Arrived in Texas

In Ciudad Juarez this morning.

You should never ask a man where he's from. If he's from Texas he'll tell you soon enough. And if he's not from Texas, well, you don't want to embarass him.

I finally arrived in El Paso sometime around 10pm last night after a day of airport delays that cemented my love of trains and dislike of air travel in this country. I arrived at Washington National Airport in plenty of time to catch my 1.45pm flight to El Paso which had a connection in Dallas. Due to a thunderstorm and large scale flooding in Dallas, the airport there was closed and it had thrown the whole system out. When I checked in I was given a changed itinirary, with the new flight leaving at 5.30pm and connecting at Chicago O'Hare instead of Dallas. Disgruntled, and at the time unaware of any weather issues I joined a long line to speak to an airline person. After nearly half an hour, having moved about 6 paces forward in the line I gave up and accepted the flight they had given me.
As annoying as it could have been it actually turned out pretty good. After going through that hideous security process I took a seat in the departure lounge for what I expected would be a long boring wait. The person sitting next to me struck up a conversation and before you know it I was having a couple of beers with an awesome girl from Oklahoma. Hours passed, but after what seemed like such a short time, my plane was boarding.
The flight to Chicago was uneventful, but taking off from Chicago on the El Paso bound flight brought further delays. We were fully loaded and ready to go, and we departed the gate on time, only to join a 40-minute queue of aircraft waiting to take off. Chicago O'hare is the 2nd busiest airport in the world, after Atlanta, and handles 69 million passangers annually.

Upon arrival in El Paso some 5 and a half hours late I just wanted to go to sleep. But the man at the hostel front desk would have none of that. After checking in, he lectured me for 45 minutes about what to do in the local area, and his life story. I sound annoyed but actually it was quite interesting. His name is Antonio, and he is about 60 I would say. He maintains a girlfriend south of the border who is about half his age, maybe less (he proudly showed me a photo). The hostel is in an old hotel which has a grand lobby and a marble staircase. It has not been maintained, I would say since it opened.. so it is in a state of disrepair and would make a brilliant setting for a horror film. Antonio told me that there are some undesirable people who reside perminantly in the hotel who I should not interract with. He offered to drive me up the hill to see the city lights Friday night and said I should invite any other backpackers I meet at the hostel, but he was quite clear that the invitation didn't extend to the local residents, who he considers rude and unworthy. He had a bandage on his neck and seemed to be in a fair bit of pain when he talked (although that didn't hold him back), and he explained to me at the end of our conversation (oops I mean lecture) that he had just had a growth removed from his neck, but that I was not to tell anyone else that as he had been telling everyone that a vampire got him so they didn't try to make him quit smoking. At this point, Antonio went outside for a cigarette and I was finally free to go up to my room.

This morning upon waking, I disregarded most of Antonio's recommendations of art galleries and history museums and headed to the border crossing to go to Juarez, Chihuahua.

Juarez is by far Mexico's most dangerous city. There have been more than 2000 homicides here since January 2008, this in a city of less than 2 million people. The violence is largely the result of a war between feuding drug cartels. The murder rate here is more than 3 times that of the most violent US city. I have visited Juarez on two prior occasions but this is by far the worst I have seen it. It now has a third world feel about it, with troops driving through the streets on the back of hum-vees dressed in combat helmets and weilding semi-automatic long arms. CNN reports that there have been 40 people killed in the city since the weekend. Antonio's view on it is that it is safe for tourists as almost all of the victims are drug runners and policemen. In Feburary the city's police chief quit when drug cartels threatened to kill an officer everyday while he remained on the job, a situation which led to the troops and fedral police patrolling the streets and military helicopter on constant patrol.

El Paso, it's a classy place.

Border Jumpers:

This is the border between Mexico and the United States, taken from one of the international bridges as I crossed it this morning. Mexico on the left, the USA on the right. You guys won't beleive me because I didn't have my camera out of its case in time, but just prior to taking these photos I witnessed two guys scale the fence and make a run for it into downtown El Paso. Less than a minute later a Border Patrol vehicle was on their trail. Quickly out of my view I was not able to see if they made it or if they got caught. The guys pictured looked like they were going to try, but they didn't.

Some left over news and pics from before I left DC:

After my last post I went out to the Pentagon and the Arlington National Cemetary. I then set out to do some more museums, even walking about 20 blocks to get to the National Geographic museum but when I reached the front doors I decided I couldn't take any more museums, my brain had absorbed enough. Walking back to the hostel there were a lot of sirens and a low flying news helicopter in the neighborhood. Such scenes are not unusual in Washington as I had learnt from my previous few days there. However upon getting back to the hostel I learnt of a shooting at the Smithsonian holocaust museum that I had visited the previous day. Sadly a security gaurd was shot dead by a crazy 88yo neo-nazi. When the newspaper printed the gaurd's photo the next day, I recognized him as the one who had processed me as I entered the museum, saying "you can leave your watch on" as I had started taking it off for the metal detectors.

Watching CNN in the hostel's TV room it wasn't long before someone who had been right there when the shooting happened showed up to tell her story. Her name is Mariel and she is from England. I saw her again later at a free BBQ the hostel put on, and I also met some other people there. Mariel, a guy from North Carolina, a father and son (11yo) from Australia and myself sat around talking after the BBQ until a thunderstorm came in, then we retired to the pool table inside. We all got on like a house on fire and later in the evening Mariel, the North Carolinan and myself went out for a drink. We just went to the most convienient establishment across the road, which was a ridiculously classy joint where the drinks were about $10. Though if you were willing to pay they did have a $45 beer on the menu. We people-watched as the preppy kids had dates on the tables around us, and when we had spent enough (like 2 drinks worth!) we left and went down to the national mall. We hung out at the Lincoln Memorial until like 3am and didn't get back to the hostel until 4. It was an epic night, in such amazing surroundings. The monuments of dead presidents staring down at us.

Ford's Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was shot.

The Pentagon Memorial

Still digging at Arlington National Cemetary


JFK's grave, along with Jaquie O and their son.