The goodbye in Montevideo was a sad one, indeed. As with all last weekends, it was a hectic one, but fun all the same, despite the sadness. The girls from the pensión had organized a goodbye party at a club and I was very happy that most of my friends were able to come. The weekend was also spent making dreads that have now been washed out due to dandruff (yummm) and saying goodbye to everyone else. On the Monday night, Ana and I left the Montevideo bus terminal to go to Buenos Aires, and the pensión girls, Sofía, Maryse, Pepe, Javier and Anderson were there, and there was a lot of crying. Either I've become more sentimental in my old age, or the fact that I received so much love from a lot of wonderful people in a very short time lay behind the torrent.
Ana and I spent a week in Buenos Aires, and unfortunately, a large part of it was filled with sickness. We stayed with Scott, always the gallant host, and despite sore throats and feverishness managed to make some rounds to Palermo, Recoleta and the Microcentro, as well as going out for some food and beer with Belu and friends.
After a rather tranquil week in BA, Ana and I parted ways and I headed on to Mexico City. My parents picked me up at the airport and it was great seeing them after so long (it's been a year with my mom and a year and a half with my dad). We spent a few days in DF exploring the center where we lived, visiting museums and watching naked indigenous demonstrators. Oh, and we were also treated to some excellent Vietnamese food by my old math teacher from UNIS, Marc Jessop, his girlfriend Hang (who is really the one who treated us to the food) and their really cute 1 year old daughter Sao Mai.
We then took a bus north to Chihuaha, passing cacti and desert, and from there took a train southwestward to Los Mochis by the Pacific Coast, passing through the Barranco de cobre. The ride was a day long and comfortable and though the scenery was very pretty, it failed to arouse me for some reason.
From Los Mochis we took a boat across to the peninsula Baja California and made our way north toward Ensenada, passing little towns on the way, and eating lots of Tacos de camaron y pescado. In Ensenada we stayed with my mom's old friend Marisa and her son Daniel, in their very pleasant house. We spent a relaxing weekend there, Marisa and mom catching up and reminiscing about old times, my dad taking care of the cooking (yum yum), me hanging out with Daniel as well as Araceli, a girl I met last time I was there, and Marisa chastising me for my Uruguayan accent.
We then headed back to DF for a few days where we met up with another of my mom's friends, Alejandra, who took us to a place I don't remember how to spell and San Angel, really beautiful colonial, arty neighbourhoods.
Now we've stayed a few days in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in Chiapas. It's a beautiful city with a lot of colonial architecture and colourful houses but though it's pretty and pleasant, I've unfortunately come to a point where these colonial towns don't excite me as much anymore. Those Spaniards were good at conformity. However, it's a very nice change from northern Mexico which feels more like how I imagine small towns in the US. The indigenous influence is more pertinent here too, though as always, the people that still live according to indigenous traditions are those at the margins. Interestingly, we went to visit a couple of villages outside of the city today, one of which is the most traditional in the area and apparently they are at the same time the most constricting. Quite an obvious observation, but it's always interesting to see how different people react to outside influences and how they deal with these influences. More on that sometime later perhaps, maybe, possibly.
Tomorrow it seems we're off to the jungle for a couple of days to see Maya ruins and other indigenous villages, and I'm very excited.
