This last week…

has mostly consisted of a number of school visits for me and making plans for going home.

We have decided to leave the last week in June and drive home. I’ll be going up to Texas to buy a car to drive back. It turns out buying a car in Mexico to take back to the states is prohibitively expensive, because it would not only need to meet US emission requirements but safety requirements too, which would mean rebuilding the bumpers or something.

Now that we have a plan - I am letting myself think about all my friends and my home and getting very excited to return. It will be very bittersweet leaving here. I have loved it so much - but plan to figure out ways to return.

Here are some pix of the week:

We discovered the fun of combining bubbles and puppies.

We had a party on Saturday and played a very fun intergenerational game of Werewolf.

There have been a number of parades - the people I have asked are not sure what the occasion is.

I spent a few days observing in sixth and first grade classrooms.

And got some nice pix on a walk down a nearby callejon.

4 days in TJ

This is a bit of an epic post, but Tijuana is a bit of an epic place. It is all so big and heavy. I have just barely scratched the surface. Our friend that we stayed with has a blog about living there.

We traveled up Baja through miles and mile of this type of landscape .

This is the first of 6 military checkpoints that we had to stop at. They just chose a few random suitcases to go through, then showed the crowd pictures of things: drugs weapons etc. that they have gotten at that particular checkpoint. I got reprimanded for taking this picture, but he didn’t make me erase it.

At about 2 in the morning they made a bunch of people, including Matthew get off and frisked them. Mikko and I were sleeping like babies, so missed the whole thing.

When we woke up the ocean was right outside and the hillsides were covered with wild flowers.

Jesus was there to welcome us at some point. He’s such a nice guy.

I was very attracted to the dashboard of our bus.

It was much colder, so far north, than we were used to. (Mikko was still a little sick too.)

We were greeted, at our friends’ house by their nine month old Chihuahua, Xoloitzcuintle, Xolito for short. He was a sweet companion, when he wasn’t humping your arm.

Our friends live less then a block from the beach, about 5 or 6 blocks from the border.

This fence runs all the way along the border, so basically is the northern border of Tijuana.

This was a park that represented the friendship between Mexico and the US. They started building the fence just before NAFTA, long before 9/11. The powers that be knew how NAFTA would trash the Mexican economy and that people would be coming north to look for work - so we had to be sure to lock them out.

Families used to picnic on either side of the fence. There were always vendors on the Mexican side selling delicious things, so people would pass food through this hole to the US side where they were miles from a McDonalds. La Migra closed the hole though. There is no one on the US side anymore, except immigration police watching the fence.

The wall has become a site for a lot of art. This shows how once the wall was built and the doors were locked it forced people to risk their lives crossing the desert.

On a lighter note- we went to a soccer game on Sunday. The Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente. (Xoloitzcuintle, is that crazy looking Aztec, hairless dog, BTW.) This is a shot of their fans. They were as loud and rowdy as the Timbers Army in Portland.

And one crazy Mexican hotdog. The Xoloitzcuintle colors are red and black which is why the hotdog comes in a red tortilla, of course.

Unfortunately, they lost. Which was a big deal - I blame myself. Generally when I go to a Timbers game their winning streaks come to a halt too. Sorry.

Another picture I wasn’t supposed to take - so I’m posting it even though it doesn’t really show anything. According to Lynn, the new soccer stadium and everything around is owned by the ex mayor of Tijuana. Including his own private zoo, pictured here. (We could hear lions getting intimate, I believe.)

On Monday we planned to go to some museums to see some artwork of a friend and just generally do some touristy things. Little did we know it was the official holiday celebrating the nationalization of oil, so everything was closed. We saw some pretty park benches though.

The next day we ventured across the border to do a little shopping. I guess I wasn’t supposed to get this picture either.

Ah the beautiful US of A.

And a good ol’ American hotdog.

We found good sushi in Tijuana the next day.

And dropped by a workers’ rights office.

