The Alamo

Remember the Alamo! This saying had little meaning to me until recently, when we visited the Alamo in San Antoino, TX. This was a prime turning point in the battle between non-Mexican residents of Mexico and the Mexican government that ultimately resulted in the independent Republic of Texas (recognized by the US government, but not by the Mexican one). The annexation of Texas, as it would later become, was one of the primary reasons for the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 which ultimately resulted in the USA winning, by battle and purse, over 50% of Mexican soil and landing the entire southern portion of modern-day America, including the gold found the following year in California.

Having visited Palo Alto, a battle where the Mexican army was turned away due to superior American military equipment, seeing the Alamo, where the Mexican army used sheer numbers to overwhelm a fortified mission, was in stark contrast. Ill-equipped Texans defended the mission they had only recently won themselves by battle, and held out for 13 days with nearly all 182-250 defenders lost, including the famous Davy Crockett, and James Bowie. The Mexican Army spared the women and children hiding in the mission.

One shocking event, though there were many in this troubled time, was the Mier Expedition of  1842.  Santa Anna continued to attack Texas after the treaty of Velasco (where Texas became an independent republic.) in hopes of gaining back Mexican territory.  On one event 500 Mexican troops attacked and killed 54 Texans in the Dawson Massacre. Texans responded by counter attacking with their militia in the Somervell Expedition. After retaking the lost land, the Texans were disbanded, all but a few captains and their men went home.  Those Texans camped on the Texan side of the Rio Grande. They were ordered to pull back by Somervell, who knew that they had no serious Texan force to defend against a real attack, but the rogue captains did not, unaware that some 3,000 Mexican troops were in the area. The small party of 261 soldiers were met by the full force of Santa Anna’s army, and surrendered after heavy fighting. They were marched to Matamoros for punishment but 181 of them escaped, with 176 being recaptured. To punish them for the deaths they caused in their escape attempt, Santa Anna declared that every 10th man be executed. He initiated the ‘Black Bean Lottery’ where a jar of 159 white beans and 17 black ones was passed around, with each man drawing his own fate. Those who drew the black bean were executed the following day. Those who survived either died later or were released in 1844, along with a few survivors of the Dawson Massacre. This episode, like many in the Texan Independence War and the Mexican-American War, are largely unknown while the Alamo remains a rallying cry and historical strong point in Texan stubbornness and fortitude.

For more information on the Alamo, visit their official website.

Cover Art

Chuck Thompson is an infamous name in the travel industry. He has been a long-time critic of how Americans perceive the rest of the world, that is to say – as a series of isolated resorts in various exotic locations ripe for development and full of charming tanned locals. Thompson’s uniquely bitter tone throughout the book lends to the overall sarcasm of his message– that the travel industry is flawed and presents only the best and most cheeky aspects of international forays.

In Smile When You’re Lying, Thompson gives perky little insightful tales from his own past that involve excessive amounts of cocaine and marijuana done with Alaskan State Government officials, various visits to go-go dance halls (aka brothels) and a ridiculous amount of drinking with all sorts of unsavory characters. Despite this, he manages to weave an attention-grabbing tale of what it is like to travel as a rogue (albeit flawed) writer, a tale that leaves me wondering what his wife (mentioned in only half of his trips abroad) thinks of his new book.

His brief stint as the editor of Travelocity Magazine gave him the push he needed to launch his travel writing career to new heights. While he has a job most travelers can only dream of, he does little but mock the industry, scorn the results of travel, and defend what “it used to be like” in Thailand, the Philippines and Alaska. Nevertheless, the book’s writing is top notch and the illustrious wordsmith has traveled to over 35 countries on assignment, making him one of the better researched travel writers in the business, and a very lucrative one for him at that.

Progreso

Having visited Progreso several times this winter, and Matamoros only once, it is safe to say I’m a bit skewed towards the former destination. Nevertheless, I have rational reasons for enjoying Progreso more than Matamoros. For anyone living along the East Coast of Texas, this will be vital information for you if you are planning on visiting Mexico anytime soon, for everyone else, its a bit of a tale of our visit to Matamoros, where days later there was a shoot out and US customs confiscated several pounds of illicit drugs.

