No longer behind the lens

Traveling without a camera has been a bit desperate for me. After my last SLR got destroyed in a kayaking accident, I’ve been the camera-less photographer, slyly slipping the Olympus out of my co-traveler’s bag to get the shot I want.

Yet during the few times I trust my friends to get the good shots and look around me with both eyes open, I find myself enjoying it. I stop and talk with a churro vendor. I smile and make faces at the little baby in a stroller (who I’d normally be taking a shot of). I feel the breeze against my face as I look at Mexico’s city lights while I hang out the door of a microbus traveling down Insurgentes Street. And I love the city as one who belongs to it, not one who is documenting it.

All the same, I itch to press the button and hear that shutter. After Mexico I hope to go back to Arkansas and find the long-awaited package from Nikon. Until then, thanks to my friends Branden and Zach for the pictures on this page.

Mexican Hippies

Weekends at Coyoacan in the southern part of Mexico City are filled with incense, Aztec drumming and the summoning smell of churros rellenos (for those gringos out there that means a fried, sugar-covered breadstick filled with a scrumptious cream of your choice – chocolate, strawberry, the list goes on).

My friends and I affectionately dubbed the open-air market the “hippie mart” since tye-dyed clothing and tams with fake dreads could be bought at every third stand. Unfortunately dreadless tams couldn’t be found (as my dreaded friend Zach quickly found out).

Though Coyoacan isn’t a market targeted toward the tourist, it was easy to find souvenir items like maracas and woven handbags between jewelry stands and vendors offering henna tattoos. It was a perfect mix of a market only the locals know about with the ethnic touches like feathered Indians doing ancient dances for entertainment.

On to new heights

My second day into Mexico city I decided that the Federal District’s 7,347 ft. altitude wasn’t high enough for me. When missionary James Henderson invited me and my buddies to go hiking to the peak of the Ajusco mountain range, also called Pico del Águila (12,894 ft.), there was no way I could turn him down.

We took off at 7:30 Saturday morning. We put our altitude acclimation to the test – even my linebacker friend was huffin it. The climb was relatively easy except that the path was made of loose rocks. When we started climbing the peak, I had flashbacks of Frodo and Sam climbing up the side of cliffs (That climb only took about seven minutes, but it was the most difficult part, besides coming down). At the top, men had set up crosses and had placed candles – reminders of the devotedness of this Catholic nation. Beyond the crosses I could see miles of the Ajusco mountain range piled up underneath cloudy skies, just skirting the edge of the sprawling Mexico City.

Bussing to Mexico is the way to do it – if you’re broke

It was a gradual immersion into the Hispanic culture as my two traveling buddies and I made our way from Austin to Mexico City.

From Austin to San Antonio to Laredo and Monterrey, we transitioned from free copies of El Mundo beside the complementary Dallas Morning News in the Greyhound station, to Spanglish signs in the border town, and immigration officers that could only say in English, “You espeak eSpanish?”

The architecture gradually got brighter as well – from San Antonio’s mosaic-tiled buildings to Mexico City’s miles of hills covered with flat-roofed buildings of blue, yellow, pink and orange.

Once through immigration, we transferred to a Mexican bus company, Futura, which surprising was more comfortable – more leg room and a few movie feature (albeit in Spanish). The landscape was just as entertaining to watch go from arid, storm-covered plains to glorious mountains illuminated by the sun and arched by a rainbow (I don’t think the rainbow is a permanent feature, but you could have fooled me).

After a rough night of sleep (why don’t I ever remember to bring a blanket on these trips?) the three of us woke to the sun rising over Mexican volcanoes. Two hours later we arrived, hungry and tired, but richer then your common air traveler – both in dollars (at $100, a bus ride is half the price of the cheapest plane tickets) and in appreciation for the Mexican landscape.

my inspiration

I wanted to come to Mexico to write. The colors of the Districto Federal and the beauty of the ocean that I've seen in pictures are enough of a muse for any storyteller, and I knew that the stories of the people I would meet would be stories that need to be told -- maybe a poor coffee farmer living in Orizaba, a vivacious missionary couple starting churches in a avant-garde way in Mexico City, or maybe a family who can't afford to live in this country and are making their way toward the border -- these are the people I came here for.

So I convinced two adventurous gentlemen to come with me to see the sights and meet the people of Mexico. Now we are in the capital, housed by church interns who feed us well. And so the storytelling begins...