We spent the next few days being chauffeured around by Doctorcita Daniela to various municipal offices taking care of official business. What would normally take an hour usually ended up taking six which is par for the course down here. At one point the power was being turned off every ten minutes because some electricians were fixing the lines for the office; this meant that we had to wait three hours for one document to be printed and signed. Luckily our insurance covers third party liability so the car that I hit was paid for but unluckily enough I have no insurance for myself nor the motorcycle and needless to say the other car had no insurance so I’ll be paying out of pocket. On the day of determining culpability we were supposed to meet with our appointed lawyer at eleven on a Monday but after we arrived on time (big mistake) the woman in charge of the proceedings asked if we wouldn’t mind waiting three or four hours since they were kinda busy at the moment. This turned out to be alright since our lawyer didn’t show up until four hours later.
What’s left after the fire in broad daylight.
My knee did that!
El Changa’s car in the huesero.
We hung out with the three guys that were in the car as they had been waiting even longer than us for some sort of closure and an estimate on the damages that the insurance was going to pay for. One of the guys was nicknamed La Chango which brought up a few jokes about him being a transvestite since for some reason he took the feminine form for the word monkey. He even had a belt buckle especially made for his hermaphroditic nature. We finally finished all the paperwork and were ready to head to the coche huesero, or car graveyard, to pick up the remnants of the motorcycle. But it turned out to be an hour drive away so not today.
El Changa is Angry! He’s about to smash my foot.
Instead it was the weekend of Semana Santa, Easter to the non-Mexican, and so Daniela and Tania invited us to their parents place in Texco which was about an hour and a half drive out of town. We loaded up the car Saturday morning and made the drive on the same dangerous libre roads that the accident happened on but other than a few crazy close calls (for some reason Mexicans prefer passing on blind corners) we made it to their hometown in the early afternoon. Their father and mother, Benito and Olivia, were waiting at the house to greet the two anachronistic gringos who had shown up somewhat randomly into the lives of their family. They immediately welcome us into the family just as their daughters had and we settled in quite quickly.
Each weekend the family of twenty one cousins and their parents get together for a giant lunch at grandma’s house and games of football, poker, dominos et. al. So after sunning for a while with the girls as they did their nails next to the indoor swimming pool that the mother had decided needed to be drained years ago and the father had decided that it might be a good place to install a well-stocked bar in the deep end we all headed over to grandma’s for the feast.
The Entrance to Grandma’s House.
The Bar at the deep end of the drained pool.
The Table is ready to go (notice the bottle of Coca-Cola as centerpiece… it’s a new marketing ploy that pushes for Coca-Cola to be a part of dinner that’s been pushed pretty hard)
The Sangria being made by Daniela’s Aunt and Uncle.
The Paella that our household brought over; we ate leftovers for the next week.
After three courses of different types of ceviché, (shrimp, octopus, and fish) the main course of Paella came out in deep, deep dishes. We sat at the overflow table, aka kids. After dessert and coffee a very competitive game of soccer began that devolved or evolved into daughters versus mothers. Surprisingly the mothers kicked ass after being quite hesitant about playing. The daughters came off of the field with bruised egos and bruises.
Mothers versus Daughters in the Thunderdome!
For a six-year-old he was awesome and actually one of the leading goal-scorers.
A big game of Texas Hold’em was started while the parents played dominos and the girls discussed plans for the night (after playing tug-of-war with the garden hose). [For some reason I was the first one out of the Hold’em game seems I’m a bit rusty or it’s hard to bluff beginners, either way it was slightly embarrassing.]
Me losing at Texas Hold’em.
Impressions by La Guera.
After some more drinks everyone decided upon a late afternoon siesta so we headed home to get ready for the evening in the plaza.
Once the girls were showered and dressed we walked to the plaza and hung out at grandma’s pharmacy on the corner as the family gathered slowly. We went over to the church and listened to mass in the overflow tent that was set up at the entrance before looking for some street fare (gorditas, vampiros, quesadillas, and tortas) was partaken. Then it was decided that we should go to the only bar in town which wasn’t in town but ten minutes outside so we all piled into a giant SUV and scarily began to drive at night in Mexico on a holiday; you are pretty much guaranteed that every driver is speeding, angry, and drunk. We get to the ‘bar’ which is really a converted mechanics garage with some speakers and lights set up around some tin fold out tables and chairs. You can either buy a box of beer or a bottle of rum and the girls always chose the latter. By the time all the cousins trickled in we had become quite a large and boisterous group of about twenty.
The cousins gather for some underage drinking if there is such a thing in Mexico.
One of the cousins by the name of Aldo is prone to fights (probably protective of his hot girlfriend) so he went over to another table and started punching a guy repeatedly into a wall. The guy didn’t like this. After a rush to separate them the other guy was taken outside and word got back to our table via his friends that he’d gone to get his gun from his car. Since we are with the family of Aldo, aka the target, it was unanimously decided that it wouldn’t be good to hang around behind him nor would it be a good idea to stay at the bar so everyone was rounded up and escorted out to the cars. Luckily the other guy was nowhere to be seen and so it was decided we’d had enough ‘excitement’ for the night and headed home.
The next day we awoke for a day excursion by panga through the local reservoir. We trespassed on an exclusive bungalow hotel island for a little while and then got the boot after the manager let us know that it costs 75 dollars per person per night. Then we made our way back to the boat launch where we ran into the friends of the guy that Aldo beat up who were idling around the tienda drinking beers twelve hours later. They bought a couple of six-packs and we all chilled in the shade and shot the shit about the night before. Turns out that Aldo and the other guy regularly get into fights but it’s quite irregular that the other one goes for his gun. I guess we just bring the good luck with us.
Being kicked off the private bungalow island hotel-thingy.
Josh is funny.
