Village of the Dead (P1):
Death Threats From A Child
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BLOG POST #025 - Village of The Dead (P1): Death Threats From A Child
How I learned to ride a motorcycle, speak Spanish and not die. Riding solo in search of adventure from Detroit to Argentina.
The boy smiled warmly as he pointed and said, "Go away or my padre will kill you.".
Neatly dressed and only four feet tall, the contrast between his words and his manner was jarring. He looked contented and friendly, yet he seemed to be threatening my life.
It was road trip day forty-seven, as I made my approach to Oaxaca ("wa-HA-ka") for Day of the Dead celebrations in southern Mexico.
My immediate need was to find a good hideout where I could have a few days of downtime. More than simple rest for my bones, I needed to shut my brain off from the stress of constantly being in motion.
The plan was to camp at a nature reserve I had read about. After being on the road all morning, it took another few hours to find the place. When I finally arrived it was closed. My shoulders tensed, as I realized I didn't have a Plan-B and daylight was ticking past.
The long road through this foreign land was getting to me.
When you ride a motorcycle for six hours in one day, you get tired. However, when you repeat that six-hour ride every few days for two weeks, you get downright weary.
Wanting to calculate the journey in sensible blocks of time, I developed the ADAT (Apportioned Dragassery Ambulatory Theorem). My assumption was that a carefully metered-out pace of travel would keep me fresh and well rested.
The “Apportioned Dragassery Ambulatory Theorem”
It didn't.
Sometimes you can apply the best predictive analyses that Gantt chart spreadsheets and advanced calculus have to offer, but the results still suck ass.
My eyeballs were chronically dried out and crusty at the corners. A fortnight of being blasted by sixty mile per hour dust made my joints creak, turning the fluid inside my elbows to a thick brown paste. There was a pronounced kink in my neck between C3 and C4 from tilting my head back as my body leaned over La Barra for hundreds of miles at a time.
A few days back, the town doctor told me that my sniffle wasn't COVID and that I had the beginnings of a cold. By now it was coming on strong and my nose leaked in a constant flow of clear drizzle all day and night. I wasn't sleeping well.
The pandemic slowed progress. A mask and vaccination card were required if I so much as wanted to buy a bottle of water at an Oxxo corner store. Since I had never ridden a motorcycle before this and I was learning Spanish on the fly, every day was a challenge to survive.
Considering that so many impediments were stacked against me, I was doing really well. However, there was a price.
I was friggggggin weary.
I'm not a big fan of toxic masculinity but for some reason it tweaked my macho pride to admit to myself, "I miss my cats."
Longing for the safety of something familiar is the base ingredient to loneliness. Sometimes we miss a place, a certain food, or a feeling of belonging. The worst thing to miss is a person, and the worst of those is a lover.
However, travel-lonely isn't like regular lonely. Nothing is familiar or safe. It had been weeks since I stayed in the same town for more than two days.
It would be bad enough sitting in my kitchen at home being sad about my ex-girlfriend. However, while I was alone on the road the layers of loneliness piled on.
Thinking about my friends and family, hockey, my favorite coffee shop, and wanting to speak freely in my own language - I missed everything.
Travel is great for breaking up the monotony of life. However, at that moment I craved routine. A boring day sounded really nice. I just wanted to go home and go to bed, not spend three hours figuring out where to hide my passport in the ceiling tiles.
Coming back down the mountains from the campsite was a bright, secluded ride along miles of mining road. The landscape was covered with densely packed trees like endless clusters of dark green broccoli florets. The road was cut into the side of low mountains, creating a stark, chalky-white ribbon winding off into the distance.
A narrow line of pavement clung to the mountainside.
Distracted by the loveliness of it all, I started to enjoy myself. Then like many times before, it took a dark turn.
As I stopped by a cattle grate near the bottom of the foothills, I pulled out my phone to figure out where to stay for the night. That is when the nine year old boy and his little sister appeared.
An impromptu audience huddled around me as the kids were joined by half a dozen curious cows. Handing the boy a puzzle toy and some candy, we squared up to chat. Because of my limited Spanish, talking to children can sometimes be easier. They use smaller words.
Right out of the box, he was pleasant, but firm. He said that the campsite was permanently closed, the road is closed, and I was on their land. Then he casually added the thing about his father killing me at the end. It didn't register the first time.
I did what I often do, which is ask the same question a different way to make sure I understood. Going around in circles, we covered the same topic at least four times.
Sometimes I second-guess my ability to translate in real-time, but I definitely heard the word "matar" meaning "to kill", every time he replied. This made me stop to conjugate the verb in my head, "Matar, mato, matas, mata, matamos, ellos matan. Yep. Nope. That's what he said." Rolling my eyes in slight horror and confusion, I lost all sense of wanderlust and joy.
With the unfiltered bluntness of a child and yet a sing-song nursery rhyme tone, he repeated his warning. His sister showed no signs of alarm, as she did a carefree jig in place watching a moth fly away.
