Personal Crisis at the Border Part 2: Headed to Mexico
As for me, I am not glossing over anything. The bullet points for Mexican treachery are all true. It is a dangerous country. But highlighting the five worst attributes do not accurately define the place, unless the only thing you know about it are news headlines like, "CRISIS AT THE BORDER."
BLOG POST #010 - Personal Crisis at the Border: Headed to Mexico
How I learned to ride a motorcycle, speak Spanish and not die. Riding solo in search of adventure from Detroit to Argentina.
For the past year or so, there has been a lot of news about the "Crisis at the Border" and caravans heading toward the U.S. from Central America. My mom said to me recently that there were tanks in downtown San Diego. This was obviously a slight exaggeration.
While problems at the U.S./Mexico border are big, the hype is even more grandiose. I suspect it is the same as every other "snowmageddon" or car-jacking-trend news story I have ever heard. It usually turns out that there is a kernel of truth in everything they say. However, the situation on the ground is dead normal, for the most part. A caravan of immigrants coming toward the USA did happen. But that doesn't mean there are eight hundred beat-up school buses lined up at the border busting through padlocked fences to get in.
The COVID pandemic adds a sprinkle of madness to the headline zeitgeist of the day. There are huge battles in the U.S. media over forced vaccinations, the refusals to wear masks, and abudant conspiracy theories. People expect science to be perfect, but policy changes on the fly as new pieces of data become available. Every time the experts course correct, the public goes wild with disapproval and anger.
There are ten or twelve people in my own social circles that have died of it already. I have my own calculus on how I decided to travel at this time. But it really isn't ideal with borders opening and closing and entry requirements flip-flopping week by week. Thanks to my jolly refusal to heed sensible warnings, I put COVID into the category of, "Let's see how it goes."
I'll be passing right by the Alamo. Visiting this tourist trap seems like a useless exercise, which I'm going to do anyway. Then, just like I thought, I felt stupid for bothering to stop.
Riding is comfortable, but a little more scary than before. From outside of McKinney (in the north suburbs of Dallas), I rode through Dallas, down to Austin, detouring a little in San Antonio. I finally made it to Laredo, Texas. I liked taking it in three-or-four-hour, bite-sized pieces. Each stop broke up the trip nicely. I was still learning the technical skills of riding, tweaking my methods and my gear as I went.
I bought a burner phone and set up a location tracking app so my family could see where I was. I tuned-up and fixed a few things on the bike. I bought the right wrench for my back axle, in case I had to monkey around with the chain again.
Being in Texas, I have good cell service. It is all the same money here. I speak the language. I understand the road system and traffic laws. I don't need any immigration paperwork. And at any time, I am within a few hours of an airport where I can fly the ffffkkk home. This is still the easy part. So far, I have only taken baby steps, which has allowed me to focus all my attention on learning to ride La Barra.
As soon as I cross that border, the comfort zone falls away pretty quickly. Visiting Turkey back in 1999, I recall that the currency conversion was around three hundred fifty-two thousand Turkish Lira to one US dollar.
Never mind negotiating a cup of coffee costing "deux" Euros in France. Try understanding "four hundred seventy-five thousand Lira" from a shopkeeper in Cappadocia, pre-internet with no smartphone to look it up. I have no illusions about the challenges to come. Another time, I recall getting into a cab in Mumbai. This is always a leap of faith on the price they'll charge, on where I'll end up, and on whether I'll be killed by a head-on collision with a Brahman bull.
I know what it is like to be a foreigner and not know my way around. I usually plan for the obstacles ahead and work my way from safe-haven to safe-haven. But this trip is too long, too lonely, and too off-grid to plan just about anything. It is going to be one, long ad-lib of making it up as I go along, being smart, and hoping for the best.
I get comfortable in a Laredo Hampton Inn, and prep for the launch into the unknown.
It seems I have a ritual in my life. When I go through a big change, I cross an international border to cement it. A few days ago, I had a good and well-timed plan for riding into Mexico. But then I started to procrastinate, dodge and delay. I had an overwhelming mix of feelings about departure and loss and fear. I was well aware that I could use my U.S. passport to just turn around and come home the next day. But, for some reason, it felt like once I crossed over that physical barrier, there would be no going back.
Before leaving home a few weeks back, I had lunch with my best buddy, Rusty, at a Thai restaurant right by my house.
Rusty is a complex dude. Some people get old, but I don't imagine that will ever happen to him. He is in his mid-forties with the confidence of a thirty-five-year-old and the style of a twenty-five-year-old. His beard is precisely manicured, and he wears lots of logo or skate punk t-shirts. Someone less self-assured, or less clued-in, might be at risk of "too old to be wearing that." But he pulls it off with enviable ease. Rusty exudes cool like the member of a super-star mega-band getting his coffee at Starbucks that you don't quite recognize because he's only the drummer and doesn't really care to ever take center stage.
He is a top-notch writer, photographer and humanist. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of Eighties pop-culture, as well as Gen Z slang, and even knows the Mexican urban dictionary cover-to-cover.