Matamoros inspires looks of fear and awe in Winter Texans, who for so long have heard horror stories of drug deals, border wars and shoot outs occurring at this crossing. Call it naivety, but we wanted to check out the city and see what the market had to offer. We drove to the border and parked the car on the US side before walking gaily across the bridge into Mexico. As soon as we stepped on foreign soil we heard an old familiar sound– taxi drivers whispering discount promises in one ear and steering you quickly towards his patched up vehicle. We saw chickens and other farm life wandering around aimlessly in tiny, makeshift pens, and we saw several people looking at us with disbelief. It seemed more like our recent trip to Uzbekistan, than across a mere 100 yard river from America.

We held up our printed map of Matamoros and decided to walk to the market, a 2 mile stroll following the train tracks before veering into a slum that jetted into the market and bazaar area. Along the walk, people paused to give us strange looks or point the way to the market and shake their head. Perhaps our tiny group of American should not have been there, but hey– we made it through Azerbaijan without incident, why not Mexico?

Matamoros

Finally at the market, we didn’t see a single other American. A mile long street of tiny shops selling Chinese-made shoes, clothes and plastic flowers stretched before us, and we perused the items, snapping pictures, looking at our map frequently, and generally playing the role of retarded tourist quite well. On the walk back to the border, a cab drive hollared out his window, “50 cents a person!” and we jumped in without a second thought. He chatted kindly with us in broken English while we sat bashful and ashamed that we didn’t already speak Spanish. We walked back across the border and the dichotomy was so shocking that suddenly people risking their lives to swim across the river made sense. Hell, I’d do it if I lived in Matamoros.

Progreso, on the other hand, is a town made for tourists. After you park on the US side, you walk across a wheel-chair friendly bridge to Mexico, where several tanks and armed guards keep watch. The streets are lined with liquor shops, souvenir shops, bars and restaurants, as well as cheap dentists and optometrists. We did not encounter a single other tourist under the age of sixty, and the elderly retirees and snow birds were having an amazing time getting drunk on cheap margaritas, dancing to polka and buying up hand-woven baskets and rugs. Its a great place to visit if you want two mustachioed men to play mariachi music to you while simultaneously chugging beer.

Good news for travel buffs, Lonely Planet now has a program that features great travel blogs. This program has exploded in the travel community and you can now see select posts from ATC on related Lonely Planet destination pages. If you have not heard of Lonely Planet, it is a company well known to most travelers for their comprehensive guides that cover nearly 100% of the world (even Antarctica!).  For the international traveler there really is not another guide company that comes close to LP in terms of information at the country and major city level. We use LP guides when traveling abroad, and have quite a collection of their books, including some of their compilation books composed by travelers who have interesting stories to share.

Sunset

Now Abandon the Cube is part of this great endeavor to make travel information more accessible. On each Lonely Planet destination page you’ll find info on each country, including links to our blog, where applicable. There are not alot of people, for example, who have spent significant amounts of time in Turkmenistan, but we have. Thus, our blog adds new information and insight to the Lonely Planet reader. That’s how we help make Lonely Planet better.

If you found our site from Lonely Planet, welcome to ATC! Subscribe to the RSS feed for weekly blogs sent to your email, or you can follow us on facebook and twitter. Alternatively, check out the photo album, our guides, newsletters and info on the 2010 Mongol Rally.

Progreso

I suppose reading the blog might have been confusing recently for some of our more attentive readers. We posted blogs from Canada and Chicago nearly simultaneously, one praising the Olympic ski runs at Whistler, the other lauding a drive from North Carolina to Chicago. Meanwhile, posts from Mexico and Texas are also popping up. If you’ve been confused, you’re probably not the only one. Here’s what has happened since ATC returned to America:

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida- a beautiful and warm place complete with scenic palm trees and overpriced taxi rides – in early November, 2009. From Florida, we traveled by Amtrak to Columbia, South Carolina where our train arrived at the ungodly hour of 4:00am. We walked through the last of the hurricane season in Columbia while finding a hotel, and in the morning we booked it north….to North Carolina. We spent several days in the Carolinas visiting relatives and reacquainting ourselves with Krispy Kreame doughnuts and Starbucks coffee—two things sorely lacking in Serbia. No joke, the Serbians could use a few tasty treats to cheer them up a bit.

