Has had a very long and tiring traveling day.

But has not traveled anywhere.

I spent the whole time a ranging a flight.  It seems that these days, you have to be your own travel agent.  Yes, flights are a little bit cheaper.  But I would rather pay a little more and have someone else worry about the details, instead of spending the whole day doing it myself.  I am worth more than $50 today!

Actually, I did use as travel agent to begin with.  But then I had to change my plans.  Although I did tell my travel agent clearly what my needs where, she gave me such a restrictive ticket that I could not reuse it the way I needed to.  It took half a day to bend the rules so that I could reuse the ticket.  It took another half day to figure out my various traveling options.  As it turns out, my travel agent was not available to help me out when I really needed her.

Next time, I will do it all myself online.  Last time I tried this, it took quite a while.  I thought a travel agent would be easier.  Today learns that it can be much harder.  I just have to learn how to be my own travel agent.

It is hard to find an experienced travel agent who can give you what you need, or so it seems.  Eventually, I should be able to sort myself out in less than an hour.

Unfortunately, between airlines, the complexity of the deals now available, and incompetent travel agents (I have dealt with a few such agents), travel agents aren’t worth much.  I think this is a great shame.  But it is the reality of travel today.

Still, and better off than attempting to read Thai at the Thai dictionary.  When I arrived at the airport in Bangkok, I called a hotel and attempted to read a phrase from a phrase book.  It came out his complete gibberish.  Probably, the man who answered thought I was drunk.  He hung up on me.  It took me a long time to learn how to speak any Thai at all.  And I had no luck using a Thai dictionary at all.

Spanish though, is much easier.  I will be able to read from a dictionary, when I learned how to pronounce the letters properly.  For example the letter “i” should be pronounce like an “e”.  This is very hard to get used to.

And training myself with flash cards and I made.  On the front of each card, I have the letter of the alphabet.  On the back of each card, I have the correct pronunciation.  The use my own phonetic system that makes sense to me.

After a few hours of drilling over a couple of days, and able to pronounce most so letters correctly most of the time.  What a difference this makes!  I find it and able to actually read words out of the dictionary, even though I do not really know how to speak any Spanish yet.

A return to my room with my bag.  I take a nice hot shower, using my soap, and my shampoo.  Then, I call my hair with the comb that doesn’t bend when I use it.  I have a shave with the kind of razor I like, and brush my teeth with a brush  and tooth paste that I like.  There’s more to the simple things and you might think until you miss them.  Nothing like a little traveling to appreciate small things like the comb and a toothbrush!

The first Internet Cafe I visited in Mexico was not a great experience.  For one thing, it was expensive and the keyboard was awful.  I have since found other Internet Cafe is that are much cheaper, and have much better equipment.  Still, using a browser in Spanish is very difficult.  In Spanish keyboard is very confusing for an English speaker.  It took me for ever to find the apostrophe for example.

The next time I went to an Internet Cafe, I used my USB key.  Before leaving for Mexico, I loaded it with portable apps.  It is possible to install software such as Firefox for browsing, and Thunderbird for e-mail, on a USB key.  There are several big advantages to this.  For one thing, all the software is an English.  For another, I can carry my shortcuts in my address book with me.  Another big advantage, his privacy.  All temporary files stay on the USB key.

On previous trips, I travelled for months even years without the benefit of e-mail.  It is really nice to stay in contact with people, both my friends at home and new people and me on the road.

A USB key brings us to a whole new level.  But the USB key into any computer, and within a minute or to have the familiar environment I can work in.  This makes it very easy to compose new e-mails while uploading my inbox.  Great for slow connections.

I find the outdoor courtyard very pleasant.  It reminds me of Thailand in a way.  Part of me wants to go back to Thailand and learn tie.  Part of the wants find it with this place is about.  Of course I am here so there is no decision!

I’m quickly learning how to get by in Spanish.  Already, I was able to ask for directions to the supermarket, and get some idea of what the response meant.  Then I saw some Americans walking down the street, loaded with groceries.  I clarified the directions from them.  Working in an unfamiliar language is like living in a haze.  Actually, more like a heavy fog.  I’m looking forward to the magic of comprehension.

I got basics such as oatmeal, salt, bananas, granola, drinking yogurt, tea, and a can of salmon.  Now that I have some basics to get me started, you not have to worry about starving to death!  To me, there’s nothing more uncomfortable than not knowing where to eat locally, or what might contain wheat leading to severe allergy symptoms.

The tea is not very good.  This is not a country that is big on tea, and the water is not that great either.  Still, it will wake me up in the morning.

