SERVICE WITH A SMILE AND A CAMERA

QUERETARO, MEXICO: MARCH 5
I rode the bike uptown to the Honda outlet for a 3000 K service. Rodrigo King is the man, speaks perfect English. He calls me to collect the bike around 5 pm. He has a couple of newspapers and a TV channel keen to do a story. Is that OK?
It is certainly OK. I have become accustomed to speaking in Spanish on camera. The questions don't change much. I wear my Alpinestars boots and top shirt and Honda give me a free service. Nice people...

A SHORT RANT

QUERETARO, MEXICO: FRIDAY MARCH 5
The Texas and Ohio votes were a disappointment to Obama supporters. I watched on CNN. Hillary Clinton made a winner's speech. Obama needed to counter-punch. What we got was niceness. Niceness is a loser.
Mexicans here in Queretaro with whom I speak want an Obama victory and expect his defeat. Defeat for Obama confirms their view of the US. This view is governed by their dislike of President Bush. Arrogant and ignorant are the first charges. Racist and prejudiced come next.
I point to two Black Secretaries of State, one a woman, and mention the huge amounts the US spends on Aid. Latin Americans counter with Iraq.
Panamanians believe that the US military killed 5000 Panamanians in arresting Noriega.
God knows how many Iraqis have been killed in arresting Saddam Husein and his clique.
The toll in Afghanistan is mounting.
Many are killed in aerial bombardment. Women and children are amongst those killed - killed from on high. These are the fatalities Latin Americans see on TV.
Collateral damage is the military description.
Both Obama and Hillary Clinton wish to end the Occupation of Iraq; as do Cliff Irving's good friends who were visiting Zihuataneje. Cliff's friends have printed camouflage T-shirts with the admirable slogan: bring 'em home.
I will try to post an address...

ONE FOR HAMISH - AND HILARY SUPPORTERS

QUERETARO, MEXICO: MARCH 5
At home, we have a Border terrier, Hamish. My wife, Bernadette, is in New York for a week. Hamish is looking after our youngest son. This photograph is for Hamish - and a comment on those who voted for Hilary Clinton in last night's Primary.

GOOD GIRLS DON'T SPEAK

QUERETARO. MEXICO: MARCH 4
A Municipal art gallery down the walking street from the Jardin de Armas is a magnificent modern space within ancient walls. I find an exhibition of communication in art on the left-hand of two mezzanines.
A young professor discusses communication with his students. He stands in front of eight small, unframed, oil paintings. The paintings hang in a horizontal line on a large white wall and are equidistant one from the other. The paintings could be arranged as a narrative: sea monster, sinking ship, telephone, satellite dish...
The painter has arranged them haphazardly - perhaps because that is the manner in which we are offered information on the web.
Haphazard offends one of the two male students.
The female students don't speak.
The professor is accustomed to their silence.
The female students are accustomed to communicating by cellular.
I apologize for intruding and offer my banal suggestion.
They seem bemused.
Silence is natural.
They have been silent throughout their education.
Sad that they haven't learned to speak.

OBAMA HAS THE LATIN AMERICAN VOTE

QUERETARO, MEXICO: MARCH 4
I sit on a bench in the Jardin del Armas this morning and listen with joy to a throaty Mexican Blues vocalist (female) accompanied by two guitars (male). A family shares the bench: two small children, mum and dad. Dad is a tall thin schoolteacher wanting to be a writer. Mum is a plump mum. Kids are well behaved. The teacher and I talk US politics. He is pro Obama. All his friends are pro Obama. Obama would be proof that the US can change.
Every Latin American with whom I have talked during the US Primaries has been a supporter of Obama.
CNN reports that the US Latino vote is pro Hilary Clinton.

