Vagabundo del Mundo

Well it came to my attention that the reason I was not able to get tickets to Copa America(thus changing my plans) was because Hugo Chavez bought all of the available tickets to give as gifts to his loyal supporters. Oh well, thats life in Latin America.

So I can honestly say that my lack of updates is precisely related to my recent lack of activity. My stay in Cuernavaca provided me the opportunity to do things I haven´t done in a while. I got settled in to a consistent schedule, sleeping in the same in bed and eating three hearty home cooked meals a day. I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how easy it is to get settled into a comfort zone. I was extremely content with my less than 300 sq ft living space, in fact I only used about half of it. I chuckled a bit to myself when I remember my 4,000 sq ft home back in the states, and less than than 10% of that space is sufficient.

The Spanish School, Chac-Mool in Cuernavaca turned out be the perfect choice. The setting was tranquill, and I got a chance to meet a lot of interseting people. The school was not packed full of college students looking for graduation credits, to the contrary it had a much higher percentage of professional students. I was fortunate enough to spend the majority of my time there with the same classmates. I developed a bit of a reputation for contravesial comments during our conversation classes, but those who know me arent surprised by that. Here is shot with me and some classmates and teachers at Trishs´ going away party.

Living in the house with me in Cuernavaca were three other American students, and one Mexican girl who is studying at the University in town. For the most part it was pretty tame, but we did managae to have two pretty full house parties and attend a few others. The atmosphere in Cuernavaca during the summertime is great, but it has the feel of a vacation spot. I decided that that was OK, because in a way my stay in Cuernavaca felt like a vacation from travelling. One night in particular my friend Doug had his friend Mike stop by on his way to Belize. Doug and Mike are both Antropology students at U of H. Anyway, we set out to watch a soccer match and have a good time, We wound up in a little hole in the wall bar listenting to fantastic live music and being pestered like mad by a 50 something drunk Mexican guy who just repeated the same three sentences over and over again. The bar had a set of bongo drums, so Doug went up and gave it a pretty good run, playing the bongos to music he´d never heard before. Later that night, about three AM, we ate what seemd like the best Tacos al Pastor I´ve ever had. Here´s Doug on the bongos

I was able to fill my weekends with the occasional excursion to a nearby locales. One of my favorites was the city of Toluca. Toluca has a beautiful city center that has real colonial feel for such a big citiy.There are mountain vistas from just about everywhere including the famous Nevado of Toluca. It is a Volcano that remians snow capped just about all year long. Unlike Palm Springs there is no tram to get you there, just a windy cliff hanging road. After arriving and heading all the way to the top we were hoping to stay in a mountain refuge and do some exploring the next day. When we payed the toll at the entrance the attendant assured us that we´d find accomodation at the top, well what do you know. We arrived at the top at night time to find that the only refuge was being remodeled.Bad information! Something I´m getting used to here in México. So faced with option of sleeping in the car in sub 0 temps, we decided to head back through the thick evening fog for a lodge in town. Here is a shot of the Nevado of Toluca from a distance. You can get an idea of the fog.

I also headed out to Guadalajara to visit my brother in law(David) and niece(Allison). The night I arrived it was Pepe´s birthday and we celebrated the better potion of the night. The family was extremely hospitable as they had been the time before, and they kept me extremely well fed including a delicious Pozole for Fathers day. Unfortunatrely my brother in law and niece had to leave earlier than I, but on of Davids cousins was nice enough to show me around the city. Here´s a shot of me with the people who took such good care of me in Guadalajara.

I have now left Mexico City and am making my way south. I promise that the updates with be more regular....or I´ll do the best I can.
Thanks to Julio and a victorious USA I also have a full bottle of Don Julio repopsado in my bag, you know for those cold nights on mountain tops.

Sorry for the long delay in getting the post up, I have been having a little trouble uploading pictures and was trying to wait until I was able to get that done. Anyway, as soon as I am able to get pictures uuploaded, ill be sure to post them in the blog. Also anyone interested in having a look at more trip photos can find them here
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/natewoodhead/

After picking up the speed to a near vacationers pace to finish in Germany on May 9th, things have definately slowed down a bit. The original plan was to show up in Mexico on May 9th and enroll in a Spanish immersion class on May 12th. The fork in the road came when Brenda told me that she had resigned her job and wanted to travel to Tabasco before returning home to start interviewing for a new job. A week later they had convinced her to stay, and thus spinning me back to plan "A" I headed south to Cuernavaca to begin the Spanish immersion program.
My time back in the states gave me some more practice at something I have always been terrible at, saying goodbye to friends and family. My friend James is off on an extended trip to Asia, you can read about his travels here
http://jamesholst.travellerspoint.com/[/url]
And my friend Mandy has moved across the USA to Oregon, driving home the well known truth that you can never go home again. It was probably the most difficult saying goodbye to my brother after doing almost everything together the last few years, Ill miss him dearly over the course of my travels.