Rusty and I don't actually have that much in common. But the things that we do share are so important that they bond us in a way that not many other people can relate to. We both have a talent for spotting truth among the chaos, no matter how far away or strange a place may seem. He and I love to find humor in the ridiculous — and there is plenty of it in the world. We both feel an intense moral imperative to help strangers along the way. We've both been picked up off of the ground and helped by strangers along our own way, as well.
Rusty and I are both comfortable with the whole range of human morality. We are eager to show kindness to the vulnerable, while also ready to show utter ruthlessness to the predatory, when called for. We can both be hotheads or a little reckless at times, but this is where the buddy system comes in handy. As long as we're not both issuing bad judgment at the same time, things tend to work out.
Both Rusty and I each live in our own certain places in our own certain towns. Yet we also wander freely anywhere and everywhere else in the world that we fancy. No one I know takes on adventure like I do, or travels like I do, except for Rusty.
The timeline was insanely short before my big motorbike trip. It was only around eighteen days from first thinking of the idea to actually leaving. Having lunch that time with Rusty was probably around prep-day fourteen or so, just before I took off.
By this time, Rusty was on board and trusted that I had a decent plan. If it turned out that this plan was horrible, I could just come home. So he was cautiously optimistic enough to not slash my tires, or lay down his body as a human-shield between my bike and the open road. I could imagine he might sabotage the trip for my own protection, if he felt it was necessary.
However, that lunch-time conversation was strange because I kept asking him over and over if he thought that this was a safe thing to do.
"No!" was the obvious answer.
We both knew that's not how this works. The trick is to never put myself in a position where I can't retract out of it again. I will have to constantly re-assess my surroundings and maintain line-of-sight to a clear exit, for wherever I am or whatever I'm doing. My safety is most dependent on my own behavior. There is no guarantee of anything. We know all too well that "safe" is an illusion at the best of times.
The safety conversation was very out of character for me. I often find that "safe" is a key indicator for impending trouble because it belies a certain ignorance or unrealistic binary on/off view of the world. It's just not that simple. There is a million miles of gray area between "safe" and "not safe".
Rusty was cool, kind and calm about my state of low simmering panic. But he was also quite perplexed why I kept needing reassurance, wondering what was up with my lack of confidence.
He knew I was extraordinarily well-qualified for this. I have been to crazier places and done stranger things. I've been hospitalized, had my life threatened, paid police protection bribes, been bitten / shit on / and stung, ripped off by the cabbie, sang "Eye of the Tiger" for a crowd of hundreds, was hosted as an honored guest by the mayor, failed, bailed — and ran away — all over the world, a thousand times.
Mexico is a dangerous place, for sure. However, in the USA, I find that we only hear about the bad stuff. This comes mostly from people who have never been there, other than vacationing at a barbed-wire, fenced-in resort or visiting an automotive factory for two days on business. People just don't know.
Even in passing social conversation, they say the worst things right out of the gate. Imagine meeting a guy at a party, and when he shakes your hand he says, "Hey, didn't you just crash your car, go to rehab for your addiction, and lose your job? I heard your wife left you for your kid's math teacher." Why would someone lead with that, upon introduction?
But, for some reason, when I tell people I'm going to travel around Mexico, they feel free to say, "Watch out for the drug cartels and human traffickers and corrupt politicians and poverty stricken banditos who will kill you, rape you, leave the toilet roll empty and STEAL ALL OUR JOBS." The fear and generalizations may vary, but the theme stays the same. People are scared of what lurks on the other side of the Rio Grande.
On the other hand, here in the USA don't we have school shootings, domestic terrorism, police brutality, racial strife, opioid addiction, childhood obesity, and don't forget a big ole riot at the capitol building a few years back? America is my home and I am very proud of it. But we've got our problems, too. Our place is not that good. These other places are not that bad, and it is definitely rude to shout about the worst things first.
The past spring, Rusty hitchhiked across The Baja Peninsula of Mexico, all alone. When he got home, he went to a Memorial Day party. Rusty told someone that he had spent the last forty days in Mexico.
The guy said, "I’m sorry."
Rusty finds it hard not to bite back at this kind of comment and assumption. In the end, he said something about how traveling in Baja was way more interesting and fulfilling than drinking the same crappy beer every weekend at a bonfire in your back yard. The guy at the party was duly offended, and all was well.
As for me, I am not glossing over anything. The bullet points for Mexican treachery are all true. It is a dangerous country. But highlighting the five worst attributes do not accurately define the place, unless the only thing you know about it are news headlines like, "CRISIS AT THE BORDER."
My parents are terrified. For the part that is a natural love for their son, I am just sad. I genuinely hate to stress them out. But for the part that is just gaps in their knowledge, or the idea that I shouldn't live my best life because it worries others — it makes me a little angry. In any case, it is all understandable and normal loving family stuff.
