Seeds for a Home

Ride by ride by ride I made my way to Belize and back in less than a week, getting bit by a thousand mosquitoes and getting just a very small peak of that small English-speaking nation that borders Mexico. I really would need to spend a lot more time to formulate a real opinion about it, and right now I'm more interested on writing about something else, but I did meet a wonderful Russian family there with big hearts and strong determination who shared their wonderful home and farm with me.

When I came back to Guatemala I got my last ride of the day in Melchor Mencos by a truck driver and his whole family and I got to ride in the back with all the children and the candy, with the lateral door opened wide away and our legs hanging by the road! Another beautiful Central American sunset and... Arrived once again to San Benito.

Somehow the firemen there convinced me of going to Tikal. I try to avoid touristy places, but Tikal was quite worth it for many different reasons. The animals walk around the paths with the visitors and for me, the biggest joy was to find thousands or Ojoche trees, also known as Ramon, the seed I got a chance to try in Ometepe with the Lnuks, and which was believed to be the base of the Mayan diet. 

I spent a fair amount of time walking around the ruins collecting some seeds to cook them later and I also found a couple that were sprouting. 

It was a really beautiful day that reminded me to take my time to enjoy the things around me instead of just rushing clumsily to the next unknown destination. The Peten lake's sunset was my view in my pick-up ride back to the San Benito Fire Station, and I had time to reflect about the last few months and really, the last year, since I started hitchhiking and discovering the many different layers that the word freedom has in my life.

The next morning I left San Benito pretty early and hitchhiked down La Libertad road towards Cobán, to try to find the Rainbow Gathering I had been hearing so much about since I started traveling in the USA at the beginning of the year.

An ex-truck driver took me to the spot I had written down in my notebook for the gathering directions and there I was... next to a beautiful blue river, surrounded by nature and with no sound except the birds and the wind.

I wasn't sure I was in the right spot because right above the rainbow drawing at the entrance of the road there was a big sign that said "Private property, don't go in," but I went ahead down the path hoping not to get shot.

I was very relived when I saw the first tents and then, under a big blue tarp, a bunch of people who greeted me yelling "Welcome Home!"

Some of them went ahead and hugged me and I was pretty happy to see Jordan, who I had met before in Vipassana.

I had no idea how true those first words I heard were... I was, for real, just arriving home...

Meditating, singing, cooking, playing, swimming, face painting, teaching, working, and of course, being in nature are just some of the few things I have gotten to do so far in this seed camp.
I realized after a few days of truly loving these wonderful strangers that I finally felt home for the first time in a very long, long time.
This gorgeous place mixes the incredible wealth of the Guatemalan landscapes and cultures with the border-free, label-free effort of the people that come together for this encounter of love and sharing.
We are building a temporary village over here! And it's hard work! Pulling corn from the fields and cutting wood and making trails and constructing stuff! And all this just with the purpose of making that home that we had been dreaming of coming back to... Travelers, creators, farmers, spiritual seekers of all forms, from all places, coming in buses or boats or planes or by foot, all coming together for this... the new beginning that we are hoping for humanity.

Our neighbors from the Quechi communities came to visit a couple of times so far and I found it very inspiring to share with this people who come from such a different culture and traditions our love for nature and earth, these parents that sustain us with love and patience. Gabriel, the guardian from the land, was very pleased to get some of the Ojoche seeds and was excited to plant them and see of the majestic Ramon trees would grow in that colder land.

I was planning on leaving next week to go back to Mexico, but now that I found home, I don't think I will be leaving any time soon. I'm exactly where I need to be right now.

The Revolution will be Feminist or it won't be

An exhausing early morning, riding through foggy mountains covered on corn, welcomes me back to Guatemala.

I have spent the last few weeks exploring Nicaragua and Honduras and it was finally yesterday that I crossed back to to guatemalan land, which for some reason makes me feel more at home.

Life moves way faster than my fingers can type, and once again there are a lot of things I would like to tell and remember. Remember and tell...

Like, two nights ago, on the top of the world!

"Duck!" they yelled, "dodge those branches!"
Trees and clouds and fresh air, all available on the roof of that yellow firetruck that we rode like the heroes who just tamed the wildest animal.

I never hopped a train, but I can imagine the feeling being quite similar.

