Puebla, Mexico

Nunca deja de soñar...

Today’s journey brought nine hours of travel and turned it into conversation and understanding.  I woke up this morning in San Cristóbal and tonight I will lay my head down in the beautiful historical city of Puebla, Mexico.  

The future is a very uncertain thing and in this confusion I somehow take a great comfort.. but enough of my esoteric words, rather I wish to tell you that in this moment I’m content with my uncertainty.  You see, earlier today we struggled with a very important choice to make as we weren’t sure which border would be safest for us to cross from Mexico back into USA.  Although we are still days away from the border we must begin making plans to guide our vessel home.  This took us to Puebla.  

Perhaps you’ve e heard of cinco de mayo in college when you took shots of tequila and wore a silly Mexican sombrero but honestly that crap is nonsense here.  The fifth of May represents a great part of Mexico’s history and it’s really wild to believe that we have appropriated their culture to such a degree yet who am I to be surprised when we still celebrate saint Patrick’s Day be getting blindingly drunk with no knowledge of its origin?  To me Puebla represents so much more. Let me explain...

I believe that the manner in which we view a culture not only reflects our knowledge of their history yet it reflects how we see ourselves in the world in general.  Do we see ourselves as alone and vulnerable to the unknown?  Or do we embrace our differences and see ourselves as an integral part of the notion of “culture” in general?  Do we believe what we hear about other countries or do we go see for ourselves that really we aren’t so different after all?

This takes us to Puebla, a city I’ve barely begun to explore.  We came here on a whim that the Matamoros/Brownsville border is currently too dangerous to cross.  This probably isn’t true as thousands of vehicles pass every day but the fear gripped me and I found myself looking into other ports of entry into USA.  (Listen listen what speaks to you? Listen listen you know it’s true..)

Cumbia.. my not so secret love of a musical genre that has barely crossed into the United States.. your 4/4 shuffle has tempted me for years.  I’ll say it, I want to go to Monterrey, Mexico and hear for myself the rhythm that has imported itself from Colombia.  Is this why I have found myself in new paths unexplored? I might not know the answer to that question for several days but for now I know that in this moment I’m happy, content and eager to explore the next chapter of my travels.

Never stop dreaming.

Intrepid traveler

We are not humans having a spiritual journey.... we are spirits having a human journey 🙏

This post begins in the unpronounceable Mexican border town directly across from La Mesilla, Guatemala.  The town’s main road serves as a connection between the two countries and should you find yourself staying here, it would be presumable that you’ve reached nighttime and the immigration offices are closed.  So now there is not much more to do than sit at outdoor food wagons drinking cold Coca-Cola from a glass bottle while eating amazingly inexpensive tacos and finding yourself in Spanish conversation with locals and other viajeros (travelers).  Sitting on low plastic chairs, these light-hearted yet somehow deep conversations with total strangers in their native tongue feel very familiar and comforting to me for they are happening all over the world.

These moments are indeed among the cherished reasons why I travel.  Here at this taco stand there are no borders between our countries, no disgusting politicians telling us how we should feel about people of other nations, yet here myself and my new friend share a meal and a few laughs about esoteric references that only true lovers of Latin American culture would understand.  

I come back to the cheap motel which coincidentally we stayed at two years ago, the first time we drove to Guatemala, look at myself in the mirror and realize that my greasy face shows it’s travels well.  I’m 36, proudly covered in tattooed scars, awake and alive in this moment.  

Travel is different now that I’m older.  I’m no longer the shirtless hostel guy playing guitar on the roof drinking beer with travelers of many nations (wait... yeah I am) but now something more; a man who has found himself a wonderful fiancé and a newly discovered lust to search this planet for signs that my original theories were correct: when you tear down the borders created by imaginary geopolitical lines, when you try even a little to entertain the notion that you can learn another language, when you harness enough courage to travel across great distances of land only then do you truly realize that we aren’t so different after all.  

My gosh, the horrible things I hear these days coming from the mouths of those back home who have never so much as tried the food of a different culture.. it pains me to think that so many people have such terrible beliefs about people from other nations.  

Que puta eres señor trump.. te compadezco..  

How cliché I feel saying this but a little understanding goes such a long way.   

My friends, we are not the opinions of our government nor the fear which is embodied within us from the media.  Travel.  Buy a ticket to somewhere you are supposed to be afraid of and go there.  Not for one week but for a long time.  See for yourself if what you’ve been told is true because nobody else will do it for you.  We should celebrate our differences not fear them.

This journey is a long one which will take me four solid months.  We shall continue across Mexico and back into the United States only to find ourselves flying soon back to Guatemala and eventually to a small Caribbean island off the coast of Honduras where we can begin a new life and a new chapter in our story together.  This sounds complicated but to Elena and I it makes perfect sense.  (Hu)man has long carried an insatiable desire to explore what lies beyond the hills and across the sea and to me personally it’s sad that we’ve come to deny ourselves this wanderlust.  This is very normal for me and I have no plans to stop.  As it’s been said before me, one day I shall return with wider eyes and words more soothing to the ears.  The world will sleep yet we too shall continue to travel as it is our birth right to do so.  

Tomorrow we depart for San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico.

Love and respect your neighbors.