El D.F.
the Federal district (Mexico City)
Tulum
For you, Sean, on a trashcan in Tulum. Did you put this there?
This is in San Cristobal, not Tulum.
Sin pelo
The Aquarium in Veracruz
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Mexico pictures
Sunday, April 4, 2010
MEXICO!
It´s been a long time since I wrote here.
I'm in Mexico now. Ruben and I travelled from the Guatemalan border to San Cristobal de las Casas, a mountanous cold city, beautiful and filled with indigenous culture and Zapatistas, still active and fighting to protect land from their government.
From San Cristobal we went to Palenque. The jungle. Lots of green, lots of rain and lots of spiders. We camped in a very wet tent and went to the Palenque Mayan ruins which were not that impressive after going to Tikal in Guatemala, but still really cool.
After Palenque, Tulum, Cancun and Islas Mujeres. I didn't fully appreciate Tulum until after we went to Cancun and Islas Mujeres. Before I even got on the bus to Cancun, I didn't like it after all I've read and heard about Cancun. The tourist strip in front of the beach is like some Miami or LA city and the barrios outside of the center are poor. The roads are horrible, full of pot holes, because the city spends all it's money on the tourist area no mas and leaves the poor neighborhoods to get along on their own. We met an artisaño couple on the street and they offered us to stay with them in their house.
Islas Mujeres I had high expectations. It's pretty there but nothing like I imagined. The beaches and streets were super crowded with drunk happy redneck gringos in their rented golf carts and Coronas in hand. It was especially illegal there to sell on the streets, so we didn't stay long.
From Islas Mujeres we went inland on the Yucatan to Vallodolid, Campeche, Ciudad del Carmen, Merida, and Villahermosa (la cuidad de dos mentiras. No es una Villa y no es Hermosa), all cities with basically no international tourism. They were cool. It's cool to be selling to the same people of the country again like in Colombia and Venezuela. It's nice not to have to depend on gringos to sell to. Mexicans are consumers. They have money and like to shop.
In Villahermosa one day I was walking through the market, in the meat section, holding my breath and looking at the different pieces of animals strewn around. Pollo: Why do Americans throw away the majority of the chicken? In the States, in our meat sections, you'll find breast meat, thighs, wings and the ''whole chicken.''
Here in Mexico, along with Central and South America, the ''whole chicken'' is a chicken, sometimes this includes everything up to the feathers, sometimes still alive with their little feet tied together jumping and tripping along on the floor of the market. Generally, the standard ''whole chicken'' comes with the feet, toenails and all, the neck, the head, the beak, the gizzards, all of them, and now I have noticed them selling chicken with the un-hatched eggs still attached. To eat. Not just for the gringos to take pictures of and put up on Facebook to show friends how crazy Mexico is, but to actually eat. Big, ovary popping eggs. Red. I don't know how they cook em. Fortunately, I have not yet run across one floating up in my soup. You never know what to expect in a spoon-full of market soup. Mondongo soup for example. I think that translates to cow stomach lining. At least that's what it looks like and how I understand the explanation. I still don't understand how people love this ever-lasting chewy ''meat.'' Despite all this grossness, at least they're econominizing the animals. They eat everything.
In Coatzacoalcos, I saw, spoke and sold to many prostitutes. Ladies of the night, as my dad calls them. A woman who walks alone in the street at night here is most likely a prostitute. An assumption, but the majority who are wearing high-heeled shoes and too-tight clothing and sexily wandering aimlessly on the sidewalks are prostitutes. For several nights where we were selling in the main plaza, I watched a group of homeless women: two women, one infant and two young girls of 10-13 years old. The women looked like genuine homeless but the two young girls, every night, walked around the plaza in the apparral and aimless fashion of the prostitute. The older one, maybe 12, looked like a young woman from behind, but her face was so young. Hopefully I was mistaken, but it seemed like the older, ragged woman was her pimp. Maybe her mother. There are lots of commercials and ads here about the increase and amount of child prostitution in Mexico.
I suppose if I was travelling around the States staying in the cheapest hotels of each city and selling on the streets, I would notice more prostitution in the states. I have never opened my eyes to it there. These travels though, from the ''casas de amor'' (houses of love, I like to call them), of Colombia, Venezuela and all of central America, excluding Guatemala, I have seen the world of prostitution much more than I ever knew existed. It's all so disgusting and all just reiforces how disgusting men are and my hate for machismo. However, prostitution is not just the mens' fault. It's womens' too. The need and want for money leaves people to do horrible things.
