Clever Cartoons from Elisa Julia

On my travels, I met this amazing young Spanish woman named Eli.  I swear part of me fell in love with her the moment I met her.  Here are other blog posts that mention Eli if you want more of a back-story: 2012 and Spaniards. Anyway, I wanted to share some of her amazing work.  I hope you like it and if you do you can find more here: Mon de Mones.

 Here, put on grandfather's clothing.  The tourists are almost here!

I only wanted one little caramel...

Son, one day this will all be yours

This one is my favorite.  It has no caption but I will briefly explain.  These are all people on their way to work waiting for the bus reading a beauty magazine, travel magazine and car magazine.  They are all on their way to work so that they can purchase things in the magazines like vacations, cars, products etc.  It's a statement on being here now and also consumerism.

I really love her work because in addition to being very talented she has a message of environmentalism and the dangers of consumerism in her cartoons.  

To travel young and poor vs. old and rich

I was speaking with a male friend regarding my travels and how I wanted to see so much more of the world within the next few years.

He said, quite logically and practically, that he would like to wait until he was older and established financially to travel.

"In your 20s you can pull off the all nighters.  Your mind and body are prepared for it.  It's your 20s that you should work really hard for what you want.  That way, when I'm older I can travel anywhere and not worry about money or having a home.  I will already have all those things," he says.

Happy Travels!  Monument Valley, Utah

His argument makes sense.  My parents will agree with it; career counselors would approve and my resume would look better if I thought that way too, but I don't.

Here's why:

1. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
2. If it were guaranteed, one must remember that travelling has the capacity to change your perspective and open your mind A LOT.  When you are young your mind is still in formation about many opinions you may have and thus willing to adapt more to the culture around you.  You can accept a growth in perspective more easily than when you are older.  Furthermore you potentially have more years to live with this newly acquired wisdom.
3. How are you going to surf the huge waves of Puerto Escondido or climb up the highest pyramid at 70 years old?  Perhaps you will have amazing genetics and take really good care of your body and be able to do so , but again that is not guaranteed.
4. There is so much of this world to see like South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and everything in between.  You should get started now.
5. Traveling with little money is fun!  You get to know the country more because you have more interaction with the people.  Sure, when you are rich you can stay at the five star hotels and be pampered, but you'll likely only take the safe tours with other tourists and shy away from meeting the actual people of the country because you're older and perhaps more fearful of the native people taking advantage of you and stealing your retirement funds or identity.  When you're young you have a lot less to lose so you stay at a hostel, meet other travelers and get the low down on the next places to visit on your adventure.  It's a far more communal atmosphere that lends itself to meeting new people from different places.  Traveling from place to place for cheap means you get to travel with the people of the country and observe their culture in public settings.  When you have the money to, you may be more inclined to take taxis and thus isolate yourself a lot more.
6. It's a scientific fact that one can learn new things such as languages faster as a younger person than as an older person.

Another aspect I factor into this conversation might as well be another blog post all together but I'm a woman, and as such I feel like I only have a limited amount of time to myself and to be completely selfish before deciding to start a family.  I only have a certain time frame in which I could physically have children so I don't have the luxury to put off things like backpacking the world until I'm 70.  I might be a grandmother then and perhaps not free enough to take off for a year on an adventure.

For the record: I have met plenty of older retired people traveling and they have told me to travel as much as I can when I'm young but they definitely seem to be enjoying their trips quite a bit and now can treat a young traveler like me to breakfast for conversation.  :)

Carnivorous Ladybugs and Hope for the Young Women of Mexico

“Did you know they’re carnivores?”

“Really?” I say while staring at a ladybug that fluttered right in front of me only to land on this gorgeous Agate necklace I was eying.

“They are good luck,” says the brown skinned woman in front of me.  She is younger, in her mid-twenties maybe, short and a little stocky.  She’s pretty with lovely cheekbones and thick black hair framing her face and falling to her mid-back.  She pulls out a bracelet with a coconut shell pendant that has the Om symbol on it.  “You seem like you’d like this,” she says.

