León, Tepotzotlán, Tula

Last week, we had a long weekend. What this implies? Well, as for me, things are clear: Travel time!

On Friday afternoon, together with my work colleague A., I headed to León. Luckily, the long weekend coincided with the famous International Balloon Festival in said city. Yet, long weekends also imply that 50% of all Mexicans will travel to mamá, some other 30% still live with her and will go on a trip with her to somewhere, and the remaining 20% are the mamás themselves... In other words, whole Mexico is on the road. Traffic was horrible, and so was the fact that some ingenious decision maker thought it was a good idea to do the roadworks at the same time... According to schedule we would have arrived at 10pm, but yeah, better ignore the "0" - it was well after 1am when we finally got out of the bus.

Nevertheless, the trip was somewhat entertaining. We travelled in Primera Plus and the bus indeed lived up to the brand name. We killed the time discovering the different books, movies, songs, and games in our private touchscreen device which was installed in front of each passenger (think airplane multimedia center). What was nice, that the devices supported LAN games, that is, I could connect to A.'s device and we gambled some Tron-style bike racing matches against each other.

We also made heavy use of the surprisingly good WiFi connection and streamed a Netflix movie on A.'s laptop. Awesome technology. But then again, the most basic things fail: the electric socket didn't work and so our "romantic movie night" came to a sudden end when the battery ran out of power.

Well, also without multimedia distraction we did arrive and were immediately picked up by A.'s cousin (Mexicans tend to have approximately 15 cousins and another 15 family members to whom they also refer as "cousins"...). I was sooo tired, but hey, 1:30am is a perfect time to wolf down some hamburgers, right?

Erm... yeah, right.

So, when we f-i-n-a-l-l-y arrived at the cousin's department, it was 2:30am. Puuh, finally some sleep....

Wrong.

Of course, there was the welcome drink - tequila - accompanied by some typical awkward late-night TV program (no, not that kind of program).

I decided to just pretend to have fallen asleep (did not require a lot of acting skills, anyway) and around 3:30 they finally got it and decided to go to bed. When I consulted my watch I was horrified, as I knew that we had to get up at 5. For some mysterious reason, the balloon festival starts at 6am...

So, after "plenty of sleep", we schlepped ourselves to the festival site. Once more, I was surprised about what our body is able to cope with. I didn't feel any fatigue, but was just very excited about what would happen next. To be honest, I didn't expect too much. I mean - balloons, yeah nice, but still - it's the round stolid things we all know pretty well as vehicle for advertising in Germany's sky, isn't it? Well, not exactly (although, supposedly there were some German balloonists)...

First of all, the area was awesome. The festival was held around a tranquil lake which, especially in the morning light, gave the whole event a somehow surreal atmosphere.

Second, the sheer number of ballons was simply breathtaking (according to the official program, at 6:30am some 200 balloons took off simultaneously).

And third, although the majority was still the well-known round... erm, well... balloon, there were also very funny ones which paid homage to famous comic series (Sponge Bob), movies (Darth Vader), brands (Coke bottle), or just random objects (dolphins, pirate ships). Sooooo worth it!

For a bit of variety, we also took some shots of ourselves...

A friend of A.'s sister and me.

A friend of A.'s sister, A.'s cousin, another friend of A.'s sister, me, A.'s sister

Me, A., A.'s cousin

The same day, Saturday, I returned to Mexico City (guess to where A. went... right, mamá - I politely rejected his kind invitation), caught up on a lot of sleep and the next day I left again. This time the chosen destinations were the pueblo mágico Tepotzotlán and the nearby pyramids of Tula. Although H. has to work on Saturday, this time she could come with me, thanks to the long weekend.

Discovering new bus terminals (hey, there's more than the 4 for each cardinal direction!)

Arrived in Tepotzotlán

H. opined that she really liked Tepotzotlán (what tells me that she definitely never had to write it - man, what a name...). She felt it was so clean, silent, beautiful...

Well, perhaps it is, but then we were really unlucky in choosing our hotel. We just picked the first one we saw and as the owner agreed to my discount proposal, we happily checked in. But soon we noticed that the "nice café" next to our hotel we had seen before, turned into a karaoke bar at night. Aaaargh....

But ok, music stopped sometime after midnight and we finally found some sleep... until we were rudely awakened by some women who were having a furious, vivid and noisy argument...

After having stared into space for quite some time, I finally decided that it didn't help. Meanwhile, we had figured that the noise actually had to come from some kind of radio or TV. So, at least my mission was not to get between two berserk Mexican women running rampant (definitely not recommended), but "just" to convince some rude person to lower the volume (bears at least some chance of success)...

Well, it turned out that our "neighbour" apparently had taken one or two cups too much... I saw him lying on the bed, fully dressed (including shoes), filling the air with powerful alcoholic evaporations which were probably enough to make me drunk as well - and with the TV on maximum volume. And this guy was snoring like a bear! So, if he didn't even hear the TV's ear-splitting noise - how could I make myself felt?

I shouted, knocked, tried to enter the room (unfortunately he had still been sober enough to lock the door), rattled at window and door... nothing helped.

I headed to the reception and woke up the "manager". His single comment?

"Oh, is it this one which I can even hear right now?... Well, I'm sorry, it's a hotel. He's also our guest."

I refrained from venting my displeasure too harshly, as I already learned that in this case Mexicans tend to switch to the "I don't care. That's your problem"-mode. Instead, I made some proposals like tripping the fuse, or at least entering the room to turn off the TV.

Nope.

Man, was I pissed.

I wooshed back to the drunken bear and rattled at the door with a lot of anger. And finally, almost past belief, the guy woke up (hey, had I really drown out the TV?!). Again, I shouted, and although the tone of my voice was probably not the most polite, I managed to restrict myself to a "polite":

"Hey, amigo! AMIGO!"

He scuffed to the door, fogged me with his smell of booz - but actually grasped my request and turned off the damn goggle box.

Finally, some sleep.

The next morning, our first destination was definite: A coffee shop (and surely not the one with karaoke ambitions)!

Coffee never tasted so good!

The trip to the "nearby" ruins of Tula was actually more complicated and time-intensive than we had imagined. We arrived somehwat late in the afternoon. But at least we did arrive. And were gracefully welcomed by the local youth:

"Wow! Could we take a photo together? You know, we don't see a lot of guys like you..."

Ok, Tula is definitely off the beaten track of Western (and Eastern) tourists...

The youngsters were also kind enough to take a picture just of H. and me.

After wandering around a bit more (the entrance was closed and according to the locals there was another one, but not close to the first one, at all...).

But then - finally there!

Whoooo, nice weather!

Tula is especially famous for these statues.

It is also famous - or rather infamous - for its PEMEX refinery. Dunno why, but to me the complex had a certain "je ne sais quoi" - somehow attractive. Strange me...

Some day (read: definitely not as long as I live in Latin America) I'll also buy an SLR

As we had arrived rather late, it soon was time to return. The heavily armed guards (is there any security service in Mexico whose members don't carry at least a heavy-calibered shotgun (and in this case it were even MPs...)?!

Lil' bit exhausted but happy, we went home and on the way we still had time to enjoy the beautiful - and this time really peaceful - streets of Tula...

What's next?

Hmm... did I mention that I have a ticket to Colombia? Right! December will be full of salsa, coffee, mountains, lakes, arepas, guerrillas... erm, well, whatsoever - it definitely will be exciting!

Stay tuned!