There was a pick-up stopped on the side of the road, and the firetruck driver, without a trace of hesitation, pulled over with a violent movement and the firemen: so fast!
I barely had time to realize what was going on and I already see them all with their bright yellow shirts pushing hard, hard and the lights of that pick-up turned on and ram!!! The motor comes back to life and the driver celebrates with a festive honk that sounds like a chaotic concert of out of tune trumpets!

Kurt Vonnegut always praised the firemen in his books and I understand why. I find it truly inspiring to see people helping each other like that and sharing whatever they have.

Ah! Wa! Agh! Drunk on happiness and strong wind on our faces.
"You learn a lot in the street!" one of them tells me.

And that's the best thing about hitchhiking. That one ends up in a bunch of unexpeced places, meeting people who one would have never met if it wasn't for the addiction and almost devotion to the uncertainty of each one of our steps.

Jack Londn used to say that the hobo's life is always full of surprises, nothing is monotonous about it.

That's what I was thinking about when I got out of Granada a few weeks ago, with just a vague idea of heading North.

Outside of Masaya I got a ride from Carmen, a Nicaraguan writer who had done a Vipassana course a few years ago. I interpreted that encounter as a sign to get re-united with some of the other Vipassana servers, and I headed to Matagalpa.

I spent a night in the Sebaco firestation, where I hear a lot about the history of Nicaragua and its multiple interpretations.

Next morning I arrived to Angels' house, the coordination of the course, who welcomed me with open arms.

So much generosity and affection!

"I just treat people like people treated me when I came to this country."

She came from Spain many years ago and made Central America her home.

On top of being a beautiful city surrounded by mountains, with an almost perfect weather, Matagala is also a very important cultural place, with a very strong and important feminist movement.
It was just for a couple of days that I missed the pro-choice protest in which many women got naked in front of a church procession, asking the priests to "keep their rosaries out of our ovaries." It's been already several years since aborting was banned completly in Nicaragua, even in cases of rape or high risk pregnancies, beacuse of the pressure of the church on a govermen that declares itself "christian and solidary."

But what I luckly didn't miss, thanks to Angels, was a beautiful street theater performance under the September full moon, in which dozens of men and women, all dressed in black, represented the hopeful fight that is lived everyday in Nicaragua for a true freedom, a freedom in which we will stop being each other's jailers. It was very inspiring to get in touch with art again! Specially this kind of collective art, without egos, which felt both handcrafter and full of heart!

Walking through the beautiful Matagalpa streets I found a graffitti slongan repeting itself over and over again on the walls.

"La revolución será feminista, o no será." "Revolution will be Feminist, or it won't be." The importance of the feminist movement has been a constant topic of reflection for me this year. Probably becuase I started hitchhiking alone in February. In the USA many people saw it as a suicidal act, but in Central America many people see it almost as an offense.
"But how are you not married!? Why are you all by yourself? That shouldn't be. What's your mission?"
Mission? What could that possibly mean?
"Of course, a mission. There had to be a purpose for taking such a huge risk. If I were your husband, I wouldn't allow you to go around like that. But don't worry, stay here in Honduras and we will find you a boyfriend, a husband."

In a hostal of Matagalpa I was able to exchange one of my books for a little novel by Vargas Llosa. "Los Cachorros," which would translate as the cubs, or the puppies.

More than a nove, Los Cachorro is a long story about Pichula Cuellar, a young boy who is castrated by a dog, and the effects of that castration in his life as a teenager and a young adult.

I kept thinking about that story while I listened to the men yelling stuff at me in the street, or just the sexists conversations that one has to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner in Central America.
"Nowadays is so difficult to find a good woman who wants to get married and have a family. They all want to just go travel the world with a camera."
The indirect was acually quite directly aimed to me.
"What the world needs is more house wives. Some women don't even want to wash their husband's clothes."

And I find myself diveded between two constant thoughts...
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE FEMINIST, OR IT WON'T BE.
How can we aspire to a wolrd of social justice, if we can't even treat each other as equals at family level?
I'm not saying it's wrong to be a housewife, cook for your children, do laundry. But I just don't believe those things should be impossed. I don't think any roles should be impossed to anyone. That means, in my opinion, once again becoming each other jailers.
Revolution must be a feminist one because it must be humanist. Because it must reclaim the right of all beigns to be whatever we decide to be.

"If we all thought like you, humanity would be extinguished already," a man told me in Nicaragua, offended by my current lack of enthusiasm for family life.

