Cervantino

---

On friday morning before I went to school. I tried to cut my hair into one of those subtle-euro mullet things... but it now just looks like I'm balding. It is pretty sweet though.

After school Zach and I, went with our neighbor and her boyfriend to Guanajuato. It is several hours to the rest, depending on how many times your car breaks down (twice on the way there, three times on the way back.) We decided to go to Guanajuato this weekend because it was Cervantino, a thirty-four year old festival celebrating the works of Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes. There is like music, theater, and dance... It has little to do with Cervantes today, more than being a quixotic good-time. On the ride we were able to drink beers in the car, not because it's legal, but because you can do whatever you want in Mexico.

We arrived in Guanajuato at 9pm. We found a campsite and set up. The temperature was so comfortable, I considered not taking a jacket. We walked into town, and then were hit by a huge storm... the jacket I brought wasn't waterproof... but it wasn't cold so I didn't catch influenza.

The walk into the center was one of the most cinematic things I've ever seen outside of a movie theater. There was a huge baloon with the face of the moon on it, carrying a girl into the sky. Music was playing and somebody was reading a monologue that I couldn't understand. Images were being projected onto water flowing from a fountain... there were hundreds of people, it was awesome... but then again it was raining... so we ran to find shelter.

Guanajuato is a city built between many mountains. Each part of the city is connected by a subterranean street or by tunnels. So we were able to seek shelter in one of the tunnels. It was the biggest tunnel I have ever walked through (it should be known that I am a professional tunnel-walker.) It took about twenty minutes, but it let you out right in the centro historico. It was still raining... hard. Thoughts of influenza were still crossing my mind. I don't have my papers yet, so I can't abuse Mexican social security. I'm waiting a few weeks before I can get really sick.

We found a pizzeria that looked like the inside of a castle... there were even people dressed like goths, holding swords and torches. The castle had been taken over by evil goth overlords, who made a damn good Hawaiian pizza.

During the meal we drank a brown liquid from a Diet Pepsi bottle we had smuggled into kingdom. I was getting drunk and tired... but the rain had stopped so we walked around a bit more. There were hundreds of people stumbling through the curved streets. (Their stumbling was the result of curvy streets I'd imagine.) We found a plaza with a drum circle. The assholes actually were selling a cd of their drum circling, as if that were something anybody would buy. I bought six copies.

I double fisted a bottle fo Victoria and an Americano. I slipped some tequila into the coffee. Tequila coffee is the new vodka Redbull... within twenty minutes I was back in the proverbial 'game.'

My travel partners decided to walk back to the camp. I stayed and practiced a reformed version of Urban Shintoism, the philosophy developed without an understanding of traditional Shintoism, but that suggests for one to have the most exciting evening possible they ought, as the original doctrines say, "to get drunk as fuck, and see where the evening takes you, without regard for anything." It's like getting hyphy, but said in pseudo-intellectual terms.

I took a picture with a bronze Mariachi. I pretended he stole my jacket. You should see the pic.

I came up to some steps in front of the main theater. People were chanting slogans from their favorite football teams and listening to another drum circle. I met these Mexican dudes who were on the prowl for the proverbial "tail." The Proverb of the Tail is a famous one that was written by one of Jesus' disciples, I can't remember it now, but wikipedia it.

So in the pursuit of hot chicks these drunk assholes, disrupted four musical peformances and swore their allegiance to the Pumas (UNAM) on multiple occasions. It was really fun. After half an hour, we parted ways because they were driving somewhere else. They invited me along but I declined. They thought it was because I was scared that the guy didn't have a license, so he showed it to me. I just wanted to continue with the festivities, plus I'd drive with someone who didnt have a license, it's Mexico, you can do whatever you want.

I walked up and down the streets, people-watching, drinking, enjoying myself. I ran into a group of Americans who were studying in Mexico City. I went for some drinks with them. Then I got tired, and made the long walk through tunnel back home. In case of robbers I picked up a rock. No robbers. I fell asleep close to five. Quiet hours were supposed to be from 12am to 7am... but because you can do whatever you want in Mexico, nobody followed them. They also kept the lights on all night. I had no sleeping bag, but I was pretty comfortable.

On Saturday, we got up, took the bus downtown, and went to a market. After buying a case of Nazi patches, a few counterfeit cds, some pachuli, and a henna tatoo that said "FOREVER", we decided to check out the mummy museum. There were all these photos of parents holding their lifeless babies... everybody was frowning, obviously the photographer had forgot to say "SMILE!"

The mummies in the museum were super disturbing. They were more scary than the mummies in Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy, though less funny (in a vaudevillian way, the mummies at the museum were more into that Monty Python shit.)

People were taking photographs even though it said not to. But then again, you can do whatever you want, it's Mexico.

There were hundred year old dried out bodies of children that seemed to be staring at you. I was feeling the after-effects of the brown liquid from the Diet Pepsi container. As it turns out, staring at the shriveled remains of human beings is not the best cure for a hangover.

