Resolution

Happy New Year's! I hereby resolve never again to book a flight at 7 am on the morning of January 1.

Interstitial Space

Back in Los Angeles, at DemiDec HQ. The blog will probably be quiet until New Year's Day, when I'll fly to Quito to research for my Master's "thesis"--technically, a "policy analysis exercise" in which I'll work as a consultant for a non-profit organization, Grupo Faro. Between now and then, I'm projecting an uneventful stay here working on a paper, recovering from my Cancunian cold, and catching some Clippers games.

What I'm reading: Nothing for the moment, but on the flight from Boston, I finished Dean Koontz's newest novel, Life Expectancy. It's not Middlesex, but it's probably his best in several years. I do wish all his characters wouldn't sound alike, though. The heroes are always a little too clever, a little too glib. At least this one didn't have a dog play a major role, though it did feature an evil clown. Somehow he pulls this off without ever sounding silly--which itself is worth the price of admission.

(By the way, since American Airlines is apparently now showing the same movies in the same order regardless of whether you're going north, south, east or west, I was also able to finish watching Ella Enchanted yesterday. I could basically guess how it would end--it is Cinderella, after all--but I can sleep more peacefully now that I know for sure.)

I wore an orange fleece today in honor of Ukrainian President-Elect (presumptive, pending possible further fraud, new legal challenges or additional dioxins) Viktor Yushchenko.

Technical update: I've created a link to this blog at www.unlikelyalpaca.com.

Cinderella and Christmas Eve

I was triple Borowski'd in the last two days. Last night at the Irvine Spectrum in Cancun, I came across glass sculptures by an artist named Borowski. Here's one to check out. I rarely fall for sculptures in malls, but these were special. Then, today at the airport, American Airlines kept paging a Borowski who was late for his flight to Dallas. It sounded enough like "Berdichevsky" to get my attention. A few minutes later, a General Borowski made a cameo appearance in the novel I was reading.

I am not the late passenger. Glass bottomed sculptures. Someone who commanded a submarine. What does this mean?

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If I had speculated only a year ago with whom I would travel through Chiapas, I wouldn't have thought of Sanjai. In fact, I wouldn't have thought Sanjai would want to take such a trip. So I'm very glad he decided he did. He was a fantastic travel companion--thoughtful and adventurous, open-minded and resourceful. He has a new perspective on things that I admire. It would be oversimplistic to summarize it as "if not now, when?" -- but that's an important part of it. And it's something I'll take to heart.

Once, he led us both to a cave behind a waterfall with only a rope for support. He never hesitated to sample Mexico's ubiquitous food stalls, or to check out random places to stay for the night (indulging my travel writer instincts--I always want to know how all the accomodations in a given town compare.) He shared my fondness for town plazas, and took even the minor setbacks, like a noisy room or a missing pilot, with good humor. When we lost our Lonely Planet in San Cristobal, he suggested photographing someone else's at the bus station. He packed light. He could hop from big bus to little bus in thirty seconds flat. He ate lots of "puerco." He took great pictures, with and without flash. And heck, he rocked Chiapas. So--thanks, Sanjai. Looking forward to the next one.

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Ironically, after trekking through Chiapas for a week to no ill effect, we both caught colds in Cancun. Other minor nicks: I sprained an ankle at a restaurant (again in Cancun) and bloodied my shin a bit (on the airplane.) Maybe highly processed environments aren't my strong suit?

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If you want to study peculiar demographics, try Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square on Christmas Eve. The only women there were two behind the counter and one with her husband, drinking coffee. The rest of the clientele was male and mostly elderly. One of the younger ones, sitting alone, was scribbling in a notebook. Two were studying physics. Still wearing my backpack (which I kept just below 25 pounds) I walked in from the subway station to pick up bottles of juice and a sandwich, and was not too startled to hear everyone speaking English: two days in Cancun had readied me for that. It looks like I won't be experiencing the culture shock that usually comes with returning from another country.

