El Paso 2001 The journey begins

The bus trip was long. I had watched out of the window as leafy green scenery gave way to dry soils and rolling hills of parched brown grass and, eventually, to desert. For forty-eight hours we had both been dying to get here, but now that the moment had come, I wished that we could continue observing our surroundings from behind the secure vantage-point of the coach window.

For the last two days we had been as if in a time-capsule. The outside world now seemed frightening and I found El Paso, with its dusty streets and foreign people, intimidating.

There was a knot in my stomach as we descended from the bus and went over to collect our backpacks from the hold. I had the distinct feeling that we were being watched and turned to see a group of dark-skinned men sipping beers in the café opposite the bus station, nudging each other and gesturing in our direction. One of them made a kissy face at me. It was difficult to pinpoint which of his features was the least attractive; the gut that spilled out over his shabby brown pants, or the fact that his fly was unbuttoned.

I stared the other way and wrestled with my pack to secure the straps over my shoulders. After so long of being cooped up in a small seat, my limbs felt weak and I knew I wouldn’t be able to carry it far in the desert heat.

So this was El Paso. Not exactly the homey Texan city that I was expecting. The kind that I had seen on adverts for fajita kits. America seemed to have given way to Mexico even though we were still north of the border. Without warning, everyone around had turned into Mexicans, including those travelling with us on the Greyhound.

As we made our way towards the centre to find a hotel room, the heat began to penetrate. “According to this,” said Anton, pointing at the guidebook, “there’s a hotel on East Stanton Street that’s really close to the bridge. I think we should go there. It doesn’t look much further.” He took off his cap and rubbed his head, his dark blond hair already scorched by the sun, had turned several shades lighter. Although he was tall, his frame was slight and his arms slender and I wondered if he had more difficulty carrying that weight than he let on. I smiled and dragged my feet along behind him, the reality dawning on me that this would be the first of many such treks.

I caught sight of myself in a shop window. I looked rough. My uninspiring shade of hair colour, which can sometimes look almost blonde, in the right light, was mousy and stuck to my head in places. My backpack was nearly as big as me and caused me to sweat under the arms on to my sleeves. I really needed a shower. The cooped up conditions on the bus had certainly done me no favours.

Shop workers and people strolling by mostly ignored us, although I probably eyed them with suspicion. Two days on a Greyhound bus was more than long enough to encounter some of America’s finest. Like the curious girl in front of us, travelling from Seattle to North Carolina (about a five day journey) with her pet fish in a small tupperware container. Or the alcoholic with the pungent smelling feet that nearly had herself ejected from the bus for steeling beer from a Chevron station, outside of Sacramento. There were two would-be gangsters on the final leg of the journey, calling everything and everyone a ‘motherfucker’, and the argument that took place between a fiery Latina and an even fierier black lady was particularly entertaining. The whole bus party was unable to continue its journey because the black lady had decided that she wanted the Latin lady’s seat. Sheer size gave her the upper hand and, eventually, she won, actually needing two seats to accommodate her large form.

For want of anything better to do (reading made me feel queasy) I had spent most of the duration of the journey trying to decide whether there was no truer representation of American life than this, or whether the Greyhound simply attracted all the oddballs and screwballs within the States. Perhaps the rest of America was comparatively normal and it was here on the buses that Jerry Springer found his contestants. It had certainly been an eye-opener and had made us both more aware of our belongings, and of our sanity.

El Paso is a well-laid out city, like the kind you could expect to find anywhere in North America, but there is an impoverished feel to it. Dollar clothing stores and fast food outlets line the sidewalks, and grand, modern buildings overshadow the falling down mini markets and laundries.

Loud Spanish voices filled my ears as we walked passed a thrift store. Two women were involved in a heated discussion, about what I could not tell, but their husbands stood in the background exchanging amused glances.

