Quantum Storytelling

Woke up around 7:30AM. Laid in bed for a while. Didn’t want to get up. Finally got up and took a shower. Ate quesadillas & beans, with coffee. Yummy Mexican breakfast. Jen had beans, pico de gallo, and egg.

I took a peek around the town, and snapped a few pics of the nearly-empty streets.

Then we all climbed in the car and headed to Vicente Guerrero. We dropped Jen’s Mom Chona off at the clinic.

I got some pics at the center of the town, including the statue of Vicente Guerrero himself.

We passed through the market twice.

As we were walking along the street we bumped into Luis Gomez selling peppers out of his truck. I probably don’t remember him well because the last time I talked to him was two years ago during the Villa Insurgentes town festival, after I’d had quite a few beers.

Anyway, he had some nice peppers, so I took pictures of them.

When Chona was done at the doctor, we decided to eat lunch. The kids were left at this interesting Xbox arcade. I say interesting because it was 5 pesos for 30 minutes of play. That’s like 50 cents for half hour of Xbox play. Quite a deal by U.S. standards, but I doubt the kids of Guerrero have much money.

After lunch we stopped at a grocery store. Jen had to hold the eggs carefully on the way back to Villa Insurgentes. They don’t sell them in cartons there. They give them to you in a plain plastic bag, so keeping them intact is another story. Don’t bump into anything!

After getting groceries we came back to Villa Insurgentes, to the house. A short while later lots of people showed up to hang out.

At one point, two donkeys came wandering down the alley past the house. One of them had a bulging stomach and looked to be pregnant. Donkeys, cows, and stray dogs wandering through towns in Mexico is common. Amusing for Americans!

Dalila, Joe, Jen, and I went for a walk through the side streets up to the cemetary. On the way to the cemetary, Joe stopped off to take a leak. He came running back claiming to have seen a rattlesnake. We returned to the spot, but found no proof! Then we entered the cemetary. We found the grave of Jen’s maternal grandmother. The cemetary was interesting. Graves were packed very close, some touching. They are in a wide variety of states and quality. One was little more than a wooden cross planted in a rough patch of asphalt.

After the cemetary, we walked back through sidestreets. I got lots of photosource for game textures or whatever. We saw this funny cow watching us over the top of an adobe wall.

And a creative use of materials to make a bench: Concrete, tile, and plastic Coca-Cola cartons.

Later we ate dinner at Jen’s aunt Prieta’s house. We got a tour of their new house, which is huge by Mexican standards. It is more the size of an American house. I talked to Prieta’s husband Martin about computers. He has a decent custom PC - a rarity in rural Mexico!

Being the geek that I am, I ran back to our house to grab my laptop so I could share some photos with Martin and Prieta, and burn Martin a CD of photos from our 2004 trip. After a few slideshows, we came back to the house where relatives were still hanging out. I got introduced to some of Jen’s relatives from Chicago. They were impressed that I know Spanish.

A bit later, everyone left. We all shuffled down to a restaurant just around the corner for a late meal. I was still full from eating at Prieta’s house. But I couldn’t turn down a beer! Afterwards, we came back and went to bed.

We were awaken by the kids at 7AM. They were at the door telling us to wake up because everyone was getting ready to leave. We got dressed quickly. There wasn’t time for a shower. Everyone was ready to get out and see more of the city. We went into the market, where we got ‘liquado,’ a sort of Mexican breakfast smoothie. I had a strawberry one.

We started walking around the city. Just like clockwork, the men riding donkeys began to appear around the city selling agua miel. Agua miel is a sweet tasting liquid made from the maguey plant. The nephews climbed on the donkey and I snapped some shots.

After, the kids got donuts. I got a gordita. Then we took taxis to the top of La Bufa. Took pics of Pancho Villa again. Looks different this time. They cut out some of the maguey plants from last time.

There was a stiff wind. Everyone was cold except me–Minnesota Boy. The cool breeze felt good. I got quite a few photos. Here are a few:

There were some Huichol natives selling jewelry and trinkets on the path down to the teleferico (gondola). They must always be here… they were here in 2004 too.

We took the teleferico down from La Bufa.

Then we walked down the rest of the way. Along the way we got some Barrilitos. It’s a beer made by Corona, but tastes very different from regular Corona. I think it’s my new favorite beer. Anyway, I like the twisted streets and inclines of Zacatecas. It reminds me of San Francisco, dressed like Spain.

We stopped at the mine. Joe, Dalila, the kids, and Miguel took the tour. The rest of us stayed behind because we had taken the tour in 2004. It was Miguel’s second time. He said there were new things in the tour. Oh well. The outside had a new wall sculpture, and a lot of the entrance had been redesigned. Business must be good!

We walked down from the mines back into the city. There are a lot of interesting features of architecture and city layout. Empty lots in places, and dug-outs in others.

We found a pizza place on the way back. It was ok. Not as good as ol’ USA pizza but close enough. Then we went back to the hotel and started packing. We had to check out from the hotel. Everyone else came back shortly after us. We packed up and left Zacatecas city around 2:30PM.

