Video from Guadalajara (Lake Chapala)
Shot by a friend that I stayed with from couchsurfing.org just outside of Guadalajara, Mexico, near Lake Chapala.
Leaving Guaymas: Avoiding the Franciscans
Dulce and her family are warm, kind, hospitable, a welcome reminder of the overwhelming percentage here who are genuinely good people. A stricking and necessary contrast to my experience on the beach (see The Sirens´Call, blog), they offer a meal, use of the internet to communicate with my family and those supporting the walk from LA. They have asked that I stay, but I need to continue south, the next long desert stretch to Cuidad Obregon. The weather here is nice, and though still very much in the desert, moderated by a coastal breeze. (more…)
The Siren´s Call: Thieves in Guaymas
Without a place to stop en route, I stock up on as much food and water as I could carry, significantly increasing my weight. A days´walk outside of Hermosillo, and I cannot take the weight any longer. Something will have to go. (more…)
What I love about Mexico/Arrival in Hermosillo
I am a little behind schedule. Still, I am feeling great, knowing I am close to a major city where I can shower and shave. I step up the pace and within a few hours I see the first buildings, scattered, then a sprawling city with a hints of green admist the now almost white desertscape.
I stop at large and well maintained gas station on the outskirts, intended for those leaving town.
There is a large Ford SUV with Washington State plates in the small store parking lot. A man inside considers his selection in English. I ask him if he is headed north or south. He says that he lives in Guadalajara, but that he is on his way back to Washington to fundraise for college that he runs here in Mexico. His eyes are honest, his face relaxed, even jovial. He is more than slightly large, he walks with difficulty around the store. He is wearing a Northwestern t-shirt. (more…)
A Broken Jesus in Warm Light
I am starting to near civilization. Thank God. Like a ship approaching land, there are signs. At first, coconuts appear, discarded, split open for a drink. Then a starbucks cup with the cardboard heat donut, tossed on side of the road from those headed north. (more…)
Into the Desert: Day 2
While daytime temperatures reach near 38C/100F, nights freeze. I often take advantage of the cool night air, though I am told by the consulate it is dangerous and that there is no shoulder. I am reminded of the habits and driving culture in Mexico, on a long stretch of flat road, walking, at night. I carry a flashlight and wear a reflective US Amry PT sash. I count on their being less cars at night, hoping this will all work together in my favor. (more…)
Into Nothing: Day 1
A scribbled map, drawn carefully by Guiermo (see The Glory of Tubacacori, blog) marks the points where I should stop to sleep and ask for water and food. A five day walk, approximately 180km (100 miles), there are four stops, I thought, spaced evenly between.
Into the Desert: Day One
A scribbled map, drawn carefully by Guiermo (see The Glory of Tubacacori, blog) marks the points where I should stop to sleep and ask for water and food. A five day walk, approximately 180km (100 miles), there are four stops, I thought, spaced evenly between. (more…)
Into Nothing: Part2
I pass the military checkpoint and instinctively shrink as I wave to men behind big guns, masked, inside a sandbag bunker. Time slows, and walking especially, seems to take forever in situations like these. The men pause, look up from their sights, first at me, then at each other.
Into Nothing: Part1
Feb. 18, 2009.
South of Benjamin Hill. The last city that drops you into the desert basin, 70 miles to Hermosillo. A series of odd conversations in Santa Ana have thrown me off and I feel like when I walk I grit my teeth until I let go of thoughts that nag and pull. (more…)
Then the Sirens Began
Tired, achy, I am writing, hoping to recover strength and clarity before I hop the next hurdle…100 miles through the desert from Benjamin Hill to Hermosillo. I write with a sense of irony, more a sense of a awareness, that wherever I am, I am now safe.
Last night: Tues. February 18, 2009
I walk into Benjamin Hill, having made good time. I enjoy a meal and company at D’Gymon Restaurant. I spend too much and justify that it might be the last meal for a while.
