I arrived into Xalapa in the afternoon and met Geli there. We went back to her apartment where I met her mother and got to practice some Spanish again. I met her boyfriend Sergio and her friend Esther and we headed out to a local bar of theirs for drinks. Afterwards we got back to the flat and I ended up chatting with Geli until about 4am. The girl can talk. She can actually outgun me pretty much and thats a rarety but I enjoyed not having to carry the weight as normal. In the morning we grabbed breakfast and headed out around the town. Xalapa has a lot of nice parks and the university has been landscaped. Its in the middle of the cloud forests and the climate is therefore similar to that in the UK only with a little more mist. It was reasonably cold and wet for all of the time we were there, with spasmodic outbreaks of sunshine. About halfway through the day the Canadians Mike and Sarah arrived to stay with Sergio and we had our group formed for a few days. Both Sergio and Geli were really cool and what had begun as a short one night stay became four nights. Sarah had a budget of only 50 pesos a day which was going to prove very problematic, given that I had failed to stick to mine and it was around 320 pesos a day. We all went to Sergios place and we watched Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. It was a good night and Esther was also staying over at Geli's. They shared a bed with Geli's mum and I felt a bit guilty as I had one bed to myself. I offered to take the couch but they insisted that I would do no such thing.
In the morning we dropped off Esther when they came back from the doctors and headed out to I think Coaltepec which is a specialist coffee town. My mum would have loved it. The coffee was really good and so was the ice cream as the area makes very creamy and smooth ice cream. The town is pretty enough and in the evening we got a tour around the rest of Xalapa and the parts we had not seen. It was originally founded through four communities on the hill and there are still explanatory plaques in each of the burroughs. Sergio showed us the house he wants to by and we discovered a new word. None of us Anglos had ever heard of a culvert (but apparently its a kind of outdoor wash basin). In the evening I played Wii for the first time and sucked awfully at the baseball. Fucking Yankee sports. I did ok at the bowling and boxing. I even managed to win one tennis game. That thing can actually keep you quite fit for a computer game. Afterwards we went to karaoke and had the whole place to ourselves. We must have sung about 40 songs between 4 of us, as Sarah only sang 3. We did a marvellous rendition of Everybody by the Backstreet Boys that has its own video and will apparently be up on youtube. It was here we decided to form our own boyband called Globe. According to Sarah I was the jock (great lol), Sergio the bad boy and Mike the sensative one. So all we needed was the closet homosexual and the irrelevant fifth member. Geli reckoned she could find them for us and we were off and running. I even tried some of my new found poetical songwriting skills on Gelis wall. She makes every guest write something and sign it with the profession they hope to achieve, so she has NASA directors, UN leaders and many nobel prize winners (I thought this one had lost its appeal lol). Geli and I will form a power alliance between the United States of Europe and the UN. Me and her ended up chatting again till half four in the morning and she insisted in sleeping in the rocking chair this time. I dont think many people got sleep as we were all blitzed the next morning.
The following day the lock broke on the door and Geli and Sergio were trapped outside for about half an hour before my deep sleep eventually woke up and let them in. We all headed down to the anthropology museum with the big Olmec heads, which Tim has informed he has tagged with my name lol. There were deformed and crushed skulls and an assortment of artefacts from the Gulf Coast that were really interesting, though the Spanish on the exhibits was more complex than on those in Mexico City. It also had a scale model of El Tajin and I though that maybe I should have gone there after all, but it was too late now. Sergio and Geli pointed out that it was quite late to head to Veracruz and we should stay another night, so we grabbed some Chinese and later some Tamales and played a bit more Wii. Geli's mum had a guest who gave me a list of Latin American authors and books I should read as I head south. May well do that so I gain a ood undertstanding. It was a really fun time and hopefully Geli and Sergio will come and visit. In the morning I showed them the option of teaching Spanish abroad and she said both of them and her mum would probably be interested. Though she was determined to go off to the Ukraine for 5 years to study as all of them were Physics majors.
We said goodbye at the bus station and I headed with the Candians to Veracruz. They were searching on the Woofing project for an organic farm to work for, but were gaving no luck. One of the phone numbers was wrong and I hacked it online (a skill I learnt at AIB to find x-directory numbers) and Mike rang them. It looked promising but his credit ran out. In search of more crdit most places were sold out. Eventually one Oxxo had some and just as he made the call a truck drove by with a megaphone drowning out the call. Despite all this they managed to secure some work on a farm nearby and Peter had arrived in Veracruz. Not sure what happened to him and obviously the Canadians now stayed. Veracruz was a port town similar to Mazatlan and I realised I was not bothered with coastal towns. One thing they have in common though is skankier women lol. We walked up to the Zocalo and around a fort. We grabbed lunch in a restaurant that was someones house, with the toilet in a shower. The food was great though and for all 3 of us it was cheaper than one course on the waterfront. We went to the Aquarium and spent the day chatting. The aquarium is cool and has manatees as well as open tanks and birds allowed to fly free which was interesting. They also have a feeding tank which you pay to descend in, but we saw it from the sidelines. It seems the sharks are quite graceful and eat off a stick like we would devour cheese and pineapple sticks. The barracudas are viscious however and tear at it. Would not want to be bitten by one of them. They would not give us a discount in the hotels for the Canadians and we somehow missed one of the hotels. Probably because of one of the billboards that was rather distracting lol. In the evening we met Eyleen and her friends and went drinking on the man zocalo. We got hawked by all sorts of salesmen, but we had a really fun time and it was just a shame it was only for a couple of hours. I should maybe have stayed but I was struggling for time on my way down to Guatemala. I got to practice a little bit more of my shonky Spanish and it was becoming second nature for the basic stuff but I need to step it up. The Veracruz water was not overly healthy on a sidenote, but you can see at least three oil rigs off the coast and I think they are the first ones I have ever seen. I said goodbye to everyone, did not see Peter and settled in for a night bus down to Oaxaca.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Mexico City
I figured I would pick a seat right by the tv for this journey. I settled down for the film. It was Little Man. Shit. No. Fuck. Anything but this. For once I was glad that it was in Spanish. I found out from trailers that the film in California had been called 'August Rush'. The second film was the Orphanage which I really want to see but with subtitles. So I ended up trying to avoid the screen for very different reasons. Although when you cant understand the Wayans brothers or hear their voices the film is not too bad. Or maybe the low bus quality was affecting my tastes. The bus also gave me a coke, sandwich, some biscuits and a teabag. A teabag. What am I going to do with a fucking teabag and no hot water or mug. Honestly. On the way into town I got chatting with a linguistics professor and archaelogist for native languages. He informed me after a while that he was stuck in Mexico City because he had been robbed at knife point in a taxi (feasible) and had to get back to Tuxtla Gutierrez to visit his ailing mum (less feasible, but feasible). He needed 260 pesos for the bus. Hmm. I weighed it up. He was either lying or not. If he was lying and I gave him money I would have been fleeced for 13 quid. If he is telling the truth and I don't help him, I could have a dying mother on my conscience. I trusted to Karma and God to even out good deeds even if done via deception and gave him the money. He offered to put me up in Chiapas down in Palenque and we shall see what comes of it, but short term I was a little out of pocket. This was compounded by the increase in the hostels rates. I checked in and bumped into Peter. 15 days previously he had been the last non local I had spoken to and 15 days later he was the first non local I spoke to. How random is that? I went out to my old favourite capital cinema, past the old 7/11 that poisoned me last time and watched Quantum of Solace. Not as good as the last one but not bad. Made me think Haiti was doable and that night I booked a flight between Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic as the boat company were unresponsive. I also sorted out accomodation over new year and stupidly booked an extra bed but I could always sublet them. Puerto Rico was proving a lot lot more problematic. I needed some capital injection and tried to release my parents from an earlier obligation to free some up. Over this period the money from the tax man finally arrived and all was well in the world. A bunch of us watched Ironman in the hostel and then we turfed in.
In the morning I got chatting with an Aussie girl named Claire in the morning. Us two and Peter went down to Xochimolco and the canals they have down in the south of the city. There is a place called Isla de Munecas (Island of the Dolls) that you can go out to, but it was too expensive for the time we had. I managed to haggle the boatman down to 480 pesos for the 3 of us for 2 hours and we cruised around. It is so peaceful down there, you would not guess you were in the middle of a massive city. On the way back we hired one of the little bicycle guys and it must have been a strain for him to carry the three of us. In the evening we headed out to the pre-Hispanic restaurant El Chon. It was expensive and noone ate anything particularly exotic so i may have been a waste of time lol. Still we got the usual indifferent to rude service. I finally finished reading 'The Rise of Silas Lapham' which has a lot of parallels with my Caribbean excursion. Both involved someone hopelessly overreaching their means and almost bankrupting themselves from it. In the evening I got chatting with an Aussie girl named Jazz, a Dutch guy named Hugh and a Norwegian and Yankee who had just got back from the luch libre. The Norwegian spoke Arabic and as part of his national service had worked out in the embassy in Jordan. He had travelled all over the Middle East and was a really interesting guy.
In the morning I got up for day 2 of 5 days worth of scarmbled egg. Oh well I suppose it was better than nothing. I decided to head out on my own as I get more done that way. I went to Castle Chaputepec, but there was noone in the ticket booth and I had to wait awhile before I got in. (I had elected not to go see Teotihuacan and the musuems I saw last time in the city so people will have to refer to my previous Mexico writings for opinions on that). Its an impressive little palace with a comprehensive history museum up until the 20th century. When the Yankees had invaded in 1848 this was the last line of defence and 6 of the child cadets had died defending it, including one who wrapped himself in the flag and fell to his death. Hence the child heroes. In the park they also have a zoo, which is free and includes pandas. As I was not sure if I had seen any before or not I took a wander around. After all it cost nothing. When I finished I needed cash. The stupid train inspector told me there were no banks around, but a map behind him said otherwise after I had walked down the stairs and had to come back again. I grabbed some cash and headed to the archaeological museum. Its a massive and comprehensive museum including exhibits from all over Mexico. It was very tiring and by the end it had worn me out. There are also some native indians whp leap off a pole and hang suspended and swinging round like human versions of that bad/ball/pole game people used to have in their garden, while they play a variety of musical instruments. When I got back I went for a Chinese with Hugh, Jazz, Claire and Peter, before heading out with Peter to a launch party for a local band. Peter has his own record label and had contacted a local girl in Mexico who had invited us to the party. It was a plush and exclusive affair with a Tomb Raider theme. The doorgirls were approriately dressed and everyone in the party was very good looking, while I was there in my special traveller hobo clothes lol. We met Gabby and had a good chat with her, while I sat people watching and cursing my poor Spanish. The band were Cypress Hill lite and the following dj's were mediocre at best, but the crowd seemed to lap it up. We got one free drinks, which was good as they were pricey. We did have our coast stolen by the staff however and it took us ages and the very limits of my Spanish to get them back. It was a shame to leave as the personal decor was very tasty, but we headed back to the hostel where I was accosted by a Mexican guy in the toilet. He told me to squeeze because my bowels were playing up, but I informed him that it wasn't so much getting it out as keeping it in that was the problem. He then told me about south american women, showed off his seven languages and mentioned how he had travelled the world for 6 years and seen half of it. After his meditations on Venezuelan and Colombian women, very theatrically done, I am in a mood to sprint Central America.
In the morning I walked with Peter to see Plaza de Tres Culturas and then got chatting with a bunch of students from Monterrey who were in town to see Ska-P play and had hooked up with a white rasta German. There was also a schoolteacher from Idaho who had a bevy of cute Yankee sixth formers with her for a trip down to Oaxaca. I picked up a couple of books (Aesops Fables and Crime and Punishment) because the book swap options were very limited. Then Peter and I headed out to a couchsurfer meeting down in Zona Rosa. We met a French girl and Swiss girl who were studying Spanish in Mexico before travelling down into South and Central America. We also met a number of locals and had a few drinks with them before catching the last train. I had not heard from Ivan and was struggling to meet up with a lawyer. One of the girls in the meeting was also a lawyer and we agreed to grab lunch the next day.
