Theses are the words from my journal... I may change the way it is written on paper slightly, but I can assure you that the stories are exactly as they happened.
I learned at a young age to keep a journal when traveling, and this one is all about my very first backpacking adventure, on my own without adult supervision!
Unfortunately, there are almost no photos from this trip.. but hey we'll get creative, use midjourney and read it like a book!
I've wanted to tell my story forever, and the time has finally come to transfer these experiences onto the internet. And who knows, maybe you'll let me know whether these stories are worth making a book one day too.
I couldn't tell you what it's like today for 20 somethings to travel the way I did, if it's safer or more dangerous, but I can tell you that it shaped the rest of my life and traveling the world became a winter ritual for me and eventually for my family too!
These are the stories of my youth, stories I never want to forget. I hope you enjoy them, but most of all, I hope they inspire you.
Well, last episode was crazy... we got robbed at gun point on a bus to Veracruz!!!
The bus had turned around to go back to the station so the police could pretend to do the work they're supposed to do. It was pretty well known in those days that the Mexican police were getting paid wages that were really almost too low to live on. So it wasn't a surprise to learn that if you wanted an investigation you would need to pay for it.
Anyhow here we were, back on a bus towards Veracruz. We pulled into to town at 8 in the morning, hailed a taxi and went to a hotel that we found in the "Lonely Planet". It's a simple little hotel with a view of the sea port and this small colorful city. It was the 15th of January (I think) and after checking in we walked around the beach front, which would have been so much prettier if it wasn't raining, but we found some information about a near-by pyramid we wanted to visit.
Back at the hotel I wanted to take a shower, but I sat on my bed and fell right asleep... all three of us slept, we had had a long stressful night. A couple hours later we got up again, it was still raining hard, but we went out anyway for food and to see the town center.
We found an internet café and ate at some Americanized junk food fuckin Starbucks type place. Internet access was only $1 (10 pesos) an hour, so I staid on the internet the whole time. I sent my mom an update on our trip, and other emails to my friends Sandrine who was on vacation in New York, and Christie in Florida. I did not tell anyone about the attack on the bus we took, it would only worry everyone too much.
We walked towards the hotel, but it was taking so long we started thinking we went in the wrong direction. With the rain, we got back to the hotel completely drenched from the waist down!
We chilled out a while just reading and talking about the trip ahead of us, we reflected on the attack leaving Mexico City and watched a little TV. I got hungry at some point but I was feeling too lazy to go back out in that rain to get wet again... I had cookies and a piece of cake from the bus station in Mexico City, and that was my dinner.
The next morning I woke up hungry but also pretty sick, and so was Sandrine. I think it was because of the malaria pills I had taken the day before. So we went back to bed and slept until the afternoon. Vero went out to explore all day as we had a few days earlier when she was ill.
At around 3:30 in the afternoon we all went to the real touristy part of town, where we sat down at a café. The girls had food, I just had an agua mineral and quickly found out it was seltzer water... You see in French a mineral water means it's spring water, so it was a surprise, and I don't like bubbles in my water at all, especially when I'm still feeling sick a bit. My stomach was still doing strange things and I just couldn't eat.
San Juan de Ulúa visto desde el puerto de Veracruz
Part of me wanted to go to the town's fortress (a castle type thing) but Sandrine and I wanted to go back to bed even more. So, Vero went to the castle while we went back to the hotel. I slept for a couple of hours, got up, smoked a cigarette and sewed a secret pocket in the inside of my pants for money.
When Vero got back we all went down to the restaurant of the hotel. I was so fucking hungry by then. I was still messed up in the stomach, but the stake and fries with a fresh squeezed orange juice was really nice to have. After dinner I was out like a light and fell asleep in my bed pretty fast.
In the next episode we go to Tlacotalpan!
My First Backpacking Trip:
Chapter 01: NYC to Mexico - Y2K
Chapter 02: NYC to Mexico - Cajun Wedding
Chapter 03: Everything is Lost
Chapter 04: Mexico City Finally!
Chapter 05: Robbery at Gun Point
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