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The Road to Juquila
Early morning in Oaxaca City, I’m drinking a really pretty cappucino in a clear glass cup and watching the city wake up. People walk briskly, dressed mostly in jeans and a wide variety of tops. Sweaters, hoodies and boots are not unusual.
I wander around the square a little, careful to stay within sight of my hotel. Drink another cappuccino in another cafe. Finally, connect with Conan and Luis (in the middle of a third cappuccino) collect my luggage, and load Luis’s SUV.
Then we go shopping. A big store first, like a Meiers. There is a Walmart, but Conan says things are more expensive there. Julia has sent a list, Luis has a list, we shop and shop.
Then a department store, we look at cribs and other things, Luis picks out some clothes for his infant daughter. More stuff to load in the SUV.
Lunch at a little cafe type place ~ not sure what it was, but it was tasty.
Finally, we go pick up the flowers Luis’ mother had asked him to get. When we are through loading, the SUV looks like this:
And like this:
And at last, we are on the road to Juquila.
It’s off there in the mountains somewhere…
Juquila is a town of about 5,000 people. It’s a tourist town, not for foreigner so much as for Mexican people. The Virgin appeared to some children here, and continues to perform miracles. So people who have a request for a miracle make a pilgramage to Juquila, where there’s a special church and shrine, all of which I’ll talk more about later.
According to google maps it’s about 100 miles and takes about 2 and a half hours to get from Oaxaca City to Juquila. This is a joke.
Even on a map, here’s what the last part of the road looks like.
All those little jagged edges are curves, many of them hairpin turns.
There are special obstacles too – REDUCTOR is a warning for the speed bump. And they’re frequent.
Luis, experienced on this road, knows exactly where each one is ~ even the ones that aren’t marked. This is a very good thing.
I wasn’t able to catch a picture of the two dogs, trotting merrily down the middle of the road, but that’ll slow you up a bit. And the ones who sleep in the road wait until the last moment to get out of the way. As soon as we pass, they go back and lie down in the same spot, as if to say, “This really is my road, you know.”
So it is a five, five and a half hour drive, for sure. On a good run, we hit 30 or 40 kilometers an hour, about 20 or 25 miles an hour. Google maps, hmpf.
We pass “wild” horses and cows and an occasional pig.
We pass small town after small town.
We stop often.
We stop for food or drinks.
Or to use the bathrooms. Conan keeps a close eye on me, which is good. Culture shock abounds.
The bathrooms cost three pesos.
In fairness, I remember when public toilets were pay toilets in Italy, although I don’t know if they still are. And I have a vague recollection of some bathrooms in department stores here that cost a dime to enter the stall. So I don’t feel too superior or anything, this will change here in time, I’m sure.
But. I don’t have any small change, so I have to ask Conan for the three pesos. I enter, with only a little fumbling, head to the stall ~ oh, wait, no toilet paper. I move to the next one ~ no, no toilet paper in any of them. Not even a roll where it would be.
I go back to see if there’s a roll of paper towels by the sink, and I see it. Toilet paper – for a peso.
Laughing, I call to Conan, on the other side of the barrier, “Can I get another peso from you, please?”
Luis hears me, and says, with a grin, “What for ~ does it cost two pesos to get back out? Welcome to Oaxaca!”
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In reality, I have to say that I haven’t felt like I was getting victimized by tourist stuff ~ or not any more than you would anywhere else. Probably less…
Welcome to Oaxaca
After the rainy landing at the airport, I stand in line with every one else to turn in my papers and have my passport stamped, which doesn’t really take vary long.
I collect my luggage and manage to move it to the conveyor belt, where they scan it. I pull it all back off the conveyor belt (yes, all hundred and fifty pounds) and an official comes over and helps me with the last one. Then ~ I have to push a button.
If it’s green, I’ll get to go on right away.
If it’s red, they’ll have to go through my luggage.
Drum roll ~~~~ what will it be, what will it be?
It’s GREEN! Yay!
In the meantime ~~ when I made the reservations for my hotel, I also made arrangements for a shuttle to the hotel. We didn’t know what the plan to get me to Juquila would be exactly. We knew that Conan and his friend Luis would pick me up, but it was all kind of vague in terms of timing. So I reserved the shuttle.
The day before my flight, Julia let me know that Conan and Luis would meet me at the airport. But it was too late to get my money back for the shuttle, so I didn’t cancel it. I figured that way, if something happened and Conan and Luis couldn’t make it, the shuttle would be my back up plan.
