Órale, bitches!

Once again, in the heart of Mexico. I´d forgotten how the people roll down here. Nameless, her cousin Casto, and their friend Atalo picked me up after an overnight flight at about 6 a.m. Sunday morning. I´d gotten about an hour´s sleep. Them? None.

First order of business: Mexican breakfast. Before my bags were out the trunk we´d bought a sixer, then brought it back to the apartment but had to drink fast while it was cold - Nameless and Casto don´t have a fridge.

Next order of business: Sleep till 4 p.m. I´m still half asleep as Nameless brings me out of the apartment and across the city to meet, oh, about 30 of her closest family members. Eventually I got the Spanish switch to work and things resembling sentences spilled outta my mouth. (I think the additional beer they kept handing helped, too.)

Ah, Mexico - it´s an interesting, colorful place. The people are really warm and inviting. And I think it´s tied with Italy for the most delicious food in the world, too. So good. One thing that continues to irk me, however: la musica. You know what I´m talking about - that polka-esque estilo norteño where all the dudes wear the same hat and costume and cry their hearts out about various chicks who promised them endless love and adoration and then split.

Look, I´m no Dr. Phil. But it doesn´t take a PhD to realize that if you keep dissing your girlfriend, day after day, with all the machismo that´s accepted here, eventually the girl´s gonna get fed up and look for a better deal, right? So what are these guys so surprised and distraught about, as they sing these songs? I don´t get it either.

It´s been a great trip so far. Nameless and I took an overnight excursion to this amazing place called Tolantongo - definitely the highlight. It´s this remote valley buried in these tall mountains a few hours outside of Mexico City. There´s a natural spring that cascades out of several parts of the mountain, so they carved these rock pools - positas - into the face of the mountain to collect the thermal spring water as it falls, so you soak and chill while staring across the valley at the mountain view.

Obviously, I don´t have to explain to you that you should go. I´m not doing it justice. It was fucking amazing. And as far as I know, only locals really know about it - you´ll never see it on the Travel Channel so it´s not overrun with obnoxious tourists, like me.

You can also hike about 30 minutes to the base of the Tolantongo valley to this natural grotto where the spring water pours out, probably a few thousand gallons a second. As Nameless wrote in a recent email, think the Playboy mansion except instead of topless Playmates you´ve got Indian women breastfeeding.

Venture into the grotto and there´s this huge pitch-black cave and tunnel to explore. You need to pull yourself along with a rope, though, to fight against the gushing current of spring water pushing its way out the cave. Some people brought waterproof flashlights, and it´s just incredible inside.

A natural wonder that so few people know about, thank God.
(I´ll post pics here later ... and they still won´t do justice.)

As Nameless and I soaked in a secluded posita spa, we started talking about Spanish/English pronunciation. We mostly speak in Spanish here for general security reasons, but since we were alone I started talking in English and said "pahsida," instead of poh-seee-ta.

When Nameless corrected me, I told her about the God´s Country Neighborhood where Boozemyer grew up. It´s called Los Felíz - "Los Feh-LEEZ" in Spanish. But in English we say "Los FEE-lis." This was like nails on a chalkboard to Nameless. Which was funny, cause here we were in the most perfect place on earth arguing over pronunciation. I guess you had to be there. Now to tease her I say I´m feeling really FEElis in Spanish. High comedy!

Oh, but the route to Tolantongo is easily one of the most terrifying driving experiences ever - up there with the time I almost fell out of a van in Morocco. The only way up and down this mountain, thousands of feet tall, is a narrow dirt and gravel road that these rickety old cars, vans and buses navigate. And I know I don´t have to tell you there´s no guardrail (pshaw). Thing is, since it blindly twists and turns the whole way down the locals always hug the outermost edge of the road. And as they approach these sharp curves, they always wait until the last possible moment to start their turn. By about turn no. 10 I was closing my eyes. There are about 30 of these turns heading up the road. Think a roller coaster except, you know, real.

(Actually, I just figured out why the Travel Channel´s never been to Tolantongo...)

But the way the drivers head towards the edge of an impossible abyss, then swerve at the last moment to avoid certain doom - to me that sums up life in Mexico and much of the developing world, I´d think.

There´s this fatalistic quality. You could translate "public safety" but it wouldn´t mean much. People take their three-year-olds by the hand and dart through chaotic moving traffic. Not because they don´t love and care deeply for their children ... there´s just no other option. Así es la vida. It´s good to regularly visit these places, to remind ourselves just how spoiled we are back home.

On Monday, the plan is to visit the Great Pyramids at Teotihuacan - it´s been 15 years since I last visited, so it´ll be fun to check it out. Now if you´ll excuse me, I have to help Nameless hand-wash her clothes up on the roof.

You think I´m joking?