I laugh, “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know, something about your vibration…” she says.

I like her almost immediately. Not just because she’s flattered me, I know she just wants to sell me things and of course she’d pull the Om symbol for me.  I’m wearing a red silk string around my wrist with a Chinese white jade pendant on it.  My hair looks like the wild man of Borneo from the fun little bike ride I just had and I’m wearing a simple black tank top with rolled up jeans.  The Om symbol is probably a very likely guess for the skilled eye.  I know flattery is her expertise but it’s more that.  I like her.

We get over the basics about where I’m from and how I came here alone.  She is surprised that I’m biking on these “dangerous streets” and says I’m brave and I think to myself: if she only knew what biking at rush hour in Chicago was like.  I tell her about the places I’ve visited so far on this trip and how when in a new place I always try to ask the women for directions as a means of engaging them and seldom often do they even answer.  Sometimes they avoid eye contact all together so I won’t talk to them.  I’ve learned if I need directions in this country I need to speak with the men.

I told her about when I was in this little indigenous town near the ruins I asked a lady selling Mexican sweet bread for a recommendation as to which bread to buy.  She shyly nodded her head no, as though she had no idea which bread was good.  I told her that I was a non-discriminating bread lover and would love whichever one she recommended regardless.  She still refused to recommend one and barely spoke to me.  I knew she spoke Spanish because I had heard her earlier with one of her daughters.  I was puzzled as to why she wouldn’t speak to me.

“Yes, some women around here are like that.  They don’t feel comfortable speaking with strangers or are afraid to.  Some don’t think it’s their place to do so either.” She says.  “Not me though, I’m free.  I don’t have a husband telling me what to do and I have no children. I can travel and save up money and learn about the world by meeting people like you.”

“It’s so nice to meet a young woman who is independent and travels and has opinions and speaks up.” I say. 

“It’s good to be open, take advantage of traveling while you can, I really miss it.” She responds.

Of course, I ended up buying the necklace, two actually, and the Om bracelet.  I wear it every day, to remind me of her.  She gave me so much hope for the young women in Mexico.

Existential Crisis #75

“What’s the meaning of life?” I asked Angel over breakfast.

He laughed so hard he had to excuse himself from the table.  I started blushing, partly out of embarrassment for having asked such a “loaded” question and partly because there was so much truth in that moment.  The moment where I ask a question that philosophers dedicate their lives to, human beings try to grasp even slightly so that they can feel some comfort in knowing their lives are worth something, or the question that monks meditate over their whole lives on and my Mayan friend is away from the table on the beach just laughing at the joy and absurdity of it all.  Is that an answer in itself?  It might be.

He returns to the table holding his stomach and says, “It just is.  It’s this…” as he opens both hands and lifts his arms over his head gesticulating to our surroundings.  Okay, fine.  I can deal with the meaning of life being eating fresh fish on this gorgeous virgin island with the sound of the ocean and the warm sand caressing my feet forever, but let’s face it, I live in Chicago.  Does that mean that my meaning of life is trying to get from point A to B without freezing off appendages and constantly cursing myself and my family for living somewhere so cold?  That sucks!

“I can’t tell you the meaning of life because each life has its own meaning.” He says.  I nod, slightly annoyed.  “It’s just that I came here and it’s been amazing being here and tasting life in paradise and a part of me really doesn’t want to leave.  I feel happy here, but then if the meaning of life is to find happiness then why do I feel so obligated to go back, like this type of life is too good for me?  Or like I have to go back to the real world because this isn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” He says.

Neither do I.  

What do you think?

P.S. Of course we eat fish for breakfast in paradise because it's paradise and the fishermen bring in their bounty in the morning so its the freshest way to start the day.

Conversations with the Maya: 2012

My favorite Mayan site: Yaxchilan

"Hola Yenni!" A bicycle zooms past me as I walk back to town in the dark.  It´s the fisherman I met earlier that day.

