During my first 2 weeks of travel, I met more people who told me that I absolutely must visit Chiapas, especially San Cristóbal De Las Casas and Palenque, than I can possibly remember.  I met two people who each fell in love during their stay in San Cristóbal.  They then told me that's why I absolutely had to go.  Everyone falls in love there.  I started picturing Venice: canals, swans, the guys who row the boats, the magical heart that appears in the air between you and your lover.  It's a mountain town though, so no canals.  What's with everyone throwing around this whole "it's magical" thing about this place?  That's what everyone says about the Fire Island Pines too!  And they are so different!  (Today I learned that this Pueblo Mágico thing is actually real, so maybe that is contributing to the overuse by backpackers?)

I stayed in a hotel in El Centro, Villahermosa after my bus ride from Palenque.  (Villahermosa translation: Beautiful town; irony: it ain't a pretty place, folks). The city was completely shut down.  The two block walk from the bus station to the hotel was horrifying.  The hotel smelled like stale cigarette smoke.  When I got to my floor, there was a guy pacing back and forth smoking a cigarette.   Villahermosa is the capital of the Mexican state of Tabasco.  Most people do not really go there.  The idea was to spend the night there to get a flight nice and early in the morning so I could have a full day in supposedly magical San Cristobal.  The taxi ride to the airport was colorful.  The driver told me that he used to work in the police force in Villahermosa but it was too stressful.  Then, as he was driving on the crazy-ass highway, picks up his right sleeve with his left hand and showed me the massive scar extending down from this shoulder through his bicep.  Yes, it must have been quite stressful.  Driving a taxi is better, he tells me.

My flight from Villahermosa to Tuxtla Guttierez was indefinitely delayed.  They told us the pilot got sick and he might have an airborne sickness so we have to get off the plane and they have to find a new pilot.  It's nice not being on a super tight schedule during this whole backpacking thing I'm doing.  I really wasn't stressed out though.  I was more concerned that I didn't understand the directions the gate attendant was giving us.  The issue was more that Tuxtla Guttierez, the capital of the state of Chiapas, was a 1h 10m drive from San Cristóbal De Las Casas.  Even after I would eventually arrive, I knew I still had quite a ride through the mountains to get to this town, so it better be good!

Fast-forward to the flight being delayed 8 hours.  I arrive and get into a cab.  The ride through the mountains is shocking and beautiful.  It's shockingly beautiful, bam!  For anyone who believes that Mexico cannot build sturdy, reliable and complex infrastructure, look no further than the highway between Tuxtla and San Cristóbal.  This thing is a monster.  No, it's not a 12-lane highway that goes in circles around Houston.  It's a 2-lane curvaceous mountain road with massive angled steel girder overpasses that open up panoramic views of layers upon layers of mountains.   The curves seem endless, as do the mountains.  I'm having a deep conversation, in Spanish, with the taxi driver about what it means to be from Chiapas.  He explains to me that they are proud of their ancestral heritage, of being people of the mountains, and for cultivating such a beautiful land.  I share his appreciation and joy for his beautiful land.  I'm looking around this place and out the window and thinking, "This sure as hell ain't my land."

Upon arriving in San Cristóbal, it was cold and rainy.  The people in my hostel were not friendly.  Everything smelled like weed and people were speaking Spanish at the speed of light.  No one would slow down even when I asked them to, in Spanish.  There was no natural light in our room or the common area.  Everything was dark.  The Argentinian hostel worker, in charge of social activities,  was incorrectly and immorally telling these European dudes how easy it would be for them to drive through the mountain jungle to Palenque and come back the same day.  My eyes were rolling back in my head so much that I could see my brains.  The Zapatistas were blocking the highway, again.  Only buses and connected locals can pass.  It's also many hours away.  How many more times is she going to say Palehnnnnnnqé with this pseudo Italian-Argentinian accent?  Saying it fancier does not make it easier to get to, I think to myself.  I strongly feel that only the Mexican guy at the Villahermosa bus station is allowed to say it in his own tongue: "palenquepalenquepalenqueeee", repeatedly as he tries to get passengers into his van.

