Ballads of the distances and times pt.1

Sometimes,
there is just fog all around you


and you can't see what is ahead,



sometimes you can't even see your own hands,




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but you just can't stop going forward.

There could be a sharp bend right ahead.
Or a blockade. Or a dead end.


And you can't stop thinking about it.


Your                      mind
    overflows
             with
                 the
                    fear
               about
            the
absolute               unknown     .             


But regardless of that,

you should stay on the road.

And keep charging forward through the mist.


Grip the
tar
mac

and feel       
the         wind
brushing by you.

Let it
tell you where
everyone's destinies
collide and fuse;

where life begins and ends,
and where you lie
in the event horizon
                        
of
your own       miraculous,     brief  
                                            and
                                            impermanent
                                            existence.

Me acuerdo...

muy bien de aquellos días que me parecían tan mundanos. Nunca pensé que llegaría a tales extremos del planeta, y que viviese todo lo que vivido aquí. Y yo que todos los días, de lunes a viernes, me fui por esta misma calle para crear el futuro que estoy viviendo tan intensamente en el presente. Ni idea tenía en aquel entonces.


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A veces pienso que el pasado que tuve fue malo, y que por mis malos hábitos pasé una adolescencia muy limitada y lenta. Lo que nunca me imaginé es que por mis esfuerzos yo pudiera llegar a estas tierras lejanas, vivir como nunca y ser exitoso. Uno a veces no tiene idea del efecto que tienen nuestras decisiones hasta el momento en que llegan a toda potencia. Pues así es la vida.

Google Maps Street View now in Mexico

First off, I’d just like to say: SWEET!

At first I thought it would be practically impossible that Mexico, a third world country next to the US, would be featured in Google Maps' Street View feature. When I checked it out, I was flabbergasted. Outstanding. Cities like the monstrous Mexico City, Puebla, Guadalajara, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta and Monterrey are included, and others are soon to follow. The quality of the pictures is crisp clear and, as any other virtual globetrotter, I dived in to search for interesting things that were taken by the Google Maps cars that ran through those cities.

I know Mexico City fairly, I know most of the main vehicular arteries that connect the city and most of its landmarks. And I thought that perhaps the poorest or more criminal-prone regions of the city would feature the most interesting “happenings”. And as such I explored. Here’s what I found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the very end of a street in a northern district of the city I found this water-carrying truck. Taking a closer looks, it seems that Google’s face-blurring mechanism failed right there. I don’t remember seeing a person’s face so close in Street View. I wonder if he knows that he’s on the internets.

This guy should know better that he must not try to enter wormholes without the proper equipment, let alone with a modified bicycle like that one. And once again, his face is not blurred. What’s going on Google?

 

Oh GAWD. Somebody’s going to have to pick up all this mess. Either a garbage truck exploded or the ground broke up, overflowing with rubbish. I don’t know. All I know is that I took this around the Tepito area, Mexico City’s greatest and most infamous open-air black-market complexes. Not surprisingly, there are very few shots of the stalls that normally cover the entire area. This is because almost all of the shots there were taken at the crack of dawn. Smart thinking on behalf of Google.

This is just a little  gem that I found, the Callejón de los Patos, or Duck Alley. This is in an impoverished area, not even the road is paved. In any case, it holds the essence of the harsh reality a lot of Mexicans have to face everyday.

If I lived in Mexico City, and if my house was ever broken into, I would always go to a place like this to buy the stuff that was stolen from me back. This is what house-owners have to face in Mexico City. Not kidding. My dad’s car’s rims were stolen one day, so he went to a nearby car repair shop to locate them and buy them back.

Almost all along this street, this particular area of the photographs has its colors messed up. The trees look purple!! And everything else is in black and white (almost), as if we were looking back into the past or something like that (the world before color tv was invented was actually in black and white, yeah haha).

And now for something different. I found this bizarre relic among the urban jungle. I wonder what it represents. A saint? A guard? An eavesdropper?

With Google Maps Street View now available in this country, there are many hopes that silly, weird or unusual things may be found in the future. And I hope I get to have my hometown featured. That would be nice.