T A B L E_T A L K How do you save money when you travel? Share your tips for being a thrifty tourist in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk ___________________ Search BarnesandNoble.com for more tales of Mexico ___________________   R E C E N T L Y The cruise cocoon By Zachary Karabell A guest lecturer on a luxury Aegean voyage asks: Is this any way to see the world? (12/08/98) Desperately seeking e-mail By Lisa Dreier Finding Internet access in India is feasible, but not for the fainthearted (12/06/98) This week in travel Wanderlust's select guide to the top travel-related news stories from around the globe (12/04/98) In the driver's seat By Dawn MacKeen The smart alternative to renting, driveaways let you take someone else's car cross-country -- for free (12/03/98) At home in Tuscany By Ferenc Máté The slow-paced pleasures of rural Italy come to life for two new residents (12/02/98)   Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives     Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		--------------A street artist unmasks the hard -------------------realities of daily life in Guanajuato. BY DIANE WEIPERT For a mime, Manuel sure said a lot. On the streets he was a classic mime, following people around, swinging his arms and lifting his legs in a mocking stride. But off-duty, Manuel was full of stories. He told tales of Mexico's past, the people he'd known and the places he'd seen. "I was robbed in Mexico City," Manuel began one afternoon as we sat on a shallow stone wall, overlooking the colonial streets of Guanajuato. "Because I travel with my work, my possessions are scattered all throughout Mexico. I had gone to visit friends and pick up some of the things they had stored for me. When I ran into someone's apartment to pick up a painting of mine, the taxi waiting outside with all of my bags took off and left me without a peso in my pocket. All I have left is my make-up box, so I'm working in the streets, earning the money to travel to the next town north until I make it to my home in Matamoros." It was my first week on the road and I was already nervous about something going wrong. And Manuel's stories were not helping. Each morning, I joined Manuel, who would be sitting alone in Guanajuato's main plaza, beneath the Indian laurel trees, leaning forward over his crossed legs, reading the daily paper. Manuel was a bizarre-looking man. His long, straight hair grew back from his face in dramatic recession. It was severely fastened into a ponytail, throwing attention to his prominent forehead, wide, gaping nostrils and small, black eyes. His frame was slight and thin, as if he were weak and vulnerable to illness. But he was cheerful and charismatic, and, good or bad, his stories were always captivating. "That's terrible," I said, shading my eyes from the midday sun to better see his face. But Manuel didn't seem bothered at all. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Believe me, it could have been much worse," he said with a smile. He went on to describe other mugging experiences he had suffered, speaking without bitterness or anger, as if they were a natural and unavoidable part of life. As I listened to Manuel, more terrified than amused, I silently considered taking Mexico City off my itinerary. "The worst," he went on, widening his eyes, "are the pandillas de chamacos. They're enormous gangs of homeless children that terrorize the city every day. They run like wild animals down the streets, 50 or 60 young boys with nothing to lose but their lives, which no one seems to think are worth a damn anyway. People who fall in their path are beaten down and stripped of everything. They raid buses and pillage stores and restaurants. They are as unrelenting as a lynch mob." He grew serious when he saw the expression of horror on my face. "Will you always be traveling alone?" he asked. "Well, that's the idea." "Diana," he said, crinkling his brow, "why don't you travel with someone else?" "Because I don't want to," I responded flatly. I was tired of the chorus of voices protesting my decision to travel alone. My family and friends had cringed at the mere thought of it, just as they had when I was planning a solo trip to Europe years before. That time they had won, convincing me to take along my then-boyfriend. It was a relationship on the brink of ending, and he made for terrible company on the road. He commandeered the maps and my guidebook, and we spent a miserable month getting on each other's nerves and arguing in the streets. Now I wanted to spend a year traveling from Mexico to South America, but this time I was going to do it my way. "But you're so innocent," Manuel said, gently touching my arm. "Anyone can tell just by looking at you. I'm afraid of what will happen if you do it alone. Aren't you afraid for yourself?" I became defensive. Stumbling over my words, I insisted angrily that I wasn't so oblivious to the dangers around me, and that I was hardly innocent. But my sudden lack of eloquence betrayed my insecurity and I seemed to be proving him right. N E X T+P A G E | "You didn't even see it, did you?"