The following day I was stood up for lunch as something had come up at the last minute for a university project. I grabbed a haircut where I was ripped off with a Gringo rate even though he had quoted a different price to the guy right before me. Oh well it was not too expensive and I finally bit the bullet and had my hair shaven off. I went with Claire, Jazz, Peter and a Paraguayan girl to ngo and see a ska band over at the other hostel, before I head out to see a gig that Aurora had organised. I went to the wrong end of the road and it took me ages to get there and when I arrived the band walked out because something had upset them. I was then invited by a couple of guys to head out to a bar in Condesa. We lost the girls as the bar was too jammed and I ended up drinking with some random locals in a posh Condesa bar. Was a good night and they told me take a taxi back as it was dangerous. I ignored their advice and walked back free of incident. I got in around 3am and was chatting with a girl from Tijuana who was with the Monterrey crowd. After chatting with her and a rasta girl from Australia I turfed in and grabbed a little bit of sleep before heading off for Xalapa. As you can see, because I had done a lot of touristy things before I just stuck to the drinking :-)
In the morning I got chatting with an Aussie girl named Claire in the morning. Us two and Peter went down to Xochimolco and the canals they have down in the south of the city. There is a place called Isla de Munecas (Island of the Dolls) that you can go out to, but it was too expensive for the time we had. I managed to haggle the boatman down to 480 pesos for the 3 of us for 2 hours and we cruised around. It is so peaceful down there, you would not guess you were in the middle of a massive city. On the way back we hired one of the little bicycle guys and it must have been a strain for him to carry the three of us. In the evening we headed out to the pre-Hispanic restaurant El Chon. It was expensive and noone ate anything particularly exotic so i may have been a waste of time lol. Still we got the usual indifferent to rude service. I finally finished reading 'The Rise of Silas Lapham' which has a lot of parallels with my Caribbean excursion. Both involved someone hopelessly overreaching their means and almost bankrupting themselves from it. In the evening I got chatting with an Aussie girl named Jazz, a Dutch guy named Hugh and a Norwegian and Yankee who had just got back from the luch libre. The Norwegian spoke Arabic and as part of his national service had worked out in the embassy in Jordan. He had travelled all over the Middle East and was a really interesting guy.
In the morning I got up for day 2 of 5 days worth of scarmbled egg. Oh well I suppose it was better than nothing. I decided to head out on my own as I get more done that way. I went to Castle Chaputepec, but there was noone in the ticket booth and I had to wait awhile before I got in. (I had elected not to go see Teotihuacan and the musuems I saw last time in the city so people will have to refer to my previous Mexico writings for opinions on that). Its an impressive little palace with a comprehensive history museum up until the 20th century. When the Yankees had invaded in 1848 this was the last line of defence and 6 of the child cadets had died defending it, including one who wrapped himself in the flag and fell to his death. Hence the child heroes. In the park they also have a zoo, which is free and includes pandas. As I was not sure if I had seen any before or not I took a wander around. After all it cost nothing. When I finished I needed cash. The stupid train inspector told me there were no banks around, but a map behind him said otherwise after I had walked down the stairs and had to come back again. I grabbed some cash and headed to the archaeological museum. Its a massive and comprehensive museum including exhibits from all over Mexico. It was very tiring and by the end it had worn me out. There are also some native indians whp leap off a pole and hang suspended and swinging round like human versions of that bad/ball/pole game people used to have in their garden, while they play a variety of musical instruments. When I got back I went for a Chinese with Hugh, Jazz, Claire and Peter, before heading out with Peter to a launch party for a local band. Peter has his own record label and had contacted a local girl in Mexico who had invited us to the party. It was a plush and exclusive affair with a Tomb Raider theme. The doorgirls were approriately dressed and everyone in the party was very good looking, while I was there in my special traveller hobo clothes lol. We met Gabby and had a good chat with her, while I sat people watching and cursing my poor Spanish. The band were Cypress Hill lite and the following dj's were mediocre at best, but the crowd seemed to lap it up. We got one free drinks, which was good as they were pricey. We did have our coast stolen by the staff however and it took us ages and the very limits of my Spanish to get them back. It was a shame to leave as the personal decor was very tasty, but we headed back to the hostel where I was accosted by a Mexican guy in the toilet. He told me to squeeze because my bowels were playing up, but I informed him that it wasn't so much getting it out as keeping it in that was the problem. He then told me about south american women, showed off his seven languages and mentioned how he had travelled the world for 6 years and seen half of it. After his meditations on Venezuelan and Colombian women, very theatrically done, I am in a mood to sprint Central America.
In the morning I walked with Peter to see Plaza de Tres Culturas and then got chatting with a bunch of students from Monterrey who were in town to see Ska-P play and had hooked up with a white rasta German. There was also a schoolteacher from Idaho who had a bevy of cute Yankee sixth formers with her for a trip down to Oaxaca. I picked up a couple of books (Aesops Fables and Crime and Punishment) because the book swap options were very limited. Then Peter and I headed out to a couchsurfer meeting down in Zona Rosa. We met a French girl and Swiss girl who were studying Spanish in Mexico before travelling down into South and Central America. We also met a number of locals and had a few drinks with them before catching the last train. I had not heard from Ivan and was struggling to meet up with a lawyer. One of the girls in the meeting was also a lawyer and we agreed to grab lunch the next day.
The following day I was stood up for lunch as something had come up at the last minute for a university project. I grabbed a haircut where I was ripped off with a Gringo rate even though he had quoted a different price to the guy right before me. Oh well it was not too expensive and I finally bit the bullet and had my hair shaven off. I went with Claire, Jazz, Peter and a Paraguayan girl to ngo and see a ska band over at the other hostel, before I head out to see a gig that Aurora had organised. I went to the wrong end of the road and it took me ages to get there and when I arrived the band walked out because something had upset them. I was then invited by a couple of guys to head out to a bar in Condesa. We lost the girls as the bar was too jammed and I ended up drinking with some random locals in a posh Condesa bar. Was a good night and they told me take a taxi back as it was dangerous. I ignored their advice and walked back free of incident. I got in around 3am and was chatting with a girl from Tijuana who was with the Monterrey crowd. After chatting with her and a rasta girl from Australia I turfed in and grabbed a little bit of sleep before heading off for Xalapa. As you can see, because I had done a lot of touristy things before I just stuck to the drinking :-)
Guanajuato, San Miguel de Allende and Morelia
Apologies if the quality of the next three posts is a little shonky, but I am creamed from the last couple of weeks and in dire need of some sleep. On the plus side it is less than one week until I am in Guatemala. I had left Aguascalientes in the freezing cold morning and headed to Guanajuato via Leon. The book said Leon had a pleasant main square. I said thats not good enough for a 6km round walk from the bus station. This was the first journey I travelled on Primera Plus. They give out free sandwiches which is nice. They charge more and made me watch a BBC documentary on water in Spanish, which was less nice. I decided it was a waste of time and I would not travel with them again (Since this resolution I have travelled with them at least 4 times). Grabbing a local bus at the station I was incessantly corrected on my Spanish when all I wanted was a fucking bus ticket and not a grammar lesson. Guanajuato is phenomenally gorgeous. One of the, if not the, most beautriful places I have been. It does not look too impressive from up high, which is unusual in cities and is best viewed by getting lost in its winding streets. It has the distinction of being one of only three cities I have had difficulty navigating. One other was Venice and the other was Tuxtla Gutierrez. The second does not count. While Guanjuato and Venice are difficult because they plunge round colonial, charming alleyways, Tuxtla is difficult because their urban planner was a fuckwit (every road is northwest 1 or westnorth 2 or eastsouth 5, depending on whether it is lateral or longtitudinal). Guanajuato reminds me of Venice with the winding alleyways and Edinburgh in terms of colonial cobblestones and hilly charm. Photos online don't do it justice. It even has a honeycomb of roads running like rabbiy holes under the city with tunnels to get lost in. Around every bend is charming architecture, rustic scenery or luscious parklands. It teases you anf entices you. I could have just walked around the city for weeks and not got bored. Its that good.
The guidebook had a misprint in it, which sent me off to a hostel that did not exist and was in fact a moderately priced hotel. Luckily though for me it was right next to a hostel for half the price of the guidebook one. It was populated by locals, athough there was one guy sleeping with his daughter in the bed next to me. Or at least I hope it was his daughter. She looked happy enough. On the top of one of the nearby hills was the Monument to 'El Pipila'. This guy strapped a concrete block to his back during the war of independence to absorb bullets and set fire to the garrison doors of the Spanish occupiers. Little was I aware of my impending trials as I rounded a corner. Two guys were struggling with a washing machine up some stairs. The women looked at me beseechingly and I agreed to help out, thinking it was just these stairs. Many hundreds of stairs later and 300 odd metres higher up, we collapsed over the last stone step. Fuck the Inca Trail. How hard can it be? I had just effectively carried a washing machine up 350 metres of height at altitude almost on my own. And I was a little wiped out. The climb up the last steps on 'El Pipila' after we had dropped the washing machine on a truck were excruciating. At least they gave me a towel to spare my hands. Having surveyed the view and been disappointed by the birds eye perspective, I snaked down the winding hillside to the alleyway of the kiss. This place has balconies so close together they almost kiss themselves. Rumour has it a poor boy was refused access to the rich girl he loved and so bought the house opposite so they could kiss in secret. Its in much better condition than the Verona balcony.
I set my alarm early to go to the mines and then repeatedly ignored it. On the way to the bus station (5km of rough hard shoulder walking) I stopped off in the mummy museum. When excavating some turn of the century gravesites the citizens of Guanjuato discovered that the lime soil preserved the mummified corpses of the locals and they now live on in a macabre display. I got chatting with a teacher of a local school and on walking around they had the corpses dressed up in their burial clothes. They had also put little humorous captions next to them, where the corpses described their unique features and aspirations. It was a cool place, though the adjoining torture museum did play the song 'Vienna' all the time in there, which kind of takes the edge off the exhibits. Eventually I grabbed a bus out to San Miguel de Allende for a day trip. Its a really cute town, swarming with Gringos. Its small and walkable. It must have been a really pretty town before the tourists. It still is, but there is evidence of condos being erected everywhere and lots of roads are closed off as private. Its sad when citizens can't walk freely in their own towns. Lonely Planet also sent me the wrong way for 2km with their shonky map. If you head to the viewing point it is north from the park, not east regardless of what the book says. I did discover I now have a massive hole in the base of my shoe. Hopefully it will last long enough to replace them in Canada where they will have my shoe size. You get good views over the surrounding countryside and on the way back I thought I had missed the last bus. That would have been a big problem. Only the expensive option was left. On the way out I had my own private bus to myself somehow. Ypu figured they would not bother travelling if they had one passenger but oh well. On the way back I got an interesting Tom Hanks film called 'I'll wait for you'. I was planning on heading out back in Guanajuato but I spoke to Angie online and she said I may want to rest for friday.
In the morning I headed to Alhondiga de Grandoditas, which is the old fortress burnt by 'El Pipila'. It now houses the state history museum. I knew there were no easy direct buses to Morelia, but I did not want to go to Irapuato. Seemingly everybody else did though. There were about 2,000 buses an hour to Irapuato and Leon and I had to put up with the same idiot yelling Irapuato in my face for one hour before the Morelia bus eventually turned up. It seemingly stopped in every town in all of western mexico and took forever, though it did pass through a really scenic lake district. When I got there I figured I could walk to the centre, but got lost in a council estate and had to grab a taxi. I checked into a hotel for only 95 pesos a night, which I found out later did not have any plug sockets. I met up with Angie at the cathedral and she took me to a cool little bar with live music for drinks. My Spanish was wheeled out of its cobwebbed hiding place for another dust off and we moved onto a rock bar down the end of town where her friends were playing. She told me some of the legends of town, like the girl who was locked in her basement and now her hand reaches out to grab at tourists. Also the tree that was formed from a grieving lover and the fountain that was stolen by a government official. Not sure how you steal one exactly. Its not like you can stick the lump of rock up your jumper. The barmaid in this bar was unbelievably cute and got chatting Spanish with an English teacher. We moved on from rock bar to rock bar until we ended up back at the original one, where they had a lock in and were blaring out 80s English punk music. The driver on the way back had apparently flipped a car before and one of the girls had got trapped under it halfway out the window but escaped with only some bruising. Very lucky. Morelia is a pretty little town and well worth a visit, but I think Lonely Planet may be overegging it a little by desrcibing it as the best city in the world you won't have heard of. So far this trip thats a toss up between Guanajuato and Port Gibson. We got back to my cheap hotel around 5am and I had to remove a prostitute from the doorway so I could get in.
