014" Review- Part 3 (#5 Copenhagen, Denmark)

I love when travel tales come together. Do you remember Pil, the Danish girl I met in Otavalo, Ecuador? Well when I was preparing for my July 2014 Europe and Japan trek I was working out how to get to my first destination, Budapest, in the most economical way possible. I found a flight with an 8.5 hour layover in Copenhagen and I asked Pil whether she thought it was worth coming for such a short period of time. And even though she said the city would be dead because everybody and their mother would be heading out to the ginormous Roskilde music festivaI, she said I should totally come. That's all you gots to tell me. My flight headed out at 7:15am from Newark and had a stopover in Stockholm, Sweden before ending up in Copenhagen. And the only thing that broke my little traveling heart was that I got no passport stamp for Denmark, in spite of leaving the airport and wandering around Copenhagen for the day. Oh well. I put my luggage in a locker and Pil and I rolled out (which reminds me, this is a really helpful site for how to make layovers work with lockers, things to do, transpo, etc. -The Layover Guide). I was so damn tired but my primary short-term goal was to enjoy Copenhagen and make it to nightfall in Budapest without sleeping so I could get caught up to Euro-time.

The Little Mermaid in Danish

I've said it before, I LOVE being abroad with someone from the country I'm visiting. Besides just getting to experience things I would probably never without local folks, shit is just more efficient. All the time I would've taken to figure things out was eliminated as Pil and I combed through Copenhagen and in a matter of hours and I felt like I had a nice little sense of the city. This is going to seem like an overly simple description but I was just taken aback by how nice Copenhagen was. Like that's all I kept thinking, "man, this place is so...nice." All picturesque and clean and functional. Ya know, nice. 

Nyhavn, Copenhagen, Denmark

The bike game there was off the chain. Get it? The chain. Yuk yuk yuk. 

Copenhagen: Taking bike racks to all new heights

Bicycles in Copenhagen

And ya gotta love the African Diaspora.

(But peep the irony of the first shot below)

A coke and a smile. Thanks, Pil!

 
 

The Untrappable

Gordon Parks, March 8, 1968, Life Magazine

I’ll be honest. I haven’t seen many photos, much video footage or any news coverage (short of that in the commentary of comedians) from the recent uprising in Baltimore. It’s too much. It’s too painful to witness, even second hand. It’s not just that we don’t have time to mourn the death of one woman, man or child at the hands of state-inflicted violence before we receive news of another. It’s that every fallen tear, strained scream, rock thrown, or window smashed represents centuries of injustices, of frustrations about hopes dashed, of compounded inter-generational pain and suffering, of communities purposely left to languish. And yes, this is what resistance sometimes looks like.

When I was 12 years old, using a tape deck and a notebook, I wrote out the words to “Trapped” by 2Pac (who called Baltimore his home from around ages 12-17). And when I realized what was going down in Baltimore, those words about police brutality and feeling like prey and the bubbling up that comes from deep within memories of a history so old that you can’t even recall them, all came to me.


"Trapped" cover art

They got me trapped
Can barely walk the city streets
Without a cop harassing me, searching me
Then asking my identity
Hands up, throw me up against the wall
Didn't do a thing at all
I'm tellin' you one day these suckas gotta fall
Cuffed up throw me on the concrete
Coppers try to kill me
But they didn't know this was the wrong street
Bang bang, down another casualty
But it's a cop who's shot there's brutality
Who do you blame?
It's a shame because the man's slain
He got caught in the chains of his own game
How can I feel guilty after all the things they did to me?
Sweated me, hunted me
Trapped in my own community
One day I'm gonna bust
Blow up on this society
Why did ya lie to me?
I couldn't find a trace of equality
Work me like a slave while they laid back
Homey don't play that
It's time I lett'em suffer the payback
I'm tryin to avoid physical contact
I can't hold back, it's time to attack jack
They got me trapped

Understand that I’m not quoting Pac to in any way advocate attacks on police officers. But the idea of retaliation harks back to a moment earlier in the week when I found myself proud of my adviser, Shamus Khan. In his lecture to Columbia University undergrads, he attempted to put all of the events transpiring in Baltimore in context, weaving together the semester's foci on categorization, decision-making during times of uncertainty, and social stratification. The most poignant moment for me was when he said that we can’t confuse the attention that non-violent protest has been given as meaning it was historically the only mode of protest that brought about change, even during the Civil Rights Movement where it's often highlighted. And it hit on something that I discussed a lot on social media in the wake of the events in Ferguson. Of course nonviolence is the mode that would be ideal for many. Folks don't really want to put their lives in jeopardy or live in communities even more rocked than they had previously been. But we live in a country that was literally founded upon violence, massacre and destruction. So the United States speaks the language of violence quite fluently. And as oppressed people the civil unrest that we have utilized here has often deinvisibilized us and served as a catalyst for change.

The idea that those at the federal level would advocate non-violence whilst simultaneously using violence as one of the dominant courses to achieving its ends of empire and global economic and political domination is but a reminder that they will unequivocally seek to maintain their monopoly on violence, and any sort of contestation of this violence will only be met with even more extreme forms of it. We know how fucked up the response by law enforcement will be when we attempt to challenge the militarized policing of our bodies and communities, yet we also know that there has to be a strategic organization of tactics that will draw attention to the plight of those in communities where disinvestment, criminalization and stigmatization has been the norm. In addition, we have to focus on the simultaneous dismantling of structures that produced those norms.

It sounds and feels daunting as hell.  But there can be a few ways for those locked in a cage to break free. Some will sweet talk the guards. Some will slowly file away the bars in the corner on the low. Some will sit around and pray help comes. Some will collude to use their collective strength to bend what seemed unmalleable. Regardless of how it happens, trust that you can’t keep us trapped forever.

 

**Check out my event post about yesterday's NYC to Baltimore/NYC Rise Up demonstration in solidarity with the people of Baltimore here.**

 

The "Oh sh**, I traveled to 10 countries in 2014" Review- Part I (#1 Colombia & #2 Ecuador)

I started writing this intro in December :-) 

I’m writing on a plane en route to my final travel destination of 2014. Until I did a count this morning, I hadn’t even realized that this will be the 10th foreign country I’ve visited this year. Makes me feel like LL Cool J when he came out with his 10th album. So this trip to Mexico will be regarded as "10". These excursions are always filled with so much excitement, anxiety, messiness, beauty, discoveries and fails that I get so caught up in experiencing them all that I don’t document them in the manner that I always want to. So I’m going to attempt to really bring you all into what these journeys are truly like this time around with "10." But before I do, I want to provide  a proper review of insights, special moments and maybe some bizarre shit from this year’s excursions to these 10 countries on 4 continents.

-----

Okay, now back to the present. As mentioned in the Mexico posts (I actually did like I said I was going to do! Go me!), I’m still deciding how to buckle down and finish the travel memoir I started writing while I was living Chile in 2013. But since it’s still on the table, there are some juicier, messier, dirtier, and/or just more personal parts that I’m gonna save for the book. And when one such episode or detail comes up I’m gonna drop in a “LIBRO!” so you know.

#1 Colombia (January-May 2014)

Colombia has now become the country where I’ve spent the most amount of time outside of the United States. And when 2014 began I was in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. January 1, 2014 marked the second half of my trip, having arrived the previous August (2013) on a Fulbright award to conduct my 9-month dissertation research.  My girl whom I’d met in Cartagena in 2012 (and with whom I rolled to Mexico), Salma, and I had decided to get outta Cartagena to begin the new year in some place a little greener and with fewer people that we didn’t want to see. There was a whooole lot going on in Cartagena at the time. LIBRO. We’d heard a lot about Palomino and went to meet the male member of our parche (crew), Jhonatan, who'd arrived earlier. It took us forever to get to the bus station on the outskirts of Cartagena by bus and then we had to wait forever for another bus out of the city. But we ended up in Palomino late on December 30th with the intention of staying with a woman Salma had met in Cartagena. I’m going fast forward through some rather interesting details of our night and say LIBRO. 

Come morning time Salma and I were still on the fence about whether to stay or leave Palomino. We hadn’t bathed and after an encounter that reminded me that sometimes there’s no running away from shitty situations, we resolved to get the hell outta there. The hours were wasting away fast as we tried to figure out what to do and because it was New Year’s eve I wanted us to decide quickly so as to be situated come 11:59pm. We wandered about making phone calls and did end up in beautiful place where the river met the ocean. We then got our hustle on with Jhonatan, hopped on a bus and later the back of a truck.

Palomino, Colombia

We worked our way up the mountain to the town portion of Minca to meet Ana Maria who owned Finca La Semilla (The Seed Farm) further up the mountains. We waited for her for hours at a café, just happy to have made it that far at the last minute. Ana Maria’s finca was too far to go to that night and we were supposed to stay in the house of one of her friends who was away. But of course she couldn’t find the keys. The day turned to night and shit got ridiculous. We had nowhere to stay. Folks were charging a grip to stay in a sleeping bag on their property and use the cold water showers basically outdoors (mind you, it’s a good 45-50 degrees up in this mountain at this hour). Things were not looking good for the crew and my face showed how over it I was. Salma and I wandered to a hotel and they offered to let us pay way too much to share a twin bed. It just so happened that I left my wallet with my backback with Jhonatan so we couldn't pay right there. As we walked back I said, “maybe something amazing happened while we were gone.” And it did! Jhonatan had found a spot with a bunk bed and a double and kinda warm water! You would’ve thought the shit was the Waldorff at that point to us. We bathed, went to eat, drink and ended up at a woman’s house in town partaking in local festivities “of the earth.” We played instruments, danced and laughed so hard we almost died climbing up the trail to the few places we visited. It was one of the best New Year’s I’d ever had and I don’t even know why. There was a freeness. We didn’t care what we looked like. The jokes were plentiful and the company was warm.

