Feliz Navidad

Christmas in Mexico

And a happy new year. I´m struggling to type on a dinosaur of a pc with a Latin keyboard in the small, happening town of Alamos, which has been our home for the last 2 days. My dad has a connection to the town, which hosts a national music festival in January, and houses a decent number of old ex-pat hippies holed up in the crumbling old ruins of a once-wealthy silver mining town. A generous character named Jerry Rosenfeld has let us camp out in his own private ruin since our arrival, and I really can’t even try to thank him enough, so I’ll do what I think he would in my situation, and not try.

It’s been a grand ol’ time here though. Alamos is a lively, beautiful old town. You can see everything from ruins with just a wall and floor standing (a la Jerry’s), to giant dilapidated edifices of wealthy partiers, to places renovated in the 60’s with hosts of avocado-colored technology. You can drink beer and sit or take a walk. Man do I miss that in the states (even if it’s highly tolerated in SF).

This afternoon I walked up El Mirador – a mountain featuring an amazing view of Alamos and the surrounding mountainside – but managed to catch a ride back to town with a car full of Tecate-drinking 18 year old Mexicans. They gave me beer and a ride into, and through, town and I gave them a sharpie to sign my bike. Pretty good trade in my opinion.

My Spanish is rapidly improving. I can now comfortably order a beer, say happy Christmas to a pick-up loaded with a small army of cute children, and shoot the standard mindless shit people in small towns shoot. Feels pretty swell.

I have a great appreciation for the fact that Spanish was the language I chose to study in school. The energy from the people here is inspiring. In this town twice the size of the one I grew up in, people on the streets wave as they go by. Strangers will stop and talk to you, even if you can barely keep up the most basic parts of the conversation! More than anything, people here will give you some of their time, and in the US, that’s hard to get even when you do speak the language.

Tomorrow morning, we get out of this proverbial Dodge, headed for all points South, and I’m ready. The hammock I’ve been sleeping outside in on the hill is starting to feel just a little bit too much like home, and there are a lot more places to see. It was nice to spend a few days in a place early though, as it refreshed the notion in my mind that there’s just so much to see in nearly every place in the world, and even us with no schedule and no reason to rush miss so much beauty hidden just beyond the road well traveled.

Well, lots more to say, but I didn’t bring my camera to upload pictures, so I may save it for another day. For now, I think I’ll go back to sweating through Christmas in the skinny cobbled Mexican streets. ¡Feliz Navidad!