I woke up late and arranged to meet Angie at the wrong place. I had read a text from Pamela as being from her and replied to the wrong person. This I only realised after about half an hour of waiting. Apologising profusely we headed to her place and I was treated to a feast of food. By this point I was informing people that they would have to accept a compromise. It is rude for Mexicans not to feed their guests until they can eat no more. It is rude for the English to eat all of their host's food lol. Therefore a happy compromise was a necessity. We would meet up later with Sergio and Pamela again around 6pm and Angie had to depart for a concert. It was a shame as logistics meant we did not meet up again, but she was fun company and hopefully she will come and visit me. We also concluded my eyes are green (I knew they would be in a sunny country). They are actually two seperate rings of colour and so change colour depending on the pupil size. Brown in the dark as green section is squished, green in the light where it is stretched. We ended up in a very nice cocktail bar with a great view out over the square. At night on a saturday the cathedral is illuminated and a huge fireworks display is launched, which was cool because I missed Guy Fawkes this year. Will have to have my own one in Argentina. We grabbed some dinner in an underground foodhall that is underneath a church built solely from the profits of food vendors who now operate in this basement. Afterwards we headed to Adriano's house (Sergios friend. Their marriage is frayed but they have a great energetic daughter) and drank till the early hours with his brother Ivan and a friend who works for PEMEX and has a highly dangerous job for which he gets no hazard pay.
In the morning I left with Sergio and Ivan to have a look around town. We picked up some of the legendary Michoacan ice cream and had breakfast in a cafe with a sensational waitress. None of us could work out if she was 18 or not though. It was Ivan and Adriano's cousins birthday and we went round for a massive family barbecue. My lack of Spanish was a problem but I gave it my best shot. The mother said I could visit the house any time and that I did not speak Spanish like a Mexican. I responded that no I spoke it like a book as it was technical Castillian Spanish. On the way back the kid (who is four) invited me to play nintendo the next day. I said I was travelling to Mexico City and she replied she was travelling nowhere and staying in Morelia. I love the way that kids think. A lot of Sergio and Adriano's friends came round and we drank a fair bit. Most of the conversation was in rapid Spanish which was too fast for me, but it was still good fun. We saw Sergio off at the bus station as it was his birthday the next day. Both he and his friends were really nice people and it was a good time. In the morning Adriano gave me a lift to the station and I headed back to the big daddy. The first place in Mexico I had been before.
The guidebook had a misprint in it, which sent me off to a hostel that did not exist and was in fact a moderately priced hotel. Luckily though for me it was right next to a hostel for half the price of the guidebook one. It was populated by locals, athough there was one guy sleeping with his daughter in the bed next to me. Or at least I hope it was his daughter. She looked happy enough. On the top of one of the nearby hills was the Monument to 'El Pipila'. This guy strapped a concrete block to his back during the war of independence to absorb bullets and set fire to the garrison doors of the Spanish occupiers. Little was I aware of my impending trials as I rounded a corner. Two guys were struggling with a washing machine up some stairs. The women looked at me beseechingly and I agreed to help out, thinking it was just these stairs. Many hundreds of stairs later and 300 odd metres higher up, we collapsed over the last stone step. Fuck the Inca Trail. How hard can it be? I had just effectively carried a washing machine up 350 metres of height at altitude almost on my own. And I was a little wiped out. The climb up the last steps on 'El Pipila' after we had dropped the washing machine on a truck were excruciating. At least they gave me a towel to spare my hands. Having surveyed the view and been disappointed by the birds eye perspective, I snaked down the winding hillside to the alleyway of the kiss. This place has balconies so close together they almost kiss themselves. Rumour has it a poor boy was refused access to the rich girl he loved and so bought the house opposite so they could kiss in secret. Its in much better condition than the Verona balcony.
I set my alarm early to go to the mines and then repeatedly ignored it. On the way to the bus station (5km of rough hard shoulder walking) I stopped off in the mummy museum. When excavating some turn of the century gravesites the citizens of Guanjuato discovered that the lime soil preserved the mummified corpses of the locals and they now live on in a macabre display. I got chatting with a teacher of a local school and on walking around they had the corpses dressed up in their burial clothes. They had also put little humorous captions next to them, where the corpses described their unique features and aspirations. It was a cool place, though the adjoining torture museum did play the song 'Vienna' all the time in there, which kind of takes the edge off the exhibits. Eventually I grabbed a bus out to San Miguel de Allende for a day trip. Its a really cute town, swarming with Gringos. Its small and walkable. It must have been a really pretty town before the tourists. It still is, but there is evidence of condos being erected everywhere and lots of roads are closed off as private. Its sad when citizens can't walk freely in their own towns. Lonely Planet also sent me the wrong way for 2km with their shonky map. If you head to the viewing point it is north from the park, not east regardless of what the book says. I did discover I now have a massive hole in the base of my shoe. Hopefully it will last long enough to replace them in Canada where they will have my shoe size. You get good views over the surrounding countryside and on the way back I thought I had missed the last bus. That would have been a big problem. Only the expensive option was left. On the way out I had my own private bus to myself somehow. Ypu figured they would not bother travelling if they had one passenger but oh well. On the way back I got an interesting Tom Hanks film called 'I'll wait for you'. I was planning on heading out back in Guanajuato but I spoke to Angie online and she said I may want to rest for friday.
In the morning I headed to Alhondiga de Grandoditas, which is the old fortress burnt by 'El Pipila'. It now houses the state history museum. I knew there were no easy direct buses to Morelia, but I did not want to go to Irapuato. Seemingly everybody else did though. There were about 2,000 buses an hour to Irapuato and Leon and I had to put up with the same idiot yelling Irapuato in my face for one hour before the Morelia bus eventually turned up. It seemingly stopped in every town in all of western mexico and took forever, though it did pass through a really scenic lake district. When I got there I figured I could walk to the centre, but got lost in a council estate and had to grab a taxi. I checked into a hotel for only 95 pesos a night, which I found out later did not have any plug sockets. I met up with Angie at the cathedral and she took me to a cool little bar with live music for drinks. My Spanish was wheeled out of its cobwebbed hiding place for another dust off and we moved onto a rock bar down the end of town where her friends were playing. She told me some of the legends of town, like the girl who was locked in her basement and now her hand reaches out to grab at tourists. Also the tree that was formed from a grieving lover and the fountain that was stolen by a government official. Not sure how you steal one exactly. Its not like you can stick the lump of rock up your jumper. The barmaid in this bar was unbelievably cute and got chatting Spanish with an English teacher. We moved on from rock bar to rock bar until we ended up back at the original one, where they had a lock in and were blaring out 80s English punk music. The driver on the way back had apparently flipped a car before and one of the girls had got trapped under it halfway out the window but escaped with only some bruising. Very lucky. Morelia is a pretty little town and well worth a visit, but I think Lonely Planet may be overegging it a little by desrcibing it as the best city in the world you won't have heard of. So far this trip thats a toss up between Guanajuato and Port Gibson. We got back to my cheap hotel around 5am and I had to remove a prostitute from the doorway so I could get in.
I woke up late and arranged to meet Angie at the wrong place. I had read a text from Pamela as being from her and replied to the wrong person. This I only realised after about half an hour of waiting. Apologising profusely we headed to her place and I was treated to a feast of food. By this point I was informing people that they would have to accept a compromise. It is rude for Mexicans not to feed their guests until they can eat no more. It is rude for the English to eat all of their host's food lol. Therefore a happy compromise was a necessity. We would meet up later with Sergio and Pamela again around 6pm and Angie had to depart for a concert. It was a shame as logistics meant we did not meet up again, but she was fun company and hopefully she will come and visit me. We also concluded my eyes are green (I knew they would be in a sunny country). They are actually two seperate rings of colour and so change colour depending on the pupil size. Brown in the dark as green section is squished, green in the light where it is stretched. We ended up in a very nice cocktail bar with a great view out over the square. At night on a saturday the cathedral is illuminated and a huge fireworks display is launched, which was cool because I missed Guy Fawkes this year. Will have to have my own one in Argentina. We grabbed some dinner in an underground foodhall that is underneath a church built solely from the profits of food vendors who now operate in this basement. Afterwards we headed to Adriano's house (Sergios friend. Their marriage is frayed but they have a great energetic daughter) and drank till the early hours with his brother Ivan and a friend who works for PEMEX and has a highly dangerous job for which he gets no hazard pay.
In the morning I left with Sergio and Ivan to have a look around town. We picked up some of the legendary Michoacan ice cream and had breakfast in a cafe with a sensational waitress. None of us could work out if she was 18 or not though. It was Ivan and Adriano's cousins birthday and we went round for a massive family barbecue. My lack of Spanish was a problem but I gave it my best shot. The mother said I could visit the house any time and that I did not speak Spanish like a Mexican. I responded that no I spoke it like a book as it was technical Castillian Spanish. On the way back the kid (who is four) invited me to play nintendo the next day. I said I was travelling to Mexico City and she replied she was travelling nowhere and staying in Morelia. I love the way that kids think. A lot of Sergio and Adriano's friends came round and we drank a fair bit. Most of the conversation was in rapid Spanish which was too fast for me, but it was still good fun. We saw Sergio off at the bus station as it was his birthday the next day. Both he and his friends were really nice people and it was a good time. In the morning Adriano gave me a lift to the station and I headed back to the big daddy. The first place in Mexico I had been before.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Aguascalientes
I arrived late in Aguascalientes and got a taxi out to Pamela's place. I met her, Sergio and a few friends in their new shop they were working on. It was very cool. A huge space that was going to be an art workshop, store and place for young creative people of the city to work. They are even setting up an underground radio in the basement for student bands and young djs. A very cool project. One of the friends was a DJ of electronic music and the other was a painter (he even painted me a picture to take on my travels). We talked about travels and Sergio had lived in Switzerland and stayed and worked from the same hostel I stayed in in Vancouver. We drank beer from litre bottles the local shop owner gave them for free and smoked into the night. Maybe chatting a little too long as Pamela had an exam in the morning. Sergio and I share a lot of philosophies and I can imagine him becoming along with Luciana the best friends I have made from couchsurfing. They has hosted many people, including four Serbians who were due in the next few weeks. These Serbians were driving from Canada to Argentina and had strapped 3 cameras to the outside of their car and one on the inside to just make a living documentary of their travels. Sergio took photos of my beat up shoes and reckons they will win him $10,000 in a photography contest. Damn it. My shoes have greater earning potential than me. Especially in this economic climate. I said if it wins I want a new pair of shoes for payment. Sergio shared a philosophy on those people who live the tick box lifestyle. "They are so poor, all they have is money". I liked that one. Two good quotes in two days. We grabbed some dinner around 2am and then turfed in.
In the morning I came to the conclusion that Mexicans are much more friendly than us. There is definitely some weird cold/warm country divide, but as the Irish are perceived as friendly maybe its a religious thing. Some catholic/protestant legacy. The cathedral in town in made of brick and so so, but the Palacio de Gobierno is the most beautiful I have seen in all of Mexico. Outstanding murals, but the building itself is architecturally divine. They have a museum of the dead in Aguascalientes which is really interesting and has loads of exhibits from photographs, to models for Dia de los Muertos and huge mannequin style things. Its small but well worth the visit. Some people had wondered why I went there, but they said the same about Saltillo (cool) and Tepic (ok they were right there but it was not on the original itinerary). There was also the Museum of Jose Guadoloupe Posada who was a satirical sketch artist in the time of Porfirio Diaz. Apparently he was an influence for all Mexican artists including Rivera and his stuff is interesting to see. The city museum was shut for renovation and the history museum was part shut (so it was free and had some interesting safari photos in Namabia from a German woman living in San Cristibal De La Casas). When I got back to the house there were a few more DJs who went clubbing, but I stayed in and some artists who were doing murals for the new shop walls. There was another girl and a guy named Fernando. He worked for Wall Marts operations in Mexico in IT an was a key member of Aguascalientes´community. He bought us dinner and four of the five of us planned to meet in Morelia. Sergio and Pamela were heading back there for the weekend and had said I could stay with them there. All the people I met in Aguascalientes were really cool and I am going to try to put them in touch with Luciana, as they want to live and work in Oslo for a year. They had a cool really energetic dog and in the morning they showed me the bull ring and the main festival area, which is weird. The shops only open for one month of the year over these huge plazas and just for the festival. I made some good friends there and Sergio has my passion for talking a lot on many random things, for no reason and for a very long time. In the morning I grabbed a bus to Guanajuato via a short break in Leon. I travelled first class for the first time and got offered a shit lunch, a weird BBC documentary on water in Spanish and the start of Santa Claus 3. Thats the last time I travel first class even if I got free biscuits.
