When your first night in Mexico ends at four in the morning with the hazy, Tequila-laden promise that you will adopt two Mexican toddlers and help their mother and her secret boyfriend escape with you to live on the beach in Belize, you know it is going to be a long three months.
Not content to rest after a long day of travel, we go in search of our first official taste of authentic Mexican tequila. This finds us in a rustic, scrappy little cantina called Los Jarritos - La Cuidad´s very own version of Brigadoon. A bar so magical and special, that it must appear on earth for one night only every one hundred years. We know this to be true because for several days after, we were completely unable to find it again.
The beers are 12 pesos (a bit less than one dollar) and the tequila is served in snifter glasses along with tiny key limes and sea salt. The place is no-frills, tile floor, wobbly tables, wooden chairs, bright lights. The juke box is blaring the moaning, warbling sounds of Ranchera, Mexico´s country blues. The waitress will die in this bar, her eyes thickly lined with black pencil, her hair pulled back tight into a slick, black pony tail, the memory of a thousand nights like this etched into the lines on her face. We dive right in, swilling the tequila and wincing at its bitterness, sucking on limes, licking salt, while next to us, an old man, well-dressed, pressed white shirt, aviator sunglasses, falls completely out of his chair and smacks the floor, hard. His collins glass filled with rum and coke shatters about him. He grunts. The waitress barely registers an emotion. She slowly stands up from her chair in the corner and walks over to him as if this is the the fifteenth time she has done this tonight. He is a baby throwing his toy out of his crib, and she his bored mama, retrieving it again and again. She hoists him up back in his seat. He slumps over, his head banging the tabletop. The glass is swept up, the spill soaked with a dirty rag and a new tall glass of rum is placed before him, all a carefully rehearsed little dance. We seem to be the only ones in the bar who find this hilarious or worthy of attention. In his honor, we order more tequila.
After he falls again, we decide it is time to go.
Out in the night the city is still up and celebrating. In the distance, the trippy lights of a carnival are an irresistable invitation. It is after midnight and it is Monday. A ferris whell is turning, arcade games are pinging and dinging, people are shrieking in terror and delight as they are whipped about in the air by various implements of torture. This is a great carnival. The tilt-a-whirl is bedecked with airbrushed paintings of Jesus suffering on the cross. Next to the ball toss a hawker sells shots of tequila and cups of sexo en la playa. Small children are up way past their bedtimes, engorging on sweets and tacos filled with cheese and all variety of mystery meats. In the middle of the midway is an inexplicable ride, hurling people upside down and high atop the surrounding buildings. Everyone is screaming bloody murder. It is completely absurd, it does not look fun or even the tiniest bit safe. So of course we pay 60 pesos to get on. As we climb aboard we make friends with the couple next to us. These may very well be the last people we ever meet. They are drunk and red-faced and happy and they speak English. The girl is screaming "tequila, tequila tequila!!!" and we all promise if we survive that we will indeed share a drink together. The ride is awful and the closest to death I have ever come. William loves it.
We run screaming down the streets with our new friends, Yvonne and Hans, who take us to the famous Plaza Garibaldi for an almost transcendental experience. Plaza Garibaldi is the place of the mariachis, the almost stereotypical Mexican musicans, dressed like bullfighters, strumming guitars and harmonizing sweet songs about love and loss. The Plaza is full of them, along with dozens of onlookers, like us, arms around strangers, tugging at the necks of tequila bottles. Old men break out into song and sponatenously dance with one another - it is the most wonderful drunk party in the world.
In the midst of all this merriment we learn about our new friends. Yvonne, a mother of two, has snuck out of her husband´s house to be with Hans. Kids, it is 2 in the morning. Do you know where your mother is? She wants to leave here husband. He is abusive and besides, she loves Hans. Over steaming hot bowls of lamb stew and guacamole and who knows what else, William plots her rescue. He is the Harriet Tubman of Mexico. I try to reason with him. It is only our first night. We cannot adopt two children and their mother and her boyfriend. We don´t even know how to get back to our hostel.
Despite this, we make another date for the following evening and stumble happily back into the night. The first day of our trip a complete success.
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