Hotel Guerro - El Fuerte - 10 bucks!
The pillow on my bed at the El Hotel Puerto in Guaymas was flat and unwelcoming to the sleep which I desperately felt I needed. I pulled out my sleeping bag and piled it on the pillow to form a gigantic fluffy mass upon which I could lay mi cabeza. Sleep was difficult to find. My mind was still racing with the thousands of possibilities to come. I found comfort in the familiar smells and texture of my sleeping bag or should I call it my security blanket…my “Binky” as Jamal said.
On the ride from Guaymas to El Fuerte I had many hours of white noise silence to delve into the source of this anxiety. We rode into the countryside where vast commercial farms gave way to small family plots with livestock and pickup trucks filled with hay. As we traveled deeper and deeper into third world the pickup trucks gave way to men and boys riding on horse drawn wooden carts filled with hay for livestock and collected firewood for cooking. Hombres stooped in the median hand cutting hay to fill their carts. We were beginning to enter a world unlike our own, a place where the modern meets the ancient.
Somewhere in the middle of watching the world change my anxiety began to recede a little and my world behind the visor started to become a little more clear. I thought for a long while about what it is that scares me the most. What it could be that brought me so much sleeplessness the night before. I rode by a vulture perched upon a tall pole spreading its wings wide, staring down at me, it’s gaze fixed on mine until I rounded the next bend. Vultures feed upon the dead and the decaying parts of the earth, leaving space for new life…for new beginnings. Part of me, part of my way of being was not serving me well on this trip. I began to realize how much I was fearing that I might appear as a fool. I realize how difficult it is for me to be so obviously deficient as I am when I try to communicate. I realized that in order to feel comfortable in this place I need to let go of my addiction of the need to know. I need to allow myself to be immersed, to stumble through language, to get lost and ask for directions, to get overcharged, to eat whatever they give me, to not get hung up in the little mishaps and hiccups. I need to reawaken and trust that in the end the learning will be worth it and I will always be safe. Metaphors for the rest of my life? Perhaps!
So when we arrived in El Fuerte Jamal sat with the bikes while I headed down the street to find us a hotel and a new way of being.
The pillow on my bed at the El Hotel Puerto in Guaymas was flat and unwelcoming to the sleep which I desperately felt I needed. I pulled out my sleeping bag and piled it on the pillow to form a gigantic fluffy mass upon which I could lay mi cabeza. Sleep was difficult to find. My mind was still racing with the thousands of possibilities to come. I found comfort in the familiar smells and texture of my sleeping bag or should I call it my security blanket…my “Binky” as Jamal said.
On the ride from Guaymas to El Fuerte I had many hours of white noise silence to delve into the source of this anxiety. We rode into the countryside where vast commercial farms gave way to small family plots with livestock and pickup trucks filled with hay. As we traveled deeper and deeper into third world the pickup trucks gave way to men and boys riding on horse drawn wooden carts filled with hay for livestock and collected firewood for cooking. Hombres stooped in the median hand cutting hay to fill their carts. We were beginning to enter a world unlike our own, a place where the modern meets the ancient.
Somewhere in the middle of watching the world change my anxiety began to recede a little and my world behind the visor started to become a little more clear. I thought for a long while about what it is that scares me the most. What it could be that brought me so much sleeplessness the night before. I rode by a vulture perched upon a tall pole spreading its wings wide, staring down at me, it’s gaze fixed on mine until I rounded the next bend. Vultures feed upon the dead and the decaying parts of the earth, leaving space for new life…for new beginnings. Part of me, part of my way of being was not serving me well on this trip. I began to realize how much I was fearing that I might appear as a fool. I realize how difficult it is for me to be so obviously deficient as I am when I try to communicate. I realized that in order to feel comfortable in this place I need to let go of my addiction of the need to know. I need to allow myself to be immersed, to stumble through language, to get lost and ask for directions, to get overcharged, to eat whatever they give me, to not get hung up in the little mishaps and hiccups. I need to reawaken and trust that in the end the learning will be worth it and I will always be safe. Metaphors for the rest of my life? Perhaps!
So when we arrived in El Fuerte Jamal sat with the bikes while I headed down the street to find us a hotel and a new way of being.
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