Goodbye Carolinas
We had a lovely time in Brevard NC with my mom. Next we spent a week in Iva SC with my dad and stepmom and visited my grandfather Perky and my great aunt Elaine in Anderson SC. It was sad to say goodbye but we had a really nice visit with my family. My mom came down at the end of the week to see us off. It seemed very fitting that I departed from the place I lived for the first six years of my life for this adventure. My dad and stepmom drove us to Atlanta on the 21st to catch our first train...
Train travel, welcome to NOLA, Lafayette
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Riding the Crescent train was a fun experience. The staff on the train are super friendly and you get to see the countryside. That was interesting; Alabama was pretty depressing because it seemed so depressed economically (and because the entire train corredor is completely covered in kudzu). I´m sure this economic depression reaches much further back than the recent recession, back to the time when many factories moved overseas, even back to the days of slavery and abolition. Most towns were practically deserted, made up mostly of closed factories and shops. Mississippi seemed to be in better shape.
We saw a beautiful sunset and the cemeteries as we arrived in New Orleans around 8pm. We stayed at India House Hostel, definitely a funky place, not the dirtiest and not the cleanest hostel I´ve stayed in, lots of character. We stayed in the Voodoo Room, very small and hadn´t been cleaned since the previous guests, but it wasn´t a big deal because they give you clean sheets when you check in and that´s really all I care about. We hung out at the hostel that night and met some very cool people: Esteban from Mexico City, Derek from southern California, Eduardo and Veronica from Brazil (they live in Rio de Janeiro and invited us to stay with them on the southern portion of Adventures in America, to take place in 2014). The last three are traveling together and we hope to see then in Costa Rica one day soon.
The next morning we were picked up by the Avis shuttle, which we shared with what has to be one of the rudest, most obnoxious boys on the planet, the English version of the most obnoxious fratboy you can imagine. At least it wasn´t a gringo that was the most embarrassing human being around for once. Very rude to the driver, cussing up a storm, pitched a fit with the Avis agent when he couldn´t pick up a car that was being paid for with his friend´s credit card. Definitely provided validation that its best to just relax and go with the flow, don´t let those bumps in the road get you all bent out of shape. We (very calmly and politely) rented our Ford Focus and headed out to Lafayette to visit my great aunt Jeanne (Elaine´s sister, both my maternal grandma´s sisters). We stopped at EcoCafe on Canal St. for breakfast. What a great restaurant! Lots of local/organic ingredients and water/energy saving features (efficient toilets, real towels, exactly the right amount of cream for your coffee, etc.) in addition to many original features in the remodeled building (my favorite being the floor to ceiling hardwood pocket doors). The restaurant supports NOLA Green Roots, a very cool initiative, as well as local farms.
On Sunday afternoon we arrived in Lafayette at Jeff and Tana´s house (my second cousin, once removed, I think, and his wife who is from Thailand)where my great aunt Jeanne is living. We spent the afternoon with them and had a lot of fun playing knucklehead with Jeanne and Tana. We spent Sunday night at the Blue Moon Guesthouse and Saloon, what a great place! We were supposed to have a double bed in one of the two dorm rooms, but before we arrived a group of five girlfriends checked into that room. Shelly, the manager, felt sorry for us and thought we would be more comfortable in another room so she cut us a really good deal on the Gallery or Cowgirl room (private double with private half bath). The hostel is really nice, cleaner than my house has been on the average day, saloon in back of the house where we enjoyed some live music that night. On Monday we visited with aunt Jeanne some more and showed her some of our gear. She and her late husband, Russ, did lots of traveling and camping, so she definitely had something to compare our new gear to in terms of weight, etc. She shared some wonderful stories, including that of the first time she went camping (which did not go quite as planned and involved hot chocolate for dinner and sleeping under the stars on the side of a mountain instead of the cabin they were supposedly hiking to, but it didn´t turn her off from camping!). On Monday we had a fabulous lunch at Tana and Jeff´s restaurant, Pimon Thai. We were treated like VIP and got to try the specialties of the house, all made by Tana, who is a very talented chef. My dream of a giant bowl of Tom Kha came true and Tana even gave us a big container to take with us. We also tried the soft-shell crab, fish (the whole thing), beef and vegetables in oyster sauce, shrimp-fried rice, and Sriracha shrimp. Possibly the best part of the meal was dessert: homemade coconut icecream with palm fruits and fried bananas.
