User:Vagrant/Mexico

this will be a retroactive memory of my trip to mexico, starting with debconf6

humble beginnings

hey all, just wanted to let you know i made it to mexico.

the bus from albuquerque to juarez took about 4-5 hours, and from there within a half hour i was hurtling towards mexico city, and found myself in one of the largest cities known to humanity only a little before dark. after wrangling with an ATM that didn't want to give me money, i managed to find one that saw things my way (or at least pretended to by giving me money), and then i caught a cab to "hotel montreal" (recommended by the conference organizers) just as it was getting dark.

despite still totally blanking out sometimes, i'm starting to be able to manage basic, rudimentary spanish. enough to get a bus ticket, a cab, water, read items off a menu, and even order carrot juice. that feels like a big improvement.

the next morning, i walked to the bus station to catch a bus to oaxtepec. it wasn't far, and i managed to get a little exposure to the mexican marketplace. it took about an hour to get there, through some gorgeous, though heavily populated mountains. i managed to get off at the right stop, and with some looking around realised that the bus terminal was right where the convention center was. after stumbling through my cruelly broken spanish, and a person's pretty broken english, i managed to communicate that i was part of a group of people coming here for two weeks, and they gave me a room. the place was a little intimidating- very touristy. it also happened to be cinco de mayo, which isn't a huge deal here, but is still a holiday and an extended weekend, complete with the occasional explosion of fireworks in the distance.

i might have been the first person here, as far as i could tell, so i wandered around a lot and stood out like a gringo in a mexican vacation resort. i found a little ecological park sort of space, and wandered amoung the mangos and spotted porcupines and avocados and such. as soon as the sun started thinking about going down, out came the soccer balls, and everywhere there was open, flat space, people played soccer until pretty late.

eventually, feeling a little lonely and isolated, i just went to sleep. after a bit of that, two german folks stumbled into my hotel room, and all my attempts to speak (at least in my head) german came out in spanish, which is a nice change from how it used to be, as i'm trying to learn spanish after all (i used to speak german when trying to speak spanish). it was nice to have folks to speak mostly fluent english with. then some locals came by, and toured us around the compound, and a little bit through oaxtepec (it is very small- only about 8,000 people) in the back of a pickup truck in the rain. it was very refereshing.

i spent much of the morning with a someone from the U.K.(who came even later in the night), wandering amoung the mangos and all around, looking very much like two gringos at a mexican vacation resort.

and here i am, typing on one of many partly broken windows computers, at the price of 15 pesos an hour. hopefully we'll get real internet access soon. it is a free software conference, no?

sol de naranja

i woke up, and took a good look at the sunrise over a mountain. the horizon is always covered in something that looks pretty much like smog to me, but it's distant and beautiful enough you could delude yourself into thinking it was just mountain mists. well, i climbed to the highest thing i could find- a 15 meter diving platform, and watched the sunrise. the mountain (which i later found out is one of the largest active volcanoes in mexico) cast a huge shadow on the sky. the sun here is usually very orange, but especially orange on the horizon.

mas personas con peanuts y cervesas

slowly, throughout the next day, more people showed up. on many occasions, i found myself wondering where what few people were here went.

most of the people flooded in around 9 or 10 at night. some people felt the need to get the worst of local tastes, so they had a bag of chile peanuts and some corn snack with lime power and chile, of course augmented by some cans of mexican beer of varying degrees of pretty awful.

agua y chlorine y vigilacia a la noche

well, as it got dark and started to rain some, we found ourselves huddled along a little shopping area near the swimming pool, basking in the flourescent lights, and the security guards essentially told us to move along. you can get away with a lot when you're a bunch of foreigners standing around in the dark drinking beers in the rain, and we pretty much just stayed there until the guard left. eventually the rain subsided, and we hung out outside near the pool.

earlier that day, they had poured what looked to be 50-pound bags of chlorine into the pool. so, some people did some skin tests, to see if it would kill us, or maim us or anything, and then a few folks hopped in. eventually, i couldn't resist. i feel like it has been many years since i've been swimming in swim wear, and i wasn't about to start that night. despite what appeared to be much chlorine, it felt significantly less chlorinated than many pools i've been in.