 
 

The next day we slowly but surely got ourselves up.

 

 Iglesia del Perpetuo Socorro de Minca, Colombia

 

And had to make our way up the mountain. We took motos at first.

Moto headed up mountain in Minca, Colombia

But then it got to the point where you have to hike up. The thing to understand about Minca too is that most places are without electricity. Ya go for the truly rustic experience. There are no grocery stores. So you've got to bring pretty much all the food you want to eat for your time there. Hence this grocery bag in my hand along with an overpacked bag. Smh. 

 

Hike up mountain to Minca, Colombia. Hey, Overpacker! Fml. 

 

Sierra Nevada Mountains, Colombia

We had a special time up at the finca.  Life sans electricity is a really interesting way of being. We built a fire but for all intents and purposes once that sun went down our day was over. At the finca we did yoga, climbed a waterfall, cooked and just enjoyed ourselves.

But we did also learn the importance about coming fully prepared when you make those kinds of excursions out to the middle of nowhere. Pack your meds. LIBRO. Smh.

Cartagena Festivals

Living in the center of Cartagena can honestly get pretty boring. Being by the beach and beautiful Spanish colonial architecture definitely makes for some scenic moments but on a regular basis there’s not enough going on to sustain my attention. What is a perk of living there are the various festivals that come up: the Mercado Cultural (Jan.), Bienal Art Festival, FICCI, Hay Literary Festival. Most of these seem like opportunities for the elite from around the country to get together and be “cultured”, but I too did appreciate the opportunity to partake in the artsy activities. They sometimes provided insights for the dissertation research I was conducting, which only really kicked into high gear in January (in spite of having arrived in August). I'm sort of glossing over sooo much of Cartagena but I write about it soooo much in my academic work that I feel myself not wanting to write about it here. But in due time, definitely more to come. 

Palenque de San Basilio (February 2, 2014)

I’d long wanted to travel to Palenque de San Basilio, the village established by formerly enslaved Africans who had fled bondage and started a community there during colonial times. During my second trip to Cartagena I went to a program at the Universidad de Cartagena and learned more about the Palenque language, declared one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.

 

A conversation in the Palenque- "a Creole language based on Spanish lexicon, but with the morpho-syntactical characteristics of the African continent's autochthonous languages, especially Bantu. Researchers have also detected that the Palenquero lexicon includes words from the Kikongo and Kimbundo languages."

 

Merly Beltrán Vargas became a friend while in Cartagena and is the founder of Tu Cultura. She’s been organizing tours to Palenque for some time now and when she called me up saying she had a spot on a her tour leaving nice and early one morning in February, I jumped at the opportunity. As a Cartagenera, Merly has a love and appreciation for the richness of the culture and people of those on the Atlantic coast of Colombia. She has an awareness of the value of this sacred place, as well as a history of working with the people there. I HIGHLY suggest if you are interested in visiting Palenque you contact her at info@tucultura.co in advance. Her organisation promotes sustainable tourism and part of this is not having huge groups travel to the community so plan ahead to get a spot. Here’s a link to what I wrote shortly after my experience and of course, more pics and vid clips!

 

Maestro Rafael Cassiani the great sings to a group of us during a tour of Palenque de San Basilio #carmenjonessandiego

 
 

Me in Palenque de San Basilio

 

Barranquilla Carnaval (Feb-March 2014)

The whole Barranquilla thing was nothing like I anticipated. There were far fewer people. Very consistent color schemes of red, yellow, orange, and blue. It wasn’t like anything I’ve seen of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Carnaval in Rio or Trinidad. It was distinctly Colombian. There was an ABUNDANCE of that Negrita Puloy costume.

Loads of the Marimonda figure (what we call “penis face”), far more than during Cartagena Independence festivals in November.

Children in Marimonda costumes during Barranquilla carnival

Far fewer afro wigs but many more men painted black to represent Africans and boys in the street painted black and asking for money. Lots of spears and animal prints. Every poster was either Negrita Puloy, El Son de Negro, the Marimonda or the bull. The bull was the only thing that I wasn't really offended by and that’s only because I don’t know the history. If it involves murdering and torturing the bull then I’m offended by that one too.

I thought a lot about what I’d learned in my interviews in Cartagena where people spoke of the relationship between Cartagena and Barranquilla. The former being the more “Black city.” And I thought about someone from Quibdó telling me that the Black face practice didn’t go down in festivals on Colombia’s pacific coast. (This is really a big part of my future work)

We couldn’t even see the main parade because they’d built these bleachers so that only people who paid could get in to see it. It was so blatantly exclusionary. We saw more of it on the television back at the hotel.

People attempting to watch the main Barranquilla carnival parade from outside of the barricades and bleachers.

People attempting to watch the main Barranquilla carnival parade from outside of the barricades and bleachers.

I spoke with folks who, like us, were basically just listening to the parade outside of the bleachers and they said that the more “popular” parade was in another part of town. We made our way over to that and got to actually see a parade.

 

Snippet from one the parades at the Barranquilla Carnaval 

 

That night we took part in some street party where I ran into other expats I knew and got properly foamed and powdered as is apparently the tradition.

All of these festivals were a welcomed distraction from all the dude messiness. Oh man. But the reality is that the man situation was a welcomed distraction from the work. No matter how much I said I was going to avoid problems by focusing on the project and platonic friends, somehow they just kept calling me. And what happened? Pookie went runnin’. My romantic relationships from this time in Colombia are definitely strictly LIBRO material but I will say they made for rich, exhilarating and sometimes quite painful life experiences and a key element in Carmen Jones Sandiego tales.

#2 Ecuador  (March 2014)

I had plans to visit two countries I hadn’t been to in Latin America while living in Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela. The political climate got a bit too difficult for me to make it to Venezuela but in March I made my way to Ecuador for 6 days. I Skyped with someone from www.myecuadortrip.com and he provided me with great info about the ins and outs of traveling around Ecuador. It really put me at ease. I got to my hostel, Blue House Hostel, in Quito on a Friday and was a bit obsessed with the idea of trying to get to Cusco to visit a friend I’d met there so that I could make up for the Machu Picchu trip I’d missed out on the year before. But in the end the tickets were just bananas for such a short time and distance. I was in a dorm and there was a girl in there that was knocked out when I arrived. I just wasn’t feeling the environment at the hostel. I felt really alone and unsure of how exactly I was going to work the trip. My driver from the airport provided me some options that would get me around some parts of Ecuador but at a pretty penny. I couldn’t make it all the way to the Afro center of Ecuador, Esmeraldas, but he did mention that there was another town with a large Afro-descendant population that was somewhat closer. When I awoke I decided I’d just hit up the sites in the historic center and figure it out. The sleeping girl awoke, a 22-year-old girl from Switzerland named Livia (Hey Liv!). We started chatting and just like that I had a traveling companion for the rest of the trip. And this is one of the beautiful things about taking excursions, especially solo; you end up befriending people whom you would likely never come in contact with and if you did you probably wouldn’t think there was much to bond you. But being out of your own regular space is enough to unite total strangers. And off me and Livia went!

 

Historic Centre of Quito

 

Basílica del Voto Nacional 

After leaving the Historic Center of Quito we jumped in a cab and headed to the center of the planet Earth, because why the hell not, right?

 

Museo de Sitio Inti Ñan

 

There are two different sites down the road from one another both claiming to be the official middle of the world. We went with Museo de Sitio Inti Ñan which the folks I spoke to from Ecuador said is legit. Plus they had cute little experiments. 

 
 

The next day we headed out to Otavalo via multiple buses. It’s about 70 miles away and just a really chill Indigenous town with an awesome market that's really jumping on the weekends. I bought some great textiles and original artwork. 

 

Otavalo, Ecuador

 

We met up with a woman Livia had met in another part of Ecuador, Pil from Copenhagen, Denmark. The next day we had a nice little hike out to the waterfalls. 

 
 

Livia, Pil and I headed back to Quito the next day. Livia and my original hostel, Blue House Quito, had two sites and the three of us went back to the second one but it was just awful. We were staying in a dorm that wreaked of mold and when I looked up at the wooden planks above my head from the bottom bunk I literally saw all the mold. Ilk. The folks working there tried to be accommodating but i wasn't 'bout that dying from spores life. The next day Pil left to head home and Livia and I went to BoutiQuito Design Hostel, which was slightly more money and had great reviews. But it was much further out from the center. But at that point Livia and I had figured out how to navigate public transpo and cabs were cheap enough that we were willing to sacrifice convenience for comfort. And BoutiQuito Design Hostel was damn fabulous (just don't get the breakfast, it seems like a waste of $).

 

BoutiQuito Design Hostel

 

And it’s at BoutiQuito Design Hostel that we met our next travel buddy, Rishan. We all spent the next two days traveling around Quito, eating and watching movies in the hostel. And Livia just happened to be leaving out of Ecuador on the same day, around the same time, and near the same gate. So we were able to share a cab back to the airport and see one another off. It was such a solo-traveller’s win! 

 

Ecuador- Ama la vida

 

TelefériQo

 

Park in Quito, Ecuador

 

Back to Colombia (March-May 2014)

I returned to Cartagena from Quito and everything was a whirlwind. I was doing everything I’d been doing for the 7 months prior but at an accelerated pace. I of course had to get my arts festivals on. 

