Forecastle
I will relate my narrative of my trip to Creel, Chihuahua in the hopes that writing will take my mind off all the barfing I did this morning (bad food).
We embarked at 10 pm from the Hotel Parador, Zacatecas. I had realized on the way to the dustoff site that I had forgotten both my sandwiches and my dinero. Oh well. I assumed for the hundred dollars a day we were paying for the trip that comestibles would be available and aplenty.
The ride was 15 hours long. Endless deserts and ghost towns leapt into the rear-view-mirror. I sat there in the dark staring out my window, entertaining fantasies of cowboys and roundups, listening to the Sons of the Pioneers. The barren landscape drilled me into some sort of sleep; my head bobbled and swayed in rhythm to a peaceful drone.
We stopped in Cuahtemoc for lunch, thoroughly behind schedule. We had delicious tacos, and I brushed my teeth for the first time in almost a day. A delightful mariachi band crooned for us as we enjoyed our meal. We rolled once more and reached our cabins in Creel, Chihuahua sometime in the late afternoon. Once they had turned on the hot water, things were copacetic.
By some estimates, there were almost 100 of us. It was like Kofi Annan's birthday - there were dudes from Slovakia, Korea, Japan, Canada, the USA, Turkey, Brazil, Belgium, France, Australia, Germany, and I can't even remember where else. Ironically, the only kids that got on my nerves were the Canadians and the Americans, but moreso the former. Makes me glad I went south and not north.
The day we made our Creel premiere happened to be the Mexican Independence Day, so that night we made a beeline to the town center to party. A band was bumping ranchero as we danced various two-steps to the genre's characteristic up-and-down beat. I brandished the Mexican flag and hollered "Viva Los Gringos!"
On our second day in town We bounced to view some canyons and deliver foodstuffs to the Indians living there. I bought an aztec calendar plate. I don't have any pix, but you can check out the most recent photo link below for someone else's. We also broke a bunch of piñatas. Except half of my group didnt even get a chance to whack the thing because some asshole in the middle broke it.
Day three we went to a waterfall. The freezing water kicked the shit out of my brain and allowed a certain masochist thrill. After the seemingly subzero dip, several people (at least 40) decided they wanted to go rappelling down the a gorge. Whatever, I took a nap in the sun. When I woke up, someone told us we were heading back to the bus. I gathered my stuff and started treading.
After about 20 minutes of walking, I couldn't remember if we had started out in front of everyone or behind them. I was walking with about 5 other people, but as far as I could see both ahead of and behind our group, there was no one. After what seemed like two hours of walking, we found our bus, but no one was on it. Somebody told me that the rest of the group had already left on another bus to go eat at some lake. Our bus refused to take us to the site, as it was waiting for the rest of the group (I thought they were all gone?).
I saw a car coming so I jumped across the street and stuck my thumb way out. The car pulled over and gave us a ride. They were a nice couple on their way to someplace with food. With kind words, we parted ways at the lake.
We saw the bus, but there was no one on it. We looked around the lake, but again, there was no one. We found a guy sitting in his car listening to mariachi and asked him if he had seen a large group of white-shirted gringos. He said no. We were hungry. He gave us food and water. He was in town visiting his parents for the holidays. He admitted that he was really just waiting for dusk, waiting to get drunk. A little indian boy carrying a bottle of margarita mix came by begging for food. The dude gave him some chips.
We had no idea what was going on. Where was everybody? We walked to the other side of the lake, where we supposedly had a reservation on a campground. They wouldn't let us into the campground. We started walking idly down the road. Food found us - the rotary guys drove by in a truck and gave us a ride to the campsite. It was a glorious relief, especially for Jaciel, who had been walking on bare feet for a few hours.
We ate. There were some dogs around begging for food. I threw them some wasabi peanuts but they ignored them. Stupid dogs get no food. We went boating and somebody decided to start a splash war which was nuts because a splash war is a war of attrition and everyone loses.
That's pretty much it. A dozen hours later we departed for our various destinations. I slept most of the way back. We listened to James Brown at 1 in the morning.