mind you, clearly, there were signs posted that said the pool closed at 6, so we were a little nervous what with security guards prowling around at night, and having already possibly gotten on their bad side, with the not moving when they asked us to thing and all. well, diving into pools is not one of the more stealthy things you can do, so inevitably, after swimming around a while, the guards came around to have a little talk. i jumped out of the pool and was partly dressed by the time the guard got near us (the pool area is rather large). then, of course "habla espanol" was the question of the day (or night, as the case was). so, several of the people were native spanish speakers, but through a marvel of fate, "no" en espanol is the same as in english, and they managed to keep a straight face. unable to communicate, the guard wandered away, and we wandered off to drink a few beers near a cliff overlooking several cities in the distance.

on the way back, the pool was rather tempting again, but shortly after the first couple people jumped in, the guards showed themselves: "speaka spanish?" still, amazingly, nobody spoke spanish, at least, not within 30 feet of the guard. determined, he managed to find some not entirely willing translators, to tell us to stop swimming in the pool at night, and especially not naked.

Vegetarianos (unofficial debian subproject)

so, there's two menus for the sponsored meals here. there is "menu vegetarianos", and "menu normal". i've been eating mostly vegetarian (save for the big plate of red meat i ate when i said "i have no idea what's on this menu- i'll eat whatever i'm served" and some tasty crispy crikets from "el mercado" - more about the market later). early on, we formed a tight-knit group of folks, comprising only 6-10 people early on. though, in order to serve vegetarian food, we were required to order 20 plates. while the food in hotel restaurants has not been all that impressive, early on, it was made up for mostly with volume. it was also made up by the fact that the vegetarian table was, hands down, having the most fun.

now, deeper into the conference, we manage to span 2-3 tables of 8-10 each. so, there's a sign at each table, and one stands out more than the others. therein lies the a great division.

one sign is rainbow coloured, and dubbed the "gay vegetarians" table. it's done in some great circa 1996 WordArt or something, with a grey shadow of the letters trailing off into the background at an angle. of course, the gay vegetarian table is coveted. more specifically, the sign itself, as anyone who can bring the gay vegetarian sign to their table, is, of course, far more interesting than the table with a plain blak-and-white with grey shadow trailing off into the background at an angle sort of sign. so, a culture of acquiring the sign from the other table began.

i think it started off quite simply- people just snatching up the sign while nobody else was paying attention. i didn't get involved till it got a little more physical. someone had snatched the sign off our table, and two or three of our dedicated table members were trying to pry it from the hands of someone. so, what with my rudimentary knowledge of how to disarm someone with a knife, i figured it could help loosen their grasp on the sign. i didn't help much. but eventually got them away from the table, and two of us were still failing to pry it from their hands. eventually, we had them pinned to the ground, and only after much struggle did we manage to acquire the sign. i later found out it was one of the debian release managers. it's good to know release managers have a good grasp of things.

at dinner, the game was more civil, or simply a little more elegant. the classic, "walk up and snatch it while nobody was looking" approach worked decently well. i also managed to crawl very low to the ground, sneak up, and snag it without any resistance. but my absolute favorite required a bit of social engineering. i asked one of the spanish-speaking folks at the table to ask the waiter to fetch it for us- it took a little bit of hushed explaining, but eventually the waiter walked over, collected a few dishes, and snatched up the prized gay vegetarian sign and brought it over to us. i never thought of myself as much of a social engineer.

Toronja

well, i know what naranja is, so when faced at the juice stand with toronja, and really wanting grapefruit, i asked what it was, and they showed me a grapefruit. excellent.

