Woke to find people all around us, so dragged ourselves together from our places on the floor – I at least had slept well – +staggered out into the wide world, to try + find the bus going to the other station – Chihuahua has 2. Fortunately we happened upon a group of students who happened to be going near there, so they were able to guide us. First job at the station was breakfast – coffee + donuts all round (except for Franz – he was reacting badly to last night’s soup.) From then on it was a lazy day sitting in the sun – a lovely day for that. Val, I + Anita too for part of the way, did walk in a little to town to perform some errands – bank, post office, shopping – but the rest of the day was reading, writing + music. Talking of the latter, while we were playing “John Barleycorn”, a bunch of local kids gathered to listen. At first they were very shy + quite sweet – but they soon lost that + became a pain in the ass. However, just about the only thing we could do was wait for them to get bored + go away. Fortunately, after quite a while they did so, + then F + A returned from their shopping, which made it rather easier to ignore them.
We moved into the station soon after, as it had begun to get cool, but there was still quite a fair wait – our train didn’t leave till nearly 12. Met a Canadian girl – Henriette – who seemed quite good fun, + she + we went out to get something to eat (tho’ for various reasons it turned out to be enchiladas in the station followed by a hamburger outside. When the train arrived, it was very crowded, but that almost worked to our advantage, since we were forced into a carriage which we thought was first class but turned out to be second, + was really pretty comfortable. Weren’t all together at first (the 5 you know, plus 2 more Germans) but after a couple of stops + various people leaving, managed to join up as one bunch, tho’ the company we gave each other was mostly psychological, since we weren’t able to converse. Slept surprisingly well.
Just killing time really; the sort of thing one has to do all the time when travelling. Still recall the frustration of having to deal with children over whom one has no power whatsoever; even irritation merely acts as confirmation for them that they are winning.
Pamela J Blair
As a solo traveler, I had a different reaction to those kids you complained about. I’d make friends with them, and they’d keep the older, more aggressive older guys away! They thought of me as “theirs.”