Tropical Navidad

It’s just different traveling on a bicycle. Sure, we go in a day what a car can do in an hour, but we see and smell and feel and taste and hear the places through which we travel. This effect is sometimes undesirable – like on the auto pista, where exhaust is choking you, burning your eyes and lungs, horrible noise assaulting you all too often. But it is also the best feeling ever when you are alone on the road, seeing the birds flying around you, the butterflies, the ringtails, the weird tropical trees, the sun warming your bare back while the wind caresses you continuously. We lucked out and met a man who worked for the freeway company. He informed us that there is a new toll road through the jungle to Tepic, but since construction is almost complete and the road is not open to vehicles yet, we should bike it. 200 km of nearly car-free bliss makes a wonderful way to enter the tropics. Three days of sheer happiness. We passed the tropic of cancer now, and are in a totally different eco-system than before. I’m excited to explore a mangrove today.

We are healthy and happy, staying safe and speaking Spanish that improves each day.

The holidays are really celebrated well here. People get together with their families, travel, or make merry. There are many parties, a packed zocalo and people bursting with amistad (and cerveza). I prefer this celebration to the hyper-consumeristic Northern tradition of buying lots of petroleum based crap, wrapping it up in virgin paper, unwrapping the crap, land filling the paper, acknowledging the crap and watching commercial packed football games while eating obscene amounts of meat. What happened America? Why the need to consume so much junk?

I propose a new holiday, to be celebrated everywhere. It would be called Celebration of Life Day, a day where everyone does their very best not to kill ANYTHING - especially animals. No meat would be eaten, no animals slaughtered, no trees cut, no cars driven (driving inevitably causes the death of many butterflies and other life). Fruit and nuts would be consumed with gusto, as would wine and other gifts from nature. People could dance, sing, love, go ride a bike, go for a hike, camp, swim, go to the beach – celebrating life by paying attention to the abundance of it all around us. Leave the cities (but not by car) and see the wilderness, do more to expand the diversity of life around oneself, maybe in a garden.
Sadly, I doubt the (dominant) attitude back home would be very positive about such a holiday. I can’t imagine Bush or any congressperson proposing such a day. However, I know many people that would embrace such a holiday. Let’s have a dialog! A Celebration of Life Day!