Day 2 in San Miguel de Allende

10 Jan 2010

BANG! BANG! BANG! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

I jerked awake. Sunday morning, the sun hadn't even considered awaking up yet.

BANG! BOOM!

“What is that?!” Katie yelped. I clutched my blanket in fear. More crazy loud noises exploded from somewhere far too close for comfort.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“Gunshots!” Katie's voice trembled. “Someone is shooting back and they are inside our hotel!”

So. This is it. The end. I'm going to die.

Who will update my facebook so all my friends know what happened to me?

I imagined the banditti's from The Monk rushing into the room at any moment to steal my passport, my meager 1000 pesos, and, of course, to shoot me right in the head. No wonder our room was so cheap.

BANG! FLASH! BANG! FLASH! BANG! FLASH!

I instinctively scooted back right into Katie (we were sharing a double bed) and grabbed her arm and put it around me. I'm always searching for maternal love, protection, that feeling of being looked after. Katie's a mother of two and so played her mother role perfectly. We laid there clutching each other in terror. I could see the scene playing out in my mind with absolute clarity. They would blast in, guns blazing, and shouting in incomprehensible Spanish. I silently rehearsed begging for my life and promising my assailants whatever it was that they wanted. I vainly hoped they wouldn't rape us. My heart beat furiously but I didn't cry. I didn't panic. I just laid there preparing.

“No one is screaming.” She continued to narrate in an intense whisper. “Maybe it's not a gun.”

Maybe that's cause they are all dead... or laying in their beds terrified like us. I thought but didn't speak.

The loud BANG FLASH BANG FLASH resounded through the still air again. No screams. No police sirens. Nothing. This had to have been going on for 10 minutes by now. Where were the police? The citizen-heroes? The angry yelling in Spanish? Anything?

“It's dynomite!” Katie released her grip on me, now she sounded annoyed. “I heard this crap all the time when I lived in Morocco.”

I tried to imagine by an assailant armed with dynamite was somehow better than one with a gun.

“What time is it?”

“Around 5.” (She definitely sounded annoyed now.)

“Why are they using dynamite at 5 in the morning?”

“Who knows, it's Mexico.”

“What?”

“Try to go back to sleep.”

Somehow, I did.

The next time I woke up Katie was coming back from grabbing breakfast for us. We ate and she told me about the eerily empty, quiet streets. The only people she saw outside of the Starbucks were a few white clad nuns.

Katie and I have a lot in common. Some things are expected: we are both liberal, linguists, and teachers. Some things are coincidental: we are both type b personalities, energetic, and talkative. Some things are verging on strange: we both have blue eyes, brown non-straight hair, and prominent noses. One thing we have in common is a little freaky: we basically have the same mother. We both have a narcissistic, psychologically abusive, melodramatic... CRAZY... mom.

I'm not which one of us breached the subject (probably me, given what has happened to me lately) but I am so glad we did. We spend a lot of the trip trading CRAZY MOM stories and it was very therapeutic, at least for me. Katie's mom is definitely crazier than mine but I had some pretty good stories to tell as well. It was really nice to be able to talk about my mom with someone who actually understands exactly what its like to be in these kind of situations. Katie wasn't shocked by ANYTHING I said my mom did and, in fact, she could predict some of the things my mom would do... because hers would have done the exact same thing. She has a (strained) relationship with her mom now and gave me some tips for the future. I insisted to her that I will never let that woman be my mother again but Katie thinks, with time and boundaries and realistic expectations, that I will. BOO.

Somewhere along the way in San Miguel we decided that everyone looking at us is probably assuming that we are related (the color scheme is the same, both have prominent noses AND we both wear bright red coats. Everyone knows red coats are hereditary). We decided that we are sisters from the same insane mother.

Sisters?

I didn't tell Katie but I decided that I was a love child. Everyone loves a love child. It's so romantic.

It was another beautiful day in San Miguel so we decided to keep with our piddle around schedule. We aimed roughly for the Artesina and just walked with eyes open for adventure. We stumbled across a neat little liberal bastion... Juan's cafe AKA... Obamaland. Besides the normal neat and kitschy décor this cafe also had an Obama shrine. Katie and I decided to take this as a sign that we should patronize the establishment. We have a couple of cups of hot beverage and snapped some pictures.