Earlier, on the bus from the airport to the subway, a high school girl from Texas asked for help finding her way to a town in Northern Massachusetts. Ruby described herself as a "small town girl" feeling very lost in the big city of Boston. I imagined all of a sudden how disorienting Boston must be to a first-time visitor--all this talk of Red Lines and Blue Lines and Green Lines, and purple commuter rails dashing off to the periphery. In the end, I left her at Government Crossing, hopefully safely en route to North Station to catch her train to Haverhill. She had missed the 8:30, so even as I type this, she must still be waiting for the 10:35. Here's hoping she makes it safely and soon.

Walking to my apartment, I also passed the Kong. It was still open--does it ever close? For years, the place didn't mean much to me: a Chinese restaurant open late, where once I drank my only shot and another time ate a two a.m. dinner while applying to work for Let's Go. However, this last semester (my last semester?) it became irrevocably linked to Kong Runs with the Harvard Radcliffe Science Fiction Assocation (a.k.a. HRSFA.) A fellow HRSFAn calls for a Kong Run, and a few minutes later whichever of us are hankering for crab rangoons or good company arrive at the Kong to munch on appetizers and talk about... well, once we talked about antelope. The HRSFA folks amaze me. If I had met them (or their predecessors) my freshman year at Harvard, I may never have transferred to Stanford.

On the airplane, a flight attendant apologetic about our late departure passed out free headsets. I took advantage of mine to watch a Cinderella movie, in which the title character suffers "the gift of obedience", forced to obey any order anyone ever gives her. She only overcomes it just in time to save the prince's life. That's about as far as the plot had gotten when the plane landed. What can I say--it reminded me of Ever After, which I loved. I guess I have a soft spot for fairy tales.

Acapulco 2.0

Sanjai three, me one, all shrimp.

This quote from the local tourism booklet just about sums this place up: "Cancun may well be the world's first completely fabricated vacation resort, from the infrastructure to the superstructure… in which the Mexican government hoped to duplicate the success of Acapulco... so what you see now is not the result of haphazard growth, though it appears that way in parts, but the completion of phases one and two of a three-phase development plan..."

The truth is I'm not all that sure what to do with myself in this kind of resort. I don't think I relax well on command. For instance, I went splashing in the crowded waves alongside Sanjai, but where he whooped as he dove between them, I gurgled saltwater and squinted a lot. As for parasailing, it was at once tranquil and exhilarating. We even saw a shark. But there were so many people doing the same thing that I felt a little like I was on an airborne conveyer belt. Snorkeling was kind of like being at an aquarium while very wet and occasionally choking. In retrospect, the best part of the day have been driving a motorboat. You can't argue with the thrill of the wind in your hair and the flicks of salt water against your cheeks.

I enjoyed everything, to be sure, except maybe the squinting and the choking, but I'm left wondering what I'm missing.

A quick anecdote before the Internet center closes: I walked by a young girl and her mother today, both taking sun on the beach. "I'm really hot, can I stop now?" the girl asked. Her mom said something like, "No, if you do that, you won't tan your front well enough." The girl gave in.

