Queretaro Parte 1

Solo

I'm back at the house after dropping my traveling companion off with her family on the other side of Franklin.

Face to face with the actual physical daytime end of my greatest vacation ever. While driving home I noticed my brain was back in the default "self-conversation" mode (the internal dialogue) and that it was totally unfamiliar. It had been absent for weeks!

I had been in another paradigm, another planet, another way of looking at the world. The Observer was up front for the last two weeks having been constantly in-filled, surprised and amazed with brand new perceptions.

I can certainly "get" that travel (especially to new places) delights the being that has always been us since the beginning - the Observer.

It is spiritually very refreshing to have that sharp perceptive mode in the driver's seat for a while. Add the fact I was comfortable & "protected" by my daughter's familiarity with her world - her adopted culture was beautifully laid out for her dad's wonder-full impressions.

First off, I couldn't have asked for a better traveling companion, my dear friend of 40 years - Caren. We've been close friends for ages and when I announced two years ago I was going to visit Camille in Queretaro, MX she said "I wanna go!!" We didn't make it happen that year but it sure did just now.

Caren's family has been my proxy family up here in NC ever since we moved up in 1985. Our clans have been associated for a long time - my mother delivered Caren's son 36 years ago. Caren is beautiful, tough, practical, outgoing and fun to be with. She "gets" the surface stuff on sight and what lies behind it too. Can't ask for a more perceptive companion.

You all know about airports so I won't go into too much detail. Suffice it to say my gawking inner kid is brought "up front" in airports and I have a bit of a tough time, following all the directions, solving the puzzles of paper it takes to actually get on board and inside the giant flying can. Atlanta Hartsfield International is an American gem - super clean - efficiency gleams on all surfaces. They know where you should be going (mostly).


I was so green at travel. Ain't been outa the country since 2000. I had to renew my passport last year since it had expired.

I would have had to go 50+ miles to Asheville to get a new one. I had a 15 minute Saturday appointment setup but the local gods were kind to me and our little town of Franklin, little county of Macon acquired passport power that very week. Whew!

Note: Nobody stamped my new passport while I was passing - either way! They were in too big a hurry or something - I wanted a fancy country stamp like they used to do. My old expired document has stamps from Italy & France and I kind of wanted the stamp as a souvenir - oh well.

In the terminal, robots first.

There are ranks of auto - passport reading kiosks confronting you when you walk into the international area. Ominously waiting on the other side of a maze of portable poles and black webbing strips connecting them.

You thread yourself through the poles & webbing cordons like at Disney - back & forth over the same floor space - making a path’s width of forward progress at each turn, then you are finally face to face with one of the automatons.

The diagrams on the machines with arrows & circles and flashing lights, designed to be understood by people regardless of language, were totally enigmatic. I had a tuff time orienting my passport so the green light could I.D. me.

Not too embarrassed or frustrating to be a newbie (since I was), I was terribly relieved to have finally asked a live human how the robot's repeating video requests for correct orientation could be satisfied. Kind of makes sense once you know it.

We got our passports "read" & "beeped" OK. "Go to next, go directly to next, do not pass go, do not collect $200!"

A few more turns and the line funnels down to where you shuck yer shoes (not sox?!! I had a $100 bill stashed in my left sock!) and sorta nice uniformed (not un-informed) people treat you like the idiot you are.

The latest sci-fi body scan machine was last in the gamut. Captain Kirk doors slide open both sides and you walk slightly up a ramp into this gray plastic walk-through 8 foot high capsule.

Stop!, put hands over your head and the radioactive light goes up & down your body - just like in the movies. This can be a little awkward since you were just using your hands to hold up your pants.

The potentially deadly belt has gone into the tray with all your pocket stuff and you put your feet on the painted yellow footprints - your legs are spread enough so you don't gravity-drop trow and reveal your skivvies.

OK! Waddle on through and down the little ramp, re-dress, tuck everything in & get rolling up the big ramp to board the jet.

If you haven't flown, dear reader, no description can give it credence - I suggest you do it for fun if nothing else. Biggest carnival ride ever - taking off and landing. The sights can be fantastic or boring.

Since most of us have flown, I'll keep the air time chatter short.

Our first ride was from Atlanta to Monterrey & Mexican Customs.

Way easy and relaxed at Customs, we only had to fill out & sign a declaration form that we were obliged to carry on our persons the entire visit. The declaration says we are not crooks or veggie smugglers or carrying more than 10K$ cash and will leave the country by a certain date.

I usually did carry the document - in my passport on my person (never needed either passport or declaration on the street).

We spent about two and a half hours in the air first leg - in a pretty small Delta jet and the only difference between 1st class & common seating was 1 less column of seats (2X2 instead of 3X2 in steerage) and a curtain. (Big whoop!)

When jetliners first came out they were outfitted like Pullman Railroad cars - waiters, every amenity, luxurious amounts of room, etc. Now it is professionally engineered cramped space, designed to stuff 'em in.

Once you tire of looking out the porthole the ride becomes gentle endurance. A full can of people - good thing I'm not claustrophobic!

The soothing motor noise and a little self-hypnosis/meditation and the time is gone.

We had a 4 hour layover in Monterrey MX. We didn't drift far from the airport and it wasn't downtown so there was nothing to see but fellow travelers, airport folk and some strange crow sized black birds that made a totally previously unheard call - alien for sure. (though it was obviously native and WE were the aliens)

At the small food court, Carl's Jr. (Hardees' here in the USA) took merkin dollas so I didn't have to figure pesos yet. We had a burger and toured the small airport pretty quickly then we had a beer and discovered a nice hotel attached to the airport by a fancy walkway. So we walked.