My roommate is an older Polish man, Marek.  He's my dad's age.  He's from Warsaw.  I knew the War would come up at some point but I really did not want to start talking about being Jewish and my grandparents in Poland and stuff.  Maybe at some point on my trip there would be time for that.  I did not feel like this was the time.  The hostel was dark and cold and I just wanted to find reasons to like this town.   Marek needed help getting his photos off of his digital camera because his SD Card was running out of space.  I asked him if he had the USB connector and he did.  I helped him transfer the photos to his laptop.  He watched me in amazement and thanked me profusely.  As I was transferring the data, he tells me the story of his daughters, ex-wife, leaving Poland and falling in love with Playa Del Carmen.  I decide to use this opportunity to bitch to him about how the Argentinian worker girl is unfriendly and the European dudes are on drugs and not being socially engaging.  I make a comment about how the Argentinians in Playa Del Carmen were not so friendly either and maybe that's just the way it is.  He says to me that people say a lot of things about lots of people: Jews, for example, and we cannot generalize an entire group of people because those things aren't true.  I took note of my new Polish friend/roommate defending Jews. We did a few shots of high quality tequila together and we went to bed.  I did not share anything else personal with him that night.

I wanted to visit the Cañon Sumidero the next day even though I've heard that there was a massive environmental pollution disaster waiting to be seen. Marek had invited me to see the Chamula village but he did mention that they don't allow photography because it's considered offensive and that made me feel like well isn't it also fantasy just kind of watch them do voodoo and kill chickens and for their blood into the various jars and what not? Any case I told him I would meet him later on in the day for it was now Christmas Eve day and we would probably do some sort of Christmas dinner together.

The Cañon Sumidero was worth a visit even though about 2/3 of the way through you encounter floating lakes of garbage.  I'm glad I read about this on trip advisor before hand because it was something that probably would've really upset me had I had no warning. Seeing the floating likes of garbage remind me of the garbage dumps and polluted waterways that surround the Staten Island Mall. I remember driving in the family car down Richmond Avenue and noticing the polluted water as a child. I also remembered that as a child I didn't understand that we were driving over polluted water weigh every single day.  At the time I just thought that this is what this type of water looked like and then I guess or other types of water out there I just haven't seen them yet. I guess it also kind of reminds me a little bit of the first time that I saw in ocean with really blue water which I think wasn't until I was maybe 30 years old or so.

Cañon Sumidero/Sumidero Canyon is absolutely breathtaking in it's grandeur. The canyons surround you without making you feel claustrophobic. You stare up into the sky almost looking directly into the sun and you see these amazing rock formations. For the most part the water is clean as it's only in that middle part where it really starts getting bad.  At one point the canyons are part of a small waterfall system where moss has formed on the rocks and water drips from the top of the canyon and onto the moss covered rocks and then into who the river where it glistens in the sun. The boat goes right up to the edge of this waterfall and you see the sun shining on the glistening water and moss and it looks like something out of a ride at Disney. It's one of nature’s glories. It's one of the reasons why people travel and it's one of the things that make me feel satisfied in life.

When I got back to the hostel it seemed like some of the Spanish-speaking hostel guests and employees had already started cooking some sort of Christmas dinner. Marek assured me that we were a part of it and that we were invited and there would be enough food for us. I watched him speak English and using his hands to gesture to try to communicate to the other guests suggesting that we want to be part of this meal. They responded to him in Spanish with things like “sure whatever” and “I don't know, whatever you want”. I had to tell him that they weren't really being very open and when he thought they were inviting him to dinner they were actually saying that they didn't really have a plan. I went up to one of these folks and I asked him what's for dinner and what the deal is and he showed me a few tortillas and a pineapple and he said if you want to go buy some rum that be nice and I asked if there was enough food for everybody and he said just bring whatever you want.  Then I realized this is really a thing and some people had clearly planned something (poorly) but I think they found Marek really annoying. This is really shitty because this is San Cristobal
and this is the same place everyone says is so friendly and magical and that you fall in love. Unfortunately, I was experiencing some sort of very insular and closed off energy.

