Datelline: Xalapa Veracruz

2th day search for Tex Rainbolt

I finally arrived in Veracruz having left at 7:30 the previous night and arriving at 1:30 pm in Veracruz. That.s a lot of sitting.
My knees would start hurting eventually, and I would have to move, Arrived in Xalapa at 4:30pm and ensconced myself in a hotel,
The Acapulco. It’s about a mile straight up Ave, Dr.Caudillo. a nice place but I had to change rooms to get one with a good working toilet.
Thanks to the Chinese with their 50 cent toilet lids, most anywhere you go now in Mexico the toilets have lids. Civilization is arriving.
I have two big problems in Mexico, among others. It’s kind of absurd, but I have a lot of difficulty with Military Time. The 24 hour clock.
It’s used by the bus system and in other ways. I’m always counting on my fingers from 12 oclock onwards or backward from midnight and I still get it wrong. Also the phone system gets some getting used to. Landlines are dialed one way and cell phones are dialed another way
from payhones and if your local it’s one way, in the state another way and internationally another way.
Well anyway this very nice girl helped me out. She had a cell phone, dialed it for me, refused any payment and I
managed to hook up with my friends in Xalapa. She spoke very good English and was becoming a computer programmer. She had on
some silly T-Shirt saying in English “Girls Rule” or something like that.
Xalapa is a University Town and has it’s own type of semi Mexican Beatnic charm. I guess you could call it Me-tnic or Mexnic, or
whatever. Noringa (not her real name) and Flroringa met me at Cafe Lindo a restaurant bar performing coffee house sort of in downtown Xalapa. Noringa is an identical twin, she’s five minutes younger than her sister, Floringa. We got caught up to date on our lives. Noringa had a boyfriend that wanted to get tos serious too soon. She told to him to back off. But I have a feelling the story is not over yet. Floringa is married to a Canadian guy, they have one son. He works in oil exploration and the oil exploration  companies keep him pretty busy. He was supposed
to be in town, but was called away at the last moment. I had been looking forward to a Mexican-Canandian BBq, but It turned out to be the third one I missed. El Canuck (not real name) is a hell of a bbq chef.
There is a little Cuban bar in Xalapa, and yes it is owned by a Cuban Expatriate. Unlike Cubans in  America, you can find in Mexico and latin America what are called Fidelistas. (Supporters of Fidel Castro. The club owner has many rare pictures of Cuban revolutionary pictures, featuring of course, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Fidels Brother Raul and many others. I can barley understand Carribean sing-song Spanish though I am conversant in Mexican and Spain type Spanish. So I thought foregoing any political type of discussion was the better part of valor. Your humble reporter being a stranger in a strange land. sometimes they will have a Cuban dance reiew show in this tiny tiny bar. Sometimes they
will pass a guitar around to whoever can play. Of course they have cuban rums. liquors, etc which are all illegal to possess in the United States. But of course not in Mexico, which tries to get along with everybody, more or less.

Will be in Veracruz,Veracruz in a day or two to continue the search for Tex Rainbolt.

left Reynosa on bus at 7:30pm Dec 26. Got up very early in morning to get going had to cross over to Reynosa and then back. Got picked

up by Daughter and first wife. Getting transportation on the holidays is always ifffy so it pays to go in early. There was a tremendous rush of people

trying to get home or going off to visit family. New Years Eve is a big family occasion as well as Christmas and the three kings day also (Los tres Reyes).

Gifts are given during all three events. It’ws wonderful for the retailers in Mcallen, that’s for sure. Through no fault of my own I had to go to the La plaza Mall

in Mcallen Dec 26. There were more Mexicans there than back in Mexico. Wall to Wall.

The bus station is very close to the bridge.. nonetheless Taxis charge $5.00 American. It beats driving., there is no real place to park at the bus station. I had

to get some paperwork done on my work visa anyway so I had to stop at the bridge.. Normally you can go right to the bus station and Mexican customs, La Aduana can help you there with visas etc.

On the bus I sat with a young lady from Guatamalla named Adriana (not her real name) along with her young daughter. She told me a lot about Guatamala and her situation. It seems that she had come up from Guatamala city 4 months before and had been the guest of a certain church that is very prominent in Mexico.
The Mother superior had given her a job as a cook, and let her stay at a location in the city. She had been waiting to cross the border to the US but the sisters
had told here it was much too dangerous to take her daughter. (Good Advice). The chances of being raped, robbed, or abandoned are very real. Her little girl was only
about three years old.
This church that gave them sanctuary does help a lot of Central Americans. It does seem like someone should help the helpless. To quote from a border bishop
To Jesus no one is illegal. Everyone has a place. But I’m not blogging on immigration, but this young lady was illegal in Mexico, way before she ever got to the United States.
She had no paperwork whatsover. Authorities for the most part don’t want to get interrogative or pushy and abusive to a young woman with a young child, so she had  slipped through the cracks. Besides if you arrest the Mother you’ve go a screaming kid on your hands.The easiest thing is to just pass on by. Saying that, Mexican
soldiers and border police have a very bad reputation on the Mexican-Guatamalean border.
I’m thankful I have a little bit of money I have  and I always try to be kind to those that don’t.

More later on the search for Ole Tex Rainbolt

Third day of journey from Reynosa

Woke up at the Acapulco Hotel in Xalapa, Veracruz. The morning is dry and sunny.

The problem, as we precieve it, is that Mexico possesses a mysterious and alluring quality. One day you head out on a writing assignment, the next day your 500 miles away – wondering how you got there and what it is you’re suppose to be doing. This is not the first time the mesmerizing quality of this enchanted land has taken Tex into unintended hiding. It just goes with the territory. It’s easy to get sidetracked in the this land of mystery.

I took the pills I was supposed to take this morning, went in search of something that would serve as breakfast. Potassium pills I understand are especially important to take with the food here, otherwise I don´t believe the food adjusts in your system quite right.

I wandered down the picturesque street full of tiny shops selling everything from bags, bolsillops to customade shoes to the many and assorted fruit and yogurt shops. Found a little shop sellling ham and cheese sandwiches for what amounts to about 50 cents back home. It quickly bit into the potassium.

In Xalapa you constantly live under an inactive tropical volcano that many times you can see and many times you can´t for reasons of weather, smog, haze, and pollution. The best view is in the early morning.

Storekeepers are just washing away yesterdays dirt from their front step. It´s all very calm and peaceful. Walking down a narrow street i come upon a little park. I can see the volcano very clearly now. The summit is covered in snow this time of the year. it rises more than 18,000 feet. Global warming, of course, raises it´s ugly head even here in Mexico. This is certainly worth more investigation.

The plaza principal workerers were hard cleaning up the streets and park. In spite of what many think, the average person works very hard here. Police are everywhere to be seen, some with automatic rifles. State police and also some federals as well. I did see one with enough military hardware to go to war in Iraq. I think that he was military. People seem not to be to afraid of them.

There are, of course, two types of mordida, one where the guilty get off with a payoff extra judicially and the other where the innocent or not gulty are shook down and extorted.

More later on the search for Tex Rainbolt, Man of Mystery…