If I didn't understand the words, I would have thought he was telling me about his awesome new birthday piñata. Never mind that I had just given him treats and I was already leaving, he was kind of a little prick about it.
Apparently everything past the cattle grate was private land and I was trespassing. It didn't seem plausible that his family owned the whole mountain from there on, but I stopped asking questions and rode away. Feeling powerless and wanting to push back, I thought, "Yeah - fkkkk that kid." It takes a special kind of "class" to curse out a child, so I kept it in my head.
All I could think of was getting a room, locking the door, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for a while. For the evening's entertainment, I hoped there might be a ceiling fan with a bent fin that makes a pleasing wobble noise.
Snapping out of this splendid mini-daydream, yet again I had to soldier up and move on.
Once I got a decent phone signal, I booked an Airbnb six miles away. Riding back roads village-to-village was way more appealing than taking the highway. Tiny little corner shops were open. Kids were playing in the streets. A young mother abruptly threw a full bucket of water out of her front door onto the street for some unknown reason (mop water?).
Shops and cafes along the way.
Little barrios were built into the hillsides, so the road alternated from slow and steep upwards to fast and dangerous downhill. Between the white plaster walls that lined the streets and the extreme twist in the road every hundred yards, I couldn't really see at a distance or get a feel for where I was. Having to focus on what was right in front of me somehow made it all much more enjoyable.
My morale flat-lined day after day on this part of the trip, but occasionally there were high-pitched pings of enjoyment as well.
Seeing regular people doing ordinary things in an interesting faraway place made the green dot on my EKG-mood-monitor twitch up a notch.
Arriving at the tranquil old pueblo where I would be staying for the night, everything was as quaint and secluded as I had hoped. It was definitely not a tourist town, but hard to tell with COVID-19. There was a small restaurant with only two tables and six chairs. The window where I ordered food looked through to the kitchen of their family home.
Family restaurants are built into the homes.
Chillin dog.
Doctor, Dentist, gift shop all in one.
The place had that lovely rural murmur of voices in the distance or an occasional car going by. Church bells rang out on the hour.
Suddenly the ambiance was shattered by a violent clatter. A long whistle came in from the distance followed by the sound of a bomb detonating. The shock wave shook my guts and I wondered if I should duck for cover. No one else reacted so I assumed it must be fireworks, but it was one hell of a blast.
After this happened a second and third time, I started ignoring it like everyone else.
Finding my Airbnb turned out to be a challenge. Once I got to the right street and block, I couldn't figure out exactly which house it was. Some businesses had address numbers, but many of the private homes did not.
A middle-aged woman in an apron sat on the curb with her young son. Asking them a few questions, I found they were not super friendly or helpful. The language barrier was an issue but it was clear she was not going to try too hard anyway.
Eventually I figured out that the stone lamp posts had little tags on them with numbers that coincided with addresses. Having been reluctant to bang on the wrong door, the address tag finally gave me the confidence to at least know I was in the right place.
The driveway butted up against the street, with a ten foot tall steel barrier for security that would roll to the side. The place was a fortress. There was no bell or knocker. I couldn't see any other way to get in besides the rolling door.
Rapping my knuckles against the two-inch thick steel and shouting "Hola," over the wall, my best efforts were met with silence. No one answered the phone number listed on Airbnb.
The woman sitting on the curb was no help and I was at a loss for what to do next.
A little while later the metal barrier began to roll open so I jumped to attention. A thirty-something man walked around his shiny black sports car prepping to leave. When I said "Buenas tardes," he looked at me and then looked away.
What a jerk.
He was a man that seemed way more materialistic and douchey than actually wealthy. I know a nouveau riche dikheddd in any language when I see one. His car matched this same style. I'm not sure about the absolute cheapest model of Porsche they sell but I would wager this was it.
He backed the car out, intending to drive away. If he took off, I would have no idea what to do. Should I just walk past the gate and into the house?
Getting confused and desperate, I had to take action. Following the driver's side door as the car rolled out, I tapped on the window and said, "Perdone me, señor...perdon."
I tried again, "Hola, señor."
He finally rolled the window down. As politely as I could, I asked to confirm the address and told him about my Airbnb reservation.
His response was something along the lines of, "I'm not sure. I have to go. I don't care. Call the owner."
This guy was a completely disinterested jackass.
Feeling self-conscious and foreign, I had flashbacks about helping strangers back at home. There was a German college kid in the airport who had trouble renting a luggage cart without USA cash. She couldn't believe it when I gave her seven dollars with no strings attached.
"Pfft. Don't worry about it." I said to her as I walked off.
It is not that hard to be nice to foreigners, but karma did not always smile down upon me when I needed it.
As the poor-man's-Porsche guy impatiently put it into first gear, he said there was a hotel close by at the corner up the hill. Watching him point as he slowly headed off, my brain was in complete overload. Wanting to plead or protest, I didn't know what to say or how to say it. So instead I stood mute as the hatchback rump of his stupid looking car ambled down the lane like the over-stretched belt of a fat man bent-over.
