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!?