After several wrong turnings, we reached the ‘Gateway’ hotel. Colourful beaded curtains were hanging at the entrance door and, apart from a modest sign, there was little to distinguish the place as a hotel. We walked into a room, where three men were seated – two at a sofa and one at a table – smoking cigars. They stared at us penetratingly and without warmth. Our eyes turned to the man behind the reception desk who greeted us in English, asking which type of room we were after and for how long. All I could concentrate on was the fly that had landed on his eyebrow. He made no attempt to remove it and I had an overwhelming urge to slap it off with my hand.

As we walked up the stairs with the key we heard laughter and I could feel their eyes boring into my back. As I had not used my Spanish for some months, it was rusty and Anton had no knowledge of the language and was armed only with a small phrase book, we knew the next few months were going to be interesting. Although I had not quite prepared for it to be like this on “the safe side” of the border.

It was still early, something like 8.30, but I felt as if we had been up for days already and, as soon as we put down our bags, I jumped onto one of the beds. I lay down and stretched, feeling every fibre of my body lengthen. I surveyed the room. The carpet was a faded threadbare red and the fan above oscillated slowly and squeakily, its attachment to the ceiling a little precarious.

I lit a cigarette and watched as the smoke was caught by the wind from the fan and made little serpent motions. Anton was experimenting with our water purifier at the wash basin. The water came out warm and brown. I got up and went over to the window, pulling back the barely-there net curtains and looking down on to the street below. A fine layer of desert dust hung in the air. It was more visible on the other side of the street where the sidewalk was drenched in the morning sun. The streets were busy with people going to work. A bus heaved passed under the window and two children cycled by.

I let the curtain fall and withdrew into the room, suddenly overcome with tiredness. “Voila!” Anton produced a blue plastic cup filled with water. I looked at it with moderate suspicion.

“Do you think it’s safe? I know the guy in the store said that you could filter puddle water with it, but… it’s warm.”

“I dunno, but I’m thirsty and if we get really sick we can always sue.” He took a sip and passed it to me. It had a slightly clinical taste, which must have been the iodine. I lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling, concentrating my energy on the rotations of the fan. I heard Anton saying he was going out to buy some water. I was asleep before he returned.

Strange dreams invaded my sleep. Images from the bus journey – I was still on the bus but we weren’t going anywhere until everybody ate five hamburgers. Then the lady bus driver turned into Anton and he was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He seemed to be speaking another language. I woke up. It felt as if I had slept through the night and awoken to a new day, but the clock said that it was quarter after three. Anton was not in the room. There was a note on the table:

“Gone for a look around – back soon, A.”

I shrugged off the wave of sleep I still felt and took a sip of the warm water beside me. I could hear the Mexican men downstairs in the lobby and I wondered if they had been there all day. I took off the clothes that I had been wearing since we left Vancouver and jumped in the shower, which seemed to saturate everything in the bathroom apart from myself, on whom it dripped and spluttered. I washed the two-day grime out of my hair. I remember watching the Wrigley’s chewing gum commercials when I was younger – the ones that took place on the Greyhound. Then they had seemed so exciting and romantic. A wry smile came to my face as images of our travel companions sprang to mind: a psychiatrist’s dream (or nightmare, depending on your point of view).

There was a knock at the door – it was Anton with a coffee for me. I received it gratefully. “There’s free Internet access in the library. I just sent an email to Paul to let him know we’re ok.”

Paul was a mutual friend back in Canada, cynical, doubting and thoroughly expecting us to fail. “You don’t speak Spanish, you don’t have enough money, you don’t even know which direction to head in”. Paul had racked up a list of reasons why what we were doing was folly. “I know we’re heading South,” I protested, and Paul had just laughed in that patronising way of his that always made me feel totally ridiculous. Underneath it all I knew it was because he was worried. He had even forwarded me (and I swear this is true) a web link entitled “comebackalive.com”.

I could not help but wonder where all of Anton’s energy had come from, as I gladly sipped the coffee, rubbing my eyes. “So what’s it like out there?” I enquired. “It’s weird. The library was cool and there’s a square where I sat down and had a drink. But I went into a store to buy some smokes and the woman serving didn’t speak English at all.”

