Rent!

Keating and I had our very first house guests recently. My parents flew down from Michigan to spend a long weekend visiting us in Mexico City. They were absolute troopers: Keating and I dragged them all over town (on public transportation) for three days, and they're still speaking to us!

Since they insisted on staying in a hotel (we only had a fold-out love seat to offer them), they

might not technically have been house guests. Regardless, they have helped us to define the "rent" we will charge to future visitors who stay with us (never fear, we now have a spare bedroom with a double bed in it). Want to enjoy a fun, cheap vacation in Mexico City, complete with manic guides? Simply peruse the suggested packages below:

A) Long weekend, comple

te with trip down to the famous floating gardens of Xochimilco, all the Mexican pastry you can endure, exploration of the Chapultepec war memorials, and one terrifying night-time taxi ride with a cabby who speaks no English and is horribly lost. Optional case of food poisoning, no additional cost. Price: two tins of Swiss Miss cocoa mix (with the little marshmallows... we like to pick them out of the cocoa powder and eat them), a box of tea (not chamomile or mint, for goodness sakes. That's almost all I can find here.), and a bottle of horseradish mustard.

B) Everything from Package A, plus three more days spent dodging insistent Mexican craft sellers, a climb up a pyramid, a long visit to the world-class Anthropology Museum (I guarantee that you still won't see half of it!), a performance of Mexican "fliers" swinging upside-down from a rotating metal pole while playing some sort of pan flute (Yes, it's strange and inexplicable. I don't get it, either.), and, as an added bonus, we will at some point promise to lose you in a crowded metro station and expect you to find your own way home (It's totally like and urban version of Survivor! Think how proud you'll feel when you make your way home!). If you're lucky, Keating will treat you to his now-famous fresh squeezed orange juice. Cost: a tea kettle, English-language cookbook, books you've finished reading, and Milky Way 100% caramel candy bars (at least 2).

C) For longer trips, we will likely eventually run out of local ideas and will ultimately pack you off to something a little farther out. We're looking for volunteers to help us explore the beaches of Acapulco and the markets of Taxco (the silver capital of the world). We have more pyramids within a couple-hour drive than you can shake a stick at. Looking for something truly unique to do on your vacation? Shazta is always looking for sherpas (uh, I mean "assistants") for field work in Veracruz (just don't read that other post too carefully, huh?). We might even let you eat some of the fruit from our uber-cool kumquat tree that we've got growing in our garden*. Cost: More Swiss Miss, more candy bars (That don't contain chili powder. We've already got that covered, trust me.), Frank's Red Hot (!!!!!), and maybe some beef on weck and sponge candy. If you can figure out how to smuggle us some Duff's wings, we will probably just let you move in for as long as you like.

Unfortunately for my parents, we managed to fit a terrifying amount of those activities into their three days here. One high point came when we brought them back to our apartment for a home cooked dinner. My poor dad looked fairly perturbed by our ghetto-like neighborhood. Dad was a bit perturbed by the raucous party going on across the alley, which we could see and hear fairly well through the gaping holes in the neighbor's corrugated metal roof (we were on the fourth floor). The only thing capable of briefly overpowering the noise from the party was the occasional engine misfire or downshifting from the major road out front. Fortunately, the neighbors on the 2nd floor decided to not pick that evening to flood the building with heavy incense (the kind that no one has ever used for anything other than to cover the smell of pot). Dad definitely looked relieved to know that we would be moving the next weekend to the safest borough in Mexico City (we were on the fringe of the worst borough). Mom, for her part, was too ill to care much. It was after this charming and intimate dinner party that I placed them in a taxi with a cabbie who only pretended to know where their hotel was when I told him and tried to leave them at a hotel with a similar name in a different part of the city.

On the plus side, not only are my parents still speaking to us, they've offered to let us crash with them in a couple of weeks when they will be staying in Cancun. I suspect that they will be happy to enjoy some enforced relaxation with us instead of being pulled all over town by a couple of loving, though incompetent, tour guides (that's us!). In preparation, Keating and I have started stockpiling the rent that we will be paying them for the crash space: Trix, Honey Nut Cheerios, various pastries, etc. We might not be able to get some things we want (Swiss Miss!!!!! Why is there no normal cocoa mix here???!), but at least we have the inside track on basic groceries that are hard to find in resort towns.

P.S. -- We really do welcome friends to visit, and we really are out of the ghetto now and in a lovely apartment with a spare bedroom. It even has a bed. And sheets. We promise that we have learned our lesson and will not subject anyone to the "All of Mexico City in 3 days tour" again. Unless they specifically ask for it by name: "Packages A-C in 1-2-3."

