6 December 2007...4:58 pm
it feels good to be back in mexico
Oh, how good to be back in Mexico, where Mexican food is just… food. There is now a charge of 237 pesos to be here, payable not at the border, as one might expect, but at any bank in the republic. This may be the most inefficient border charge in the world, but ni modo. Prices have gone up since I was last here two years ago, and more than the 10% that the dollar has gained on the peso.
I feel at home here, even in this place where the bus from Nicaragua ended called Tapachula, in the state of Chiapas. I’m only 15 minutes from Guatemala, but already I’ve heard “¿mande?“, “‘horita“, “guey” (with an umlat) and “hijo de su puta madre” some 10,000 times each. At the bus station, I was the only one of five gringos who knew the difference between Mexico TAPO and Mexico Norte.
And I’m only in Chiapas. I’m anxious to get to Mexico City, where I’ll stay first with my old roommate for a couple days in his new apartment in a fancy neighborhood, and then with the Mexican director of the study abroad program for several days in her lovely apartment until one of her sons comes home for Christmas. It’ll be the first time that I visit that I don’t stay with the neighbor family from my old building. 29 years old seems a bit much to be flopping on a family’s couch, I dunno. It feels good to know I’d be welcome there, though. That’s three friends who would be happy to have me stay at their house, probably more than I could count on in Buenos Aires or even Santa Barbara. That’s why it feels like home, I guess.
It hardly seems like two years, and in fact I can’t really measure the time I’ve been away until I visit my old neighborhood, the celebrated Unidad Independencia, where I’ll immediately notice anything that’s out of place. The neighbor kids I spent six months learning from in 2000 are no longer between 15 and 20 years old, but now 22 to 27.
And it hardly seems like this is the 13th country I’ve been in since September. It felt so good to reach Mexico, the penultimate country on the big schlep, that upon arriving here yesterday at 6:30 p.m., I elected to stay the night and not take the 7:30 p.m. bus to Mexico City. But then again maybe that was my 29 years talking. None of the 20-year-old British kids on the bus hesitated at making the 18-hour trip just an hour after 13 hours of travel, and on a mediocre bus, no less. But I was so pleased to be here, and also so keen to take the luxury bus this afternoon at 4:30, that I got a hotel room and immediately stuffed myself with tacos.
While eating an alambre de bistec and drinking Modelo, I watched the América (Mexico) vs. Arsenal (Argentina) final of the Copa Sudamericana. I asked the waiter who the good Mexican would root for in this instance, given that América is the team good Mexicans love to hate because they are quick to hire foreign players and all the rich kids cheer for them, and Argentina is the Latin American country Mexicans love to bash because people there are famous for being conceited and speaking with an annoying accent. He didn’t hesitate to say Arsenal. América went up 2-0, taking a 4-3 advantage on aggregate, and a couple bad Mexicans cheered. But when Arsenal scored a late goal, to win the Cup on away goals, I hollered “gol!” and raised a fist to the waiter in solidarity.
The end of this big schlep is in sight, but there are so many great friends to see and cool places to visit along the way that it feels as though it’s just begun.
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