I asked Marek to go out for an Italian dinner at a restaurant nearby and he got really excited at the thought. He really loves San Cristobal because of the energy on the street and all the sidewalk cafés. Perhaps it reminded him of Europe? In any case all just seemed rather crowded. Perhaps everyplace in Mexico is crowded during Christmas week and I should really shut the fuck up. The restaurant totally sucked.  They didn't know how to make a basic meat sauce. I sent back the food and ordered a foccaccia sandwich instead. Marek’s food was gross too, so I told him he could share with me.  Marek was on a really tight budget and he didn't want to share with me (I think he thought I would ask him to pay) but I insisted that he eat some of my bread. It’s kind of funny given that he's Polish and I come from Polish peasantry because I really did feel like a Polish peasant as we are splitting small piece o focaccia bread on Christmas Eve. At the evening went on and we had a few more glasses of wine, he started telling me the story of his life.  He told me that his father never spoke about the War and that as his father was dying it became apparent from documentation and other sources that his father grew up with a different last name and it was actually Jewish.  His father was able to get false identification papers.  That’s how he survived the War. 

Once Marek discovered that he was partially Jewish he started the journey of trying to reconcile his own identity. He became extremely interested in Jewish culture at its history. He even commented to me that he thought he was at least partially Jewish when he was a younger kid because he didn't have blue eyes and blond hair and the other student used to make fun of him and call him a “Jew”.  When I “came out” to him as Jewish, he became even more fascinated with me. I shared with him that I can read and write Hebrew and that my conversational modern Hebrew is at an intermediate level. He was more interested in Jewish culture and things like holidays and dances and klezmer music.  He told me that I would just love, absolutely love, the Jewish Festival in Kraków. This is where things started to kind a get a little awkward for me.

I couldn't stop thinking about my grandfather, Herbert Siegel.  I picture my grandfather saying "I don’t need to go to the [expletive] Jewish Festival, I'm a [expletive] Jew. "  I know there's a time and place for everything and I knew Marek was a little bit of an excitable personality but I couldn't sit there and there and pretend like just because I am Jewish that I would automatically love the Jewish Festival. I wanted him to really understand what it meant to be a Jewish person and Jewish identity.   He needed to understand that it's not as simple as just saying you're a Jew and then you connect everything Jewish and that you love all Jewish things and that we are singular unique identity. Quite the opposite is true.  So with my grandfather in mind and thinking about my own uniqueness, my own journey reconciling my Judaism and my liberalism, I told him that I didn't like klezmer music. I asked him if it's mostly a klezmer music festival with some Jewish food. He responded yes and with wide open eyes and sense of shock he responded with "how could you possibly not like Jewish music?"  I told him that just because I’m Jewish it doesn’t mean that I like klezmer music.  Besides there is plenty of Israeli music that isn’t anything like klezmer.  Being Jewish also includes Mizrachi culture.  The world of Judaism is an incredible mix of political opinions, country of origin, culture, food and music. It didn't seem to take. He was extremely shocked and even offended that I was kind of trying to convince him that I wouldn't like something he was so sure I would definitely like. For a minute I was about to say, “you're right, I totally would love this and I can't wait to go to Kraków.” I wouldn't have been honest or true at all.  I didn't want him to think it was just that simple and that because I am this thing, I love this thing and I embrace all parts of this thing and everything is fine and dandy. There's a lot of complexity to the story of my family and how we survived and how we assimilated into American culture (and I think there's an untold story of how we didn't really assimilate into American culture that well). 