And that leads to my other thought...
After Matagalpa, I headed out to Esteli, to Stephen's farm, the other course coordinatior. I spent some days there, not doing so much. Just peacefully observing nature, handmaking chocolate, laying on a hammock, talking, meditating.

And meditation, trying to observe things without judging them, makes me question everything again. "At the end," Stephen told me, "everything is going exactly who it is supposed to go. It's just from out anthropocentric perspective that we see problems, but everything is part of a cycle: The fight of energy, the hierarchies... you can observe those same patterns amongst animals, bacteries, plants..."

But the fight, at the end, is part of our reality...

I keep on reflecting about that poor Pichua Cuellar and the castrating sexism that crushes our humanity. But I find it a more enthusiastic reflection now, more hopeful.

In Villanueva, Honduras, I met many firewomen. Like the little Jessica, who is 12. Yeah, it is true that firewomen are expected to do more cleaning and cooking in the station, but little by little... Because when the bell rings, they also climbed fast to the firetruck and head with determination towards the fire, the flood, the beehive...

Romanticism vs. Honesty, one month in Nicaragua

"And I kept saying it over to myself, about how I'm going to be free, and then I try to think what's going to be like and all I can see is people. They push me this way, then they push me that- and nothing pleases 'em, and they get madder and madder, on account of nothing makes 'em happy. And they holler at me on account of I ain't made 'em happy, and we all push and pull some more."

- Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

It's been already a month since we arrived in Nicaragua.

Time has passed very fast and that last dark night in the back of a pick-up, admiring the most beautiful electric storm in the sky of Honduras, racing towards the border with Nicaragua and feeling like everything was so perfect, seems to be in a very remote past.

The morning before entering Nicaragua, Ben, Jenny and I woke up in the fire station of Choluteca and I went  out to see the firemen (and one fire woman) raising the flag of Honduras to celebrate the beginning of the patriotic holidays.

We then walked to the Panamerican highway and waited for a ride in front of a food stand, and the women there observed us with curiosity. Most of them were friendly, some were a little hostile.

"You know you're never gonna get a ride here, right?" one of them asked me in Spanish.

"Don't worry about it, we are patient," was my answer.

The traffic was slow and it started to feel like we were indeed never going to find a ride, but when we were getting ready to walk to the next gas station a car stopped and while we rushed to get in (the driver was in a terrible rush) the woman from before looked at me and said, "That's how unfair life is. You come here and people help you out. And when we go to your countries, we are treated like dogs."

Not knowing what to answer, I smiled apologetically and rushed out, thinking about her words.

I then stared to think a lot about romanticism. I feel a little guilty about writing stories in an epic tone and making videos that make everything look like so much fun and adventure.

I recently read a quote that said, "Traveling is glamorous just in retrospect," and I couldn't agree more.

Sunburned, sad, hungry, dirty, thirsty and disenchanted by our progress, we arrived to the border of Nicaragua and Honduras.

The line was long and we found out we had to pay 12 dollars to enter Nicaragua. Borders are so dumb.

We got out of the immigration office and tried to find a little bit of shade, but we had no luck and we again waited on the sun. Very few cars were passing. I had lost my hat and thanks to Ben's phone we realized we had entered through the wrong border.

Finally, a truck driver picked us up and slowly, slowly, slowly made his way across Nicaragua towards the border with Costa Rica.

He dropped us up in Nandaime and we were able to arrive to the tree house hostel where my friend Courtlen works right before sunset.

And I kept thinking and hoping that once we arrived there everything would feel right. We would be safe and happy and comfortable... Always placing happiness somewhere else.
Ben was exhausted. Jenny was worried about renewing her visa. And I just kept thinking again and again... What's the different between optimism and Romanticism? Pessimism and honesty?

We stayed at the treehouse for a couple of nights and I decided to go to the beach. Ben and Jenny had their own plans, but at the end for some reason the three of us ended up once again standing on the side of the road with our thumbs out until we got a ride from a father and a son who took us all the way to Popoyo beach, a quiet and peaceful piece of sand, where we camped under an abandoned palm roof.

There is always something very comforting about the Pacific Ocean with its wide waves, its salt, its vastness. I used to have a lot of emotional resentments towards the ocean, but this year has changed that and I can now enjoy jumping waves again, like when I was a child. A mouthful of salt water and...
At night, we seated the tarp on the sand and laid there, watching the stars. And I felt like that moment belonged to us.