* As a general note, do NOT try to catch a taxi while holding a kumquat tree you just bought from a nursery. Cabbies will actually FLEE from you the instant they see that tree. This makes it very difficult to get your lovely new plant home.

Butterflies

As mentioned in the last post, my reward for clawing my way back to my loving husband in Mexico City after a terrible week of food poisoning and horse-inflicted abuse in the field was to get up at 5 am the next morning to go horseback riding. Keating and I were bleary-eyed but awake and (mostly) dressed when the phone rang at 5:10 am Sunday morning. It was our friend Monica, who had been kind enough to make the reservations for the tour. She was calling because she had just realized that, being a Sunday, the public transportation system would not yet be running and we would have no way to get to the rendezvous point for the tour. Thank goodness that Monica is 100% amazing: she had already called a taxi service to come get us.

About 20 minutes later, Keating and I sat in the dark in front of our apartment building waiting for our taxi. Monica had stressed that the taxi would be a dark blue sedan and that the driver would know both our first names and the code number "98." (There's nothing like the Mexican taxi service to make you feel like you're either in a Bond movie or doing something illegal.) Keating and I watched the minutes tick away nervously as we scanned the nearly-empty streets. Finally, Keating pointed to a car down the block:

Keating: Have you been watching that car? Do you think maybe it's our taxi? It looks kind of like he's looking for someone.

Me: Yeah... he keeps driving in reverse down the block, then pulling forward around the corner. Really weird. It's a white compact, though, so it can't be ours. Monica said it's a blue sedan.

Keating: (simply staring at me for a moment) There have been, what 4 cars on the road? And one of them looks lost on our block? How many Mexicans do you think would be looking for an address on our block at this time of day? Maybe they sent a different car. Are you sure you understood her right? I could just walk over there and ask him.

Me: Don't do that! That guy has been driving like a lunatic. He's probably doing something illegal. I'll call Monica back to check.

Monica confirmed that we were looking for a blue sedan, and I continued to stare suspiciously at the white compact car. Moments after hanging up the phone, the white car ghosted forward and rolled down a window.

Driver: (translated) Are you Sara?

Me: No, I'm Shazta. (realizing that "Sara" and "Shazta" are pretty darn close to the same word in Spanish) Are you supposed to be picking two people up here?

Driver: I'm looking for Sara and .... (trails off to nowhere)

Me: We're supposed to wait for a cab that knows both our names and a security number. (I'm pretty sure this is our guy, despite the wrong car and wrong name, but I refuse to just get into an unmarked car with some man I've been eyeing suspiciously for 20 minutes because Sara sounds vaguely like Shazta.)

Driver: (Gets on radio. Mutters back and forth.) Sara. And Char-ley? (looks hopefully at Keating)

Keating: Well, I think that's the closest that anyone has come to actually pronouncing my name since we got here, especially after it's been broadcast second-hand through a radio. Get in the taxi, Shazta -- otherwise we won't make it to the rendezvous.

As I got into the taxi, still muttering about not having the securi

ty number and how James Bond wound know better than to get into the car without that number, the phone rang. It was Monica calling to tell us that she had phoned the taxi company to figure out what was going on and had been told that the driver was sitting around, confused, waiting for us. It was great that Monica called just then since our driver had completely forgotten where he had been hired to take us to and refused to believe me when I told him (most people aren't looking for closed metro stations at that hour). In frustration, I passed him the phone and let Monica (who is a native Mexican) explain to him that we were not crazy, stupid gringos. (Mostly, anyway.) He agreed to drive us to our destination, but kept repeating that he thought it was terribly strange and very likely a bad idea. I found this reassuring, as you can imagine.

This is how we came to be standing in front of a closed metro station in a semi-seedy part of town at 6:30 am, waiting for anyone else from our tour. At the stroke of 7, Monica appeared from one direction and our mini-touring-bus arrived from the other. Within moments, we were all loaded in and gone.

Our tour left the urban sprawl of Mexico City and wound through the surrounding mountains until we reached Valle de Bravo. At the butterfly sanctuary, we each paid our 3 pesos to use the facilities before mounting the horses for our ride up the hill. Unlike the work horses of my crippling experience two days before, these horses were outfitted with comfortable leather saddles and lazy dispositions appropriate for adult-scale pony rides. Each horse had it's own minder to make sure that the horse didn't suddenly decide to play the old game of "Ditch the Tourist." My horse was so completely indifferent to its prospects that it had no intention of either climbing up or walking back down the hill; my horse-minder had to actually drag the horse both ways. (I felt so bad I gave him an extra large tip.) We had missed the peak butterfly time by about a week, but the view was still incredible atop the hill. The air swirled with monarch butterflies making their final preparations before departing on their long migration north. Parts of the forest floor were carpeted in the orange and black wings of butterflies who had made the long journey south to die in the quiet pines and sunny meadows. It was amazingly beautiful.

