#21 Living in Jalapa

Hola, buenas dias. ¿Como estas amigos? Estoy en Jalapa, Veracruz. Si quieres ver esto mensaje en Espanol ir a babelfish.altavista.com

Ok sorry, but I am really enjoying learning Spanish. It´s such a wonderful language. I am in the city of Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. I have been here for about 3 weeks and I am renting a house for 500 pesos a month. That´s about $50 USD. The bike trip is currently on hold for a little while, but not to worry, I will be picking it back up in a few months. In order to make travelling a little smoother I will be returning to Canada in about a month to renew my passport as I only have 8 months left on it. It is probably best get this out of the way as soon as possible so I can continue to travel in south america. They don´t like it when you enter a country with less than a year on your passport, and least not on a bike. I plan on hitchhiking up through the USA to Canada and returning to Alberta where my family is to wait for a new passport, then when I have a thick, shiny, new key to the rest of the world I will make my way to the Mississippi River where I will invest in a canoe and spend 3 months riding the river, Huck Finn style all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. I´ll head along the coast after this all the way to Mexico and pick up my bike there for more travelling. This should take me 6 months, give or take.

My trip has begun to take on a different meaning to me as well. I started out with the mind set of bike everyday lets-go-for-a-record kind of bike trip. I have been on the road now for a little over 14 months and I have learned so much. I have learned that life is short and I have learned that I need to make the most of every second of it. 20, 000 kilometers have taught me never to stop living, never to stop the adventure. So I will be taking it a little slower. I realize now I don´t need to bike everyday. Many times in my journey I have come across wonderful opportunities to stay in different places, to stop and learn something new, or just to take a day of on the beach and relax, but the expectation of the bike trip has made me push on.

So now I am living in Jalapa. The house I am renting is great, filled with cool people, plus it has a stove downstairs and everyone here enjoys my cooking, so I try to do it as often as possible. One of those things I have missed horribly is a stove on my trip. You don´t notice it until it´s gone. There is a garden in the back yard, 2 bathrooms, all the amenities for sitting, hot water which is hard to come by here in Mexico, and free internet, of which I am taking full advantage of right now. And for 500 pesos, it is a great deal. It´s a cool story of how I found this house as well. I was talking with some wonderful Canadians here in Jalapa (it is a very international town, full of students), Tara and Jill. Just after Jill gave me a box of amazing maple syrup candies from Canada, which I thouroughly enjoyed, we were talking about how I was looking for a house. Jill said something amazing at this point. "Sometimes when we are asking for things, we aren´t specific about when we want them, and they take thier time in coming. Maybe you just need to say you need it right now". I did need it right now, as I was quite tired of carrying my bike and all my gear around town looking for a place to stay, and at the end of every unfortunate day, push it to someones house to sleep on thier floor. I did this for about a week when I first arrived here. At this point, all the energies in the whole universe aligned themselves in my favor and on of my freinds told me there was a guy who needed to talk to me. Turns out he had a house, cheap and beautiful, and needed someone to live in it. Easy as that. A huge thanks to Jill and Tara, not only for the delicious candies, but for ading a little more energy to fire. Peace and love girls.

So anyways...I last left you in Cuidad Serdan just after climbing Pico de Orizaba. I took my borrowed gear back to Tlachichuca to the hotel and spoke with Poli there. He made me an offer to work teaching english. All of my room and board would be free and all he wanted was 6 months, of which i would get paid for. I told him to give me 2 weeks to travel some more, and think it over. I wanted to test out the teaching in Zacapoaxtla, where my 2 friends from Britain were teaching english at the time. I hung out with Saul for another 2 days then headed to zacapoaxtla, hitchhiking. Hitchhiking in Mexico is so very easy, unlike America. It took 4 rides and about 3 hours to get there, and by cahnce ran into Amber in Centro.

The next day I went to try teaching English with Alex, and as it turns out, it wasn´t what I wanted to do for 6 months. I did get my face dunked into a cake though, that was cool. It was Dia del Maestros (day of the teachers) and all the teachers got face planted in cakes. There was no school the next day so we went to a town called Apulco which has some waterfalls and explored around there, then the four of us, Alex, Amber, Mateo, and I rented a cabaña for the night. I stayed in Zacapaoxtla for about 4 days, then left with my thumb out for Jalapa. it took me about 5 hours to get there.

My first day in Jalapa I bought a very cool drum. I have been playing the drum for about 8 months now, and I am really enjoying it, plus it gives me the opportunity to work and make some money, which will help me travel for much longer. I was on my way to play my drum that night when I met a guy named Alfredo. He invited me to come play my drum with him and a freind in his house, as he had a Djembe. I went there later that night and we made some amazing music.

I hung around Jalapa for about a week. I was introduced to a drink called Pulque, it is make form the juice of the Maguey plant, the same one used to make Tequila. It is delicous. I also found Callejon del Diamante (Alley of the Diamons) which is where the Artisanos go to work. I spent a lot of time there learning a lot about being an Artisano. These skills along with playing my drum have allowed me to untimatly not spend any money in Jalapa.

So after a week in Jalapa, I stuck my thumb out again and headed back to Cuidad Serdan for my bike. Before I left again I hitched to Nogales to visit Ulises and pick up my other bags. The day I left for Cuidad Serdan to climb the mountain, his cat, Psst psst had babies, and he told me i could take one. I put it in my drum and headed back to Serdan. Now, the plan was for Ulises to come to Serdan and for us to head south, him on Fiona, and me on Mary the Mule, but as usual, plans change, and he decided to stick around with hid girlfriend, So i headed back to Jalapa to look for a house, this time on my bike. It took me 2 days to get there, the road being perfectly flat until Las Vigas, then a 30 km decent into Jalapa. Easy riding.

Now the whole time I have been in Jalapa has been a fiesta or an adventure. There is always something to do here, and it´s easy to find things to do. One such adventure occured with my freind Alfredo in a town called Xico, which is right under the mountain Cofre de Perote. It is home to a variety of mushroom that has an amazing effect on the brain. They call them Hongos. I went there the first time with Alfredo, his girlfreind, and my friend Marco. I ate only 1.5 hongos, but the effect was intense. Everything began to move. The ground beneath me swirled in orange and green circles. Trees wiggled and danced in the wind and sounds became amazing. Simply walking sounded like the most beautiful of music. These hongos make you think and they can tell you amazing things, however, i wasn´t prepared for what they were trying to tell me, and didn´t fully understand, so after about 3 days, I returned to Xico with my tent to learn more. This time I ate 9 and being alone is much better when you eat them. They aren´t meant for parties or hanging out. They are for thinking, and for learning about what ever it is you want to learn. You can go there with a question and when you return, you´ll have your answer. I thought about almost everything, my Family, my bike trip and where I plan on going with it, and the general world. I learned that life is but a game, and you have to play hard, or what´s the point of playing.

So while I have been in Jalapa I have learned a lot. I have also partyed a lot. In fact, I am taking a rest day today because I have partied for 4 days now. So my body needs some time to clean itself out. I think ill lay off the party for a few days, but I know when the weekend comes in Jalapa, there will be parties. There always is. I am never bored here.

So anyways, my cat is pawing at me looking for some food, and I am hungry as well, so on that note, buena suerte, paz y amor.

Steve Fox (or Rasquachito, ultimatly little sasquatch with rastas)