El Mercado

there's smoke everywhere at market, and you can buy all sorts of swimming outfits, handicrafts... as you eat, sometimes someone will walk by trying to peddle hammocks. there's tasty crunchy crikets, or entire pig skins. it is certainly no cathedral, but the diversity and insanity of the bazaar.

we don't get sponsored breakfasts, but that's not such a bad thing, because at the market you can get fresh quesadillas (not what you think, norte americanos), gorditas, tlacoyos and lots of tasty fruit juices and drinks. they also make atole, a spiced chocolate drink, though quite posibly using swiss miss mix.

and the huitlacoche, mmmmmm. it's a fungus that grows on corn (in the U.S., called "corn smut"), and it's very tasty. it infects individual kernels, which swell up huge. i think it even infects the little strands you find in corn.

they use a really tasty fresh cheese (queso fresca, i think). they make the tortillas right there, by hand, and fry them on a big grill sort of thing. it is, by far, so much better than the poorly done westernized food they attempt to serve us at the hotel restaurant. you can eat well on 30-40 pesos (about $3-4).

talking up the mothership

oh, yes, i talked up freegeek at a BoF along with another fellow from venezulea, who was working on some computer recycling projects there. it was surprisingly well attended. i gave everybody a homework assignment to start up a freegeek in their local region.

Resurrecting Computers with Free Software

bloody tango toe

this german fellow was teaching several people (including, in a bizarre twist of fate, three argentinians) how to tango. i managed to pick up the very most basic steps realtively easily, unlike most of my attempts to learn anything dancing related, and i think it is because of tango's historical roots as a knife fight- i can feel how the movements are defensive maneuvers, as well as attempting to vie for an opening. even without knives, it was quite fun, but i did manage to gash my big toe pretty good.

late-night nap on a cliff-edge

late into the night, after most had gone to bed, i heard thunder in the distance. despite really needing more consistant sleep, i felt the urge to go to one of my favorite spots around here- a cliff overlooking many of the towns and cities in the distance. there were considerable thunderstorms in the mountains on the horizon, and it was remarkably beautiful, in the primal fear and excitement sort of way. i sat there and watched the lightning in awe, and eventually fell asleep for a couple hours, until the rain woke me. the rain was very refreshing and invigorating, but i realized hanging out in high, open places during thunderstorms is a good way to attract more energy than i wanted to deal with, so i headed back to my room. as soon as i lay in my bed, there was a lightning strike instantaneously followed by the thunderclap, and the rain started to pour harder. it was such a wonderful way to fall asleep.

an eventful dinner

in summary: totally intentional social impropriety, violence, intense rain and thunder, indoor waterfall, lights out. humbling discomfort. tortillas, rice, beans and corn soup. kind of started off awful, but ended in grandness. i feel that the rain was the cleansing force that made it work out, in the end.

mangoes

so, i'd been trying all conference long to get people to take this nice walk along the aforementioned trail in the little patch of trees they call an ecological park or something.

after the usual "let's wait for so-and-so" time delay (and during, really), the sunset was in full blossom, oranges and reds and magentas enveloped the clouds and silhouetted mountains.

it was a little rough going, getting dark, and understandably some folks had trouble with the very rocky trail, but we managed to find the nice bamboo grove by the stream.

folks enjoyed stopping for a bit, and eventually i prompted an all-out mango fight with the multitude of various stages of rotting mangoes. at first, i thought it would only be a couple of us, and the rest would just start to complain soon, but gladly, i grossly underestimated these people. as it got dark, everybody ended up with spots of mango all over their clothes. two teams more-or-less formed. when the other team called for a time-out, my team cleverly cached a whole store of mangoes, and when the truce was broken, bombarded them to the point of fleeing behind the huge stand of bamboo.

the tail end involved some stick fights of varying degrees of danger, and some small amounts of blood were shed. a pair of glasses was lost, and most miraculously found. then the long journey back up hill commenced.

oh, was i pleasantly tired!

hear in mexico city

the conference was more or less over, and a crew of us headed to mexico city, in preparation for the trip to oaxaca. we crashed in hotel moneda, which had a great view of the central downtown. we went out to eat, and stumbled upon a big shindig in the central plaza. shortly before we had arrived, there appeared to be a big labour protest in the area, and there were still signs and artwork all about. a bunch of folks started setting up laptops on a huge stage, and eventually music started happening. it was somewhat electronic and sampled and nothing too remarkable, but enjoyed the horns, and some of the peculiar distorted sounds.