The Real Las Vegas

Cancun in a nutshell: see title above, subtract casinos, add beach. Also, subtract Internet--at least from this hotel. I'm posting this blog from an "e-photo postcard" machine in the lobby. Which is only debatably a lobby, as it lacks walls, but does have festive marble flooring. The machine only allows one paragraph, and I'm not sure how much text I can squeeze in, so we'll see what happens. Outside the hotel, about a mile down the strip, is a giant Mexican flag. The government probably put it there to remind people they were actually in Mexico. Almost all the signage is in English, and restaurants such as the Hard Rock and the Rainforest Cafe are joined by Papa John's Pizza. I imagine they do well during spring break. After a week in Chiapas, the prices seem impossibly inflated, but more importantly, something about the place (I'm guessing the fact that it was a master-planned resort community?) doesn't ring true. For instance, there's a group of street stalls downtown, but they feel like sanitized, overdecorated imitation stalls, as if Disneyland were doing "Main Street Mexico." Sanjai, who flew in his first propeller plane today, agrees--and like me, he really enjoyed the more classic backpacking part of our journey. We'll definitely have a good time here, especially since we plan to spend tomorrow mostly in the ocean, and you can't discount the value of high water pressure and numerous soft pillows, but we also know that the heart and soul of our trip are probably behind us. In other news, we both did laundry in the sink--probably among the very few guests at the "Fiesta Americana" that ambled in with backpacks on, then proceeded to wash their clothes before checking out the pool. The taco count: none today. Really. But for breakfast near Tuxtla Gutierrez, I had layered tortillas, eggs, ham and fried bananas, drizzled with red sauce. I'm going to try making this at home. To post this blog, I first tried borrowing an ethernet cable from the concierge's computer, which was off for the night but unguarded. Sanjai, holding his "Mexican water" very well, was my very skilled accomplice, distracting people while I fumbled under the desk. All for naught: the cable didn't work, alas. Earlier we had a minor scuffle with our "colectivo" driver from the airport, who took us to the wrong hotel. Working hard for a tip, he had also said some things that would enrage anyone with a decent respect for women's rights. He then refused to take us to the hotel where we had our reservation. Poo him. But it still worked out okay when a kindly valet whose coworker witnessed this exchange offered us a ride to the right hotel in his Hummer. Those things are big: Sanjai and I both fit in the back even with our backpacks sitting between us. (Congratulations to Sanjai's mom for passing the first part of her final at culinary school!) What we talked about at dinner: Dr. H, Ayn Rand, Hawaii, Sanjai and ballroom dancing. What I'm reading: still Ludlum. Our hero has been shot in the shoulder.

Sanjai Rocks Chiapas

If I had written this blog an hour ago, I would have started with, "A quiet day." But in the time since, Sanjai used his iPod to bring music to the town plaza here in Chiapa de Como. People gathered to watch and listen as he transmitted songs through a boombox owned by a music vendor on the plaza sidewalk. The vendor himself was fascinated, and several folks wanted to take the iPod home. I'm not an Apple fanatic (whenever I use one, the operating system confuses me and I keep trying to click the missing mouse button) but even I have to grudgingly admit they have an amazing product here.

My favorite song of those Sanjai played: Bizarre Love Triangle, by New Order, though I prefer the Frente cover.

Quick notes, as there's only eight minutes till this Internet center closes. It's running ten computers on a shared modem connection, so it's a bit like trying to surf today's web with my Commodore 64 and a 300 baud modem. Sanjai gave up and already went back to our posada (a.k.a. hotel).

In today's incontrovertible highlight, we rode a motorboat through a spectacular "canyon del sumidero"--a deep fissure running twenty miles long and with cliffs like rocky skyscrapers. We also came across a boat floating along in the national park and offering refreshments. It had a red Coca-Cola roof.

In the last two days, I've seen both sweaters and bracelets with llamas on them, but when I ask, no one here can identify them as llamas. This leads me to wonder whether the Mayans had already heard of the llama from way down in the Andes, integrating it into their art, or if their presence is a product of more recent globalization.

The taco count: two more apiece, but these had double shells and avocado slices. We also had taquitos later in the afternoon. Since they came in a choice of chicken, beef or "al pastor", we tried to order a combo platter. This puzzled the cooks, who eventually created ten taquitos, each containing all three ingredients. Overall, not bad, though the flavors were hard to tell apart. For dessert we munched on dried mangos covered in chili powder. That flavor was very distinct.

To distract one persistent street vendor I tried speaking Chinese, but this worked about as well as when I tried to speak Chinese in China.

What we talked about at dinner: hard to say, as we ate dinner twice.

What I'm reading: The Prometheus Deception, by Robert Ludlum. It doesn't hold a candle to Middlesex, but it's had at least one good battle scene so far and the inevitable abdominal injury. Anyone see Wesley die (uselessly) in the last episode of Angel? That's what I'm talking about.

Plans for tomorrow: first we'll take a minibus to Tuxtla Gutierrez, and in the afternoon we'll fly to Cancun, where Sanjai has suggested we go "parasailing". I'm still not really sure what that means, but I understand it involves a parachute and with a parachute I don't think I could hit the ground very hard, so I'm probably game.

Big Ruins, Small Plane

Today's count: Sanjai, five tacos, me three. For dessert, we asked a street vendor who was about to close down if she could fry us two bananas. We must have asked nicely (that, or she felt bad wasting food) because she surprised us with special dessert platters incorporating all her leftovers. The result: fried bananas topped with condensed milk and churros. It was an eye-opening (and heart-clogging) combination.

