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.