Mexico, day 5, travel and Monterrey

Woke up at 4:30. Got up at 5:15. Finished putting my bags together, and my ride showed up at ten to 6. Got to the airport and the sun was coming up by the time I sat down to wait. Wasn’t able to communicate with the girl at the Mezcal shop. That’s OK, I couldn’t buy any anyway. Flight was uneventful.

Didn’t have any trouble at MEX this time. Didn’t have to exit the terminal or go through security. My only problem was my brain. It was like, OK, gate 67. It’s not that direction, I’ll go this way. Stop to look at the board because I forgot what gate it was. 67. It was the other way. I go back. OK, what gate is it? Gate 67. It’s at this point that I realize that’s the year I was born. That should have been an easy one to remember!

Slightly longer flight from Mexico City to Monterrey.

Jose Luis is an engineer at the plant, who I worked with. He left the company in July, but we have stayed in touch. He was excited that I was finally coming down. He is friends with Rafael, another engineer who used to work there. Jose Luis was waiting at the entrance. He looked up from his phone just as I was going by. Good thing he saw me because I wouldn’t have recognized him. We didn’t video chat often, and when we did, he was wearing a mask – just like he was this day, but you still only have the eyes.

Rafa was driving. We went to a town outside of the city, Cadereyta Jiménez. Jose Luis grew up there. We had dinner in a place called La Tinaja. Then we walked over to see the church and took a look inside. Across the street was a plaza with market stalls, so we took a walk around. We stopped for a churro.

We drove farther out of the city to a tiny town named San Juan – eight by eight blocks. There’s a park called Remembrance Park "The Cradle of Baseball in Mexico". American GI’s came to town to build a bridge, and they also made a baseball field. Both are still there. Jose Luis told me there are three places in Mexico that claim to be the first places to play baseball in Mexico. Then we went out on the bridge. It was a standard iron girder bridge on concrete piers, single track, with eight spans. I’m guessing it was about 50 feet above the water, maybe less, but it seemed pretty high – the wind was strong. Jose Luis had brought his fishing pole. He was using corn as bait, and he wasn’t catching anything. Rafa and I were just kinda hanging out, I was shooting pictures. After a while he said, “We can’t fish here.” I said, “why? You can’t catch any fish?” “No. Is too dangerous.” He tried again from shore by the side of the tracks, but still didn’t catch anything. We drove to a different bridge, a road bridge, not so high. He tried for a while, still didn’t catch anything. We drove into Monterrey.

Monterrey is surrounded by mountains, for about 180 degrees. I knew this, but they were much more impressive in person. They’re like a wall around the city. There’s a hill in the middle of downtown that gives you a 360 view of the city. There’s enough smog that you couldn’t see the horizon to the northeast and east, or even the edge of the city, but you could still see a long way off – it’s a big city.

We drove down from there and went through a very busy section of city. A shopping area, nothing but stores. The sidewalks were just packed with people. We drove on and found a place to park. We parked in an old section of town. It looked like Oaxaca, but it was only a few square blocks, and there was no life there. People lived there (and there were hotels, since it was on the edge of a touristy part), but there were no shops. It looked cool, though. And nothing like the rest of the city.

We walked a couple of blocks to the canal. It was built sometime this century, I guess. It is down from the street, with bridges over it. There are walkways on either side, with cafés some places. Tourist boats go up and down. At the end, we went up to the plaza. The Macroplaza. Possibly the largest plaza in the Americas. It’s about ten blocks long. Fountains, statues, trees, a stage and manymany booths of people selling kitschy souvenirs. And I got corn. A cup of corn, with some hot sauce, and cheese on top.

After that adventure, they brought me home. I got a defective room. The window wouldn’t latch – no safety concerns, but it was noisy. And there were some lights out. So I switched rooms, and got the only good night’s sleep of the trip.

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Mexico, days 6 - 10, business

SUNDAY
Originally, Jose Luis had planned for having me the whole weekend. But it turns out his football team, Atlas (Primera División de México), went to the championship for the first time in seventeen years. They hadn’t won since 1951 (they won, this time). He had to fly to Guadalajara to see the game, so I was alone. I spent most of the day sitting in my room, looking at photos, and going over the map, trying to figure out where I’d been.

