On the Road

Okay, so the road ahead of me may not look quite like this, but I could think of few better roadtrip films that Thelma and Louise.* That have been said, this is my official notice to the world: I'm on hiatus (from my hiatus). I'll keep in touch as much as possible and update when I can, but as of today I'm on a whole new trajectory.

* Here's hoping my own personal travels end better than theirs, clearly!

My word, it really is a global village...

... and a very, very strange village at that.
Allow me to (try and) explain. I just received two of the most disparate messages possible within five minutes of each other and both of them solely because I'm living in Monterrey. Here's the first one:


(I'm sure Nigeria is glad to be off the hook here, actually, so that's perhaps some kind of progress...)

But, as if presumably fraudulent Israelis trying to sell me on undoubtedly fraudulent business schemes wasn't enough, I then received this:



No, your eyes didn't deceive you: in less than twenty-four hours Electric Light Orchestra will be here in Monterrey.

In 2008, not 1978.

Good heavens, what is the Internet doing to the world?

Plans, or Quo Vadimus?

I feel this entry works better with [techno] musical accompaniment, so before we get carried away click below and read on...



Good. Having done that, let me say this: I am nothing if not predictable. Music aside, that, in fact, is the whole point of this post: faced with the unknown, I plan my little heart out. So now that classes are nearly over and I'm hitting the road with - as The Beatles would say - a little help from my friends I've done exactly that.

Without going into too many specifics, here's the flightplan:

Mexico With Kim, Kristin, and Amy Mexico City, D.F. Tlaxcala [Teotihuacán!] Oaxaca City, Oaxaca [Monte Alban!] Puerto Arista, Chiapas San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas [Palenque!] Merida, Yucatan [Chitzen Itza!] Cancun, Quintana Roo Chetumal, Quintana Roo

Central America With Sol, Seth, and company Belize City, Belize San Ignacio, Belize Flores [Tikal], Guatemala Rio Dulce, Guatemala Antigua, Guatemala La Ruta de las Flores, El Salvador Alegria and Berlin, El Salvador Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras Granada, Nicaragua Isla Ometepe, Nicaragua San Jose, Costa Rica Liberia, Costa Rica

I couldn't be more excited if I tried.

How can you go off track without a track?

I realized something wonderfully simple last night while talking to my friend Jenny: in less than a week I'll be done with my classes. I'll still have a few months before my Master's processes but, come July, the formal "education" portion of my life will be over. That means from here on out I get to define success - and I have some strangely wonderful rubrics, let me tell you.

I couldn't be less afraid afraid to tell you I'm just getting started

There's more than one border in the world...

Today, after ten weeks and at least as many trip trips to the local immigration office, I finally received my FM3 student visa today. I am, of course, ridiculously pleased because this allows me to stay in Mexico (if I so chose, which in fact I don't for reasons to be explained in slightly more detail below) until at least December. More importantly, it means that EGADE will release my transcripts to UF and I will, after some no doubt labyrinthine and complicate process, graduate with my Master's. This is especially fortunate because I'm closing in on what may be my last week of classes ever, but in truth that's not the point of this post.

This is: On the very day I received my visa, 21 Central American migrant workers were found by the Mexican equivalent of the INS not five kilometers from my apartment. 21 men who had nothing in their home countries but now have even less. I've been thinking about this unfortunate "coincidence" ever since and I find it almost impossible to describe how this makes me feel. Well, actually, that's not completely true; I know exactly how I feel even if I can't quite explain myself. I feel, of course, incredibly fortunate to have been born in the United States. I feel, too, for Mexico a strange sense of shame - a country whose own people flee north but which persecutes those that do the same - and pride - a country whose hard-won stability and relative prosperity mean that people flee not only from it but to it. Lastly, I feel even more now that this kind of thing should never have to happen.

The salient point is this: I chose to leave my home but no one should have to leave theirs and I want to spend as much of my life working to giving people the kinds of choices, the kinds of options, I have.

