Ima Walken in the rain
Hermosillo provided a nice break from all of the post-election brooding that has occupied my mind. I was still very much reminded of the election, though, as the coming state of U.S.-Mexico relations looms large in the minds of so many Mexicans. Walk into a U.S. bookstore and you're not likely to see in the first display that greets you a couple of books about Mexico's newest president. But the inverse was true at a bookstore I visited. In the first display island, on the top tier of books, there were two about Our Dear Leader. Both were negative of course, as were all of the articles I saw about him in local papers.
But mostly my mind was occupied with trying to absorb, practice, translate, and decipher as much Spanish as possible. I didn't achieve any drastic improvements, but I do feel that the trip bumped my skills forward a bit. Hermosillo ended up being exactly what I hoped it would be, at least for that particular purpose: a place that is too far from the border and too far from Mexico's major tourist sites to have a lot of proficiently bilingual people who could speak to me in Mercy English when they saw that telltale deer-in-the-headlights look. Mostly I was on my own, sink or swim. There was someone at the Hampton Inn front desk who was able to give some information in English, but most others left me to my own devices to survive a beating in their own language.
Now that all is said and done, I think I have a good enough grasp of the language to survive other places in Mexico and Central America. Thanks to a canceled departure ride and subsequent miscommunication with Hermosillo Shuttles, I missed the ride back to Tucson I had paid for. I ended up taking a taxi to the Tufesa station to catch the next bus to Tucson. The mix-up and the scramble to fix it were a pain in the ass, but the silver lining was that the circumstances forced me to experience how Tufesa operates. After using them, I think I could navigate their system well enough to check out other destinations in Mexico. They have connections to a lot of cities, like Navojoa, Ciuded Obregón, and Guadalajara. I don't know the first thing about a lot of them, but I'll put search engines to work toward that end.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I sat down to write about this trip, not future ones. Hermosillo had its charm in places like Plaza Zaragoza, a public square outside the city's most iconic church, the Catedral Metropolitana. The place is filled with pigeons, trees, and benches, with a gazebo in the center. In the vicinity are a lot of shops, food carts, and restaurants. I bought my niece a bag at a street stand in the east perimeter.
The Cerro de la Campana made for a nice urban hike. You can't hike to the very top, because broadcast antennas of some sort are stationed up there. But there's a lookout area near the top that's big enough for people to spread out and take their time gazing out into the city. I didn't find the legendary rocks that gave the hill its name--the ones that supposedly make a sound like a bell when struck--but I enjoyed the journey anyway.
I also hit a couple of museum, namely MUSAS, the Museo de Arte de Sonora, and the Museo de Culturas Populares e Indígenas de Sonora. I also wanted to check out the Museo Regional de Sonora, but it was closed for a special event (what appeared to be a wedding party). Regardless, my museum time gave me some quick-and-dirty background on Hermosillo and Sonora that I can revisit in pictures.
Since the peso recently took a beating, I spent some of my idle time (when I wasn't seeing sites or sleeping) at the Galerías Mall, where I could spend without a lot of sticker shock (none, really). It was dirt cheap to see Doctor Strange: Hechicero Supremo at Cinépolis, and I bought a nice pair of jeans and a nice shirt for work at couple of other mall merchants.
In addition to getting my comic geek on at Cinépolis, I of course had to visit the original location of Comicx, Mexico's superhero-themed restaurant chain. That was where I had Thanksgiving dinner, actually. In the best Spanish I could muster, I explained to the manager that night--and a couple of his co-workers--why eating there had been on the top of my list. They weren't that busy, so they were happy to chat and ask me about Arizona, my views on the election, and other small-talk topics. The conversation starting while I was buying some of their schwag after my meal.
With the exception of the Comicx experience, dining out in Hermosillo wasn't the greatest for a vegetarian. I got by, but I also got by as a don't-ask-don't-tell vegetarian who didn't interrogate anyone the lard that might be lurking in their food. And I definitely had to give up my normal practice of eating at least one vegan meal per day. Vegetarian fare--let alone vegan fare--is not as easy to find there.
