Keepin´it ¨Real¨

Hola, from Real de Catorce!


(I never did figure out how to set the timer for longer than 10 seconds...)

With the help of a note that a friend in Monterrey wrote me, I managed to get off a bus headed elsewhere at the junction of the highway that leads here, to Real de Catorce. I figured, I hitched around Canada all summer, I´m sure it can´t be that hard in Mexico (detail: I can´t speak much spanish, but I´ll revisit that later).




So, out goes my thumb, and not 10 minutes later, I got a lift from three twenty-somethings heading to Real for the night. Although they were Mexican, thankfully, they spoke english quite well.



The road into R14 (as they call it, catorce -- ¨ka-tore-say¨ -- is 14 in spanish) is straight out of the 1800s, cobblestone for... however many km it is, it´s hard to judge because you have to drive about 20, and stop at multiple points to take photos. And then there´s the 3 km long tunnel that leads into the town...




When we got here, they invited me to stay with them for the night, so we rented a couple of rooms and headed out to watch the Patriots lose the superbowl and drink some beers (yes Mom, I know the plural of beer is beer... but this is how the kids do these days).




After a long unsuccessful search for another bar, and two people fewer, ¨Freddy¨ (as I´ll call him) and I arrived back at our original Superbowl-watching bar, which had completely transformed into a drunken disco! Perfect. So, after drinking sufficient beer to be able to communicate with the spanish effectively through my ´Napolean Dynamite-esqe´ dance moves (I think they were just jealous), we lit the town up. I was bought some tequilla again, by a guy, again. This seems to be a trend, perhaps I´m not putting out the right vibe. Although really, tequilla is tequilla, a dancing-man´s drink.

My new friends left the next day after we´d toured around to see the firing range (where the Mexican´s killed each other during a civil war -- I´m not sure why they call it a civil war, I fail to see how war is civilized),



the old graveyard,

and the cockfighting pit (insert non PG13 joke here). As they were leaving, Freddy gave me a very special and touching gift. He handed me a lucky coin, an old Mexican coin, that was given to him by his grandfather. He told me that it can be charged by climbing to the top of the pyramid at Teo...hickamydickerylittlebolabadabba..tan (I will learn the spelling later). I hope to do that. Amongst the debauchery, we managed to have some meaningful conversations, that I will never forget.

I´ve since visited the puebla fantasma (ghost town), and far beyond.




In the ghost town I stumbled across an old mineshaft. As any normal person would do, I descended into the darkness, using my keychain flashlight to guide me. After about 15 metres, I encountered a drop-off, at which point I re-assessed the situation: nobody knows I´m here, I´m alone, in an abandoned mine-shaft, in the dark... I turned around. What a sissy.



From there, I just walked and walked, climbing whatever ´hills´ got in my way.

Real de Catorce is beautiful. It´s a boom-gone-near-ghost-now-being-revitalized-town, which was previously based on mining, and now on tourism. Located in the mountains of Mexico, it´s a magical place.

I spend my days, for the most part, attempting to learn spanish, meditating, and meeting people while walking around the town. I have made a few friends that don´t speak any english, which is really helping me learn spanish. We´re trading english for spanish lessons, and having some great times doing it. You can still joke around in another language, even if you only know a few basic words and body language.

Yo voy a encontrar una amiga en la noche, de tomar une cafe y apprender mas espanol. This sentence probably makes no sense.

I´m not sure how long I´ll be here, it´s a good vibe, and I´m not in a rush. The Mexican lifestyle (mañana) is doing me some good.

Hasta luego amigos!