[ Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico ]
¡Saludos de Oaxaca, mis queridas transglobalistas!
Though it was not my plan—not by a long shot—I’ve been in Oaxaca almost three months, with more (semi-unfortunately, as you’ll see) to go. I arrived here at the start of Holy Week (April 10th) in top form, full of ideas, energy, and the best intentions. The city was hot, bone-dry, teeming with international tourists, and therefore overbooked. Appropriately enough, there was no room at the inn. (Yes yes, this joke would’ve been more apt at Christmas, but cut me some slack, m’k?)
With some effort, I found a wonderful, furnished apartment ($8USD/night), and set to work on those forenamed ideas, using that prenominate surplus energy, along a route paved with the aforementioned intentions. Predictably, and quickly, the route devolved into a surfeit of detours heading where good intentions infamously go. Not to hell, perhaps, but certainly purgatory.
The important take-away here is that I lost all that momentum for a variety of reasons, both good (a visit from friends), mediocre (a broken tooth, root canal, and new crown), and bad: some ongoing medical issues that are still undiagnosed and keeping me off the road.
Of the medical issue, there’s not too much I can say yet. I am experiencing something called Orthostatic Hypotension—basically when you stand up quickly from lying down or sitting you get dizzy. In general, it’s a pretty common thing. Sometimes the change in blood pressure is bad enough that you lose consciousness briefly (aka ‘faint’). This has happened to me eight times as of this morning, and the obvious problem is that when you faint, you usually fall. Occasionally when you fall, you hit your head or other bodily bits, which can cause other problems. In my case, a couple of bumps on the head have led to something with an equally ominous name, Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). All that means is that you can get dizzy when you’re doing things like staring up at the top shelf to select your favorite mezcal, or squatting down working on your bike tires.
All that sounds serious, but the doctors so far don’t think so. What it is NOT is a concussion (we’ll be confirming by x-ray in a couple of days).
It has, however, led me down a path of great frustration. Of the many thousands of photos and hundreds of stories that got me here from Valle de Bravo, I have failed to get them sorted, edited, annotated, and shared with YOU. That means, for example, I’ve been unable to document sufficiently my experiences here in Oaxaca, and THAT has led to the loss of some of my followers and financial supporters on Patreon.com (my only real means of income).
So for the moment I’m trying to take care of my health, get back to telling stories, get the camera back into the picture (so to speak), and catch all of you up on the amazing Trans-Mexico Norte route that got me here. Despite the current frustrations, I love Mexico and want you to love it, too. So…I’m just going to start with this quick overview, and commit to posting my long-overdue backlog bit by bit.
Thanks, and hasta pronto,
—jim
PS
The immediate downside of all this is financial: If any of you out there have enjoyed my adventures during the past decade and feel you can help me out with a small PayPal tip or a couple of bucks each month on Patreon, I could really, really use it at the moment. The doctors, the dentists, and most of all the extended room costs are a huge deal when you’re living hand-to-mouth anyway. If you have any questions about that situation, feel free to ask away.
—j
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