GOTHS ARE WEIRD BUT OK

QUERETARO, MEXICO: MARCH 4
People in Queretaro dress for fun. Early evening and I sit a while in the Jardin Zanea and people watch. A pack of cowboy Goths pass, both sexes dress identically: black stetson, tight black sleeveless T-shirt, black stovepipe jeans, black boots.
Yesterday evening I spotted a real male Goth, streaked hair, white makeup, everything. He was crossing the road outside the Theater of the Republic. He swished as he walked, either deliberately overt Gay or acting Gay. He was with his sister and his parents. His parents appeared unperturbed.
Late, around 10 pm, I count eleven elderly men carrying guitars and either sharing a bench in the garden or chatting to each other on the sidewalk.
That is my view of Queretaro: a city of music, good people, not uptight; streets and parks are clean, architecture is the right size.

CNN ANTI OBAMA

QUERETARO, MEXICO: MARCH 3
I have a routine. I walk in the morning for an hour. Queretaro is great for walking. People are courteous and sidewalks are seldom crowded. My new laptop weighs little more than a book. It fits the hand well and is comfortable to carry. I find a coffeehouse in the cloister facing the Jardin de Armas and work three hours. I return to the hotel, connect through WiFi, post the new entries and leave the laptop on charge. I walk a further hour, visiting museums, galleries, sneaking into patios, doing my death trip in a church or two. I have found an oyster bar facing across Calle Corregidora to the gardens. I order the US$6 set menu: prawn cocktail, a red snapper off the grill and a flan. I write notes while eating, collect the laptop and finish off the battery a second time over coffee back in the cloister. Returning to my room, I post and watch the US Presidential Primaries on CNN. Why CNN? CNN is the only channel available on the hotel's satellite package. How is CNN reportage of the Primaries? A crafty assassination job on Barak Obama...

DEATH IS JOYOUS TOO

QUERETARO, MEXICO: MARCH 2
Queretaro has history. The Mexican Constitution was drafted here in the theater that witnessed Emperor Maximillian's trial. Today I visited the theater (a good building) and five churches, not grand but immensely beautiful.
What do I do in churches? I admire the architecture. I long for fewer and better statues. And I practice dying. Death is a Biggy. I am seventy-five. Death approaches. I need practice. Otherwise I will make a mess of it.
I sit in a pew beneath the dome. I rest my hand open on my thighs. I pray. My prayer is simple. I give thanks for the gift of life. I accept that I have abused the gift and that I have abused my fellows. I determine to do better with those talents that I have in the last few years of my life and to be more generous both materially and in spirit. I then consider my death. I think of death as joyous. Death is the opening of prison walls. The self is freed and can reintegrate with the Oneness. I used to be very careful to avoid the G word. Somewhere on this long journey, in some church up on the Alto Plano, I accepted that God was my Oneness by another name;
that I was being particularly childish in avoiding the word.
God is OK.
And I came to think of life as a rose. Death is the opening. The petals open and out and up goes the essence.
Hanging on to the ego produces a shriveled bud.
So there you have it: a personal view, probably pompous. Have no fear, this is a one off. I won't go there again.

GENTLE AND JOYOUS CITY

QUERETARO: MARCH 1
Morelia is a harsh city built to impress and subjugate. Queretaro is joyous. Only the paving is gray. Walls are deep rose, ocher and faded buttercup.
Lovely parks on the periphery are safe. Pedestrian streets connect four squares in the center. Cloisters of clipped trees surround the squares. Miracle of miracles, water jets from every fountain.
Late in the evening I share a wrought-iron bench in the Plaza de Independencia with two elderly men and listen to a guitarist and vocalist perform at a sidewalk restaurant. The vocalist is brilliant. I listen to two sets before guilt forces me to sit at a table and sip a cold Corrona. Guilt? Why is guilt so predominant an emotion? Catholic heritage is too easy an answer.

QUERETARO

QUERETARO: FEBRUARY 29
I distrust road signs. They abandon travelers at a critical intersection - or skulk behind trees that were fiercely pruned at the time of the sign's siting - or point ahead at a circle that has six exits. Hesitate and you suffer abuse by a hundred klaxons.
Queretaro is a joy.
Signs to the Centro Historico lead directly to the main square and the Hotel Plaza. I have ridden a half day and am exhausted. I shower, colapse on the bed and search for CNN. Mrs. Obama is my favorite non-candidate for the Presidency.

