Strange times

I’ve proven to be the first man down, in my unhappy new phase of Food Poisoning, All the Time. Juan made me go see a doctor when he noticed that my tongue had turned brown. “You have amoebas!” the doctor said, making it sound as though I had achieved something truly great. My prize was $24 worth of meds.

All this meant that I sort of drifted through the towns of Ajijic and Chapala, on the Lago Chapala. Nice towns, thankfully cool. The night we spent in Ajijic surreal. We checked into a hotel right next to the church and half-dead, I immediately set to sleeping for many hours.

But that night it poured, and massive thunderclaps erupted with such force that I thought buildings were toppling over nearby. Then, in the middle of the night, the church bell started ringing. It rang irregularly, and each time it rang, it rang at least a dozen times. I counted. It made no sense. Then there was music and Juan saw a procession in the street. I was sure people were praying for the storm to stop. But I don’t know. The strangest part was that at dawn, a single firework was set off.

That was Ajijic.

The next day we drove through Guadalajara just north to Zapopan for a Volkswagen event coincidentally close by called Vochorama. I’ve said before that Volkswagen owners are quite cultish, and so this was why I was not going to deny the travel even though I was under the weather. I’ve been to Westy events in San Francsisco, but this was a whole ‘nother league. There was a line to get in the venue by 7 a.m.

Now, I have to be honest. My interest in cars lies mostly outside the windows, not inside the cab or under the hood. I can appreciate the aesthetics and the vans are cool, but my interest tanks after about fifteen minutes.

Spending all day at a Volkswagen rally was not my ideal way to recuperate from Brown Tongue-Amoeba Syndrome. But thankfully, our Mexican hosts did us well with their typically excellent hospitality by putting us in the full shade of center stage. We were about 25 meters from the massive soundstage, but the shade was worth it.

I wanted to go around and shoot “formal” portraits of people with their cars, but it was a bit too cramped and too hot and too hectic and I was too full of excuses so I shot informals. If you never get the chance to surround yourself by a thousand Volkswagen fanatics outside of Guadalajara, here you go.

In other news, we are training Milo to exist off-leash, like a true Mexi-dog. Look at how hard he has to try not to go berserk in the market and EAT EVERYTHING OH MY WHAT IS THAT WHO ARE YOU WHERE AM I?

Also, Zapopan hotels are NOT dog-friendly. We went to five hotels to find one that would accept our lovely Milo: Hotel Posada Gloria. It is also next door to a Chinese buffet, where I ate my first solid food in three days.[google-map-v3 width=”0″ height=”0″ zoom=”12″ maptype=”roadmap” mapalign=”center” directionhint=”false” language=”default” poweredby=”false” maptypecontrol=”true” pancontrol=”true” zoomcontrol=”true” scalecontrol=”true” streetviewcontrol=”true” scrollwheelcontrol=”false” draggable=”true” tiltfourtyfive=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkermashupbubble=”false” addmarkerlist=”20.72274, -103.39284{}medicine.png” bubbleautopan=”true” showbike=”false” showtraffic=”false” showpanoramio=”false”]