How many tacos can someone eat in one day? I think that yesterday James and I packed down at least 30 a piece. Tacos for breakfast, lunch, dinner and the infamous fourthmeal. There is something about the crunchy, succulent little things that are irresistable and will never get old. The ingredients are simple, fresh corn tortillas, marinated pork thats been slow cooked on a spit (known as pastor), a slice of pineapple that is cooked on the spit with the pastor, cilantro, and then diced onion are smothered on top. On the table you typically have your choice of five or six different salsas, each one with its degree of spice. I think the best is the salsa aquacate, which is a mild avocado and tomatillo salsa that makes a perfect compliment to extra spicy mexican pico de gallo, which blows the mild stuff we have in Missouri out of the water. Add a little bit of fresh lime juice and you are devouring the ultimate cheap meal. Depending on the taqueria you go to, the price ranges from 6 to 15 pesos per taco ($.50 to $1.15). If there were small, street taquerias serving pastor tacos on the streets outside of bars in college towns, they would make millions.
Although thanks to my taco and mezcal binge from the night before, I woke up at 6 am on Tuesday with heartburn that felt like an alien was about to burst out my chest and devour everyone in the hostel. It took about two agonizing hours and two liters of water to finally drowned the alien, and I made a mental not to put spicy sauce on any late night tacos that I eat. We had only booked one night in the hostel, since James' friend Carlos had some extra space in his house and offered to let us stay there for the remainder of our time in Mexico City. Since our hostel was right next to zocolo which is the city center, and Carlos lived in El Olivo which is a nice neighborhood in the southwest of the city, we had a couple of hours to explore before Carlos could come pick us up. So we locked our bags up at the hostel and went for a stroll. Stopped for tacos a couple of liters of Indio, another delicious Mexican beer that deserves to be sold up north, checked out the shops that had their holiday fare on display, and walked through zocolo, where an enormous ice rink had been set up. It is hilarious watching Mexicans ice skate. There was an enormous line, and the rink was full, but many of the skaters were stuck to the wall, afraid to venture out into the vast expanse of ice for fear of humiliating themselves by falling and facing ridicule from all their cowardly friends who clung to the safety of the wall.
One thing that is impossible to overlook when in an important location such as Zocolo, is the overbearing police presence. The streets were incredibly crowded, so much so it was difficult to navigate through them, but there were at least two or three policemen on every single block. Some were directing traffic, making sure that no crazy drivers ran over the army of pedestrians, but the rest were just standing around mean-mugging the two gringos that stood a head taller than them and were walking around like they owned the place. There were also trucks full of police in battle gear, sporting brand new M4s with a small machine gun mounted to the top, looking like they were going into a war zone and not into Mexico's main shopping district...although now that I think about it, after trying to squeeze through the throngs of people, having an automatic weapon would certainly make things easier. Also having worked in a mall during the holiday season, I can pretty safely say that shopping centers are war zones, so the firepower was understandable. Of course the real reason for the police is the ever-present threat ofnarco violence that has rocked Mexico and kept the attention of us in the United States for the past couple of years. I'll probably write a little more about it later, but thankfully most of the violence is centered in the north, along the border, and not in Mexico City and the southern portion where we will be traveling.
Carlos braved the traffic and picked us up at about 1:30. Already 10 tacos and two liters of beer in for the day, for some reason going to the zoo sounded like a good idea. So we grabbed our bags and piled in the car to head off towards the zoo. James, in haste, forgot his jacket and scarf in the hostel, typical. We met up with Callejas (aka Gordo), a rugby buddy of James' and friend of Carlos', and explored the zoo for a few hours. Carlos then drove us out to his house in El Olivo and thanks to all the beer we drank in the middle of the day, took a much needed siesta. After we woke up, we walked to the mecca of tacos (according to James) Tacos El Olivo. A small restaurant on the main street that serves up the biggest, fattest, most delicious tacos in the city, and we proceeded to eat about 10 a piece, which is no small feat considering their size.
We hung out for a bit with this neighbor kid named Eric, and he brought over some poker chips to play Texas Hold'em. Poker rules in Mexico are a little different, for instance, in the United States, it is well known that in all matters of weed and poker, the flow always goes to the left. However, in Mexico, you deal and bet to the right. It was a little confusing whenever Eric would deal, but we finally got him conditioned to play the "correct" way. Poker didn't last too long, not enough players and with no money on the table there is little incentive to play frugal. So we decided to go play a little bit of 2 on 2 basketball on a court next door to Carlos' house. One thing I love about traveling to other countries is how much my basketball skills improve by just crossing the border. Back home, my basketball skills are hilarious, as in, people laugh when they watch me play because I am so bad. But in other countries, I can kick ass on the court...although if I were to step on to a soccer pitch I would be destroyed. Of course, with James on the court as well, my delusions of grandeur quickly disappear since he actually IS good at basketball and makes me look about as talented as those who don't know how to play. After the basketball game, a couple of young kids (about 4 and 7 years old) from the neighborhood started playing soccer on the court, so we asked them if we could play and they had a great time running around with a couple of gringos. We may have even been the first they had ever met. Even though they were young, Miguel, the 7 year old, had a damn dirty mouth. At one point he asked James if he liked "milk", and then when James said yes, he replied, "then bend over."
Anyways, two days in and I have yet to sit down and watch TV for even 30 seconds. I can slowly feel parts of my brain that have been conditioned to become idle, due to all the damn TV that I've watched, slowly come back to life. I would like to try to make it through the entire trip without watching more than 10 hours of TV (I mean, a little bit is inevitable) in an attempt to break the habit that I've picked up of watching hours a day. A comfortable sofa, 40 inch high definition tv and HBO make for a dangerous combination...ask my roomate Curtis.
Time to get breakfast. Peace!
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