DELIGHT

ROAD TO QUERETARO: FEBRUARY 29
Lakes fill much of a valley. White houses spot a conical hill. The hill is an island. A dike carries the expressway. The Honda cruises at 90 kph on a perfect surface. Two grey heron play at sentry amongst patches of tall reed. Two lines of white pelican intersect to form a rightangle. Are they squatting on a fish trap - or on a breeding pen for talapia?

ROAD TO QUERETARO: FEBRUARY 29
I have been lost, since leaving Colombia, in a limbo peopled mostly by foreigners. I am miserable amongst foreigners: they are reminders of Bernadette and my sons. The sense of loss becomes almost unbearable. Today is joyous. I have rediscovered within myself that land through which I intended to travel and wished to travel: Hispanic America.
I stop beside a red 4x4 at a traffic light and ask directions for the road to Queretaro. I am lead through town to the expressway. I exchange cards with my guide: Eduardo Arredondo Gonzalez, Asesor Juridico. My thanks, Eduardo, for your kindness.
The sun is fierce on hills of harsh rock and dry dirt. In valleys gleam emerald oasis of rice paddy patterned with narrow canals. Those first Spaniards came from a similar land...Extremadura. As did the Moors...
Water is the treasure that toil with hoe and mattock husbanded.
Men are redundant now. Machines accomplish a centuries work in a few days.
In doing so, they bury memories of how it was.
How it was is the fascination – who those first Spaniards were and what they found.

EXECUTIVE PARKING

MORELIA: FEBRUARY 29
I wrote in the previous BLOG that Morelia is grand. The baby Honda slept in 17th century splendour. Early this morning I walked a while in search of breakfast and discovered a late 16th century car park.

TWO MORELIAS

MORELIA: FEBRUARY 29
Forgive me, Morelia. I walk your streets and sidewalks of gray pave. I try to admire your great buildings, gray granite, perfect in proportion. I am reminded of Scotland's oil capital, Aberdeen, cold in its Victorian grandeur, built to impress and dominate. I feel no love. This is Spain of the Inquisition.
I park the Honda in the patio of the Hotel Colonial. I find a restaurant on the main street. Downstairs is dimly lit (romantic?). I need light to write. A waiter leads me to an upstairs dinning room where I sit in solitary command of windows that open to the twin towers of the cathedral. Yes, they are marvelous, impressive, beautifully lit.
I take joy in another Morelia high in Spain's sierra Maeztrazgo. I visited on my return from Tierra del Fuego in 2006 as the guest of the city. We were celebrating the bicentenary of my Spanish great-grandfather, Marshal Ramon Cabrera, Marques del Ter and further enobled as Conde de Morelia for blasting a massive hole in walls that are now a national monument. Twenty or more of my Spanish cousins attended the celebration. I was required to make a speech. The Spanish are polite. People clapped.

HOLLYWOOD MEXICO

ROAD TO MORELIA: FEBRUARY 29
The temperature drops. I pull onto the hard shoulder and struggle into my leather bomber jacket. The expressway is a toll road. Vending machines at toll gates offer the only refreshments. I loathe vending machines; they swallow coins and don't deliver. Better leave the highway.
I ride into a small town. Streets are cobbled. The small central square is exquisite in its simplicity. Buildings are low; walls are washed in white and ocher and dusky pink and shaded by pantiled roofs supported on wooden pillars.
I inquire for a restaurant and am directed to a house where one long table occupies the front room. Lunch is bean soup and a slice of beef sweated with onions and chili. Three policeman join me. Family men in middle-age, they speak quietly and slowly. Perhaps they are corrupt - this is the Hollywood image. How would I know? I am merely passing through, grateful for company and grateful to be inhabiting a different reality to Zihuataneje.

