Songs can lift you up...singing along on a flat boring road never hurt anybody, even if you don't get the tune right - no worries there.
We are used to getting stared at, even by drivers slowing down to get a better look (so far we haven't caused an accidents yet, but I am worried...)
This one driving towards us got the price! Not only did he stare, with the car (brand spanking new VW Jetta - black) full of people, but he turned around in the middle of the street after he went by us and chased after us, passed us, stopped on the side of the road put his warning lights on, jumped out of the car (there was traffic!) and said to us in an angry way and in english: what are you doing here? Why didn't you write me? I didn't hear from you...........don't you know "Warm showers" and "Couch surfing"? I am the only "Warm shower" host in this area, don't you know? His english was good, but I was puzzled - just didn't know what to say there in the middle of the road, having done something wrong.......? My name is Rodrigez they call me Roro, don't you know?
Shit, my name is Margit and I write all the warm shower hosts......
Well, I am going home and I will check my email and see if you really wrote me, he replied ....
Anyhow, he slowed his speech and got just a tiny little bit friendlier, I want you to stay with us
tonight, it's 50 km to my house.
I didn't think we would make it, so I told him, but he thought he would look for us on his way back and we could make a plan.
Didn't - we stopped before dark at one of the more beautiful places in this "arm pit of Mexico", but, really, there was a river, even clean enough looking and it was home for the night.
Ok, the guy was angry, but his eyes were friendly and he meant well, I could tell, in spite of his demeanor, but we simply didn't make it that day.
Next day the road had us back - long, flat and boring......just keep going, the mountains are calling...
Roro mentioned some town he and his family lived in, but with all the ".....tepecs" I had a really hard time remembering which one he was talking about. In Zanatepec we turned off the main road, because at a construction sight a hand written note (spray paint) on a concrete wall showed an arrow to the left and it said: WARM SHOWERS, COUCH SURFING one block. It sounded like our want-to-be-host, so we turned, went down a block (found a nice house of the Jehovah's witnesses and hoped it wasn't his.) asked at a little funky bike shop for Roro or Rodrigez, but had no luck, so, we had lunch a few streets further and stuffed ourselves so full that we had to sit on the side of the road for a while and hoped somebody would pick us up, take us home and put us to bed........well, somebody did - no other than Roro!!
He found us and started up again: I've been looking for you guys for two hours!!!! All over town and at the bike shop they told me the gringos are sitting on the street eating. ..Don't you understand what ONE BLOCK means?
We were looking, asking, but we couldn't find you, really!!!
OK, he started smiling - so happy to see us AND we were too!!
(He had even instructed the construction workers to show us the way to his house, but we ignored their gesturing and calling, because we thought it was all the same attention we got from so many people anyways.
Now, one would think that this guy is WAY TO PUSHY, right? So true, but what was also true, was, that he had something genuine about him and we were exhausted and done with this road and ready for a GOOD EXPERIENCE and it was!!!
Though we didn't spend more than one night at his house, we enjoyed his two little sons and his wife and their generous hospitality.
Never had a host chase me down like this....and I have been around....
