1. (1) The Traffic in Mexico

2. (2) Toru's Way of Traveling Mexico

3. (3) Esperantists in Oaxaca

(1) The Traffic in Mexico

As well as "topes", army checkpoints set probably at every state border also stop the vehicles. However, these checkpoints not only make the vehicles stop, but park for a long time. I was stopped at the checkpoint almost every day between Tijuana, the Mexican border of California and Cancun in the Yucatan Peninsula. Usually I was allowed to go by merely answering to the question like "Where are going?" and "What do you have in the bags?", but sometimes the soldiers searched my bags. I was sure it would be OK, because I didn't have anything illegal, however, the conversation with the soldiers with a gun and in tiger suit was never comfortable. This checkpoint appears more often in the south of Mexico. A Mexican told me it is because lots of drugs are produced in this region. What hinders traffic is not only humans. The donkeys or horses on the roadside surprise riders. However, I didn't see any carcasses of those animals on the road. In Australia I saw a countless number of the carcasses of kangaroos or in times cows left on the road, giving a stench. I don't know whether there isn't any traffic accident with the animals or the carcasses are immediately taken away. What one has to pay attention is not only to the road. Some other time, a smaller bird like a crow flew out of the jangle on the roadside and it hit between the windshield and rear-view mirror. I gave it a ride for about ten minutes. When I had a glimpse of the bird in the closest distance, its face was extraordinary and awful.

In this way, one cannot go farther on account of various kinds of interference, although the roads themselves are good enough for a faster travel. The average traveling distance in the US and Canada was 500 km a day, however, in Mexico it dropped to 250 km. The road condition in Mexico has been much improved, but it is not as good as the road I rode in the US or Canada yet. Even on the good road in the US, one of the supporting rod of the windshield was broken by the vibration of the bike and I had to get it welded. In Mexico two of the four supporting rods, left and right, were torn away in a cobblestoned city on the east coast of the California Bay, across the tip of the Baja California. On the bumpy mountain road to Oaxaca, the support of the saddle bag that had been fixed before was torn away again. On the road like this Mexican drivers go crazily fast. In Mexico I usually rode at a speed of 90 - 100 km/h on a straight road without "topes", or 110 km/h on a road with a better condition. In spite of this high speed, most cars except the ones with some trouble passed my R1100R in a second in Mexico. Besides, the driving manner of Mexicans were worse than the Japanese, while the drivers in the US and Canada paid so much attention to safety that I thought it too much. Under this situation, there are naturally lots of traffic accidents. I saw lots of tombs, which had flowers to soothe the soul of the victims, on the roadside. The tombs were found more at sharp curves. A big truck rolled over at a curve on the highest pass of the Sierra Madre. It was, however, lucky that the truck didn't fall down from the cliff. On the top of the steep, rocky mountain near the border of California, at least ten vehicles, which lost control at a curve, were piled up on the bottom of the cliff as in a scrap-yard. How many people were killed by that curve? More tombs were found there. Knowing this, I took a leather riding jacket and pants, however, they were stolen in the Yucatan Peninsula.

To prevent the traffic accident like this, we have police cars or motorcycles on the road. Nonetheless, in Japan there are lots of policemen who misunderstandingly believe their duty is to collect a fine. It's the same in Mexico. In Mexico, however, there is a rumor that the fines go straight into the pockets of the policemen. When I had a motorcycle trip to Mexico seven years ago, I was stopped by the policemen three or four times a day in Mexico City. But they set me on my way, not fining me. During the six-month trip in Mexico of this time, I was stopped only once, but I wasn't fined. In this respect, Japanese policemen never wink at the drivers. I like those lovable Mexican policemen much more than the Japanese policemen. In Cancun and in Merida of the Yucatan Peninsula, I was riding slowly in the city center, looking for a computer chop. In finding the way in Mexico, it is necessary to ask at least five people. The decision should be made by majority rule. Even so, it often doesn't work. In each city mentioned above, a policeman on motorcycle caught up me, who was going slow. My heart missed a beat. But, in fact, each policemen in the two cities talked to me very friendly, and guided me, saying "OK, follow me then". It may cause a traffic accident to ride without concentration, paying more attention to the shops on the roadside. In this sense the two policemen made a good job. It is often said that the salary of the Mexican government workers are unduly low. However, they look happy. Not only Cancun and Merida, but also most cities in Mexico have a one-way traffic system. I was a little perplexed by the system when I experienced it in Montreal for the first time. But, as I got accustomed to it, I found the system is, on the contrary, better for riding. However, a long line of cars parked at any place occupies the roads in the downtown in Mexico. Mexicans are so anarchistic that they easily park their cars even in the entrance of a hotel. One day I had to move the parked car a little with the help of other two men so that I could get my bike into the courtyard of the hotel. It is OK to let the bike in, but it is a problem to let it out. At another hotel, I gave up getting out of the entrance and escaped from the back door through a narrow corridor. I found, later in Merida, the fact that the cars parked on the street were disappeared in the night. This is a country where theft and robbery are so common that a thief can take my bag from the bike in the presence of many witnesses at midday. Parking at midnight is out of question.

