Today marks two (awesome) months in México, and to commemorate, and to catch you (or me) up on what I’ve been doing, yep:
1. The first day of vacaciones, I was pretty homesick for my Cuautla family, and when I sat down in the México D.F. bus station to eat the tortas my mom had made for me, I found a napkin note slipped in: wishing me a “buen viaje,” apologizing that I had to eat some tortas (she knows how much I like pan dulce), y que te vamos a extrañar (we’re going to miss you). Just reinforces the fact that my host family is the best – or at least that’s what I was thinking as I ate the pan dulce I had bought – after finishing my tortas, of course.
2. Guanajuato is beautiful and colonial and very proud of its Spanish/criollo heritage; we were there as a group for three days, but then my friends Ance and Dessa and I returned for another seven days to attend the Festival Internacional Cervantino, celebrating Cervantes and el arte en general. At the Festival, we saw (lots) of Canadians (Dave Young, Caribou, Soundstreams), the Universidad de Guanajuato’s Ballet Folklórico, an Irish theater troupe, an Israeli-directed play, and an Argentine percussion group.
A picture so that you, too, can appreciate the Spanish architecture, feel, heritage of a Mexican (ex-?)colonial city.
3. We also got to visit the surrounding pueblos: San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Hidalgo, and another pueblo with dirt roads that was straight out of a Rulfo cuento corto. In Dolores Hidalgo, where Hidalgo gave the Grito de Independencia in 1810, I had the opportunity to try very unique flavors of nieve (a kind of ice cream): tequila; camarones con pulpa (shrimp with pulp) which is as gross as it sounds; mole (a traditional Mexican dish); and rose petals.
4. In Guanajuato, Ance really wanted to subir una montaña, though we couldn’t find a way to get into the countryside guanajuatense. Por eso, one day we decided to just start going up, see where we ended up. When the paved street ended and the dirt road began, we met un hombre mexicano que se llama Luis. He was very drunk, tequila bottle in hand, and he was also high, and he began to threaten us: do you know how many gringos have died here?, you’re gringos walking all over our land, I’m the owner of these mountains, if you don’t give me 10 pesos (do you understand 10 pesos?) I’m going to put a brujería (witchcraft) on you! So we gave him ten pesos and kept going up the dirt road, admiring the grandiose view of the city.
And Luis kept following us: he offered to take us inside fenced-off government property to get a better view of GTO; kept caressing Ance’s head, telling her she had beautiful hair, and asking if he could have a few strands (to make a clone, for brujería, quién sabe); and making me feel very uncomfortable – though Ance was fine and told me we just had to treat the guy like a kid, with respect, play along.
That made me want even more to get out of there, and so we did, and the last thing Luis told us was: “¡Acuérdate de la brujería!”
5. During our independent week in Guanajuato, we stayed in two different hostels, my first time in the hostel establishment. In the second hostel, I was paying 120 pesos a night (very económico) to stay in a room shared among eight men. Some of them were Mexican, but mostly lots of foreign tourists: a freelancer from LA, another guy from New Zealand, and three guys from Ireland who most nights did not come back until 5 a.m., and who tended to reject the idea of clothing while sleeping on top of the bedspread.
6. Ance and I did make one friend from my room, Victor, who took us to the ExpoBicentenario outside of Guanajuato, came with us to several eventos del Cervantino, and told us that it was one of the best weeks of his life and that he would always remember us, viva la amistad.
7. One of my favorite days in Guanajuato: spent on the terraza (rooftop) of the hostel with a couple of books, some pan dulce, and a gorgeous view of the city.
8. We got home late last Friday night, after arriving at the wrong station in Mexico City, having the pass through Cuernavaca – where we lost ourselves – to eventually get back to Cuautla. When we arrived, I told my host family how much I missed them, gave each member a set of momías (a type of candy, modeled after the mummies of Guanajuato, which were nothing special except for the contorted mummy of the woman who was buried alive), we got caught up and then I got in bed, happy to be en casa otra vez.