Machismo. After almost two years immersed in the depths of machismo, I am left with strong feelings against men and their machismo. Now that I can really speak my mind in Spanish I have started speaking my mind to men when they treat me with machismo. It feels awesome! Yelling at a man and (hopefully) making him feel as little as he makes women feel every day with his looks and gross words, is awesome. The other day I told off a guy in front of me in line at the bus station. Instead of standing in line normally, like everyone else, facing ahead, he turned around, stood a little away and gawked at me. At first I ignored him for a few seconds, then gave him a death stare, then when none of that worked I told him to close his mouth, stand in line normally and quit looking at me. He giggled. I asked him if I looked like I was joking and to seriously look in another direction. He did. And when I got up to the ticket booth the woman working smiled at me in, what I would like to think, an appreciating way. :)
However, a lot of women here are so used to machismo that they actually like it when a man kisses at them and says lewd things. Many women have said that it makes them feel pretty. Not me. It sends rage through my blood.
I shaved me head the other day. It's nice to have men look at my head now rather than my chest or behind.
Semana Santa was the past two weeks and Ruben and I worked A LOT and saved 16,000 pesos almost $1400 US. A lot of money but a lot of working and talking. We were in Veracruz. It was really fun being apart of the Semana Santa selling buzz. In the hotel we were in there were lots of other vendors who came from surrounding areas to sell in Veracruz. People were out selling everything. Even the beggers are cashing in. There are boys who stand on pilings and yell to the crowd that they'll jump in the water for money. The people throw coins in the water and the boys jump in after it and find it. One of them told us that in one day he made some $300 pesos. There were mountains of people selling watches, perfume (which by the way the people buy like crazy), glasses, flan, sandwiches, balloons, henna tattoos, sandals, hammocks, dancing for tips, break-dancers, the indigenous women walk around with at least 20 pounds of clothing, candy apples, jewelry...everything.
Now we're in Mexico City, the biggest city in the world, to buy materials. It's a really pretty city.
I'm in Mexico now. Ruben and I travelled from the Guatemalan border to San Cristobal de las Casas, a mountanous cold city, beautiful and filled with indigenous culture and Zapatistas, still active and fighting to protect land from their government.
From San Cristobal we went to Palenque. The jungle. Lots of green, lots of rain and lots of spiders. We camped in a very wet tent and went to the Palenque Mayan ruins which were not that impressive after going to Tikal in Guatemala, but still really cool.
After Palenque, Tulum, Cancun and Islas Mujeres. I didn't fully appreciate Tulum until after we went to Cancun and Islas Mujeres. Before I even got on the bus to Cancun, I didn't like it after all I've read and heard about Cancun. The tourist strip in front of the beach is like some Miami or LA city and the barrios outside of the center are poor. The roads are horrible, full of pot holes, because the city spends all it's money on the tourist area no mas and leaves the poor neighborhoods to get along on their own. We met an artisaño couple on the street and they offered us to stay with them in their house.
Islas Mujeres I had high expectations. It's pretty there but nothing like I imagined. The beaches and streets were super crowded with drunk happy redneck gringos in their rented golf carts and Coronas in hand. It was especially illegal there to sell on the streets, so we didn't stay long.
From Islas Mujeres we went inland on the Yucatan to Vallodolid, Campeche, Ciudad del Carmen, Merida, and Villahermosa (la cuidad de dos mentiras. No es una Villa y no es Hermosa), all cities with basically no international tourism. They were cool. It's cool to be selling to the same people of the country again like in Colombia and Venezuela. It's nice not to have to depend on gringos to sell to. Mexicans are consumers. They have money and like to shop.
In Villahermosa one day I was walking through the market, in the meat section, holding my breath and looking at the different pieces of animals strewn around. Pollo: Why do Americans throw away the majority of the chicken? In the States, in our meat sections, you'll find breast meat, thighs, wings and the ''whole chicken.''
Here in Mexico, along with Central and South America, the ''whole chicken'' is a chicken, sometimes this includes everything up to the feathers, sometimes still alive with their little feet tied together jumping and tripping along on the floor of the market. Generally, the standard ''whole chicken'' comes with the feet, toenails and all, the neck, the head, the beak, the gizzards, all of them, and now I have noticed them selling chicken with the un-hatched eggs still attached. To eat. Not just for the gringos to take pictures of and put up on Facebook to show friends how crazy Mexico is, but to actually eat. Big, ovary popping eggs. Red. I don't know how they cook em. Fortunately, I have not yet run across one floating up in my soup. You never know what to expect in a spoon-full of market soup. Mondongo soup for example. I think that translates to cow stomach lining. At least that's what it looks like and how I understand the explanation. I still don't understand how people love this ever-lasting chewy ''meat.'' Despite all this grossness, at least they're econominizing the animals. They eat everything.