Bianal Festival Cartagena

Had to party and bullshit with folks. (Don't worry. No lovely New Zealanders were harmed in the making of this picture)

 
 
 
 

I, of course, had to continue my work as an ethnographer, documenting happenings in the community and grinding on these interviews, reminding myself on the daily that that's why I was actually in Cartagena. 

Backpackers and tourists late night in Getsemaní

Presidential campaign commercial filming in Getsemaní

Redevelopment on Calle Media Luna in Cartagena

Oh and I got painted! 

Bogotá, Colombia (April 26-28, 2014)

I ran outta Cartagena one weekend in April to make my final presentation before Fulbright staff and my fellow Fulbright US student award winners in Colombia. I had skipped the orientation for the awardees in Bogotá the previous July because I wasn’t ready to go back to Colombia from NY and I’d already been there twice before. This meant that everyone had gotten to know one another before moving on to their respective cities 8 months earlier so I was the new jack to the crew. I gave the presentation on my work. 

HU alums & Fulbright awardees!  

Then it was time to enjoy Bogotá for a few days. I hadn't been there since my first trip to Colombia in 2011 and while I’m not a fan of the weather, or shit the crime, I'm a big fan of big cities, the diversity, the energy, all the different shit there is to get into. I definitely enjoyed this visit to Bogotá. LIBRO! 

Fulbright Flyness

 Sara, me and Meghan at Matik

Back to Cartagena...

I hit the ground running and got back on my work grind. One day I was having a slow start and the universe was on my side because like I somehow often do, I ran smack into the start of a protest. This one was with street vendors contesting a public space ordinance that would put them out of work. Me being me, I rolled with them. This has also become another major part of my dissertation project. I have video footage that I will eventually add here, but for now here are pics I captured from the event. 

And this is what a protest around Cartagena at high noon leaves you looking like. 

 
 

A few days later I had to give my final presentation (in Spanish) at Unitecnológica, one of the universities that housed me during my stay.

 

En route to my presentation about my research findings at Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar.

 

I would provide you with all the great pics since I had my friend there holding my digital SLR. But here goes the photographer for the university, “Oh don’t worry about taking any! I’ll send you all the pics!” This dude sends ONLY these pics.

I was punked in classic Cartagena fashion. Smh.

So carrying on, the thing about living anywhere is that you often take for granted things people visit on short jaunts. So in my last few weeks in Cartagena I also decided to do a few things I’d just never done. For example hit up the Gold, Inquisition and San Pedro Claver Museums. 

Then there was the Botanical Gardens further out in Turbaco (El Jardín Botánico Guillermo Piñeres). 

I still had my routine. I got my yoga and Zumba on. The last ones are Zumba pics in La Plaza de la Trinidad from 2012 but they capture the spirit and energy that the woooonderful instructor Ervelyne Bernard evokes. I just adore her. Seriously, if you’re in Cartagena you have to check out the Zumba studio she started, Activao Ztudio Fitness. She and Sarita are awesome instructors!

I made time for friends and laughter.

Got in more local art and culture. 

El Coredor Cultural with Soukustek, hosted by Centro Cultural Ciudad Movil- La Muralla de Getsemaní on Avenida el Pedregal in Cartagena, Colombia #carmenjonessandiego

El Coredor Cultural with Javier Castillo ft. Tales Crew - La Muralla de Getsemaní on Avenida el Pedregal in Cartagena, Colombia

El Coredor Cultural with Soukustek - La Muralla de Getsemaní on Avenida el Pedregal in Cartagena, Colombia

Corredor Cultural w/ Coro Social- Universidad de Cartagena hosted by Centro Cultural Ciudad Movil 

Corredor Cultural w/ Gravedad Crew hosted by Centro Cultural Ciudad Movil #carmenjonessandiego

Modern dance performance by Periferia on Avenida el Pedregal in Getsemaní in Cartagena, Colombia

 

Corredor Cultural w/ Las Estrellas de Rawad hosted by Centro Cultural Ciudad Movil in Cartagena, Colombia 

 

Of course I continued to hit up the beach every weekend. 

 

These boats coming back from Playa Blanca are no joke! #carmenjonessandiego

 

I gave one more presentation to students from the Universidad de Cartagena.  I really regret not spending more time with the students. I forgot how much I love working with young, eager students of color. Like it really changes my outlook on life. They were soooo excited to talk to me for over an hour after my presentation. If I could go back in time I would’ve been a little more relaxed about getting my research done and made time to have a weekly seminar with students interested in sociological issues and the research process. Next time.

I said goodbye to the wonderful people whom I shared office space, time and ideas with at the Universidad de Cartagena and Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar.

I sold off my desk and bicycle. (sniffle, sniffle, BICIIIIIIIIIII!) 

 

9.21.13 Me and my new bici after I brought her home from the bike shop

 

And then it was time for my despedida (farewell party)! 

I was set to fly out of Cartagena exactly 9 months from the day I arrived, on May 14, 2014. But ya know, sometimes things get interesting…and you miss your plane…and you stay in Cartagena for another night. LIBRO! 

5.12.14 Full moon and sunset on my home away from home, Getsemaní. #filterfree

5.15.14 Cartagena Airport: It’s ColOmbia, not Columbia!

Now that I’m done with this reflection I’m reminded of their importance. This one represents just the last half my experience in Colombia. And I didn’t realize how rich it was. There’s so much more that took place before this. It's clear I’m going to have to write about it. I forgot how many people I was actively engaged with on a regular basis. How many things that were completely new to me at first became a part of my regular life. In spite of all the frustrations, how much I learned from living in Cartagena for 9 months. I'm happy that that moment is over but boy was it a formative moment! ¡Hasta luego, La Fantastica!

21 Days in Mexico- Days 17-21 (Guadalajara & DF)

Day 17- Friday, January 9, 2015: Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico -> Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

 
 

We rolled out of the hostel while it was still dark and just gave in and took a taxi for $100 pesos (although he initially asked for $120 pesos) since we were getting all types of contradictory information as to how to get to the airport via public transpo. We got to the airport in about 25 minutes at around 7ish. This time we were flying Interjet. For some reason our flight never ever appeared on a monitor for departures, which made us feel uneasy. We thought our flight was at 9:30am because that’s what was inputted in Google Calendar but it wasn’t until we started asking when our flight was set to board that we realized that it was inputted incorrectly because of the hour time difference (watch out for that shit!). So good thing we got there nice and early. The flight was late anyway and we had a layover in DF, which was unfortunate because the flight should’ve been a lot quicker but we got to Guadalajara around noonish.

Oaxaca to Guadalajara

Oaxaca to Guadalajara

They didn’t even pretend to have a tourist info center at the Guadalajara Airport and when we asked about a map they said we needed to get one from a hotel or travel agency. Gracias. We hit up Ivan, our Guadalajara Couchsurfing host, and he told us how to get to his apartment in the center of Guadalajara via a public bus ($6 pesos) and taxi ($40 pesos).Oaxaca to Guadalajara

The second that bus reached the bus station you just knew you weren’t in Kansas anymore. There was just something a whole lot grittier about GDL than the places we’d been up until this point. We got to Ivan’s street on Calle Jesus. It’s this ill sort of republic style house with a cool terrace and ridiculously high ceilings. We rapped with Ivan, a native of DF and somewhere further north in Mexico, and then got a tour around the center with him.

Teatro Degollado

Teatro Degollado

That polite, lack of staring, I valued so much in DF went right out the window in Guadalajara. Men in particular stare harrrrrd, right on through your clothes.

We made our way later to a cool tea/hookah restaurant called Darjeeling (Casa de Té) where we met up with a friend of Ivan’s.

We then walked around a more upper class neighborhood to Calle Chapultepec which had a number of cool restaurants and bars. We stopped for a crepe at a local food truck and cabbed it back to Ivan’s. Ivan got us hip to the crime in Guadalajara so it was clear that while shit may feel cool, it’s almost always better to take a cab come nightfall. We then rapped on Ivan’s terrace with some more folks from Cuernavaca and DF as we drank wine, champagne and Bohemia beer. (Yeh, I know. I should’ve had the headache of the century the next day.) Like most of these encounters we spoke about the socio-economic-political scene of various cities and countries (Mexico, US, Germany, Colombia etc.), relationships, etc. It was a further instantiation of the beauty of the kind of travel where you actually get to know and understand people in the space in which you’re moving about.

Day 18- Saturday, January 10, 2015: Day 2 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico

Mural in Guadalajara

Mural in Guadalajara

We headed up to Chapultepec around noon because Ivan told us there was a market there. But there and everywhere we walked seemed to be sleeping on Saturday morning. Vendors were just starting to set up when we arrived. And as we tried to figure out what to do we felt the fatigue that had been accumulating over the course of the last 18 days. We stopped at a cute little place called Mon Cote Care on La Paz to recuperate for a bit and check the internet since we’d been without it since we left Oaxaca. We eventually made our way back to the center of town on foot and on our way ran into this shocker.

Swastika

Swastika

This dude didn’t just have the swastika; he also had the German flag and this Reichsadler imperial eagle.

The shit was scary. I felt like he was gonna come bash us as I took these pics. Salma noted that this is completely illegal in Germany. That car would’ve been confiscated. But I guess homey thinks it’s no holds barred in Mexico. Boo the hell outta that piece of Nazi trash.

We ended up eating at a popular traditional restaurant called “La Gorda” on 16 de Septiembre and again just worked our way around.

