Zacatecas Trip

Hola!

First I'll start out by saying that I hope the end of everyones summer is going well and that those who are back in classes aren't dreading it too much. From looking at everyones statuses on Facebook, it looks like the weather has been pretty rainy lately. Bummer, especially since I get to experience sunshine everyday. Well, the rainy season is around the corner and I'm regretting that I didn't bring my rainboots.

Last Friday we departed from Guanajuato to go to Zacatecas. It is about a 4 hour drive north of here and we took a 10 passenger van which was a little cramped at times. We checked into our hostel around 7:00 and then proceeded to have a quick tour around the city. After walking around, it's pretty easy to figure out where you are. Luckily, by 8:30 our free-time started, so Jack, Sarah, and I went to a restaurant that only served gorditas; these were so delicious! Seriously, I have yet to make a complaint about the food here. We decided to take it easy on Friday night because we planned to go out on Saturday. Instead, we walked around the city some more until we found this great food stand with walking-tacos. We were so surprised to find walking-tacos in Mexico, probably because it seems like such an American thing. Instead of using Fritos the woman made it with Doritos (aka Dori-Nachos here) and let me tell you, they are way better here. Instead of using meat she used about everything else including cream, salsa, lettuce, pico de gallo, onion, jalapeños, etc etc. When we were standing in line, we met some American from Georgia who is currently living in Mexico. This guy was definitely a hippie, but it was good talking to him - he had a lot of insight about Mexico and knows the country pretty well since he has lived in D.F. for about a year or a little more teaching English. It was nice talking to another American who doesn't have the stereotypical ideas of Mexico like the majority of the people in the states regarding poverty, danger, what the people are like, how educated they are, etc etc. This made me realize that you really can't have a correct opinion or idea about Mexico unless you have spent a good amount of time here - not including a week on vacation for spring break either. Although, I'm sure this is true about any place in the world. He was in Zacatecas on a quick vacation and told us about some other great cities that we should visit while we are here. After talking to him for a while, we headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

Saturday morning we got up and went to breakfast around 9:00. We went to a really great restaurant that had many different breakfast foods: I went with chilaquiles - this is a common breakfast food here which consists of tortillas or tortilla chips cooked in salsa; it is incredible and really easy to make according to Sarah. After breakfast we visited La Quemada pyramids, which was about a 45 minute drive away from the city. This was a really cool place and I swear we were hiking up the pyramids for two hours or so. I found it interesting that 7 indigenous groups had built this structure - I guess every consequent group that had lived in the area just kept adding on to it. I was dumb and only brought flip-flops that weekend which made it a little difficult to hike haha.

After La Quemada we headed back towards Zacatecas and stopped at this great seafood restaurant for lunch. I had huachinango (red snapper) which was delicious. Sarah was pretty grossed out because they brought me the whole fish and she didn't particularly enjoy the fish still having eyes and "looking at her". This doesn't really gross me out; I was too hungry to care anyway.

After lunch we headed to the Mina (mine) del Eden. I wasn't too excited about this initially, but when were told we could bring beer I got more excited haha. We took this little train inside and had to wear these goofy hairnets and hardhats. Once inside, the mine was actually a lot cooler than I thought it would be. We walked around for a little while, looking at some rocks in display cases while our guide was telling all about this place. When we heard there was actually a dance club in the mine, we had decided where we would be spending our night. After coming out of the mine, we took a cable car ride to Cerro de la Bufa (it's a bluff or something) where we did some more walking and listening to our guide. We were all pretty exhausted when we were walking back to the van in the parking lot, but we passed this tent on the side of the mountain that had zip-lining! Sarah, Jack, Jessica, and I decided that we had to do it. The best part was that it only cost each person 100 pesos (about $8.00)!! I highly doubt you'll find that price anywhere else! I've never been zip-lining before and wow, it is incredible! When we got back to putting our feet on the ground, we headed back to the hostel for free-time and our individual dinner.

I took a quick shower and then Sarah, Jack, and I walked around downtown to look for a place to eat. We found this cute little restaurant with only two ladies working - both behind a counter where they cooked all the food. Sarah and I both had quesadillas and I don't remember what Jack ate. The papaya water that I had with the quesadillas was also really good. After dinner, we went to an Oxxo (like a 7-11 / gas station) and bought some beer to pregame with. We played drinking games until about 11:30 or 12:00 and then took a taxi to the mine club. We were severely underdressed and I think if we were Mexicans they wouldn't have let us in. Many guys were in dress pants and shirts while most girls we wearing dresses or dressy clothing. It cost 115 pesos (approx. $10) to get in, but it was completely worth the money. C'mon how many people can say they've partied and dance in a mine?! When we sat down, we ordered a bottle of Smirnoff between the 3 of us - I had about 1 and a half drinks from it since I had my fair share of beer at the hostel. The music was great and we were dancing for almost the entire night. We met some cool people that night from D.F. and didn't leave until 3:30 and got back to the hostel around 4:00 after failing to find an open food stand haha.

The next morning, we had breakfast again around 9:00, which the 3 of us were pretty hungover for. I don't know how I did it, but I ate 3 pancakes, 3 pieces of bacon, 2 little squares of hashbrowns, a bottle of water, and a cup of coffee. Not really sure where all this food was going, but I was still hungry haha. The rest of our time in Zacatecas was spent at museums - I suppose this was probably a good thing since we all had hangovers from the night before. We went to three museums: A mask museum, a museum of abstract art, and a museum about Zacatecas. My favorite was the mask museum which consisted of I think 1,200 masks. We left the city around 2:00 and got back to Guanajuato around 6:00.

Overall it was a really fun trip and I'm really glad that I can say I've been there. After visiting new cities, it makes me want to travel more and see what else I can find around Mexico.

Here is my facebook album from the trip: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016779&id=1604040019&l=7ca9affa95

Until next time.....