Sitting down in a huff, I looked at the woman on the curb again. She was unmoved by my obvious frustration.
Needing backup, I decided to phone a friend. My bestie Antonia in Monterrey, answered on the first ring and agreed to call the Airbnb people on my behalf. They told her that my reservation had been given to someone else. That might have explained why Señor Speed Racer was so dismissive. He probably knew he had taken my room.
I felt like busting out my own Lamento del Mariachi, "Lost my dinero and no place to sleep."
Just then another comically well-timed missile screamed in our direction before echoing with a sonic boom all through the streets. Why were daytime fireworks going off every twenty minutes? Why did it seem like they were firing at us? This was beyond my comprehension, but there were more pressing conundrums at hand.
My hope was to stay there for a few days and relax before moving on to Oaxaca. I could see the city down the slope about 25km away, I was within striking distance. However at that moment I just wanted to not have a new crisis every three minutes of every day.
While Antonia argued with Airbnb to get my money back, I walked up the hill to find the hotel as instructed. Standing in the crossroads, it was not obvious what I was looking for. Branching off right, then back to the left, I had no luck. Wandering further, then all the way down the hill again, I couldn't see anything. No guest house, no hostel, nor Hilton.
Asking the woman with her son, she seemed to confirm the original directions. I marched up the hill again. After fifteen minutes of walking in circles I started to unravel.
Hotels have signs on the outside. They know that strangers will be trying to find them.
In a burst of annoyance I muttered, "What the fkkkk is going on?"
Realizing that I had said it a bit too loudly, I glanced to my right. The woman on the curb didn't even look up. Pondering her absolute lack of emotion of any kind, I wondered if she was a Mexi-Fembot nanny or maybe a lobotomy patient from some CIA experiment gone wrong.
Sitting down next to her and her son, I was done for a while. I decided to let the answers come to me.
As my mind wandered, I suddenly wished I was a smoker. I'd love to light one up, curse the world, and let the rush of nicotine wash my brain clean for a minute. Alas, I had never smoked a cigarette in my life and didn't have any to start up with now.
I thought, "Maybe they have some imaginary Marlboros at that gddddammmid hotel that doesn't exist."
Taking a break did me good. It was a lovely town after all.
With an involuntary jerk, I belted out, "ohmyffffinggoddddddd."
My mind was melting in utter disbelief why she wouldn't say anything on her own.
A few minutes after relaxing and NOT smoking a cigarette, I noticed a stone plaque across the street with a big H carved into it.
The small letters below it read, "Casa Camila Hotel, Cocina & Bar."
"Is that place a hotel?" I pointed to the wall twenty feet away from us.
She said, "Si."
I called the owner. He spoke way too fast. Communication is much harder on the phone than in person, without the benefit of hand gestures and facial expressions.
This guy seemed nuts to me. I just needed a room. He rents rooms. How hard could it be?
Long past giving a crap about anything, I called Antonia back and asked her to talk to this wacko. She could tell from my tone that I was in a state of distress.
My dear friend jumped into action for me. Dang, I love that chica.
Antonia called me back a minute later and confirmed that I was right about one thing. The hotel guy was loco. This made me feel somewhat validated that my cray-cray radar was still working, regardless of many parts lost in translation.
Antonia holds the line as yet another projectile screeches past and ends in a thunder clap from above. I'm still very perplexed why mortar fire is totally normal here.
She starts to tell me that the owner will call the property manager on site, when mid sentence..."Brrring!" The woman next to me answers her phone. It is the hotel owner calling. The woman on the curb was the property manager all along. She hangs up the call and says she will show me the rooms.
I was dumbfounded.
This woman sat next to me for an hour and a half. Airbnb was a bust. I tried to find the magical mystery hotel at the top of the hill. All the while she did not think to tell me that I could stay at the hotel she manages, while we sat on the curb one short garden hose-length away from the front door.
Village charm has a lot of appeal to me, but sometimes the locals are just idiot hayseeds. Surely there are other fine and sensible people around, however this woman seems like the ultimate slowass hick.
What was she even doing? They had been sitting on that curb for hours, and I didn't see a bus stop anywhere nearby.
A minute later, touring the Casa Camila Hotel helped improve my cranky mood. It was gorgeous. Converted from an old convent, the walled compound was made up of several separate buildings. Everything was distressed wood and old brick in earthen colors. Guests stayed in the block of connected rooms towards the back. It was clean and modern, sparsely appointed with Christian symbolism.
The place was quite small for communal living. My best guess was that no more than ten or twelve nuns could have lived there at once.
Fortunately, I was the only guest. I picked a room next to the balcony ladder. Climbing up to the second level I was met by the beautiful view overlooking Oaxaca in the far off distance. The hillside had a pleasing concave shape for miles, gently flattening out at the end. The balcony was out in the open air, but still somehow seemed private.
My rooftop balcony.
NEXT POST COMING SOON: March 24th, 2026