“I know, it’s like we’re there already, isn’t it? I suppose it’s a good way of easing us into crossing the border. I think I’ll go and have a look around too. Are you hungry at all? Maybe I’ll try and grab us something to eat.”

As I left the coolness of the hotel room, the heat outside hit me like a slap in the face and the desert air blew into my nostrils. The town square, as Anton had said, was where people sat and congregated. I was handed a pamphlet about Jesus as I walked passed.

I suddenly felt really hungry and decided to look for a supermarket. I made it my goal to find a grocery store, or at least somewhere to buy the ingredients to make a sandwich with. As I walked leisurely up and down the streets, taking in the sights and smells of the city, I was whistled at and catcalled, stared at and was even questioned as to where I was going. It is amazing the difference it makes walking down the street alone, or walking down the street with Anton. I knew there would be a lot worse to come, Mexican men had somewhat of a reputation to uphold.

After about an hour of wondering in the heat I decided to give up – there was no supermarket in El Paso. I bought a packet of chips, two apples and some rather hideous-looking iced cakes from a lady in a mini market, who managed to serve me without looking at me even once. She did not look at the cash register either, but managed to carry on her animated conversation with the man slouched over the counter, who looked a lot like the one who had blown me a kiss earlier.

Feeling sleepy and in need of shade, I made my way back to the hotel. The roads were strangely quiet. The sun had crossed to the other side of the street. My stomach twitched with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. The eerie whistling of a western movie theme tune rang through my head and I felt that at any moment the sheriff would come around the corner with his gun in his holster.

The sun set rapidly at around 7. We discovered a fire escape on our floor and heaved opened the door. From there we watched as the sun sank, leaving a streaky trail of reds and purples behind it. We sat at the top of the rickety staircase staring across the border, just a few blocks away. The slums of Ciudad Juarez were twinkling on the hills.

The dark shades of evening disguised the uneven sidewalks and shabby shop faces. Crumbling facades of buildings and dusty streets were air-brushed out of the picture. From this distance and in the flattering light, the sparkle of lights from the hills looked pretty, Christmas tree-like. The harsh, stark daylight was gone. Tomorrow we would be over there.

Back in the hotel room Anton fiddled with the television, which was one of the most antiquated I had seen in a while, with a dial knob where the channels had to be tuned in. In shades of green and red we watched the only channel available – the news in Mexico. In Guadalajara, there were flash floods and we saw pictures of people splashing each other in the streets, with water up to their knees; in Oxaca there was a student uprising (about what we failed to decipher); in Mexico City there was a piece about a shooting.

We turned it off and took out a deck of cards from my pack. We were both strangely subdued. “You know what?” asked Anton, “that’s a real country, with real people and real problems. It’s not like Canada the wonderland anymore. It’s for real.”

“What are we doing?” I asked half laughing, half serious, with a sudden desire to be back in Paul’s apartment, digging him in the ribs about being so worried. I had a lump in my throat. We had some dinner (chips and iced gooey things) and washed it down with some iodineised water. At least I would lose some weight on this trip.

Chapter 2

The morning dawned hot and dry, as I expected it probably did every day in Texas. We filtered some emergency water into a little bottle and tried to memorise the instructions in the guidebook. Neither of us wanted to have to pull it out and consult its pages in the streets of Juarez; we may just as well have worn a neon sign shouting “I’m a tourist! And I’m lost! Please come and rip me off!”

We had read that only tourists in Mexico wear shorts and, not wishing to further differentiate ourselves from the crowds, we covered up in T-shirts and long pants. I don’t really know why we made such an effort to not stand out. The very fact of our huge backpacks, Anton’s streaked blond hair and our confused expressions would be more than enough of a job by itself.

Unlike Anton, a coffee and a cigarette was not enough to sustain me until lunchtime, which was probably why he was so skinny and I wasn’t. People say that they don’t quit smoking because they are afraid that they will eat more. It doesn’t work that way for me. Smoking has never been an appetite suppressant. If I have a cigarette, I still need a snack, or some breakfast, or something to make my brain believe that I have had food. I finished off some cheesepuffs, which had been exposed to the air and were slightly stale-tasting. I smiled at the thought of my mother back home, and what she would have to say about how I’d been eating the last few days.

