Yes, travelling on a budget. What fun. Someone asked me the day before I went on my trip if I was going to see shows and concerts while in Mexico City and Puebla. I said no, but really even if I wanted to, I would likely blow my entire travel budget in a week, so it is a good thing for me that night life and entertainment are not high on my list of priorities while I´m on vacation. In fact, I make myself stay within a very strict budget and still make sure that I am having a fairly good time. This year I have figured that, including meals, transportation, internet cafes and the odd treat or surprise I would be spending a bit less than forty bucks or four hundred pesos a day. I have brought enough money to ensure that I can easily blow seven hundred pesos or around sixty dollars every day, after hotel costs, but I am still limiting myself to five hundred pesos max, the hundred pesos a day that I save I am reserving for transportation costs to Puebla and back and the likelihood that I will be spending a bit more while in Puebla on museums and other sites of public interest. I also plan to spend some of that on books in Spanish that I plan to bring home to Vancouver with me. The extra funds otherwise are in case of emergency, otherwise I hope I have enough left over when I get home to nicely fatten my bank account. It isn´t at all a pain or drudgery maintaining this budget, in case you are wondering. It does help me to stay grounded, and anyway I already know that during my last couple of weeks I will have horded enough to spend on some things I might really enjoy.
One thing I really try to maintain while I´m abroad is a level head and I really ensure that my natural good common sense hasn´t been forgotten in Vancouver or left to languish in my suitcase. Especially when travelling alone in a poorer country where I am a racially visible minority, and one that is generally assumed to be stinking rich, I try to watch my back at all times while still appearing and feeling relaxed and at home. It is a balance that I can easily strike because I try to use a kind of prayerful mindfulness, or an ongoing awareness of my surroundings and of my own interior state. This also helps me stay calm and centred. For those of my younger, or simply immature, readers who like to get stinkin`wasted when you´re on vacacion, all I can say is more power to you, but make good and sure you have health insurance and easy access to your national embassy because if you are not careful you just might need them.
It´s been altogether a pleasant day. I am back inside that nice cybercafe where they play classical music (Vivaldi and I think Brahms right now, but it could be Schumann. In fact I think it is Schumann.) I had a really decent and full night`s sleep last night, attended mass at San Jaun Bautista, went for breakfast at the usual cafe where they serve up a decent Manchego cheese omelete with fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee and baguette all for the tune of around five bucks Canadian. And the people there are nice and they seem to like my art or at least they are really fine with me wasting a couple of hours in there working on a drawing. I later did a walk in Los Viveros, then took the Metro into Mexico City where I sat in another familiar cafe with my art while enjoying coffee and chocolate cake, after which I walked on Reforma into Chapultepec Park and sat for a while again in the Audorama which was strangely silent today. Then I went for a walk in the park, stopping at the lake with the Gator-Aid green water where there are now seven white egrets hanging out. There used to be just two. They are a delight to behold and I think I will be drawing or painting them again soon. I also stopped by an excavated Aztec ruin in the park of the stone structure to conduct from three springs at the foot of the Chapultepec Castle through aqueducts the water supply for the city before the Spanish conquest. Odd, isn´t it, how advanced a civilization can be in so many things yet think nothing of performing ritual human sacrifice to keep the sun shining, or from burning witches and heretics in honour of a Lord and Saviour who would have utterly condemned this kind of practice, or send their sons and daughters to fight other people`s battles in foreign countries and I promise to go no further with this theme...
Tomorrow I leave for Puebla.
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