However, all of that is nothing compared to the legit haters. It dawned on me recently, that a small portion of my friends are just cynical. They insist, with a chuckle, that I'm going to get myself killed. It's like they follow my stories, hoping for my untimely death, with thinly veiled glee.
I realized that those front-row-life-hecklers were always there, and I just didn't give them a second thought. But as I nudged myself closer to the border on this trip, there was a strange cocktail of things clanking around my brain that made those voices of negativity hit home. I have mushy bike-wound scabs stuck to my shirt and pants. In the hotel, I ask around if there's a fee to get across the bridge to Mexico. But inevitably, some ignorant jackass goes off about gangs like MS13, ridiculous stories about the majority of "illegals" being on welfare, and the righteous certainty that it is so simple how one or two US politicians from the wrong party are to blame. Man, it must be so easy living in a world of clear good-guys and easily recognizable bad guys.
The hotel is full of officers from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, brought in from all over the country as temporary enforcement agents. This is quite scary. These guys are early twenties, lots of ex-military, without a word of Spanish language, or world experience, or a cross-cultural clue between them.
It reminds me of how we ordered teenagers to go all the way to Vietnam and shoot at people when we were never even sure which people to point the guns at. According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 33,103 American soldiers who were killed in that war were only eighteen years old.
Here in Texas, it sickened me to chat among these kids with guns and badges who make life and death decisions, giving me advice like, "Don't go. They're animals down there." I'm embarrassed to say that it is taking a toll on my normally impenetrable confidence and optimism.
I have a heavy heart thinking about my new empty nest life after my kids have finished school, my changing relationships, as well as my ending romantic relationship. There is a big, scary vastness that comes with such "freedom." Am I trying to steer into trouble? Am I walking into a wasp nest? (Yes, that is a reference to my famous African trauma involving an actual wasp nest. But that is a story for another day.)
Then, I turned angry. This is not me.
"Get out of my head, ayyyy-holes."
After the proper amount of psychological delay tactics, the time finally came when I just needed to cross the border to keep on schedule. I tend to get all of the emotional stuff out of the way BEFORE action time. True to form, the actual event itself was a stunning let down of non-drama. I paid my USD$3.50 and rode over the bridge. A disinterested Mexican border cop waved me past before I could stop, without so much as eye contact, or COVID temp check, or a request to see my passport. He was like the grocery store checkout girl and I was just another can of corn.
Swipe. *bleep*
It seemed like the hardest part about his job was switching hands in the constant "paso adelante" waving gesture backward past his ear when the one arm gets too tired.
It's funny how there are kiosks, a controlled area inside of razor wire, sniffer dogs, and a DEA auto-chop shop on the USA side. But on the Mexican side, anyone can come in with such utter disinterest from the authorities.
In fact the border officials forbade me from stopping. They wouldn't answer questions. They got a little agitated and told me to keep moving. So, off I went.
All that hype, and then here I stand in Mexico. There's no going back now.
I point La Barra towards Monterrey "¡Siempre al Sur!" and hit the gas.
The roads are good and my mind wanders. I am annoyed about the burden of love. I feel guilty that I have tossed aside my father's worry for my own selfish pursuit.
"Selfish" gets a bad name. But it is better than the alternative, which is "regret." I am determined to have a good death one day. I will not cheat the moment of my passing with longing for all of the things I didn't do. I will not go gentle into that good night. My life is not vague, not allegorical, not broadly viewed from afar.
It is now.
This motorbike journey I have taken was not a personal challenge. I wasn't running away from heartbreak. I didn't go away to "discover myself." I went because it was a Thursday, and I was able bodied, I was curious and ALIVE. I had the money to do it and thought it was a hilarious thing to say out loud: "I'm going to try to ride to Argentina." It was one part heroic and many parts moronic, or however you care to frame it, idolize it or condemn it. I just thought it was a cool thing to try. People were constantly pressing me for the deeper meaning, but it really was just that simple.
I hope that my loved ones can understand and rejoice in the adventure of what I am doing.
For those others who are entertained by the possibility of my failure — they are right that I could get hurt or worse. If that happens, I invite them all to dance on my grave and will request a competition-quality Cha-Cha hardwood for the top of my graveyard plot. I am completely sincere when I say that they may take superior, righteous, "told-ya-so" pleasure from my death.
If you are a cynic or pessimist who thinks you know better than me, then that is fine. Honestly, I'm good with it. Just please don't pretend that you have any idea what it means to really live — for even a single day — of my extraordinary life.
I'm done hearing you in my head.
The wobbles are gone now.
I'm back.
The Sergei of self-amusement, superhero landings, inside dad jokes, Red Wings hockey puck travel photos, El Doble, Juicy Fruit diplomacy, The Deadly Machaca, and "I Smell Adventure" is back.
One time, a friend said to me, "You're the only person I know who almost dies every week in some really interesting way."
To which I replied, "Yeah, but when it does finally happen — it's going to be spectacular."
(rage)
NEXT POST COMING SOON: October 23, 2024
