My First Post From Mexico

I flew into Mexico on June 15th with only a backpack and a desire for adventure. I have no return ticket and would like to stay south for a year or more, but other than desire and a very loose itinerary to guide my path, I´m leaving everything up to God´s will and the Fates.

What does one pack for a year of travel in Mexico? I have no idea, but apparently I have brought too much. My travel campanions, four artesans harkening from different parts of Mexico, laugh at the weight and uselessness of my bag. In a day or two (please read this liberally, meaning up to a week), I plan to half my personal belongings and invest in a few jewelry making materials, mostly threads, seeds, feathers and metal.

My lfe is simple now. I camp under a large tree that drops rotten smelling fruit onto my tent throughout the night. I eat wild growing mangos that I fetch with rocks and sticks like a monkey. My aim has gotten incredibly precise. I bath myself in the lake less often than I am happy to admit. In this small town by the lake in the mountains, nearly everyone recognizes me and greets me with smiles as I pass. Here, I am the dirty white girl that sleeps under the tree, speaks broken and bad Spanish, and bathes herself in the lake. It´s a title I can´t nor desire to deny, so I accept the stereotype of hippi with a smile and nod. I love it here.

Right now, the working plan is to stay at the lake in Santa Maria del Oro for a week and a half before journeying to Mexico City for jewelry supplies and a brief history lesson of Colonial Mexico. After several days in the city, it is on to Oaxaca. Pictures and stories to come, when I can find an internet cafe with computers that accept memory cards.

Adios for now, my friends!