Further down the path we came across a shop that sold all sorts of southern Mexican/central American/south American knitted items. I found a pair of rainbow fingerless Alpaca gloves that I decided I had to have. I saw one price tag on a pile of gloves so I, silly me, assumed this was the price for the gloves in this pile. HA HA HA.

I handed the storekeeper more money than I should have (I should have learned from the Trevi Fountain back in Rome) and he handed be back like WAAAY less change than I was expecting. I asked him about this and he gave me this 'silly you' look and said that the lower price had been for regular gloves... these were ALPACA so they were MUCH more. Then, satisfied, turned and wandered off in the store. Even the big price was less than $10 so I wasn't going to have a fit about it... but... I definitely got the gringa price!

Walking down the street later Katie scolded me and said NEVER EVER EVER EVER hand them money until you have verbally negotiated a price for the exact item you are holding in your hand. The old bait-n-switch'll get you every time. Live. Learn. Then get Loves.

We came across a hostel and Katie wanted to check it out to see what prices were like (for future reference). My little face lit up like Christmas when I saw a computer sitting in the lobby. The computer had to have been from 1997 but the Firefox icon on the desktop made me giddy.

I paid my 10 pesos and, for the first time in 3 days, got onto Facebook. Awww. Facebook.

Katie and I took turned using the computer and chatting with the people staying in the hostel (mostly awesome backpackers with crazy stories and haggard, but happy, faces). One guy was from Dallas (Oak Cliff) but works completely online. He just travels the world with his laptop and works from wherever the heck he wants to. I think he was going to South America next.

Next stop was the Artesinal. It was underwhelming. Hardly any of the stands were opened so we just breezed through it and set our sights to our next destination: La Aurora.

LA AURORA!!

La Aurora was another place our locals had recommended. Based on the description she had given I wasn't convinced it would be anything I would be interested in but Katie was all for it. I was just happy to be going around town and experiencing whatever adventures we had along the way. I guess its good to have a destination.

The antique machinery was pretty neat!

La Aurora is an old textile factory that has been converted to an art gallery (the kind of place rich people go to buy fancy stuff). We had FANCY lady lunch at The Food Factory and that was delicious. Salmon coquettes and little brie sandwiches. Then we looked through the fancy art shoppes and complained about how much money rich people spend on stupid stuff. I did like that part.

Outside La Aurora was a wish fountain with some coy. I took out some pesos and gave them to the little boys (probably 3-5 yrs old) that were staring at the fish. I taught them how to make wishes at a wishing fountain and all three of us made wishes at the same time.

Katie and I made our way back to the room for another siesta break before heading out to explore the mysterious south side. So far all our adventures had taken place in every other direction.

I decided to take charge and stop being such a passive explorer. The south side was more residential so there weren't as many neat shoppes to explore. On the map I saw that the two main points of interest were Plaza Del Toros and Benito Juarez Park. I'm still not sure who Benito Juarez was but pretty much every other thing in this country is named after him.

Plaza del Toros was our first destination... and we somehow completely missed it and ended up at the park. The park was beautiful: lots of trees and fountains and statues and paths to wander. There was a nice, newish, playground with lots of kids and adults running around like crazy. The equipment was fairly updated and well maintained.

On the side of the playground was a rickety old bridge that lead to a dodgy old playground that was probably built in 1912.

Of course Katie and I decided to play on the dangerous playground.

First there was this rusty old pumpkin looking cage thing that spun around. Some children were on it and a man was spinning them around.

UH OH!!!

I looked at Katie and said, “A pumpkin!”

“A pumpkin!” she replied.

“No es un pumpkin (It's not a pumpkin),” the man butted in, very serious.

“It looks like a pumpkin.”

I told Katie to jump on with the kids and... she did. The man kept pushing the thing around and around but looked as if he wasn't too impressed with the crazy gringas.

Next we saw the most dangerous looking see-saw/teeter totter I have ever seen.