Butterflies in the Valle de Bravo sanctuaries. My camera battery died, so I found this photo online to show you what it looked like. Credit: http://veryveryfun.com/index.php?Itemid=1&id=25&option=com_content&task=view

Following our visit to the butterfly sanctuary, we stopped at the nearby Bridal Veil Falls and the actual town of Valle de Bravo. The town, situated on a large reservoir and surrounded by mountains, is a favorite resort location for Mexico City's wealthy. It is a picturesque mix of grand haciendas, artisan's markets, public squares, and old village, with plenty of opportunities for hang gliding and boating.

Another internet-snagged photo, this time of Valle de Bravo's central square. Maybe next time I'll remember to bring spare batteries. Photo from: http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2122445550064444924wnGeZz

Keating, Monica, and I went in search of the main Artisan's Market which our guide had assured us was only a couple of blocks up a hilly street. After about 10 blocks, we decided to ask directions. I have previously complained that Mexicans use a strange and complicated conversion system when giving distances in their directions: "two blocks straight ahead" could easily mean "thirteen blocks north, four blocks east." Thanks to getting lost in Valle de Bravo with Monica, a real, live Mexican, I now know how to translate Mexican directions: go as far as the person suggested, and then find someone else to ask. I was still pretty sure that I was going to die from physical pain and exhaustion from my week in the field, but I refused to give up the search for the market -- I was on the hunt for a cool birthday present for my mom. At least 5 sets of directions later, the three of us finally crawled into the Artisan's Market. I found the gift for my mom, and Keating found a nice present for his dad (whose birthday happens to be the day before my mom's). Presents in hand, the three of us left the market and immediately got lost again.

Note: I use the term "lost" loosely. Geologists are never lost; we are simply exploring the area. (Even if we are confused as hell, holding the map upside-down, howling with frustration. We are not lost.)

Traffic jams on the way back kept us on the road a couple hours longer than planned, and we finally crawled up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment at 11 pm. We were exhausted and dirty (and may have smelled faintly of horse poo), but we felt good. It had been a great day outside of the city.

Why my job is worse than yours:

This is a follow-up to me gloating about having an awesome job. Now technically, the following complaint is not about my job, per se, but I think it's relevant.

Yesterday at a free department lunch (ok, that part was cool), one of the professors looked a little depressed. When questioned by his colleagues, he admit that he was bummed because his car had just been stolen from the parking lot. Someone had apparently tipped off the thieves that the security camera for that lot was down, and the security guard didn't notice anything to make him suspect that the car was being stolen when it drove out of the lot. Note: not only was the car in a guarded lot, it even had one of those theft-prevention devices on the steering wheel. Quietly, I asked my friend to my left if the professor had a thing for fancy cars -- it turns out that the guy drove a VW bug... of the "classic" (run-down) variety.

To make matters worse: this was the third time that that man had had his car stolen from the university lot.

You'd think that with a track record like that he'd learn to take the bus.

The Field

Evidence A for why my job is better than yours: I got paid to ride a horse through the rainforest, up a volcano.

Now, it might seem like I'm gloating or rubbing your noses in it. To be fair, I admit that I am. At the same time, however, I'll let you in on this little secret: while Evidence A is pretty darn awesome, I'm only gloating about it because the rest of the week in the field sucked. Really, truly, sucked.

To start off with, it's important to note that I have problems with motion sickness. I turn green and achy, and my best course of action is typically to just fall asleep. It turns out that it isn't easy to sleep in the back seat of a manual transmission pickup truck being driven Mexican-style on Mexican roads. Mexican drivers are very different from the American drivers that I'm used to, and really, they have to be. The roads here can be a wild collection of pits and speed bumps, and that's when they're paved. Survival driving in Mexico reminds me of what you might get from a 13 year old boy, hopped up on Mountain Dew, played Grand Theft Auto at 3 am (but without GTA's extra violence. Duh.). I bruised my right elbow from being bounced off of the door so many times during high-speed swerving maneuvers and bumps. The wildness of the ride was emphasized by the contrasting soundtrack: Barry Manilow and Manilow-wannabes, with a few forays into "It's not easy being green" by Kermit The Frog and "She-boom" by some bubblegum pop group from the past that left me wondering just how long the fall would be if we drive off of the next cliff. I had thought that my years of driving for Field Camp had fairly well inoculated me to hours spent listening to questionable music mixes; I was wrong.

