Another Friday, Another Vela

Went to another one of those big local fiestas on Friday. This one, however, was sponsored by Pemex--the national petroleum company so the Pemex wives were decked out in big jewelry and they were giving away cars (as a nationalized company often does . . . ) What can I say? I'm a sucker for free music, cheap beer, and the newly rich. God bless 'em.

They really should open nap stations for adults at these things.

Yes, for once I wasn't in the local gear except for the potato chip-sized earrings.


All the Pemex wives dressed up like those charming locals but with the added bonus of husbands on the take. Ha, ha! Just kidding Pemex, please don't riddle my body with bullets!

. . . But This Is A _Different_ Beach Cliche Pic . . .

I went to Huatulco--the resort town about two and half hours from Salina Cruz--last weekend for a little change of scenery. Banish the cabaña boy fantasies. We (my friends and I) slept in hammocks on the beach and stuck to a Puritan-esque one tequila-per-day regime. (Alright, I was feeling a little delicate after a Friday Night Bad Idea experimentation with mezcal, but still; no piña coladas this trip.) A bit crowded for my spoiled sensibilities but the water was crystal clear and fish are pretty so it was a successful trip.

















Above: My friend's kid playing "Torture the Crabs" and the obligatory, "Pretty Beach!" shot.

It wasn't all snorkeling and harassingng the wildlife, of course. As we sat down for cactus-juice nightcap, a dude dressed in the country dude uniform of torn jeans, t-shirt, baseball cap and a machete came weaving up to our table. He asked if we would take his money to buy beer from the patroness who apparently doesn't like him. He offered the guy in the group a hit of his home-made mezcal from a scuffed plastic Coke bottle, but he politely refused--I find it easier to remember manners when the person you're talking to is holding a foot and half of sharpened steel.

Oh, and I ate an iguana tamale. Pretty tasty. But they told me once you eat iguana you can't leave Oaxaca--so start sending letters to Sephora to open a branch down here as an act of global charity.

Bed-Hopping Holidays

Hey, y’all,

Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holidays and I wish you the best for 2006. Don’t get too excited by the entry’s title. I was quite well behaved. I was a busy little güera this holiday season, though, traveling over 1,000 miles by the time I was done. I was bouncing from house to house of my friends from the university and taking ruthless advantage of their hospitality and the fact that professors travel half-price during vacation-time.

I kicked off the vacation by going to a wedding of a professor here. It was really pretty with lots of interesting traditions thrown in for good measure. I was caught by the bouquet . . . No, I’m not confused. As many of you know, I’m the girl who actively avoids the thrown bouquet at weddings but here, the single girls dance in a circle around the bride as she’s blindfolded. In theory, she can’t see but in my case, bitch was gunning for me (they are very concerned that I don’t have a boyfriend; me—on the other hand-- not so much) and she actually grabbed my shirt to hand me the flowers. I tried to sell it or palm it off, but the locals were having none of that nonsense. They told me I’ve got two years. I laughed.

Soon after, I went to Oaxaca City and enjoyed some good art, great coffee, and an interesting festival where they carve giant beets into sculptures for a competition. Next, I went to Guadalajara which is the second-biggest city in Mexico and one of it’s most typically “Mexican” being the home of tequila and mariachis. It’s lovely with really good shopping and lots of public works of art. This is where I was for Christmas and I’ve got to admit that after ten months in the centro de nada it was a bit Aunt-Lurlene-comes a-visitin’ -from-the-country as my friend pretended not to know me as I went into ecstasies over the supermarket freezer section (we don’t have one in Salina Cruz.) I hung with her family and wandered around the city and regretted that I didn’t have a car to stuff to the roof with pretties from the shopping mecca of the nearby town of Tonalá.

After Guadalajara, I braved massive Mexico City. However, another friend from work and his family were at my side from moment one to the end so I didn’t feel too worried. I’ve seen some big cities and lived in one of the biggest, but I must say that Mexico City is a whole different level. It’s fascinating, though. A 17th century cathedral next door to a pre-Hispanic temple is just the tip of the iceberg. I spent two days there and saw a fraction of the Anthropological Museum, the Zocolo, some ruins, and a bit of the nightlife. I didn’t know it, but I was resting up for Veracruz, which is a port city on the Atlantic. The people there live up to their fame as great dancers and tireless seafood eaters. This is where I was for New Year’s. I went dancing every night and saw the first sunrise for 2006 with hundreds of other people out mingling on the seafront promenade. For January 1st, we nursed our hangovers by sitting in a warm mineral spring and I’ve got to say that spending the day in a bikini isn’t a bad way to start the new year.

I hope all of you are well. Lemme know how your holidays went. Take care!

Love,

kca

Random people at 6 a.m., January 1, 2006 on the seafront promenade in Veracruz (my best friends at the time.)

View of Mexico City from my host's roof.

El Zócalo (Main Plaza) in Mexico City. I was interested to see how much this place reminded me of the central plaza in Marrakesh . . . cheap Chinese sunglasses unite the world, I guess.

The Templo Mayor in the front and the 17th century cathredral in the back in Mexico City.

The library at the huge main university in Mexico, UNAM. This is a mosaic created by a famous Mexican artist, Juan O'Gorman. It's about Latin America and snakes and stuff.

The famous wall of skulls (Aztecs don't mess around) at the Templo Mayor in Mexico City.

The spires of the big cathedral in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Not many cultural photos here as I spent much of my time shopping . . .

This is a sculpture made of giant beets. They have this big festival the 23rd of December in Oaxaca, La Noche de los Rábanos (Beet Night) where the local artists make these really elaborate sculptures out of the vegetables. Sorry, it actually sounds more plausible in Spanish.

El Tule, Oaxaca. The Mexicans always say proudly, "This is the biggest tree in the world (pause) well, at least the fattest."

Here's my friend's kid with a piñata (obviously.) But, yo, this girl had a freakish sixth sense for the presence of piñatas. Her mom and I would be walking down the street and she'd start saying, ¿Dále, dále? (Hit it? . . . part of the piñata song) and we'd look around to see a tiny piñata decorating a store window. Girlfriend likes her candy, for sure.

Here we're at the wedding doing the traditional dance-around-with-large-pieces-of-pottery-which-will-soon-be -broken-on-the-floor-much-to-the-surprise-of-the-resident-foreigner-who-didn't-know-this-until-the-woman-came-up-to-her-and-smacked-her-plate-into-the-jar-the-güera-had-on-her-head-while-dancing dance. (I'm the first to admit that tequila makes all this much more understandable.)