We managed to get ourselves tickets to Puebla without too much of a problem, despite the lady and me going back and forth for 2 minutes about when we were coming back. I kept saying we weren't, she kept saying we had to. "No returno!" "Una dia!" "NO RETURNO!" "UNA DIA!" Turns out the discount fare was for same-day returns, not one-way. And obviously the old "add an O to the end of an English word and it becomes the equivalent word in Spanish!" idea doesn't work so well in practical application. Oh wello. Hardly a big deal anyway, it was like 11 bucks to get there...o.
The ride out there was pretty interesting. Mexico City started to fade from houses, to buildings, to older buildings, to...shacks. With tin roofs. Then just concrete foundations with thousands of laundry lines. And people everywhere. It got pretty ghetto. It was a looooong time before the city finally faded into the distance and we went into the mountains. Most people don't know that Central Mexico is actually really fucking nice. Rob and I sure didn't.
"Dude, Mexico has forests? When did that happen?"
"1973."
"What?"
"I dunno, I just said something random. How the fuck am I supposed to know? I'm as shocked as you are."
"Reaaal funny, Timmy. Reeeal funny."
We arrived in Puebla about 2 hours later, at a fairly large bus station on the edge of the city. One thing about Mexico that's awesome is that it's really fucking easy to take a cab if you don't really know where to go. Just say "Zocalo". He'll drop you off in the central square. Problem solved. After going through some slightly sketchy suburbs, we got dropped off in the Zocalo - and it was fucking awesome. We got out, gave the cabbie 40 pesos, took one look around on the spot, and yelled "AWESOME!" in unison, and high fived each other. This was even better than we expected.
The central square has a pseudo-amphitheater in the middle, with a huge fountain in front and a massive church behind it. It was super leafy, with trees and shrubs and stuff all over the place, plus a bunch of statues and sculptures. On either side, the entire blocks were lined with street cafes and restaurants, and the front side was a pedestrian walkway. It was...for lack of a more manly term, beautiful. Here's a couple of stolen pics.
Our first order of business was to find a hotel. After walking for a couple of blocks, we found one that seemed worthy. We walked in and I asked how much a room was, which made Milo laugh.
"Dude, the prices are on the wall right behind her head."
"Oh. Oops. Maybe they changed?"
They hadn't. Milo 1, Tim 0.
Our room was pretty funny. 20 foot ceilings, but the bathroom walls were only 10 feet high. Okay. Cool patio looking out onto the street, but a legit huge padlock for the door. Sure, whatever. It was like 31 bucks a night though, and had 2 beds and a TV. Tough to complain. Well, for now anyway.
After that, it was exploring time. Puebla is known as a pretty religious city, and supposedly has 365 churches, one for each day of the year. We found three things out on our initial trip around the city -
1. Yup, lotsa churches. Very nice.
2. Outside of the zocalo, there seemingly wasn't much goin on.
3. Puebla was hotter than Laura Vandervoort. (Look her up, you'll be happy you did).
Food/beers seemed like a good idea, so we went to a restaurant bordering the zocalo. I guess we weren't there during a regular mealtime, because an entire block of empty chairs awaited us. Luckily, a pretty lady offering 2-for-1 cervezas helped us make up our mind quickly. We grabbed some enchiladas with mole sauce, which Puebla is famous for. They were awesome. Watching the waitress try to explain the whole "red or green chili" thing to Milo was pretty amusing though, because neither of them had a fucking clue what the other one was talking about. I knew, because I went through it in New Mexico a couple of months before that, but awkward misunderstandings are pretty funny when you're not involved in them, so I stayed silent.
Tim 1, Milo 1.
The best part of lunch was the relentless shoe shiner. He attacked Milo like a Jew attacks a bargain. Milo said no about 30 times, but the guy just started shining like Milo wasn't even talking. Milo was wearing soccer shoes or something too, which made it even funnier. I think he even kicked the guy at one point, but Shiny wouldn't be denied. Finally Rob gave up fighting, and he did his thing...then tried to charge him some ridiculous amount like 100 pesos. I couldn't help myself anymore, I just about fell over laughing at the look on Milo's face. Utter shock. Milo's ended up giving Shiny 40 pesos or something like that, which was good enough for him. Shiny then took one look at me, and I just said "FUCK NO." And he walked away, just like that.
"How'd you do that?"
"I have no idea. I'm more awesome than you, I guess."
"Yeah right...it's because your shoes are brown, asshole! It wasn't you! It was them!"
Shiny 40, Milo 1.
Milo was pretty tired at this point, so we headed back to the hotel. He couldn't fall asleep though, so we discussed whether it was even worth it to stay the night here. We figured we had seen most of what there was to see, and it didn't seem like much was going on. It was only 3:30pm so we had time to go somewhere else. I was indifferent, but Milo decided we should give it a second chance and stay.
