Hacktivate

A last minute need to be in LA pulled me out of Mexico. 80 dollars later I had an altered ticket and three hours of time to kill. I left the airport in search of some tacos al pastor and found myself wandering through the dirty, gritty Mexico that had eluded me after a week of tourist paradise hindered only by timeshare touts. I took a dirt road called Las Rosas, doing my best to avoid mangy dogs and the big buses doing their best to look suave painted blue and green with tinted windows. I wondered if the piece of tin attached to a cement wall would be worthy of my final foray into Mexican cuisine. Real Mexican food is an enigma, the best comes from the grittiest places, but the taster walks a fine line between delicious and diarreah, or more often both. But I knew that within a few weeks my home would be the opposite side of the world and about as far away as possible from the one food to rule them all.

It was then that I saw it. A bare two story building, painted white but looking golden in the dust filtered Mexican sunset. Mariachi music was blaring out of the upper level, and for a moment I was witness to Mexico, pure Mexico. I walked past it and smiled at the "cervezas frias" sign - cold beer - and stopped to take a mental picture of it. I wanted to carry this image with me, my own personal Mexico, the country I hold responsible for some of the best things in my life.

I walked on down the road back to the airport and after about 30 yards I looked back. Had the music stopped? I decided to investigate, and soon found myself contemplating one of those cervezas frias. Lonely Planet talked about Cantinas - places full of men, where a gringo had to prove his worthiness by going "mano a mano" with a local and a bottle of Tequila. With the warm sun streaming in, I doubted it was one of those places, but I then began wondering if it could be the other den of iniquity that Mexico is famous for - the whorehouse? Well, I decided I would let the music decide - if it was still playing I would go in for a beer. If I discovered worse, I would just leave - I am sure I wouldn't be the first gringo to make a mistake and take an early exit.

I walked up the stairs, happy that the music was indeed still playing, and as I entered the upper room it was all I had hoped for. The fans moved the yellow air, the music blared, and there were just two tables with people at them.

I ordered a cerveza and sat near the juke box looking out the window onto the sunset. One table had two hombres playing cards and about 10 empty bottles of Corona around them. The other table was for the waitress and her two amigos, who looked about 14 despite the empty beer bottles around them. I smiled as I saw the naked paintings on the wall. I squeezed the salty lime into my beer and proceeded to write this...