In Coatzacoalcos, I saw, spoke and sold to many prostitutes. Ladies of the night, as my dad calls them. A woman who walks alone in the street at night here is most likely a prostitute. An assumption, but the majority who are wearing high-heeled shoes and too-tight clothing and sexily wandering aimlessly on the sidewalks are prostitutes. For several nights where we were selling in the main plaza, I watched a group of homeless women: two women, one infant and two young girls of 10-13 years old. The women looked like genuine homeless but the two young girls, every night, walked around the plaza in the apparral and aimless fashion of the prostitute. The older one, maybe 12, looked like a young woman from behind, but her face was so young. Hopefully I was mistaken, but it seemed like the older, ragged woman was her pimp. Maybe her mother. There are lots of commercials and ads here about the increase and amount of child prostitution in Mexico.
I suppose if I was travelling around the States staying in the cheapest hotels of each city and selling on the streets, I would notice more prostitution in the states. I have never opened my eyes to it there. These travels though, from the ''casas de amor'' (houses of love, I like to call them), of Colombia, Venezuela and all of central America, excluding Guatemala, I have seen the world of prostitution much more than I ever knew existed. It's all so disgusting and all just reiforces how disgusting men are and my hate for machismo. However, prostitution is not just the mens' fault. It's womens' too. The need and want for money leaves people to do horrible things.
Machismo. After almost two years immersed in the depths of machismo, I am left with strong feelings against men and their machismo. Now that I can really speak my mind in Spanish I have started speaking my mind to men when they treat me with machismo. It feels awesome! Yelling at a man and (hopefully) making him feel as little as he makes women feel every day with his looks and gross words, is awesome. The other day I told off a guy in front of me in line at the bus station. Instead of standing in line normally, like everyone else, facing ahead, he turned around, stood a little away and gawked at me. At first I ignored him for a few seconds, then gave him a death stare, then when none of that worked I told him to close his mouth, stand in line normally and quit looking at me. He giggled. I asked him if I looked like I was joking and to seriously look in another direction. He did. And when I got up to the ticket booth the woman working smiled at me in, what I would like to think, an appreciating way. :)
However, a lot of women here are so used to machismo that they actually like it when a man kisses at them and says lewd things. Many women have said that it makes them feel pretty. Not me. It sends rage through my blood.
I shaved me head the other day. It's nice to have men look at my head now rather than my chest or behind.
Semana Santa was the past two weeks and Ruben and I worked A LOT and saved 16,000 pesos almost $1400 US. A lot of money but a lot of working and talking. We were in Veracruz. It was really fun being apart of the Semana Santa selling buzz. In the hotel we were in there were lots of other vendors who came from surrounding areas to sell in Veracruz. People were out selling everything. Even the beggers are cashing in. There are boys who stand on pilings and yell to the crowd that they'll jump in the water for money. The people throw coins in the water and the boys jump in after it and find it. One of them told us that in one day he made some $300 pesos. There were mountains of people selling watches, perfume (which by the way the people buy like crazy), glasses, flan, sandwiches, balloons, henna tattoos, sandals, hammocks, dancing for tips, break-dancers, the indigenous women walk around with at least 20 pounds of clothing, candy apples, jewelry...everything.
Now we're in Mexico City, the biggest city in the world, to buy materials. It's a really pretty city.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
2010
Last Christmas, seems like much longer than a year, I was in Colombia. This year I was in Belize.
Belize is a strange central american country that feels like the states much more than central america. I rented a house in Placencia, on the carribean, for two weeks with four other artisaño friends, Josinara, a Brazileaña, her boyfriend Walter, from Argentina, another argentino, Herramia and Ruben.
Placencia was beautiful with a tranquil carribean beach, Garifuna and english all around. It was wierd and cool to be in an english land again but when I got back to the border of Guatemala the other day, I was happy to be back in spanish world.
Our tables in Placencia. Mine is the last one.
This one.
Ruben, Josi y Lion a friend we met in Placencia.
Walter and Herramia. New Years eve, waiting to watch the full moon come up over the ocean. It was magnicicent.
Waiting for the moon.
Josi, Herramia and I on christmas. I made my first turkey. Twenty pounds.
I put it in the oven around 7 in the evening and fell asleep before it was ready at around 1. But the next day it was still delicious.
In the back of a bus in Belize, a rasta guys little dog, Snoopy.
He was cold that morning so he had on a little shirt.
Breakfast in Livingston, Guatemala.
Waiting for the boat to go to Belize in Livingston.
A wierd and disturbing mural of a baby/chicken in diapers either
throwing up or eating coins of money.
A new necklace of mine. Opal from Mexico with copper and agate in the chain.
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