Let’s Go For a Ride

The goggles barely fit over my glasses, they’re pressed tight against the bridge of my nose — in a few hours I’ll have a headache. But unlike last time I found myself hurling down dusty tracks through the bush, this time I can see. This time I have two extra wheels and loads more stability. It’s also an automatic so I rip into to tight turns with far more recklessness than I ever did on a Honda Dream.

I won’t lie, it feels good to be astride an engine again.

There’s no cool mask for this trip though. Mike asked for a bandana and got one. I stuck with the little white painter’s mask the guide gave me. It reminds me of sanding down the bus. The dust isn’t that bad out here anyway. Half the time we’re in mud and at one point we very nearly submerge our quads in the lake. I would never have dreamed of putting an engine through what the guide seemed happy to lead us through, but who am I to argue?

Without the bus I’ve lost the understanding of surrounding terrain that was part of life in the bus. In the bus we’d have been coming from somewhere and we’d have to figure out the best way from point A to point B, which might not have been the main road. In any case I’d have looked at all of the roads into San Miguel before making a decision. I’d have a map, I’d have looked at elevations in my own online mapping tool. I’d have figured out the outlying roads, how they connected San Miguel to points around it. Corrinne would have planned where we were going, what we’d do. We’d know the best way into the city, what to avoid, and where to go once we got there. Most of that research wouldn’t have been very formal, we’d have just kind of absorbed it a little bit at the time as we looked and talked.

Instead we were handed a bus ticket in Mexico City, and then we sat back and chatted until we magically appeared in the middle of town a few hours later. There’s very little context when someone else is driving, and almost no planning. Since then we’ve only been places we can reach either on foot or on the local bus, which hasn’t added to my understanding of the overall picture very much.

We have been to the botanical gardens at the top of the hill a couple times. It offers a pretty good view to the north and east. The kids and I once rode the number 10 bus to its end point in the neighborhood of Malanquin, where we found a playground atop a hill with really good views to the south, but otherwise my sense of the lay of the land is very vague. I know roughly where various neighborhoods are, but no sense of how they connect, and hardly any sense of what the surrounding country side looks like.

That’s one of the reasons, when my friend Mike suggested we rent ATVs and go riding, I immediately said yes. The other reason was, even if it’s not a motorcycle, at least I’d be riding an engine again and I never pass up the chance to do that.

Right off the bat we drove through a neighborhood I’d only heard of from seeing for rent ads on Craigslist. I quickly realized why I hadn’t been there —it’s the suburbs, and rich suburbs at that, not my part of town, but I’m glad I know where it is now. We quickly rode on through and down to the lake shore past this crazy Gaudi-esque house that came up so fast and was so close I couldn’t get a good picture, but it’s on the list of things to get back to, eventually.

We continued on down to the lake, stopping at a little church that I believe, if my Spanish isn’t failing me, is the original structure that started San Miguel de Allende. And it was built atop the ruins of a pyramid that was, until the day the Spanish arrived, not in ruins.

Normally I’d have wondered off to think on the history and architecture and stone and water and dead birds, but on this particular trip I wasn’t in the mood. Actually I did sit for a while and think on the dead bird. I’d never see a vermilion flycatcher that close, dead or alive, they’re even more beautiful than they look from a distance, even dead.

I’d like to do another trip, slower, maybe on a horse, and bring an archaeologist or historian back to the church and find out how it fits into the structure and system of the world we’re in here. And since we actually met an archaeologist/historian there’s a good chance that will happen eventually, but on this particular day I just wanted to feel the wind in my face, see the country side rushing past, and maybe try to get all four wheels off the ground a time or two. I wasn’t in the frame of mind to explore the details, I was after the high level overview — the frame, not the picture.

After a while at the church we rode on, at one point, for the sheer fun of it, we road through water deep enough to flood the engines, which somehow did not die. Still puzzling that out in my free time.

We went past little town, clusters of houses really, always with a small tienda where everyone, and every dog, seemed to be gathered to talk and relax on a Sunday afternoon. I would have like to stop in a few, buy a Coke or a beer and talk to the people, but we kept on. We went past enormous restaurants that seemed far larger than was necessary given the nearby population was near nil, but perhaps people come out from San Miguel, who knows. I filed that, along with many other questions away for another day.

At some point we passed an RV, a beat up old thing, probably a late 80s or maybe early 90s model. It was clearly functional though, and hooked up to both sewer and water in the middle of nowhere. I filed it away to think on later and punched it over the railroad tracks.

We stopped for some water and a huge flock of either ravens or crows came circling overhead. I like to think they were crows, since that would make them a murder of crows, but I couldn’t say for sure, I had no binoculars on me.

Eventually we circled back around, up past the train station I knew must be around — we’d heard the trains — but hadn’t seen yet, and finally up the hill with the giant cross. When I said that to some people who have been here a few years they looked at me like I was an idiot — which hill, which cross? Right, every hill has a cross. In this Catholic, yet not quite Catholic, world every neighborhood has a church, every hill has a cross. Oh, you know, the one with nice views of San Miguel and the lake.

I still don’t know the area like I would if I had the bus, but I know where things are better than I did before. And I did, I think, manage to get all four wheels off the ground at least once. Those quads are no Honda Dreams, but they’ll do for now. Special thanks to my friend Mike for making this trip happen.