Mexican Musings
Get Comfortable While Uncle Mike Tells Some Stories
Hey kiddies, it’s story time. We’ve been in Queretaro almost a week and it’s time I brought you all up to date.
We’ll start with a little tale about a bakery or panateria as they’re known here. When we arrived last Saturday we found the very nice homeowners had bought us a couple of baked treats to enjoy for breakfast Sunday morning. They had purchased them from the panateria down the street and they insisted it was one of the best in the city. Baked goods? Sign us up.
Today we finally got around to visiting said establishment. Everything in the little display case looked appetizing. Sold. There was a young lady behind the cash register which, and this is important, is situated immediately beside the display case. Like, within an arm’s reach. There is another young lady standing by the door, purpose unknown.
As I would in any bakery, I pointed to each of the four little delicacies we wanted, said “cuatro” and got a blank look. The girl with no discernible purpose understood some English and started translating so I went through pointing at each of the four again, saying “uno”, until the register-person got it all. Then nothing happened. I expected her to reach over to the display case, grab the four thingies, place them in a bag and ask for money. Not so fast, Buster.
Finally, she gets the idea that we’re done, and shows me the total. 327 pesos. That’s about $25 CAD. For four pastries. Ok, I’m committed at this point although I’m thinking I should be committed if I pay this highway robbery. I hand over the cash and I get a receipt. No pastries. She hasn’t moved from behind the register. Now it’s my turn to look dumb. I hold out the receipt and shrug my shoulders. The girl-with-no-purpose tells me I have to wait until they call my name. I wait.
At this point it’s important to note that, at no point in this exercise have I provided a name. Also, when I check the receipt there’s no number. Whose name will they call? Is it like Starbucks where I tell them my name is “Mike” and they write “Merv” on the cup? Also, I’m thinking, are they going to bake them for me? I mean, why else am I having to wait while the stuff is in the case right in front of me? I wait.
After a couple of minutes, young lady #3 appears, looks at the little receipt printer behind the counter and starts extracting the goodies from the case and placing them in a series of containers (which aren’t big enough to hold what she’s putting in them) and a bag, after which she goes to the pickup counter and asks the girl-with-no-purpose who they’re for. She dutifully points at me. I take my $6 CAD a piece pastries and exit the shop.
Let’s review. Best bakery in town. $6 CAD per pastry. Three girls required to do the job of one. Now I know why the prices are so high, given all the salaries the owner is paying. And they aren’t doing the actual baking either. End of story.
We finally got out to see some of the sights this week. We spent a couple of hours wandering around Centro which is the historic downtown area and we plan to go there at least twice more before we leave, so more on that in another episode. I’ll focus on the El Cerrito pyramid, which sits in the actual city, today.
Like all the Toltec artifacts El Cerrito dates back to sometime in the 900-1100 AD era and is similar in construction to the pyramid at Chichen Itza except a) it’s not famous, b) has no crowds and c) is cheap to visit. I think it cost 150 pesos for both of us and there were about twenty other people there. There’s also a nice little museum there with many artifacts that were uncovered there.
There are a couple of things about this pyramid that are worth noting. First, you’ll note the vegetation growing on the left side. That is what the entire thing was covered with before archaeologists started messing with it. The locals thought it was just a hill. The second thing is the house on top. It was built in 1887 when it was still just a hill. Prime real estate. Great view.
Oh. And a pyramid in the basement. Whoops. As you can see, the house is still there and it’s a real fixer-upper. You don’t see this kind of shit at Chichen Itza, that’s for sure.
Now, if you’ve been dutifully following along with our travels you’ll remember my consternation at the lack of building codes in ancient Greece.
Yep. The Maya built their stairs according to code. What’s that you say? They’ve been built recently? Well, yeah. But they were built by descendants of the Maya. So there.
Back to story time. This one’s about driving in Mexico. Before we came here I read nothing but horror stories about driving here. The rental car companies will cheat you. The police will stop you and demand bribes. The drivers are crazy. The roads are broken and difficult to navigate. You get the idea.
Having driven here for the past two weeks I can unequivocally call bullshit on all of that. I did my homework and we haven’t been ripped off on the rental cars. No extortion stops. The drivers are aggressive but not overly so. The roads are fine. Hell, Google Maps hasn’t even told us to drive the wrong way on a one-way street or steered us into a lake.
The one thing I will point out is the preponderance of “ALTO” signs. “STOP”, for you gringos and gringettes. They’re just for decoration. They don’t actually mean for anyone to stop. It’s more like an advisory that someone may come careening down the intersecting street so slow down to 60 kmh and make sure you don’t hit anyone. Like that.
Also, you have to take the space you want. No one is ceding the right of way to you. No one is going to be courteous and let you in. Aggressiveness is rewarded here. Yes, there might be a blaring horn aimed at you but the alternative is to wait for someone to take pity on you while you’re growing old. The lesson to learn before driving here is be aware at all times. The rest is easy.
This weekend the weather, which has been a bit questionable the past few days, will improve significantly. For most of this week we’ve been watching the temperature drop into the mid-teens and strong winds have been buffeting the house. It sounds like winter in Canada about fifty years ago when no one had double-glazed windows and the wind would whistle through the cracks. Same. Starting tomorrow the wind should abate and the temp will get back into the mid-20’s so it’s back to exploring for us.
Stay tuned kiddies.