We embarked at 10 pm from the Hotel Parador, Zacatecas. I had realized on the way to the dustoff site that I had forgotten both my sandwiches and my dinero. Oh well. I assumed for the hundred dollars a day we were paying for the trip that comestibles would be available and aplenty.
The ride was 15 hours long. Endless deserts and ghost towns leapt into the rear-view-mirror. I sat there in the dark staring out my window, entertaining fantasies of cowboys and roundups, listening to the Sons of the Pioneers. The barren landscape drilled me into some sort of sleep; my head bobbled and swayed in rhythm to a peaceful drone.
We stopped in Cuahtemoc for lunch, thoroughly behind schedule. We had delicious tacos, and I brushed my teeth for the first time in almost a day. A delightful mariachi band crooned for us as we enjoyed our meal. We rolled once more and reached our cabins in Creel, Chihuahua sometime in the late afternoon. Once they had turned on the hot water, things were copacetic.
By some estimates, there were almost 100 of us. It was like Kofi Annan's birthday - there were dudes from Slovakia, Korea, Japan, Canada, the USA, Turkey, Brazil, Belgium, France, Australia, Germany, and I can't even remember where else. Ironically, the only kids that got on my nerves were the Canadians and the Americans, but moreso the former. Makes me glad I went south and not north.
The day we made our Creel premiere happened to be the Mexican Independence Day, so that night we made a beeline to the town center to party. A band was bumping ranchero as we danced various two-steps to the genre's characteristic up-and-down beat. I brandished the Mexican flag and hollered "Viva Los Gringos!"
On our second day in town We bounced to view some canyons and deliver foodstuffs to the Indians living there. I bought an aztec calendar plate. I don't have any pix, but you can check out the most recent photo link below for someone else's. We also broke a bunch of piñatas. Except half of my group didnt even get a chance to whack the thing because some asshole in the middle broke it.
Day three we went to a waterfall. The freezing water kicked the shit out of my brain and allowed a certain masochist thrill. After the seemingly subzero dip, several people (at least 40) decided they wanted to go rappelling down the a gorge. Whatever, I took a nap in the sun. When I woke up, someone told us we were heading back to the bus. I gathered my stuff and started treading.
After about 20 minutes of walking, I couldn't remember if we had started out in front of everyone or behind them. I was walking with about 5 other people, but as far as I could see both ahead of and behind our group, there was no one. After what seemed like two hours of walking, we found our bus, but no one was on it. Somebody told me that the rest of the group had already left on another bus to go eat at some lake. Our bus refused to take us to the site, as it was waiting for the rest of the group (I thought they were all gone?).
I saw a car coming so I jumped across the street and stuck my thumb way out. The car pulled over and gave us a ride. They were a nice couple on their way to someplace with food. With kind words, we parted ways at the lake.
We saw the bus, but there was no one on it. We looked around the lake, but again, there was no one. We found a guy sitting in his car listening to mariachi and asked him if he had seen a large group of white-shirted gringos. He said no. We were hungry. He gave us food and water. He was in town visiting his parents for the holidays. He admitted that he was really just waiting for dusk, waiting to get drunk. A little indian boy carrying a bottle of margarita mix came by begging for food. The dude gave him some chips.
We had no idea what was going on. Where was everybody? We walked to the other side of the lake, where we supposedly had a reservation on a campground. They wouldn't let us into the campground. We started walking idly down the road. Food found us - the rotary guys drove by in a truck and gave us a ride to the campsite. It was a glorious relief, especially for Jaciel, who had been walking on bare feet for a few hours.
We ate. There were some dogs around begging for food. I threw them some wasabi peanuts but they ignored them. Stupid dogs get no food. We went boating and somebody decided to start a splash war which was nuts because a splash war is a war of attrition and everyone loses.
That's pretty much it. A dozen hours later we departed for our various destinations. I slept most of the way back. We listened to James Brown at 1 in the morning.
posted by MYW at 8:19 AM
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