Journal
Mexico (January)
Hola amigos… I’ve just finished my first week of Spanish School in Cuernavaca, Mexico (an affluent town an hour by bus south of Mexico City). My first month will be spent learning the mother tongue, a vital precondition to travelling in South America. The regime is strict, six hours a day (3 hrs class, 3 hrs conversation in small groups) aswell as three meals with my Mexican family, where I have (initially) been rendered speechless. Also, the mother insists on serving me enough cheese to feed France. I asked her if she could maybe tame it down a bit, cheese omelet for breakfast, cheese sandwiches for lunch, quesadillas for dinner. She told me not to worry that there’s no fat in it. No fat? Senora look at the size of your husband!
I’m into my third and final week of school here. I changed Mexican families after week one. I couldn’t take any more cheese. My new family is the warmest, kindest, most beautiful family in Mexico (see photo). And I can’t recommend this school enough whether it’s a starting point or a stand alone destination Universidad Internacional. I’m here because I happened to sit beside a Mexican woman from Cuernavaca on a flight to Germany last summer. She described a peaceful town, well connected to the all the main historical attractions in central and southern Mexico and where the sun always shines. My fate was sealed. I would start my trip in Mexico and would return from Rio de Janeiro.
Classes are going well. I spent week one learning past tense and weeks two and three learning subjunctive. I skipped the future tense because to say “I will do” something you just stick and “e” or an “a” at the end of the infinitive. or even easier you say “I am going to do”. I had to skip eight weeks of school to get into the subjunctive class though. The other students (French, German, Swiss) see me as the slow Irish guy who doesn’t pick up Spanish very well… what they don’t know is that they all have two years of Spanish, I have three weeks. I see myself as Juan Pablo Montoya at the back of Grid or something like that.
I’m in Mexico nearly four weeks now. The missing week was spent down south in Puerto Escondido on one of the top surf beaches in the world. It has a famous Pipeline. which is basically a wave that folds over to form a kind of tube. Things move slowly there….except for the ground that is. One day I’m writing an email in a cafe when the whole room starts to vibrate gently. I’m thinking to myself is that an earthquake? But before I could look around the gyrations turned violent and the room started making like Elvis! Instinct took over and I scarpered. I was out on the street in a flash and everybody was screaming. Luckily it only registered 5.7. But of course everyone’s then wondering if the earth had released its tension or was that a just precursor to a big one. That night I was afraid to sleep and at 6am the following morning my fears were confirmed when I woke up with my bed dancing. This time I found myself on the street in a pair of Y-fronts!! I should have at least had the foresight to wear shorts…
I did three days of Spanish lessons down there. My teacher was a cool Uruguayan who studied literature and languages. We hung out for a few days with my two classmates, both German air-hostesses. They told me their uniform is green and blue and that they feel very elegant wearing it. Can you imagine the Ryanair girls pushing that one? It was easy to pick up friends in Puerto Escondido…there was a mix of professionals on short breaks and full time hippies with fire dancing, dreadlocks and psychedelic clothes. The local hangout was a little friendly Bohemian book store on the beach that sold beers called “Cafe Babylon”..something like the Troubadour in London if you can imagine the Colehern being a bikini bar! although my friendly Italian surfer friend turned out to be a bit too friendly. I thought we had a good bond going until I took out my guitar and he asked me if I could play any “Village People”.
Came back to Cuernavaca, tired from a twelve hour overnight bus journey. And of course I got stuck beside a crazy Mexican man who kept offering me weird foods. When I refused he got angry so I spent 12 hours eating all sorts of Mexican jelly rolls just to keep this guy happy. Then he wants to watch a second movie when the whole bus wants to sleep! So he brings me into it saying (in Spanish) that I wanted to watch it too. So there’s a whole bus of tired Mexicans staring at me like they want to make a taco out of me and every time the bus made a stop the Mexican got back on the bus with more jelly roll cake…
Things are going well…learning Spanish, taking photos and meeting the locals. I finish school on Friday. After that I’ll spend three/four days in Mexico city seeing the Anthropology museum, Freda Kahlo Museum etc. And then off to Costa Rica.
Your traveling friend…
Flavriguez