*Written by Fidgit*

We finally arrived to Aguascalientes. Neon went in to get us a hotel room while I sat on the edge of the plaza with our bikes. Both our phones were buzzing as Department of State alerts came flooding in.
Level 4 Travel Advisory- Worldwide- Do Not Travel.
Notices urging US citizens to come home. Flights were being canceled. Borders ahead were closed. I was weary from battling a headwind the past two days and the stress of riding through city traffic for the past few hours.

I heard her giving her spiel to each of the dwindling number of folks out and about. It was a young woman in a long, flowing dress with a cut off jean jacket, selling something, it seemed. There are always hustlers hanging around the plazas, I registered her as a nuisance and went back to fretting and scrolling.

Then it was my turn. She came up to me, we greeted one another but before she could launch into her pitch I just said, “no gracias.” She tripped on her words and went to walk away but then seemed to register that I was an English speaker and began stuttering out a few phrases.
“Jello, mi nem ees Julia. I ham student of tourism at, emm emm, college.”
I tried to be patient but couldn’t she see I was worrying about the end of the world?!

She insisted on pressing on. Her story was that she was a student of tourism at the local college and she and some classmates had made plastic laminas, bookmarks, of dried local plants. I sat there smiling and disengaged, supercilious at best.

Then I again excused her.
“Veerry good, veerry good,” she kept saying and bowing while backing up before whirling and ducking away in the way one does to hide tears. I went back to my Very Important Phone and my eternal To Do list.

We needed a plan. We needed to get off trail. We would have a meeting and put it to a vote, but I sensed that both Neon and I knew what we needed to do. Interrupting my planning progression: there was that dream I’d had in Peru… Of the old woman selling roses.  We would find food, rest a bit, then have our meeting. We would need all our faculties. No impulse decisions when it comes to matters this important. In the dream I had rejected her. And I had awoken with a heavy heart, wishing I could go back and purchase the rose bud.

Julia continued to try. Again and again, to literally every person out there. Her speech became hurried and her voice cracked. She was trying hard over and over and kept getting rejected, mostly issuing apologies for interrupting.

Something about hearing her keep trying, despite her discomfort, moved my irritation toward sympathy. She was audacious and courageous. To keep trying, despite discomfort and fear. It brought me out of mine for just a wee bit. I had noticed one lamina with tiny blue flower petals. For some reason it stuck in my minds eye. The old woman’s rose bud.

As she was rejected for the umpteenth time and was scuttling away, I found myself hopping up on the stone bench and all but shouting to call her back over. I was embarrassed but she came hurrying, despite my previous rudeness.

“How much are the bookmarks?” I asked slowly in English. This time, I was genuinely trying to be nice. In doing so, everything inside me felt different than it had previously.

“No tiene precio,” she replied in Spanish.
She was smiling so big and nervous. We both were. I loved her for her courage and fortitude and tenderness. Now that I had dropped the shield, I too felt vulnerable. We were both giggling.

“I like the blue one,” I replied. She dropped it on the ground in her hurry to show me.

I pulled all the change I had in my pocket, 20 pesos. About a dollar. I smiled into her face, expecting the one bookmark, maybe 2. She gave me a 5. My gift wouldn’t even cover costs. This wasn’t a financial transaction.

Now I was excited and nervous and dropped the little blue flower bookmark. We erupted in giggles when we bumped into each other stooping to pick it up again.
Both uncertain, relieved, fearful, and hopeful. At the time I had no way of knowing this would be the last physical contact I would have in weeks.

She whisked away and now I have a literal bookmark from the exact spot where we are having to put a hold on this journey.

On March 22, Fidgit and Neon flew from Aguascalientes, Mexico to designated bases in the US where the women can safely quarantine and then wait out the pandemic. Their intention is to resume northward progress via the Great Divide Trail in Canada once safety, seasons, and borders allow.

Over the following northern hemisphere winter they will return (again) to Mexico in a bid to complete crossing Central America. Which has proved to be a real bugger. If we’d just stuck to the roads, this line could be much cleaner and more direct. But then, I suppose, the path to adventure is never a straight line.

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