This doesn't look dangerous at all...

yep. perfectly safe.

Screws were missing, the wood was partly broken and splintered, it was rusted and dirty. Of course we had to play on it. I was a little afraid that it would snap in the middle under our weight but... it was fine. We slid the camera back and forth down its plank and took turns taking action shots of each other.

WEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!1

A little boy and his dad wandered up and the little boy stood directly beside me. I asked him if he wanted to play. He nodded his head furiously. I helped him onto my side of the see-saw and stepped back. Katie started to dismount but I reminded her that little Pappo couldn't see-saw alone! Katie and Pappo see-sawed for a little while and I am pretty sure Pappo is now going to grow up to marry a gringa because by the end of it he was giving Katie the look of love.

Katie and Pappo

Our next goal was to find the elusive Plaza del Toros. We wandered up the street it should be across from... no Plaza del Toros. We asked a mounted officer for directions and he pointed us back down the way we came and ended up back at the park.... no Plaza del Toros. We got the map out and explicitly followed it directly to the cross streets where it was located... and still no Plaza del Toros. To this day we are still not sure what happened to Plaza del Toros. It was a GIANT thing on the map but now it has disappeared into the Ether.... it's out there, somewhere, situated between Avalon and Narnia.

Dinner was the next item on the agenda. We were both incredibly hungry but had run out of local suggestions. Katie decided that we should eat at one of the cute terrace restaurants over by out hotel. I was too thrilled about that! (HELLO FANCY LADY!)

On our way we passed by the giant pink cathedral again. Scantily clad Mayans in enormous crazy feathered hats were dancing around wildly to crazy drums. Although we were starving, Katie and I couldn't pass this up. We stopped and watched.

It became almost immediately apparent that some of the dancers were way more into it than others. There were dancers who had very serious, intent looks on their faces while they vigorously jumped up and down and whirled round and round. There were also dancers who kind of skipped about, looking a bit bored, and sometimes just stood there, staring around. I decided the lackluster dancers were probably only in it for social reasons (probably to be near that 'special someone').

After the dancing was over we headed to dinner in the terrace restaurant. We were the only customers up there with 5 or 6 white suited waiters anxiously waiting on our every need.

Mmm Flan....

The view was amazing and the food was delicious. We got the watch the sun set over the mountains and see all the Christmas lights popping on across the city. (I am still not sure why they are still using Christmas lights in mid January.)

On the way back to the room we stopped by the front desk to ask for a heater. I am not sure what the word for 'heater' is in Spanish so I made up my own word: calor-ador (hot machine). For some reason it took forever for the front desk to bring us our calor-ador!! Not long after we finally got our heater and were settling in – -BANG BOOM BANG!!!

I grabbed the phone and called the from desk, “BANG BOOM BANG! ¿QUE ES? (What is that?)”

The voice on the phone responded with some word I didn't understand.

“¿QUE? (What?)”

In Spanish he said that it was 'artificial fire'. At least it wasn't a gun.

The loud explosions resounded through the air again: this time it triggered a flash of inspiration.

“I bet we can see the fireworks from our roof!”

Like children on Christmas morning, Katie and I rushed out of the room, in our pajamas, into the cold night air and out onto our 3rd story roof. We looked down the alley towards the Plaza with giddy anticipation. A crowd had gathered in front of the Cathedral to enjoy the show.

BANG BANG BOOM BOOM!!!!!!

Fireworks exploded almost directly above our heads. The bursts of light were so close I was afraid the ashes would burn us as they drifted down. I never imagined I would ever be so close to fireworks. I couldn't take my eyes off the bright blooms of light but my entire body was shivering from the cold. The warm blankets on the bed suddenly flashed across my mind and I took off running back the room. I grabbed one and dashed back to the roof.

“GREAT IDEA!” Katie was shivering harder than I was.

We sat on the edge of the roof, sharing a blanket, and enjoyed the rest of the show. Every time a new firework would explode over us we would jump from the noise and burst into a mad fit giggles. Eventually the show was over and we returned to our warm room to enjoy a good night's sleep.

and around and around and around...