In the morning I came to the conclusion that Mexicans are much more friendly than us. There is definitely some weird cold/warm country divide, but as the Irish are perceived as friendly maybe its a religious thing. Some catholic/protestant legacy. The cathedral in town in made of brick and so so, but the Palacio de Gobierno is the most beautiful I have seen in all of Mexico. Outstanding murals, but the building itself is architecturally divine. They have a museum of the dead in Aguascalientes which is really interesting and has loads of exhibits from photographs, to models for Dia de los Muertos and huge mannequin style things. Its small but well worth the visit. Some people had wondered why I went there, but they said the same about Saltillo (cool) and Tepic (ok they were right there but it was not on the original itinerary). There was also the Museum of Jose Guadoloupe Posada who was a satirical sketch artist in the time of Porfirio Diaz. Apparently he was an influence for all Mexican artists including Rivera and his stuff is interesting to see. The city museum was shut for renovation and the history museum was part shut (so it was free and had some interesting safari photos in Namabia from a German woman living in San Cristibal De La Casas). When I got back to the house there were a few more DJs who went clubbing, but I stayed in and some artists who were doing murals for the new shop walls. There was another girl and a guy named Fernando. He worked for Wall Marts operations in Mexico in IT an was a key member of Aguascalientes´community. He bought us dinner and four of the five of us planned to meet in Morelia. Sergio and Pamela were heading back there for the weekend and had said I could stay with them there. All the people I met in Aguascalientes were really cool and I am going to try to put them in touch with Luciana, as they want to live and work in Oslo for a year. They had a cool really energetic dog and in the morning they showed me the bull ring and the main festival area, which is weird. The shops only open for one month of the year over these huge plazas and just for the festival. I made some good friends there and Sergio has my passion for talking a lot on many random things, for no reason and for a very long time. In the morning I grabbed a bus to Guanajuato via a short break in Leon. I travelled first class for the first time and got offered a shit lunch, a weird BBC documentary on water in Spanish and the start of Santa Claus 3. Thats the last time I travel first class even if I got free biscuits.
Guadalajara
I was supposed to stay with Ileana, but she had informed me I would stay with her twin Gabriella for the 3 nights I was in Guadalajara. I arrived in the city and asked an old couple on the bus if this was Guadalajara. They said yes. While technically they were correct, they were only just. I asked the man in the bus station if this was the old or the new one. He said neither it is Zapopan. This is like Guadalajara´s Beverley Hills but it was still 8km out to the west of town. I decided to walk it in full pack. I got most of the way as well until Gabriela insisted it was better I take a taxi. On my way in I found some tell tail signs I was a long way out of town. A strip club and a motel. The staple foundations of all suburbs in big cities. The taxi I did get for the last bit did a U-turn and reversed across an intersection into a one way street. Now that was cool. I met up with Ilena and with one of her friends we went to a swanky little bar (reminded me of the type I go to in London) and chatted about travel. Her friend was tired so she bailed early. Ileana and I went on to a rock club that played mainly classic British rock and it was a good night. The band gave a shout out to foreigners (which was basically just me). Afterwards we met a friend of hers who was completely hammered. She was telling me about Bob Marley living in her head and then she drove home. As we drove back we saw her speeding down the wrong way on the road and only changed back when a truck beaped her. Fugured we maybe should have given her a lift home. Ilena had mentioned how it was weird she had had brief flings with her other two couchsurfers and I wasn´t sure if it was a proposition or a warning so I left it dangling there. I met her sister Gabriela when I got back and had also met the American guy Scott from Utah. Gabriela was living with two Yankees. Jesus had been right though. The girls in Jalisco are phenomenally stunning. Need to find out about this French thing.
My first morning in Guadalajara I was taken out for breakfast by Scott and his girlfriend Anna (she was a local lawyer and he worked in computing and could base himself anywhere). They paid for breakfast (pork dish thing) and even drove me all over town looking for Lonely Planet Caribbean Islands before showing me the best sites to visit (They are both incredibly ncie people. Scott even suggested I use his house when in Nicaragua). They made a really cool couple. They had met when he had seen her on a street corner. He did not ask her out and later saw her at a restauarant. Waited for her by the bathroom, but she took ages and eventually they only met because she stepped on an escalator in front of him. Good story and fate seems to have handed them each other, even if they had problems getting a flat because they weren't married. I started off my siteseeing at the Instituto Central de Cabanas. Its a cool building with really impressive murals by Orozco in the middle. They sold me a ticket and I went in. The main chapel had a speech being given on Mexican History and so it was difficult to get a clear vision of the murals. I asked a guard why all the doors to the museum were shut and where the entrance was. He informed me that it was all shut, so that was money well spent. I wandered round the plazas, the cathedral and the Palacio de Gobierno (which has a cool, huge mural of Hidalgo on the back staircase that almost makes you topple over with its presence). The centre of the city is very pretty and picturesque. You can walk around it for a few hours. The art gallery shut at four so I went to the regional history museum (good, but did not explain the French thing) and they have a plaza of Jalisco heros. I returned to the house and met Gabriela with her friend Luis (he ran his own bar for three years and is now planning on going to London to study fashion management). We went to his old bar to pick up some speakers for Gabriela's party. His old bar was really cool. Three stories that looked like art students lounges. Very chilled, but apparently in the wrong neighbourhoods for profit. We grabbed them and took them to the top floor penthouse apartment downtown. It had amazing views. Guadalajara's skyline is not too high so you can see almost all of the city and it was a great place for a party. We went back to the flat and met Rafa (a fashion photographer) and Madison (a model from Washington). Madison would later tell me Rafa was cool but a bit of a perv. I thought that was a requirement in the job spec for that profession surely. I found out Rafa played football with Pele when he was a kid and we chatted about various things before we left to set up the party.
When we arrived at the bar, we had accumulated two kids who were to watch the door for the night and they had walkie talkies to report any problems. We got there and the DJ (a friend of Gabbys and a citywide known DJ) was setting up. We helped him prop up these huge speakers on tripods on one side of the terrace walkway. Now these tripods were not stable and the wall was only just above my knee in height. I figured someone drunk may go over the balcony. Rafa says thats common in Cancun with spring breakers. I figured a speaker may go over the wall and brain someone 8 floors down. The others figured it would hold however. I hoped they did not have too much wind as it was already blowing out the candles. The DJ set up and played cool electronica music. People tried to crahs downstairs as we were broadcasting for the whole city. I mingled and chatted as best I can with my shit Spanish. It was an artsy crowd of cool people with a great view. I chatted with Luis and another painter for ages before I ended up spending most of the night drinking with Madison. Couchsurfing offers not such a bad life. Drinking free beer in a penthouse suite overlooking a beautiful city, with cool electronica music and a Yankee model for company. Hostels have a long way to go lol. There was another French girl teaching there who was off hiking in the morning and Madison and I disappeared off to her car so she could change shoes. Whenw e came back we were locked out and the kids had disappeared. Crowds gathered both sides of the gates like the Titanic and eventually we had to usher in through the crowd while the other were held back. It was a good party and at 6am me and Madison retired to smoke weed in the lounge at home. She had told me she had once taken Meth to prove to her friend (who was addicted) that he could kick it. That makes tow Yankee meth takers I now know. We also talked about life, general things and ghosts, because there were some weird ghostly goings on across the road. Luis had told me the carpark of the building was apparently haunted. There was another Yankee painter from Boston at the party and he was smoking the strongest weed I have ever had. One hit rocked me when usually it does nothing.
In the afternoon I got up and went to the modern art gallery I had missed the day before. It had an exhibition by Colunga and he is one of the most interesting modern artists I have seen. Very innovative. The best piece was a painting of Mary (mother of Jesus) worshipped as a devil figure. Red and black figurines in a twist on the usual religious art. Lots of weird imagery like a church pew complete with praying mice. You should check his stuff out. I walked to a park with lots of people in it, but seemingly no entrance. Then I went back and planned the 23 days in the Caribbean. I have to organise a ferry and I think I concluded I can do 4-5 days in Haiti without hopefully being killed. In the evening we went to an architects house and watched Broken Flowers. Boston guy was there and he has an interesting story. He hitchhiked and hiked through the jungle from Chile to Cuba with no m,oney and two shirts. He owns a lot of businesses etc, but apparently just hikes off in the jungle with only a machete for a few days like a Yankee Steve Irwin. He was deported from Cuba for troubles and found himself there after his ship shipwrecked in the Caribbean. He also once hitched a plane to the middle of the jungle and had to starvingly hike and beg back for a week. He told me that Peruvians are aggressive and Colombians not so, but if they get angry they´ll hack off a limb. Gabriela told me he had a trouble childhood. I was just sad I could not get more stories from him. Which reminds me of two I missed. Yoana from Monterrey once had to hitch a ride down a ski slope on the backs of the Swiss national ski coach. That must have made for a really cool version of one of those simulators. The West Virginian as a pilot was once offered $200,000 to fly drugs to the US from Bahamas and said the drug dealers weren´t scared to go to prison in the US because it was seen as cushy compared to the jails in the Bahamas. The Bostonian's last bit of advice was quite profound. "The worst thing that can happen to you is nothing." Then he told me to go find some trouble lol.
In the morning Gabriela made breakfast and we discussed the book project she was assisting her mother with. It was a compilation of works for abused women and would be distributed in mental asylums and prisons around Mexico and beyond. I thought that was cool and they have their own publishing company as her mother is a famous poet. On the way to the bus station I got to practice my crap Spanish with the taxi driver and in the bus station I fed some poor people with tacos. In the station was one of the fittest women I have seen in a long time. Damn Jalisco is a good looking province. I've written something about figuring out power ratios. I think that means with new groups of people. It takes a while to study who has the power and what a group dynamic is. Sometimes as an outsider you can even change the dynamic by lending power to group elements who usually lack it and gain it through a quasi alliance. Anyway I am wandering off topic. On the bus I saw the Swedish film ´The Black Pimpernel'. Fucking awesome. Watch it. Its about Allende and Chile and the lengths one Swedish Ambassador went to in the name of freedom and honour. Everyone who knows me will have an idea what its like, but this guy was immense. Kudos to the filmmakers for bringing him to mainstream attention. i want to read his biography if he has one. Anyway on to Aguascalientes.
My first morning in Guadalajara I was taken out for breakfast by Scott and his girlfriend Anna (she was a local lawyer and he worked in computing and could base himself anywhere). They paid for breakfast (pork dish thing) and even drove me all over town looking for Lonely Planet Caribbean Islands before showing me the best sites to visit (They are both incredibly ncie people. Scott even suggested I use his house when in Nicaragua). They made a really cool couple. They had met when he had seen her on a street corner. He did not ask her out and later saw her at a restauarant. Waited for her by the bathroom, but she took ages and eventually they only met because she stepped on an escalator in front of him. Good story and fate seems to have handed them each other, even if they had problems getting a flat because they weren't married. I started off my siteseeing at the Instituto Central de Cabanas. Its a cool building with really impressive murals by Orozco in the middle. They sold me a ticket and I went in. The main chapel had a speech being given on Mexican History and so it was difficult to get a clear vision of the murals. I asked a guard why all the doors to the museum were shut and where the entrance was. He informed me that it was all shut, so that was money well spent. I wandered round the plazas, the cathedral and the Palacio de Gobierno (which has a cool, huge mural of Hidalgo on the back staircase that almost makes you topple over with its presence). The centre of the city is very pretty and picturesque. You can walk around it for a few hours. The art gallery shut at four so I went to the regional history museum (good, but did not explain the French thing) and they have a plaza of Jalisco heros. I returned to the house and met Gabriela with her friend Luis (he ran his own bar for three years and is now planning on going to London to study fashion management). We went to his old bar to pick up some speakers for Gabriela's party. His old bar was really cool. Three stories that looked like art students lounges. Very chilled, but apparently in the wrong neighbourhoods for profit. We grabbed them and took them to the top floor penthouse apartment downtown. It had amazing views. Guadalajara's skyline is not too high so you can see almost all of the city and it was a great place for a party. We went back to the flat and met Rafa (a fashion photographer) and Madison (a model from Washington). Madison would later tell me Rafa was cool but a bit of a perv. I thought that was a requirement in the job spec for that profession surely. I found out Rafa played football with Pele when he was a kid and we chatted about various things before we left to set up the party.
When we arrived at the bar, we had accumulated two kids who were to watch the door for the night and they had walkie talkies to report any problems. We got there and the DJ (a friend of Gabbys and a citywide known DJ) was setting up. We helped him prop up these huge speakers on tripods on one side of the terrace walkway. Now these tripods were not stable and the wall was only just above my knee in height. I figured someone drunk may go over the balcony. Rafa says thats common in Cancun with spring breakers. I figured a speaker may go over the wall and brain someone 8 floors down. The others figured it would hold however. I hoped they did not have too much wind as it was already blowing out the candles. The DJ set up and played cool electronica music. People tried to crahs downstairs as we were broadcasting for the whole city. I mingled and chatted as best I can with my shit Spanish. It was an artsy crowd of cool people with a great view. I chatted with Luis and another painter for ages before I ended up spending most of the night drinking with Madison. Couchsurfing offers not such a bad life. Drinking free beer in a penthouse suite overlooking a beautiful city, with cool electronica music and a Yankee model for company. Hostels have a long way to go lol. There was another French girl teaching there who was off hiking in the morning and Madison and I disappeared off to her car so she could change shoes. Whenw e came back we were locked out and the kids had disappeared. Crowds gathered both sides of the gates like the Titanic and eventually we had to usher in through the crowd while the other were held back. It was a good party and at 6am me and Madison retired to smoke weed in the lounge at home. She had told me she had once taken Meth to prove to her friend (who was addicted) that he could kick it. That makes tow Yankee meth takers I now know. We also talked about life, general things and ghosts, because there were some weird ghostly goings on across the road. Luis had told me the carpark of the building was apparently haunted. There was another Yankee painter from Boston at the party and he was smoking the strongest weed I have ever had. One hit rocked me when usually it does nothing.