Later, on my trip to Oaxaca City, I would meet a lovely Polish girl who now lives in London.  She came from a very small town in Poland that used to have many Jewish people. She discovered this when she was a child because she was asking her mother questions about all the odd things that she would see that didn't make any sense to her. She became of obsessed with Judaism and Jewish culture. She took Hebrew and Yiddish classes at University, she studied the Torah and she knows a lot of things about Israel.  I told her about the Marek story and the Jewish Festival in Kraków and now I told him that I hated klezmer music. She was taken aback and told me that it was really mean of me to say that to Marek. I told her I was just being honest with him and I wanted him to understand that I don't like klezmer music; that I am a Jewish person who doesn’t need to go to Jewish festivals to get a sense of what it means to be Jewish or to appreciate it. While it might be fine for other people who are looking for something like that, for me being Jewish does not involve a festival with some sort of mock Jewish food being sold restaurants around the public square (knowing that there still incredible amount of antisemitism in Poland).  This just doesn’t sit well with me.  Poland has not reconciled its antisemitism in the way Germany has.  I've been to Germany five times I know many Germans and I am very confident saying this. Perhaps there is a possibility at some point in the future and maybe I'll even stop by the Jewish Festival in Kraków if I see it happening but I'm not really sure that that's going to be a main goal of mine while I'm there.  I would much rather try Polish delicacies, meet locals, see some small villages and mountains and forests and lakes, just like I do everywhere else that I travel.  I wanna see what's left of the small villages of my grandparents towns. I don't have any expectations of what I’ll find. I've even looked on Google Maps satellite images it looks like there's really not much there. I’d like to walk through the town, smell the air, feel the energy and maybe imagine what it used to be like. I'm not sure. 

The end of my time with Marek was filled with him being so incredibly grateful for sharing my identity with him, for allowing  him to share his identity with me and for fixing his mobile phone and laptop issues. I expressed the same to him. I told him I was really glad to have met a Polish guy who is trying to figure it all out and I appreciated how open he was. 

Maybe the magical moment for me in this “Puebla Magica” city was meeting someone from where my  ancestors come from, who late in life is only discovering his true connection to the land; also that we actually belong to the same people.  I really was not ready to start talking about my identity with other travelers beyond my “Remote Year computer new york native” labels.  People have been asking me what languages I speak.  I don’t always say I speak Yiddish and Hebrew because I’m not totally fluent in those languages, like I am in French, and I also don’t want to make the entire conversation about me being Jewish and how and why I speak Hebrew and where I learned it.  I’m trying to embrace what’s interesting about me but I also am not totally interested in always being “different”. It’s nice sometimes to just follow other travelers and appreciate beauty and smile at things.  Simply smiling and nodding to Marek would have a nice way of me appreciating his gesture without over-complicating the reality that we were two traveling strangers having a Christmas dinner.  I had an internal conflict there and I engaged it and it was really hard.  I got judged for it later on in my trip and I don’t really feel good about it.  Yes, I was true to myself.  In an effort to educate someone, I came off as callous and dismissive.  
Today at breakfast (I’m writing this from San Miguel de Allende), a crazy old lady was talking about her daughter.  She’s originally from Oregon.  She was speaking at full volume, rambling for quite a longtime.   I caught the part where she was telling a group of people about how her daughter was pregnant, but the story went like this: “My daughter went to a Jewish law school in Manhattan and all of her friends are Jewish except her boyfriend.  He’s Puerto Rican.  She sent me pictures of the sonogram.”  I asked, “What does the Jewish stuff have to do with the story?”  She said, “Oh yea, I guess nothing, I don’t know why I said that!”

I’m different, we’re different, we Jewish folk.  There’s no escaping it.  At least it’s what most people seem to think of us.  Is it my job to educate people that a lot of us are just like everyone else?  Finessing the approach to sharing my identity while enlightening strangers who have never met a Jewish person before (and not completely derailing a conversation) will be one of my goals from this journey.