Getting off on the Central/ South American leg of my trip has proven much more difficult than the first (and much more brief) European leg. Im definately starting to feel like the grass is growing under my feet. And although I have no schedule to keep, I am starting to get anxious to get moving on. My niece and brother in law will be in Guadalajara in a few weeks, so Ill make a trip to visit them and reconnect with some friends made on my last trip there. After that some decisions will have to be made.

But I have managed to pack a little excitement into the last couple of weeks. We somehow managed to get tickets to "The Classic of Classics" a semifinal league championship match between Club American and Gudalajara Chivas at Azteca Stadium. This is far and away the most watched and important soccer match in all of Mexico, and we mixed our way into a stadium filled with over 110,000 fans to see the spectacle. The Club America cheering section or "Barra Brava" was just below us and the entire section rocked to the beat of the constant drum roar, chanting , and waving flags of their fanatical fans throughout the entire 90 minutes. Ive seen soccer matches in a lot of venues, but Im no sure Ive ever seen a stadium match the intensity of Azteca stadium. Its easy to understand why the Mexican National Soccer team has a near perfect record in that stadium, and the US have never won there. The streets before and after the match were lined with police in full riot gear and flag waving fans dancing and celebrating in the streets. America got a 1-0 victory on their way to advancing to the final and losing to Pachuca in the Championship.

The match capped a week which included a trip to Valle de Bravo and a Tepozlan. Tepozlan is one of my favorite little towns around the capital because of its sleeply town center and a challenging climb up the dried river bed to an old indigenoius temple and ruins at the top. It is defiantely more like climbing a rocky staircase than a hiking path and it takes about 1 1/2 hours to reach the top. The locals believe this to be a source of great energy and enduring health, and many of them make the climb once a week. Once at the the top, you can catch your breath and lye down on the ledge of the temple. The view is good, but the peaceful calm, and satisfaction of having completed the trek is worth a rest.

Valle de Bravo was less than impressive and basically a low rent style tourist trap. As if the 5 hour drive to get there wasnt enough, we capped off the evening was the ever so fun collision with another moving vehicle. Fortunately no one was hurt, and before I could get out of the car to see what was going on the other driver screamed "fue tu culpa" (it was your fault) and sped off. I guess thats how they deal with car accidents down here. The good news is that Ive had parking tickets cost more than the body repair.

I feel like something would be amiss if I didnt at least mention my living arrangement. While studying in Cuernavaca I am living with a Mexican family who host students studying in the various Spanish immersion schools in Cuernavaca. This has been a nice change becuase I eat all home cooked meals, and rest my head in the same bed every night. There are also a couple of Mexican students living in the house who study at the local University. It is defiantely lively, and they usually invite me out for nights on the town and house parties, and lots of opportunities to meet locals. Although many times I am employed as a translator between the locals and the other students from the States. At least I know how Oscar and David felt before I could speak any Spanish. Im hoping to participate in soccer match tommorow night with some newly made friends from a party last night.

Cuernavaca is a beautiful little city and the capitol of the state of Morelos. It is home to some amazing musuems and monuments such as the Palacio Cortez with and amazing mural by the international renowned Diego Rivera. A beautiful and lively historic downtown, and you guessed it, lots of Chilanga y Gringo tourism. Never the less it is extremely safe by Mexican standards, and still reasonably priced. In as much as i am enjoying my time here, I have begun to think daily about where im going next. Cleary a sign that its about time to get moving on.

Dissapointment set in when I was not able lock down Copa America tickets, thanks to a little procrastination on my part, and major procrastination on the part of the Venezuelan Government not putting the tickets on sale until six weeks before the tournament start date. This has me reevaluating my trip plans. I may elect to start heading south through Mexico and Central America in leiu of flying to Venezuela. This is the beauty and consequence of not having a schedule. I am constantly enchanted by the stories about Yucatan, Oaxaca, and Chiapas in my culture and history class, thus persuading me to possibly follow the land route south into Central America and eventually by boat from Panama to Venezuela or Colombia. Oh well, these will remain decisions for another day. For right now Ill focus on having a good time in Cuernavaca and making the most of my Spanish program.