Mexicans in Mexico

Monterrey is a huge, fairly ugly city that sprawls around an extremely beautiful part of Northern Mexico. There are mountains everywhere, and since it´s been over 100 degrees most days, they are prettiest at sunset. Then they disappear, and at night you only see the valleys glittering while you drive across town, which takes hours. It looks something like this, only lots more so:


I spent this week following Carlos around, running errands, helping him finish his CD, looking around the city center, and going to a lot of house parties. At first I couldn´t understand half of what his friends said to me, but I am learning their slang fast, and realizing that they aren´t saying anything at all, really, except: cool awesome yeah really wow. It´s still weird waking up here and trying to figure out what language I´m thinking in and where I am. Today I went with all the women in Carlos´s family to a huge baby shower which had a baby made out of cake.

Before I came here I told Carlos I wanted to visit every place he had ever sent me a picture of. So two days ago he decided to take me and a couple of his friends to Cuatro Cienagos, a place way out in the desert 3 or 4 hours from Monterrey where there are these huge shallow lakes in the middle of the mountains. It looks beautiful in the photos I saw, but I wouldn´t know what it really looks like, because the boys managed to get spectacularly lost on the highway (don´t worry mom, we´ll bring a map when we actually leave) and we ended up hours and hours from Cuatro Cienagos, in the south of the state of Nuevo Leon. The road was lovely though, and appeared outside my window like this:


So we opted to go to El Real de Catorce instead, as we were already rather close. The Real is an ancient city, which has both an indigenous and colonial history, and which is hidden in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of the desert. To get in you have to drive through this INSANE tunnel that lasts for more than 15 minutes, and which is all bare rock and dirt and like nothing I have ever seen. The city is tiny and old and all hills, rock, and dust. It looks something like this:


Actually, we camped about 30 feet from that last photo, amidst more of the old ruins. The city itself is much more condensed and colonial, but we were on the edge of the desert. We camped out for the night, and of course, being hippies, my companions sat by the fire and played guitar and drums and sang all night long. Every American hippie´s fantasy, I´m sure. Here is a picture of my lovely Mexican companions, left to right: Pato, Bella, Christina, and Carlos. I was also rockin the bandana + hat but escaped unphotographed.


So that´s this week! I head south Monday, toward Xilitla. I have yet to learn anything about health or revolutions, but I also haven´t totally freaked out or gotten really sick yet, and I am having a spectacular time exploring and being a guest in this town. Entonces, adelente! Un beso, compañeros.