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| Jeanne and Fern |
N´awlins
We arrived back at India House Hostel in NOLA on Monday night and checked into Alan´s Amen this time. Ugh. Not cleaned since the last guest, again, and I saw a mouse trying to get into our bags. It scurried away into a hole under the bed, where we also saw a giant cockroack (the kind referred to as skateboards in Koki´s family); that was when we decided to set up the tent on top of the bed (the only place it would fit). On Monday night we hung out at the hostel and made some new friends, Franches from France and Boston Jay from... Boston. Jay had an awesome harmonica and we all enjoyed some tunes played on it by Jay, Franches, and Koki.
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| India House Hostel, NOLA |
On Tuesday we rode the Canal streetcar to the cemeteries (interesting, but we ended up there because we got on going the wrong direction, oops). We went to the French Quarter and wandered around the French Market, where we had piña coladas and gumbo and heard some live music. Koki was video taping the band and the singer held up a sign. He thought it was the name of the band and zoomed in, only to realize it said "No video taping" or something to that effect. Oops. He did get some good video of a guy dancing with his broom to the music. We went back to the hostel to take a nap and get ready to head back downtown for some music and nightlife later on. We saw some of the friends we had met previously and everyone was headed to a $12 show, out of our price range (unless we weren´t going to drink, haha), so we were just going to head downtown and see what there was to see for free. We started talking to Julien, from France (but living and working in England), who was also going to wander downtown. We ended up talking until 3am and never went out, too bad we missed the N´awlins nightlife but we had one of the best conversations ever. It was really interesting to share stories and travel tales from the perspectives of people from three different countries, discuss how stereotypes of our three countries compare to reality... Julien was impressed with the warm, friendly people he has met in the USA, not at all like the stereotype he hears in Europe. It was refreshing for me to hear this, I definitely have some shame associated with the stereotype of ´Americans´, because unfortunately many who go abroad fulfill this stereotype of... the world is mine mine mine gimme gimme gimme. Julien also shattered some stereotypes, e.g does not sport a Speedo. I went to bed feeling like theis world is a really good place despite the negativity we see on the news.
Train ride and San Antonio
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| Observation car on the Sunset Limited |
On Wednesday morning we caught the Sunset Limited train to San Antonio. In the NOLA Amtrak station we met Roger, a very interesting and kind train traveler. He has traveled extensively on mountaineering and sailing trips and now travels by train very frequently. He gave us some tips about getting good train fares (definitely helpful, as this is how I will travel when I take long trips within the USA in the future) and showed us his room in the sleeper car, very cool. This train was a little fancier, very nice observation car with seats facing huge windows and a dining car where we had dinner with Roger. I didn´t get much sleep (never do in a seat, might shop for a room or roomette if I take a long train trip at night again) but luckily we arrived earlier than expected in San Antonio.