So nice to be around some radical politics, after the ultra conservative GTO.

Though why peace, workers rights and the environment are radical is a mystery to me. (Actually, unfortunately it isn’t a mystery, just a travesty.)

Then on Wednesday we got a ride to the airport, past our last glimpse of the wall, and the art on it. Each cross represents someone who has died making the crossing. At this point more people have died than in 9/11 or US casualties in the Iraq war, since the wall was built.

A Sunday adventure

Yesterday we had an adventure that evolved throughout the day. We planned to jump on the first bus we saw and ride it to the end of the line, where ever it went. We were hoping that my dad could go. He has been sick with a fluish/coldish thing, (what is it with these male King genes, that come to Mexico and get sick and lie around for days?) but he was feeling too funky, even to ride a bus around. Good thing too, because what started as a bus ride turned into a stroll then into a hike, with a couple of scrambles and then an adventure ending with an unexpectedly long and rollercoasterish bus ride after all.

So Matthew, Mikko, Laurie and I set out from D and L’s house, walking through their neighborhood, Cerro de Cuarto, then along the panoramica, looking for a bus to come along. The panoramica is a big road that circumnavigates the main part of the city of Guanajuato around the edge of the basin. From the inside of the city it looks like a big circle around town, but in fact it is a super windy road that goes back into the canyons created by all the hills that create this basin. (does that make sense?)

As we walked along we found ourselves above a canyon with ruins and a tunnel entrance at the bottom - we could see a trail winding down, so decided to bag the bus trip.

This is not the greatest picture, but you can just see the tunnel entrance up and left of center. We are standing on the panoramica and it is also the windy road you can see at the top of the picture.

These were other ruins we had to walk past to get to the trail down. It is all very windy.

We hiked through the little forest of cactus and scrubby trees and got to the ruins down below. There was this convenient little entrance, which just involved a bit of a scramble once inside.

We found a different tunnel entrance and stepped inside. It was strange, still, warm stuffy air that made us not go any farther. Then we found our way, with a bit more scrambling, to the tunnel we had seen from the road.

It was the complete opposite of the last tunnel. There was a clear stream running out of it and actual tadpoles and water bugs living in the water. The air was crisp and refreshing in this tunnel. We sat for a spell and enjoyed the cool air and the tinkling sound of the stream.

This is looking out of the tunnel to the panoramica, about where I took the first picture.

To leave the ruins we had to go through another tunnel which was clearly a stream bed as well.

This is from the outside of the ruins.

We walked along this riverbed back into town.

Past an old pump house or something

And then past a super fancy develpoment with manicured lawns, well fed dogs, and well protected grounds.

and back into the city.

We got to a road and thought the adventure was over and that we would just be on city streets again, until we saw this bridge.

We found ourselves back in a riverbed, a very residential riverbed, as we continued to head toward town.

From here we bought some tortas and fruit and got on a bus that said Cerro de Cuarto, thinking it would just pop up the hill to D and L’s neighborhood. It did, after over an hour of driving along winding roads through residential neighborhoods on the other side of town, returning to the center, going across town through a series of tunnels, and finally along the panoramica back to Cerro de Cuarto.

Dad was happy to see us, and hear about the adventure, over tortas, then we played cards, watched the weather and Mikko Matthew and I rushed home in time to catch the downpour in the comfort of our own home.

Walls and Fences

One of the things that I love about walking around is seeing all the different ways people construct walls and fences. There is an abundance a creativity, aesthetic choices, and reuse.

The first three pix are of our neighbors’ fence, right outside our front door.

Now I can hear some of you saying, “But Linea, I can’t see the fence because of all that garbage piled up in front of it.” But in fact - all that garbage IS the fence!! Isn’t that brilliant?

Over the last few weeks, I have been taking snapshots of the groovy fences and walls that I come across in my wanderings - the next two are actually shots that Matthew got walking out to Presa Mata.

I just love this use of bedsprings - they are so pretty.