I heard from Bertha, the wife of Luis, an Esperantist in Acapulco, that the expense for the electricity of her home had been increased to ten times in ten years. Someone told me, although I hadn't noticed till then, that the price of gasoline had been also raised every month. The price was surely raised up to double in comparison with seven years before. It is almost the same as in Japan, which is one of the countries of the world where sells the most expensive gasoline. Yet, Mexico is one of the major oil producing countries. I asked the reason of the expensive gasoline to Mexicans many times. Everyone answered me it was caused by the mismanagement of the government. The toll roads in Mexico are as expensive as in Japan. During the journey around the US and Canada, I paid a toll of only 50 cents or 1 dollar for a bridge in San Francisco. After entering Mexico, I rode on some toll roads against my will for a while. Except the toll, everything is, however, inexpensive in Mexico compared to the US or Canada. The expense for hotels and meals are indispensable for traveling. The expense can be much less in Mexico, where cheap hotels charge only US$6 to 16 and a meal at a cheap restaurant costs $2.5 to 3.2. Nevertheless, I found later that my expense was not much decreased in Mexico. It was due to the expensive toll roads and gasoline that I unattentively paid every day. A toll road can be avoided because there is usually another free road running parallel to it, but gasoline is inevitable. I also resent the mismanagement of the Mexican Government. Mexico is the best country for a motorcycle trip unless the "topes" and expensive gas.

(2) Toru's Way of Traveling Mexico

Ten and a half months have passed since I started this journey from the north of San Francisco. During the period, I met Japanese young people three times, in Buffalo at Niagara Falls, Campeche in the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuernavaca near Mexico City. Though I believed the Japanese younger generation is as inactive as the dead, their eyes were glaring. In spite of their short trip, they had already become travelers. I was also like them when I was young. So, I could pick out their feeling at a glance. They were going back to Japan soon. I thought Japan might be OK for the time being, still having the young who go out to see the world with an unmanipulated mind. Travelers or the people who take a trip always exist and are the same beyond generations and beyond time. All of the young people whom I met had a Japanese guidebook "How to trot around the world". The content of the guidebook has been improved much more than before, however, it is still much inferior to "Lonely Planet". So I always use the latter. Because of this I have seldom met these splendid Japanese young people in my trips. I feel like getting the Japanese guidebook.

I have stayed in an ordinary home seven times during this journey. The first three homes were of my old friends whom I met in Japan -the home of Michael in Rohnert Park in the slightly north of San Francisco, the home of Kati's parents near Montreal and Tiffany's apartment in Dallas. Besides, I stayed a night in the places of the people I met on the road twice in California - in the home of Mr. & Mrs. Baker in Placerville and Michael Berghofer, a BMW rider in San Francisco. In Mexico two places - Billy's apartment in Beracruz and the home of Luis, an Esperantist in Acapulco. Sometimes I pitched a tent at the campgrounds in the US and Canada. In Mexico I always slept in a hotel.

When I wake up in a hotel in Mexico, I first of all smoke a cigarette to wake me up. I wash my face as other people do. On a day when I stay in a hotel, I next turn on the PC and listen to music. I use an earphone. The latest one of Sony is very powerful and of high fidelity. The classical music is good for the morning. But, I give up listening to music on a leaving day, because the CP is already put into the waterproof and shockproof hard plastic case and stored in the backpack, and the peripheral devices are in the main bag after being packed in the waterproof sack. For breakfast I swallow down the bread with Coke or juice that were bought on the previous night. Curiously enough, I then feel like going to the toilet. The final treatment is made by washing with a left hand in India, however, in Mexico it is done by using paper as in Japan. The used paper, however, mustn't be flushed away with the discharged substance. It must be put into a basket laid beside. It is believed that the drain pipe will be clogged by the paper. You may have a resisting feeling in the beginning, but once you get accustomed with this system, you feel a sense of committing a serious sin in flushing the paper away.