Mercado Libertad "Liberty Market" or San Juan de Dios

Mercado Libertad "Liberty Market" or San Juan de Dios

After it all we ended up crashing that night from traveller’s fatigue.

Day 19- Sunday, January 11, 2015: Day 3 in Guadalajara/Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, Mexico

We really felt beat down come Sunday morn. We hadn’t been sleeping well thanks to a nightclub behind the house that went hard Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights til dawn. We went to what appeared to be a family-run sandwich and juice spot called La Insalata Verdi on the corner of Juarez by the park and had some much needed and gratifying grub. On Sundays they appear to shut down Juarez for cycling, roller-blading, skate-boarding and walking. The park was full of people of all ages jumping rope, playing with hula hoops, doing acro-yoga and other activities. It was a real dope plus for the city.

We were attempting to make our way to a nearby city called Tlaquepaque but was given incorrect info about the bus so we were waiting on the wrong corner. We made our way own to Calle 16 de Septiembre to jump on the actual bus and were there in about 20 minutes. We had to walk to the city center and as we neared the plaza in the center I saw everyone still and staring upward up. That’s when I saw them, Danza de los Voladores (Dance of the Flyers).

 
 

We kept walking around the center which was a cool spot for shopping.

And came upon this store with some badass furniture. It made me get the homemaker itch.

We later hopped on a bus back to Guadalajara and went to restaurant called Madrid something or another where the old school waiter insisted upon calling us, “Morenazas” (sort of like beautiful, big, dark-skinned women) as if it were our actual names.

We walked to Ivan’s house and kicked it with him on the terrace, then walked with him and his roommate Gustavo to the market that starts at 7pm in front of the Iglesia del Expiatorio to the Mercado Dominguero del Expiatorio where they had vegetarian food, vendors, sweets, craft and lots of people hanging out enjoying it all. It was another cool plus for Guadalajara.

We got back and spent our last night with Ivan, who was really such a sweet, creative and kind-hearted soul, and who were it not for Couchsurfers we would've likely never met. 

Day 20- Monday, January 12, 2015: Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico -> Distrito Federal (Mexico City)

We caught a cab back to the bus terminal around 7am but didn’t catch the bus until around 7:45am. We weren’t let off at the correct terminal and finally got to Terminal 2 where all of the domestic flights were leaving with VivaAerobus. This is the lowwww budget airline in Mexico. Their tag line is even “The low cost airline of Mexico.” Our tix cost us about $25, which is the least amount of money I believe I've ever paid for a plane ticket in my life, but we still didn’t expect the shit to be thaaat low-budget. The line was out of control at the airport just to check in. Then it was bananas to get through security because it appeared that there was but one line for everrrrryone to go through. After 30 min or so of the line working it’s way down the terminal they decided to open the second gate. What!?! There were two this whole time? Again, it’s really important to give yourself plenty of time for airport/transpo foolishness in these sorts of trips with lots of variables and uncertainties. 

We boarded soon after we made it through security. We had no idea that being in Group 4 meant we were the last to board, which wouldn’t have been a big deal except that there were no assigned seats! Yep, "get in where you fit in" style. Salma’s seat felt weird and before we took off she pulled the thing up like a band-aid on your arm. There were pieces of paper hanging from the ceiling and when the plane took off the tray table of the dude next to us fell down like something out of comedy called, “When Planes Fall Apart.”

 
 

But in the end we landed safely after about an hour. But oh no, it can’t stop there. We get to baggage claim and our Salma’s bag is completely open and the side-pocket of my suitcase is completely open. Hell nah. And it was only our bags and the bag of another girl who when she opened her’s realized that her perfume was missing. I luckily had my main compartment locked, exactly for this reason. The folks at baggage had us fill out reports and told us that this tends to happen more from places like Cancun and Monterrey where they are less regulated. He was surprised it happened coming from Guadalajara but said that it does happen with manual baggage checking. Some shady folks had to tip someone off at GDL that our bags seemed like they might have some goodies. But why not close the bags? He said the folks that have their bags closed are even more likely have had things stolen and won’t realize until they arrive home. Come on, VivaAerobus. Do better. 

We took two trains back to Silvia’s, chilled for a bit then took the Trolebus to Salto del Agua. While on the trolly Salma was examining the subway map when an older man out of nowhere asked if we needed help and then said we were getting off at the same stop and got off and walked with us down the street. And he didn’t want anything! The helpfulness and niceness of folks in Distrito Federal is still shocking and refreshing to me. 

We walked back to Mercado Ciudadela for last minute shopping. But after an hour we met up and both had the same distraught, tired faces. We were over it. The shopping all felt the same at this point. Oh and of course more of these.

And for some reason I was just starting to rapidly get sick, sneezing everywhere and feeling like shit. You won, Mexico. I’m beat. 

After making our last purchases we took the subway to Insurgentes to meet Ixtzel and her friend for the last time. We then got to see a bit of Avenida Colima and Obregon in the Roma neighborhood that I’d read about in the 36 Hrs in Mexico City piece in the NYTimes. It’s a fly neighborhood with cute places to eat and drink, little boutiques. It was super Euro. We ate at a spot called Billiard Lucille and said our final goodbyes before being dropped at the train station.

Day 21- Monday, January 13, 2015: Distrito Federal (Mexico City)-> New York City

My travel partner for the last 3 weeks left at 6am. I rested for a few hours more before packing up. Then I sat rapping with Silvia and just started building on the different projects we want to work on and it was just so damn fortuitous that it was her house that we stayed in. I got great ideas about the website I’d like to create and I was giving her suggestions about the classes she wants to start teaching in, guess what, web page creation. It was great. Of course it meant that I was super behind in getting ready and had to take a cab to the airport ($103 pesos) but it was more than worth it. Because here it is! www.machetesandhoney.com! Woo hoo! (UPDATE: now www.machetesymiel.com)

21 Days in Mexico- Days 14-16 (Oaxaca)

Day 14- Tuesday, January 6, 2015: Day 1 in Oaxaca, Oaxaca

We arrived at the bus station around 7am and tried to contact Eduardo, the guy who was supposed to host us from Couchsurfers. But here he goes talking about some, “oh last night my roommate's friends came so you can’t stay tonight but you can stay tomorrow.” Boo. The tourist kiosk didn’t open until 9am at which point we got some hostel recs (couldn’t check the internet because there was no wi-fi, although there was an internet café). We got in a cab, which seemed overpriced at $40 pesos considering the walk was supposed to be 15 min., but we had all our stuff so we sucked it up. We had to stop at a few hostels before we ended up at a really low-end one called Posada Tanguyuu. The rates worked ($300 pesos per night, USD$11 each) for our private room and bath so we went with it, thinking we’d only have to stay one night. They allowed us to check in early and we dropped our things and rolled out to explore Oaxaca City. 

We first went through Oaxaca City’s Zócalo. And it was striking because it was full of tents and signs referring to the 43 Ayotzinapa missing students. The encampments appeared to be set up in protest. I’ve mentioned previously the importance of these disappearances in terms of the political movement they’ve incited throughout Mexico, particularly in the state of Guerreros where the students were disappeared (see Tens of thousands protest massacre of Mexican student teachers). This spirit of anger and sadness was really visceral in Oaxaca City.

Regardless of whether folks actually consider it frequently, the political economy of a country affects most aspects of people's daily lives. As a sociologist, educator and former community development policy director such areas are of an obvious interest to me. But even without wearing any of these hats, an understanding of a place's political and economic climate when traveling provides  a useful context to help to orientate you. A superficial understanding is often unavoidable in instances where you're really on the ground, but it's something that you will likely completely miss if you stay in a resort bubble, unless you actively seek it out. The owner of that major hotel chain and all the government officials who support and benefit from it are hard-selling happy places and don't really want you to know who's on strike, what the infant mortality rate is, how many folks are living below the poverty level, what the distribution of wealth is, what the relationship between the people and the police is, whether citizens support the state and feel adequately represented, whether the press is merely an organ of the state and private business interests, whether all children have access to a free and quality education. But these factors, coupled with an understanding of the interconnected politics of race, class and gender, plus elements related to culture (i.e. the learned behaviors of a society related to language, customs, symbols, etc.) are all crucial to the places you're going and an understanding can make the difference between you merely seeing a place and experiencing it in a socially responsible way. 

If in the city of Oaxaca one's got to take into account that the people of Oaxaca have a history of actively protesting oppression. They are 'bout it for real! And the responses to the recent events with the students demonstrate that (For example see Mexican Teachers Block Oaxaca Airport to Protest Missing Students). These Zócalo encampments were first installed during the 2006 teachers protests. I'm doubting they've been up since then and were likely put up again in response to the missing and murdered students. Two of the wounded protesters and one of the disappeared were from Oaxaca.

The whole time we were there we kinda felt Oaxaqueños weren't really down for our little tourist interests. I'm not sure if it's related to this tension between the state and the people or if they are just less friendly there than the places we'd previously been, but all that Mexican warmth we'd felt before had clearly left the building. But hey, in the end I didn't take it personally. There is real shit going down. 

So we walked around the Zócalo.

 

The Cathedral of the Virgin of the Assumption

 

Then we hit up a place on this NYTimes 36 Hours in Oaxaca article, the 20 de Noviembre market. The article was right. We walked in and were struck by smoke and meats. 

There is a lot more pandering for customers at this market, which made it less enjoyable. We ended up at a place called Maria Theresa’s for tlayudas and enchiladas. 

