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.