when i woke up the next day, my hearing was very poor. i seem to have acquired ridiculous amounts of earwax, of deep, rich, reddish colour. i didn't realize how squeamish my roommates were. all our adventures in the rest of the city felt muted and surreal to me.

we took the subway to the airport to rent a car; what an amalgamation of modes of transit. on the subway, there was this crazy ad from what appeared to be the red cross, with an ambulance driving over someone on their way to a car accient. eventually, with my heighted awareness of agricultural iconography, noticed a scythe sticking out from under the ambulance, and realized it was the grim reaper. somehow, the red cross is killing death?

failure to signal a bribe

we eventually got rolling in our shiny white rental car(with all miniscule dents documented), and we pulled into the intersection under the bridge that the rental agent warned us about(we did look like entirely gullible tourists), and we got this feeling like we were about to get away, then the police officer walked up to our car and knocked on the window and motioned us aside.

a flurry of spanish ensued, and at first, it looked like 1200 pesos, though simply by suggesting we didn't have nearly that much, he offered to cut it in half. all the while, i was trying to gt a good look at this guy's badge, which was entirely faded, cracked, and impossible to read. fallback plan- offer 50 pesos. he declined, and basically let us go.

perhaps talking with a fluent spanish speaker took him off guard, or social unease over a woman driving around four men, or the large beared fellow staring intently at him, or it just simply taking too long, or all of that, resultd in a lucky break for us.

the scenic road to oaxaca

the highways south of mexico city suffer from an abundance of signs. surely someone who manages the roads knows someone who runs a sign-making business. "don't put rocks on the road", "repect the signs", "don't even think about walking here", "respect the lights", to name a very limited few. probably rought 25% were "respect the signs". maybe adding more signs will not help.

at any rate, we turned at this very large, prominent and very official-looking sign for oaxaca. "only about 2 or 3 more tolls to oaxaca" the first toll person said (in spanish, presumably). well, surely it was more like 7-9 more tolls, and through some gorgeous mountains. cacti were everywhere. in many ways, parts very much reminded me of some of the ponderosa pine forests of eastern oregon. it was absolutely gorgeous, especially the sunset we were hoping to see from oaxaca instead. fortunately, we didn't hit and goats or other cattle when it was dark.

the tents of downtown oaxaca

we finally made it to oaxaca, it was dark, and we were heading in the right direction for our hostel, until we hit a total deadlock in traffic. after some overly dramatic attempts to back out of a one-way street, we later parked and asked someone what was going on. apparently, a big sleep-in protest had turned all of downtown into a tent city.

we managed to stumble into our hostel, find food somewhere nearby, and sleep so very hard.

later, we found out that the protests were the annual (for the last 29 years) protests for miniscule raises for teachers and educators. this year, it bodes slightly well, in that it's an election year, and it will probably be more like 1-2 weeks instead of 4-6, because it just looks bad to ignore schools so completely.

some other debian folks we met in a bar (oaxaca seems to be crawling with debian folk) suggested we outreach to them- maybe prepare for next year (it i an annual event, after all). i suspect it would be the first debian-edu outreach done at a labour strike.

ear volcano

in an attempt to restore my hearing, i managed to get some hydrogen peroxide (agua oxigenada) to pour in my ears, which produces an incredible amount of bubbling and noise, but in the past has been really effective at clearing out my ears. this time, one ear was so plugged even three rounds didn't really come close to clearing it out, even thouh the volcano extracted all sorts of waxy debris.

it is so difficult to practice spanish with extremely limited hearing.

it seems to get worse when i sleep. hrm.

and i blame it on swimming for that debian photo. i sure hope it's good.

comida

i really like the food here, especially at the market. it's not so difficult to get (mostly) vegetarian food. i crave more vegetables, but beans, avocados, oaxacan string cheese, nopales (type of cactus) and really fresh tortillas are staples i could happily live on indefinitely. well, i still want more vegetables.