Maria Theresa was another grandmother- like figure so I tried to just keep a pleasant face as she went on about my “chino” hair (everyone keeps calling the curls chinos here), how much she liked it and how she had a young relative (niece or granddaughter) who had really straight hair and wanted chino hair and did everything she could to make it chino but it never worked. I’m sure she was sharing to be nice, but the constant convos about my hair are typically uncomfortable, awkward or just annoying. 

*Don't be alarmed. That doesn't say "Mole Negro" as you might think. Mole (pronounced like Mo-lay) is one of Oaxaca's most famous sauces.

We left the market and walked to an artisan market called Mercado de Artesanias. 

We then moved on to a spot called Café Nuevo for lemonade and coffee. It looked like someone decided to make use of a former horseway in a colonial home, but it was chill and had wi-fi so it worked. We then stopped by the space that Eduardo (Couchsurfer) was opening up. It's a café inside a cool pre-existing artist collective space called Espacio Zapatista. Revolutionary street art and such collectives apparently blew up following the 2006 and 2007 protests in Oaxaca. 

We said we might all get up later but we never did and never stayed with him.

We stopped at this very funky little spot across the street and said what's up to Punk Frida. 

We found the English books store called Amate Books, stopped at a place called Brújula for bagels and coffee, and then a tourist office to book a tour for the next day. We later ventured out for food and went to another spot on that NYTimes list called Biznaga (and every time I see it I just wanna say Bazinga!). But the wait just to sit at a table was 20 minutes and it didn’t seem worth it given the menu. We went to this spot called El Sagrario which was nothing to write home about. We gave up and took it down for the night. Womp womp. 

I really don’t expect folks to shuck and jive for me as a tourist, but there was something unwelcoming about the city. Again, it could totally be a function of the political climate, which I get. But as a visitor there wasn’t a whole lot happening in the historic center (maybe on some underground shit that we never uncovered) and we wondered whether all the hype we’d heard about Oaxaca was restricted to the beachy coast and not the city.

Day 15- Wednesday, January 7, 2015: Day 2 in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca

We started the day at the Brújula on Alcalá  and went to the tourist office on Murgia. We paid $200 pesos per person and the guy at the office told us that we would have to pay entrance fees for the various stops but that some could be discounted because of student rates. That wasn’t true because those rates only apply to Mexican nationals. Then of course there were different prices for things throughout. We rode for about 30 minutes.

Mural en route to Hierve el Agua. I love how richly brown the people are depicted here. #orgullo

Mural en route to Hierve el Agua. I love how richly brown the people are depicted here. #orgullo

 
 

The first stop was the 2000+ year old Tule Tree, which at 58 meters wide is apparently the world's widest tree according to Guinness. You pay $10 pesos to go into the gates which is supposed to be a contribution to help the community maintain the grounds.

We boarded the bus, went on the Panamerican highway and swooped around to the Sierra Madre Oriental to head to Hierve el Agua, which was 1.5 hrs from the Tule Tree. We had to pay $47 pesos and were told that 10 of these were for the new road or something like that. 

Hierve el Agua is one of world's two places with petrified waterfalls made of carbonated salts. There are also two pools that we were told were warm but the water was too cold to swim in for us. Even though it wasn’t quite what we anticipated in terms of the beauty of the pools, it was still quite beautiful and worth the visit to me.

 
 
 
 

We then headed to an all-you-can-eat buffet in Mitla which cost something like $120 pesos.

 
 

From there we headed to the archaeological UNESCO World Heritage Site of Mitla. Unlike a lot of the other archaeological sites in the Americas this one was being used by local inhabitants upon its encounter by Europeans. 

 
 
 
Mitla

Mitla

 

The site was used by the Zapotec people as a place for religious ceremonies and a sort of seat of government. But they also believed it to be a cave to another world. When the very Catholic Spaniards arrived and encountered the Zapotec at Mitla and were told this they thought it was a passage to hell and had it mostly destroyed, replacing one of its sites with a church dedicated to San Pablo to sanctify it. But you can still see some of the original elements in two of the best preserved and restored ruins.

 
 
  • Layer (1) is believed to represent a seashell trumpet used to blow consciousness and talk to God.
  • Layer (2) is believed to represent thunder and the Zapotec God of the rain.
  • Layer (3) represents the five paths of human existence and is said to also be seen in Peruvian ruins.
 
 

We then took a 20 minute ride to a family-owned tejidas (textiles) workshop. This was honestly a highlight. As I’ve stated before Mexico really has some gorgeous artisan crafts and I just had no idea the kind of work that goes into the production of one of these pieces.

 
 

When a vendor says that the textile is created using natural colors that means that there was an extensive process to collect each color. To make red one has to use the nest of some insect that costs $3500 pesos/kilo (USD$250). Some colors require days to extract from things like flowers, plants and other natural elements. The shit is impressive.

We then headed to the El Rey de Matalan mezcal factory and saw the again extensive process involved in the local production of the mezcal from the agave plant (it’s basically Tequila but like Champagne in France it technically cannot be called as such unless it comes from Tequila, Mexico).

 
 

And while I’m not a fan of mezcal/tequila, we tasted 8 yr. and 6 mos. old standard versions and I did appreciate the sweeter blends. We went tasting crazy up in there, drinking shots of mango, mocha, pistachio, cappuccino, maracuya, herbs, coffee, cocoa and pina colada mezcal.

Mezcal

Mezcal

 

This was the end of the tour. We got dropped back off at the travel agency on Murgia and checked out El Sol y La Luna on Calle Pino Suarez, which was supposed to be a highly recommended for dinner. Meh. The food wasn’t particularly good or fairly priced. We weren’t given a filling portion and a woman whom I believe was the owner had a pretty stank attitude. By the looks of the posters on the wall they apparently have various jazz artists play there. Maybe they would’ve made it a more worthwhile experience. But food in general wasn’t what we expected in Oaxaca. Part of the problem is again the hype. Oaxaca is supposed to be the cuisine capital of Mexico. And granted, as stated previously, I’m no foodie. But I still like to eat well and the food in Oaxaca City was far more expensive than other places we’d been (almost double in many instances) and the quality appeared no better. Ho hum.

Day 16- Thursday, January 8, 2015: Day 3 in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca

We started the day out at a local panaderia (cuz I’m a bread whore) and Café Brujula for coffee. Salma swears a woman who came in, went to the bathroom and never came out was recording artist Lila Downs. It probably was and she left out some secret tunnel in the back to avoid the mobbing. We then hit up the Instituto Oaxaqueño de las Artesanías

Famous Alebrijes craft from Oaxaca

Famous Alebrijes craft from Oaxaca

 
Work by Eduardo Sarabia at MACO

Work by Eduardo Sarabia at MACO

 

We later spent time at Los Cuiles Café which would’ve been cool had they not been playing some sort of French honkey-tonk. 

 
Book tree I peeped inside artisan space near cafe

Book tree I peeped inside artisan space near cafe

We later attempted to hit up a spot called Café Central but when we got there around 8:30pm it had yet to open. That would be our last attempt at kickin’ it at night in Oaxaca. There didn’t appear to be much of a scene and without Oaxaqueños to guide us the city fell pretty flat. Oaxaca City is good for about a day or two tops. But in spite of our dry sort of experiences in the city, I've still got much respect for the people of the city of Oaxaca's steadfastness in la lucha. Salute!

 

21 Days in Mexico- Days 9-13 (Chiapas)

Day 9- Thursday, January 1, 2015: New Year’s Day. Distrito Federal (Mexico City)  ->San Cristobal, Chiapas

For some odd reason people (including those on the web) are not particularly clear how to get to the Benito Juarez Airport from within DF. Some websites mentioned it but in the end we didn’t receive accurate information. Sylvia was kind enough to drop us off at the Nativitas metro stop and we ended up taking three different trains to get to the Terminal Aerea metro stop, which was the actual airport. I believe we could’ve cut this down to two trains had we not thought that the airport was at the Pantitlan stop, which it is not.

We flew a budget airline called Volaris and if you’ve ever flown a budget airline you know they can get fairly janky. We got there and had to go to one place to print out our itinerary, then to another line that damned near didn’t move. As we waited we gazed at screens that had confusing signs about what could and couldn’t be brought aboard. Was luggage included in what we paid for? It was still unclear, even though it stated it was on the web version of our itinerary. We weren’t provided with a gate number and when they did and we got to the proper waiting area they switched the gate on us twice. Oh Volaris. Your cute purple and green  color-coordination doesn’t mask your jankiness.

Workers appear to be having some anger about fraud and their pensions by the looks of these signs of protest at the security gate.

Volaris’ safety video was of nothing but children, which I thought was cute (save for the fact that they didn't manage to put in a single Afro child in a commercial designed for Latin America) but my co-passenger had me cracking up questioning whether Volaris was “a serious airline” based upon the presentation. 

Good thing the flight was short because free beverages were not an option and The Kid was not paying $5 for a can of ginger ale. I asked the dude in the window seat to shoot these beauties. 

The flight to Tuxtla Gutiérrez (the capital of the state of Chiapas) was fine but as we waited to leave the plane here goes this older woman behind me with her damn hands in my hair. Grrrrrr. And she’s just touching and patting it like I’m an animal at the zoo. When will people stop thinking that shit is okay??