A tourist in my temporary home

Monterrey has always occupied a strange place in my mind. Because I more or less live here I've never really taken the time to explore it properly. I think the same thing is true of every placed I've ever lived, actually. Instead of being a destination they have always been way stations on the way to other things. The fact that I'm leaving so soon, though, had made me want to make up for "lost" time. (Especially since I haven't actually hit the road in a couple of weeks and my wanderlust is already starting to kick in.) So recently I decided to stop being a resident and start being a tourist again and it has reminded me just how lovely this city really is. Frankly, as sad as it is to say and as wonderful as the rest of Mexico has been and no doubt will be, I'm sorry that more of you won't have a chance to see it with me.

Plans, or what happens if you make someone with ADHD study for too long.

That picture could not be more perfect – changes just keep happening. It’s almost as if things are beginning to happen of their own free will and, frankly, the possibility thrills me.

I did the math today and, as hard as it is to believe, my time in Monterrey is nearly over. Like I mentioned before I am already knee-deep in final projects and I have my final exams all scheduled. My last anything for EGADE is June 30th at 2pm. I think I would be a little more sad about this if I didn't have so much else on the horizon.

Indeed, that horizon is chock-full of things far more exciting than anything related to my Master's:

First, my sister Kim and her friend Amy are flying into Mexico D.F. the day after my last final - sleep is for the weak - and my dear friend Kristin a few days after that. Together we'll explore a large part of the Mexico I haven't gotten to see yet, from D.F. to Oaxaca, to Chiapas and beyond.

Then comes the part that is truly under my complete control but as the same time forming itself of its own volition: from the Yucatan I'll head still further south, from Belize to Costa Rica. Maybe I'll even hit the Panama Canal, but who knows? [That's what makes this all so exhilarating!] Clearly this part of the plan is as of yet vastly underdeveloped, but it won't always be and when I know so will you.

Travel Hiatus

In as much as this is a "travel blog" - well if it's not then I am basically just talking to myself here, aren't I? - I feel its important to note, for the record, that I won't be traveling anywhere for a few weeks. After so much time on the road its time for me to spend a little time here in Monterrey on my actual studies. You remember them; they're the [ostensible] reason I'm here in the first place...

You'll be the first to know the moment things liven up, I promise.

In the meantime, as a small consolation to my wadering heart, I just found a fantastic copy of Wagner's opera Parsifal on sale in Zona Rosa and so even the library has a little more color than usual...

Real de Catorce

The sheer variety this country provides never ceases to amaze me. Last week I traveled southeast to the edge of the rainforest, this week I traveled southwest to the desert highlands. Real de Catorce, my ultimate destination, had no prehispanic ruins or Gulf Coast beaches. No, all it had was wide open space and plenty of it. Which is a-okay by me: after the crowded streets of Monterrey, I welcomed the isolation. Not that I was totally isolated. Although the town - a former silver mining settlement whose mines have long since petered out - has less than a thousand people, I met a charming Italian backpacker named Gianluca within minutes of arriving in the city. Spanish was, as it should be in Mexico, our common language and we serendipitously spent two days wandering the town's cobbled streets and cactus-laden mountainsides.

The city was charming and, to me, exceptionally unique: I have never before been to a settlement which was once larger than it is now. So it was with Real de Catorce, which is not quite a ghost town but nevertheless has a certain hollowness to it. Its bullring sits unused and so do the majority of its houses. Isolation has its advantages, however: the sunsets rivaled the moonrises and the cloudless sky was invariably full of stars.

Even the stars, however, we no match for the canyons. The area around Real de Catorce has long been of ceremonial importance to the Huichol people and it is little wonder why. I have had the good fortune to see the Wadi Rum desert of Jordan and, truth be told, it has nothing on Real de Catorce. Achingly beautiful, Gianluca and I walked to the top of Cerro Quemado and back for ten hours one day without seeing another person. So much the better for us, I suppose, but more's the pity for everyone else. Some 10,000 feet above sea level, where the air is thin and clear, you can see the for miles in every direction.

I think paradise looks a little something like this:







More pictures - including shots of, you know, the town itself - at: http://www.picasaweb.google.com/littlefrankel