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.