We planned to take the bus from Tuxtla Gutiérrez to San Cristobal but the buses came every two hours and the one scheduled within the next 30 minutes was already full. But we came together with some other stranded folks headed to San Cristobal and all decided to take cabs colectivo-style. The bus was only going to cost around $42 pesos ($3) but the taxi cost $700 pesos (around $50), which we divided between four people (and the driver tried to say the 4th person was extra after we paid at the airport but no one was hearing that foolishness). We took a cab with a guy from Mexico and a Spanish girl, Ethel from Madrid, who did translation work. And guess what she translated very recently? An autobiography of Assata Shakur! That felt like a good sign of things to come. :-)

We got to San Cristobal and was immediately struck by how many tourists were everywhere. We were again not quite sure of our Couchsurfing plans. We were supposed to stay with a young woman who seemed uncertain about whether she could host us early on and when we arrived she wasn’t returning our messages. We needed some internet to check out other options. We went to this bar/restaurant called La Victoria Resto & Bar. What a damn mistake. The music was so loud we couldn’t even think. My mediocre spaghetti came and after 30+ minutes of waiting Salma’s molletes just never did. Boo them so hard. We eventually got in touch with the girl and headed up the hill to her house, passing a little place called Casa de Carmelita’s on the way.  I checked in Carmelita’s while Salma went to find the exact location. We got to her place and there were dogs, a dude with a juggling pin and an offer to stay on a mat in one of the rooms, but no bed. Ummm. We went back to Carmelita’s on Calle Dr. Navarro.

She’s this little woman of about 60+ years who offered us the triple room for $400 pesos and said that we could change to a smaller one the next day for $350 but when Carmelita’s daughter asked her how much she offered us the room the daughter was peeved, saying it was too low for high season (which goes until around Jan. 5/6). We went upstairs so Señora Carmelita could show us the room and she whispered, “Don’t you worry. She forgets she’s the daughter and I’m the owner.” We love Carmelita. This place was heaven sent for us. 

Nothing extravagant, but it was clean, spacious and full of light. After all the bobbing in weaving from house to house we deserved to feel like we were truly on vacation. 

Casa de Carmelita
Calle Dr. Navarro No. 15. 
Barrio del Cerrillo, San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas 
(01 967) 678-9975 
(01 967) 678-2237 
(044) 967 138-0986
carmelitahotelcasa@hotmail.com

Once we settled in we went to a Lebanese restaurant called Arez located on Real de Guadalupe for some really good and fresh falafel for $40 pesos ($2.85). With a place to stay and food in our bellies we were able to notice something very crucial about San Cristobal. It is full of fine ass travelers! Well hellooooo, Chiapas!

Day 10- Friday, January 2, 2015: Day 2 in Chiapas

Casa de Carmelita’s was sweet because it's situated in the center of San Cristobal, so we could easily walk pretty much everywhere we wanted to go in the area. And what was even sweeter was that there was a drop-off laundry place right around the corner for $30 pesos/kilo (Finding a lavanderia is key if you wanna pack reasonably). We then headed to a popular and cool spot called Tierra Adentro. 

Critical things to understand about the state of Chiapas is that it's home to Mexico's largest Indigenous population, primarily comprised of various Mayan groups, and is the heart of the Zapatistas movement. So throughout San Cristobal there is graffiti and stores which support the movement and sell products produced by the Zapatistas.Tierra Adentro is one such business. Here's a good link for various Chiapas/Zapatista Resources to understand the struggle for indigenous rights there. 

We spent the day walking around the center of San Cristobal.

 
 

And at night we went to a spot that was highly recommended by folks there and on the web, Revolucion. We finally got to drink some of our new favorite beer, Bohemia, and listen a mix of types of live music, including Mexican cumbia, which was refreshing.

 
 

Day 11- Saturday, January 3, 2015: Day 3 in Chiapas

We’d read a guide book that said that going to Chamula was this life-altering experience and so off we went. We met up with a friend of Salma’s from Italy, Sabrina, whom we had randomly run into at Tierra Adentro the day before and to ok a collectivo bus for $15 pesos for about 20 minutes to Chamula. We headed for San Juan de Chamula where we met Sabrina’s friends who had ridden into the town on some apparently very old horses.

 
San Juan de Chamula Church

San Juan de Chamula Church

 
San Juan de Chamula Church

San Juan de Chamula Church

We were told we were strictly prohibited from taking photos inside and if we were caught we were told they would make us immediately erase the photos. It was a place of worship unlike any I’d ever seen before. It was visibly syncretic, combing Catholic and Tzotzil Maya traditions. It smelled of the Evergreen needles that covered the floor. There were no pews and the walls were lined with cases holding religious figures like Jesus and various saints. Women and children lighting candles dominated the floor in rows. There were candles evvverywhere. There were men standing up as they chanted. Tourists passed by creating this somewhat odd blend of worshippers and watchers. After we’d walked through we were standing around and the women were showing one another photos and a man came over and told them to reveal the cameras contents. After he saw there were none of the church he told me I also had to put my notebook away. We left there and walked on a street with a lot of vendors. We’d been surprised in DF, Puebla and Teopotzlan at how easy vendors were with us, no harassment, super nice. In Chiapas it was different. Chiapas is the economically poorest state in Mexico and it’s possible that this is a reason that people go harder when trying to convince you to buy things. We were often approached by Indigenous children, sometimes as small as three years old, selling trinkets, gum, etc. It is not for the faint of heart.

We took the colectivo back and all went a restaurant which would become our favorite in San Cristobal, Cocoliche. Their motto is something about how they have a little bit of food from every town and country and this concept worked really well because we could keep returning and feel like we were having another culinary experience. The women from Italy suggested I order arranchera beef ($120 pesos), which is supposed to be specific to Mexico and really good. And oh it was.

 
 

I went to a cool little coffee shop, Frontera’s, by Carmelita’s to write for a bit. Salma met me and we started to look up bus tickets, again with Ado (who clearly has the bus industry on lock), from San Cristobal, Chiapas to Oaxaca City, Oaxaca. The Italian women were taking the night bus that night and said tickets sold very quickly. We were planning on leaving the following day but the transpo gods had a different idea. The internet was showing that all flights for the following day between the two cities were sold out. Blargh. We went to the ticket office in a coffee shop on Real de Guadalupe and was told the same thing. Clearly we were going to be spending an extra day in Chiapas. But since we hadn’t planned on traveling via the evening we were really only losing a night in Oaxaca. And San Cristobal was living up to the hype. We had a tasty variety of cuisine at reasonable prices. We were a fan of Casa de Carmelita and walking everywhere as opposed to having to taking public transpo or taxis. And again, there was eye candy all over the place, even though many of the hot boys appeared booed up (#ChiapasIsForLovers). We were finding good spots to listen to live music. So we didn’t trip and just bought our tickets for the following day, leaving out at 8pm and arriving in Oaxaca around 7am. We still had to figure out our Oaxaca and Guadalajara Couchsurfing plans. We potentially had a guy who agreed to host us in Oaxaca but he seemed to be flaking on us. We sent him messages to confirm and sought out potential folks for Guadalajara. We avoided dudes who looked like they thought Couchsurfing was OkCupid, folks who didn’t have a private room, and chose ones that seemed to potentially be located in the center of town.

 
 

We headed to a highly recommended food joint, The Funky Burrito. I had a yummy fish burrito (yes, fish burrito). The owner offered us a shot of the house “Funky Burrito Mezcal” and well, that shit was disgusting but it takes a lot for Mezcal to be good. The Canadian girl who worked there offered us a taste of maracuya (passion fruit) Mezcal and that wasn’t half bad.

We headed to this spot called Dada’s for yet another shot of hardcore Mezcal and some super cool live music by this French band, Sondido, who apparently met 5 years earlier at a posada in Mexico and have been jamming there ever since. We ended up making our way into some front row seats (the place was packed) and really dug having yet another dose of some really different live music. Here are some snippets for your listening and viewing pleasure.

Day 12- Sunday, January 4, 2015: Day 4 in Chiapas

We started the day again at Tierra Adentro then went a travel agency (called something like Viajes Pedrero) on a corner in the Zocalo (main plaza) to pay for our day trip to El Cañon de Sumidero. We stopped at the tourist kiosk that was finally open in the Zocalo to ask about the English books store but they were of no use. 

Behind the Zocalo there was a long line of children with parents waiting to receive toys in a toy give-away. And as I mentioned before it's common to see small children and the elderly asking for money and attempting to sell their goods at all times of the day and night. This line was full of what appeared to be impoverished families, similar to the people that we see selling things. And for some reason there was a DJ playing techno music that was cursing up a storm in English and talking about cocaine. There was something too disheartening about the entire scene so I couldn’t stay around long.

 
 

We eventually ended up at the Mercado Santo Domingo which sits in front of the Santo Domingo Church.

 
 

That night we were back at Cocoliche and with more live music, this time with a group called Cello Duo.

 
 

Day 13- Monday, January 5, 2015: Day 5 in San Cristobal, Chiapas-> Oaxaca City, Oaxaca

We spent $300 pesos ($21) for a day tour and met the bus at the office at 9am to begin. We first went to the El Cañon de Sumidero, which many people suggested we hit up if going to Chiapas. And they were on point with their suggestion. The fee we paid covered entry and the boat ride (technically what we paid well exceeded the costs but that's obvious commission, which for the sake of ease was well worth it). We strapped on some fluorescent vests and hopped in the speed boat with our fellow tourists. It was really quite beautiful.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And ya gotta love being able to see live crocodiles hanging out minding their own business.

 
 

After Sumidero the bus went to Chiapa de Corzo. Now technically this is supposed to be a very interesting place with this unique Fiesta Grande de Enero (Great January Festival) that’s been been declared an intangible heritage of humanity by UNESCO. Unfortunately the friggin' thing doesn’t start until January 8th so we spent an hour just wandering around a place with a few vendors that looked like it was on the verge of putting something on but it was sort of still sleeping. And there was nothing really to eat there. We were ready to roll after a good 5 minutes and were happy when we finally headed back to San Cristobal. 

