Spring Break '08!

so i decided that pictures will be in a separate location. because i'm lazy. you can find the pics here.

after a grueling week of tests, i was free! free to go to mexico! cj has a friend, Mel, who lives near the border of texas and mexico, so we decided to go visit her and then make our way down to potrero chico, an excellent sport climbing place. this was the first time i've been climbing outdoors with me as the guide, the one who keeps everyone from dying. it was exciting buying all the gear and learning all the knots and skills, all the while hoping that during the trip no one would die.

i arrived sunday afternoon in McAllen, TX. it was effin hot. an unseasonably 95F. cj and mel came to pick me up from the airport and we made our way to Roma, where we were crossing the us/mexican border. on foot! we walked by all these strategically parked border control suv's slightly covered by trees overlooking the rio grande with the patrolmen looking through the binoculars spying. we put our big packs on our backs and walked across the bridge. we were pretty out of place. most people crossing the border were the people who commuted to work or went to school in the other country. (i'm not really sure how the schooling works...) i thought about taking pictures and then thought about it again. probably not a smart move. it was weird to see the juxtaposition of a whole bunch of mexican kids playing on the banks of the rio grande with the border control on the US side. it cost us 3pesos/person to cross the border (~$0.30).

we made it through mexican customs pretty easily. mel speaks spanish, so made sure nothing happened. we found the bus station and hopped on a bus to Monterrey, a decently large city in northeast mexico. the bus was nice. they had assigned seats and played movies. we watched the pursuit of happiness in espanol. slept a little and watched the sun set. as i looked out the window at the desert, all i could think of was the scene in the movie Babel when the Mexican nannie and the 2 white kids she was caring for were lost in the desert around the border with no water. ugh. not pleasant.

monterrey welcomed us nicely to its crowded bus station. by this time, it was nearly 8pm, so we decided to stay the night there instead of trying to make it out to rural potrero chico. we found a nice 4 star hotel to stay at. =P yay for last minute rooms that don't sell out. dinner was sandwiches at this cool cafe called Infinito located in an area w/ a bunch of bars and restaurants. the streets were very narrow and a whole bunch of high schoolers were out that night partying it up. it was holy week, so i think the kids were on vacation. we barely made it back before passing out on the streets from fatigue. mel was stopped on the way back by the guy at the front desk of the hotel for an extra flirtation session. hooray for mel!

we had a huge mexican breakfast the next morning. i forgot my camera =( but mostly consisted of tomatoes, beef, eggs, jalapenos, plus some other stuff... it was good.

we got a taxi to take us to the bus station, but mel worked her spanish and convinced the cab driver to take us to Hidalgo, the town next to potrero, for $25usd. i think buses would have cost us $2.50 each, but hey, we were splurging. i fell asleep on the car ride. i only remember leaning against cj as he tried his best to keep my head from flopping around. but it makes me smile that he made the effort. when i woke up we were at potrero! the cabbie had grossly underestimated the distance, so he grossly undercharged us. and tried to get $10usd more out of us. we ended up giving him $5 more. it was still less than the $45 that it should have cost us. yay for luck.

it's gorgeous there. mountains in the background. good clean air. friendly people. did i mention the tortilla chips?? they're sooo good. they're thicker with a solid crunch. we had lunch at this stand across the street. Mel ordered us sopes, which are these deep fried pita pockets that are made out of corn meal. so they're very crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. we got sopes stuffed w/ various pork, chicken, beef, and nopalitas, which are some type of cactus. i thought they were all very delicious. esp the cornmeal outside. nothing like fried goodness. we also had these "flautas", which were flute shaped things bout the width and length of a cigarette - rolled up tortilla filled with ground beef. i guess like a skinny mexican egg roll. no room for vegetarians in mexico.

spring break meant leaving my brain back in ny. we attempted to go climbing after lunch. i packed up all the climbing gear (very slowly), walked the half mile to get to some of the close climbs and then realized i forgot the rope. so we all walked back to base camp to get the rope. then when we reached the canyon again, i realized i forgot the guide book. now we didn't know where to climb. sigh. luckily there were some nice guys (who drove all the way from MINNESOTA! near meryl!) who had a guide book, so we found an easy route to climb as an intro to the area. nice and easy and in the shade. afterwards, we had a nice stew with chicken, beans, and veggies from Tami's Cafe next to our campsite. the place is pretty americanized for all the american climbers. well, it's americanized b/c it's own and operated by an american =P bed was nice.

mel and i got up earlyish to go for a run. we ran into the nearby town, and when we got there, the winds picked up. pretty soon trees were falling over. but the big tuesday market was still open, so we decided to check it out to get some fruit and lunch. delicious fruit. we got a ginormous papaya (for cj and mel. i'm not a fan...) but it was sweet and juicy. we got some nanners and some strawberries and some freshly grilled chicken. everything was soo delicious. meanwhile, the winds were picking up. we couldn't even see the mountains anymore through all the dust that was picked up. to get back to the campside we hitchhiked in the bed of some gardener's truck. apparently it's pretty normal here. and it's a great way to conserve gas. it's like an open carpooling system. the rest of the day was spent napping and playing jenga and napping some more. i was not brave enough to climb in the wind. especially since it was strong enough to knock over a power line. yikes! we were left w/o power for the rest of the week. yay for headlamps!!