With one last look around the room and a token checking underneath the beds, we made our way down the stairs and into the lobby, where the same men were already assembled in their places, viewing some early morning Mexican soap in which the characters wore excessive amounts of mascara and no amount of over-acting was too strong. There were no clues as to what their role in the running of this hotel was. As far as I could make out, they only served to intimidate people as they walked in. Lazy cabrones who sat around all day while their woman worked in the mini-markets, clothing stores and launderettes, before returning home and cooking the dinner. The man behind the counter asked if we were heading into Mexico and wished us luck, saying that we were about to go and experience another culture and country, and that we would have the time of our lives. Perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all. Or perhaps he had hidden a packet of drugs in one of our backpacks and we would be besieged at the border.

It is a strange thing, when fuelled by just enough fear and uneasiness, what great fantasies form in the depths of our imaginations. I did not normally have a suspicious nature, yet some defence mechanism in me made me size everyone up. I suppose it is just our fear of the unknown, irrational, like that of the dark, when it is impossible to see what is lurking in the shadows and our minds fill in the blanks with alarming possibilities. Part of me blamed Paul, who had filled my head with so many horrifying scenarios that, in Canada, were easy to brush off, and here, amongst the dusty, sultry reality, suddenly played on my mind. We stepped out in to the street outside and started to make our way towards the bridge into Juarez. I had mixed impressions of El Paso. It was not a place that you felt compelled to hurry back to by any means. It was not a must-see place to visit. It was simply the stepping off point into Mexico, its very name meaning ‘the pass’ in Spanish. The inhabitants were strange and the attractions of the town few, but still I would remember it fondly, as the start of our adventure.

The border between Mexico and El Paso is separated by a bridge, which is manned by a person in a small cubicle, and blocked to cars by a light wooden barrier. Before leaving El Paso, a small fee of 25 cents maintenance charge is levied. At least, this is what you could expect to see on a typical day, according to our guidebook. But today was obviously the guard’s day off. There was no one in the cubicle. We waited for a few moments wondering what we should do next, until a few ladies with large bundles and baskets casually side-stepped the barrier and started walking over the bridge, unconcerned. We shrugged our shoulders and did the same, checking first that no one was going to run around the corner with a shotgun and arrest us. Even though we knew that the Immigration office was on the other side, this lack of policing of the border seemed strange. Probably all the more so because we were subjected to such fierce interrogation by meaty officials with army haircuts at the USA border into Seattle.

Summoning up their most threatening and sullen faces, they asked us why we wanted to come to America, what we would be doing, when we would be leaving, and how we were going to pay for it. American customs officers always make me feel as if I have something to hide, spluttering through my answers and stumbling over simple questions, such as birth date or profession. Although, my birth date usually raises a smile from even the most sombre of them, falling as it does on the 4th July. Rarely has a customs official failed to inform me of what a good party I would have on my birthday should I spend it in the States.

My thoughts returned again to our surroundings, which were hot, dry and dusty. As we shuffled along the bridge over the Rio Grande, the straps of my bag began to gnaw into my shoulder blades. The noise and hub of our first Mexican city grew louder. We walked right over and into a busy street. The ladies in front of us had already been swallowed up into the scene of the city. Had we not known that the Immigration office was to the right of the bridge, it would have been easy to keep on walking and disappear into northern Mexico without anyone so much as batting an eyelid or raising a sombrero.

There were a few people milling outside a small office a few yards away. We walked in and put our packs down, which brought instant relief. I felt as if I had shed several pounds just from walking over the bridge. There were several officials behind glass panels inside. An overweight, cheerless woman, with a suggestion of a moustache at the corners of her upper lip, grunted at me to approach. “¿Hablas Ingles?” I attempted, smiling, expecting a warm smile in return as acknowledgement of my efforts. She stared at me with a look of repulsion and, not until she had made me feel as if I was physically shrinking in front of her did she answer “no” in a loud, aggressive tone. I turned round to Anton, who was looking worried. This did not happen in rehearsals last night. I took a deep breath and dug into the back of my brain for my Spanish.

