Roadtrip Days 3 and 4

21/03/08 Roadtrip Day 3

We woke up in our sweet office-apartment to realize that we had no hot water. It took us like an hour to find out, or at least come to grips with that. Juan Pablo, Valencia, and her clubbing cousin picked us up and took us to a museum in Guadalupe – the sister city of Zacatecas. I'm still confused about what happened, but we didn't go in the museum and they all left Gaby and I in Guadalupe with the plan to pick us up in a few hours. We walked around Guadalupe and got some cheap, gross enchiladas. We returned to the museum and laid in the courtyard, lounging in the sun and reading. It was really fun though, because there was this gate going around the museum and it was a very busy street. So people kept passing and staring. Like staring. I've gotten used to a lot of looks, double-takes, and unbroken stares from kids. But this was another level. Gaby and I were just sitting in the grass reading, and everyone was gawking at us like we were caged animals. I couldn't help but laugh several times as people would walk past us without taking their eyes off us for the bulk of the block. I guess it was a combination of me being a white guy in a small Mexican town and the fact that people here don't really go to parks to read. They go to parks to let their kids run around on the grass that says “stay off” and eat, but sitting and reading is taboo or something. Well, it was really funny if you were there. After that for a while, we walked around some more. Gaby found this booth where you buy a little plaster object for like 50 cents and you can paint it for free. We both got dinosaurs and painted them. Which was fun. I gave mine to Marychewy.

Sometime during this JP texted us saying that the plans had changed and he wasn't going to pick us up from Guadalupe and we were pretty much on our own. We took a bus to Zacatecas Centro, which was another adventure as neither of us take buses regularly. When we got downtown we went to the Teleferico, which is just a huge cable car that takes you over the city on a zip cord to the Buffa which is like a big weird mountainy volcano thing on the other side. It was like one and a half hour wait, but we met some French couple and it was totally worth it. Rick Steves would say something like, “Full of film-consuming views”. When we got to the Buffa at the other side, we watched the sunset and I took way too many pictures again.

At this time we decided to go to Wendy's for enchiladas, because why not? On the way there, well you won't believe how fortunate we were, completely unexpectedly, we ran into this Easter Parade. It was so long and even scarier than it was long. There were drummer boys with hoods over their faces, Roman Soldiers on horseback, and all kinds of people in full KKK masks and robes of all colors. People carrying candles and like 5 different floats of Jesus at different stages in his life. It was a pretty rad parade called the “Procession del Silencio.” Stuff like this happened the whole trip, I feel. We'd just be wondering around aimlessly and we'd pass something super free and entertaining.

We ate enchiladas at Wendy's, then met JP at the town cathedral where the parade actually ended and people gathered to watch them arrive. JP was with his two brothers, who had just arrived because their uncle is very sick with cancer, and also two French couchsurfers, who couldn't help but hate me for being American. We all took a bus back to JP's house and his brother recommended a few more sites for our trip, primarily Media Luna which became our next destination.

22/03/08 Roadtrip Day 4 and Happy Birthday Gaby

Got up and took gross, cold showers. Said goodbye to JP and his family and headed past San Luis Potossi and to Media Luna, which JP's brother had recommended. We stopped at some hole-in-the-wall diner for the craziest tacos and enchiladas. I got chicken tacos and it came out like a salad, because they were smothered in all kinds of lettuce, tomato, and french fries. Gaby got Enchiladas de Potossi. They were both way too good. We also stopped at some big chain retail store as neither of us had proper swimming suits. Enclosed is a picture of mine. We had to drive 10 kilometers back on this really rough gravel road to get to Media Luna. When we got there it was a bigger stream with where a lot of kids and families where swimming or bathing depending on how you look at it. It was a very nice place, pretty lagoony and way too overcrowded as it's Mexico's spring break. We set up Gaby's tent, which was fun, because the zipper didn't work to close the door and the poles didn't fit in the holes. We improvised and it was perfect. Then we got in the water which was warmer than we were expecting and swam for an hour to break in our new suits. Somehow over the past few days Gaby's right foot is really messed up, most likely from all the walking around Zacatecas. We ate some more food and went to sleep early in our piecemeal tent as we were both cashed.