Roadtrip with Matthieu Carlier: Morelia and Guanajuato

07/05/08We woke up at Violetta's with no running water. Matt and I made do and showered each other with kisses instead. We ate and went downtown. We were looking for a parking spot and I found myself going the wrong way down an unmarked one-way street. This is not an unusual occurrence for me here and usually results in people standing in the sidewalk whistling at me and pointing the other way. When I make it to a point in the road where I can turn around, there are three cops waving me down. I try waving them off that I'm ok, but it doesn't work. I explained that I'm unfamiliar with the town and there's no "one-way" sign. One of the cops argues, "There is a sign.""Uh, no there's not.""Come, I'll show you." He walks me to the end of the street where there is a sign on one wall, but there are no visible signs where we came from. He let's us go. For those counting, that's three incidents with the cops within 24 hours. We parked, walked around downtown and explored some churches and a marketplace. Matt and I hit a point where we became crazy-hyper and happy. Dancing and rapping. I jumped from one post to another, dancing. Matt jumped on a fountain and began dancing around it. However, he immediately lost his balance and fell in, up to his crotch. His pants were soaked as well as his purse, books, and camera. We didn't care. We laughed at each other. A barber nearby witnessed the whole thing, not stopping his haircut. We pointed at him and all laughed together.We met up with Violetta for coffee. Then we decided to go to a public pay bath. It was 35 pesos well worth it as we hadn't been able to shower for a few days. It had all the hot water and gigantic cockroaches we could ask for. That night we went to a interesting rock bar with a bad cover band. It was packed, so we left and went to Casa de Salsa. There was a live mariachi singer. Matt and Violetta danced together and I danced with some straggling fat girls until I realized it wasn't as much fun as it sounds.08/05/08We all got breakfast then Matt and I left for Guanajuato. The highway took us on a road that bisected a huge lagoon. Leaving us with views of nothing but water as far as we could see on both sides of us. Then we came across a small ghost town that sold only sweatshop cowboy and booty-club girl clothes. I bought a some cowboy pants for $6.We got to Guanajuato and met up with Jorge, our couchsurfing host and Max a surfer from Germany who was also staying with Jorge. Jorge is an over fashioned, stereotypical super-gay, super-in-the-closet Mexican who's obsessed with French dance culture known as tectonic. He dresses, listens, and dances tectonic. Matt gave him a hard time this as tectonic is as original as the pop-diva slut craze in the US. German Max is too-tall and awkward in his cumbersome hiking boots. He's taking a break from his studies in physics to travel. He's been to Australia and swam with sharks. Now, he's hiking parts of Mexico. He hiked the Copper Canyon by himself, but miscalculated resulting in three days completely isolated with no food and only river water to drink. He thought he was going to die. Then he came upon an indigenous tribe and tried to give them hundreds of dollars for food, but they didn't use or value money and shook him off. He survived all this to be hanging out with us in Guanajuato.
Max and Matt immediately began bickering back and forth about how Germany and France hate each other. Somehow this led to us all telling all the racist jokes we knew and bonding immediately. The discussion ended with Matt asking Max what he thought was a better German invention, the gas oven or mustard gas.
We all explored Guanajuato together. Matt and I were blown away by the people. There was a huge population of Europeans, Americans, and even Norwegians. In the downtown part of the city, it appeared as though Mexicans only made up half of the people. Apparently, the schools here are really good and have several exchange programs overseas. The mixture gives the city the feeling of a large hostel. We got fruit-flavored tea and enchiladas then went back to Jorge's to shower and headed out to Barflies. Barflies is a reggae bar full of hippies who actually skank. I can't help but be reminded of early high school. Everyone was great. Matt and I won a game of foosball, then we all left as it was too packed.
We went to another club named Apple which was an average clubby club where the girls were less attractive but they dressed up really nice to feel better about it. We made due. Matt found a girl and I danced with a waitress in between her taking drink orders. We realized that the place really did suck so we went to En Lak Etch, which is a open-late techno bar. They had a DJ spinning electronic music in a smaller, overpacked, hot room. We all danced until 3 when they kicked us out, so we went back to Jorge's.