After the mummies we ate at a subpar buffet... I was feeling sick (I had to poo) so I went to the bathroom. It appeared that seven or eight people had felt the same way before me, and were all unable to locate the flushing mechanism. If I were to make a list of the top fifteen most disgusting toilets that I have used in the world, this would be on it. Possibly more disgusting than the toilet that tried to prove "yes you can get AIDS from this toilet seat" (there were bloody syringes all over the place.)

Feeling better, we walked back into town. I bought an awesome t-shirt that said TEAM CERVANTINO, it had Ronald Mc Donald, Charles Manson, Hunter S, and Pee Wee Herman. I thought that I didn't understand the cultural references on the shirt, but the designer said he just thought it looked cool... I also thought it looked cool.

We went to a contemporary art museum. Then my friends left me, which for an Urban Shintoist (no matter how reformed) is a good thing. I walked around the city and found this band playing. The lead singer was wearing a skirt, a gas mask, and a qaffiah... I don't know if he was making a political statement or if he was doing it for the comfort, but it looked kind of cool. The rocked the plaza pretty well. When I got up I found that I had sat in gum... clearly a trap. Someone had convinced a sweet band to play while I sat down on just the spot where their gum was placed... the bastards!

I took a leisurely walk back to the camping, until it started to rain buckets. I got in the head by hundreds of red buckets, full of water. Someone yelled my name, it was my neighbor's boyfriend, Pelon (baldy), he was running away from the buckets of rain, so I followed suit. We got backed to the campsite wet as fuck... and I had no clothes to change into... so took off all my wet gear and took a nap inside the tent.

At eight o'clock Belle and Sebastian were supposed to play, so I was psyched up for that. Or psyched up as you can possibly be for Belle and Sebastian, whose music is good, but not something anybody moshpits to. Anyway Zach texted me to let me know that their show was cancelled.

I went with Pelon and my neighbor to a lookout point of over the city. You could see it all. Guanajuato is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to. We walked back down the hill... and Zach said he was eating dinner with some new friends at an Italian restaurant.

I ordered Chicken Cacciatore, which I believe normally is tomato-based, but this one was cream based... it was still good though.

Zach's new friends were segrated with Mexicans on the left and Britanicos on the right. They were a fun lot... I hadn't gotten drunk with Brits in a while, so I knew I was in for a good evening.

After dinner we went to a bar. I bought a round of mopeds. A moped is a shot glass with tequila and sprite, shaken up and imbibed... the Mexicans at the bar made it seem like it was a big deal.. they shook my head around in their hands... it wasn't that intense... but it did the trick.

We talked about the differences between British and American English, and British and American Comedy... I felt like I was in Britlandia or something.

We went to the plaza and bought two bottles of booze. Though it is Mexico and you can do whatever you want to, the cops in Guanajuato don't want you to drink on the streets, so they take your bottles. They only took one of our bottles. But we were pleasantly borrached.

A huge group of people formed in front of us to watch a drum circle. I tried to start a chant.

Mor-di-da, Mor-di-da, Mor-di-da.

It's a traditional Mexican birthday chant, encouraging the birthday boy to take a huge bite out of his cake. It normally results in frosting all over his face.

I didn't understand why nobody was chanting along with my hilarious drunk ass. But then I was informed that Mordida also means:

The bribe you give to the police to get out of trouble.

How ironic, that of all the things I know how to chant in Spanish, I chose the one that referred to the cops in the plaza... actually that was a question, was that really irony?

As I reeled in embarassment, a man came around holding a jump rope connected to a box. It turned out that it wasn't really a jump rope but cables that conduct an electric current. You are supposed to hold hands in a group, and let him turn up the juice. Why we paid him forty pesos for each jolt, I'll never know... but it was pretty cool.

After the electro-shock therapy we met an Italian wine importer, who had bottles of wine that he was gregariously sharing. We got drunk...er... I made outrageous claims like I was Manuel Lopez-Obrador and was sad because of my recent loss in the Mexican elections...

I followed some of the Brits to another bar... where we planned on ''pulling'' some locals. The first bar was very crowded, so we walked out with the free beer they gave us... and went to another less crowded bar. We started talking to these girls... then they introduced us to their boyfriends. So we left, and to celebrate our defeat we ate some hot dogs. They sell hot dogs in increments of three... which far too many at the moment... so I talked the hotdog-ero down to 2 hot dogs for 16 pesos. It worked out.

I stumbled home... and woke up the next morning in a pool of blood. Just kidding. For breakfast we went to a restaurant owned for seventy years by the eighty-six year old woman sitting at the one table in the place. They served sincronizadas, quesadillas, and burritos... which were by all accounts the same thing. A sincronizada is two tortillas that have cheese and ham in between them, a quesadilla is a tortilla folded that has cheese inside of it, a burrito is a tortilla that has cheese inside of it and is rolled. Anyway, it was pretty good.

We left Guanajuato at eleven am and didn't get back to Pachuca until nine at night, with an hour lunch in Queretaro.

I had a really fun weekend. Cervantino is one of the biggest parties I have ever been to, it reminded me of a theme park, with people partying all over the city. It was great, I'd recommend you go next year.

http://www.festivalcervantino.gob.mx/Ficesmas/

---