On the days when I didn't move to another place, I often went to see Mayan ruins. I made it a rule to visit the ruins, if possible, on Sunday. The admission fee is free on the day. When the bag or clothes are torn away, I sew them. Aside from it, I usually stay in a hotel room till evening to write emails, travel stories or to renew my Web site, listening to music. Doing so, I haven't had time to read books at all since the campgrounds in the Rocky Mountains. I hope I will be able to read in Guatemala where I will have more time. I go to a public phone house or a cybercafe after I finish writing emails or travel stories. The charge for a local call at a phone house is usually 25 cents per minute, and for a cybercafe US$1.2 to 2.0 per hour. There isn't a telephone in a cheap hotel, anyway. Even if yes, you can only receive the phone call, but rarely can call due to the only one line installed in the hotel. In conclusion, the telephone is not available for a PC. You ask the receptionist to connect the line with your room. He or she has never done this before and so it is never easy. Unless on a traveling day, the maintenance of the BMW must be originally done apart from the above mentioned things. However, the BMW is a really maintenance-free motorcycle and as a result very timesaving.

Anyway, it is naturally busy in the morning of a traveling day. I load the main bag, sub-bag and tank-bag, which were packed on the previous night, on the bike. Then, I put on the armor for riding. As an ashtray is not prepared in cheap hotels, I bought a small one. Finally, I get rid of the cigarette butts from the ashtray and put it into the side pocket of the backpack after washing. Now it's the time to go. Before leaving I smoke another cigarette. Smoking is inevitable to inspire myself for the dangerous trip.

I rode around 500 km a day in the US or Canada, however, 200 to 250 km in Mexico due to the obstacles like a "topes". The average speed is about 50 - 60 km/h, and traveling time is 4 or 5 hours a day. After riding more than an hour, I park the bike in a town or a village to smoke a cigarette with a pocket ashtray in the hand. In Mexico there isn't any place good for parking a bike on the roadside even if you come across a beautiful place on the way. Sometimes any town or village cannot be found during two hours. Or, even if found, there often isn't a place suitable for parking. It is very dangerous to keep riding without nicotine required for concentrating my attention. I cannot do without smoking because the brain demands it, however, I do without a lunch because the stomach doesn't demands.

Unlike a car, a motorcycle can be parked there. This sounds like there isn't any problem, but yes. In Mexican towns the streets have a high sidewalk. In times, it is as high as one meter. There will be no problem if only the curb is cut to give a slope to the sidewalk at the entrance, but naturally hotels are not designed only for motorcycles. So much the worse because most of the cheap hotels near the "zocalo" don't have the slope at its entrance. If on an off-road bike, there will be no problem, but it is absolutely impossible that a middle-aged poor rider with short legs can ride over the sidewalk by the BMW with a low clearance. On account of this obstacle, it takes time to find a hotel, even if the "Lonely Planet" shows cheap hotels with a map of them. Finally I find a hotel. I am eager to have a room on the ground floor because of the heavy luggage, however, downstairs rooms are often for two or three people and are around 30 % more expensive. I have to carry the heavy bags up to the second or third floor two times. The job doing only this is hard enough for me. If the hotel has beer, I definitely drink. It is not only because I am thirsty, but also because switching mind is necessary. Sweating a lot, I take a shower as soon as I go into a room. The bathrooms in Mexico don't have a bathtub, but only a shower. And, the shower often doesn't have hot water. Though I usually took a shower only every two days in Japan, I do almost every day on the road. My body is too clean now. During the first half of the trip in Mexico, I used to wash my clothes by treading on them under the shower and dry them on the R1100R cleaned beforehand. For the latter half, however, I found that in downtown there are some laundries where they charge less than $3 for the washing. As a result, I am liberated from the labor of washing. At the cheap hotels in Mexico a set of three items - a bath towel, soap and toilet paper, are laid on the bed or the table. If they are missing, I go to the reception and get them. Some hotels require the deposit for the towel. In a cheap hotel, however, shampoo and a razor are not given. The 180 ml shampoo that I took from Japan lasted for seven months. The razor still cuts after ten and a half months, probably because my mustache is not hard.

