I really wish I had a more reliable way to update here, but it's literally a crap shoot as to when I can get an internet connection and for how long.
After my last update I finished humping my way through what turned out to be the fairly large city of Guaymas, Sonora. When I got finally made it to the other side of town where I could hitch, the sun was going down, and that's a bummer. As luck would have it, there was a small cave in the hill side right next to my hitching spot about half way up a steep hill. I scurried up and made my bed with the last of the day light. Watching the sun set from the mouth it struck me how stupid lucky I really am almost all the time. I even had a killer view.
With the sun down I scrambled back to the Road to score some food. Humping is hungry work. I wound up in a little outdoor restaurant below street level and under an enormous tree of some sort. I was still struggling with my ordering skills. I was tired, hungry, and the waitress was distractingly cute. I wound up talking with another patron who spoke a little more english than I spoke spanish and he invited me to sit and eat with him. I got two plates of some of the best damn sea food I've ever had (coming from an Alaskan, that's really quite a statement), octopus, shrimp, what I suspect was a gastropod of some kind, and something else entirely unidentifiable but fucking delicious. For 60 Pesos. Bargain.
The guy I ate with was a tattoo artist and invited me back to his shop for beers, and I tagged along to hang out with him and a friend of his. They went ape shit when I pulled out my bag of cherry pipe tobacco. I guess they don't get much of that kinda thing around here. A group of youngsters came in and one of them got a tongue piercing. He must have been 12 or 13. He was pretty proud of it, it didn't take much convincing to let me take pictures. After staying far later than I should have I went back to my cozy little cave and slept like the dead. My feet were and are killing me. There's a helluva lot more hiking in Mexican hitchhiking than I figured on. But it's fine with me, if I didn't like it I wouldn't be doing it. It just hurts.
I caught a lift in another pick up to a little town on the shore of the Sea of Cortes. After another bangin' sea food meal (crab and marlin) I posted up to hitch out...it didn't happen. As the sun set I went back to the little outdoor restaurant I had lunch at and had some coffee while I shot the shit with the family that owned it. Their 13 year old son seems impressed with me. I can only pray I'm no real influence. They offered for me to stay in the restaurant tonight to stay out of the wind. Damn fine folks I say. And AD lives another day.
Also, my spanish is coming along shockingly quickly. Twice now I've been asked where I learned to speak it, and while flattering, I'm certain I sound like a spanish version of scooby doo at best. I really hope to make it a few hundred miles farther south in the morning. I'll let ya know as best I can.
After my last update I finished humping my way through what turned out to be the fairly large city of Guaymas, Sonora. When I got finally made it to the other side of town where I could hitch, the sun was going down, and that's a bummer. As luck would have it, there was a small cave in the hill side right next to my hitching spot about half way up a steep hill. I scurried up and made my bed with the last of the day light. Watching the sun set from the mouth it struck me how stupid lucky I really am almost all the time. I even had a killer view.
With the sun down I scrambled back to the Road to score some food. Humping is hungry work. I wound up in a little outdoor restaurant below street level and under an enormous tree of some sort. I was still struggling with my ordering skills. I was tired, hungry, and the waitress was distractingly cute. I wound up talking with another patron who spoke a little more english than I spoke spanish and he invited me to sit and eat with him. I got two plates of some of the best damn sea food I've ever had (coming from an Alaskan, that's really quite a statement), octopus, shrimp, what I suspect was a gastropod of some kind, and something else entirely unidentifiable but fucking delicious. For 60 Pesos. Bargain.
The guy I ate with was a tattoo artist and invited me back to his shop for beers, and I tagged along to hang out with him and a friend of his. They went ape shit when I pulled out my bag of cherry pipe tobacco. I guess they don't get much of that kinda thing around here. A group of youngsters came in and one of them got a tongue piercing. He must have been 12 or 13. He was pretty proud of it, it didn't take much convincing to let me take pictures. After staying far later than I should have I went back to my cozy little cave and slept like the dead. My feet were and are killing me. There's a helluva lot more hiking in Mexican hitchhiking than I figured on. But it's fine with me, if I didn't like it I wouldn't be doing it. It just hurts.
I caught a lift in another pick up to a little town on the shore of the Sea of Cortes. After another bangin' sea food meal (crab and marlin) I posted up to hitch out...it didn't happen. As the sun set I went back to the little outdoor restaurant I had lunch at and had some coffee while I shot the shit with the family that owned it. Their 13 year old son seems impressed with me. I can only pray I'm no real influence. They offered for me to stay in the restaurant tonight to stay out of the wind. Damn fine folks I say. And AD lives another day.
Also, my spanish is coming along shockingly quickly. Twice now I've been asked where I learned to speak it, and while flattering, I'm certain I sound like a spanish version of scooby doo at best. I really hope to make it a few hundred miles farther south in the morning. I'll let ya know as best I can.