How Not To Find Things - Apr 21
First thing was first this morning. I wanted more HP to read even though I’m only a bit more than half way through the first book. I took a short walk up to the first bookstore that I came upon through my Google search and began the hunt. I found the book in a matter of about five minutes but realized three things. One, their version of the book was quite large and might be a bit unruly to deal with while travelling. Two, that doesn’t matter because I’ll soon be in Canada with a car and tons of room. Three, I don’t think I’ll be able to get through enough of my book in order to start reading this book by the time I get back home. So, I walked around the store a bit more and left.
I walked to Parque Espana and sat down to read for a little bit, it was fairly peaceful but it began raining to I had to call it quits and head back to the hostel to wait for Carla. We were both running a little late but we did get on our way to the ice rink to go skating, an idea that happened to come upon me when I was at the first mall I visited that contained an ice rink. However, we quickly realized that the rink was closed, huge bummer. It was still relatively early so we decided to search for another rink. We arrived at a mall near where Abi lived, the CouchSurfing host from my last visit, and found the rink on the top floor. The problem, however, was that this rink was also not allowing people to go in, even though it closes at 9pm and we were early. Huge fail on our part.
After watching the people skate in the rink while we watched sadly on the sidelines we decided that we should find an elote for me to try because I haven’t had the pleasure of eating one. The simplest solution seemed to be to go near my hostel and walk around the streets until we found a vendor. Great intentions, once again, but the result of this was about 35 minutes of walking around asking other street vendors where to find elotes only to be let down at literally every street corner. We then said “OK, tea. Let’s get tea.” Tonnes of cafes were closed but fortunately we got lucy with the cafe right next to my hostel and we had a tea to close out the night. A day of fails but we still had fun.
Cuernavaca - Apr 22
I woke up this morning and decided to get a bit of things done on the old computer. Good news, I got my refund from the bank! I paid a few little bills that I hadn’t taken care of and then ran down to get my clothes which were finally ready at the lavanderia. I hung out until it was time to make my way close to Carla to go to Cuernavaca. The buses were late and crowded but I showed up within a reasonable Mexican time frame. Upon meeting with Carla I immediately needed to remind her that we were going to speak only English today. She had a bit of a time flipping the switch in her brain in order to do this and I always find it funny. Even though I struggle in Spanish more than she does in English. We grabbed Carla’s things from her apartment, which included her maid Silvia and we headed out. The drive was fun even though we were speaking English, though there isn’t much to say about the drive. It’s a highway.
After getting our things into Carla’s house in Cuernavaca we immediately went out to the bubble tea shop. We both got chai tea with a single serving of tapioca balls and Carla told me that these are the times when she is truly happy. Good to know. Carla then gave me a tour of the extremely small centro which consisted of a lot of people, a market, and a group of old people which we figured was a dance class out to promote, dancing some tango. I almost asked a lady to dance but I haven’t danced tango before and I lost my Mexican confidence, not the first or the last time that has happened. While looking for a Oxxo to reload my phone with minutes, we found this dance show where we watched some interpretive dances for a little while. Just before it got dark we decided to head because Carla told me that while Cuernavaca is safe she wouldn’t walk around at night.
Photo of the interpretive dance place.
Back at the house we first made brownies for her friend Camila’s birthday which was the next day. After the brownies were done we just hung out for the rest of the night. Twas a nice day.
Tepoztlan - Apr 23
I woke up to my alarm and got up immediately, I don’t know why but it’s one of the first times I’ve done that in the last few months. Normally I just hit the clear button and get on with resting. It feels way better when you don’t. This morning we decided that I wasn’t allowed to say even one word of English, not even to try and explain myself, but I was allowed to sing English songs. Just before 11am we started the drive out to Tepoztlan which was, of course, filled with silly song singing, on Spanish, and tons of jokes.
We summitted Tepozteco, the mountain of the town, in record time because I think we are both competitors and both said something along the lines of “I won’t stop until you do. Just let me know when you want to stop.” We spent a good two hours at the top just relaxing, taking in the view, snacking, and people-watching. It was a good feeling because you feel like you’ve achieved something with your day. After coming down from the mountain, we got an all important michelada and esquite which is basically an elote scraped into a cup and eaten with a spoon. We walked around the center, sat and ate our food and snapped a few photos. We then departed again to go back to the house and rush to get ready for Camila’s birthday event.
Photos from the top of Tepozteco.