After our family time in NC, we rented a car and drove to Rockford, IL for some more family time before ATC was split as Lauren went to Minnesota and then Washington (and Canada) while Mike went to New Hampshire. Thus, the blog has postings from the slopes of Whistler, BC and the hills of New Hampshire almost simultaneously.

With the holidays safely behind us, Lauren and Mike have reunited and even managed to drive from Illinois down to Texas, where they were lucky enough to meet up with some Old China Hands (friends from Shanghai) who currently reside in Austin. Continuing on, they traveled south to find warmer weather and calmer skies on the gulf coast of Texas, where they launch mini-trips into Mexico weekly.

So, here I write from a windy but beautiful beach on South Padre Island, TX as the gulf waves crash before me and the salty sand and wind blow my hair into my eyes. The gin and tonics flow freely here, and while little on South Padre Island remains open past 4pm (this being a retirement community) I’m happy to report that this writer has finally found a quiet place to write, reflect and detangle.

Mongolians

Having done quite a bit of research on how to find sponsors for our team in the 2010 Mongol Rally, we thought it might be helpful to write about the process for other folks in the rally, or similar adventures.

Step one – analysis. We read as much information as was possible on the Mongol Rally, including the main demographic, audience, marketability, legality, etc. Once we were confident we could easily explain even the most obscure details of the rally, we moved on. We even purchased and read the only book published by a former rally adventurer.

Step two – organize. We created an excel spreadsheet and brainstormed backwards, thinking about the items our team would need on the rally and then compiling a list of companies that might be interested in sponsoring us. Our spreadsheet was broken down into sectors, like ‘camping equipment’ for example, and then companies, like ‘REI’, and then their contact information so we can keep track of our correspondence with each potential sponsor.

Step three — proposal. We created a snazzy sponsorship proposal that compiled information on the rally, our team, our charity and then listed how sponsors could benefit by helping out our team and charity. Then we sent the proposal to the companies in our spreadsheet from step two.

Step four – press. While contacting sponsors, we also created a spreadsheet for potential press and media coverage, and set about contacting local and international media about our team and the event. After the creation of the proposal, we simply morphed the same document into a mini press kit for interested media affiliates.

Step five—website SEO. While all of this was going on, we maintained the website and blog, and did a bit of much-needed SEO, including some link building and revamping the landing page and Mongol Rally page of our site, gearing them towards the rally and securing sponsorships.

Step six – phone calls. While all of these documents and online work can go a long way towards endearing the team to potential sponsors, nothing is as meaningful as a phone call. We followed up all potential sponsor leads with calls, because in the end it is about people helping people, and the human element is the most essential one.

Good luck with your own fund-raising, and have fun!

Border Crossing

Having always loved Latin music, food, clothing and culture, my first trip to Mexico was dreamt about for years before it actually occurred. Last week I was able to live that dream when we crossed into Progreso from Texas. This was supposed to be a time of intense joy as a lifelong dream of visiting Mexico was finally achieved. However, the experience was sorely spoiled by the government on our side of the border. Here’s why:

I’ve crossed some 20 borders in my day, and not one of them has required me to pay for the privilege of exiting and re-entering the country. But, believe it or not, this is exactly what happens when you cross the land border between Texas and Mexico. In order to pass you must deposit a shiny quarter into the waiting mouth of a machine before it will grant passage into Mexico. Roughly 19,750 million American visit Mexico each year. This number times .25 = $4,937,500. That’s four million bucks the US government makes on American cross-border transportation. While I completely understand that the US-Mexico border needs funds in order to operate, I have a small problem understanding why this is the only border in the world that requires this payment. Side note: the Mexican side charges .35 cents to each person exiting the country for America. They make over 6 million a year.

Many people, Texans mostly, travel to Mexico to buy cheap goods. Cheaper liquor is one such item folks will traverse the borders in search of. While in Mexico we did what many other gringos around us were doing– we shopped, ate enchiladas, had a few margaritas and then bought a bottle of booze to carry across the border to America. While in 2009 the laws stipulated that each citizen could bring back a bottle a month, untaxed, something has changed. We were stopped by rude and rough border guards who demanded $1.25 per liter of liquor. There was no explanation, just a demanding voice, a gloved palm reaching through bars and a continued barking of the order to pay up. There was no willingness to explain, no literature on why the tax was suddenly applies to each bottle entering the country. Sigh.