We spent the last hour in the lounge on comfy chairs (no such thing on the plebian side) with more beers and were pretty happy for the eventual boarding - Monterrey to Queretaro at gate B4.

Being not that big an airport on the business side, the "gates" were 4 adjacent doors in the same 75 foot wide building.

You read your boarding pass and go through the correct door (gate) to be outside with everybody else who just came through their gate (different door, same wall). Then you all walk to your own plane.

Red flashlight wavers kept us on the correct trail to the Queretaro flight. Another hour and a half and we get off at a slightly bigger airport in Queretaro (QRO).

Feet on the ground in another part of the world, it amazes me to think about the linear process of doing several small things, sitting for a while and then you are somewhere else entirely on the planet.

Beautiful Camille & Handsome Carlos are waiting, hopping, waving, etc. everybody is happy. Welling with tears of joy I finally meet & hug my only daughter (& my greatest hero) after almost 6 years of separation.

She is more beautiful than ever - totally in her prime. I feel an indescribable joy & honor to be with my grown-up extremely successful kids. In Mexico!! Wowsers!

Camille drove back to Queretaro - a city of 2 million, founded in the mid-15th century. The indigenous folk generally resisted the Spanish incursion but a local people called "Otomi" (oh toe mi') were co-operative and one particular man - Conin (ko neen') - is credited with founding the city.

There is a huge powerful Paul Bunyan like statue of Conin on the main Mexico City - Queretaro road as you approach the city.

Wheeled passage on the Mexican 4 lane is relatively sane, with quite a bit of weaving & beeping and flashing of lights. No guns like Springtime in L.A. Camille says the traffic signs are suggestions.

Traffic in town proper is scaled down a bit speed wise for the main drags and much tighter with the weaving & advancing since it's a relatively slower pace. Like all city driving, it is a timed challenge of flow & physics energized by "thinking" drivers all trying to get ahead before the other guy.

Camille says "Dad, I could totally be a cab driver here!" She loves the game. Along with the "ALTO" (stop) signs there are octagonal standard stop-shaped signs that say "Uno a Uno" (one by one) and the drivers politely let each other through alternating one at a time. It works fine on the narrow streets often with no side visibility.

Camille & Carlos live in a gated yellow-orange stucco building complex. It has beautifully manicured grounds with comfortable walkways & paths. A very nice place with Bougainvillea’s along the retaining walls (I totally love the brilliant color gradations from reds to magentas to orange - seems random).

The trees in the complex (13 buildings I think) are mostly Ficus - bushy tops, meticulous Disney quality trees, well-trimmed to 2nd story level. (3 stories to each building so the trees don't dominate).

They do it with machetes. They are immaculate. They are also all painted white for about the first 3 feet of trunk. (everywhere, in town, etc. not just at the apartments)

I asked about this and Camille told me it's lime-based to keep the ants off.

Leaf cutters!

I saw a trail of them working hard alongside Carlos' parking spot. A line of medium sized red ants, most carrying green leaf segments overhead, up the mound and down the hole.

I didn't follow them backwards to their leaf source but I was fascinated by the large amount of dirt surrounding each hole.

They dig big chambers where they chew up the leaves & install a fungus on them. They eat the mature product so they are technically fungus farmers.

Back to the current timeline - We made it back to the apartment from the airport, had a few beers & some long overdue talking. Plenty of room at Camille's place - Caren & I each had a guestroom and shared a bath. After a day of travel and related wonders we sacked out in our new country.

The next morning we went to Camille's school - JFK. Yes, that is Camille in the advertisement. (click for full image)

The Country of Mexico had recently declared Christmas Vacation to start later than previously scheduled but Camille's administrators allowed people who had booked travel (etc.) before the announcement to fulfill their needs.

I had booked our travel way back in September so we were exempt. School was in session but in a Holiday mode with lots of fun.

I am just as proud of JFK as I am of Camille. She is an empowered empowerer and the school takes that paradigm to the sky! I have never seen a more dedicated educational facility - with all kinds of innovative programs, initiatives and world-class staff.

It's the best school I have even seen or heard of for putting quality individual education on the front burner. Perfect for Camille. A great number of the kids are from out of country.

Queretaro is a hub for many South American International corporate headquarters and the kids have varied languages & customs.



The school is expensive but totally non-profit, putting all potential profits into program & building expansion. Yeah!

We toured the buildings & offices (all relatively new & very well maintained) and then saw the multi - class level Christmas Show.

(The parents behaved this year - they took shifts up stage front with their cameras as each grade came up rather than mass elbowing - which was rumored to have happened last year.) JFK Christmas Video Clip (turn up the volume)

After the presentation, we ate at the cafeteria - excellent food at very reasonable prices, then more tour, some necessary administrative duties and then the Piñatas! See the photos below - Click to enlarge. Click again to enlarge more.




Later in the day, outside the school waiting for Camille to tie up a few loose ends before the holiday, Caren and I encountered a young girl on a bicycle selling tortillas. They looked good. Though we declined the offer, she was the first of the many and varied street vendors we would encounter.

Here ends parte 1.
We have lots more with photos to come including; The Market, Christmas Lights, El Cerrito (pyramid), Bernal (very cool town with a rock), churches & temples, plazas, restaurants (world class pizza with street musicians), etc.,etc.



Here's a final section that has nothing to do with my travels. I recently wrapped up a 10 year side career as a R&R club musician. My enormous ego demanded I finance a video of a performance (just so I can prove it when I'm 80). It's a good documentary - the sound is OK - I use Window's Media player's Equalizer to push the bass end up and pull the top end down (kills the cymbal hiss) to tweak the audio.
Here's the link - it's close to an hour long



Big Love to All