After taking a shower, I turn on the ceiling fan if it is a hot land. There is not an air conditioner in a cheap hotel. After smoking to thank the God for the safe trip, I go to a nearby general store to buy a pan and a Coke or something for the breakfast of the next day. If the cheapest Mexican alcohol "aguardiente" is running out, I also buy a litter bottle for $1.2 to $2.0. In this case a special attention must be paid. Like some parts of the US and Canada, it is banned to sell alcohol on Sunday at most stores in Mexico. I buy two cartons of cigarettes as well for $12 per carton, if they are also running out. In the case of the hotel without drinking water, I also buy a PET bottle of water for drinking "aguardiente" with water.

Finishing these jobs, I am now ready for the breakfast of the next day and the sleeping medicine for the night. It's the time for supper. Supper is indispensable, for lunch is always skipped. I go somewhere to buy something or eat at a restaurant near the hotel. Unlike the US or Canada, in the vicinity of a hotel close to the "zocalo" in Mexico, there are few supermarkets that sell ready-to-go food. If I find the shop that sells chicken barbecues, I buy a half of a whole chicken for about $2.4 together with a canned beer for about $1.0. Then I go back to the hotel. However, if the shop has tables, I finish supper there. For supper I sometimes eat only meat and onions, which should originally go for a "tacos", with beer at a stall. Otherwise, I have to find a cheap restaurant on the back street. Even if I read the Spanish menu, I can't imagine what kind of the food it is. If asking about it in my poor Spanish, the situation, I am afraid, gets worse. So, I order fish or shrimp, which are as expensive as $8, so as to maintain my life. If the restaurant doesn't have sea food, I have chicken as usual, or beefsteak. If with beer, I can survive anyway. On entering Mexico, I suffered from "tourist diarrhea". I am not infected by raw vegetables or see food anymore. The adaptability of human body is wonderful. I miss bars after supper. I wander around to look for them. Mexican bars serve only small bottles of beer. In times they have cans of beer, however, bottles are less expensive. A bottle of beer costs $1.0 to $1.2. I feel easy there unlike in Japanese expensive bars. I usually go back to the hotel after drinking one or two bottles. When I can't find any bar in the neighborhood, I buy around two cans of beer and drink them in the hotel room. As I feel guilty in only drinking, I take out the PC and listen to music first. There is naturally not a TV in a cheap hotel. Jazz is good for the night, however, Mariko Takahashi is the best. Listening to the music, I keep a diary. I have rarely kept a diary in my life, but I stared it for this journey. The next is my true job. To begin with, I pour the "aguardiente" into a glass with water. Taking a sip of it to warm me up, I get the information, if it is the previous night of moving to some other place, about the destination and the hotel of the next day from the "lonely Planet" and the 1992-year map that I used for the trip in Mexico seven years ago. Otherwise, I write emails. After finishing it, I begin to write a travel story. It is usually past twelve then. And, it is often two or three in the morning when I finish writing a part of the story that I want to write on the day. If on the previous day of departure, I finish writing earlier and pack the things so that I can leave the hotel at any moment next day.

Till this time, the "aguardiente" has taken some effect. I am now ready to go to bed. I brush the teeth. The toothpaste of normal size lasted more than a half year. Last of all, I take the contact lenses out and put the room light off, leaving the light in the bathroom on so that I will not kick something and fall down in the dark for pissing in the night. The dim light from the bathroom is the best for sleeping. I have stayed in a hotel without a bathroom several times. I now think the room must have a bathroom at least. Once I drank too much on a chilly night in a highland, and I had to go to the toilet several times. I hated the job of locking and unlocking the door in the dark of the night. After lying on the bed, the resonance of the song by Mariko Takahashi is still in the ears. To finish this, I keep listening to music by the Sony micro-radio for a while if a FM program can be received. A day is over in this way.

By the way, the average expense for the trip in Mexico was around $50 a day, excluding the expenses for the PC, for the first two months, and $27 for the latter three and a half months as of today. For the former period, a lot of the expenditure in Cancun raises the value up. The expenditure for the latter period is as I planed. My traveling expense and health are both good. I will be in Guatemala soon. I hope the expense will be decreased to less than a half there.