ear pebbles

the wax in my ears had hardened into small wax pebbles. we found this out by going to a doctor and them squirting water in my ears and on the really bad side, sticking a sharp metal implement in my ear. i can hear again, and sounds like there's not really much danger of infection.

mountain community(a.k.a. ecotourists)

we spent the last two days in this mountain community. it really reminded me a lot of parts of eastern oregon. there were madrones there (a.k.a. madronas), one of the sexiest trees ever. on the south-facing slopes, there were usually pines, and on the north-facing slopes, firs. there were also these huge cacti that they make an alchohol called polque out of, which wasn't so much like eastern oregon. but i really felt at home, there, and it was considerably cooler.

the local communities have been starting ecotourism businesses, and we were ecotourists. the first day, a relatively quiet 14 year-old kid toured us around and walked us up to 3200 meters in altitude (almost 10,000 feet). i managed to sucessfully ask him what animals were in the area, which felt like a big accomplishment to me. they definitely had mountain lions, but no bears; foxes, coyote (of course) .. i don't remember what all else.

we played frisbee with some of the local kids, who looked very indigenous, and spoke some words and phrases that didn't sound very spanish at all. beautiful, beautiful children.

the next day, we went on a hike with this older fellow, and he was really nice, and even explained to us some of the plants and the areas, and he spoke a tiny bit of english, which was helpful. we did some pretty informal language exchange. i even described working on erda gardens last year, and all the vegetables we grew, though granha is not a word used here- i settled for jardin, which he at least somewhat understood(other people later suggested finca). i had spotted potato and corn growing on our walk into the forest. totally steep, extreme farming conditions. i'd worry a lot about soil loss, turning the soil up on such steep areas, but it overall looked pretty good. we made it to a couple very amazing views into the mountains, and it had started to rain some. i really tried to remember the word for sheep, but i've already forgot it.

when we got back to town, biella was showing folks at the ecotourism office free software. she's an anthopologist who studies free software communities, but a mighty fine advocate as well.

san cristobal

san cristobal de las casas is perhaps the most beautiful place i have ever been (well, human-inhabited places, anyways).

there's many rounded but rugged looking mountains covered in highly varied, lush vegetation everywhere. if the forests outside oaxaca seemed pleasantly familiar, these are exquisitely different and exciting. it's kind of in the clouds a bit, though the sun burns them off before too long.

in about and hour stumbling through town, i've probably traversed more than half of it (but who knows, it could easily be larger than i think). most of the streets seem tiny and one-way, and the rooftops are largely beautiful interlaced ceramic tile, often with something (maybe lichen) growing on it.

it's a shame that my ATM card doesn't work here(i've tried several vendors, all of which claim to support my card), i could spend more time enjoying it.

vagrancy

so, here i am in san cristobal, with my entire monetary wealth of 50 centavos, or half a peso, worth about a nickle back in the U. S. of A. about the only thing i could buy here is copies of something. much cheaper than oaxtepec- this is the first time i've seen anything cheaper than a single peso. i could make two copies of something.

other resources available to me for another 17 hours: internet, bed, electricity, shower, bathroom, cabinet to stash things in.

food: loaf of mediocre bread, quarter-pound of quesillo, one avocado, two litres of water, small bag of dried tomotoes, small amount of tabouli mix.

things: laptop, crappy spanish phrase book, cheap lock (my last 20 pesos), glasses, poncho, backpack, variety of long-sleeve button-up shirts, number of low-top but resonably warm socks, two condoms, copied and tailored map of oaxtepec, book of debconf6 presentation papers, flashlight, about 4-5 feet of cordage, scratched up ubuntu CD set, extra hard drive, two 56k pcmcia modems, USB ethernet, pcmcia 10/100 ethernet, wireless card (makes the aforementioned internet meaningful), miscelaneous trash.

pseudo-things: about 8GB of mostly pirated music.

networking: as long as the technical network is running, i have a vast social network to tap into. this is the only thing keeping me from being absolutely terrified.

i really hope that somehow my ATM card will just start working tomorrow.

