El Tule

I am not a fan of bicycles and I know it’s an awful thing to admit but bicycles annoy me. They are inherently uncomfortable as the seat will numb parts that should never be numbed and the fact that you are pedaling and not walking puts you in the traffic flow like any other machine. I like walking, looking, seeing, pausing, photographing and bicycles get in the way. Rant over. 

It cannot be argued that bicycles are efficient so I took a bicycle for a brief excursion into the nearby village of El Tule. Layne thought out loud and muttered she’d love a Coke. Your wish is my command so I put Rusty in the van with her so he wouldn’t miss me and I took one of the campground bicycles out onto the dirt road to El Tule, numbness be damned.  A pause for a black and white industrial view in the back of town. Grim, eh? 

I have no idea what the villagers think of these camper gringos rolling through town every day but they treat me with calm indifference. I weave through their lives and zip back to my campground, the walled off diplomatic zone just out of town. 

Laundry in a two way street indicated by the double headed arrow. In Mexico laundry is typically done for you and returned folded and stacked in plastic bags for not much money. Yeah and they pump your fuel for you at the gas  stations in Mexico. Little touches of luxury on the road. 

The streets of Mexican towns are lined with small businesses and everybody is busy doing something. They paint their advertising on the walls which gives these stores an air of permanence. 

And then there are the dogs. They are everywhere and the reason I can’t easily walk Rusty here. He just gets overwhelmed even if I keep them away. You scare off Mexican dogs by bending down and pretending to pick up a stone because Mexicans throw them to hurt. 

They aren’t necessarily strays either and their lives in the streets aren’t as terrible as you might think. People do buy dog food, it’s in stores everywhere but for working class Mexicans dogs aren’t indoor animals. They are free to wander their neighborhoods and they play together in “street gangs” and I wish they were loved and cherished the way Rusty is. I carry extra food and hand it out in a vain gesture of …solidarity?

The town functions without us, the dogs live their lives and we are here and gone tomorrow. 

Guatemala is still in an uproar over election stealing by the outgoing party and most of the country is expected to be shut down until Sunday at the earliest. Our neighbors have friends in campers on the road in Guatemala and they are stuck in a small village. They were in touch with the German embassy staff who told them to expect to be stationary through the weekend at least. 

I cannot deny I have a desire to be on the road, I want to see new places and I really enjoy piloting the Promaster on these roads and the fact that I cannot is making me restless.  

I’ve been reading an endless Ken Follett novel “Pillars of the Earth” and I struggle to concentrate. My non fiction book is 1939 about daily life in that pivotal year. And yet I struggle to stay focused. I get up and check the situation in Guatemala, I check the map and I ponder choices. 

Rusty likes it here, that’s all he knows. 

Karrie and Roan from Central Florida are experienced travelers going in our same direction also in a Promaster van…levity to talk about as we wait for the roads to reopen. They got some local mechanics into the campground to change their oil…

…and Mattias from Germany in a converted Sprinter took advantage of them being here and had them rotate his tires. Job done! 

So it goes in El Rancho. I brought back some beers for Sandro our Austrian neighbors and a Coke for Cali the caretaker. 

And a couple of Coke zeros for us and we watched a British cop show and listened to the rain and pondered pizza night on Saturday. Seems like we’ll still be here for that!