I guess I got by with my vegetarianism about as well as I got by with my Spanish. It was worth it, though.
But mostly my mind was occupied with trying to absorb, practice, translate, and decipher as much Spanish as possible. I didn't achieve any drastic improvements, but I do feel that the trip bumped my skills forward a bit. Hermosillo ended up being exactly what I hoped it would be, at least for that particular purpose: a place that is too far from the border and too far from Mexico's major tourist sites to have a lot of proficiently bilingual people who could speak to me in Mercy English when they saw that telltale deer-in-the-headlights look. Mostly I was on my own, sink or swim. There was someone at the Hampton Inn front desk who was able to give some information in English, but most others left me to my own devices to survive a beating in their own language.
Now that all is said and done, I think I have a good enough grasp of the language to survive other places in Mexico and Central America. Thanks to a canceled departure ride and subsequent miscommunication with Hermosillo Shuttles, I missed the ride back to Tucson I had paid for. I ended up taking a taxi to the Tufesa station to catch the next bus to Tucson. The mix-up and the scramble to fix it were a pain in the ass, but the silver lining was that the circumstances forced me to experience how Tufesa operates. After using them, I think I could navigate their system well enough to check out other destinations in Mexico. They have connections to a lot of cities, like Navojoa, Ciuded Obregón, and Guadalajara. I don't know the first thing about a lot of them, but I'll put search engines to work toward that end.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I sat down to write about this trip, not future ones. Hermosillo had its charm in places like Plaza Zaragoza, a public square outside the city's most iconic church, the Catedral Metropolitana. The place is filled with pigeons, trees, and benches, with a gazebo in the center. In the vicinity are a lot of shops, food carts, and restaurants. I bought my niece a bag at a street stand in the east perimeter.
The Cerro de la Campana made for a nice urban hike. You can't hike to the very top, because broadcast antennas of some sort are stationed up there. But there's a lookout area near the top that's big enough for people to spread out and take their time gazing out into the city. I didn't find the legendary rocks that gave the hill its name--the ones that supposedly make a sound like a bell when struck--but I enjoyed the journey anyway.
I also hit a couple of museum, namely MUSAS, the Museo de Arte de Sonora, and the Museo de Culturas Populares e Indígenas de Sonora. I also wanted to check out the Museo Regional de Sonora, but it was closed for a special event (what appeared to be a wedding party). Regardless, my museum time gave me some quick-and-dirty background on Hermosillo and Sonora that I can revisit in pictures.
Since the peso recently took a beating, I spent some of my idle time (when I wasn't seeing sites or sleeping) at the Galerías Mall, where I could spend without a lot of sticker shock (none, really). It was dirt cheap to see Doctor Strange: Hechicero Supremo at Cinépolis, and I bought a nice pair of jeans and a nice shirt for work at couple of other mall merchants.
In addition to getting my comic geek on at Cinépolis, I of course had to visit the original location of Comicx, Mexico's superhero-themed restaurant chain. That was where I had Thanksgiving dinner, actually. In the best Spanish I could muster, I explained to the manager that night--and a couple of his co-workers--why eating there had been on the top of my list. They weren't that busy, so they were happy to chat and ask me about Arizona, my views on the election, and other small-talk topics. The conversation starting while I was buying some of their schwag after my meal.
With the exception of the Comicx experience, dining out in Hermosillo wasn't the greatest for a vegetarian. I got by, but I also got by as a don't-ask-don't-tell vegetarian who didn't interrogate anyone the lard that might be lurking in their food. And I definitely had to give up my normal practice of eating at least one vegan meal per day. Vegetarian fare--let alone vegan fare--is not as easy to find there.
I guess I got by with my vegetarianism about as well as I got by with my Spanish. It was worth it, though.