I don’t want it to seem like the trip to Mexico wasn’t amazing—because it was! A small mariachi band played while we sat on a balcony overlooking the main street having margaritas, children rode their bikes up and down the main drag while adults sold a sundry of baskets, rugs and other items to passing tourists. The food was good, the people were friendly and not pushy, and despite being within spiting distance of the USA, the culture was unique to Mexico and very vibrant.

A god? Yes!

Bear Gryllls’ show, Man vs. Wild (Born Survivor in the UK) – Man vs. Wild – Season 1 - is a rare TV hit. What I like most about this show, despite the fact that some of his stunts are staged, is that he demonstrates how to survive in life-threatening situations across all types of terrain. This week has been productive for me in that sense, I learned how to make rope out of roots, how to wrestle an alligator, how to make a water purifier out of natural elements, how to skin a sheep then use the skin as a boat, etc. He is like a real life Macgyver!

Having spent time outdoors and traveling in places where you are literally always in danger of being stranded from civilization, this show has been a real breath of fresh, information-filled air, and he reaffirmed some of my thoughts while on the road last year.

Anyone who spends any amount of time outdoors knows that what kind of travel gear and clothing you have is essential. I had to buy two *&#*!%$ cheap bags before I finally spent the money on a nice REI backpack that will withstand rough use, varied terrain and temperatures, and 70+ pounds of rip and tear 24 hours a day. Lesson learned: don’t skimp on essential equipment! In that vain, its easy to see how Bear carefully chooses his clothing and equipment before heading into the wild. He has all quick-dry clothing and a multiple temperature jacket of gore tex. I had no jacket on the last trip (big mistake) and what was worse, I had flimsy shoes I bought at a market in China before leaving. I did have a few other items, but was missing a great deal, including a water purifier, on this last adventure. Lesson learned again: don’t skimp on essential clothing! Before the next trip (Mongol Rally 2010) I’ll be buying expedition-level shoes that breathe and can stand rough wear and tear, a multi-season jacket and more quick-dry clothing. Ah, a girl’s wish list has no end!

Final thought: on the show Bear has a special knife he had built for himself which retails at $700+ dollars. While I think it is an essential element for life on the road, I’m not about to drop close to a grand on a knife! I’ll stick with my little Cold Steel Voyager, which was a gift from my Kuk Sol Wan coach in 2006. I have only sharpened it twice and it is in amazing condition, plus the 2″ blade means its legal to cross borders with. You could literally back a truck over it and it would be fine! Also, Bear goes out into the wild without a flashlight, I keep my Smith & Wesson LED Flashlight on me at all times (no joke, its in my purse). Paranoid- no. Prepared- hopefully.

Slightly cleaner than average Chinese train sleeper car

After reading through some of our polls people have participated in throughout the site, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the information.  A while back we found that right after food, getting around in a foreign country was one of ATC readers biggest fears.  Here is a short list of, in my opinion, the easiest countries to travel through and get around.

Keep in mind we have been through China, Mongolia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, The Republic of Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, and Puerto Rico – leaving out some countries and islands that shouldn’t qualify for either their size or the length of time we spent in them.

• Turkey – Turkey was, by far without a doubt, the easiest place to get around.  If you wanted to fly you usually could and ticket prices were reasonable.  However, what we loved the most was the bus system and local public transportation.  There were usually about 8 or 10 different companies at each station and they were all competing and therefore, keeping the prices reasonable and allowing for a variety of schedules.  Moreover, they served tea, coffee, juice, pop, and snakes throughout the drive.  Local transportation in cities was also pretty reasonable and easy to navigate.  English was usually spoken at most terminals we went through.

• China – Unfortunately, although China will always be my favorite country to travel through via public transportation I had to give them #2 because of the absolute chaos that usually ensues during every planning process, ticket purchase, and multiple bus transfers you are usually forced to take.  Most ticketing experiences were all conducted in Chinese as no one ever used English.  Also, since train and large bus transportation was state run, no one would help us so we had to push to the front of lines and speak beyond beginners Chinese to get anything done.  However, China’s has awesome sleeper trains, buses, as well as their huge network of schedules for all types of transportation as well as subway systems in the very large cities and dirt cheap taxi rides.
  

