Vaqueros, Tequila, Goyte and transvestites...

Saturday July 7th- Today is a mandatory mellow day after 5 days of non stop action. Yesterday was about as busy of a day as I have ever experienced. Forget chronological order, I'm going to jump all over this page with details of our adventures. Yes...I slept until 11:15am today, and damn right I earned it! I'm going to focus on last night before I go into details of the weeks more traditionally educational experiences... Picture this... Carli booted up with a clean white summer dress. Myself in a brand new Mexican wrangler shirt tucked into dark jeans with a hand made leather belt embroidered with proud roosters every six inches, and of course I was sporting my Stetson boots. Miguel our new buddy was looking ever so suave with his slick black leather jacket, freshly ironed white dress shirt, black slacks and shoes, and of course being a proper mexican he had a silver chain necklace dangling from his neck. Now that you have met the main characters, time to describe the scene... Let me start by saying this is after a ten hour day of driving through the scorching heat of the Tequila Zone and drinking at least 16 different types of Tequila which I'll go into more detail later on...Miguel picked us up and then drove to his friends parking garage from where we jumped in a cab and went about 10 minutes in only god knows what direction of the city center...We knew our destination was near for the cabs windows were vibrating with heavy bass, and a chaotic onslaught of vehicles were approaching in every direction. Mexican cowboys with pounds of gel in their obsidian black hair filled the streets along with beautiful women in remarkably tight colorful pants. I suddenly forgot about how tired I was and quickly came back to life. Banda music was blasting and in the distance I could distinguish some tasty electronic beats! Once past a surprisingly intensive admission process, we were greeted by two tequila girls who gave us some complimentary but watered down shots.

After wading through the crowds of young lovers, cowboys on the prowl, and drunken bigote sporting lads we arrived to the main stadium which was a half moon with about 30 rows of sardine packed aficionados. I thought a rodeo in the states was fun, but this was something else entirely. There was a live mariachi band above the stalls where the animals and vaqueros enter the stadium, and about 4 different lasso experts concurrently displaying their clever tricks. The announcer not only described the scene, but quite frequently would break into song in rhythm with the Band. Once the Alcohol started flowing and the night progressed the crowd got louder and not a soul was sitting down. I have never seen sexier dancing, the banda music requires a tight close dance that is our equivalent of grinding, but far more passionate and skillful. I knew I loved Mexico and the culture, but looking up at those stands and taking in the spirit and incredible energy the crowd was omitting, I realized I fucking LOVE Mexico...

We made some new friends, enjoyed the show, drank some coronas, and then once the lethargy started to really sink in, we headed back towards our neck of the woods. You can't go out at night here without a drunken visit to a taco stand. It turns out that our hotel is in the epicenter of the homosexual community, so naturally we had to hit up the taco stand "gay tacos". What a treat let me tell you, smashing delicious tacos to the sounds of strange electronic music from the gay club on the adjacent corner while partners paraded out into the streets and into dark corners. One other thing we learned was that apparently the transvestite prostitutes love the corner of Madero and Galeana meaning we had to walk through 4 of them to get to our room while they made smooching sounds at me for the last 60 feet of our walk. What an entertaining night, and my god was I happy to reach my bed...