Adios Parras.
Either today at 2:30, or early tomorrow morning, I will be on a bus leaving Parras bound for Torreon. It’s a sad and happy picture, as one can expect of any departure.
I finished my project Monday. Actually, it’s not finished, but has reached a stage of completion. For those of you who don’t know, I was building a solar hot water system to heat a pool in winter at a local hotel. Our team had drug our heels too long, and we paid in the end by having to make a last ditch effort to pull things together. The main reason I’ve stayed in Parras longer than I planned to was to wrap things up at Hotel Perote.
It’s remarkable how well things wrapped up with the project, considering I was so nervous about it. The owner of Hotel Perote has been gone for over a week, and he just returned last night. I worked with his staff to buy the materials in Torreon (about one and a half to two hours driving from Parras), visiting Torreon twice. I never thought I would appreciate Home Depot as much as I did. In Parras, you end up going to about 5 different fereterias (hardware stores) to find a role of duct tape (but there are 2 on every block). Then I assembled the the system, with as many as five Hotel Perote staff helping at once. Remember that no one besides Igancio Chgacon (the owner) and his daugher speaks English at Hotel Perote, and you’ll understand why I am pleased with what we were able to do.
I wish I could post pictures of the solar hot water collector in its interim state of completion. Unfortunately, Ariana left with her flash card reader, and my camera doesn’t seem like talking with P.C.’s or Linux boxes much.
In the meantime, you can check out our still unfinished write-ups at appropedia:
Parras Solar Hot Water for a general description of solar hot water potential and projects in Parras.
See the Hotel Perote page for specific details about the Perote
system: Hotel Perote Pool Solar Heating System (Appropedia)
At this point, the Perote document is all in future tense, but much of it will soon be changed to past tense. Since these documents are on a wiki, correct any errors you see, or add comments. Just click “edit” at the top of your browser window.
I wish I had more time to recount some of the things I’ve done during the last several weeks when I haven’t been making any regular blog posts, but I’m anxious to leave Parras, see more of México, and make my way back to the states pronto. One of the topics I want to write about is the play we wrote and performed, entirely in Spanish, in a local theater here. It was losely based on a telenovela (soap opera) that everyone watches. I’ll have to work my way backwards from this point, I suppose, in my blog.
From here, I’m off first to Torreon, a new and uncomfortably hot industrial city I don’t like very much, from which I will catch an 11 hour bus to the city of Chihuahua in the state of Chihuahua. From there, I will explore the Baranca del Cobre (Copper Canyon) by train and maybe a little by foot. Last night, I saw my host-dad’s home video of his trip last year to the canyon. Looks amazing. In the canyon, I’m going to be making my way to Los Mochis (or some variant spelling). Ignacio Chacon has a friend who owns about half of Los Mochis - restaurants, hotels, etc. - and he has given me his info.
From Los Mochis, I will be traveling back to California, bound for L.A. via Tiajuana. I’ve heard this bus ride is about 18 hours. If I can get a cheap airline ticket, I’ll take it. It’ll be my first visit to L.A. I’m super excited that I’ll be able to stay with a friend from HSU and hang out with friends from HSU and Bard in L.A.
That’s the plan, anyway. I’ll keep you posted. I wish I could take more time with this email to really spill everything about the last week: the goodbyes (I’m next to last to leave), the ups and downs of my project, my host family and the people of Parras, but it’ll have to wait until a little bit later.
Hasta pronto!
aaron :: Aug.02.2006 :: México ::