¡Viva Mexico! - Part 2

The are lots of interesting things in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, Mexico. None of which so interesting as these little vending machines that pepper the cityscape. A green snack machine called Negrito. That's right, Negrito. On the side of the machine is the mascot for the chocolate Negrito snack which is a small, afro-ensconced, dark skinned boy. Racist? Maybe. Tasty? Probably. Funny? You betcha! The best part is that the snack is distributed by a company called Bimbo. Just icing on the cake. These machines run at least one per city block as well as any place that you can find a snack machine.
We finished up our work for the day and headed back to the hotel. The guys asked us if we wanted to go with them for some good old fashioned Mexican-style adult entertainment. We declined. I reminded them that we needed to be fresh and ready to be at the site no later than 9am. They decided to forgo the entertainment themselves and told us that they would call us for dinner in an hour or so. By 9:30, Ryan and I decided that since we hadn't heard from them and had no way to contact them as our phones didn't work, that we would order room service.
Ordering our food was interesting. My Spanish is really rusty but I have been getting a little practice in the shop with the guys. So I pulled out the menu. I had to look some thing up to find out what they were. Then I saw it... Bistek de Ranchero. Steak!!! You can't go wrong with a steak. I called room service to place my order. Deftly, I called for 2 orders of Bistek Ranchero and 2 orders of chicken tacos and 2 Sprites. Then the man on the other end threw me for a loop. He rattled off a question in his native tongue. I was dumbfounded.
"Mi Español is mui poquito." I desperately explained.
"My English is not very good." He countered. We both laughed. I was stuck and so was he. I waited.
"Cash or Room?" His thick accent allowed enough for me to understand.
"Room!" I exclaimed. He shot back a very relieved "Bueno" and I countered with a "Graciás" and hung up the phone. Thirty minutes later I got my "Steak" and other food. I eagerly removed the cover and saw my steak. I was a little confused and so was Ryan. What was this? I thought we were getting a side of beef? It was not really a steak, but what looked like a Swiss Steak with lots of Jalapeños. I had been foiled by the language barrier. It was good, but very, very spicy. We ate, watched some Spanish TV and then we went to bed.
The next morning, we got dressed and made our way downstairs for breakfast. It was awesome. Fresh eggs (not powdered) and really fresh orange juice. The bacon was a joke, however and consisted of warm, stripped luncheon meat. There was also lots of fresh fruit including the Guayabas or Guava fruit. It tasted kind of like an apricot but a little more mellow. Needless to say, I ate lots of fruit at breakfast time. The guys finally picked us up at around 9:30.
We got to setting up the site. At lunch time, Eddie said that the place next door has a dance hall and does catering and wanted to cater to the site when it was open. So they fixed us lunch. Wow what a lunch! It was basically a sampling of all their specialties. There was lots of really interesting dishes. I tried them all. One that was really good looked and tasted like a spicy chowder. There were plenty of hot tortillas both corn and flour. We ate ourselves silly.
The evening routine was the same as the day before. "Hey! Want to go to a..."
"No, we have to get up early and be to the site. Call us when you are ready to go to dinner."
At 9:30, we decided that we were hungry and needed food. Again. Ryan asked me to order a Pizza. That looked a little difficult considering my Spanish, so I got on my shoes and told him that I was going out to get food and asked him if he was game. Ryan grabbed his shoes and out we went into the blackness of nighttime Mexico. Two scared white boys out after dark in Cd. Victoria. Were we nuts? Maybe, but we were hungry so I guess hunger trumps fear after all. What we found was an outdoor Pizza place. Basically, it looked like a park pavilion. There were no walls, but there were decorative tarps that were rolled down strategically to limit the cool breeze. Outside the pavilion was a mobile snack stand where orders were taken and a Neon sign on a pole. Inside the pavilion was plastic patio tables and chairs and a Kitchen. On the wall was a large plasma television playing some kind of conspiracy show (like Spanish Unsolved Mysteries or something). I pulled out my Spanish with better confidence this time.
"¿Dinero de Americano?"
"Si. ¿Qué querría usted?" (What would you like?)
"Dos pedazos de la combinación y tres pedazos de la pepperoni y dos refrescas" Dang I was getting better!
I paid him in American dollars and got some Mexican change. Score! My first taste of Mexican money. The exchange rate that week was about 10.30 Pesos per dollar, so they round everything to 10. Sure I lost out on about 30 cents, but who cares. The man was nice and so was his family that worked there. They made sure that we were happy and had everything we needed. It was truly an awesome experience. A cool breeze blew across our faces as we polished off the last of our pizza, we noticed that the television was being changed to a soccer match. Ryan and I agreed to get out of there before a riot broke out. As we left we bid our host Buenos Noches and he, in his best English, thanked us and wished us well.
The next morning, our hosts did not show up until around 11am. We passed the time watching Mexican Dora the Explorer. It was a hoot. On Mexican Dora, they speak Spanish and teach the kids to say English words. Exactly the opposite of American Dora. We also noticed that there was an abundance of bad movies on the local channels. The many nights we were there we saw lots of really horrible action movies like Cliffhanger and Tango and Cash. They really seem to like Sly down there. We also quickly noticed that the movies used subtitles instead of dubbing. That being said, we found out that even though these movies were on local channels, none of the English dialog was edited. I wonder if the movies we watch here that have subtitles are full of foreign profanity? Something to think about.
This was our last full day in Mexico. We got the site all but done and by about 3pm, we were hungry. Again. So Ryan and I wandered off to Mexican KFC. They did not take our American money or my American Express card. Defeated, we wandered out of the establishment.
"Hey!" called an accented voice from behind us.
We turned around to see a large Mexican. He spoke pretty decent English and told us where we could go and eat with our American money. We were getting the impression that the people were really nice down there. So down we went to Mexi-McDonalds. For some reason my Big Mac was spicy. Also, there was no ketchup. Ryan and I dipped our fries in salsa.
Later, I went around the corner to the bank to exchange the remainder of my cash so I could buy some good souvenirs. This was really interesting. There was a huge line of people waiting to make deposits, get loans, and cash paychecks. To get into the bank you had to be buzzed in. As you enter through the second set of double doors you notice to your right a wall of infamy. On this wall was about 12 or so pictures of people who had robbed the bank. The pictures had been taken by the security cameras and showed the banditos in all their bank-robbin', weapon wielding glory. It goes without saying that I did not feel very safe. There was one man withdrawing money from the bank. It took him forever as the teller counted stacks and stacks of pesos. It looked like this man was withdrawing hundreds of thousands of pesos. He had an empty laptop bag to carry it in. After it had been counted, He tried to stuff all of it into the satchel. He had to break the packs of bills and rearrange them to get them to fit. He gave up trying to close the zipper and just carried the rest of the money in his arms. I was scared for him. I made it out of the bank alive.
At the end of the day, the guys took us on a tour around the city. I snapped up many pictures and I even found the local Ward Building; it was just down the street from the site. We ended the night at a restaurant called Runwayss. The place had a small zoo of exotic birds and a couple of monkeys. We had a blast playing with them. At dinner, I ordered beef, chicken, and cow brains. It was really good. We turned in for the night.

Part three coming soon.