mexico meanderings

my roommate, olga , and i made a break for it last weekend, headed down to south texas. spent saturday morning at the beach, the afternoon in matamoros.

we thought we would be brave and drive instead of walk over the border. i had never driven in mexico before and was, admittedly a little nervous. but it was fine. we paid our toll at the bridge and cruised right into town. followed the signs that pointed toward el centro and found un estacionamiento. once downtown, we wanted to spend our time walking through the grid of one way streets.

we were immediately drawn to the plaza in the middle of town, where people were setting up rows of white plastic chairs and a stage with with balloon figures, bending in the wind. wandered around park benches, tried not to stare at the couples who were were spending their mid-afternoon cuddling, and marveled over the tiles that adorned the quiosco in the middle of the park.

though our stomachs were grumbling, i asked olga if we could take a detour into the church, a pink stoned building, with a simple facade. we walked inside the dimly-lit sanctuary and blessed ourselves in front of a white statue depicting the virgin mary cradling jesus in her arms after his death. walked along the aisles, noting the gold plated decor around the altar, and took our seats in a pew facing a statue of juan diego.

neither of us had ever seen a statue of juan diego before. he was brown-skinned, with an image of la virgen de guadalupe on his tilma and a cascade of bright roses tumbling down from the image. olga thought his features more spanish than indigenous.

emerging from the dark church everything too bright outside, despite the overcast sky.

having foregone lunch, we were on a mission to find tacos. i am a taco snob. i have yet to find a place in the US where they make good tacos. they seem simple, and yet there are endless ways to not cook them well.

well. olga and i stumbled upon riko taquito in el centro and each ordered one taco de carne asada and one taco al pastor. washed them down with toronja soda in long-necked green bottles. and let me tell you, it was like happiness on a plate.

with our bellies full, we wandered among the throngs of saturday afternoon shoppers. at one point olga turns to me and says, "do you know what i love about mexico?" a million little things, i think. being able to blend in with people--not too short, not too brown. the rhythm of the afternoon. the tacos! the balloon vendors. the melody of language.

"what?" i ask her.

"the shoe stores!" she declares.

i laugh aloud and agree. there are rows and rows of adorable and affordable shoes at any given zapateria.

we ended our afternoon at a cafe, where we sat outside on a lovely patio. we treated ourselves to two cafe americanos and one shared flan while listening to american music humming through the speakers. "globalization," olga tells me, and i want to cover my ears (to avoid her comment, not the music).

we head back in the late afternoon, and miraculously find our way back to the border. no maps. just instinct. i was feeling very cavalier on the way back to the US, thinking that the border patrol would simply wave us back into the states. our border patrol agent, however, had other ideas. he asks the usual questions about our nativity and why we were in matamoros. "just for fun!" i say, flippantly.

then asks to see our IDs and runs them through the system. i'm dying to know what comes up on the screen when he runs my ID (crazy marxist academic?). he asks for us to open the trunk. i'm certain that he is impressed by my yoga mat and hand weights before he closes it and lets us pass. olga theorizes that we were victims of racial profiling (would they have stopped two blond women crossing back over?). i say it's because we're so cute! he clearly wanted us to hang out with him for a while. ;)

border troubles aside, there's nothing like an adventure with a good friend.

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for another perspective on this trip (and some cute pics), check out olga's blog.

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