So when I get off the plane, and make my way through customs, Conan and Luis are waiting for me ~ and I’m glad to see them.
The man from the shuttle is waiting too. He’s not so happy. I’m his only reservation tonight, and Conan has already told him that I’m going with them. I’m not sure why he cares, since I’ve already paid, but I figure maybe HE only gets paid if he delivers.
Conan suggests that we send the luggage with the shuttle. I’m fine with that, the driver seems ok with it, and it saves us from having to load the bags. So we set off, me in Luis’ SUV, my luggage in the van with the not-so-happy driver.
It’s not real far to the hotel, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, and the driver arrives just about the same time. He unloads the luggage. As he’s doing it, I have a quick consult with Conan about tipping.
Fifty pesos is the smallest bill I have, so even though we agree that might be excessive, I give it to him.
He takes it, looks at it, and his whole face lights up. With great warmth and enthusiasm, he says, “Welcome to Oaxaca!!”
Luis is {perhaps inordinately} amused by this. Later that evening, as we’re having a little bite to eat at the restaurant next door, he repeats the story with delight, acting out the shift from glum-faced driver to happy-happy greeter. I have to laugh too, although I don’t regret the five dollars.
Quick ups and downs of the evening ~ on the upside ~ the hotel was simple outside, beautiful inside, as you can see.
The room was large, clean and the bed comfortable enough.
Downside ~ when Conan and Luis start to go up with me, the desk clerk says, “No. They cannot go up.”
I’m taken aback, not sure what to think. My only thought~ don’t laugh ~ was that he thought I’d picked them up, or they’d picked me up, for some immoral activiity, and he wasn’t having any wild cougar stuff going on in his hotel. Really, that’s what I thought, and I was a bit offended, and maybe embarrassed, but too tired to do anything about it.
Their staff person manages to get all my luggage up to the room, (and wouldn’t take a tip) and I didn’t think too much about it. But Conan and Luis advise me later that it was because they weren’t tourists. I’m still a little confused about it all ~ there were other Mexican people staying there ~ but apparently they think it was a class thing, I’ll take their word for it.
If I’d known that at the time, maybe I’d have reacted differently, but they didn’t tell me that til much later.
In any case, we eat, I fall into bed and sleep like a log.
Next morning, I get up craving coffee, of course. But it’s too early, the restaurant next door doesn’t open til 7. So I take a shower.
A cold shower.
I can’t believe it’s cold. I’m sure the water just needs to warm up a minute. Or I’m turning the wrong knob.
But no.
There’s no hot water.
By the time I realize, really, there is not going to be any, I am already soaped up, and it’s a little late to go complain. Brrrrrr. NOT my favorite way to start the day.
When I tell them later, they are appropriately appalled and go immediately to fix it. Yeah, whatever. I figure that’s what they do with all the one-nighters. Saves on hot water.
When I tell Conan and Luis about it, Luis just grins. “Welcome to Oaxaca,” he says.
Yes, I’m Going to Mexico
I found this great quote this morning:
“But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”
― Bill Bryson, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe
It’s a great quote, not because it expresses how I feel about travel, but because it casually highlights the things that scare me.
First of all, I have no desire to be five again. None.
Yes, I know, sense of wonder, beginner’s mind, all that. But hey, have you noticed that we do NOT let five-year-olds take trips by themselves?
That’s because they can’t read, don’t understand how things work, and can’t even reliably cross the street alone.
Despite knowing better, on Thursday, I will get on a plane and land three times ~ once in Dallas, no problem, couple of hours layover. Once in Houston, still no problem, 8 hour layover is a little excessive, but apparently unavoidable. But then ~
Omigod ~
~ then, all tired and frumpy from hanging out in airports, I’ll get on a plane that lands in Oaxaca City, Mexico.
Don’t misunderstand me. I can do this. Of course I can do this.
I’m not really a five-year-old.
Ok, I don’t speak Spanish, but that’s not a big deal. I’ve got a few days to master key phrases. Isn’t there an app I can download?
I’ll have hotel reservations, a shuttle to get there, and Conan and a friend picking me up in the morning. All will be well.
The grown-up in me knows that I can manage this just fine. It is the five-year-old who’s kicking and screaming, “NO! I don’t wanna go!!”
I didn’t much like being five back when I was a kid. Like Wendy, in Peter Pan, I “…was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.”
So I have no desire to feel like a five year old again.
On the other hand, I think this second phase of life is when we get to revisit all those issues still unresolved from our early years. In that case, maybe I’ll like being a five year better the second time around.
A Story to Tell 