Location update: I'm at an Internet center in San Cristobal de Las Casas, a colorful colonial town in highland Chiapas. It's closing in twenty minutes, so I'll be brief again. I'm also very sleepy, so my thoughts are vague. Those who chat with me on AIM can testify to the fact that I typo dramatically late at night, at least until I infuse myself with mixed nuts or a can of something caffeinated. While no mixed nuts are available here, I did buy an interesting "power soda" called CULT to bring home as a souvenir.

That reminds me of the time I decorated my room in Chile with a hiking boot, which left my uncle and aunt a bit nonplussed... but that's a story for another day.

One reason I'm sleepy: last night, we slept in a room by Ocosingo's central plaza. The noise was relentless. First, around midnight, we witnessed a dogfight. The sparring dogs howled like coyotes eating someone's pet in Porter Ranch. Trucks cruised by at intervals playing techno music; I'm not sure who they were cruising to be seen by, since everyone was (at least until they came by) asleep. And, though I didn't notice it amid blurry dreams of visiting the DMV, Sanjai lay awake in bed observing that the town clock tower rang a random number of chimes every twenty minutes or so. It was very pretty, though, so we forgave it.

In the morning, we tried to charter a flight to Laguna Miramar, but the pilot wasn't at the airfield--just a security guard making sure no one stole the plane. So instead we found a minibus to a local set of ruins called something like "Tonina." They were empty and awe-inspiring: set against hills and over 90 meters high. When we climbed to the top we could see for miles. The vista included a group of cows and a ranch recently occupied by the Zapatistas, to the dismay of the ranchowners, who now operate a small hotel in town while waiting for them to go occupy something else.

What we talked about at lunch: education policy, Mock Trial, the quality of writing at Stanford, and a man named Mr. Rude. The women at the table next door sent us cups of sangria when they heard us trying to negotiate a serving smaller than a pitcher with the waiter. Sanjai liked his. I swallowed some and tried hard to remember that red wine has health benefits, which presumably survive being mixed with fruit juice and mineral water.

What I'm reading: I'm not sure yet, as I finished Middlesex on the bus from Ocosingo to San Cristobal. What a brilliant book...

They're shutting down the Internet center, so I'll stop there. Coming up tomorrow: possibly a rental car, certainly a visit to the Canyon of the Sumidero, where we may try to kayak and will probably get very wet.

Ocosingo

This is a high-security cybercafe. To prevent theft, the monitors are recessed beneath glass panels, so that the viewing angle is kind of like looking down at a plate of food but without ever actually eating anything. It's a little tiring on the neck and another good reason to make eye contact at the dinner table.

The walls of this cafe are decorated with two things: a price sheet (8 pesos an hour) and a portrait of Jesus Christ.

I'll write about today quickly, because Sanjai is nearby making a phone call and will probably return soon with an interest in finding dessert--most likely plums dipped for a long time in sugar water. Earlier we tried cups of corn doused in sweet and spicy red sauce. Overall this trip has been delicious, which you can probably tell from how much I keep writing about the food.

In the morning (after breakfast, naturally) we visited the ruins of a Mayan city. We posted a short blog from there using Sanjai's cell phone, which oddly only worked on top of the temple where we were hiding from a sudden storm. We had guessed rain was coming when we saw all the local salespeople packing up their wares. One group clustered beneath a blue tarp, then when the rain let up moved gingerly out of the ruins still hiding underneath it. It looked like something that might have fit in a Chinese New Year's parade, but missing a dragon head.

For lunch, Sanjai managed eight tacos, all al pastor; I stuck with six and mixed in two beef. Felipe would have been proud.

In the afternoon, we hired a driver to take us to a supposedly spectacular waterfall where the movie Predator was filmed, Misal-Ha. It was, in fact, just that. We climbed behind the waterfall itself with the help of a rope, then crept deep into a cave where we saw bats and a Mexican man swimming in the dark.

