By Walter Agnew Moore II
Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 21:23:12 -0500

Still in Zacatecas. Had some idea of being in Colima today instead of tomorrow, but after 4 straight days of packing and driving and unpacking and driving more, the body said "No".

And I know why now: It´s the altitude.

Now I hear you say, "Walter, you are tired because you never exercise and you are hauling around 20 pounds of extra gut and you drink way too much beer, so OF COURSE you are tired", but no, a dude told me yesterday that I was simply feeling the effects of going from near sea-level to about a mile high here in Zacatecas, and he lives here and you don´t, so don´t tell me it´s not altitude.

Altitude can affect a lot of things. It made the Xmen 2 movie suck. I saw it last night after clumping up and down hills in heavy boots and paying a rose-selling child two pesos for information on the theater´s whereabouts.

On the way back up the hill to town, a scad of small children were cackling with glee as they ran to and fro under a street-lamp, smacking bugs with their sandals. A few feet away, a father was standing outside his house, holding up a baby who was laughing while a radio blared.

If you walk into a bar in Mexico and don´t really know how to break the ice with the cute bar-tendress, may I suggest letting her accidentally spray you on the arm with Coca-Cola? The ensuing apologies and conversation give you a decent shot at going out to music clubs with her after her own bar closes. The music style here is called "Trova" and seems kind of like US folk music except that the singers have good voices, musical competence, and non-whiny lyrics.

My Coca-Cola spraying buddy knew some good places to go, and I mean, damn, can you really go wrong strolling around a Spanish plaza with a pretty girl? There is, however, an alarmingly long list of Things That Nice Mexican Girls Don't Do On The First Date With Total Strangers From Other Countries.

I wonder what "Tu eres muy atrevido" means...

Oh well. It still beat getting a sharp stick in the eye. Plus, she filled me in on some nice local info, like that this neat short-cut I was going to take to Guadalajara is in fact a bandit-infested winding mountain track, and this other road is the one everyone takes because it has 4 lanes and police and you don't die.

Well, gonna go get cleaned up. When she gets off work tonight, we are going to a different club called La mini-me or La mayonnaise or somesuch, anyway, it's Cuban, it'll be fun, then I'll wake up and hit the road for the Pacific side of things.