We hung out at Tierra Adentro, picking up our last Zapatista gifts in the shop inside and then went back to Casa de Carmelita to say our final goodbyes. I don’t know why but I really felt kind of sad bidding her farewell. We were so lucky to have stumbled upon her place and I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone visiting San Cristobal. It’s cute, clean, reasonably priced, conveniently located and Carmelita is just the best (don't be fooled by this photo, she smiles a lot).

 
 

We had one last meal at Cocoliche for the road and walked down to the ADO/OCC bus station (about 15 min.) for our 8pm bus to Oaxaca City, Oaxaca. It’s weird to go to bus stations where there is basically only one company, but again ADO seems to have a monopoly on the bus biz and somehow OCC is closely associated with them, if not just another arm of the same corporation. But they try to run things like an airport which on some level I appreciate (especially after bus fiascos in Bolivia and Peru). We had to check luggage and there was a waiting area just for passengers. When we boarded we were impressed with the bus, even though it wasn’t an actual sleeper bus like I'd hoped it would be (These legs ain't bus-friendly).

Things were going smoothly at first then shit got extra real. Everyone started to fall asleep and around 1am the bus go stopped for the first time by the police. We were in the second to last row and I was sitting in the aisle. The officer passes everyone on the bus and gets to me and asks where I’m from and for my passport. Um, okay. But check how this happened TWO MORE TIMES, each time, the officers passing everyone and stopping at me to ask for my passport and then my friend’s.

 
 

The bus was pulled over an additional two times without anyone being asked. Basically if anyone got questioned it started with me. By the third time I had to wake my girl up just so she could witness the utter ridiculousness.

Then on top of that our bus driver was careening left and ride down the highway and it kept me up on and off the entire 11 hour bus ride. Between what I felt was the racial profiling by the PoPo and Señor Swerve 2015, I was not a happy viajera.

 
 
 
 

21 Days in Mexico- Days 7 & 8 (DF)

Day 7- December 30, 2014: 

Distrito Federal (Mexico City), Teotihuacán Pyramids, Lucha Libre wrestling  match

We started the day by taking the trolley to the same northern bus terminal where we’d left for Puebla. The ticket to Teotihuacan for costs about $88 pesos (about $6) round trip and we got there at 1pm  after an hour bus ride. The entrance fee is $59 pesos ($4). We got dropped off by the first gate which is all the way down the Avenue of the Dead.

 
 

We made our hike towards the first pyramid, The Pyramid of the Sun. And trust, this place is bright. Bring your shades. Folks were coming out of their shirts by the middle tier of the pyramid. The walk up wasn’t so bad at first ‘til the traffic jam that just had you standing almost stationary. 

Teotihuacán Pyramid of the Sun

But the most uncomfortable moment for me was when this teenage girl asked to take a picture of me. At first I thought she wanted me to take a pic of her and her friends but then she corrected me and said she wanted one with me. So much for not feeling like "other."

It took at least an hour to get all the way up because of how packed it was. Felt good to make it to the top though. "We did it, Brooklyn! Brooklyn, we did it!" The Pyramid of the Moon, however, was getting no love from us that day.

 
 
Teotihuacan Pyramid of the Sun

Teotihuacan Pyramid of the Sun

We had to walk all the way back to Puerta 1 to catch the bus back. We eventually got back to the Northern Terminal and took the metro to the colonia of Roma to meet Ixtzel. DF has this reputation for being artsy, hip and funky but we’d wondered whether there was some sort of center for this life in the city. Some folks said Roma was it. We met Ixtzel and ate at a “local” spot that had good food but charged us for the soup that we thought came with the meal. We wandered around Roma and the adjoining neighborhood Condessa, hitting up Parque España and Mexico.

The we all met Alejandro at Arena Mexico for the maiiiiiiiiin event!!

 
 

heThat’s right. Ancient ruins in the morn, front row seats at a Lucha Libre Mexican wrestlingmatch at night, baby! I can’t even tell you which I liked better because they were both so awesome and rich in culture. At Teotihuacan I learned it was one of the largest ancient cities in the Americas and about the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy human sacrifices that took place there. But at the wrestling match I drank beer, learned Mexican curses, got to yell at hot wrestlers and boo people. How can a girl choose? And the beauty of it all is I don't have to! The audience though...everything.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We were gonna hang with folks after the matches but we were beat. We got back to Sylvia’s but instead of resting were up until 2am talking about love, life and relationships.  I was reminded that some fights are in the ring, others for the ring and some to free yourself of the ring. 

Day 8- December 31, 2014: New Year’s Eve in Distrito Federal (Mexico City)

 
 

We made our way back to Frida Kahlo’s house/museum via trolley on Ave. Lazaro (aka Eje Central). The line went down the block, but moved quickly, and was full of people who looked like they were down with the cult of Frida. I was able to get in as a student and only paid $2.72 (The regular entry fee would’ve been around $6). 

 
Outside "Casa Azul" 

Outside "Casa Azul" 

 

It was definitely worth the visit. To see the home she shared with artist Diego Rivera, where she created and her dope work made me on some level for the first time get the obsession people have with her.

We hopped on the metro in Coyoacán and got off at the Balderas stop to go to La Ciudadela Market. It's pretty sizeable and is the one we're going to return to before leaving Mexico should we not find what we want in other cities. Prices were reasonable and they really had a variety of crafts and products from around Mexico. 

These were some beautiful papier-mâché Dia de los Muertos skulls made by Joel Garcia Matias (joelgm02@gmail.com, Facebook- elcolordemexico1 ).

 
Dia de Los Muertos Catrina

Dia de Los Muertos Catrina

 

We then got back on the metro to the Hidalgo stop with the intention of seeing the Diego Rivera Mural Museum. Unfortunately, they closed at 2pm because of New Year's Eve. We walked back around Madera and eventually hopped on the trolley to get some food and go back to Sylvia's. But our plans were thwarted again when everything was closing.We were going to resort to eating at the OXXO (the ubiquitous chain that's very similar to 7-11). We still had no real plans for the evening. We went back to Sylvia's and here's another moment that I'll hold back for my future  LIBRO. In the end, while we didn't spend our New Year's Eve quite like we expected we drank Tequila, ate grapes, swept the front of a house, ran a suitcase down the street, and rubbed myself with Cuban money. 

21 Days in Mexico- Days 5 & 6 (Puebla & DF)

Day 5- December 28, 2014: Puebla->Distrito Federal (Mexico City) sightseeing

We rolled out of Puebla after stopping at a well known barbacoa place for a late breakfast. I was already starting to be over things with beans and cheese and since I got chalupas without the salsa (not a fan of hardcore hot), them being dry just meant that I was extra over beans and cheese. Thanks to Ixtzel driving to Puebla with Alejandro, we had a ride back to DF and it really took no time, about 1.5 hours. We dropped off Ale and stopped at Ixtzel ’s old home and current apartment of her brother. And there’s another future LIBRO story (See end of Day 4 for explanation) tucked into this moment. We left via standard street bus and changed to the Metro subway. We got off downtown and ate at an outdoor market by the Hidalgo Metro station.

We then walked through Alameda Park and came to Benito Juarez Plaza where the following was set up to both denounce the disappearance and potential killing of the missing 43 students from Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teacher's College of Ayotzinapa from Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico  and pray for their safe return.

This emotional moment led to the next as we then crossed the street to the Museum of Memory and Tolerance (Museo Memoria y Tolerancia). Since it’s Sunday all the public museums have free entry and because we just keep winning in Mexico we were able to see this really great exhibit called, “The Legacy of Mandela: 20 Years of Liberty in South Africa” for free! It was well-done, powerful and of course had me low-key wiping the tears from my eyes. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
"When we decided to take up arms it was because the only remaining option was to surrender and submit to slavery."- Nelson Mandela.

"When we decided to take up arms it was because the only remaining option was to surrender and submit to slavery."- Nelson Mandela.

 
 

We then mosied our way down the Avenida Juarez to Palacio de Bellas Artes (on the corner of Eje Central) for a free look at another exhibit that featured the work of someone whose name I can't remember as well as pieces from Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera. That museum is gorgeous. It’s art deco and made me kind of feel like I was in the Untouchables.

 
Palacio de Bellas Artes

Palacio de Bellas Artes

 
 
 

We then attempted to head down Madera street and for the first time I felt like I was in a city with 22 million people.

 
 
 
 

 We eventually got to the Zócalo (different one from Puebla) as the sunset and it looked like Christmas on crack, in a good way. There was another ice skating rink, like the one in Puebla, with lines that wrapped around at least four times. Folks in places without ice or snow seem to be serious about their access to ice skating. 

Zocalo in DF

Zocalo in DF

The place was teeming with people and lights. I’m used to being around a lot of folks living in NYC but we typically avoid such scenes, yet I was right up in the mix here. Definitely a sight to see. 

Monumento a la Revolución

We eventually got outta there and took a good little walk back down Madera and all the way to The Monument to the Revolution (Monumento a la Revolución). 