In the afternoon I got up and went to the modern art gallery I had missed the day before. It had an exhibition by Colunga and he is one of the most interesting modern artists I have seen. Very innovative. The best piece was a painting of Mary (mother of Jesus) worshipped as a devil figure. Red and black figurines in a twist on the usual religious art. Lots of weird imagery like a church pew complete with praying mice. You should check his stuff out. I walked to a park with lots of people in it, but seemingly no entrance. Then I went back and planned the 23 days in the Caribbean. I have to organise a ferry and I think I concluded I can do 4-5 days in Haiti without hopefully being killed. In the evening we went to an architects house and watched Broken Flowers. Boston guy was there and he has an interesting story. He hitchhiked and hiked through the jungle from Chile to Cuba with no m,oney and two shirts. He owns a lot of businesses etc, but apparently just hikes off in the jungle with only a machete for a few days like a Yankee Steve Irwin. He was deported from Cuba for troubles and found himself there after his ship shipwrecked in the Caribbean. He also once hitched a plane to the middle of the jungle and had to starvingly hike and beg back for a week. He told me that Peruvians are aggressive and Colombians not so, but if they get angry they´ll hack off a limb. Gabriela told me he had a trouble childhood. I was just sad I could not get more stories from him. Which reminds me of two I missed. Yoana from Monterrey once had to hitch a ride down a ski slope on the backs of the Swiss national ski coach. That must have made for a really cool version of one of those simulators. The West Virginian as a pilot was once offered $200,000 to fly drugs to the US from Bahamas and said the drug dealers weren´t scared to go to prison in the US because it was seen as cushy compared to the jails in the Bahamas. The Bostonian's last bit of advice was quite profound. "The worst thing that can happen to you is nothing." Then he told me to go find some trouble lol.
In the morning Gabriela made breakfast and we discussed the book project she was assisting her mother with. It was a compilation of works for abused women and would be distributed in mental asylums and prisons around Mexico and beyond. I thought that was cool and they have their own publishing company as her mother is a famous poet. On the way to the bus station I got to practice my crap Spanish with the taxi driver and in the bus station I fed some poor people with tacos. In the station was one of the fittest women I have seen in a long time. Damn Jalisco is a good looking province. I've written something about figuring out power ratios. I think that means with new groups of people. It takes a while to study who has the power and what a group dynamic is. Sometimes as an outsider you can even change the dynamic by lending power to group elements who usually lack it and gain it through a quasi alliance. Anyway I am wandering off topic. On the bus I saw the Swedish film ´The Black Pimpernel'. Fucking awesome. Watch it. Its about Allende and Chile and the lengths one Swedish Ambassador went to in the name of freedom and honour. Everyone who knows me will have an idea what its like, but this guy was immense. Kudos to the filmmakers for bringing him to mainstream attention. i want to read his biography if he has one. Anyway on to Aguascalientes.
Mazatlan and Tepic
The coastal weather was ungodly and sticky. After being up in the mountains it proved a real contrast and even walking about 10 minutes would leave you caked in sweat. The hotel I stayed in had CNN in English for the elections or so I had been informed by Peter. When I arrived they infomed me they did not have it so I booked in for one night. When I eventually got to the room it turns out they did have it, but I was too knackered to sort anything out. Especially as i thought the guy ahd told me his remote control controlled all of the tvs.
In the morning I got up and headed out around town for the morning before settling down for the election. The town was full of gringos. Seemingly all Yankee off the cruise ships. A mix of old retired couples, snow birds from the Lakes and soem gay actors from Vegas. Not particularly a wonderful crowd for conversation above the early Darwinian levels. They have a bar in town called the Canuck bar that amused me. Most Anglos don't understand what I mean by Canuck, so its great the Mexicans understand slang for Canadians. Mazatlan itself is a bustling dirty but very picturesque coastal town. Its pleasant to wander round the cliffs and the coastline. They have cliff divers in the town. Now I walked up this stone platform about 30m high or so and the stairs have no barriers on either side. My vertigo made this difficult, but I am slowly grappling with the bastard. At first i did not realise this was the spot from which the legendary cliff divers perform. Now this platform is 30m up. The water below is festooned with rocks. Big rocks. The water is in a swell and the spot the diver has to hit is about as large as half a bath tub. These people are insane. Not just normal insane. We are talking Touching the Void style nuts. They risk braining themselves for a few dollars from each tourist. I stood and watched one disappear into the puddle. I was certain he would not reemerge, but pop up he did. I get scared standing up there. These guys fling themselves off with reckless abandon. One thing bothered me though. Tourists were paying for things in dollars not pesos. Not a good sign. It seems that Mexican coastal resorts get the Yankee wankers in the same way that Spanish resorts get our evolutionary challenged.
Mazatlan's other major attraction is the highest natural lighthouse in the world. It is about 500 and odd metres high and is a bitch of a climb in the midday coastal sun. On the way up I passed an auto worker from Detroit who had worked for a couple of years in Luton. Poor him on both counts. He informed me there was still a way to go. Having slowly burst my lungs and sweated 3 days worth of water I made it to the top. Its worth the effort (as I later told a Japanese couple) because the view is fantastic. You can see the old town, new town, out to the island and out to sea. Now if only we could erase the two hulking cruise ships from the horizon it would look quite pretty. Another fucking annoying thing about cruise ship towns is the fact that when I speak Spanish, they speak English. Bastards. Just like Parisian waiters. Not that I speak French, but my friend is fluent and they still answer in English because of his accent. I ended up paying more money than any meal so far for some crap food in a very touristy main square in the old town. The type where waiters jostle over you like vultures on a carcass, hoping to pick clean your wallet before the next hawker gets you. It was quite amusing eating, sandwiched between two annoying groups of people, as I watched the pigeons around me. they started scratching and biting each other over the scraps of food and I felt it was a great metaphor for the waiters around me and their Yankee cruise ship morsels. Following this brief afternoon meander, I settled in for what would hopefully be a historic night.
Early turnout had been high which boded well for Obama, but the early results were not the blowout some had predicted. The talk of a fillibuster proof senate was looking a little premature as well (though they took 57 with 3 runoffs, all of which they will likely lose). Why the Dems inplode and shoot themselves in the foot is beyond me. Electing a comedian for a surefire senate seat in Minnesota cost them a lock. Luckily enough Republicans and Independents voted in the Dem primary to give them an intelligent candidate. McCain looked fried early on. If Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana can´t be called instantly and even some Appalachian states look tight then he was in all sorts of trouble. Early on Pennsylvania went for 11 points to Obama and then Ohio followed. Game over early doors. Though it was interesting watching the pundits try to pretend it was not over the moment Ohio was called. Only the biggest moron would have believed any tension was left really. Wolf Blitzer also annoys me too much. What a fuckwit and a tool. He pissed me off with his Hillary possibilities in the primaries and shill support. The guy is a moron and his new hologram technology stupid. How does he have a job. Can Cafferty just kill him. While CNN has the best coverage and most neutral, Fox is far more fun. O'Reillys interview with Obama was a classic. Sure enough when the hippy west coast came in Obama was inaugurated with a thumping victory. He swung Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Nine states is no mean haul and he almost snipped up Missouri and Montana. So much for Missouri's claim as the bellweather state. Looks like they were a little slow on the bandwagon. Only been on the wrong side in one election last century. Can make it two now. As for the Republicans. Bad night. People are talking the odds up for Romney and Palin next time. Shows pundits are still fucking idiots. I predict if the Republicans run a strong field and believe Obama is beatable in 2012 then the three front runners will be Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and Charlie Crist (Arnie if they slacken the law). Mark my words those are their best three candidates (unless someone comes from nowhere) and I reckon Jindal will be the nominee in 2012 or 2016 as he is ultra competent. Crist is a tremendous centrist but needs a wife. Also locks up Florida where he has been bipartisan for ages. Huckabee is Palin for the right, but with charisma, talent and a great track record in Arkansas. He also looks like Spacey. McCain delivered a great concession speech and Obama should give him a cabinet position. Obama´s speech was awesome. He always brings tears to the eyes. Oh Obama took 364 votes I believe at the last count. I had him for 350. I didn´t think he would tip Indiana so someone should really employ me for a US network lol. On the shit side (literally) on this historic night I got food poisoning from that expensive restaurant. Both the sink and toilet ended up looking like their equivalents in the film the Hole, just after Keira Knightley dies.
The next morning it was still blisteringly hot and I had to hike my rucksacks down to the bus station, still dangerously ill and dehydrated from the night before. Taxi drivers keep hastling me. Wish they would just fuck off. I was informed to my annoyance that there was no bus to Puerto Vallerta. Shit. Then again it would be full of the same cruise ship Yankees. I looked for an alternative and found a dull looking city called Tepic halfway to Guadalajara. It had a nice volcanic lake apparently. I figured I would rest up and go if I wasn´t sick so I got a ticket there. I slept on te bus as I was totally destroyed physically. I arrived and ate Burger King both nights as wanted something my body would be familiar with for food. They still ahd the Big King. Awesome. Missed that burger. They did not have a Monterrey Melt though. Made me think one thing though. Why do Burger King keep discontinuing my favourite foods. Hmm still better than McDonalds. I even had a chicken royale with tomatos and onion. Actually improves it. Hmm anyway the town had nothing to it. I have written 'bunh of hyenas' in my notes and I really have no idea what the fuck I was talking about. Must make a note to elaborate a little more on my cryptic notes.
The next morning I got up and did nothing again. Was getting a lot of rest. The tax man has decided to send me 716 quid. Hmm about 150 less than expected, but a bonus as I had written that money out of the budget. May just about be able to afford the Caribbean now. pound still falling. Down to 1.49 at time of writing. What the hell is happening back home. Spurs continuing to win. They are unbeaten for all my travels in Mexico, but they never win when I am in the States. Perhaps I have to rethink my future home. On the plus side, I am no longer suspected of tax fraud. Which is good, as thats what I was doing with my tutoring lol. I grabbed a haircut. Still not sure if I like it. He did put foam all over my hair and use a cut throat razor though. Thats was cool. In the morning I left boringsville and headed for Guadalajara, but not without one more leaving present. The woman at the desk said the bus was leaving at dos y media. Or so I thought. this was 11am. Actually she said doce y media (so 12.30 rather than 2.30). I wait for ages outside. It passed half twelve. The woman at the desk says it will be another 15 minutes. The man on the station says it will be there half two. this is at half one. I go rest. I come back half two and it left at 1.40pm. Fuck that laughing bastard. The man on the desk saysd no refund, speak to the Jefe. Fuck him as well. I end up buying another ticket from a company I should have bought from in the first place. I would have been in Guadalajara four hours earlier. Fuck them all. Northern Sinaloa or Sonora is the bus company. Don´t use them. They make Vodaphone look competent. Ah I hate incompetent people. I hate people who rip me off. I hate liars and I had to resit the urge to smash smiley mans face into the concrete floor. Arrrrggghhh. Anyway on to Guadalajara.
In the morning I got up and headed out around town for the morning before settling down for the election. The town was full of gringos. Seemingly all Yankee off the cruise ships. A mix of old retired couples, snow birds from the Lakes and soem gay actors from Vegas. Not particularly a wonderful crowd for conversation above the early Darwinian levels. They have a bar in town called the Canuck bar that amused me. Most Anglos don't understand what I mean by Canuck, so its great the Mexicans understand slang for Canadians. Mazatlan itself is a bustling dirty but very picturesque coastal town. Its pleasant to wander round the cliffs and the coastline. They have cliff divers in the town. Now I walked up this stone platform about 30m high or so and the stairs have no barriers on either side. My vertigo made this difficult, but I am slowly grappling with the bastard. At first i did not realise this was the spot from which the legendary cliff divers perform. Now this platform is 30m up. The water below is festooned with rocks. Big rocks. The water is in a swell and the spot the diver has to hit is about as large as half a bath tub. These people are insane. Not just normal insane. We are talking Touching the Void style nuts. They risk braining themselves for a few dollars from each tourist. I stood and watched one disappear into the puddle. I was certain he would not reemerge, but pop up he did. I get scared standing up there. These guys fling themselves off with reckless abandon. One thing bothered me though. Tourists were paying for things in dollars not pesos. Not a good sign. It seems that Mexican coastal resorts get the Yankee wankers in the same way that Spanish resorts get our evolutionary challenged.
