Last weekend we decided to get out of dodge. I was getting a little “basin fever” after living in this bowl for the last two months, as beautiful as it is. We also needed to drown our sorrows because Mikko’s dear aunties had to postpone their Thanksgiving visit suddenly.
We decided to go to a nearby town, Irapuato, that we knew nothing about. (Stupidly, we left all our Mexican guide books at home in PDX.) Our main goal was to find a hotel with an actual bathtub and cable TV. (and see some more of Mexico, in between baths and shows.)
Our hotel is on the left. It was all a little soviet blockish.
As it turns out Irapauto is a commercial center where there are markets that sell to the merchents who sell at the markets here in GTO or other nearby towns. Therefore it was a perfect place for a little retail therapy, as well and CHEAP.
We had an excellent meal at a busyplace with fabulous meat!!
Two other pluses: It was flat so we had a long vistas, which I hadn’t realized I had been missing, living in this bowl. And it rained!! Really hard!! We got soaked then changed into dry clothes and had hot chocolate and played cards in the hotel restaurant.
We also were the only foreigners around. We didn’t hear English at all and Mikko and I got stared at quite a bit.
It is only an hour away by bus, so visitors – you know where we’ll be taking you to shop.
One of the things that so strikes me living here is the constant collage of sound.
It is 10 pm and I am the only one awake in the house. Right now I hear the wind gusting outside, there is a festival to Santa Maria happening in the square below us and in our neighborhood, so of course I can hear disco music blasting from the square (because you know how those saints loved disco,) and a number of different songs coming from people’s houses around, screams of joy, ( I think there is a trampoline of some sort set up down there,) dogs barking and a neighbor’s loose metal roof clanging in the wind.
There are times when many of these sounds are present as well as church bells. I find that particularly amazing and beautiful. One sound that we don’t hear from here and that I don’t miss is traffic. There is no road close enough to transport its sound to our house. I love that.
I have found that I am very capable now, of hearing more than one song playing at a time, without it driving me crazy. Which is a good thing or I would have been carted off to the loony bin by now.
On Monday the 12th we went to see Lucha Libre. It doesn’t come to GTO very often so we were very excited to get a chance to go so early in our stay.
It was a spectacular night complete minis (little people lucha wrestlers,) luchadoras (the women lucha wrestlers,) a bunch of goofball wresters and the superstars. The crowd was big and very lively. And of course there were plenty of snacks and merch to buy as well.
We were so excited about Lucha coming to Guanajuato and have been trying to stir up the excitement with the people we regularly see, (mostly baristas and my teachers.) I was beginning to think that no Mexicans were into Lucha. Everyone we tried to impress with our excitement would just shake their head and say, “A mi no me gusta.” One of my teachers actually forbade me from talking about it anymore in my conversation class.
The match was in the baseball stadium and started at 8:30. We sat in the stands. We weren’t super close, but we could see well enough. The wind was blowing hard and by the end, 11pm or so we were quite cold. The wind blew dust storms and a slight aroma of sewage our way, but the excitement and spectacle of each match was enough that we all had a fabulous time.
My poor friend, Satako had to wear her own mask to protect her eyes from the dust.
I have to say there were no big surprises. Mikko and I have done fairly extensive research, which has consisted mainly of watching bootleg DVDs of matches and buying Lucha Libre magazines. We have learned that there are two types of luchadors in each match. There are the RUDOS who are the bad boys, (or girls,) who don’t fight fair and are generally a pretty testy lot. Then there are the TECNICOS, they supposedly follow the rules and try to be the crowd pleasers. We have noticed that almost without fail, the rudos win the first round, of three, and the tecnicos win the next two. The pattern continued on Monday. Some matches were longer, some shorter, some rudos got into arguments with audience members. There was slapstick and impressive acrobatics as well as a lot of rope jumping and bodyslamming. The rudos won each first round and the tecnicos won every match. It is good to have some predictability in life, I suppose.
Los Brazos were the goof balls. They provided the comic relief in the intense night of lucha. (I’m not sure why the picture isn’t there, but play the video, it’s well worth it:
Las mujeres fueron muy buenas y divertidas tambien:
The one disappointment was that the final match, with Misticooooooooo, only lasted about 15 minutes. I was happy to get to see him though, and at that point it was getting so late and cold, I was OK with it.
This is the superstar Mistico. He is wearing a tee shirt because I guess he got a little chilly:
So we went to the Lucha Libre match last night and it was almost everything we had hoped it would be.
Unfortunately I don’t have it together to give a full report yet, but I wanted to post something, so here is the poster that was all around town, titillating us all week.
I finally have a collection of photos of perros en techos, (y otros lugares.)
One day we were in this callejon, taking this picture when we heard barking from above. We looked up to see this little fluff ball with his head sticking out the window barking at us like mad.
There were two other dogs on different roofs too, but they moved to fast too get their pictures. This is a neighbor dog who actually gets to leave his roof sometimes.
THE OPTIMIST
This is our neighbor dog . You may recognize him from the header of this blog. I call him The Optimist because he is always looking down into the courtyard where his family is, wagging his tail, sure that they are on their way up to him to give him some loven’. They rarely are though. I took this picture from the callejon.
This is our normal view of him from our balcony, in melancholy moment:
THE RAGS
We keep track of these guys from our balcony too. They are pretty well camoflouged by their filth, so it is exciting when there is a sightning. Mikko will yell, “The Rags!” It took me a while to stop looking for flying laundry.
DISCLAMER = I mispelled altar thoughout this post, and don’t want to go back and change it so ALTER = ALTAR
I don’t know how much you know about Dia de Muertos, but it is a day that is believed to be the day that the dead come back from the other world. Because their journey is so long people leave food and drink for them on the alters. People also leave things that were important to them in life, like thier tools, or toys for kids. Actually kids and Saints come back on the 1st and everyone else comes back on the 2nd. These are things I have learned, though there is definitely more to it. It seems to be very widespread and celebrated by most everyone. It has been connected by the date to Catholocism, but it has very indigenous roots. The celebration in GTO is pretty low key. There are alters all over, in businesses and homes, but no big street celebrations. The big public thing is on to go up to the cemetary on the 2nd. Families gather at gravesites and clean and decorate the graves.
Stuff to buy for your alter at home
The alter at Mikko’s school
The alter at my school (Frida and Diego are quite the icons here.)
Alter at the Mercado Hidalgo, in the center (notice it is for Frida and Diego.)
Alter in public passageway, all made of seeds.
Our alter at home
We took the bus up to the cemetary and wandered around, but it was a much more familial thing than a public thing. Everyone was very accepting of all of us gringos wandering around with cameras, I’m pleased to report. It reminded me of memorial days with Grandma ans Scotty and going to the graveyard in Astoria to be with the Syvanens. Just a lot more crowded.
These are flower vendors at the bus stop on the way to the graveyard.
The road leading up to the cemetary complete with plenty of vendors selling everything from flowers to brassiers and of course lots of delicious looking food.
Inside the cemetary gates
I would like to start a random acts campaign to come and take care of the graves of people who have no one left.
This was the only Lucha match we have found in Guanajuato so far. (Though, we did get “El Santo vs the Mummies of Guanajuato” an excellent film!!)
Lord of the World of death
La Ultima Wipe
Lord of the World of Death vs. La Ultima Wipe
We have some big news!!! Mistico, the biggest (not in size but in modern day fame,) luchador is coming for a match here in Guanajuato in two weeks!!! Lucha doesn’t happen here very often. I am super excited. I am not sure why my pacifist self is so entranced by this crazy, bloodthirsty, spectacle. But I am – so I will go with it.
