The end of the dry spell

Yesterday was immense for us! The previous day we had done a lot of sight seeing in Zacatecas but did not see La Bufa which is a mountain from which you can see the whole city). Therefore, I decided to wake up at 6AM (for which I would pay later) to drive up there. The views were wonderful but I felt a bit lonely.. Greg and Todd were still asleep.

After this, we checked out of our 1/2 star accomodations and left Zacatecas for Leon. The drive was awesome!!! What made it awesome was that Greg drove this leg and I got to navigate. Now, my navigation skills are no match for Todd´s GPS-like capabilities but they worked ok. In fact, we arrived into Leon without much help from a map. We used the good old method: ask taxi drivers, gas station attendants, pregnant mothers driving mid seventies vw beatles, etc.. we even asked a guy through the window while both cars were moving! Luckily, this nice gentleman knew the way and asked us to follow him (now this could have proven to be a big mistake but he did not seem too dangerous)

In Leon, our friend Julissa had hooked up us with Ana Karime who turns out to be an amazing host and party animal. As soon as we arrived, herself and her family made us feel at home with a great truly-mexican meal.. of course, her dad, Don Manuel, seemed very pleased when we agreed to have 2 shots of tequila as a precourse to our meals!! He actually had a rum and coke which should have been enough to warn us about the strength of the shots.


Ok ok.. so the first thing that Ana and her sister Patty did was to take us to Guanajuato.. what a beautiful town!! cobble stone streets, historical monuments, incredible tunnel underways, and no Starbucks!.. this town really is a gem. We had a great time there even though it started getting hot.. Now, at this point we are hot and a bit tired from the driving so we went to have a cold beer only to find an intriguing drink on the menu.. this thing is called Michilada and basically (I hope you are ready for this) is a beverage consisting of 1 liter of beer, add soy sauce, lime, chili and salt.. call it a Mexican bloody mary.. Greg faked it pretty well in the beginning but his face kept twitching every time he had a sip! To be perfectly honest, I think all three of us suffered through all 1000 mililiters of our drinks but as the perfect gentlemen that we are, never complained.. this concoction however, was truly refreshing.

Having gone through this experience and our stomachs still producing anti-michilada enzymes, we stopped by a road side stand where we had Tunas (not the fish but the fruit of a cactus tree) These were incredible!! Very sweet and came in bright red and pale green colors. Greg seemed to have trouble with the seeds since he refused to swallow them and risk having a cactus tree growing in his stomach.. Ana assured us that the worse thing that could happen is that we´ll have a severe case of constipation (had this happened it would have been a blessing! the opposite has been true for all of us lately).. we added salt and lemon, as always in Mexico, and ate the whole thing..

At this point we headed towards the Cristo Rey statue which sits on the top of a mountain between Leon and Guanajuato.. this was an awesome experience!! you can see the whole mountain range from here. There is also a chapel inside and some people do a pilgrimage from the bottom of the mountain towards the Cristo Rey on their knees!! pretty crazy given that the road is all stones. Check out the video of the pieceful views from up there here. This monument is also said to be the geographical center of Mexico!



Ok Ok.. so we headed back towards Leon and went to the mall to try to buy the local team´s jersey to keep as a souvenir. However, this team is now in the second division of Mexican Futbol and nobody seems to want to buy their shirts.. we could not find them anywhere! Oh well, just in case it helps here you go: ¨GO LEON GO!!!¨ So Ana and her brother Emanuel (who must have redbull running through his veins - incredible energy!) decided to take us out to a cool nightclub.. Being the big shot that he is, Emanuel got us into the club without much of a wait and we had our own table.. now the first thing that we noticed was 4 huge bottles of Bacardi at the table.. there was no way that we would finish this and still be standing at the end of the night!!! He assured us that he was not giving a ride back home to anyone who was not drunk at the end of the night..

By this time Greg and Todd´s Spanish was progressing quite well.. in fact, they even got their very own latin names!! Todd was christened as Francisco Gomez a.k.a. ¨Pancho Gomez¨ and Greg would be Gregorio Sanchez or ¨Goyo¨. So Pancho and Goyo felt a bit more Mexican by now.

The night was awesome and Goyo, being the stud that he is, was hit on by this girl at the end of the bar.. truly out of a movie.. the drinks kept pouring and bottles were emptied one by one.. super drunk and we all kept dancing.. Ana was a dancing machine and we were having a tough time keeping up.. however, we had a reputation to keep.. what would Ana tell Julissa about us? That we could not keep up?.. there is no way that we would allow that! It was 2:15AM and Pancho was stalling.. he went to sit down to catch his breath.. Goyo and I knew that there were 45 minutes until the place closed down so it became a test of endurance and we kept moving as we best could... we must have looked like chickens with our heads cut off. In any case, Emanuel thought it would be cool to go to an after party at his buddy´s place so we took off there.. of course, our bodies were pretty close to collapsing at this point.. we got there and luckily, Emanuel decided that it was time to go home!.. uff.. what a treat.. to finally sit in the car and dream about our beds and the wonderful 5 hours of sleep we would have before leaving for Mexico City.

On our way home, however, we stopped at a taco establishment.. it did not look like the place where you would take a date to eat but it was a solid stand with food to keep our stomachs from orchestrating an uprising. We ordered tacos al pastor, chorizo and bistec.. actually, we got to try nopal which is strips of the cactus leaf.. pretty good taste although a bit slimy.. Pancho must have eaten 6 or more of those (this was certainly a mistake he would regret the next morning)

In the end, we went home with our stomachs full, our bodies on the verge of collapse but with our egos intact.. Pancho and Goyo shared a bed once again.