(3) Esperantists in Oaxaca

At nine in Sunday morning, Aurora came to my hotel in her red Volkswagen to pick me up. She was a tall woman with dark hair. In the car there was her brother Alejandro. He was also an Esperantisto and a university student who majored in medicine. The car sent Alejandro to the house of his aunt and kept going through the streets in Oaxaca. When we arrived at another house, a young man appeared from the house. He had a long length of rope in his hand. Aurora introduced him to me as her fiance Igor. Unfortunately to me, she was also engaged as Leonora in Mexico City was. The Volkswagen with three people kept going to the suburbs and finally got into a dirt road leading to a rock mountain. The sport she told me was found to be a rock-climbing. When we arrived at the rock mountain, around ten rock-climbers were already there. Some of them had come from the capital, eight hours away. The cliff of the rock mountain was steep with a vertical angle of almost 90 degrees, and had a smooth surface without holes for climbers to support their body with hands or feet. That was just like the climb up the outer wall of a high-rise building that I had seen on TV before. Furthermore, a part of the wall was a overhang exceeding 90 degrees. Igor rapidly climbed there with the rope in his hand. I also put my fingers on the hole 1 cm wide at the lowest part of the cliff. It was never possible to climb. On this cliff Aurora also climbed. I saw a rock-climbing for the first time in my life. I couldn't believe men can do this kind of thing. It was indeed a hard sport.

Three of us went to Aurora's home after the rock-climbing. Aurora's mother welcomed me. The mother had the same name as her daughter. The names of Leonora in Mexico City and her mother were also the same. In Mexico, mothers often give the same name to their daughters. I asked if it is not confusing. The answer was that they slightly change the ending part of the name. When I was going into the house, the first son Leandro came out of the door. He was also a young Esperantist in his twenties. In the house, then, lived the three Esperantists and their mother. Those three people were such ardent Esperantists that they organized a secondary convention in Oaxaca after the 5th Esperanto Convention of All Americas held in Mexico City last year. Leandro was also engaged. He and I went to the apartment of his fiancee Maila by the old Volkswagen of his mother. This car, which heroically acted in the movie of Walt Disney's "Love Bug", was still very popular and boastfully going in the roads in Mexico. As I don't have a car license, I don't know well about the quality of the car. But, I like its characteristic form of semicircle very much. Leandro works in the same department of urban planning or something in the municipal government of Oaxaca as Aurora does. He is an architect. To prepare the marriage of the next year, Leandro bought a new house. That day he had an idea to have a barbecue party with his mother, fiancee and me in the new house whose construction was almost finished. The house was, I thought, too big for the two people to live. He told me it cost US$160,000. In Japan the house like this never can be bought for that sum of money. The house had a backyard and we made a fire with wood charcoal to barbecue meat. It was very delicious.

The Thursday intermediate class had more members. Four women and four men came to the class. Among them three women and one man were young students. Xitalli was 17 years old, Giomar was 22 and Gaby was 26. The three were all beautiful women. Among others, Gaby, who was specializing in linguistics at a university, was not only beautiful, but able to speak German, French, Italian and English. I don't know the age of the other young man Octavio. The fourth woman Rosa was also attractive. She comes to the class with her husband Carlos. In Japan, I have never seen a married couple who learn Esperanto together. I heard that usually three more people join the class and the class have 11 members in total. I really envy the class, because in Osaka Esperanto Society we always have only several participants in the weekly meeting, while there are more than 60 members. Besides, the members are young in Oaxaca. Although young Takahashi, a 3rd-grade student of junior high, newly joined Osaka Esperanto Society, this is a very exceptional case for our society, which unfortunately has few young members. I spoke about my journey also in the Thursday class. The class of about an hour seemed to be finished in a minute to me. I felt I wanted talk much more.

Oaxaca is an old city in the south of Mexico. In the city there are Aurora and her two brothers who are all active Esperantists, and in the classes that Aurora teaches more young Esperantists are growing. I had a little worry about the future of the Esperanto societies in Japan, where the members are getting older and older, especially about that of Osaka Esperanto Society. But, I found a little hope in Oaxaca and met the young people who have great "esperance".