I handed over our passports and asked the woman for a ninety day tourist visa and she did her best to not understand a word that came out of my mouth, visibly relishing my embarrassment, and letting me squirm for a few moments longer before, obviously aware of what we wanted, she eventually threw two visa slips under the counter and blurted at me in very fast Spanish. Evidently we were to go to the first bank we could find to pay for and have our visas validated there. At least I was ninety per cent sure that was what she had said. I did not dare to ask her to repeat herself.

Anton gave me a pat on the back as we stepped out of the building. I lit a cigarette and took a drag, leaning against the wall for support. “That was hard work”, I muttered, flicking a coil of ash onto the ground and smoothing it away with my boot. They probably see thousands of stupid gringos trying to cross into their country each year and resent them for their arrogance. I knew that I just needed a few weeks to refamiliarise myself with their language but hated not being able to speak fluently or with confidence. It was always so much easier to speak a foreign language in a bar, after several drinks, when your inhibitions have been dispersed. Anton let out a yelp of anguish, as he searched and researched his small day pack. His phrase book was not inside and he had evidently left it on the counter in the hotel as we paid our bill. Although not hugely useful for me, it was at least of some aid and I knew Anton really wanted to try and help with the hotel bookings and try learning Spanish. Now all he had to come to his aid were the three short pages in the back of the ‘Let’s Go’ guidebook, which were packed with useful expressions, such as, “marrying me will not make you a US citizen” and “you killed my father, prepare to die”. These expressions would definitely come in handy when making idle conversation in a bar or finding out train times. I inwardly cringed.

Once we had reloaded ourselves with our backpacks, we walked away from the office and crossed the busy road, where the sidewalk was heaving with people waiting for a bus. We were not planning on spending any longer in this town than necessary, as we had heard bad reports of it. Bob Dylan wrote ‘Just like Tom Thumb’s blues’ ** get this **, arguably one of his most depressing songs, about Ciudad Juarez.

The disorderly queue of people at the bus stop pushed and shoved each other as a bus pulled around the corner. We managed to pile ourselves onto it and found a seat near the centre of the bus. If we were on the right bus, we should be at the Rio Grande mall, where we were could catch a bus to Juarez’s main coach station, in a matter of minutes. There was no air conditioning on the bus and the open windows provided little ventilation. Sporadic palm trees grew in the middle of the road, ripping through the broken pavements. The chaotic streets heaved with traffic. Children on bicycles loaded with provisions passed dangerously close to the sides of the bus. The driver had a rosary hanging from the sun visor. The plastic brown seats made my skin sweat and feel sticky. I picked at the hole in the cover of the seat in front, rolling the foam I pulled out into little balls. Out of the window a collection of large shops loomed up. Anton jumped up and signalled to the driver. The bus stopped and we got out, trying not to knock people flying with our heavy luggage as we squeezed passed.

It was good to step out into the outside air again, even if it was close and seemed to coat the back of the throat. A busy, wide road lay between us and the mall, and we took several attempts to cross, eventually deep breathing and running over as fast as we could. There was no sign to say that this was the ‘Rio Grande’ mall. In fact, most of the shops seemed to be closed. We crossed over the car park, and into the mall, where the cool air soothed around us.

I asked a young lady with large golden hoops in her ears and a high ponytail if this was the Rio Grande mall. She looked at me blankly. That is what I thought I had asked her anyway, but I had probably just told her that she was a big river. We looked at the mall planner. No where on it did it state ‘Rio Grande’. I looked up and saw the unmistakable glimmer of a golden arch. To my dismay, there was a McDonalds here. Like an octopus, its tentacles had stretched into most countries in the world. Dishing up its own brand of tasteless, generic burgers and cardboard fries. Fast food that contained some kind of McNicotine, enticing the poor addicted masses back through its doors, clogging their arteries raising their blood pressure, and impacting on the local competition. I turned away in disgust.