Ben was getting sick. He started to tell me he had been thinking about going back home. "This place is so beautiful and for some reason I can't enjoy it."
I asked him what he expected of this Latin American trip. He wished Spanish could be easier and he wished he had found more people to connect to and... I don't know what else.
I remember the feeling of embarrassment and sadness when I was in college and I had so many people coming down to Mexico with me for shoots or summer trips and they would have big expectations for the country that were crashed by the harsh reality of things. And I also thought of how happy I felt when Jenny smiled at the wind when traveling in the South of Mexico, enjoying the moment so much and making me realize the unnoticed beauty that I had been surrounded of my whole life. I now realize how this feelings are just attachments to MY country, MY culture, MY Latin America. Ego, ego, ego. Fiction, fiction, fiction.

Jenny also had some unmet expectations about this trip. She had hoped it would be only the two of us and all the romanticized memories trapped in our hitchhiking video would repeat each other over and over again.

And I wanted to make them happy. I wanted to make everyone happy. I kept on feeling guilty and incapable and failed when I saw them both upset while the most beautiful sunset was gifted to us. And then again, placing happiness somewhere else, I hoped that once we went to Vipassana, everything would feel right and safe and perfect. Just wait, just wait. Everything will feel better.

There was an earthquake in the beach one morning and we felt it there, in the sand, and I was in awe because this was the first time I experienced this expression of the land without fear. There was nothing around that could fall on us. The Earth was just yawning, stretching, and we were feeling her. Later we heard there was a tsunami alert and we packed our stuff and Courtlen came meet us. No tsunami came and that night the four us camped there, the last night we spent together.

Next morning, Courtlen went back to the treehouse and Ben and I got into an argument with Jenny and we decided it the best thing was to split up for a while. I constantly felt like I had gotten so good at being by myself that I just didn't know how to be with people anymore.

Ben and I headed out to Ometepe, and I couldn't get Jenny out of my mind... Missing her and feeling like I had failed as a friend.
We spent a night in Rivas, at the firemen station, hanging out with an 18 year old firemen who had tons of stories, and next morning headed to Moyogalpa, on the island, to try to find a the Lnuk, who Benjamin Lesage had told me a lot about.

We arrived to their hostel exhausted and confused, and they received us warmly. While we helped them transplant some trees and bushes, Juana explained us the use of the many medicinal plants we were carrying.
Usagui showed us a plant called chaya, which grows wild and can be eaten when cooked on an open pan. It's a delicious green that made me feel stronger and healthier. We also tried ojoche, a seed which can also be foraged wildly and which is believed to had been one of the most important food sources for the ancient Mayan civilizations.

So much to learn! To absorb! To do! When I told Juana and Usagui about going to a meditation course, they told me they meditated with their hands, because to keep their lifestyle close to the Earth and nature, there was always a lot of work to do. So that's what I did for the time I was there, I meditated with my hands. Juicing limes, cleaning around, organizing second hand clothes, moving boxes and mostly sharing and learning from these wonderful people. Their traditions and ideas felt so enriching and so beautiful, and I felt very excited to be there.

But I kept worrying about Ben... He at that point had a fever, and his mind was agitated and disoriented. I went with him to the hospital to see if he could get a dengue test, but they couldn't do the test until the 5th day of fever and by that time we would already be at Vipassana. So he rested and drank a lot of water and we just kept waiting for time to heal...

Our days in Ometepe ended before I felt ready to leave, but I was excited because I kept hoping Vipassana would set everything right, without realizing I had been hoping always for the next moment to be the right moment.
We spent one night in Granada with the rest of the Lnuks. We finally met Indio Viejo and enjoyed a wonderful vegan meal with them. I felt home, I felt I kept on finding family in this trip, but I didn't really stayed long enough to find see the full picture, so I kept on trying to remind myself not to romanticize these things.
I thought a lot about Benjamin Lesage and how much I had learn from him in the past. When Memphis Ben talked about wanting to be comfortable and feel safe, I remembered and shared with him what Benjamin had told me when I started traveling: "This is the reality that most people of the world have to face: being hungry and thirsty and tried." We are so privileged... and even more privileged to get to understand in such a real way the contrasts of our crazy society. I realized it's been already one year since I started traveling.

The morning of the 12th received us in Granada and finally, finally, I thought, everyone would feel alright and we would find what we were looking for.

We met up with Courtlen and unexpectedly also with Jenny, and after breakfast Chad, the owner of the treehouse hostel, dropped us of on the road, a few kilometers away from the course site.

I found a big surprise when we arrived at the course site. All the servers had dropped out last minute, so I was asked to serve the course along with two Spanish girls and two coordinators, being told that this was a wonderful opportunity to grow in Dhamma. We were so few people serving such a big course! And although I really wanted to just sit and take the course, I felt like I had been doing a lot of taking in the last few months, and not enough giving. So even though I didn't feel ready, I spent those ten days working at the course, and re-learning how to give and love without expecting anything in return.

It was hard to see it when I was there, but now that an entire week has passed since we finished the course, two main things keep palpitating with my every breathe.
The first one has to do with ego. I realized all my worrying about others had only to do with my need to feel useful. One of the night discourses speaks about this. I was hurt about Ben not being happy in Latin America because I kept thinking of him as MY friend, in MY land. And those things are both fictional, because no one belongs to anyone and the land also cannot belong to anyone. The land exists, and people exist, and we are all just trying to find our ways... Even MY truths, MY words, which I write right now are nothing but vague ideas that will change and change and change. I realize I want to grow on the path of humbleness, and do realize I still have a lot of work to do on that.

The second thing I started to understand has to do with the questions I kept asking myself about Romanticism. When I couldn't meditate, I would start day-dreaming. I would think that once I got out of the course I would go here and there and travel and explore and meet and walk and I kept on doing the same thing over and over, which was just placing happiness in some other moment. How happy was I when I lived in New York! Or that one night riding on the back of a pick-up at night! And yeah, those moments were happy, but they were also gone. The final day, when everyone could speak, I talked to Jordan, from the States, a very interesting guy who had done Vipassana a bunch of times in the past. When I told him about taking refuge in day-dreaming, he said to me "Yeah, but if you want to be awake, it's no time for dreaming."
I had always seen it as such a harmless activity... and finally I realized I was missing the beauty of so many things, because even when I had been so happy in the past, there would always be a thought in the back of my mind "How beautiful is this! If only my mom were here and I could share it with her!" Things like that. Never satisfied. That guy said something else that stuck strongly with me... "each moment holds the entire potential of making you as happy as you can be, if only you embrace it fully." Something like that...

Ben escaped the course on the third day and by the time we finished he was already back on the States. I hadn't really heard from him. I was a little sad about not being able to talk to him or say goodbye, but now I feel like it's not worth to be sad about things like that, because what I have now is the beautiful opportunity to once again travel alone. I'm really happy about that. And he is doing what he needs to do and living what he needs to live. Jenny went North with Jordan, and I will probably see them again before the world ends. I think many paths will come together again at Rainbow Gathering towards the end of the year.

I feel stronger and infinitely inspired now. I have been meditating every day and practicing, practicing, practicing to savor every second for what it is, without expecting it to be something that it's not.

The Central American Dream

Sometimes, before going to bed and trying to see these images clearly, all the stories start to get mixed.

Yeah, a dark, dark night after an absinthe open bar in NOLA, climbing a wall to get to the dock on the Mississippi River and the the water, so loud, keeping us away from the big, luminous building on the other side.
The weeks and the days and the hours... How long ago did that happen?

I went swimming in Lake Atitlán yesterday. Guatemala.
Floating there, on the water, watching beautiful green volcanoes all around, I just thought of all the water I had seen and fought this year.
It's rainy season in Central America.
It rains every day. Usually, once it starts raining, it won't stop.

We got to Guatemala a few days ago and we have just been walking around coffee plantations, picking avocados up from the floor and hiding from the rain.

After leaving Veracruz a few weeks ago, I hitchhiked alone to Mexico City. One of the easiest days of hitchhiking of history. I didn't even have to ask for any rides, I would just be walking a few meters from one spot to another and a car would pull over and take me exactly where I needed to go. I even got free breakfast and some cake, while I kept approaching the hell that I had escaped from back in June.

It was really nice to see some friends and I really loved being around a lot of different people for a couple of days. In Mexico City I met with my friend Ben, who I met in Memphis back in February or March while I was hitching across the USA. He left Memphis a couple of weeks ago to come to Latin America and he will travel all the way South to the end of the world.

Who would have thought that summer was going to be so wet and cold in Mexico?
How can someone be ready for that?

Ben had never hitchhiked before. We left Mexico City a week ago and it took us three days and a half to get to San Lucas Tolimán, where I happily reunited with Jenny.
And here I am again, with a hitchhiking gang of American kids who are running away from the American dream. I'm La Coyota! Translating and following the routes of the map. Next destination: Nicaragua.

Central America seems like quite the dream to me: getting the last ride of the day in La Ventosa right when the sun is setting and riding on the back of a pick-up, seeing the sky turn from blue to orange to fire to dark. And then the stars that start coming out, little by little, and half a moon illuminating everything.

We woke up in the morning in a gas station in Tapanatepec, and walked a few blocks down looking for a speed bum and some shade and, oh surprise! In the other side of the street, guess what? A bunch of big mango trees with huge fruits hanging from their branches!
I ran there to discover the sticky, orange and sweet smell of the dirt under the trees: mangoes rotting all around!!! I tried to find one that wasn't half eaten by the bugs and an old lady came out of the house and saw me.
"Do you want some mangoes, güera?"
I nodded enthusiastically. She went into the house and came back with two big bags full of mangoes! I took only one bag because I didn't want to carry them both.
We gave most of the away. They weren't bad, but they were very fibrous and too much mango might just ruin the strong love I have for that fruit.

And that's how it goes...

And of course I realize I romanticize all these stories a lot. We also have to walk on the heath or the rain carrying heavy back-packs and sometimes we are sticky and dirty and hungry and bored and so, so tired of waiting. But somehow in my memory it all ends up being a lot of fun...
A couple of days ago Jenny and I ran out to the streets of San Lucas while the rain was falling furiously on us. My mom always told me about the rain: you get wet and then you get dry and what? what's the big deal?
It was true!
I had my rain jacket on and Guatemalan money is made out of plastic, so I took my glasses off and I ran, embracing the blurry lights that shone all over the night. Getting wet was nothing! We got totally soaked! Laughing and yelling and yes! The rain is not so bad!

We are heading out tomorrow towards El Salvador and it's exciting to be traveling with friends again!
The three of us will be going to Vipassana in two weeks near Granada, and then going to Costa Rica to renew Jenny's visa.

The rest... We will see about that.

From Turist to Vagabound

"this is what it means to be an adventurer in our day: to give up creature comforts of the mind, to realize possibilities of imagination. Because everything around us says no you cannot do this, you cannot live without that, nothing is useful unless it's in service to money, to gain, to stability. The adventurer gives in to tides of chaos, trusts the world to support her- and in doing so turns her back on the fear and obedience she has been taught. She rejects the indoctrination of impossibility."

-- Off the map
Crimethinc

I traveled through Mexico a fair amount since I started traveling back in October.

It's a great place to travel!

However, I never traveled hitchhiking alone until this past month, after Jenny stayed in the Mesoamerican Permaculture Institute in Guatemala and I came back to Veracruz alone.

Every time I had been in the South of Mexico, people would always yell stuff at me in English, and I always assumed they were just talking to me in English because I was with foreigners.

This time around I got an awesome ride with one of those guys with a bike-cart right at the Guatemalan-Mexican border, in Tecún-Umán, where there is a long bridge. From the bridge you can actually see people crossing in shafts and big black rubber tires, something like what I imagined illegal immigrants would cross the USA border back up North. I never saw anyone crossing the Rio Bravo though, I imagine they would be more discreet.

This bike-cart guy took me for maybe just 5 minutes to the other side of the bridge and told me what he really wanted to do was to go to the USA. He said he wanted to travel. He was quite amazed at finding out that I had gotten there all the way from Mexico City just by hitchhiking, and he laughed a lot.

After I crossed the border a bunch of people started yelling at me in English again! I merrily yelled back at them in Spanish: "¡Soy Mexicana!"

I kept thinking about this one time I was hitchhiking in Texas and I ended up having to spend the night in Houston:
I had an awesome day working at a dry cleaning with a Mexican guy who gave me a ride. I wanted to help him around for a little while, so we went around to different dry cleaning places, picking up the dirty laundry and delivering the clean clothes. He said he was teaching me how to work, so if I wanted to stay there and work, I could. He told me about having archived the American dream because he now had a smart phone and if I were just staying a little longer, he would show me his house and introduce me to his wife and daughters, so I could see how happy he was.

He seemed authentically happy...

I got the last ride of the day from a 20-something-year-old with a huge beard who talked about the Illuminati all the way to Houston and who kindly dropped me off right at Downtown.