we convinced mel to stay another morning so that we could do one more climb. this one was awesome. not too hard, which is good for my stress level. and it was high enough to get an excellent view of the valley and Hidalgo. there's a huge pool complex in the canyon and we had to hop a couple fences to get to the climbs. i felt so rebellious. the entire time we were climbing, a custodial worker was watching us. but i feel like that's what the locals come here to do. they come to splash in the water adn to watch the crazy foreigners to crazy things through their binoculars.

mel went home soon afterwards, and cj and i were left to fend for ourselves without our espanol interpretor. luckily, i've been taking spanish classes. which of course makes me the expert spanish speaker. yo hablo espanol. un poco.

in the afternoon we hiked up to this climbing spot pretty far from the main road. we decided going straight up the hill was a better idea than following the trail. mostly b/c we couldn't find the trail. and i must say, cacti are sharp. and it's not a good idea to wear shorts to hike in the cacti. ouchy. it's amazing to see that every plant in the desert has sharp things protecting them. the climbs were sweet. solid rock. the rock formations here were much different from the rest of the park. strange huh. i wish i had lori and erika to explain more of the geological history. there were these holes about 3in diameter that went straight into the rock. they made for great hand holes until you started thinking about what was living in the holes... luckily, the only things to bite us were the tiny cacti hidden on some of the holds on the wall. it's such a nice surprise to grip down on some spines. hooray cacti! the view was amazing again. and we made some nice friends from wales. the brother was getting his phd in quantum physics somewhere in mexico and the sister was working in london. cj and i felt much more comfortable with these people than the other crunchy granola eating climbers. still thinking about why that is. probably similar education backgrounds and around the same place in life. maybe a more structured life? we are ok to conform a little more? or maybe just similar interests? they were fun though. we had dinner with them a couple times throughout the week.

that night, we switched from hotelling to camping! in my new tent! it's nice being small =)

climbing the next day was scary as hell. the routes we chose to do had only a couple bolts, which meant huge falls for me, if i fell. so i hung on for dear life. and the climbs were awkward, so i felt like i was going to fall the entire time. stress level was pretty high. cj's hands also got cut up from the sharp limestone. boo. i almost shit my pants. literally. had contract my sphincters extra tightly lest something decided to drop out. which led to even higher stress level. fun times! heh, therefore, no pictures of that day. too scary. the thing was the climbs didn't look too badly from the ground. funny how that works.

we slept in the next morning to take a break from climbing and regain our confidence. instead, we sat around and read for a while and then went on a hike to explore some cave that was mentioned in the guide book. the hike was decent. a lot of loose rock on a pretty steep hill. the cave itself was pretty amazing. i think it was a natural cave, but it was hard to tell if it wasn't just dynamited out some time ago. the area used to be a quarry. there was a decent bouldering problem. most of them were too hard. =P we met oliver, a nice mexican climber. he lent us his crash pad and showed us how to do the one easy climb there, which was still pretty darn hard. i think we saw the fire that he made there later that night from our campsite. it was neat to see a flame on the face of a mountain.

after coming back, we decided to try to go to town to get dinner. we had been eating in the same place for the past week. the trek down was long. and i lost my energy and was a little loopy by the end. when we got to the restaurant, it looked like it had been closed for quite a while. and then we realized it was easter weekend. the church in the main square were putting on a reenactment of the crucifixion of jesus. which probably meant that nothing was open. cause everyone was there. sigh. we got some nachos and started our way up back to our campsite. it was gonna be another night of food from the campsite restaurant. luckily, on the way up to the campsite, a cop pulled over to give us a ride. nice guy =) we were looking to hitch up again, but it was holiday weekend, and everyone going up was going to the big pool. unfortunately, all the cars and truck beds seem to be filled with people already. the more the merrier. no room for us =(

we went to bed early after dinner. silly how we were going to bed at like 9pm. but it felt normal. there also wasn't any electricity still, so that made it harder to stay awake. unfortunately, there was a group of mexican high school kids who decided to wake up every 2-3 hours throughout the night to drink and talk loudly - the good old days. kept us up most of the night. bah. AND cj got some food poisoning. bleh. luckily, we were leaving in the morning. we made our way back to monterrey, and met up w/ mel and her parents. apparently, mel also got food poisoning sometime the previous day. =P crossing the border went smoothly. the US customs people have mean mugs all around. but they were actually pretty nice. they made fun of me for having to carry a 50lb pack. and the guy tried to look through it, but decided it was too hard to open. so they just let us go free. yay! unfortunately, no one stamped us to get into mexico, so no new stamp in the passport =(

that night cj and i stayed in a very nice historical hotel in texas. they had elaborate antique furniture and even a 4-legged tub. tv was nice. =) the next day we had to fly back home to reality. but i felt like we accomplished a lot. at least i felt refreshed and motivated again. it might have been the first time, vacation actually did what it was supposed to do. hooray!