Barry Manilow. He writes the songs. Would you road trip with this man?

I had 2 academic goals for the week in the field, and 2 non-academic goals. On the academic side, I wanted to look for some specific features on top of the main volcano and get some samples from a set of cones on the other side of the volcanic field. Non-academically, I wanted to swim in the hotel pool and ride a horse up a volcano. Of these 4 goals, you already know which one happened.

Academic goal 2 was undone by heavy fog that prevented us from even finding the sample sites. Non-academic goal 1 was undone by cold weather and a nasty bout of food poisoning that left me confined to the hotel for a day and prevented us from going down to Veracruz. The other two goals are related to one another and deserve a slightly longer telling.

I was ecstatic when I learned that we would be going up the main volcano on horseback, firstly because horses are just plain cool and secondly because I didn't really want to walk all that way. Previously, the team has rented horses from Don Tomás, a rancher up in the hills. Don Tomás didn't think he'd be able to help us this time, so he suggested we make arrangements with Don Guido. Don Guido has the ranch neighboring Don Tomás', but was down in the town below. Somewhere. As such, we spent a evening driving the back streets of the town (in the dark, of course!) asking people on the street if they knew how to find Don Guido.

Us: Excuse me, do you know where we can find Don Guido?

Man: Huh?

Woman: (just walking up to Man) Ah, Don Guido! He lives up in the mountains. Drive up this street until it curves right. Then look for the Corona sign. Or is it a Coke sign? I don't remember. Anyway, ask around for Señora Margarita. She'll know how to find Don Guido.

Us: Um... thanks!

With those detailed directions, we set off along unpaved back roads in the pitch black you get in an area where electricity is enough of a luxury that no one would dream of putting up streetlights. Miraculously, we not only found the correct curve in the road, but Don Guido happened to be there. He agreed to guide us up the mountain on horseback three days later, on Friday.

When Friday arrived, however, Don Guido had to back out of the plan due to an arthritis flare-up in his knees. Don Tomás, feeling bad for us, agreed to lead us up the volcano after all. He quickly rigged together enough equipment to saddle up four horses, and we started the ascent.

Me on Baya, just before we started the ascent. JM, my boss, is on the horse on the right. I only got to sit up this straight when we were stopped, thanks to the short reins.

As excited as I was to be riding a horse, I was also a bit nervous. I'm not a real rider, so I figured that I would have a very sore bum afterwards. I was also a little apprehensive about my horse, Baya, since I'd been warned that she had a habit of biting the tails of the other horses and pissing them off. Fortunately, Baya was very docile, particularly compared to the freckled horse given to Araceli (the other postdoc); that horse tried to rip down a small tree when Don Tomás saddled her. Within minutes of starting the ride, it was apparent that I would have an unexpected challenge in the saddle: my jury-rigged equipment included reins that were far too small. In order to let Baya walk, I had to lean forward across the pommel of the saddle and hold the reins with only 2 fingers. Since I was also wearing a backpack, this was doubly uncomfortable. All was going well, though, until Baya tried to walk between 2 very close trees and brushed against a branch on the right side. Slightly spooked, she danced sideways and bashed my knee into the left tree. The whole group got to pause while I cursed in a few languages and Baya shot me looks over her shoulder that easily translated as, "That's what you get for being a lousy rider. I have no desire to go up this mountain. I could have been back at home enjoying some nice grass." Shortly after that, JM's horse got skittish about stepping over a fallen log, backed up into Araceli's horse, panicked, and started kicking. Based on the muddy print left on her horse, Araceli came within a couple of inches of having been kicked in her own leg.

The forest around us was beautiful and eerie. It was the sort of place to make one believe in fairies and wood sprites, with curls of mist snaking between enormous trees and vines and Spanish moss dangling from branches. It was also strangely quiet, with little sound other than that of the horses steps as they climbed.

Finally, we reached as high as the horses would go. Don Tomás tethered them and then began leading us by foot up the trail. I am not a fast hiker, nor have I ever been, but I managed to leave my fellow academics in the dust. Don Tomás and I would forge ahead, then wait while the others caught up. This success for me became a little less impressive when I thought about it a little more: Araceli has a small child and JM is over 60. Plus, it turns out that JM was happily collecting orchids. And our guide, who I was so happy to be keeping up with as he used his machete to hack a path through the jungle, is well into his 70's and awaiting knee surgery. (But I am still cool!!!) Don Tomás kept reassuring us that we were very close, only 20 minutes, from the top. A couple of hours later when we stopped for lunch, the jungle was still tick around us and streams running down past us were a pretty good indication that the summit was still a ways away.

