Anyway, because the people of Mexico don't have a habit of warming their homes with heaters, they use wood stoves to warm their homes. It reminds me of going into hunting lodges in Northern Minnesota. The buildings are constructed of it in the interior with low ceilings to hold in the heat. The creak beneath your feet and crackle in the furnaces. The whole city has wisps of white smoking coming out of every home from these furnaces, keeping people warm and also serving as stoves for cooking.
I planned a stop right at the top of the highway so I could spend the whole next day riding.
Did I mention mountains? It's cold up here. I thought Zacatecas was cold, but we got some serious altitude here in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains. These are some of the coldest regions in Mexico.
It's also full of pine forest which is AMAZING. It's the first time since I've been in Northern California that I've smelled pine. Pine was what I smelled all the way from the beginning of the Alaska Highway at the northern reaches of the Great Plains until I passed the 'Last Tree' on my way over the Atigun Pass to the Arctic Ocean in northern Alaska. Pine trees accompanied me all the way down the west coast. Pine forest is all over Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. It reminds me of my childhood AND adult vacations. I love being around it, I love the sound of it when the wind blows through it. I like how they stay green and are some of the only colors you can see other than white and brown in winter. Pine forest is pretty dope.
Anyway, because the people of Mexico don't have a habit of warming their homes with heaters, they use wood stoves to warm their homes. It reminds me of going into hunting lodges in Northern Minnesota. The buildings are constructed of it in the interior with low ceilings to hold in the heat. The wood creaks beneath your feet and crackles in the furnaces. The whole city has wisps of white smoking coming out of every home from these furnaces, keeping people warm and also serving as stoves for cooking.
I love it.
BUT! That's not what I was thinking as much when I arrived. When I got there, the woman at the front desk showed me my living quarters and all of the amenities. Upon my request to have laundry done, I was disappointed to learn that it was not only not included, it cost half as much as my stay.
Later, after I had come back after a few hours of resting after my ride, I asked when the laundry might be ready. She'd informed me that DRYING was going to bring my cost up to as much as the stay. Let's say $15 for the night, $13 for washing and drying. She gave me short and quick sentences and mumbled so it was hard to hear. When I would ask her to repeat, she was a little annoyed to do so. It made me feel like I was not worth the hassle for my business, in spite of the fact I was the hotel's ONLY guest.
Now, you may ALSO be thinking: Jimbo. That's not that much. What's the big deal.
Simply put, it's resource management. I'm trying to stretch out every dollar that I can. I'm trying to avoid going to ATMs. I'm trying to NOT use bank notes so that I can use them in places where I know people won't have change for cash. I guarantee there isn't a single vendor of any kind that takes a credit card in that whole city. Straight-up. Call it petty, sure, but I -didn't- put up a fight and I was merely disappointed that I wasn't told up front. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was gouging me.
There were no other places to wash my clothes in the city. It was either here or in Mazatlan and I'm sure Paul there doesn't have a dryer.
Anyway, she gets back to work, I get back to some video editing in my shared dorm room. Luckily, it was empty. It's a low-volume time of year. Then I find out that I'm out of water, so I go inside to get some water in the kitchen. Upon opening the back door to the kitchen, I find 3 women (about 50+ years old) and the hotel owner sitting around at the dinner table. I say hello to all of them.
As I'm filling up my water I hear one of them say: "Does he speak Spanish?" The Hotel owner, the only one who I'd had a conversation with in the building, said "not much." I was surprised to hear this, but then I guess I hadn't gotten into a deep conversation with her.
Also, starting up my Spanish after having a lot of English in my day can be tough. I find myself still getting English in my day ALL THE TIME, such as when I listen to my podcasts, music, use my apps, or catch up with friends in group chats. Changing from English to Spanish is like starting an old car, it kind of has to warm up after revving it a little bit.
"Why yes, I do speak Spanish and I've been listening to EVERYTHING you've been saying!" I say playfully. Their eyes get wide and they wonder what they've said in front of me, I assure them that I haven't heard anything, really.
They then open up conversation with me. They want to know where I'm from. Where I'm going. I ask them where they're from- they're 3 friends from Tijuana that have known each other for years and they're going on a trip to Guadalajara, Tequila, and Lago Chapala, 3 places that I've already gotten to know quite well in the last few months!
I give them some pointers on things to see and what to expect. They then thank me and invite me to eat even though I said I already had. They either didn't believe me or their motherly instincts were running wild with FEED HIM.
We gathered around the heated furnace in the kitchen and guess what? Just like I had been complaining about in my last blog, I'd been a little disappointed that my Spanish had not been in as much of use. Here, it was getting used a TON. The women had relationship issues they wanted to talk about. They wanted to show me pictures of their daughters and ask if I were interested in them. One of them even called one and told them that I was a YouTuber. (I personally don't see that as an attractive profession to a woman studying to become a doctor but who knows.) The hotel worker was included in on the entire banter and we even made some jokes and warmed up to each other.
I learned that she has never used the laundry facilities before either, it was someone else's job who wasn't working that week.
Either way, we all spent the night chatting away until it got late. What kept us around was actually my laundry. We checked on it in the dryer after it was running for over an hour and my clothes were still wet. One of the women, who worked with laundry for a living, checked on it and it turned out the dryer filter was FULL of lint. So we cleaned it and ran it for another hour. STILL wet.
At that point I had to check it, I went into the back to look at my clothes and found out that they weren't even warm. We found out the gas, an external propane tank, had NOT BEEN TURNED ON and the dryer was just wind-drying my clothes with no heat for over 2 hours.
With that we all had a good laugh. The hotel worker worked until late in her shift to still fold up my laundry and it was ready in the morning. After some more banter, the women came down from their rooms and we all had an amazing breakfast and even more chatter.
It was wonderful. It's that kind of feeling Minnesotans get when they're cooped up inside on winter days and just chat like there's no tomorrow. Or a bonfire chat! It kind of was, we were all gathered around the wood stove keeping warm in the kitchen. It's the kind of feeling you get when the power goes out and everyone has to chat to pass the time. When the power comes back on, you're actually disappointed the fun is over and you're going back to you regular life.
Anyway, I had to take the Espinazo del Diablo highway to the coast and the women were headed toward Durango in the other direction.
It wasn't until later, when I was banking around an extremely tight turn on the highway, that it dawned on me- I didn't pay for the drying of my clothes.
Eva, I know you added me to Instagram and you may have clicked on this. You may have translated it into Spanish. I'm sorry I made off like a bandit, but I'm also kind of not. It shouldn't take 3 hours to dry clothes :P :P Thanks for the experience!
-JT
2/8/2023