Mazatlan's other major attraction is the highest natural lighthouse in the world. It is about 500 and odd metres high and is a bitch of a climb in the midday coastal sun. On the way up I passed an auto worker from Detroit who had worked for a couple of years in Luton. Poor him on both counts. He informed me there was still a way to go. Having slowly burst my lungs and sweated 3 days worth of water I made it to the top. Its worth the effort (as I later told a Japanese couple) because the view is fantastic. You can see the old town, new town, out to the island and out to sea. Now if only we could erase the two hulking cruise ships from the horizon it would look quite pretty. Another fucking annoying thing about cruise ship towns is the fact that when I speak Spanish, they speak English. Bastards. Just like Parisian waiters. Not that I speak French, but my friend is fluent and they still answer in English because of his accent. I ended up paying more money than any meal so far for some crap food in a very touristy main square in the old town. The type where waiters jostle over you like vultures on a carcass, hoping to pick clean your wallet before the next hawker gets you. It was quite amusing eating, sandwiched between two annoying groups of people, as I watched the pigeons around me. they started scratching and biting each other over the scraps of food and I felt it was a great metaphor for the waiters around me and their Yankee cruise ship morsels. Following this brief afternoon meander, I settled in for what would hopefully be a historic night.
Early turnout had been high which boded well for Obama, but the early results were not the blowout some had predicted. The talk of a fillibuster proof senate was looking a little premature as well (though they took 57 with 3 runoffs, all of which they will likely lose). Why the Dems inplode and shoot themselves in the foot is beyond me. Electing a comedian for a surefire senate seat in Minnesota cost them a lock. Luckily enough Republicans and Independents voted in the Dem primary to give them an intelligent candidate. McCain looked fried early on. If Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Louisiana can´t be called instantly and even some Appalachian states look tight then he was in all sorts of trouble. Early on Pennsylvania went for 11 points to Obama and then Ohio followed. Game over early doors. Though it was interesting watching the pundits try to pretend it was not over the moment Ohio was called. Only the biggest moron would have believed any tension was left really. Wolf Blitzer also annoys me too much. What a fuckwit and a tool. He pissed me off with his Hillary possibilities in the primaries and shill support. The guy is a moron and his new hologram technology stupid. How does he have a job. Can Cafferty just kill him. While CNN has the best coverage and most neutral, Fox is far more fun. O'Reillys interview with Obama was a classic. Sure enough when the hippy west coast came in Obama was inaugurated with a thumping victory. He swung Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Nine states is no mean haul and he almost snipped up Missouri and Montana. So much for Missouri's claim as the bellweather state. Looks like they were a little slow on the bandwagon. Only been on the wrong side in one election last century. Can make it two now. As for the Republicans. Bad night. People are talking the odds up for Romney and Palin next time. Shows pundits are still fucking idiots. I predict if the Republicans run a strong field and believe Obama is beatable in 2012 then the three front runners will be Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and Charlie Crist (Arnie if they slacken the law). Mark my words those are their best three candidates (unless someone comes from nowhere) and I reckon Jindal will be the nominee in 2012 or 2016 as he is ultra competent. Crist is a tremendous centrist but needs a wife. Also locks up Florida where he has been bipartisan for ages. Huckabee is Palin for the right, but with charisma, talent and a great track record in Arkansas. He also looks like Spacey. McCain delivered a great concession speech and Obama should give him a cabinet position. Obama´s speech was awesome. He always brings tears to the eyes. Oh Obama took 364 votes I believe at the last count. I had him for 350. I didn´t think he would tip Indiana so someone should really employ me for a US network lol. On the shit side (literally) on this historic night I got food poisoning from that expensive restaurant. Both the sink and toilet ended up looking like their equivalents in the film the Hole, just after Keira Knightley dies.
The next morning it was still blisteringly hot and I had to hike my rucksacks down to the bus station, still dangerously ill and dehydrated from the night before. Taxi drivers keep hastling me. Wish they would just fuck off. I was informed to my annoyance that there was no bus to Puerto Vallerta. Shit. Then again it would be full of the same cruise ship Yankees. I looked for an alternative and found a dull looking city called Tepic halfway to Guadalajara. It had a nice volcanic lake apparently. I figured I would rest up and go if I wasn´t sick so I got a ticket there. I slept on te bus as I was totally destroyed physically. I arrived and ate Burger King both nights as wanted something my body would be familiar with for food. They still ahd the Big King. Awesome. Missed that burger. They did not have a Monterrey Melt though. Made me think one thing though. Why do Burger King keep discontinuing my favourite foods. Hmm still better than McDonalds. I even had a chicken royale with tomatos and onion. Actually improves it. Hmm anyway the town had nothing to it. I have written 'bunh of hyenas' in my notes and I really have no idea what the fuck I was talking about. Must make a note to elaborate a little more on my cryptic notes.
The next morning I got up and did nothing again. Was getting a lot of rest. The tax man has decided to send me 716 quid. Hmm about 150 less than expected, but a bonus as I had written that money out of the budget. May just about be able to afford the Caribbean now. pound still falling. Down to 1.49 at time of writing. What the hell is happening back home. Spurs continuing to win. They are unbeaten for all my travels in Mexico, but they never win when I am in the States. Perhaps I have to rethink my future home. On the plus side, I am no longer suspected of tax fraud. Which is good, as thats what I was doing with my tutoring lol. I grabbed a haircut. Still not sure if I like it. He did put foam all over my hair and use a cut throat razor though. Thats was cool. In the morning I left boringsville and headed for Guadalajara, but not without one more leaving present. The woman at the desk said the bus was leaving at dos y media. Or so I thought. this was 11am. Actually she said doce y media (so 12.30 rather than 2.30). I wait for ages outside. It passed half twelve. The woman at the desk says it will be another 15 minutes. The man on the station says it will be there half two. this is at half one. I go rest. I come back half two and it left at 1.40pm. Fuck that laughing bastard. The man on the desk saysd no refund, speak to the Jefe. Fuck him as well. I end up buying another ticket from a company I should have bought from in the first place. I would have been in Guadalajara four hours earlier. Fuck them all. Northern Sinaloa or Sonora is the bus company. Don´t use them. They make Vodaphone look competent. Ah I hate incompetent people. I hate people who rip me off. I hate liars and I had to resit the urge to smash smiley mans face into the concrete floor. Arrrrggghhh. Anyway on to Guadalajara.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Zacatecas and Durango
I spent most of the day trekking by bus down to Zacatecas and when I arrived I had to work out if the locals were sending me in the right direction. I ended up hiking for some time into town as its quite the hilly city. The hostel I stayed in was in the centre of town and had a good vibe and crowd. Its run by a really friendly guy named Ernesto. I met a German guy named Markus (who was travelling for 6 months around the World) and was still recovering from the hostel's free thursday night margheritas. In fact most of the hostel seemed hungover. I met another Norwegian guy and then Peter (a 41 year old German music producer who was travelling around the world and in his 3rd year). I went out for dinner with him and met a Californian named Benjamin. He was a writer and an artist who had installations at Burning Man. He had come south to escape and write. The two of us went on to this literary bar and I figured I would just have the one. However we ended up meeting Caleb (a 41 year old Arizonan fleeing the law down south). He was an alcoholic, a drug dealer and was still suffering the effects of eating the mecaline mushrooms out in the desert north-west of town. I should not really go for a drinking session with an alcoholic as it got heavy. We almost got in a fight when an old Mexican guy too offense to the fact we were speaking English and not Spanish. Caleb explained he was off to South-East Asia because they dont call it prostitution there and how he had been arrested for starting a fight (which he did not start) in a brothel the other night. He threatened the police with the embassy and they backed off. He also mentioned how he wished he had slept with the older prostitute as she would have been more into it. Interesting man. We then got chatting politics and he said his racist dad had said 'Hey that nigger talks a lot of sense, let him have a go'. If Obama is cultivating the southern racist vote he should be a shoe in. Anyway we ended up drinking with some local musicians and the walls are covered in the works of Pullitzer prize winning artists. Somehow Caleb racked up a 72 dollar bar bill and somehow (the Mezcal was hitting in) we were in a car going to some bar. We stayed there drinking until Caleb disappeared. One Mexican guy was making me slam Mezcal with lime and chilli chasers and I was chatting with 3 girls and some musicians. One of them wanted me to kiss her friend, but I was more interested in her. Annoying when that happens. We stayed out drinking and dancing till 7am and I took the main girls e-mail down on some tissue paper and said we should meet up the next day. Hmm all of that was in Spanish after Caleb left so I was doing ok.
I woke up at 3 in the afternoon. I can't remember the last time I woke up that late. Shit not even when I club till 8am in London do I sleep all day. My body must be breaking apart. Would give it some rest over the election. I went to the bathroom and blew my nose and flushed it before I realised that the tissue I had used was the same bit I had written on the night before. What a moron. Oh well. Ernesto said I should check out the graveyard (could not find it) and the Charro (was supposed to go with Jesus as his dad is a national judge but I never heard from him). There are a lot of good looking women involved in the Charro and women riding horses is very sexy. Must be a class legacy from the UK. They ride side saddle as well, which makes it even more impressive. I ended up chatting to three Mexican guys who wanted to know about my sister, told me about their time working construction in North Carolina and that they were from Aguascalientes. I was enjoying these random chances to stretch my Spanish. I needed to be fluent by Colombia and earlier if Yoana comes to Belize as I have a bet on it lol. Now the Charro itself consists of 7 events. The first is a kind of dressage where you show control of the horse, the second is to rope the front legs of a horse while mounted. All three teams did badly at this. Then you have an event where you ride alongside a bull, tie its tail around your leg and twist it till it falls. This one is quite an amusing event. After this they do bareback bull riding and then afterwards team has to truss the bull up. Then they do bareback horse riding (what Jesus was national champion at) before dismounting and then the main guy has to do tricks with his lasso while the horse sprints around the outside. They get points per trick, but only keep them if they successfully lasso the front legs of the horse. This is very difficult and apparently it is almost never successfully done all three times. I have now seen it happen 3 times though and once live. The whole stadium throws hats, boots etc into the ring in appreciation for the skill. They then have 3 attempts at this mounted. The final event is then to jump from one horse to another bareback in the fastest possible time. It is a very impressive event and I only got to see live some average teams in the heats.
I had agreed to meet Benjamin and Peter at 10pm in the hostel in order to head out to the club in the mine. We met up with some Northern Europeans who were students in Monterrey and headed over. However they wanted to take a taxi which I thought was very un-European, but they ended up being rather cliquey in that usual Northern European/English way and so we only got to know them a bit. It was one French girl, one Swedish and three Germans (with one guy). The club is accessed via a little mine train that takes you down into it and was definitely the most novel way I have ever entered a club. The place itself is quite small but cool. The music ranged from Latin, to dance to the Bloodhound Gang and I ended up getting chatting to some Mexican girls who were there for their cousin's birthday (she would later pass out in the corner and have to be carried out). I was grind dancing with Zulma, which pissed off her brother, so we found a corner of the club where he couldn't see us to have some fun. Swapped e-mails at the end and her other cousin offered me a place to stay in Durango. We got stuck with some dickhead Spanish guys on the train on the way out and me and Peter made plans to possibly catch up in Mexico City as he is moving more direct than me. Got in about 4am and was another good night though I needed some rest.
In the morning I finally got to see some of this UNESCO world heritage town. The catedral in gorgeous and they have a cable car up the nearby hill. I elected to walk it dehydrated and with only a coffee for company. That was a mistake. I was dying halfway up but made it for some spectacular views. As I left the town I also walked past the old buildings, the aqueduct in the south of town and a pretty pink church overlooking a lovely park. Its a very pretty city wth some very good nightlife. I got on a bus to Durango and resolved to rest for a few days. When I arrived late noone would give me directions. They kept wanting to get me a taxi, but I tried to explain I prefer to walk. As I zeroed in on town I was blindsided by a Wall-Mart, a 12 screen cinema, subway, mcdonalds, burger king and applebees. Hmm had the bus gone further north than I imagined. Dd not expect such a blitz of Americana, so it was more surprising when the town centre was still quite quaint and colonial. They had stalls out for Dias De Los Muertos, which was not celebrated as big as I had imagined it ould be. They had skeletal statues, mock day of the dead style scenarios, mummified corpses, paintings, whole reconstructed towns of the dead and girls being coated in insense. It was really cool, but I was dead ad just passed out to sleep. In the morning I was awoken by what sounded like cannon fire and I took a look around the cathedral and boarded a bus to Mazatlan. The ride is breathtaking. Its like God made a road through the clouds. Like Yellowstone in the Grand Canyon. I could see why Peter said he would not want to take that road on at night. I had never realised how breathtaking the Mexican scenery would be and the mountains down the west, with here and the Copper Canyon, are truly spectacular. So now I am chilling in Mazatlan and not seeing much of it as I hole up for the Obama victory.