"Whoa you scared me!" I exclaim.

"Haha, I know. That´s what I do." He says chuckling as he rides away.

I was on my way back to town after having visited a friend of a friend who lived on the island.

"You have to meet Ángel.  He knows so much about the Maya.  You two would have a lot to talk about."  Eli told me the night before I decided to spend my final days in Mexico on this tiny little island called Isla Holbox.

She had told me where he worked so I decided to go and introduce myself to him.

"Hola, is Ángel here?" I asked the waiter in the crisp white dress shirt.

"Yes, in the kitchen, just one moment."

A few moments later I see him.  He doesn't look like a shaman's son who has the answers to all my questions about the Maya.  Instead, he looks like a Rastafarian.  He has three long dreads in the back of his head while the rest of his hair is black and wavy.  His eyes look peaceful and sleepy with an inverted moon-like shape.  His nose gives away some modern day Mayan blood and he wears a fitted beige long sleeved shirt with slightly loose jeans.  He is younger than I thought, not much older than me, late 20s maybe.

"Hi, I'm Yenni.  My friend, Eli, told me I'd find you here.  She said that you know a great deal about the Maya, and I'm really interested in the Maya.  She thought it would be a good idea if you and I met."

"The Maya...What in particular interests you?"  He says while examining my face.

I had not anticipated this question.  In fact, I really hadn't thought about before coming here.  What was I thinking?  I felt so unprepared and I could feel him studying me. How often does some random American woman come to this tiny little island and look for some stranger they don't even know to ask about the Maya?  Am I crazy?  Then, on top of it, not even know what questions to ask.

"Well, everything about them interests me.  I think I am most interested in their spirituality and the Mayan calendar, the Tzolk'in." I finally say.

"I see; how long are you here for?"

"Three days."

"That's not a long time.  So what do you do?"

"I'm a writer and a traveler at the moment.  I live in Chicago."

He nods his head.  "I have to get back to work," He says glancing at the couple that just walked into the restaurant. “Come back here around 10p.m. with specific questions and we will discuss them then.”

The ancient Maya had interested me for many years.  I was intrigued with their society since studying them in anthropology classes in college.  So many things about them fascinated me: their mathematical advancements at such an early time in human history, their incredibly specific and accurate calendars, their astronomic knowledge, and their expansive civilization and modern day ruins.  They were amazing architects that were in tune with their environment and the Earth’s cycles; so much so, that they implemented many of those elements into their architectural design.

Chichen Itza

Four years ago I found myself around these parts of Mexico.  I was twenty-two years old and fresh from just graduating college.  I had planned a backpacking adventure for myself through southern Mexico, specifically the Mayan route.  I’d visited more than a dozen ruins, studied their architecture, and was wowed by the expanse of their empire.  I would spend all day at different sites noting the difference in the designs, in the Gods worshipped, in the purpose of the site.  I imagined women and men in white terra cloth trading jade and quetzal feathers.  I would envision the pyramids as they once were: colorful offerings to the Gods.  I could almost smell the copal incense smoke and see the turquoise stones ornamenting the figures of Chaac on temple walls.

Here I am again in the lands of the Maya.  I can’t seem to escape this region.  My dreams are cloaked in Mayan hieroglyphics that I can never decipher.  Were the books burning?  Did I forget the language?  In my dreams, I catch glimpses of memories I think are mine, but never quite sure.

Come back with specific questions.  His voice kept repeating this in my mind yet it was nearly 10 p.m. and my mind was a mess of Mayan words and symbols.  It was as though my head had shifted from this compartmentalized notion of a people to a hodgepodge of random thoughts fluctuating from the symbolism behind one particular God to the pronunciation of the word ‘corn’ in Mayan.