We were exhausted and got onto yet another mode of transportation in the city, the MetroBus. The thing you need to know about the Metrobus is that you can’t get on without a card and this costs about 30 pesos (around $2) so if you aren’t going to use it much you don’t want to buy it (I know I hate when I have to buy a $1 Metro card in NYC). But we asked someone entering if we could pay him as he added to his card and we were in.  We then headed back to Ixtzel’s car and from there to Sanborn’s to meet her sweet parents for dinner. The only thing was we were completely exhausted, as one could imagine from such a jam packed day. We’re going hard and every night we look like we’ve got nothing left. So we weren’t the most upbeat. But the worst part was that we didn’t offer to pay for the check when we had the opportunity. Of course they said, “no, no, you two are traveling,” but they really deserved it and we kicked ourselves later. But in our defense our brains were on the fritz. We were taking in so much, bobbing and weaving, learning, processing. We owe them.

Day 6- December 29, 2014: Distrito Federal (Mexico City) mall, touring and independent cinema

We packed up all our things at Ixtzel’s house in the Tlalpan section of DF because we were supposed to go stay at another woman’s house through Couchsurfing that we’d arranged before. But when we got downstairs to leave Ixtzel’s parents insisted that we stay and chat with them as they gave us breakfast. How could we say no? We spoke about life and family, social security, education systems, jobs, our respective countries, etc. Then they offered to give us a ride to the mall and then to the dentist since Salma had to go and Ixtzel’s brother had a friend who was a dentist. Mind you, we didn't know these folks at all a couple days earlier and yet here they were acting like our Mexican surrogate parents. It just warms your heart. 

Mall life in other countries can be interesting if you’ve got the extra time to spare for something chill. You can see what certain classes  of folks think is “in”. But this was by far my favorite part of the mall visit.

 
 

Something that has been striking about this trip thus far is a bit of a paradox. We’ve by and large seen very few foreign tourists. Now granted, in a city so large and so populated maybe they just are dispersed throughout the city and we are missing them. But even in the tourist hot-spots we’ve seen very few of them. And yet, here’s the interesting thing, we don’t get stared at. We look visibly different from most other people so it’s not like folks don’t stare because we just blend so well and not because it appears they are accustomed to seeing people who like us on the regular, and yet, especially when compared to other countries, there is very little staring. One could say that it's a culture that finds staring rude, but I'm not getting that vibe either. We feel neither invisible nor like we’re on stage. It really allows for a level of calm and normalcy in a foreign space.

After the mall we got dropped at the dentist closer to the center of town then bid Ixtzel’s parents farewell. I waited and wrote up the first two days of this blog then. We walked a bit of a ways with our things to the metro that was supposed to be closest to our next host’s home. So here’s where I tell you another tip. Get yourselves a DF map. We were totally without one.  When Salma got to the airport first, mind you the international airport for a mega city, the tourist office was closed. It was also closed when we were in the Zocalo. So when we got out the metro we really didn’t know where to go. And guess what? Neither did the taxi drivers. I hate paying to be lost. We eventually got to Sylvia’s house and it was just as we pictured a cool ass, artsy woman from DF would live. The house was just full of character and light. We had a huge room and a mattress on the floor and were all good. We rapped for a bit with Sylvia. She gave us the house keys and a copy of the city map (finally!) and we headed to yet another mode of DF transportion, the trolley, down Eje Central (Ave. Lazaro). We got to Frida Kahlo’s house in the Coyoacán neighborhood but alas, museums are closed on Mondays! Boo. We walked around the neighborhood which is super cute. They really do a lot with public space in DF. They are full of benches and trees, places that look like they are actually intended to be utilized by the public (for the opposite of this see Parque Centenario in Cartagena, Colombia). We then found our way  to way to the Cineteca Nacional on foot so we could check out what independent films they were showing. My mouth straight dropped upon entry. No really. THIS was the independent movie theatre????

 
Cineteca Nacional in DF

Cineteca Nacional in DF

 

I felt like I walked into a NASA observatory. We were just in time to catch a Turkish-German movie with Spanish subtitles called Winter Sleep (Sueño de invierno/Kis Uykusu). The cashier had Colombian parents and when I said I went to Columbia so we could get the student rate he got excited (confusing the two), we responded and before we knew it we both paid about $1.75 to watch a new independent movie in one of the flyest theatres I’d ever been in. DF, I see you tryna win me over, and it’s workin’.

Cineteca Nacional in DF

Cineteca Nacional in DF

21 Days in Mexico- Day 4 (Puebla)

Day 4- December 27, 2014: Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

On Saturday morning our plans changed yet again as we realized that the buses to Veracruz with Ado were pricier than we anticipated and the schedule meant that we wouldn't be able to go just for the day and get back to DF, so we decided to spend another day and night in Puebla and save Veracruz for a future round in Mexico. Whomp whomp. The Couchsurfers that Omar originally had lined up were returning that night so we were gonna have to hit the air mattress if we stayed but that wasn't an issue for us. 

We taxied it back to the historic center and started out at El Mercado de Sabores, which really wasn't what we expected. It was more of a local market than somewhere we could eat and shop. But once we left there were ended up at a cute little restaurant where we had enchiladas. We worked our way through the streets and went to the Templo de Santo Domingo. I'm not gonna front, this church was a beauty. Livin' life like it's golden gorgeous. And no, you're not supposed to take pics but there were sooo many people snapping shots that I just had to. 

We went in search of the Palafoxian Library and came to a corner with a dude that immediately screamed sketchy, which was actually somewhat of a rarity in our experience there. "Don't make eye contact!" has been a running joke between us about potentially mentally unstable folks in our presence and it was quickly resurrected. We walked quickly towards a police officer as Scary Smiles followed us. He passed us by as we asked the female officer about the location of the library. And not only was she super nice and told us that we were actually standing in front of it but it's housed within the Casa de Cultura de Puebla, but she whipped out one of the Puebla center maps and offered it to us. Well color me confused yet again. Did this officer of the law just prove kind and helpful? Wow. Go Puebla. We entered the Casa de Cultura de Puebla.

 
 

The Palafoxiana Library  is apparently the oldest public library in the Americas. Who knew? There was an entrance fee which weren't sure there was a point to paying so we admired from a distance and kept it moving. 

 
 

An interesting thing about being in Mexico coming from The States is that there is so much food that seems vaguely familiar because we eat versions of them, but oftentimes they really don't compare. Perfect example, churros. Oh you think you've had churros, but nah, son. Not like this. As we walked we saw some less than appetizing ones and thought, meh let's wait. And what did we come across on the corner of the same street with Casa de la Cultura, but an old school churreria with some fresh out the hot oil churros for us to enjoy. Puebla, I heart you. 

 
 

Shortly after our churro romance we met up with Ixtzel and her friend Alejandro and went back to the El Parián market and then to a spot for more food. The place was colorful and dotted with different Talavera Poblana pottery. But what I remember the most was having to use the restroom after some adorable viejitas. I don't know when in my life I've been nasally assaulted by something like that. Felt like I stepped into the Devil's commode. I took one large breath then tried taking baby breaths like Phil Cantone in the Harlem Nights safe but I believe I came close to death. I tried to keep it cool on my way out so as to not embarrass the little old ladies but apparently I looked like I'd seen a ghost. My girl tried to follow but couldn't even make it through the door. We went to the biggest chain of department stores, Sanborn's, so everyone else could use the restroom since my reconnaissance mission had proved the area unsafe for the rest of the team. While I waited I came across this. Werrrrrk Naomi C. 

 
 

Ah, but wait. If you read the subscript it says, "A day with LA TOP most savage." Given such a long history of labeling people of African, Indigenous and other non-European descent as savage, animal and generally less-than-human, it's just never cool to call someone of these backgrounds as such. But let's hope there is something lost in translation here. :-/

So we all then headed to a cool little space with vendors called Callejon de los Sapos. Unfortunately, but the time we got there everyone was packing up their wares. I'm on a quest for a fly Dia de los Muertos skull and there were some quite nice ones on the Callejon that were unique because they were unglazed but since I wasn't sure if I could find even better ones elsewhere I passed up on them. We stopped at a spot and had a beer. Alejandro suggested Bohemia as one of the best but since there were none available we drank Indios (yeh, that name is cringe-worthy to me), which are supposed to be some of the worst but a very local beer. It was then time for the houseparty at Omar’s that started at1pm (i.e. 4pm). We made a liquor run at Walmart. Trust that this was the first time I’d shopped at Walmart since I really understood how shamelessly disgusting they are to their workers and I only went because I was with the group. Turns out Sam Walton & Co. are screwing over workers around the world! Anyway, we got a bottle of Jose Cuervo Tradicional and headed to O’s. We could see as we rolled up that there was a gang of folks outside of his home. So we immediately broke out our bottle and got festive. We made "Palomitas" which require a 10 second pour of Tequila, fizzy lemon water/soda, lime, and a pinch of salt. We carried on with our own little circle and I found out the joke about the three things Mexicanos say that you can never trust:

  1. Mañana te pago (tomorrow, I’m going to pay you).
  2. Una más y nos vamos (one more drink, and we’re leaving).
  3. No más la pontita (just the tip, no more).

Then the munchies kicked in and we made a food run for some schwarma type sandwiches called "gringas" (Because they were wrapped in light-colored bread. boo.). But I swear that was the best meat I’d ever tasted. Pause. Then we went back to the house and mixed it up with other folks. Before I knew it the hours went on and I was being swung around the room dancing the Quebradita (a lot less gracefully than this). This story gets more interesting but I’m still deciding how to buckle down and finish the travel memoir I started writing while I was living Chile in 2013. And since it’s still on the table, there are some juicier, messier, dirtier, and/or just more personal parts of stories that I’m gonna save for the book. And when one such episode or detail comes up I’m gonna drop in a “LIBRO!” so you know. Sooo... LIBRO!