Along the way we saw a Corona plant. Mmm…

We stopped at a town called Plateros. This is supposedly where Santo Niño de Atocha appeared for the first time on the hilltop. A temple was built there. There are a lot of saints in the Hispanic world. For us jueros that aren’t familiar, Santo Niño de Atocha is the saint referenced by the character Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, in his class president speech from the movie. People bring locks of hair, prosthetic limbs, along with prayers or letters declaring the ‘miracles’ that the Santo Niño de Atocha brought them. I wasn’t in the spiritual mood, so I failed to take a picture of the incredible masses of prayers and personal articles nailed to the walls of the temple. Even for the non-religious, it is interesting to say the least.

We drove on towards Jen’s hometown of Villa Insurgentes (formerly Calabazal).

Along the way we stopped at Atotolnilco for my favorite gorditas in the entire world. I ate four. I told the woman at our favorite stand, that hers are the best. It’s true! Then we continued on towards Villa Insurgentes. Somewhere in between I snapped this pic of sunset:

We arrived at Villa Insurgentes at 7PM. We unpacked the car, Jen’s aunt Maria on Miguel’s side came over. She’s from Mexico City. It was the first time I had met her.

Jen’s Mom sent us to get groceries but all the stores were closed. Along the way Dalila ran into a childhood friend and she stayed talking to her while we continued on in search of a grocery store that was open. Jen stopped some girls and asked them which store was open. It was one on the other side of town.

On the way we passed Jen’s aunt Sanjuana and didn’t even see her. She stopped us, and we said hello and chatted for a bit. We finally found an open store, and Jen started gathering the items. Some guy outside the shop freaked out and started talking to me. He was super surprised to see a white guy in the town. Funny.

On the way back to the house we found Miguel and stopped at Jen’s uncle Juan’s & Sanjuanas. We drank lots of Barrilitos, and talked for over an hour. Jen had left to bring the groceries back, because her Mom Chona had put beans on but was missing some ingredients. Beans are of the utmost importance! :)

Joe, Dalila, Miguel and I stayed drinking beer for a while at Juan’s. We finally left and came back to the house. Miguel is happy and keeps handing out beers. He seems really happy to be home. Jen’s aunt Prieta was there. We all talked for a while. I got tired, so we went to bed. I fell asleep right away.

We crossed the border in Laredo at 3:15AM where the non-Mexican members of our group had to file for entry papers. This was Joe, and I. The rest of the family has citizen status, or easy entry due to being children of Mexican citizens. They gave us 180 day passes. Maybe I could be a migrant worker into Mexico? Nah…

About five hours later we stopped off to rest and eat just past a toll booth between Monterrey and Saltillo. I took a few pics of the road and mountains. One of the mountains is called ‘La Silla,’ which means ‘The Seat’ in Spanish.

We got to Saltillo just before 10AM where we saw some familiar sights.

After gassing up and stretching our legs, our goal was clearly visible:

Around two hours later we stopped to stretch and for a bathroom break. We were truly in the middle of nowhere. A lot of Mexico looks like this. I guess you could call it the ‘Nebraska of Mexico.’

We finally arrived in Zacatecas city, the capitol of Zacatecas state. We got our rooms at the Hotel Condesa, where we stayed two years ago. Jennifer and I got the last room available that had a balcony.

It made for some good first pictures of the city.

The same duros stand was there from two years ago. Same mother and daughter running the stand, too. Some things never change! P.S. for Jueros (whiteys): Duros are a fried corn-puff snack covered in hot sauce & lime juice. Duros stands often sell fresh fried potato chips, also covered in hot sauce & lime juice. Where do you think Doritos came from?

The park with statue kitty-corner from the hotel was just as picturesque as ever.

We all rested and took showers after the long drive before heading out for dinner. We ate at RecoVeco Buffet. Forget Mexican buffets in the U.S. or anywhere else. This was the real deal. We had eaten there two years ago and it was just as good as I remembered.

After dinner, we explored the city and markets.

Jen and I bought Zacatecas t-shirts. Then we walked through the plaza featuring the statue of Genaro Codina, author of The March of Zacatecas — the state’s official song.

We walked by the Fuente del Faroles - ‘Fountain of Lanterns.’ When we visited in 2004 it was under renovation, so this is the first time I’ve seen it the way it was meant to be.

Of course you can’t walk in a five hundred year old city without walking by a five hundred year old church.

After that Jen and I split from the group to go exploring on our own. We decided to return to the hotel via backstreets.

We got lost. Zacatecas city is not a bad place to get lost in though. The alleys are never too dark, and there are always people passing through them.

We found our way back to the hotel eventually, where I experimented in taking some night shots using my tripod from our hotel room balcony.

A little bit later, we went out again to explore. Just for fun, we tried to find a pizza place. We succeeded, but the pizza didn’t look that good. They only had some dried slices under a heat lamp, which obviously weren’t that fresh. The woman who ran the shop couldn’t make any fresh pizzas because she was out of cheese. Out of cheese, in Mexico! That’ll teach us for trying to find pizza at 9PM in Zacatecas.

We found a drug store and asked about sun block for me. At 200 pesos ($20 U.S.) they can kiss my white butt! We returned to the hotel where we ate in the hotel restaurant. Jen had grilled cheese sandwich and I had enchiladas with green sauce. The sauce was creamy, not like the usual lime-chile kind.

Jen had cocoa, which she really enjoyed because it was frothy and tasted like ‘Abuelitas.’ In other words, it was authentic Mexican hot cocoa, not the low grade American kind. I had some fresh-squeezed orange juice. Real juice! Imagine that!

Then we went back up to our hotel room and fell asleep quick. It’s hard to sleep on a 20 hour drive, but easy to sleep after!