Questions..questions…so many…like where did they go? The ancient Maya are rumored to have just vanished suddenly.  Why do I feel so sick whenever I go to Chichen Itza? How did they view time? What was the obsession with the jaguar?  What did the women do in society? Why am I so obsessed with them?  Why do I keep coming back here?  Out of all the places I want to travel to like India,Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, China, why do I come back here? What is it about this place?

The time had come and I started walking back to the restaurant.

“Yenni!”  a golf cart zoomed past me.  It was Ángel.  What is it with these people and scaring me like that?  I thought to myself as I got into the golf cart.  He takes me to the beach and we sit on these chairs that lean back towards the sky.  We have a perfect view of the stars.  

“I thought about my questions,” I said.

“Good.” He replied while lighting a cigarette.  There was something about him next to me that made my mind go blank.  It wasn’t anxiety, in fact, the exact opposite of that.  My mind had turned from a hodgepodge mess of God knows what to an expansive emptiness of nothingness and tranquility.  I stared into the stars looking for words because it had seemed that the ones I had were stolen from me or lost somewhere in that moment. 

Ángel took a long drag from his cigarette and stared into the stars as though expecting nothing from me.

“Tell me about you, how do you know so much of the Maya?” I asked thinking that this question might remind me of my own.

“I am a native to these lands.  Not this island in particular but not far.  I grew up in a Mayan town here in Quintana Roo,” he said.  “My father knows many things and my aunt is a curandera and heals patients with plants and herbs.  She has taught me many things, as my father has.  We lived near many ruins and the jungle.  Our town has always been very peaceful, looking to nature for answers rather than science.  People in my town don’t go to medical doctors when they are sick; they go to my aunt." 

"I have studied with many medicine men and learned as much as possible about the curative properties of plants as well as other things…” He looked away from me and back at the sky, “We spoke Maya at home, a language that has afforded me many lessons from the shamans in my village and other Mayan villages.  I have learned from those men who still keep the count in the Mayan calendar.  Unfortunately, my town is not so small anymore and much is being forgotten.  No one cares about the teachings anymore.  I fear they will die unless the young people come together to help preserve them.”

“What will happen in 2012 when the long count Mayan calendar ends?” I ask.

He took a long sigh.  “I cannot tell you this.  I do not know, what I do know is that the Maya have had four such endings before in the Tzolk'in.  They symbolized an ending to their worlds as they were but not an end to the world as a whole as many people say.  After all, we do know the Maya persevered and continued recording their history.  In many ways, the endings are symbolic of a specific age for them.  They utilized astronomy a great deal in this calendar.  There will be a cosmic event occurring on the 21^st of December in 2012 that is rare and has not occurred in a very long time.  Many of my teachers have said that this event will pave the way for the feminine within the earth to assume more power.  The feminine, after all, symbolizes nurturing.  Women feed the children and care for the families.  Many teachers say that this is necessary because the Maya regard the Earth as a female deity since she does many of these things for us: feeding us, clothing us, nurturing us...and now she is threatened by pollution and man is no longer in synch with her.  She must regain power.”

Caracol

“Remember though, Yenni,” he said, “To the Maya, time was always cyclical and not linear like it is in our society. That is why in Chichén Itzá the observatory from which they observed the stars was called ‘caracol.’” ‘Caracol’ means spiral Conch shell. Its shape can be best described like a snail’s shell. “Their sense of time had much to do with the stars as did their calendars. The caracol was sacred to them because of its shape.”

I stared at the stars wondering if this was the same sky the Ancient Maya looked at. “It’s getting late,” he said, “how about we continue this conversation over breakfast tomorrow?”

Happy Alone

Call in the airstrike, tell them to make the drop
initiate a cycle no-one but you can stop
Would it be fair to say that you're in love with love?
And is that enough?

I bet you feel really potent stuff
the shadows of doubt on how things turn out
are typically gray

But even the stopped clock on the wall
is right two times a day
and it's still enough

Just how much distance means we're on our own?
and can we be happy
Happy alone?

