Following is a (poorly) edited version of emails sent during our stay in Guanajuato in June/July 2008. (Where are u when we need you Angus?)
G'day mate! Buenos noches.
What a weekend!! We went on a trip organised by Escuela Mexicana to a couple of other centres in Central Mexico with six of our fellow suffers. We passed through some really poor villages and grotty cities but one of the highlights was a night on an island in the middle of a lake formed by volcanic activity. Yeah, I can hear youse all yawning from here but read on, it can only get better – I hope.
On Sunday we went for a walk on a lava field formed in 1943 when a nearby volcano exploded. The interesting thing about it was the church in the middle, which is 3/4 buried in lava with just the spires sticking out plus the altar area. It was fascinating to see that the local indigenous people still make offerings @ the altar. Unfortunately I managed to slip and twist my ankle and had to be taken back to the car by horse. How very uncool is that?! A bit of self-assessment showed that there were no fractures or serious ligament damage but the pain was pretty extreme (Ain´t I just the clever little shite!!) I think I did something almost illegal by Australian standards. There were 2 American girls - 12 and 14 yo - on the
trip who ended up staying in our cabin. Unfortunately the 12yo, Ariel, freaked out when she saw her room and wouldn’t sleep in it so Heather, ever the mum, said she could share the double bed with her. This left me with Terra in the same room as me but thank god there were 2 singles. Now they both call us Mom and Dad @ school in front of everyone. Kinda nice really. I think the whole thing was a way to make sure we didn´t do "it".
The rooly exciting thing to happen was getting stopped by the Policia Federal. These guys were armed to the teeth and backed up by soldiers who seemed to like pointing their automatic weapons at people. It turned out that they are part of the enormous crack down on drugs that is taking place here at the moment. We 3 guys had to provide ID while they searched the car but they didn´t bother with the women in our group. God only knows what they made of the Australian, German and US drivers licenses but they were pleasant and let us go without looking for bribes. Thank god I had put my stash in Heather’s bag.
Let me tell you a thing or three ‘bout Mexico:
Food: So far I have not found any Mexican food worth crossing the street for. I find this disappointing and frustrating as I was hoping to gorge on rooly tasty tucker but there is only so much soggy tortilla one can eat without screaming STOP. Some people have told us that there are no good Mexican restaurants in Guanajuarto but this is hard to believe in a city of 98,000 souls so I guess I will have to wait until we come back in 2009 and can investigate properly. Meanwhile it is back to El Midi, a French eatery next door to this computer cafe. The food there is delicious, cheap and plentiful. With beer and We have 4 more days of school before heading to Mexico city for a few days. Heather has been there before and loved it so, cost notwithstanding, I have agreed to go and experience a city of 25 million inhabitants. There are ancient pyramids nearby so it will be very interesting, expensive and tiring. At least I can sleep on the coach ride.
The long distance coaches are fantasitc. As you board you are handed a bag containing a drink, food and, most important, some candy....er, sorry, lollies. The seats are wide, come complete with leg rests and are much further apart than anything you see in Oz. It is like having a Jason recliner in a bus. Oh, don´t forget the video screen that pops down from the ceiling and the 2 dunnies. All this for a 5 hour ride @ $37 each.
Well, I hope I have y´all green with envy. We love it so the decision to move here for a couple of years is easy.
2 courses we would rarely spend more than $7 each on a meal, often less if we go the Mexican route where it would be closer to $4.
Beer: Corona @ $1.50! Other ones are even cheaper. Pity I don´t drink much anymore but Heather is more than making up for it. I have signed her up with Mexican AA which is also next door to El Midi. We can have lunch, a beer, send an email and attend a meeting all in the same area!
Police: They usually hunt in packs and carry more fire power than your average SAS soldier on a 3 month patrol in Afghanistan. Oh and don’t forget the bullet-proof vests. There are several layers of police here but most seem to carry some sort of automatic weapon. That Mullet idiot (secretary of the Vic police association) would love it! If they pull u up there is a little verbal dance that must be followed and a bribe paid at the end. Thankfully this only seems to happen to foreigners who are silly enough to drive here.
Weather: Brilliant. It is summer here at the moment, which is also the wet season. When it rains, as it does late most afternoons, it just buckets down and floods the streets. Because of the flat roofs quite a few houses have to clean up as well. Surprisingly it is not humid but just right. I think the winter is also warm sans the rain. A funny thing though - the Guanajuartanese don’t wear shorts. (maybe they all have legs like mine and don’t want to frighten the tourists away)
My spelling/grammar: I don’t care about it. You wouldn’t either if u had to learn Spanish grammar! And type on a Spanish keyboard that has a whole lot of different stuff
Utilities: Gaz y agua. Not many houses are connected to mains gas so everything is run on bottled gas. Every morning a guy roams the streets calling out "gaz" so u just yell back and he changes your bottles. The same applies to drinking water although the tap water is not too bad.
Viernes, 11 de julio de 2008.
Last day @ Escuela Mexicana. We finished la clases gramitica at 1100hrs then skipped vocabulario to finish off getting ready to hit the road in the morning. ´Twas a bit sad leaving the school especially leaving our new children Ariel and Terra behind but we gave then a little pewter roo and koala plus Australian flags. How gauche is that! I also "found" an American cousin in the shape of a kid, Cameron, from Nashville Tenn who was in our classes this week. Surrounded by f.....g kids - the things u see when u don’t have a gun!!! At least we can stop pretending to do homework.
We have loaded up with all sorts of things over the last couple of days!! Beautiful rugs x 2 (from a place I can´t spell which starts with O and has an X in it some where and ends with an A), exquisite pottery x lots from local artists (the shards should look lovely when I rearrange them after the flight), a painting (me come home without a painting? Never!!), Day of the Dead stuff, and tee shirts for me. Oh, I nearly forgot - Heather bought a 2nd hand velour dress. Ain´t she all class!!!!
Made quite a few contacts with expat Yanks to try and unravel the costs/availability of good rental properties, the cost of health care and what visa we will need to stay here for more than 6 months. Although every person has a different story there are certain threads coming through that lead us to believe that 1) rent is cheap as long as u don´t deal with agents, 2) good health care is easy to access for very little cost and 3) we need an FM2 visa (betcha didn’t know that !!). Everybody complains about the waiting times in the hospitals but coming from the Australian public health care system.....
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