The Americans told me that there is another store with much more variety.  I will shop there next time.  There’s also a local vegetable market, but I will wait until I know enough Spanish to tackle that one.

Meanwhile, I continue to await the arrival of my baggage.

I decided to change on the very few US dollar travelers checks that I have.  I accidentally signed the travelers check in the wrong place.  The woman watched me sign it and said nothing.  then wouldn’t accept it.  Also, she claimed she didn’t think the signatures matched.  Just being nasty and horrible, in my opinion.

So I took out of fresh travelers check, signing that in the correct place.  The stupid, nasty woman still didn’t think that my signatures matched.  I got seriously angry at her and ordered her to change the travelers check now that I had signed it.  Which he did, amazingly enough.

Meanwhile, no one will change the first travelers check which I had signed in the wrong place.

So, I Canadian travelers checks are useless, and I have very few US dollar travelers checks.

Meanwhile, I cannot find a single ATM in town it will give me a tacit vents on my Visa card.  TD-Visa is not a card to travel with, apparently.  I will have to wait until the banks open in a few days.  Has not yet paid the landlady the rent.  I’m seeking her waiting, until I can get a good reliable source of cash.

Went foraging for food.  Found a nondescript hole in the wall.  Somehow I had the feeling they would have good food.  Don’t know any Spanish, but through sign language I was able to ask her what she had.  It turned out to be a great slab of chicken breasts and bean sauce  -  it was so good!  The whole meal cost 25 pesos, or about half what raw chicken would cost in the supermarket in Canada.  And the chicken is of far better quality, tasty and tender, then you can ever get in a Canadian supermarket.

Gone is the desperation of not knowing where to go her what to eat.

I still do not have my bags however, and this is frustrating, annoying and inconvenient.  The phone number I was given at the airport is a message saying that all operators are busy, leave a message.  I doubt that will get me far, but I left a message anyways.  The owners of my guest house, despite the language barrier, helped me call Oaxaca Airport.  I then got a local number for Northwest Airlines, but it was too late in the day and they were closed.  I can try again tomorrow.

I’m in a much better frame of mind this morning, after a good night’s sleep, and a couple of chocolates.  One good thing about this expensive hotel, is it leaves cheap chocolates by the bedside.  I’m very glad of it now.  I would have eaten in last night, but I was worried that they may contain milk or other allergens.

This morning I had the patience to translate the ingredients of the chocolates word by word from my dictionary.  That was actually fun!  It is fun to use a new language which I am unfamiliar with.  Much easier than entire Chinese, which use a different alphabet in the first case, and a pictorial system which is impossible to understand in the second case.  Spanish is almost identical to English-if you compare it to Chinese!

The chocolates as it turns out, have no milk but do have almonds and cinnamon.  They are excellent!

Until my baggage arrives, I have only one cliff bar left.  I hope this will give me enough energy to fine breakfast.  At least tea or coffee should be easy to buy.

.  .  .

I’ve checked into several Spanish language schools in Oaxaca.  When I reached Vinigulaza, and you I’d found the right place.  The other two schools like checked out were OK, but it Vinigulaza I felt I was speaking to the owner, not to educational director.  At Amigos des Sol, it seems very sociable, but I couldn’t take it seriously.  I did not feel they were interested in being a language school, but rather language party.  OK for 20-year-olds, but this is not what I’m looking for.

It Vinigulaza, I asked some detailed questions about the language instruction.  I was referred to the language director, Enrique.  He spent a great deal of time with me, first explaining how they do instruction at the school, then about more general things.  I notice that the teachers seem to be a tight and sociable group.  It just feels comfortable.  I also like that they have no set activity schedule, they just making up as they go along.

Enrique showed me a home-hostile.  It had a damp room so I rejected it.  Then he showed me a small hotel.  It’s OK, not great but I’ll start here and see how I like it.  I can imagine better, but this is much much better, and much cheaper, and where I stayed last night.  Also, I can cook year.

Enrique also showed me a nice little snack place where I had a couple of corn tortillas with bean sauce and beef.  Very good.  He explained to me how to recognize the difference between weak tortillas, and corn tortillas.  Essential information to manage might weak allergy!  Pure corn tortillas are large and handmade.  Smaller, machine-made tortillas may, or may not, have wheat in them.  Weak tortillas are white rather than yellow.  I now feel fairly comfortable about finding weak free food in Mexico, or at least this region in Mexico.

