Creel, Chihuahua
Click a panorama for a larger view.
I’m fighting with myself over whether to move on from Creel or stay longer. I arrived Thursday night, and though I will probably stay one more night, I wish I had at least two weeks more. If I really wanted, I suppose, nothing could hold me back, but I feel a need to get back home before the end of August, and, what’s more, I would like to be better equipped for backpacking. As I am traveling right now, I have a large backpack and very big duffle bag filled with extra clothes, including dress clothes for different Parras program functions. I’m even carrying Ajay’s wireless router back to the states for him. In short, I don’t know what, if anything I’m geared up to do, other than be a human UPS truck. I’m definitely a bit too heavily weighed for adventure travel.
Certainly, I’ve packed differently from the Italian I met anoche whose main cargo was his digital camera and all it’s striking pictures of D.F. (Districto Federal, or Mexico City USA folks), and crocodiles in a fishing village. He literally carries only a few other things in a small bag. This example for a mode of travel, especially when combined with the pics, has inspired me. Yes, with Italians one may have to tolerate a certain amount of pridefulness, but they do seem to have some pretty good ideas on how to travel and live.
I’m the only person from the U.S. I’ve met in Creel, and I’ve met many people over the two nights and one day I’ve been here. Currently, there’s only one other person here who speaks English natively, Ruby from Wales. I’ve encountered many folks from Italy Germany, one from Switzerland, one from Span, and many from D.F., which I sometimes end up getting the impression is it’s own country inside México. Though warnings of D.F.’s dangers abound, most of the travelers who have been say it’s an amazing, cultural, and at times beautiful, at other times ugly, city.
I’ve pondered the absence of other travelers from the U.S. here out loud, and one answer I’ve received is that they’re all in Acapulco,, and other resort regions, doing nothing but drinking, laying on the beach, and taking advantage of anything they can that walks on two legs. This is an extremely unfair generalization, only one of which I’ve heard made in the course of some of the US-American-bashing going on here, like, for example we eat large quantities of low quality food, and spend the money that we save by buying cheap food on oversized cars and homes. From this statement you might guess I’ve participated in some of the aforementioned American bashing, and you’d be right. But I’ve worked to cite other to counter some of the nastier generalizations, too.
aaron :: Aug.06.2006 :: México ::