GOOD RIDDANCE TO ZIHUATANEJE

THE ROAD TO MORELIA: FEBRUARY 22
I am free of 5000 words and free of Zihuataneje. The road is free of traffic - two hours of hills and villages and speed bumps to reach the expressway inland to Morelia. The express way is pure joy for a biker – good surface and no Topes. It climbs into pine clad hills. I recall the scent of pine tar high on the first pass at the outset of this journey – 2006 and the road from to Oaxca. I feared then that the journey would be too hard, that my heart would give out. The scent was a reminder of childhood at my grandmother's estate in the hills of the Scottish borders – a childhood that was a false beginning in offering a false sense of belonging. My Uncle Mark inherited the estate. He sold it.
This journey has replaced those old recollections. Pine tar is a reminder now of much of Central America – of riding in Guatemala one glorious morning down from Ash and Marcio's finca in Coban to Rio Hondo - of riding a full day on a dirt road through the forests of central Honduras, of horsemen picking their way between the pines and my thinking of Antony, my brother, it was his 75th birthday, and of the ride we never took, a ride that is impossible now, up through the tribal areas of Pakistan to Gilghit, Taliban territory.
Such memories are the gifts of this journey, gifts to be treasured in old age.

RABID IS OK IN A GOOD CAUSE

ZIHUATANEJO: FEBRUARY 24/28
Spring Break is here - I spotted a pair of kids in their early sixties jogging (slowly).
Cliff has friends staying. They are rabid ex meat eaters, rabid ex smokers. He is a rabid ex worker on Wall Street and rabidly political – a Democrat (Cliff doesn't do politics). They are fun people. Their conversation has care content.
Meanwhile Patty's is host to a yoga group; Patty is converting the flat roof into a permanent yoga floor; a workman is bashing concrete with a sledge hammer directly above the bar. I have written six thousand words and am out of here in the morning.

FINE STEAKS ARE RARE IN LATIN AMERICA

ZIHUATANEJE: FEBRUARY 24/28
Joe's father is an economist. His parents were Basque. He owns a furniture factory in Pueblo and exports to Europe. His girlfriend, Laura, owns a prettily decorated restaurant in Zihuataneje, JAROCHO. Joe and I drop by for dinner. I order steak. The steak arrives. A red hot grill has marked the outside. The interior is red. This is the first steak that I have eaten in a restaurant anywhere in Latin America that is cooked to my taste. And the prices are lower than those at the Mediterranean.
Joe has a Master's from Manchester Business School. He has been marketing his father furniture in England. Now he is set on playing the money market. He has been experimenting for a month and has made a substantial paper profit. He will begin operating with real money on March 1. He is a shrewed young man and may do well.
From JAROCHO, he drives me to a party at a friend's home. Thankfully the house is only a block from my posado. We sit in green plastic chairs beside a pool. I chat with a North American and his partner. Both she and he have blue eyes and gray, longer than shoulder-length hair – no beads. She touches him often - a sign of love – or ownership - or insecurity. They have ridden a Harley down from Montana where he works as a forester. He dreams of making the ride south to Tierra del Fuego. I advise him to use a different, lighter bike.
The party has shifted to monosyllabic by the time I leave.

WHY I DON'T FREQUENT BARS OR PUBS

ZIHUATANEJO: FEBRUARY 24/28
Cliff goes to bed early. We have taken Patty's daughter to dinner at the Mediterranean, an overpriced restaurant owned by an Algerian. Cliff goes home. The daughter and I head for a bar along with a Brit Mexican, Joe. Joe and Patty's daughter are late twenties. They have been friends for ever. I drink beer at the bar, slowly. The owner is a stocky young woman with a sour expression. Company is a couple of visiting jazz musicians. Their hatred of Latin American pop mirrors my own. Conversation becomes lurid around three in the morning. I am content to be an oldie and an onlooker. Joe drops me back at my posado around 4:30. We ate dinner at 6:30. I have drunk eight beers in ten hours. I am sober. And I have had a reminder of why I don't frequent bars or pubs.

MIS-SPEAKING

ZIHUATANEJO: FEBRUARY 24/28
I have a love/hate relationship with Zihuatanejo. Love because I feel young (I am the youngest guy on the beach); Cliff has freed me; I am working well at Patty's Beach Bar.
Hate because Zihuatanejo is an old people's holiday home for self-obsessed health-obsessed North Americans.
Ambulances are disguised, sirens forbidden.
Spanish is the few words visitors mis-speak to waiters who speak English.