I woke up at 3 in the afternoon. I can't remember the last time I woke up that late. Shit not even when I club till 8am in London do I sleep all day. My body must be breaking apart. Would give it some rest over the election. I went to the bathroom and blew my nose and flushed it before I realised that the tissue I had used was the same bit I had written on the night before. What a moron. Oh well. Ernesto said I should check out the graveyard (could not find it) and the Charro (was supposed to go with Jesus as his dad is a national judge but I never heard from him). There are a lot of good looking women involved in the Charro and women riding horses is very sexy. Must be a class legacy from the UK. They ride side saddle as well, which makes it even more impressive. I ended up chatting to three Mexican guys who wanted to know about my sister, told me about their time working construction in North Carolina and that they were from Aguascalientes. I was enjoying these random chances to stretch my Spanish. I needed to be fluent by Colombia and earlier if Yoana comes to Belize as I have a bet on it lol. Now the Charro itself consists of 7 events. The first is a kind of dressage where you show control of the horse, the second is to rope the front legs of a horse while mounted. All three teams did badly at this. Then you have an event where you ride alongside a bull, tie its tail around your leg and twist it till it falls. This one is quite an amusing event. After this they do bareback bull riding and then afterwards team has to truss the bull up. Then they do bareback horse riding (what Jesus was national champion at) before dismounting and then the main guy has to do tricks with his lasso while the horse sprints around the outside. They get points per trick, but only keep them if they successfully lasso the front legs of the horse. This is very difficult and apparently it is almost never successfully done all three times. I have now seen it happen 3 times though and once live. The whole stadium throws hats, boots etc into the ring in appreciation for the skill. They then have 3 attempts at this mounted. The final event is then to jump from one horse to another bareback in the fastest possible time. It is a very impressive event and I only got to see live some average teams in the heats.
I had agreed to meet Benjamin and Peter at 10pm in the hostel in order to head out to the club in the mine. We met up with some Northern Europeans who were students in Monterrey and headed over. However they wanted to take a taxi which I thought was very un-European, but they ended up being rather cliquey in that usual Northern European/English way and so we only got to know them a bit. It was one French girl, one Swedish and three Germans (with one guy). The club is accessed via a little mine train that takes you down into it and was definitely the most novel way I have ever entered a club. The place itself is quite small but cool. The music ranged from Latin, to dance to the Bloodhound Gang and I ended up getting chatting to some Mexican girls who were there for their cousin's birthday (she would later pass out in the corner and have to be carried out). I was grind dancing with Zulma, which pissed off her brother, so we found a corner of the club where he couldn't see us to have some fun. Swapped e-mails at the end and her other cousin offered me a place to stay in Durango. We got stuck with some dickhead Spanish guys on the train on the way out and me and Peter made plans to possibly catch up in Mexico City as he is moving more direct than me. Got in about 4am and was another good night though I needed some rest.
In the morning I finally got to see some of this UNESCO world heritage town. The catedral in gorgeous and they have a cable car up the nearby hill. I elected to walk it dehydrated and with only a coffee for company. That was a mistake. I was dying halfway up but made it for some spectacular views. As I left the town I also walked past the old buildings, the aqueduct in the south of town and a pretty pink church overlooking a lovely park. Its a very pretty city wth some very good nightlife. I got on a bus to Durango and resolved to rest for a few days. When I arrived late noone would give me directions. They kept wanting to get me a taxi, but I tried to explain I prefer to walk. As I zeroed in on town I was blindsided by a Wall-Mart, a 12 screen cinema, subway, mcdonalds, burger king and applebees. Hmm had the bus gone further north than I imagined. Dd not expect such a blitz of Americana, so it was more surprising when the town centre was still quite quaint and colonial. They had stalls out for Dias De Los Muertos, which was not celebrated as big as I had imagined it ould be. They had skeletal statues, mock day of the dead style scenarios, mummified corpses, paintings, whole reconstructed towns of the dead and girls being coated in insense. It was really cool, but I was dead ad just passed out to sleep. In the morning I was awoken by what sounded like cannon fire and I took a look around the cathedral and boarded a bus to Mazatlan. The ride is breathtaking. Its like God made a road through the clouds. Like Yellowstone in the Grand Canyon. I could see why Peter said he would not want to take that road on at night. I had never realised how breathtaking the Mexican scenery would be and the mountains down the west, with here and the Copper Canyon, are truly spectacular. So now I am chilling in Mazatlan and not seeing much of it as I hole up for the Obama victory.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Monterrey and Saltillo
I limped into Monterrey early in the morning and completely knackered. I had only managed to sleep a bit, because the bus was heading all the way down the east coast and I did not want to wake up down near Mexico City. There was a hotel near the bus station that I opted to take for 3 nights and there was still no hot water (I would later realise that it was my retardedness that was costing me hot water. I was using the wrong tap). I texted Lourdes and arranged to meet sunday (That did not happen either, but for good reasons). Trekking towards the main plaza I realised that the city was quite ugly in this area, with a kind of hustle and bustle you associate with big industrial cities. Monterrey had grown through steel and alcohol so it was not too surprising. While the city itself was not too pretty, it is surrounded by a plethora of mountains on all sides. The city sits at an altitude of 500m, yet the mountains encircling it reach up to 2200m. This makes for an impressive vista including a saddle shaped mountain. Nearby are the Matacanes where you can rappel, hike, climb and canyon. Still too sick to manage this and needing to book in advance, I vowed that I would spend 2 weeks later in life in this region. I would do SWSX music festival in Aústin and then visit Creél, Paquime and Monterrey again for the Matacanes. Cowboy country was cool both sides of the border. The city is shrouded in a small layer of smog as well, in the same way that Los Angeles is. The main plaza is surrounded by weird art as it was levelled into a huge flat space that had to be filled later. They have done a good job with fountains and impressive buildings. At the northern end is a river walk. It was artificially created to link the main plaza with the Parque Fundidora about 2.5km away and makes a pleasant walk. Its nowhere near as beautiful as the one in San Antonio, but its a cool modern installation with interesting water features. It looks like Obama is spanking McCain at this time and my prediction is he takes it with around 350 electoral college votes, though he may squeak up to 400 if he gets high enough turnout in some states. After gauging the city I wandered back to the hotel. I dont think Yoana had received my messages so I finished reading the Big Sleep, decided to move to the hostel for 2 nights on monday and slept for a very long time.
The next day I walked back down the riverwalk and took in two of the modern art galleries there. I also got stuck behind the worlds slowest scooter driver and had to put up with a moronic ice cream machine. These things pick up by suction like those machines at arcades. Only this one picked up an ice cream, threw it sideways, blocked all the others and then proceeded to try to pick it up, like a shock victim with no memory. La machina es muy tonto. I had been practicing my Spanish an hour a day by this point. The blast furnace was nopt working in Horno 3, so I went to the Museum of Mexican History and the North East, which included Texas. Its a really interesting museum, with a lot of exhibits in Spanish. They had English touch screens for all of the periods except the 19th century. Considering that entailed independence, the French invasion, Juarez and Diaz it was a little annoying. My Spanish had got good enough for me to read most of the exhibits though. One thing that bothered me about the museum, was how it was run seemingly like a military prison. The guards were power hungry and kept ordering people to walk around the exhibits the way they wanted to, while running around with walkie talkies constantly updating on numbers and movement. I half expected to walk into a guerilla raid. Afterwards I headed over to the Governors Palace where a wedding was taking place. The maid of honour was unbelievably good looking. I also discovered the following day that the worlds fattest man had got married in Monterrey that saturday and his bed was wheeled down to the church. That night I met Yoana outside MARCO (the modern art museum) and we headed out for drinks. She took me to a live music place and we stayed there till around half four, which was not a bad effort as she had been out until 7am the night before. I had a really good time. It helps when your company is very good looking, intelligent and really good fun. We ended up duelling for two hours with dancing before she eventually allowed me to kiss her. Anyone who knows me, knows that dancing would never be my duelling weapon of choice. I have never fired a gun, but I would still fancy my chance of outshooting a marksman more than out dancing anyone. It was a lot of teasing and subtleties but so much fun. We agreed to meet up the following day in the afternoon.
I got up and went down to the MARCO. They had a display of stuff by Lam (A Cuban artist I had seen in Havana) and Izquierdo (A not bad Mexican artist). I met up with Yoana and we went out to the Cola de Caballo waterfall in Santiago. We climbed up to the top where I discovered that she can fly and scale cliffs in a few seconds. Both good talents she refused to use to assist a stranded boater in the lake, because secretly she is evil lol. We also developed my name of El Monstro due to my size. So after scaling the rocks where she mocked my fitness (I was still recovering) El Monstro and Invisible Girl (another power) headed over to the reservoir where they have boat parties for a while and then onto the Mirador Obispado. This is a big flag on a hill overlooking the city with phenomenal views. Afterwards we headed to a Brazilian bar for some live music. It was another good night, but I did not think she was interested, which was a shame. The first person on my trip that I would have happily gone out with, but hey I was enjoying the company. Also Spurs finally won a fucking game so things were looking up under our new manager.
The following morning I got destroyed by a torrential rain so powerful it went through my coat, through all of my clothing layers and left me a wet puddle of a man. I moved to the hostel and headed out to the cerveceria. Its the brewery for Dos Equis, Modelo and most of the better Mexican beers. They hand out free mugs of Carta Blanca in the front of the building so that was most welcome before heading off to the Mirador to catch the views in the day. A Yankee in the hostel bought us Tamales (a Southerner naturally) and the hostel owner for Puerto Vallerta lent me his book. It was a fairly uneventful day. The final day in Monterrey I went down to Horno 3, which is a converted steel mill in Parque Fundidora. I got accosted by a couple of school girls who insisted on having their photos taken with me which was fun. Not sure how old they were and felt it was probably safer not to ask. The museum itself is really cool and I learnt a lot about steel, while also getting to experiment with loads of games, mock blow up a quarry and watch a demonstration of oxydising metals with luche libre wrestlers as the elements. There is also a show upstairs where the old furnace is turned into a musical show of fire, lights and power. It feels like you are in Terminator 2 and is powerfully intimidating and at the same time rivetingly interesting. I walked out to saddle mountain which is a fairly long walk and turned down a lift from some random guy on the street. I had the feeling that Expedia was fucking with me as well. They were supposed to have moved my flight to the 24th of december, but I got a message asking me if I had enjoyed my time in Puerto Rico. Fuckers. (After wasting my time writing to them I found out that they had moved it. They just dont update their databases). By this point I had not heard from Yoana (My phone had also ceased to work properly). It had managed to miss two texts and she thought that I was not joining her. I then had to get the Spanish dude to show me how to operate the public telephones, discovering that my problems in La Paz were just because I did not push it in far enough. I grabbed dinner with Yoana and we discussed philosophies and life until we were by far the last people in the bar. I considered making a move, but figured she had not reciprocated much last time and calculated it might be a stupid move. Sometimes I wish i did not think lol and that when you really like someone you did not develop a cautiousness that does not exist otherwise. Such are Gods amusements in are make up. Ah maybe I will meet her again in Belize, but probably not. Twas fun and becomes one of those annoying times travelling when you move on from something you would like to stay for. I reluctantly said goodbye and headed back to the hostel where the Spaniard rejected my offer for a game of chess. It was 2am so cant blame him too much.
