Random Thoughts

Here are a whole lot of random thoughts on Mexico that I've been saving up for a while now. Brace yourselves.

Night drumming: For some reason I've had the impression lately that, no matter what city we've been in, as soon as Emily and I are ready to call it a night a huge festival is starting outside. Namely, there seem to be people constantly drumming outside at night. Sometimes they even have horns accompanying them. It's like there's always a parade somewhere, but they wait for the tourists to go to sleep so that they can get started. (I will note that last night, the drumming we heard was very good Japanese taiko drumming, and we actually watched a fair amount of it before we heard the rest from our conveniently nearby room.)

Bus Money: If you're riding the bus in Mexico, bring extra money with you. Why? Because there's always the chance that someone will come on the bus selling something. Oftentimes it's food (snacks, meals, ice cream); sometimes it's a dubious cure-all like the guy selling Grandma's special tea that fixes all of your ailments; sometimes people even just come on the bus to beg money from the passengers. The only busses that won't let vendors on are the deluxe lines. Everything else is fair game.

No Returns or Exchanges, Please: I have a book in Spanish that I bought in Playa del Carmen. It's a best-selling thriller, translated into Spanish from the original Portuguese. It is still sealed in the plastic that most books in Mexico come wrapped in, and I haven't read it yet because I've been too busy reading books by Latin American authors. I decided at some point that it would be a good idea to try to exchange this book (after all, it's still a brand-new best-seller) for store credit somewhere to get other books that I'm more interested in reading at present. As it turns out, bookstores in Mexico will not exchange books unless you bought it at te particular branch of the store in which you're trying to make the exchange. It doesn't matter whether it's a little local shop or a big chain with stores throughout the country: if you're not returning it exactly where you bought it, you're out of luck. If you don't have a receipt because it was a gift, you're also out of luck. It's a very frustrating process. The moral of the story is be very careful about picking books to buy in Mexico, because you may just be stuck with your choice forever. (Thankfully, I'm still interested in reading my book one day--it would be worse if I just didn't want it all.)

Literature in Translation: Speaking of books in Mexico, there's a strange trend that we've noticed here in book translation. Namely, besides translated the book itself, they also translate the names of the authors into Spanish. Jules Verne, for example, becomes Julio Verne. Alexander Dumas here is Alejandro. Overzealous translators, maybe?

Strange Creatures: Scientific evidence proves that ancient Mexicans must have been strangely-built folks. Note the tremendous stairs that one has to scale at any given archaeological site in Mexico: we know from the construction that ancient Mexicans must have had tremendously long legs. Note also, however, the short doorways throughout ancient (and even modern) Mexico, which demonstrate the overall small stature of the people. The race of people must have had 4-foot-long legs and about 1 foot total for the torso and the head, that much we know for sure. I would speculate additionally that ancient Mexicans could, with their frog-like structure, jump incredibly high.

La Michoacana: We haven't visited there during our trip, but Emily and I have decided that Michoacan must make very good ice cream. We assume this because 9 out of every 10 ice cream shops here is called "La Michoacana." No, it's not an ice cream mega-chain. While there was a small La Michoacana chain in Oaxaca, the stores in the rest of the country don't appear to be related. And every city, no matter how small, has at least one La Michoacana. In Mazatlán, there were two La Michoacanas on the same block, separated by one other store. Mexico must have lax trademark laws (as if we didn't already know).