no computadora

so, in the height of my trying to use my vast social network on the internet, the hard drive in my computer decided to teach me a lesson. (warning, technical jargon ahead) it got a bad block on the inode where the journal is stored. (laymen's terms) a file that's supposed to help prevent other files from getting totally hosed got hosed, so all the files are gone, seemingly.

using a tiny pocket knife i picked up at the market in oaxaca, i managed to unscrew the hard drive and swap in a new one, well, almost. it didn't really fit. it was too big. so you had to sit there while the laptop is running, and hold in the guts. not trivial. but it gave me long enough to let other folks know the situation.

then, seemingly, DNS was getting blocked. not my freakin day. not. my. day.

1 de junio

if i were a corrupt spiritual leader, i would make the 1st of june a holiday. i think canada has already declared it boxing day, anyways. an ATM giving me money has nothing to do with the church of compost, so it will just have to be a personal holiday.

i am now happy to say that san cristobal is one of the most beautiful places to wake up.

and i can actually appreciate it.

guatemala

today was the day of everythingworking out despite on many occasions it didn't look likely.

i show up at this place at 6:45 am to catch the 7am bus, and i needed a reservation, despite mentioning nothingof the sort the days previous when i had enquired. the guy frustratedly arranged something for me anyways, for 300 instead of 400 pesos. bonus.

the border. it's a crazy market, at la mesilla. i was really worried about having no documentation whatsoever of enteringmexico (other than my bus ticket), but the guy just asked me where i entered and i told him and he gave me an exit stamp. no money, no nothing. going through guatemalan migration was also a breeze, although it took a little while for the chilean fellow with us.

then, of course, the driver we were transferring to didn't want to take me to xela (quetzaltenango), and the other driver had a rapid conversation in spanish which didn't sound pleasant and the guy eventually took me on.

of course, surprise, i get a bonus transfer outside of xela. the fellow was pretty nice, and landed me areasonably cheap private room in a hotel. a little privacy is something i haven't had for weeks.

i guess this isn't mexico anymore.

off topic

since i'm not in mexico anymore, try my guatemala page.

reentry (back on topic)

so, fresh from guatemala, in that strange place between countries, i handed over my passport, they handed it back with a little slip of paper, and i filled in all sorts of details as best i could, handled it back, they stamped it, and off i went. this time, i guess i'm legit.

a couple more hours to san cristobal, we get out at parque central, which happened to be somewhere i recognized, fortunately. it was pretty close to the hostal i stayed in last time, which seemed reasonably priced at 40 pesos a night for a bed and free internet access. though this time, it was 50 pesos a night. still a good deal. i got everything arranged and put away, and headed off to the revolutions bar to watch the world cup with the folks i met on the lago atitlan hike.

i had a little trouble figuring out how to get in. there was a series of overlapping doors and a curtain. eventually, i moved aside the curtain and stepped into a bar. on a big, seemingly faded projection screen was some soccer action. i got a dark beer, and spent some time marveling at how much control these people had over the ball, not just with their feet, but with their heads, too. richard was right, more or less, when he said i'd find myself watching football in the company of english speakers, largely just to hear english speakers again. it was just a different kind of football. i got a dos equis, and drank on a pretty empty stomach, which was actually pretty satisfying.

one of the other fellows i met on the way to san cristobal stuck up a bit of a conversation with me. i talked some about my basic core interests, computer re-use and free software, growing and eating food, ecological sustainability and walking in mountains, and social justice. he was studying political science and social justice type stuff. we run in to lot of people like that in these parts.

then i went over to the vegetarian restaurant across the street that i had discovered on my previous visit here, naturalissimo, i think it's called. i got something i wasn't quite sure what it was, and it turned out to be quesadillas with cheese, smothered in beans and cream. it was good, if a bit overly cheesy.

i headed back to the hostal, to try and catch up on email and chat with freinds on irc, figure out how i'm going to get back and when, and sync up my ltsp branches, and fix a few whitespace inconsistancies... yes, good to keep in touch and get back to work.