I had never been there before. I didn't know anyone there and I really had no plan. I was optimistically trying to make it all the way to New Orleans from Austin in one day. And I really didn't believe I was going to make it, but I decided I could figure out what to do once I actually had to figure it out. I was at least hoping to make it past Houston thought. But I spent too much time doing the dry cleaning thing.

In a restaurant someone helped me find a cheap hostel in the area and I started to walk over there.

I didn't know exactly where I was going, but I had drawn a little map in my notebook.

When I was crossing the street some homeless woman walked over to me and said, 

"Hey, I was going to ask you for some change, but then I realized you're also in the street."

I didn't know what to say, so I nodded.

"There is a good bridge you can sleep under right over there. It's warm there."

I thanked her and kept walking towards the hostel.

I got there. The night was something like... 18 dollars. I had five.

The manager was a really sweet woman who gave me a hitchhiker's discount and let me stay there five bucks.

It was cool. It was the one and only time I stayed in a hostel.

Now I can say that I did it. Ha.

The next morning when I was walking towards the bus that would take me to the highway, another homeless man talked to me: he wanted to know if I had gotten anything to eat because they were giving out some food at a church.

I had packed a lot of food from the hostel, so I thanked him and walked away.

So now I'm traveling in the South of Mexico I find it funny that people see me as a tourist, when in the USA so many people saw me as a homeless, and I look pretty much the same when I travel here than when I travel there...

Except that I carry less cardboad around when I'm in Mexico, because it's easier to get rides just with your thumb...

Now, this past weekend my friend Lizzette and I went to Coatzacoalcos. She works with Central American immigrants and they have some program they do to feed people under a bridge, near the train tracks.

I had such a great time!

The idea was already cool because just feeding people in the street reminds me of Food Not Bombs. My friend actually made an awesome short film about some women who feed immigrants in some small town in Veracruz, the same state I'm in right now.

It's just 5 minutes! Check it out if you get a chance:

Anyways... I had an incredible time talking to the immigrants on Sunday!
Most of them were from Honduras and they were quite young. I was surprised to see many of them had light green eyes and dirty blond hair.
They told me that region is very mixed with Europeans.
They were eating their tortas, laughing around and telling stories. I saw only two girls.
There was this one guy who talked to me the most. He was from Honduras and he had all these crazy stories! He said he had been in the USA before, that he had worked in Wisconsin. He said because of the job he got there, someone connected him for another job painting walls of boats in Dubai. So he went! He worked illegally there, and also in France, before going back to Honduras. Now he wanted to go back to the USA and see what else could happen.
I know, I know... a lot of this stories are probably not true, but I just thought it was awesome to hear some crazy traveling stories from this guy!
There was a loud noise and then all the immigrants got excited!
The train was coming!
"La Bestia!" yelled one of them!
"Show her!" the others yelled at him.
He then ran wildly behind the train and jumped in!
He got off again and ran back to us, laughing.
I was so impressed!!! Holy shit! I see horrible pictures in the newspapers all the time of the bodies they find under the train tracks!
And these guys...
I had a great time with them!
I know that they have to go through a lot of shit to get to the USA, but at least in that moment they seemed pretty fearless and adventurous and awesome!

And hey, they were blond. Why was I the tourist!?

AWAY!

My dear friends, acquaintances, family, strangers and all.

I have tried having a blog a couple of times in the past, and it never worked.
A couple of things have lead me to try again, and hopefully, this time around I will actually post stuff.

I deleted my facebook back on October 2011.
I also quit my job and started hitchhiking.
It took me until July 2012 to actually grow the balls to finally get rid of most of my stuff, send the rest to my mom's place, leave my apartment and move out of Mexico City.
But I did it.
And here I am now. Free. At least I feel pretty free right now.

So, my facebookless-self thought, that if any of you think of me some day and wonder where I am or what I am doing, you can look up this site and know that I'm still alive. That I haven't gotten killed or kidnapped or any of those things people talk about when they talk about hitchhiking.

Right now I'm in Acayucan, Veracruz, editing a documentary (not my own). I will be done with it some time in August (hopefully!) and I will start traveling again.

I left Mexico City with my friend Jenny a couple of days before the elections and we hitched to Chiapas and then Guatemala. If you want to get a little idea of what I was up to for those days, you can watch this little video I made about the trip.

I will post more about the trip and the stuff it has made me think about once I figure out how to upload photos.


 

AWAY! Two girls hitchhiking to Guatemala. from Marissa Rivera Bolaños on Vimeo.