And a link to the gif I made of me taking tons of photos because loading a gif on here isn’t working: Link to GIF
At the house, I met basically all of Carla’s family that were over to say hi to her, Paola, Carla’s sister, and Monica, Carla’s mom. So, I met Carla’s mom, her sister for the second time, and her grandmother and grandfather in one swift go. I thought we were in an intense rush so I showered and changed into my borrowed white clothes quickly but I had a bunch of time. I forget how long girls need to get ready. Sorry, Carla ;)
At the pre-party, let’s call it, at Camila’s house I met a ton of new people who all seemed impressed with my Spanish, though I didn’t say much, so I’m only a little bit worried that they were just saying it to be nice. We ate some dinner, some brownies, had some free drinks and finally ended up playing some drinkin games. Drinking games I can do. Drinking games in Spanish is another thing all together. Of course, most of the games have to do with quick thinking and knowledge of Mexican songs or cultural facts. In short, I got to drink quite a bit. I felt I was still managing it pretty well, however.
Once we arrived at the white party downtown I quickly realized that I would be the only foreigner there. No worries, I’m used it. Hopefully everyone else can handle the looks too. I’ve never been to a party where everyone is bascially dressed the same so it was pretty cool. We danced for a long time, rested a little bit, and then went back up for more dancing when the right song came on and Carla couldn’t help herself. Around the 3am mark both Carla and I could tell that we had scaled a mountain earlier that day and caught an Uber back to her house.
Snapped Back to Reality, Leaving Again - Apr 24
After one text from Carla just after going to sleep saying that we could sleep an extra hour and a half I woke up just after 11am which is pretty reasonable considering the after 4am bed time. We started the day with a great breakfast of molletes and fruit with Carla’s mom and sister. They made me an extra mollete because I have the biggest appetite. Thanks! As we were cleaning up and getting ready to leave Paola said that they were going to miss me which came as a bit of a surprise so I said “Really?” and she reassured me that yes, in fact, they would. What a sweet family Carla has, they are kind and funny as well. Before starting the real journey, we first hit the tapioca place. This time I got a double serving of tapioca in a horchata flavoured drink. Sooooo good. I understand how Carla draws true happiness from this drink now.
The trip back to Mexico City was somehow faster than the trip out to Cuernavaca even though we were talking less than normal. Clearly we were still quite tired. Since we missed skating last time, we went straight to the rink and got ourselves an hour of skating, just because. Here’s a video of Carla skating around. She was defintely way more worried about getting on the ice than I was but I think she was doing better than me in terms of confidence to skill level ratio. I only fell once and it was right at the end of the hour as we were getting out of the rink. Huge fail. Carla didn’t fall at all.
After skating, we found a Sushitto (sushi chain in Mexico) and we had some lunch. I passed on the Philadelphia cheese because they use too much of it here in Mexico. Carla was right, it was tasty stuff and I’m glad I broke my promise of not eating sushi until I get back to Vancouver. A little bit of debate later and we decided that we would hang out in a park near the airport to kill time before my flight to Puerto Vallarta. We relaxed in the park for an appropriate amount of time and then made the sad realization that I had to leave. So, sadly we walked back to the car which had luckily not been towed apparently and went to the airport. At the airport, Carla successfully transferred some of her worry-wart thinking to me while in line for baggage check. She would say things like “You can’t check your baggage less than 45 minutes before your flight.” or “We don’t have much time leftl.” I managed to hold out for a while and respond with “There’s nothing we can do to speed up or change what time we got here.” but she eventually got my stress level up a little bit. Too funny, it reminds me of the stress of university which she is probably experiencing with her exams and projects coming up.
We said our goodbyes and split which was pretty said because she’s one of the people I’ve had the most fun with in Mexico all together. I’ll miss you a lot Carla, I hope we can see eachother again either in Canada, Mexico, or Europe if you manage to move there for a semester of university like you said. Or anywhere else in between for that matter!
To put it shortly, I arrived in Puerto Vallarta and called a hostel near the airport for a place. They gave me a ride to the hostel and everything was fine. I had a Pepsi and some chips for dinner. Health!
Sayulita for the Second Time! - Apr 25
I woke up nice and late which was completely needed as I was still feeling the tiredness from the climb the other day. I caught the bus to Sayulita and showed up at the hotel to the warm welcome of Wes the Lush hostel manager among other familiar faces from almost two months ago. Wes and I figured out that I would be able to help around the hostel in order to get a free stay which is great because I need to pinch a few more pennies. The deal is that I work the bar on Tuesday, complete a list of odd jobs during the week, cover for the housekeeper on Sunday and maybe a couple other things and I get free breakfast and hostel usage. Sounds good to me.
Mel and Rumer came by and we went to Mel and Geoff’s house (the Austrailians) to hang out and figure out what to do with the day. Turns out that all we did was chill at the house for a bit, I met Jay, Geoff’s friend, and Juliana, a girl that stayed at the house a while before Mel and Geoff. We then went for a trip in Geoff’s van to Puerto Vallarta to find Geoff some bearings and a tire for his rear motorycle tire. We did that for a few hours, failed to find an indian restaurant, and landed back at the house. We closed out the night by cooking a delicious thai green curry with a tasty spinach salad to start and finsihing with a tasty fruit crumble made by Wes. Wes is a chef so you can bet that it was delicious.