After feeling totally stressed out about work, preparing for the trip, acting, and not sleeping etc., it was a big relief to actually be on the airplane sitting in my seat.  It’s always like this one way or another.  I always find getting ready for a trip very stressful.  The funny thing is, once I’ve worked out once and for all how to deal with one aspect to preparing for trip, next time I find a new thing to stress myself out with.  What’s up with that?

Anyhow, it would have been more of their relief if I wasn’t running on a sleek deficit.  And if Mexico seemed like an easier place to travel.  But for some reason, I was not looking forward to getting to the hotel, getting to the bus station the next day etc..

I did at least have someone nice sitting next to me-a Polish woman living in Detroit, and visiting 80 bracket male bracket friends in Mexico.

I didn’t have much appetite each on the plane.  I was to regret this later.  I change my plan en route, and instead of spending the night in Mexico City, I bought another plane ticket straight to Oaxaca.  The snake kneels very difficult, and in the end nearly impossible.  With a healthy supply of cliff bars, this should not be a problem.

But I had not planned on them losing my bag.  And where did I packed most of my cliff bars?  In my check in luggage.  That was a mistake!  Now what am I going to do?  I am very adventurous with foreign food, but being allergic to wheat, I cannot afford to take chances with food I do not understand.  The cliff bars were supposed to get me through that initial period, before I knew anything about the food, or could speak a word of Spanish.  But I only have a few cliff bars in my carry-on luggage.  Now I find, I do not have enough for the entire day.  Disaster!  Misery!

At first, the fact that my bag had not arrived it not bother me.  In fact, when I arrived in Oaxaca I was in good spirits.  Then I made my second mistake.  This is a mistake that shifted me from good spirits, to feeling down in the dumps.

I decided to use the phone at the airport to call ahead to hotels.  This way I can determine where I was going to stay, and get a taxi to take me straight there.  This did not work out as planned.  First of all, it took awhile to find the phone in a quiet spot.  Even then, quiet was a relative term, but at least it was quiet enough to bracket barely bracket use the phone.  The first few places I called were full.  So were the next few.  So to were the other hotels I called.  Going for more expensive hotels did not help.  Everywhere seem to be full.  I started to develop that sinking feeling.  Finally, I found hotel that had a room.  I didn’t ask the price.

By now, all the shared taxi said left.  He said is paying 10 pesos for the taxi, I had to pay 125.

The hotel looked nice on the outside.  Also, the lobby look very nice.  Be on the lobby was also nice.  It had better be at this price!  $75 is a lot to pay for hotel, especially in a supposedly cheap country like Mexico.  I’m beginning to learn that Mexico is not as cheap as I had thought.

I was not impressed with the room.  In fact, I hated it.  Noisy and dingy, it was hardly welcoming and certainly not worth the price.  For sure I will move tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I need to find food.

Walking the streets, I find it most places are closed.  It is just before New Year’s.  Not a great time to arrived in Oaxaca.  Everything is close, the hotels are full, and prices are high.  I am not a happy camper!  Although some eateries are open, I know nothing about the food, and have no way of knowing if dishes contain wheat or not.  I don’t know a word of Spanish.  Finally, I find a small grocery.  My options are limited.  With my Swiss Army knife packed in my lost bag, most cans are out of the question.  Finally, I find a can of fish with the pulltab lid.  Not exciting, but it will do the trick.  I eat it in my dingy overpriced hotel room.  Not quite satisfied, at least am not starving either.

Now I hit the streets to find a new hotel room.  I start with my first choice, the first place I called earlier in the afternoon.  Irony of ironies, they did have a room.  Somehow, they misunderstood me, or I misunderstood them on the phone.

Back in the hotel, I can so myself with the book.  And very glad that I have my head lamp in my carry-on luggage.  There is no particular reason for that, but it sure comes in handy now.  My dingy hotel room is awful for reading, but the head lamp does me good reading light.

So much for day one in one after.  Not a great start, but tomorrow will be much better.

The rooms are all of a good size - some are really quite large. All have private bathrooms and showers. There is a kitchen, so you can make your own food if you like. Breakfast is included in the rate. They are such wonderful hosts, that they even catered to my food allergies - they went out of their way to buy something special for me since I could not eat their standard breakfast! It is a good place to socialize because of the kitchen.

I stayed there around Christmas, and because hotels were full and because there is a lot to do in and around Merida, I used it as a base, and stayed at the Alvarez Guest House for much longer than I had originally intended.

They can be found at:
448 Calle 62 (near Calle 53),
Merida (Col. Centro).

Email them at casa.alvarez@hotmail.com