In the morning I woke up and wandered into a breakfast conversation with two Yankees and a girl from London regarding the US elections. I cant resist gravitating towards this kind of conversation. The English girl refused to believe that my accent was English (I get that far too often). The guy from West Virginia was a diehard Republican, who believed in the bible verbatim and we had a good long discussion finding lots of common ground. He figured my middle eastern peace plan would bring about the apocalypse, because thats what the bible predicts and we had to agree to disagree amicably on that one. We discussed abortion and life beginning at conception, the role of religion, Islam (which I think I tussled him just). Finally he showed me this new energy drink he was promoting in Mexico and I showed him the quotes of Jose Marti who he was interested in. I love a good deep philosophical conversation for breakfast as had not ahd too many and was almost late meeting Alicia at the bus station. She made me speak Spanish for virtually the entire length of the bus journey, but I just about held my own and this gave me the confidence I needed to use it conversationally from this point on. It did however remind me of the chats with Yoana. I think it was frustrating for both of us that we could not always communicate exactly what we wanted to say and I used to think people who argued against one world language were wrong. Now if they argue that with me again, I will stick a pick axe in their head as it is clearly costly in social relations. Saltillo is a city of one million but has the presence of a quaint colonial mountain town. I walked around the cathedral and went to the museum of birds which was really interesting. My Spanish had got to the level where I could read almost all of the signs. Alicia met me later and we visited the mirador before heading back where we both learnt to play Backgammon. Its an odd little game and I am still not sure if I understand it right. Bit like when I played Billiards with Ollie. My Spanish was still occasionally a little off kilter such as when instead of saying the english are lazy with languages I said we had dangerous tongues.
The next morning I woke up and the house was deserted. I wandered out into the yard and there was a guy picking up rubbish. Now I knew Alicia's brother spoke English from time in Tennessee so I chatted English. The guy looked blank, so I figured it was not him. He was also kind of confused as to why some random gringo was standing in the garden. I tried to ask him how to exit the garden, but stupidly said the doors are shut. He could clearly see this and by now probably thought I was a moron. While this was degenerating, luckily Alicia's brother Jesus returned and gave me a lift to the Desert Museum. He was an interesting guy. He had just been made redundant when his boss was kidnapped by the national mafia, he had studied in Tennessee and wanted to open his own haute cuisine Mexican restaurant to counter all the Tex-Mex crap and he was the former national bareback riding champion of 2005 in Charro. This is a sport similar to the rodeo, where teams compete in 7 disciplines, but as I went to the nationals in Zacatecas I will cover it more there. The museum of the desert is comprehensive and interesting. It covers formation, through mans usage to wildlife. There was a speculative piece regarding the division of the continents of Africa and North America and why the large animals of the latter died out (mammoth, sabre tooth tiger) while the former thrived. They also had a giant skeleton of a former giant bat and postulated that the skeletal frame is similar to that of a man and whether there had actually been batmen. I went round a few smaller museums and then the museum of Sarapi (a Mexican clothmaking skill native to Saltillo). I was rshed around here though as a huge camera crew turned up with a famous guy from the tourism industry as they were filming a new piece on Saltillo. On the positive side Expedia confirmed they had not fucked me in the arse and I still had a flight. I will see in Cancun. When I got back to the house I played Hide and Seek with Alicia's niece and played with the cats for a bit. Her sister offered to do all of my washing for me and I think her family are posibly the nicest family I have ever met. Jesus, me and his friend went out to play bowling (I scored 107 and 134 so not great but solid) and we chatted about differences between working etc in Mexico and the UK. In Mexico they get 6 days holiday and the the minimum wage is 45 pesos a day. You kind of realise how many benefits we get in the UK. We discussed how the 1920s gangs were starting to kill off the druglords and that Calderon has to deal with a feud between two underworlds. He wished there was not o much corruption in the police and politics and I said in the UK things are reasonably open and uncorrupt. We watched some of the Charro and then we headed to a Halloween party. The girl who's party it was had a boyfriend from Galway Ireland and so I ended up getting blasted for being a British Imperialist. I spent a long time defending my country (wow odd for me) and pointing out that I was Irish Catholic. Then we headed off to a Mexican restaurant at about 2am and I managed to eat horse for the first time. Nice meat. In the morning it was off to Zacatecas.
The next day I walked back down the riverwalk and took in two of the modern art galleries there. I also got stuck behind the worlds slowest scooter driver and had to put up with a moronic ice cream machine. These things pick up by suction like those machines at arcades. Only this one picked up an ice cream, threw it sideways, blocked all the others and then proceeded to try to pick it up, like a shock victim with no memory. La machina es muy tonto. I had been practicing my Spanish an hour a day by this point. The blast furnace was nopt working in Horno 3, so I went to the Museum of Mexican History and the North East, which included Texas. Its a really interesting museum, with a lot of exhibits in Spanish. They had English touch screens for all of the periods except the 19th century. Considering that entailed independence, the French invasion, Juarez and Diaz it was a little annoying. My Spanish had got good enough for me to read most of the exhibits though. One thing that bothered me about the museum, was how it was run seemingly like a military prison. The guards were power hungry and kept ordering people to walk around the exhibits the way they wanted to, while running around with walkie talkies constantly updating on numbers and movement. I half expected to walk into a guerilla raid. Afterwards I headed over to the Governors Palace where a wedding was taking place. The maid of honour was unbelievably good looking. I also discovered the following day that the worlds fattest man had got married in Monterrey that saturday and his bed was wheeled down to the church. That night I met Yoana outside MARCO (the modern art museum) and we headed out for drinks. She took me to a live music place and we stayed there till around half four, which was not a bad effort as she had been out until 7am the night before. I had a really good time. It helps when your company is very good looking, intelligent and really good fun. We ended up duelling for two hours with dancing before she eventually allowed me to kiss her. Anyone who knows me, knows that dancing would never be my duelling weapon of choice. I have never fired a gun, but I would still fancy my chance of outshooting a marksman more than out dancing anyone. It was a lot of teasing and subtleties but so much fun. We agreed to meet up the following day in the afternoon.
I got up and went down to the MARCO. They had a display of stuff by Lam (A Cuban artist I had seen in Havana) and Izquierdo (A not bad Mexican artist). I met up with Yoana and we went out to the Cola de Caballo waterfall in Santiago. We climbed up to the top where I discovered that she can fly and scale cliffs in a few seconds. Both good talents she refused to use to assist a stranded boater in the lake, because secretly she is evil lol. We also developed my name of El Monstro due to my size. So after scaling the rocks where she mocked my fitness (I was still recovering) El Monstro and Invisible Girl (another power) headed over to the reservoir where they have boat parties for a while and then onto the Mirador Obispado. This is a big flag on a hill overlooking the city with phenomenal views. Afterwards we headed to a Brazilian bar for some live music. It was another good night, but I did not think she was interested, which was a shame. The first person on my trip that I would have happily gone out with, but hey I was enjoying the company. Also Spurs finally won a fucking game so things were looking up under our new manager.
The following morning I got destroyed by a torrential rain so powerful it went through my coat, through all of my clothing layers and left me a wet puddle of a man. I moved to the hostel and headed out to the cerveceria. Its the brewery for Dos Equis, Modelo and most of the better Mexican beers. They hand out free mugs of Carta Blanca in the front of the building so that was most welcome before heading off to the Mirador to catch the views in the day. A Yankee in the hostel bought us Tamales (a Southerner naturally) and the hostel owner for Puerto Vallerta lent me his book. It was a fairly uneventful day. The final day in Monterrey I went down to Horno 3, which is a converted steel mill in Parque Fundidora. I got accosted by a couple of school girls who insisted on having their photos taken with me which was fun. Not sure how old they were and felt it was probably safer not to ask. The museum itself is really cool and I learnt a lot about steel, while also getting to experiment with loads of games, mock blow up a quarry and watch a demonstration of oxydising metals with luche libre wrestlers as the elements. There is also a show upstairs where the old furnace is turned into a musical show of fire, lights and power. It feels like you are in Terminator 2 and is powerfully intimidating and at the same time rivetingly interesting. I walked out to saddle mountain which is a fairly long walk and turned down a lift from some random guy on the street. I had the feeling that Expedia was fucking with me as well. They were supposed to have moved my flight to the 24th of december, but I got a message asking me if I had enjoyed my time in Puerto Rico. Fuckers. (After wasting my time writing to them I found out that they had moved it. They just dont update their databases). By this point I had not heard from Yoana (My phone had also ceased to work properly). It had managed to miss two texts and she thought that I was not joining her. I then had to get the Spanish dude to show me how to operate the public telephones, discovering that my problems in La Paz were just because I did not push it in far enough. I grabbed dinner with Yoana and we discussed philosophies and life until we were by far the last people in the bar. I considered making a move, but figured she had not reciprocated much last time and calculated it might be a stupid move. Sometimes I wish i did not think lol and that when you really like someone you did not develop a cautiousness that does not exist otherwise. Such are Gods amusements in are make up. Ah maybe I will meet her again in Belize, but probably not. Twas fun and becomes one of those annoying times travelling when you move on from something you would like to stay for. I reluctantly said goodbye and headed back to the hostel where the Spaniard rejected my offer for a game of chess. It was 2am so cant blame him too much.
In the morning I woke up and wandered into a breakfast conversation with two Yankees and a girl from London regarding the US elections. I cant resist gravitating towards this kind of conversation. The English girl refused to believe that my accent was English (I get that far too often). The guy from West Virginia was a diehard Republican, who believed in the bible verbatim and we had a good long discussion finding lots of common ground. He figured my middle eastern peace plan would bring about the apocalypse, because thats what the bible predicts and we had to agree to disagree amicably on that one. We discussed abortion and life beginning at conception, the role of religion, Islam (which I think I tussled him just). Finally he showed me this new energy drink he was promoting in Mexico and I showed him the quotes of Jose Marti who he was interested in. I love a good deep philosophical conversation for breakfast as had not ahd too many and was almost late meeting Alicia at the bus station. She made me speak Spanish for virtually the entire length of the bus journey, but I just about held my own and this gave me the confidence I needed to use it conversationally from this point on. It did however remind me of the chats with Yoana. I think it was frustrating for both of us that we could not always communicate exactly what we wanted to say and I used to think people who argued against one world language were wrong. Now if they argue that with me again, I will stick a pick axe in their head as it is clearly costly in social relations. Saltillo is a city of one million but has the presence of a quaint colonial mountain town. I walked around the cathedral and went to the museum of birds which was really interesting. My Spanish had got to the level where I could read almost all of the signs. Alicia met me later and we visited the mirador before heading back where we both learnt to play Backgammon. Its an odd little game and I am still not sure if I understand it right. Bit like when I played Billiards with Ollie. My Spanish was still occasionally a little off kilter such as when instead of saying the english are lazy with languages I said we had dangerous tongues.
The next morning I woke up and the house was deserted. I wandered out into the yard and there was a guy picking up rubbish. Now I knew Alicia's brother spoke English from time in Tennessee so I chatted English. The guy looked blank, so I figured it was not him. He was also kind of confused as to why some random gringo was standing in the garden. I tried to ask him how to exit the garden, but stupidly said the doors are shut. He could clearly see this and by now probably thought I was a moron. While this was degenerating, luckily Alicia's brother Jesus returned and gave me a lift to the Desert Museum. He was an interesting guy. He had just been made redundant when his boss was kidnapped by the national mafia, he had studied in Tennessee and wanted to open his own haute cuisine Mexican restaurant to counter all the Tex-Mex crap and he was the former national bareback riding champion of 2005 in Charro. This is a sport similar to the rodeo, where teams compete in 7 disciplines, but as I went to the nationals in Zacatecas I will cover it more there. The museum of the desert is comprehensive and interesting. It covers formation, through mans usage to wildlife. There was a speculative piece regarding the division of the continents of Africa and North America and why the large animals of the latter died out (mammoth, sabre tooth tiger) while the former thrived. They also had a giant skeleton of a former giant bat and postulated that the skeletal frame is similar to that of a man and whether there had actually been batmen. I went round a few smaller museums and then the museum of Sarapi (a Mexican clothmaking skill native to Saltillo). I was rshed around here though as a huge camera crew turned up with a famous guy from the tourism industry as they were filming a new piece on Saltillo. On the positive side Expedia confirmed they had not fucked me in the arse and I still had a flight. I will see in Cancun. When I got back to the house I played Hide and Seek with Alicia's niece and played with the cats for a bit. Her sister offered to do all of my washing for me and I think her family are posibly the nicest family I have ever met. Jesus, me and his friend went out to play bowling (I scored 107 and 134 so not great but solid) and we chatted about differences between working etc in Mexico and the UK. In Mexico they get 6 days holiday and the the minimum wage is 45 pesos a day. You kind of realise how many benefits we get in the UK. We discussed how the 1920s gangs were starting to kill off the druglords and that Calderon has to deal with a feud between two underworlds. He wished there was not o much corruption in the police and politics and I said in the UK things are reasonably open and uncorrupt. We watched some of the Charro and then we headed to a Halloween party. The girl who's party it was had a boyfriend from Galway Ireland and so I ended up getting blasted for being a British Imperialist. I spent a long time defending my country (wow odd for me) and pointing out that I was Irish Catholic. Then we headed off to a Mexican restaurant at about 2am and I managed to eat horse for the first time. Nice meat. In the morning it was off to Zacatecas.
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