Tonight we'll sleep in Ocosingo, a town that Lonely Planet describes as "agreeable." That's an understatement: the place is charming and the air is cool. We found a little hotel overlooking the bustling central plaza. The room is clean and has a fan that produces a neat strobe effect when its blades pass under the light bulb. Of the twelve other parties checked in, eleven are here on business from other parts of Mexico.

What we talked about at dinner: diabetes.

Tomorrow: it's not clear what will happen. We'll try to charter that plane to the Laguna, and if that fails, we'll probably visit the nearby ruins of Tonina, then go motorboating in a "deep fissure" near Tuxtla Gutierrez.

Rain

Taking shelter in ancient temple 200 feet up during tropical downpour. All wet, all well.

Day Two - Palenque

Sanjai and I were underdressed at the "Museo de la Vente" in Villahermosa. At least, this is what I gathered from the "this way to the bathroom" signs, which depicted a man wearing a suit and tie and a woman in some kind of fancy gown. By contrast, my outfit featured "backpacking pants" that kept falling toward my knees--the elastic snapped last summer and I forgot to fix it.

Also, the "Museo" was not a museum but a weird hybrid between a zoo and a sculpture garden. Large stone heads relocated (a.ka. looted?) from ancient Olmec sites were embedded in the jungle alongside cages full of birds, jaguars and spider monkeys--as well as "small felines" that looked like household cats with designer fur. The layout of the so-called museum was cryptic enough that the Lonely Planet recommended hiring a guide for 150 pesos. No guides presented themselves, so we made do with occasional "you are here" maps.

I used to think fried bananas were a Cuban food, but I've reevaluated. Other cuisine moments from the day: complimentary tequila sunrises when we checked into our hotel, and a street stand selling quesadillas where we camped out and kept ordering more to eat until the end of a tropical downpour. The damage came to 36 pesos for six quesadillas, each with a different unidentified meat in it. If I had to guess, I think one was chorizo and another chicken. Afterward, to balance the meat, we bought dried fruits--Turkish-quality dates, apricots that were a little too sweet, and very dense, very tasty pears. Sanjai wanted mangos but the only ones they had were coated in chili powder.

Though he wasn't keen on these admittedly very red mangos, overall Sanjai has been both cheerful about eating random things and not particularly paranoid about the water. This is good, as it's very hard to avoid the occasional water exposure, unless you boycott showering. (He eventually succumbed to the ice in a margarita at dinner.)

Speaking of water, I've been very happy with my toothbrush. It has built-in toothpaste.

Lonely Planet described the town of Palenque as dull. I didn't find it so at all. It has the best-stocked shoe stores I've ever seen. Their walls are so crowded with footwear that I'm surprised they don't staple some to the ceiling. There was also a city plaza with two clowns and no grass, and a church housing a nativity scene that included a giant rooster (larger than all the humans except Mary.)

What I'm reading: "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides, which is brilliant, and the same chapter of the Lonely Planet guide over and over again, which is helpful but not as funny as Let's Go.

Tomorrow: we visit the Palenque ruins in the morning, then bus to Ocosingo in the afternoon. The next morning, we plan to charter a plane to a body of water called Laguna Miramar, which is somewhere southeast of here and supposedly very beautiful. There's a tiny bit of info on it here.

Arrival

My first blog got erased by a temperamental Pentium III here in downtown Villahermosa, so I will try again, and still without any idea how to get an apostrophe out of this keyboard. I miss using contractions. Wait, never mind, I found it. Directly to the right of the 0 key. Which means my next word will be a contraction.

Let's see, then... where to begin... the most unusual thing I ran into today was not the Mexican national champion futbol team, which got kind of drunk between Cancun and Mexico City. No, it was the sushi: tuna and avocado wrapped in rice rolled in fried bananas, topped with chipotle sauce.

Oh, a note on airport logistics. To transfer between flights in Cancun, you have to go through immigration, leave the airport, fend off hungry taxi drivers and then walk down the street to the departure terminal. Fortunately, I ran this gauntlet in good company, with a Canadian man who rambled a bit about the steel industry and error tolerance in plasma TVs.

More to come. Tomorrow (Saturday): a bus to the Mayan ruins at Palenque, which either leaves twice a day, once an hour, or every thirty minutes, depending on whom you ask.