Some of my coworkers arrived in early afternoon, so we went to dinner at 2:30. That was fine with me, since I had a big breakfast and hadn’t eaten lunch. Since we ate so early, I no longer felt full at bedtime, and was able to sleep.

MONDAY
Monday was back to work. We got a tour of the plant, and then spent the day with a group of people, answering questions and discussing things that they wanted to know about. Dinner was at the steak restaurant next to the hotel again. There were tons of appetizers. Guacamole, including hunks of meat, and other meat plates, and I forget whatall. I successfully ignored it. I wanted something light, and also Mexican-ish, so I ordered fish. My neighbor recommended the huachinango. Red snapper. It was the whole fish, deep fried. It was good, but bigger than it looked in the photo on the menu. Not a light meal. I was sure I’d be up half the night. They gave us a basket of wrapped snacks to choose from, for dessert. I got a piece of candied sweet potato to bring home.

TUESDAY
Work was more of the same. Spent more time with the quality and manufacturing engineering groups, discussing issues. For dinner, we went into the city. It was actually in an adjacent city called San Pedro. San Pedro is quite wealthy. There are high rise condos and luxury shopping centers, in addition to expensive colleges and business headquarters. It reminded me of Las Vegas.

The previous two nights, I had glanced at the menu before going, but didn't pick anything out. I should have, because the online menus were translated, but this didn't work in the restaurant. So this time, I made sure to pick something beforehand. But we got appetizers and no menus. And more appetizers. And more appetizers. It's a good thing I didn't pass on the appetizers because it turned out they just kept bringing us Mexican food until we'd had enough!

WEDNESDAY
Jose Luis came to pick me up after work on Wednesday, along with my coworker Paul. We drove to his place, where we met his wife, and had dinner. Guacamole, soup and tamales. Very good, of course. His wife, whose name I didn’t understand, doesn’t speak English very well and is shy, so she was nervous. It was funny, though, because none of us are talkers, so there was some silence.

They seem careful. They both wore masks around us, whenever they weren’t eating or drinking. He drinks beer but not liquor, but he only had non-alcoholic beer because he would be driving us home.

I didn’t intend to drink liquor, but she likes tequila, so we had some of that. Then he remembered that he had some whisky. He dug it out, and since it was Scotch, I had to have some – to please the host, not for my own enjoyment. Besides it was cheap stuff that he had won last year.

THURSDAY
I packed my suitcase the night before, so I had a minimum of preparation necessary in the morning. Alarm at 5:20, be downstairs at 6:00 for the possible 6:15 shuttle to the airport. It was 6:30, though. Got to the airport at 6:45 for the 8:45 flight. Good thing we were there early, because I had lost a crucial immigration form. When I first entered the country, I filled out the form and the person at the booth stamped it and handed the bottom part back. I don't know what happened to it. It's strange because I didn't think I threw anything away – not receipts or spent boarding passes, nothing. So when the woman at the desk at check-in asked for it, I looked in every pocket and compartment in my clothes and bags. Nothing(it still didn't turn up after I got home). I had to go to the immigration office at the airport, fill out the form and pay $600 pesos ($30). Fortunately, we had time, and my coworkers didn't mind waiting for me. Paul said that when he got it, he was told to keep it, but I'm pretty sure the person didn't say anything in English when she handed it to me. But like I said, I didn't throw anything away, and this was rather official looking, with the stamp.

Anyway, the rest of the day was uneventful. Coworker Uriel had been through Houston many times, so he could guide us through, though I'm sure I could have figured it out with no trouble. It certainly made it much less stressful to be with other people.

There were heavy winds across the northern part of the country overnight and into the morning. There were gusts over 50 mph here at home. They had died down to a reasonable level by afternoon when my fight came in. It was a bit bumpy coming in, but nothing serious.

And just for the record, I was down to less than $10 worth of pesos when I was done.

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