Not Another Party

We’re stopped in Zacatecas at the moment, where my recurrent attempts to construct sentences in Spanish have severely retarded my ability to write English in a non-stilted, subjunctive-inclusive way. Disculpa.

We had intended to use these few days to rest after rushing across the country, but it seems that the people around us have other ideas. You see, we are comparatively young (not to most of you, in all likelihood, but to the people cropping up in hostels certainly). This means that we are expected to drink and dance and go clubbing constantly.

What exactly I think about this rather depends on the context. The first night was great. In Mexico, there are processions in the streets at the weekends called callejoneadas, where men with instruments play music and people dance. They wander down some side streets and stop in another square to do it again. Although you’re not really allowed to drink in the streets, the police turn a blind eye to it and it’s a rather nice party.

It wasn’t long before some Mexican English-language students had offered to show us how to dance, and soon afterwards we were adopted by a lovely family, who decided we weren’t drunk enough (they were quite right; we were stone-cold sober). We got introduced to the tradition of drinking mescal[1] by having the bottle poured into our mouths from a great height, to the count of anywhere between 3 and 10. Sounds minging? A bit, but the secret is that it’s actually tasty out here, and not just like drinking lighter fluid.

The nice family then took us up the hill (the police also turn a blind eye to drink-driving, it seems) to look over the city at night, and we ended up in some random carpark trying to understand jokes in Spanish and having really a rather nice time.

It only seemed natural, then, to suppose that we would also have a good time later in the week when people from our hostel went for a night out. It started with the ubiquitous mescal-pouring, and a huge pan of margheritas dished out as fast as you could drink it. Sadly, though, it all deteriorated once we got out of the door. As women, we weren’t allowed to buy our own drinks at all, and were therefore obliged to dance with the men who insisted in getting some for us. From that point on, we spent most of the night trying to fight them off and having a really thoroughly miserable time. Free drink win, but harrasment fail. I think from this point on I’ll just drink in my room, thanks a lot. Still, if you want to see some photos of us wearing stupid hats and being mauled, check out the photos section.

Zacatecas, Mexico - Saf

[1] Mescal is tequila which isn’t made in the town of Tequila. Turns out it’s a region-controlled substance.