  Lauren and a Monk

• Bulgaria – Our train from Istanbul to Bulgaria  easily was the nicest, cleanest, and comfortable cabin we have ever been.  It was right on time and had really friendly attendants as well as immaculate bathrooms.  Intercity trains were easy to come by and the networked bus system was relatively straight forward and reasonably priced.

Stay tuned for – The Most Difficult Countries / Places to Get Around

Gates of Hell

Dante readers beware, the “Gates of Hell” are very real. They are located in the middle of a vast, uninhabitable desert (not unlike the Biblical desert where Satan tempted Jesus) outside Darvaza, Turkmenistan.

Locals say that someone was drilling for natural gas in the desert when the drill hit an air pocket and the friction of the metal piping exploding at massive speed out of a rock hole caused a spark to ignite the reserve of natural gas, setting it eternally alite.

Today the crater is 60 meters across and easily 50 meters deep at its furthest point. The flames burst out of the crater fueled by the natural gas, but to the casual eye it looks as if the rock and sand are simply emitting an enormous amount of heat and flame. At one point there was a thick cable circling the crater to keep curious travelers at a safe distance, but the heat of the eternal flame managed to snap the cable, melting sections of it into piles of ruble, while other sections have become fused into the landscape.

For roughly a kilometer in every direction the earth is grey and lifeless, inhabited only by beetles, spiders and perhaps a wandering lizard. A strange coral reef looking rock sticks up from the grey sand in stalactite-like formations. All attempts to identify the rock online proved futile, though I’m no geologist. The remnants of a now unidentifiable machine rest all around the perimeter, and as I circled the area I found lizards and other creatures warming themselves on the hot metallic surfaces of various engine parts presumably belonging to the unfortunate drilling device that started the whole saga.

The wildlife around the dead ring of sand becomes more intense and is reminiscent of the creatures in Storm Troopers. Walking out to the crater at night with nothing but a flashlight and, naturally, a giant flaming crater to indicate the way, I managed to hit an angle with the flashlight just right so that in the distance I saw two tiny green gem-like lights glistening in the distance in the sand. I walked over to investigate and leaned in really close. The two gems turned out to be the curious blinking eyes of a spider the size of a golf ball, with his eight hairy legs extending out from there like so many reasons to run and hide. I slowly backed away and shined the light at the same angle across the landscape. All around me pairs of little green lights blinked like lightening bugs and panic rose in my whole body as my arms, thinking on their own, attempted to fly me out of there. I ended up with two flashlights, one scanning the distance for green gems to avoid, the other aimed at my toes so that if one came near my I could scream my farewells as my heart stopped.

We decided to camp out at the crater, obviously this decision was made before I knew an army of giant spiders inhabited the warm sands around the crater. We set up our tent, started a fire of our own, and cooked a simple meal while drinking beer from the cooler. (We are Americans, after all, why not tail-gate the gates of hell?) In the distance, the crater raged seemingly out of control, the flames licking the sky as if to snap the stars right out and gobble them up. We danced around our own little fire to the tuns from the portable iPod, and listened to Mike play the guitar with the fire from the crater cracking the percussion in the distance.

Morning came slowly as the sounds of the desert kept me wondering and imaging what was happening outside the tent. We boiled water in the morning for coffee and were on the road again by 9am. Twelve kilometers from the natural gas crater lies a crater of greater depth but lesser width that is filled with water. The water emits bubbles, indicating heat, but there is little information on the spring, or why the crater is so deep (at least 70 meters). All attempts to find a boiling miniature mud crater in the vicinity were in vain.

Despite the giant man-eating spiders (that get bigger each time I tell this story, naturally) and the bubbling water that could cook you alive, or the crater of fire that form the gates of hell, I still find Darvaza one of the nicest and most interesting natural wonder I’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

For more information on Darvaza and Turkmenistan please see read about our Second Trip to the Gates of Hell and our Turkmenistan Destination Guide.