After attempting to ask a few different people where we were, we got the distinct impression that this was not the Rio Grande mall. We went outside again and decided to go into the Holiday Inn, as there would be counter staff there that spoke English. Sweaty, dirty and not looking in the least bit like hotel guests, we traipsed up to the reception desk and explained our predicament. The lady behind the counter spoke perfect English and was very helpful, although she did not know how to direct us to the central depot, or to the Rio Grande mall. We did learn, however, that we were still a long way off and, in fact, had come totally out of our way.

She placed a map which had the bus routes listed on it on the counter and the three of us managed to work out which combination would get us there. We wondered out at least now having some perspective of where we were and which direction we were heading in.

We found a bus stop and leaned against it. Knowing from experience that the best way to make a bus arrive is to light up a cigarette, I did so and a few seconds later a bus rumbled around the corner. Routa 8A. it seemed to be the one that we needed. I crushed my cigarette out on the floor and we jumped on to the bus. This time we had managed to board the right bus and we only had to change once before we arrived at the main depot.

We stepped inside and saw a counter marked ‘Omnibus Mexico’. I recognised that name from the guidebook and felt slightly relieved that we seemed to be in the right place at last. By a combination of sign language, fumbled Spanish and pointing at the guidebook and the departure board, we eventually managed to get two first class one way tickets to Chihuahua. She told us the bus trip was about five hours, which was nothing compared to the last trip we had taken, and would pass by very swiftly.

We had half an hour to wait and we bought two coffees, sat down and surveyed our surroundings. It was much the same as any bus station you could expect to find anywhere in the world. A point of transit filled with people sitting, waiting to catch their next bus to a different city, and people reunited with family hugging and gabbling fast and cheerful greetings. Most people had large bags and bored expressions. No one eyed us with suspicion, as though we didn’t belong in this picture. In fact, they didn’t look at us at all. Just normal people going about their everyday lives. I started to feel more relaxed at last. People are people wherever you go. There is nothing more dangerous or scary about Mexican people than your congregation at church or fellow publicans, even though I had had visions of them all wielding guns and being somehow intimidating. I don’t know why I felt so frightened in the hotel room that morning. I started to feel more at ease and able to observe people without the same level of suspicion as before.

We handed our backpacks to the driver and he placed them in the luggage hold underneath. We stepped onto the coach, which was very plush, air conditioned and had enough leg room to stretch out. It was twice as lavish as the American Greyhound and 48 hours in this baby would have been a relative pleasure.

As we pulled out of the bay and drove along, I again looked at the outside world through a pain of glass. I felt secure and comfortable and knew that we would not have to move for at least another few hours. Every so often I caught the driver’s eye in his mirror and he smiled at me. It wasn’t a sleezy smile at all, more a kind of comforting, fatherly type of smile. I felt ashamed for ever worrying about coming here.

We passed through the outskirts of the city and watched as shackle-style houses gave way to barren and open landscape. Soon we were driving through desert where there was nothing to be seen apart from open spaces and dry desert ground, dotted with the odd brush or desert fern.

A violent crash of rolling thunder filled the sky, invading the rhythmic vibrations of the bus in my ears. This was followed up by a giant flash of fork lightning. The rain fell out of the sky like a dam released on a river. The sky darkened and the water beat against the windows of the coach. I felt very snug inside, and stared out of the window with a childlike excitement. Watching, anticipating, gasping as the rain let up none of its ferocity and the booming thunder echoed across the wild desert ‘scape.

Two minutes later, the sun came out and shone across the land as if nothing had happened. The windows of the coach dried off and almost no evidence remained of the rain. I was reminded of my childhood, growing up in Saudi Arabia and the freak weather that could occur there too. Flash storms of great intensity that would disappear as quickly as they had come. And the evening sun that set with no twilight, going from light to dark, as if someone were turning a dimmer switch down.

I turned to Anton in the seat next to me. His eyes were closed and he looked relaxed. I looked again out of the window at the beautiful, barren scenery and let out a smile. At that moment I could think of no where else I would rather have been and I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat.