So its been awhile since Ive last posted here, it may well be because I'm lazy, but I'd like to think Ive just been having too much fun being a hapless good for nothing, mis-colored mexican bum. I have to say it sure is an interesting trip being a foreign gabacho in a utterly Hispanic city. Its a challenge everyday, especially not being able say more than ten words to most of the locals. Now don't get me wrong, I know enough of the necessities to get by. I'm not at a loss for finding the crapper when the questionable meal I ate at the local market decides to make its grand exit. My difficulties pretty much all arise when I'm confronted with someone whose job isn't to cater to the throngs of zombie-like tourists in the historic center. It seems once we leave the well trodden areas the speed of the language cranks up a few notches to complete intelligibility on my part, so after the local that I'm trying to buy something from quits jabbering rapid fire Spanish at me, I'll just give them my goofy western smile and my most eloquent "speak only a Lil Spanish" then try and go from there, most of the time I make out OK, and the rest of the time I probably wind up paying a couple extra pesos, with no one to blame for it but myself. Luckily for me I'm in this crazy mess with someone who can seriously back me up in that department, because when I get right down into it i barely say ten words when I'm out and about with Cassie, I just shut my mouth and let her do all the talking. Besides most people will give a little more leeway to a pretty Hispanic girl, instead of the scrawny gringo by her side. Besides having not even one soul to talk to about anything other than monetary transactions, me and the lady have been making out really good, spending most of our time lazily enjoying all that this town has to offer, from the vibrant craft fair on sundaes to the many museums the city holds in store for us, whatever time we have left over we spend reading, writing, and handling the general maintenance of life, food, water etc. It seemed everything was roses and sunflowers until all this nasty business about swine flu showed up. Just stands to figure, I've always had impeccable luck, so if the biggest pandemic since 1918(if the media is to be believed) is gonna break out in a country, it might as well be the one i'm vacationing in! After the initial shock I decided its actually almost ghoulishly interesting to watch a thing like this blossom from the inside. In a matter of days we've gone from warm greetings out of smiling faces in our favorite local eateries, to fear and loathing from behind surgical masks. It's not really a suprise to see this kind of reaction, with fear and terror being espoused from both sides of the isle on every news channel on every continent, it's enough to make most sane people crazy, luckily I count myself separate from that deranged group of sycophants and am just doing the best i can to keep my head on an even keel, which, let me tell you is not the easiest trick. Even as I write this the gruesome toll is reaching new highs, somewhere around 150 poor fuckers in Mexico alone have died since the outbreak started, but a little of my luck holds out, since not one has been found anywhere near Merida. And besides, what is there to really get worked up about anyway? In the grand scheme of todays fucked up world, whats a little more fear and death? It all just kind of blends into the constant media terror barrage, to become some type of morbid background noise. But still even as I think this, I can't help but be anything but curious, with the stories piling up one after another, along with its relative proximity, I decided to look into some facts about it and see what the big scare really was, at its core. And after wading through the shit that the media pumps out, along with other independent sources, Ive come to some interesting facts, that this whole grizzly mess is a combination of viral code from two types of human influenza, bird flu from North America, swine flu from Europe, and swine flu from Asia. So apparently a bird with avian flu infected a pig in Europe that already had swine flu, then those pigs infected another bird which then flew to Asia to infect another type of pig that already had another type of swine flu, which then finally infected apparently two humans with two different types of flu, in Mexico nonetheless, does all that sound believable? I'm not an expert or anything, but also I'm not the first to question how this naturally occurred, you can find plenty of conspiracy theorists spouting all kinds of crazy things, but it stands to reason that someone with a pretty hefty chemistry set came up with this whopper. Now I'm not saying i know who committed this heinous act, but it's a vile act nonetheless and the dirty little fucker, or more likely, group of fuckers that did it need to be brought to justice, if not for killing 150 innocent people, then for inconveniencing me on what's supposed to be my long awaited sabbatical from the normal hum drum American rhetoric of fear and terror, but at least they can't come here and make me get a job! Also i gotta say I'm not looking forward to the poking and prodding that I'm going to receive upon landing back in the states. Anyway enough of that, I'm looking up and moving on, in just 5 more days we'll be in Tulum, so until then i bid you good bye.