I finished my lunch (a tin of shredded turkey and vegetables, with a large roll) and looked around. The fog was closing in again, and the next part of the "path" looked nearly impassable. Despairing, I asked JM how on earth a particular naturalist had managed to climb the mountain in the 1700's during an eruption.

JM looked back at me a little confused and said, " Well, he went up the mule path on the other side of the volcano. It's a wide, smooth path that used to be trafficked a lot before they built the roads out here."

Incredulous, I gasped, " Then what are we doing over here???"

Looking even more confused, he answered, "I've already been up the other side before. I wanted to see what it looked like from this side."

That was as high as we got up the volcano. Despite Don Tomás' urgings that we were only another 20 minutes from the top, we decided that we had to start back down if we were going to reach the ranch again by nightfall. On the hike back to the horses, we discovered that the misting rain combined with our previous passage to reduce the trail to a steep mudslick. Where we had scrambled up slopes on the way up, we now were left clinging to vines and wild sugar cane to control our slide downhill. For comparison, imagine the scene from Avatar, where the characters use the huge leaves to bounce their way down from the treetops... now cover everything with mud and slime, and make it far less graceful. By the time we reached the horses, our legs were quivering from the effort of trying to control the slide down the muddy slopes.

We climbed back up on the horses and rode back ploddingly to the ranch. For the final hour, all I could think about was how badly I ached from being on the horse. My back and shoulders ached from leaning forward for the reins, and my armpits were clearly bruised from trying to lean through my backpack straps. My butt was sore. More than anything, though, my knees felt like they were on fire. They hurt so badly that I was unable to tap Baya with my heels to convince her to keep moving when she decided to gaze at flowers. I'm normally a bit knock-kneed, but I swear I was bow-legged by the time I got off of Baya back at the ranch.

The next morning, we started the drive back to Mexico City. For the next 8 hours or so, I had time to reflect on the week in the field while my aching body was bounced off of the door, Barry Manilow crooned, and I turned green. I had gotten food poisoning and was black from bruises, but I didn't have a single data point to show for the entire week in the field. When we finally arrived back at my apartment, all I wanted to do was collapse into Keating's arms and take a week-long nap.

Keating, my wonderful husband, had been busy while I was away. He happily told me how he'd worked things out with our friend Monica to visit the butterfly sanctuary the next day. I had known about the plans when I left, so I was glad to know that everything had been finalized. Except that we would be getting up at 5 am. And we would be going horseback riding.

To be continued....

Running behind

I've been back form the field for 5 days now, and I have not yet posted about it. This is not because there was nothing to post about. In fact, there are enough stories to tell that I don't have time to do it now, either. This week has been busy for me. Keating and I are making arrangements to move closer to school (a 20 minute tour turned into 2 hours of surreality plus a little bit o' getting lost at night in the city), we've been trying to prepare for our first houseguests here in Mexico (my parents arrive tomorrow evening. Yay!! They're staying in a hotel, though, so I guess they're not really houseguests. Who wants to be the first real houseguest??? Our new place will actually feature a second bedroom with a full size bed as opposed to the miniature sofa-sleeper in our current living room.), and my brother has been very ill (and yes, it is both frustrating and unnerving to receive a trickle of limited information when I'm so far away that I can't even just pick up the phone and call).

That said, I hope that you are all doing great up there (or down, as applies to Craig in Australia). To tide you over, enjoy a couple of pictures form the field:

Don Tomás, the man who kicked my a$$ up a volcano last week. He is due for knee surgery

soon, and was only really slowed down by needing to use his machete to clear the path for us through the jungle. On the plus side, I was the only member of the team who managed to almost keep up with him.

A spectacular view of the volcano. I swear, San Martín Tuxtla is back there somewhere. This is as much as I saw of it, or just about anything else, last week.

And, since I feel bad without giving you a real volcano, enjoy Pico de Orizaba. This volcano is not in my field area, but we drove past it on our way there from Mexico City. That's kind of like saying I get to play a volcanologist on TV. This photo was taken from the shoulder of the interstate, 'cause geologists are way too cool to actually try to avoid being hit by passing cars.

Credit: These photos were all taken by Lourdes, my fabulous colleague and landlady. I'll see about posting mine when I find new batteries for my camera.