Monday, October 17, 2005

When I was little, I had a Rubiks Cube. After fruitless hours of trying to solve it the correct way, I peeled off all the little colored stickers and placed them so the cube appeared solved. When I showed it to my mother, she got so excited that I had to tell her the truth before she took me down to NASA or something. After I told her, we all felt a little let down. The moral is that Rubiks Cubes are stupid and unsolveable but other kinds of puzzles are cool, and sometimes traveling is like a puzzle and thats cool too.

We were so happy to leave Mazatlan that it hardly mattered where we were headed. But the fact that it was a puzzle destination was still pretty exciting, at least for me. The goal was the island of Mexcaltitan. The fact that the trip invoved more than three types of transportation and more than four stops qualifies it for puzzle status in my mind.

First we had to get from our hotel to the bus station. This was easily accomplished, but left both of us unnaturally sweaty. I could wipe my forehead and the sweat collected in my hand would run down my arm. It was gross.

From Mazatlan, we got bus tickets to Pe�as. Luckily I asked the driver how long it would take to get there (four hours) because it turned out later that he had no intention of helping us out by announcing the stop. The bus was hot. It was a large first-class bus and the air conditioner was on, but at such a low level that our sweat never completely dried. This was our first bus trip that involved vendors getting on the bus at every stop and trying to sell things. (Tamales, camarones, tamales, camarones...)

After approximately four hours had gone by and we made another stop, I went to the driver. I was very polite. I said, Disculpe, donde estamos? Pe�as? He replied simply, Si, Penas, but he gave me such a look of annoyance and incredulity that I was surprised. (Yes, of course& this small collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere is so different from the last four. This latest tamale vendor has clearly wrapped his tamales in the Pe�an manner. How could I have been so blind?) I was glad to leave that driver behind as the last vestige of Mazatlan.

From Pe�as we were to to take a local bus to Santiago Ixcuintla. The first person we asked about the bus told us there was none and that we should take a taxi. The second told us we could take a combi. We still werent sure what a combi was, although we knew we would have to take one from Santiago. At least people were talking to us. In Mazatlan, possibly because they were convinced we wouldnt understant anyway, people didnt bother to say too much to us. In Pe�as, people responded to my questions with rivers of Spanish. I didnt understand all of it, but with so many words to choose from, there was a much greater chance that Id be able to recognize one here and there. I loved them for giving me the respect of words& its not their fault I could only understand one in ten of them.

We ended up taking a taxi to Santiago Ixcuintla, and apon arrival discovered that it was too late to move on to the next step, so wed have to spend the night here. Santiago is interesting. Its small and dusty, but has a feeling of niceness about it. There is a square, as in most Mexican towns, and a market, and quite a few stores devoted to selling hip sneakers, but not terribly many hotels or restaurants since it�s not particularly a tourist destination. Despite the dusty, backwaterness of the town, the young ladies all look like they are on their way to the club. Time for me to feel jealous again. I wished that at the very least my boring, plain t-shirt was not soaked through with sweat.

The cheap hotel was unspeakable and the nice hotel was expensive. The lady at compromise hotel gave us a deal on her crummiest room. I dont say that in anger, its just fact. I saw the other rooms and ours was the crummiest, but hey, we got a deal. Maybe she felt sorry for us because we were so incredibly, disturbingly sweaty.

She spent quite a lot of time explaining that we couldnt use the air conditioner unless we paid an additional 30 pesos. We figured wed be fine with the fan. We actually prefer the fan, since its easier to acclimate to the hot weather outside if we havent been refrigerated all night. But we didnt count on the microclimate of that windowless room. When we came back from dinner and walked out of the cool, comfortable outside air and into that hot, soupy room, there was no choice but to go back downstairs and hand over the 30 pesos.

In this room, we found that something we thought was just chance may actually be a trend: chewed wads of gum on the wall above the bed. This is the third time weve encountered it. I cant help but wonder a) why someone staying in a hotel would stick gum on the wall next to their bed and b) why someone owning a hotel would offer the room again without first scraping the gum off. Its something to be documented, I think. But to be fair, since I didnt make notes on the first two sightings,I will make Santiago Ixcuintla the first official occurance. Maybe it will be the last. Maybe it really was just chance.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 51.5

HOURS IN A TAXI: .50

 

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One of the many, shortly before his untimely death

My itchy souvenir

Gum

We were warned not to walk too heavily on the walkway to our room