Day 104 : Juarez Mexico

It was Christmas Eve, my favourite time of the year…. Not. Its not that I hate Christmas but I think that its been perverted by capitalism. I’m not a Christian but I’m expected to celebrate it non the less. Sure there should be a time in the year for families to come together and give out gifts but why should it be the day that Jesus was supposedly born for non-Christians. Atheists should swap out Halloween and Christmas, give out gifts at he end of October to each other and dress up as zombies in December. Seems like much more fun. After completing so many miles the previous day we only had a short hop ahead of us into El Paso. The sun was shining as it always does and we followed the signs for the highway. Just on the intersection there was a guy with a cowboy hat, a guitar case and a big smile holding out his thumb. Getting Daniella’s opinion first we pulled over to pick up the hiker…..

Well, he didn’t end up murdering us. His name was Jake, he was from California (not Kalifornia! :p) and on his way to Louisiana to meet some girl. Awwww romantic. We shuffled some stuff and he squeezed into one of the back seats with his guitar case and small backpack. And I thought I was travelling light! :p I guess its still possible for me to hike with all my important stuff but would I still be able to plug it all in!?! It was nice to have someone else to chat to for the last few miles, he was staunchly liberal, hated Bush and thought there was going to be a some kind of attack before the next election and it wouldn’t happen. Seems quite possible to me, although Bush seizing executive power was the last thing the world wanted. Watching TV news over here meant that half of it was given over to the selection of the next Democrat and Republican candidates. NOT the president, instead we have all these guys with a bit of cash vying to get the nomination. This means the rest of the news is pushed into the background. There is a whole world out there but you ever hear about it on American news. How many wars are still be fought other than in Iraq and Afghanistan? None according to the media, we’d rather talk about some stupid rich white men trying to be president.

Jake was a good guy, despite his professing to an admiration of Guns and Roses, he told me all about the music scenes of Nashville and Memphis which only deepened my disappointment that I hadn’t gone there. Daniella sat straight mouthed as I complained for the umpteenth time but I wasn’t really mad at her and I’m sure she knew that. What would you have done? It will always be there, its not near a levy :p America was too expensive for cheap travel, it was time I got over the border and started living like a king for my $20 a day. First there was Christmas to deal with. Dani had been chatting to her dad quite a few times over Skype but I didn’t really get the whole plan for what we were doing. I’m sure it would all work out fine somehow. To be honest I wasn’t even sure I was technically invited to spend Christmas with them but I didn’t ask and didn’t hear otherwise. It was all quite confusing, but then I’m sure after driving Dani around for 2 weeks they wouldn’t want me driving off to spend a lonely Christmas in some dodgy hotel. We found our way to the center of El Paso and dropped Jake off near the center of town. I hope he find his way to La safely, I was hoping I was going to make it Mexico ok…..

The border was really close and after getting directions from her dad Dani attempted to direct me over to the house on the other side. What happened to spending Christmas in El Paso? I didn’t ask. We drove up to the bridge and then I did something rather foolish. I crossed over without any insurance. Maybe not a good move, but I was excited and didn’t really think. I guess I would have thought harder about it if I’d been put in Mexican Jail for a previous traffic accident. But once I was over there was nothing I could do and we drove in circles trying to find the house. My GPS now became useless, Jane fell silent and could only tell me where the border was and the little screen now only showed my lonely green arrow flying through a sea of grey with a broken green line pointing me back to civilization. Avoiding getting my screen washed as much as I could (the guys that wanted to polish your whole car recoiled in horror at my mud splashed monster…) we cruised looking for Lincoln Street. Eventually we stopped in a shopping center carpark and called for help. What would I do now I was going to lose my GPS and attractive navigator in one go???

We got rescued and led back to the house. Now I was really going to regret my laziness in learning Spanish as this was the perfect chance for my to get some practice in. Eventually I would learn some idea of the relationships of everyone there but Dani never really got it worked out so I didn’t have a chance. It was something to do with her step-mothers family, so she hardly knew anyone and of course I was screwed. There were about 15 people there when we turned up and I went around kissing and shaking hands, instantly forgetting everyone’s name. I *nearly* went and kissed the maid but somehow sensed that she wasn’t part of the family and saved myself from the embarrassment. Everyone sat around the big round table in the kitchen and there they would stay for the next week it seemed. They were friendly enough though and soon the food started to come out, I had a beer in my hand and I wasn’t too disappointed to not be spending Xmas in the US. I tried to stick close to Dani and occasionally she would translate but I was back in familiar territory, the memories of Swedish holidays sitting with a grin on my face as the conversation flowed past me completely unintelligibly came flooding back. I was happy just to not be spending all day driving that damn minivan!

After a few hours we all went out to dinner at a seafood restaurant and I got to order in Spanish! Its easy to order, not so easy when they want the finer details of what you want… :p I had some fish dish which turned out to be delicious. I cleared my plate which was just as well since I was told we wouldn’t be eating again until 11pm! Back at the house I managed a shower and changed before more people started arriving. Christmas eve is the celebration time in Mexico and it looked like the pile of presents would take quite a while to get through. It was tempting to get good and drunk but I wasn’t even sure where I would be sleeping that night. Apparently everyone was up until 6am the previous night so I wasn’t sure I would be sleeping at all. At the aforementioned 11pm everyone sat down to the evening meal which was pretty good. I have no idea what I was eating and some of it looked pretty weird, but it was tasty. Thank god I now eat fish, otherwise I would be in trouble. Everyone retired to the living room area and they employed the 3 teenagers to hand out the presents, much to their annoyance.

I got my camera out and blasted away, more for something to do than the desire to photograph relative strangers. I tried to get Dani to do it instead but she needed some encouragement to just press the trigger instead of trying to get the best shot and missing everything. The present giving took more than an hour and Dani’s parents even got me something, some shades and a LED reading light which was very nice of them and actually useful which is nice! :p It was now about 2am and since Rafael, my new best 17 year old buddy was crashed on the sofa I decided to join him for a while, just to rest my eyes :p I was just nodding off when someone discovered the piano and then they started a good old Mexican sing song! Well that wasn’t going to stop me. I fell unconscious as Dani’s dad tinkled the ivories late into the morning…



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