We took a taxi to the KOA and set up the tent, trying to avoid the billions of ants that were absolutely everywhere, a challenge, but easier than avoiding the smell of sewage that was also everywhere. Does KOA legally have to call it "kamping" because its not really camping? We got some sleep and headed to downtown San Antonio on Thursday. What a cool city! We went to the Greyhound station to print our tickets for the next day and to purchase tickets out of Mexico, supposedly an immigration requirement for entering the country. We walked around the Riverwalk and had lunch at Zuni´s (the highlight was the prickly pear margarita). We visited the Alamo and went to the post office in the federal building(i.e. going through airport-type security to mail a book, god forbid I carry a pocket knife!). We then started what turned out to be a fruitless journey to use the internet. We waited to catch the streetcar to the library, the only place with internet and computers for people to use. We waited for a while, and when the streetcar arrived the driver told us it was better to catch the streetcar going the other direction because it would drop us right in front of the library. We waited for a while and caught that streetcar, and the driver told us no, it would be better to ride the original car we tried, which would take 8 minutes and get us two blocks from the library as opposed to 30 minutes to the library door. So, we waited again, and the driver seemed mad at us that we were taking the other guy´s advice and not his. We finally made it to the vicinity of the library and even to the actual entrance, which was completely disguised by construction and almost impossible to find. Wow, we were there! We went in and asked about using the computers they had available. We were given a ticket with a guest username and told to sign in on the main computer. We headed over to the 8 (yes, EIGHT) computers that are available for the computerless general public of San Antonio Texas USA. There were 16 people in line ahead of us, each allowed up to two hours on the computer. So, that is why I have not posted until now. The whole wasted afternoon made me realize how different it is to travel in the USA like we are traveling: no vehicle, no laptop. Very disappointing. Catching a bus and finding an internet cafe are two relatively easy tasks in many other countries. We headed back to the KOA for a dip in the pool and to do laundry. While I was getting stuff packed up in tent (safe from the ants), a woman approached the tent from one of the many fancy RVs. She had made us some snacks because she "knew we were camping" (like its some sort of handicap or something). Martha gave us with two sandwiches she had made, a bag of goldfish crackers, and a quart of organic unsweetend soy milk, because she´s "into organic food". I told her about our trip and found out she is originally from Guadalajara Mexico. Wow, we hadn´t even arrived in Mexico yet and already the image of Mexico that is portrayed lately on the US news was being turned on its head by Martha and Esteban.
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| Cactus ´rita |
Bus, border, Mexico!
We caught a bus to Laredo Texas on Friday morning. We changed buses in Laredo and headed for the border. We met some really nice folks on the bus who were traveling to various parts of their home country, Mexico. We were definitely somewhat nervous about this portion of the trip, things are rough around the border now as I´m sure you all know. We just kept in mind all of the positive things that had happened on the trip so far and chatted with the folks we had met. Crossing the actual river was a breeze, then we stopped at immigration; this took about 15 minutes for Koki, me, and the only other non-Mexican on the bus to get processed. They never asked for our bus tickets, oh well, the peace of mind was worth the $5 we spent on tickets from Nuevo Laredo Mexico to Laredo Texas. We then headed to customs, where they ask for a volunteer from the bus to exit the bus and push a button: if the light is red, they search everything on the bus; if the light is green, we all go on. The light was green! We changed buses again in Nuevo Laredo and went through one more of these customs stops on the way to Monterrey, and the light was green again! We changed buses once again in Monterrey. The trip was beautiful. I hadn´t been in the desert/semidesert environment since I spent the summer volunteering through SCA with the trail crew in Big Bend National Park in Texas when I was 17. We traveled to Saltillo with the Sierra Madre mountains on either side of us. We arrived in Saltillo but didn´t make it to the bus terminal until about an hour later; the city is definitely larger than I had imagined. Esteban (who we met at India House the first night) had told us that Saltillo isn´t a great place (and also told us about some great places in northern Mexico). We had considered spending the night in Saltillo to arrive in General Cepeda where our first farm is located early in the day, but we decided to try to catch the bus to General Cepeda after seeing how huge Saltillo is and we arrived just in time to catch what we thought was the last bus (although apparently it wasn´t, not a surprising disrepancy given the total lack of interest in customer service on the part of the woman who sold us the tickets). On all except the bus to Saltillo we were able to carry on our big backpacks, which is good for peace of mind (the bus to Saltillo didn´t stop anywhere so no chance for them to disappear when the stow compartment is opened). There was no option to check our backpacks even if we had wanted to on the bus to General Cepeda, luckily it wasn´t too crowded because we take up a fair amount of space with all our stuff. We met a very nice woman named Miriam who suggested a hotel in General Cepeda and even told the driver to leave us at the door. We wanted to arrive well-rested to work on the farm.