The universe opens up the door
and we go right in, it's there, it's new, it's cool
it's something we ain't seen before

And five minutes in
an egg timer rings
to clip off our carefree flapping wings
show us the things we can't afford
and throw us overboard
but it's still enough.

Just how much distance means we're on our own?
until i see you off at home
down the sidewalk in my head
I might be sinking like a stone
but perfectly happy
just openly happy

In my home, I've always known
I gotta be happy alone
so burn the mail, destroy the phone
yeah, I'd wanna be happy alone
the moving sky, the rocks below
All so perfectly happy alone

Our little hearts have turned to stone
I'd better be happy alone.

Asking, Receiving, Appreciating

It is my first day back in Chicago.  Apparently we are bracing ourselves here for the worst blizzard since 1967.  What a nice welcome home!

There are so many stories from Mexico yet to be written on this blog regarding lessons learned, people met and places seen. 

I want to take today to be grateful for having the opportunity to have this journey and thank all of those who read about my adventures along the way for reading and fueling my desire to document my adventures.  The following are moments I had that prove the Universe listens and sometimes really helps you out.  It is my form of saying thank you to everyone who helped me out along the way.

1. I don't have enough money for the cab to the airport. It was 3:30a.m.  My flight was at 6a.m. to Chicago.  I had checked into this hole in the wall hostel just to have a bed to sleep in for a few hours instead of spending the night at the airport.  I had planned on taking a public bus to the airport which would cost $40 pesos.  I had budgeted the last of my pesos for the ride.  I forgot to think about the fact that I'd have to leave so early.  This was Mexico, not Chicago and public transportation isn't 24 hours.  A cab would run me $200 pesos.  I am in the hostel lobby trying to figure out if there is an open ATM around here when the owner of the hostel who I had told of my dilemma hands me another $100 pesos (I had $100 myself).  It was such a random act of kindness that I was truly touched by it.

2. It's our treat.  Along the way on my travels I was treated by family, new friends and random strangers I had just met to a plethora of food, places to stay, water and drinks.  Americans have this idea that they are Mr./Mrs. Money when they travel to Mexico.  You should see them.  They travel with their secret money pouches they wear under their clothes, they are weary and suspicious of the local people or of the cost of things.  They are incredulous sometimes and think everyone is a thief or scam artist trying to get their precious dollars.  I let some new local friends buy me a beer or my lunch.  It wasn't about money, it was about humility in a strange way.  To be able to share your culture and home with someone else is a beautiful thing.  Thank you to everyone who offered anything to me on the journey.

3. Just ask the universe! "I am exhausted, it's getting late. We should leave here.  My legs feel like jelly after climbing so many pyramids." I say to Gibran.  "Me too.  I feel so hot too.  It's so sticky, I wish it would rain." He replies.  Just then, as though Gibran had commanded the sky, we feel rain drops on our sticky skin. 

"Man, I want to leave because I'm tired but only regret not being able to see any monkeys."  As though I had commanded Mother Earth, we heard a rustling in the leaves.  "Oh my God!  Look they are spider monkeys!!"

The rest of the day Gibran and I practiced with the universe.  In Mexico there aren't as many gas stations and seeing as we were in the middle of the jungle and almost out of gas we did a lot of praying to the universe that we would make it out to the next town two hours away.  Miraculously we did.

There were quite a few more close calls like this dealing with making my bus when running really late or being able to stay at a hostel or hotel that is nearly sold out.

4. Thank you!  When you are in desperation, wondering if your car will make it out of the jungle or if you will make your next bus to the next town so you can meet up with someone it's very easy to remember to pray to God, Buddha, Shiva, Jesus or whoever you pray to. It's a slightly different story when you are sitting in paradise without a care in the world.  I was grateful to the Universe often and powers that be for allowing me the special moments I had with people, animals, nature and myself during this trip.  I made sure to be gracious and humble in the most awe inspiring moments as well as the scariest moments (which weren't that many).  The Universe/Powers that be/God responded very well and took really good care of me abroad.  I am thankful for this as well.