Obeying a mandate from Alex

Alex sent me this note the other day:

Mom,

Don't get too frustrated with technology. Just show us what Mexico is like in words! Your camera will come around....Plus, if you're having a great time but all we at the blog hear is how bad a time you are having with blogging, you're misrepresenting your trip!

Just write about it,
Alex

I'm struggling with technology, but I'm not having a bad time. Today I will just write about it.

Today I'm sitting at an Internet cafe just off the zócalo or main square of Cuernavaca. Across the street, along the perimeter of the square, two dozen mariachis are lounging in full dress, smoking, texting, strumming their guitars. It's Friday evening on the corner where you come to hire a mariachi for a party or a wedding!

I'm loitering, too, waiting for the woman from a recommended travel agency to return so I can purchase my bus ticket from Puebla to Oaxaca and Tapachula, the border town where I'll have to find myself a bus to Antigua, Guatemala. This leg of my journey is two weeks from now, but travelers always have one eye on the future. Next Thursday the 19th, for instance, I move from my host family to the home of Andrea and Luke Roske-Metcalfe, ELCA colleagues who live and work here supervising our young adult volunteer program. How to get my big suitcase from my current home to my new one before school starts and without using the local bus (not built for big suitcases) is one concern. Getting to Mexico City with them a few days later will be a cinch, but how to get back from the D.F. (the Distrito Federal, or Mexico City - like our D.C.) to Cuernavaca on the 24th is another concern (a ride with someone I know? another bus?) and then on the 25th what time to take that long bus ride to Oaxaca...and on and on and on. This continual need to plan ahead, especially in an unfamiliar place and culture, makes it hard to "be here now."

Just to recap my journey so far, I was in Cuba from February 19 to 24, and after one night in Miami arrived in Cuernavaca on February 25 for three weeks of language study. Because all of this had been arranged in advance, I had a nice, soft, logistics-free landing. Those plans expire March 19, leaving almost five weeks to plan until April 21, when I get four nice, be-here-now nights at my friend Steve Broin´s Casa Sirena on Isla Mujeres. (Speaking of mariachis, if you click on the "Casa Sirena" link and then click "guest book" you'll see me being serenaded by mariachis on my 50th birthday.) That's where Mexico City; Oaxaca; Antigua, Guatemala (another language school--anyone have any recommendations?); San Cristobal de las Casas; Merida; and Vallodilad may all play a role. That's what I'm pinning down.

Meanwhile, school is going swimmingly, I love staying with my hosts Angeles and Fernando, and tomorrow I take a practice run at being a solo tourist by visiting Tepóztlan, a charming village with impressive Aztec ruins. It's a three-day weekend in Mexico, this coming Monday being the official holiday celebrating the birth of Benito Juarez, who was from this state, Morelos.

So yes, Alex, I will set aside my struggles with my camera, USB, and Picasa this weekend to post more words, okay? Meanwhile, I'm off to take pictures of mariachis and buy a bus ticket.