Still Alive: Guatemala

Forgive me if I'm a little irritable, but I thought I was smarter than this. When I crossed into Mexico from Texas, the border guards didn't stamp my passport or anything. Apparently they were supposed to, and since they didn't, I was going to have problems crossing the border. According to the fast-talking guys who promised to get me through everything free and clear, now that I was through the Mexican post, if I went back to them to ask for a stamp, they would charge me a fine of $400 and detain me for five days while they investigated me. Or I could pay this guy $180, and he would get his friend in the office to give me an official stamp. Oh, I didn't have $180? How abut $50 US and 100 Guatemalan quetzales ($14). Still a bit much? All right, they can do it for 500 Mexican pesos ($40). I should have just gone back and risked the detention and the fine, which I am now positive were entirely imaginary. But I paid the 500 pesos, and then Q100 for a cab, and another Q100 for a "tip" before he'd give back my passport, and then they finally quit bothering me and the cab took me to Malacatán. The result being that I'm in Guatemala, in a possibly legal way, and I don't know what they'll say when I go to cross through Belize to get back to Mexico, but either way I'm out what equates to $68 US or my budget for about a week and a half. I can replace the money, but that was going to be useful money when I got back. My cushion of fall-back cash isn't as spongy as it once was. I'm angry tonight. Tomorrow I'll probably be okay.
   Because one way or another, I'm going to lake Atitlán. It's a big lake surrounded by about thirteen old Maya villages with people still living the old-fashioned way and doing Maya things. And after that, maybe I'll climb a volcano. But to get you up to date: after Teotihuacán, I took a three-day walk-and-hitch trip and met some extremely nice people, and then I went to a beach and got myself good and roasted, and now I'm here. I'm going to slow down a little bit now that I'm here. I've been rushing around way too fast and never being in the same place two nights in a row. Relaaaax.

Here is information you might want

So here I am in Texcoco, a little to the east of Mexico City, staying with my Couchsurfing host's family. He's an avid biker, and today we biked 30 km up hills that would have been cuss-worthy if I had any breath left to cuss, to get to Teotihuacán, one of the ancient seats of Mesoamerican power. It was made so long ago that no one knows exactly who made it - it was made around the years 1 to 150, and it was abandoned for about a thousand years before archaeologists found it again, if I've got all this correct. The showpiece of it is the Pyramid of the Sun, which in scale is more like a mountain than a monument. Saying "233 feet" doesn't really do it justice; you have to say something like "the people at the top look like festively colored insects".
   But that's not the main reason I'm writing. I'm just checking in to say that I made myself a calendar yesterday, and it appears I won't have time to do all the things I wanted to do if I follow the original schedule, so there's a possibility that I'll allow myself an extra few days. I have a dental appointment scheduled the 28th, so no later than that theoretically, but it's going to be an expensive dental appointment, and I've been reading about the phenomenon of Americans coming to Mexico for cheap yet quality dental care, so that might happen here too. At any rate, I'm still more or less shooting for the 24th, but don't be surprised if it turns out I'm a little late. I'll let you know my expected return time when I'm closer to it.

Still Alive: Mexico City

Getting to the border involved the most comical trip in the most busted-up ghettomobile of a 1990 ex-U-Haul diesel truck that's still in one piece in this world. It broke down with a different problem at least once a day. But eventually, I got to Mexico City, and that's where I am now, in an internet cafe in Villa de Cortés.
   So far I've only explored a bit of the city, the downtown area near the Zócalo. But already I like this city a lot. Yesterday I went out on a day-long walk with an Argentinean exchange student named Alexis who's just finishing his semester in Guadalajara and needed some souvenirs for his family. (He's bringing back a total of five giant sombreros.) We talked a lot and saw a lot and I drank a miraculous coffee. Under the giant spider in front of the Palacio de las Bellas Artes, we met a friend of Alexis's, and continued chatting further into the night, about how Mexican Spanish is different, about stuff we've done traveling; we just generally had a great time. I haven't been abducted by a single cartel; I haven't even been approached by one of their representatives to discuss my feelings on a kidnapping.
   Before I go, I want to express my sense of wonder about the Mexico City Metro. There must be no other subway like it in the world. Even just the stations have names with character that draws you in: Misterios, Insurgentes, Indios Verdes (Green Indians), Doctores, Etiopia / Plaza de la Transparencia (Ethiopia / Transparency Plaza). But now get on the train. It won't cost you much; it's one of the cheapest subways in the world at 5 pesos (40 cents) a ride. It'll also be easy to find your way around, because this subway was designed in an era when a lot of Mexico City was illiterate, so everything is color-coded and each station has a specific icon related to something in the neighborhood. Villa de Cortés has a conquistador helmet, Doctores has a group of doctors. Once you've gotten on, more often than not, a salesperson will enter your car and start rhythmically playing up the benefits of their product: batteries, chocolate rabbits, disco CDs. My first day in the city, a man tried to literally sell us snake oil ("This is Arnica ointment! It has bee venom and viper oil!"). He made a sale to an old man. All of Mexico City gets on these trains, and you can see it all. Every city should have a subway like this.
   This trip is looking like a low-blog-frequency trip, but whenever I've got a moment I'll drop in and let you know I'm doing okay. I'll also eventually write something more informative and less unqualified-praise-filled about Mexico City. For now, I'm on the timer here, so I'm clocking out.