La Mejor Dia de mi Vida

Yesterday all of my Mexico dreams came true.

The people here celebrate Carnival, which is like their version of Mardi Gras (minus the beads).  Vera Cruz is the place to be for Carnival, but we decided to pass on that booze fest for a small town celebration (which also happened to be quite the booze fest).

Before I go on, let me say that we have a new roommate from foggy London town named Shelley.  She's great - we can talk about Latin American and United States politics for hours, then turn around and talk about Paris Hilton and American Idol for even longer.  We're going to be great friends.

Con Con, Shelley, our boss's daughter and I left for the tiny little mountain town called Coyolillo on Tuesday afternoon via bus (It took us a while to find the bus - they don't have published bus schedules or destinations, you have to figure out where you need to be and what bus you need to take by asking people on the street.  Oh, Mexico...)  The bus ride was amazing.  It's just how you'd imagine a Mexico bus (minus the chickens, unfortunately) - a rickety old thing packed with cowboys and old women.  The cherry on the top was the awkward adolecent boy who played his guitar and belted out love ballads at the top of his lungs for pesos.  No one seemed to think this was out of the ordinary, but Con and I thought this was pretty much the best bus ride of all time.  And the scenery!  Hello!  Mountains, cactus, the land here is a tough kind of beautiful.

(One side note - this is important, but unrelated.  Apparently Connor bears a striking resemblance to a popular Mexican ballad singer named Emanuel.  A little old lady approached him and asked him to sing.  We told her we're from the U.S., but she didn't believe a word of it and went on to tell us that her daughter has been to all of his concerts and that he's so guapo!  The ladies do love Con here, as we were to find out at Carnival...)

When we got to Coyolillo at around 2:30, things hadn't officially started yet.  We were able to explore the entire town a couple of times in about 2 minutes.  There were no restaurants and no public restrooms, but there was a lively group of young men drinking cervecas at a small convenient store, so that seemed like a good place to start.  Turns out it probably wasn't the best idea.  One came up to us asked us for our beer, and he seemed like the kind of guy you shouldn't say no to!  Another wanted me to chose American Music on the jukebox ("Te gusta Christeena Aguilara?"  Sure, buddy...).  As I was searching for a song, the guys started hooting and yelling things at Connor, and that's when we realized this transaction was more than music related.  Con had to drag me away and we got out of there pretty quickly.

This little incident was followed immediately by the drunkest man I've ever seen standing on two feet with his fly down all the way come up behind Connor and telling him about how Shelley and I have curves that don't stop.  Yikes.

So it was a rocky start, but things turned around fast when we learned first hand about good old Mexican hospitality.  We finally found a restaurant and asked when it opened for lunch.  The woman replied that it wasn't a restaurant but her home, and she invited us in for lunch.  She came out with plate after plate of chiles prepared in different ways, fried pork, home made tortillas, refried beans...it was so nice and so strange!

Then we went to another area where people were gathered, and they offered us a table and a pitcher of some dangerously delicious homemade alcoholic beverage.  We chatted with an old man who played us ballads on his guitar, got his phone number, and met a family from Jalapa who offered us beer and food, and got their phone numbers.  Everyone wanted to make sure we were comfortable and having fun, which we were (especially with all that free flowing beer - we found our Spanish improved as the booze intake increased).  

We went on the watch the crowning of the Rey and Reia of Coyolillo - a VERY big deal.  The first King and Queen of Coyolillo, crowned back in 1976, really were royalty - small town Mexico's answer to Brangalina.  

I haven't even started on the masks.  Apparently they used to believe that demons lived in the streets, so they dress up with homemade decorated capes and beautiful homemade masks of bulls to look like the demons that supposedly haunted the town so long ago.  The kids are also running around with their own masks.

After the ridiculously long ceremony crowning the new King and Queen, we sat down at the side of the road for a breather.  This didn't last long, because the family across the street insisted that we come in and stuff our already over stuffed bellies with more homemade Mexican comida.  Saying no would be a grave insult (and a missed opportunity) so we went in for round two, and it was the same routine.  Plate after plate of stuffed chilles and a strange brown squishy banana for desert.  It was "interesting," and I had to choke down two with a smile to assure the hostess that I liked it.

OK this is way to long to hold anyone's attention, sorry.  I'll wrap it up here.  The end of the day is the grand finale.

We met back up with the friendly Jalapa family, who made sure that our cup runneth over.  The father would be mad if he saw beer that people weren't drinking.  A mariachi band started up, and we danced and drank and laughed for hours.  The ladies loved Connor (but thought he was a horrible dancer!) and they wanted to meet with us again in Jalapa.  When we were all sufficiently drunk, the town parade started (it lasted about five minutes and pretty much everyone in town was in it!).  It ended with all of the men stampeding down the street - some dressed up in masks, some dressed in drag with pregnant bellies and baby dolls (not sure the significance of that one...), everyone screaming and jumping around.

Finally, as the sun was setting, we got invited to hop in the back of our new friends' pickup truck with all the kids and moms for a ride home.  Connor's safety side told him this might be a bad idea, but I told him, wake up boy!  This is the chance of a lifetime!  So home we went, whipping around in the back of an old pickup, singing and drinking brandy with our new amigos.

Of course, they wanted us to join them for a "short while" at their casa, and finding it nearly impossible to refuse, we went in to continue the party and were finally able to make our getaway about an hour later.

Good stuff.  Tomorrow we have a Spelling Bee to judge and apparently it's a big deal.  They want us to dress up, and have invited government officials, and there are microphones and kids with numbers on their shirts, the whole nine yards.