We stayed Friday night and last night at Hotel Salvador, owned by Gloria and Luis. They are very sweet and Gloria is the interim director of the local technical high school which has a very strong agronomy program. She has invited us to visit the school one day while we are here to see what they´re doing and for us to share some of what we know that might be of interest to them. One thing we´re going to learn is how to make chorizo! We told her about WWOOF and encouraged her to look into it for the school. They know Bernardo (of Rancho el Chuzo, our first farm) and called him to come meet us yesterday. He told us they don´t work on Sunday so it would be fine if we show up this evening to start work tomorrow morning.
General Cepeda is a very nice little town, around 4000 people. It is beautiful, typically Mexican, adobe structures, burros hee-hawing all the time, norteña music everywhere at all hours. The people are so friendly, everyone says hello when you pass on the street. I definitely stand out and get looks, especially from little kids, but they seem intrigued and I haven´t felt disrespected at anytime. Yesterday afternoon we went out to find a cold beer and ended up meeting some guys at the beer store - Juan, Oscar, and Luis. We drank a few beers with them at Gerardo´s place, around the corner from the hotel. It is like most of the houses here, you enter from the street, go through part of the building, and then into the open central courtyard surrounded by the house. It was somewhat run down and he had some cocks for fighting, obviously not something I agree with, but they seemed very calm and well cared for. Gerardo is a cowboy: hat, big moustache, typical shirt with patterned yoke, big belt buckle, tight jeans, and of course boots. Everyone was so nice, we had a lot of fun talking to them about our trip, we even got the map out to discuss our route and they told us good places to visit and where they had been. Gerardo has never left this part of Mexico but I think all the rest of the 15 or so guys who showed up (probably to see the spectacle of these crazy foreigners) had worked in North Carolina at some point. They were so hospitable and generous (although we politely declined tequila drinks with ice) and interested in learning about us. I used the dirtiest bathroom I have ever seen, despite the gentlemanly efforts of Gerardo and Luis to clean it with 5-gallon buckets of water. I can see how this might sound scary to some of you based on what you hear on the news in the US, but we are in a small town, which I think keeps people honest, nowhere to hide. We are already running into people we know on the street and it is a good feeling. Koki was invited to play football (the real kind) with the guys on Tuesday and we´ll probably go have a beer after for my birthday.
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| Amigos en General Cepeda |
We had dinner at Los Portales, where they have a big painting on the wall entitled "¿De dónde viene tu comida?" ("From where does your food come?"). It was a map with the locations of farms that provide food for the restaurant, and the chorizo comes from el Chuzo! We met the owner, Sofía, and asked her how they prepare the raw vegetables. She said they purify the water with drops and wash everything. We each ate a torta de choriqueso (chorizo and cheese sandwich) on the bread they make there. We ate the lettuce and tomato that came on the sandwich and hopefully we won´t regret it. So far so good on the digestive front, taking our GSE several times a day and using our Steripen UV water purifier. People are surprised that we don´t want to eat and drink everything, even though there is (a little) forein tourism here.
I understand there have been some terrible killings near the border in the past few days, very sad news. We were originally going to cross in our pickup at Matamoros and I am so glad we changed that plan. So far the trip has been wonderful and we have met wonderful people. Please keep this in mind when you see the news of horrible things happening in Mexico, there are really wonderful things happening here all the time, too. Tell people about what a positive experience we are having so far, spreading the good news is one way to combat all the negative things that are happening and the attention they are given on the news. We should be able to post again next weekend about our first week of work at el Chuzo.
Un abrazo fuerte,
Fern
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