Hands down, best decision of the trip. For all the jokes and teasing I send Milo's way in these blogs, he deserves even more credit - he made some genius decisions and pulled the trigger on a lot of things I would have either passed up or been too timid and/or indecisive to do, and the trip was sooo much better because of it. Props, buddy. You're still a jackass though. : )
So, we stayed. And it didn't take long for the decision to pay off. After wandering around for a little while, we found the mother of all interesting streets. It was a wide pedestrian-only street, PACKED with all sorts of people. Deviants, clowns, tourists, salesman, elephants, vendors, sluts, everything. Okay, no elephants, but everything else is legit. It also had tons of interesting shops, people selling all different kinds of balloons (balloon sales are huge in Puebla for some reason), street performers, music blasting out of different places...then a beautiful church. Then more of the same. And another crazy church. For blocks and blocks. It was a people watcher's dream come true.
We spent over two hours walking up and down this street and checking out churches and markets and whores and stuff. I think some people were as amused by us as we were by them. Besides being gringos, they were laughing at us for being so entertained by the stuff they see every day - a stuffed body done up like a corpse, hanging from a tree; a church covered in balloons and decorations; either a street performer or a statue of Death outside a church (we couldn't tell if it was a real person or not, and we stared for at least 5 minutes); morally flexible ladies; and clowns. Fucking clowns. Everywhere. It was just the sort of authentic Mexico we were looking for, and we were pretty happy we stayed. And once the touristy shit was done...it was drinking time!
While we drank at a cafe on the street facing the zocalo and laughed at the cops driving golf carts and smart cars (seriously), people started showing up at the amphitheater. More, and more...and more. Pretty soon the seats were full, as were the cafes. A pretty good band came on stage and rocked out for a bit, while the Mexicans in the amphitheater sang along and danced. It was starting to get dark, and Milo decided it was tequila time.
Ruh roh.
Two double shots of white tequila later, we were flying. Right around then, the band stopped and a lady got on stage and started giving a fiery speech. We understood approximately none of it, but the crowd was pretty fired up. At this point, we started to notice all the red posters all over the place, with a guy's face on it. A guy who just happened to come out on stage right while we were coming to the realization that...we were in the middle of a political rally. Turns out this guy was running for governor of the state, and the election was 3 days away. Cool...or is it?
Normally political rallies in third world countries sounds like bad news bears for tourists, but this just seemed like a pretty killer party to us. Milo's infinite wisdom decides we're not gonna sit on the sidelines of this party though - we're going into the eye of the party hurricane, dammit! He drags me (okay okay, a tugboat probably couldn't drag me anywhere, I went willingly) right up the front of the stage as buddy's hitting the crescendo of his message. The people are hanging on his every word, screaming and yelling in unison, and jumping up and down.
"Timmy, count to five, look at me, and take a picture, okay?"
"Oka...what? Where the fuck are you going?"
Milo runs right up to the front of the crowd and starts jumping up and down with them.
Whoa.
I didn't take the picture at five. I was laughing way too hard. Basically Rob was surrounded by elderly Mexican ladies, who didn't give a shit that he was a gringo, three feet taller than them, and didn't understand a fucking thing that was going on. They were jumping and cheering. He was jumping and cheering. He became one of them. I finally managed to take a pic, which was even funnier than I expected. His eyes are closed, he's jumping and hitting his head on the gazebo thinger, balloons are all around his head, and people all around him are looking at him with the happiest looks on their faces. It was fucking priceless. Reason number 196935 why losing my camera sucked so bad.
Finally MexObama wrapped up and the music started again. Right when it started to rain. You think we got strange looks before? Well, Mexicans scattered in every direction like those cop shows where they pull over a van and 58 of them pile out and run in every direction. We had retired to a sidewalk restaurant, sitting at an uncovered table out in the open, sipping beers and tequila. I'm not a mind-reader, but it's pretty clear what these people were thinking: "Stupid Americans". Why do I think that? I distinctly heard "Americano" and "stupido" in the same sentence from multiple people. I guess the O rule does work sometimes. Bastards.
After a while, we tried to decide where to go the next day. We got it down to Taxco or Veracruz. The guidebook said Taxco was one of the coolest cities in Mexico. It said Veracruz was cool too, and on the beach. After weighing the pros and cons, we did what all hardened travelers do when they're forced to make hard decisions...
We flipped a coin. Veracruz won. And we high-fived for no particular reason. We didn't even end up going to Veracruz because I'm a baby, which makes it even funnier looking back on it.
After a few more drinks, we retired back to the hotel as very happy gringos. Puebla was awesome. Milo's decision was fucking brilliant. We were gonna get up in the morning and go somewhere just as awesome. You'd think the story ends there...but it doesn't.
Not even close.
See, I neglected to mention the reason why we came to Puebla in the first place. Yes, it's a nice place that a lot of people check out. But that's not why we were here. Oh, no. It was something WAY more lame than that. It was because of the Legend of El Gas. Milo's Holy Grail of Mexico.
El Gas you say? What the hell is that, Tim?
The Legend of El Gas has been told a few times (duh, it's a fucking legend!)...but the full story has never been revealed. The retarded, humorous, and slightly smelly truth will be revealed...
In my next blog. What? This one is long enough already. I'm a tease, am I? Don't give attitude, bitches. I'll cut you. Wait a couple days, anticipation is a good thing. The Legend of El Gas awaits....
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