Just south of town I find a place to sleep en la terre. Passing a hotel, I see a crumbling building, a basic shelter from the frigid desert winds. I walk inside the brick frame, littered with trash. Lit inside only from the street, I turn on my flashlight to see if it will suit. (more…)
Leaving Magdalena
I have been walking in Mexico for 1 week. I have collected 1 prayer.
When they ask me where I am going, I can answer that I am walking to Brazil, but that is about it, the rest is very sloppy. People are impressed and I glee, but something´s amiss. They smile and pass, leaving me with a bloated ego and disconnect.
I have promised that I will memorize how to talk more about the project, the real project, the project that has nothing to do with walking or Brazil, this project, this pilgrimage to the heart of the people and places between. The project that has nothing to do with me or personal potential or inflated pride. (more…)
Magdalena de Kino: Part2
Valentine´s Day. Quiet in the square. A slight breeze and desert wind feels like a late August.
We called off our relationship in November. Something calls us back. And forth. Perhaps unmistakable compatibility and knowingness, perhaps attachment, perhaps the broken unspoken promise and investment of time spent. We email each other often. Flirt and call it something more than nothing.
She is not home. I take and send her a photo of a sacred heart. I don´t think it sent.
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Magdalena de Kino: Part1
People honk and wave. Completing their prayers to Mary, passengers in a blue Chevy Astro sign the cross for roadside assurance. They too honk, staring, as they pass and enter the freeway on ramp where I make my exit.
Walking down the final portion of the historic pilgrimage route from Nogales to Magdelena de Kino, shrines adorn the road. Some small, some large, some plain, some colorful. Some, abandoned and desolate. Some are empty, but painted new. (more…)
The Grace of Good Works
I arrive in Imuris at dusk, exhausted, colors heightened. My ears are torn by the ripping sound of a truck downshifting, slowing into town. Nowhere to stay, I continue south. I am stopped by a stranger in front of the bus station who says in almost perfect English, “Hey! Where are you going?” (more…)
The Ladder of Divine Ascent
4 days from Tuscson, and now on my second day south from Nogales, walking 3 hours in the sun, my mind travels. My walking stick, gifted by a kind man in Green Valley (see blog “Meet Joe”), decorated by Gloria Moroyoqui, with the faces of Jesus and the Virgin of Conception, clicks every 4th step and counts a kilometer at 300.
Walking is not hard. My mind, seeking every form of comfortable thought to ease my mind from the boredom of constant, repititious walking, makes it so.
North of Cibuta. Walking. Still.
I recal an image from my youth. Gilded and dark, I meditate on meaning and perspecitive in the icon and writings of John´s Climacus in The Ladder of Divine Ascent. A teaching on the mystic vision of Jacob, St. John Climacus illustrates the allegory for the monastic set of the Christian East, describing 30 steps to Heaven. (more…)
La Manda
Nogales a Cibuta, Cibuta a Imuris, Imuris a Madelena de Kino, instructions scratched on a piece of paper, lay out the first half, the first 68 miles, to Hermosillo.
Pilgrimage is much more common in Mexico than in the cool secular north. A “manda” or a “promise” made to God or to a saint in return for a “milagros” the miraculous answering of prayer, belivers give their word, their promise, that they will walk, crawl on their knees, etc. to a shrine, a church, to venerate the relix of a saint, or perform some other act of holy foolishness, often in return for the healing of a sickness for themselves or a close family member. (more…)
Leaving Nogales: La Promesa
Leaving the home of my gracious hosts Guiermo and Gloria Moroyoqui, I make my way down unplanned streets, cracked sidewalks, still muddied from yesterday’s melting snow.
Passing farmacias, local neighborhood markets, worked in with the fabric of homes, I emerge from the neighborhoods following a slight but steady stream of men and women on their way to work, boys and girls, in uniforms, on their way to school, all on their way to the main artery that runs through the town of Nogales.
Curious, people stare. I wave. Faces soften. Boys laugh. I stop at a light and others soon join, pointing to the pictures of Jesus and the Virgin of Conception fastened to my walking stick decorated by my Yaqui hosts. Their broken English better than my broken Spanish, we fumble through improper conjugations, and struggle for recognizable vocabulary. (more…)
