Well, last night was pretty interesting. Right now is Carnival in Mexico. Actually, it�s Carnival in a lot of Latinoamerican Countries. A couple of friends of mine went to the festivals in Veracruz this weekend. I was not interested in going so far away, so yesterday I went to a Carnival in the town nearby, Tepotzlan, the same place where I climbed the mountian. The funny thing is that this weekend, the family that I was with at church, was telling me about the Carnival and how it is dangerous and how I shouldn�t go alone. Of course I wouldn�t do that, but they were telling me all kinds of things about how there are witches in Tepotzlan and how they will put stuff in your food without you knowing it. They just said to be careful.
I took all of this lightly, keeping in mind that they are a very religious family and probably don�t go for wild festivals and so forth. Well, come to find out, I asked the teacher in my Mexican Culture Class about it and she was saying that Tepotzlan has a reputation for being a mysterious place and that some people beleive the people there are witches. She had logical explanations for these things, though. She said that if you go to Tepotzlan and try to make a phone call to any other place, by cell or payphone, you can�t. But the reason is because the town is surrounded by mountains that have this material in them that doesn�t permit the transfer of a lot of information. Also, the people there are very good natural doctors. They are known for being able to cure all types of diseases, even cancer, by using herbs and natural medicines. She said she has known cases of people who were seriously ill and were cured. They learn to do this as children and become very good at it by the time they are older.
So, for all these reasons, people consider Tepotzlan a kind of freaky place. Also, it has that ancient pyramid on the top of the mountain, too, that people go to climb, and apparantly there is lots of energy at the top of it when you get there. All I remember is being tired when I got to the top, so I can�t say I remember feeling any kind of energy. Anyhow...
So, we went to the festival and it was very cool. I met some cool people there that I am going to meet up with today. It was so crowded, though. There were people everywhere all in the little streets of the town. There were some amusement park rides and lots of food and lots of things for sale. I left at about 9:30 because friends warned us that it gets really wild and strange when it gets late. Plus, the last bus left at 10:30 and supposedly we didn�t want to be in the town when it got wild. A Mexcan guy that we had met was warning us about this. Funny, my friend Chris, was telling me that he read in the paper that there were 36 homicides in 24 hours in the little towns outside of the Mexico City during Carnival weekend. Is that not wild?
On the way back some crazy stuff happened on the bus. A friend of ours that we were with (an American girl) had drank a lot and somehow started dancing around on the bus. Now, there were like, 30 guys on the bus and maybe 7 girls. Chris was the only American guy. Anyhow, all the Mexican guys were singing along and yelling for her to keep dancing and yelling for more. She was singing along and saying in Spanish, "I�m easy, I�m easy!" The rest of us were just looking, like, "Oh, my god- what is her problem!?" Well, the guys got crazy and started pulling down her shirt and trying to pull off her bra and kissing her and whatnot. Chris was trying to help her out and the guys were getting pissed at him. She got away from them, but they were still trying to get at her even when we were getting off the bus. The whole thing was crazy, but it was completely her fault. I mean, why would you get up and do that on a bus full of guys? Of course she was laughing and we got lots of photos, some of them without a shirt on. I guess that shows how easy a mob can occur. I mean, if they had attacked her, there would have been absolutely NOTHING the rest of us could do.
On the way back, she passed out and the taxi driver ran into a hole and we had to push him out. Very interesting night, to say the least!
