Chapter 10. No to beer in Veracruz / Yes to beer in Guadalajara

Hi!

Hahahaha, our big houseparty of today was cancelled. The police heard about it and ceiled the house so that no one could get in or out. I bet that it was due to mordidas from the neighbours.. Well one day break doesn't do bad, I've slept an average of 5 hours in the last four days anyway.. In addition I can now write my last blog update until my trip to Asia!

But first about our trip to Veracruz! I enrolled into the capoeira group that the school arranges here at Tec. I found it really fun and decided to leave with them to a big capoeira event that was arranged by the Atitude Brazil Verazruz. I went with our capoeira teacher at Tec, el Bigode, and two other students. They all are super-cool guys and it was them that made the trip especially good! Capoeira has still a traditional ranking system of the teachers and there were various masters (mestres) and pre-masters (contra-mestres) of capoeira coming to the event and I was really eager to see them in action!

On the first day of arrival on Friday we already had one capoeira lesson of three hours. It went really good and the teachers really knew their thing. On the negative side, I could immediatly see the different atmosphere of the event compared to the capoeira classes in our school: The teachers spoke almost only portuguese, you weren't allowed to speak during the lessons and you couldn't go and drink water in the middle or in between classes. That was again some traditional thing of capoeira but to be honest I found it stupid, especially the drinking part. It resulted that I was so tired in the end and couldn't do too much dancing in the rueda, which is the traditional "fighting" circle where two people dance with each others.

Another thing that caught my eye was that the ranking system doesn't necessarily correspond with your skills. It is more about respect and knowing the right people, because only the people with higher rank can put your ranking higher and you have to build good relationships between many people just to maintain your status. For example, the wife of a master was pre-master and she couldn't honestly do too much more than I. Well, she was more of a dancer-capoeirista but still, you get the picture. I wasn't a huge fan of this traditional ranking system and would prefer more a skill-based system, but it's a traditional sport so I guess there is not too much to be changed.

Well anyway, we reserved a hotel for the first and second night in the centre of Xalapa. It turned out to be pretty good for the price (6e/person/night). On Saturday we had another 5 hour lesson of capoeira and on Sunday we had a little a performance for some audience in the same arena. The whole experience was really really good and I learned a lot of new capoeira moves. The only thing that I regret was that I was a bit of a wimp and didn't enter the rueda too often. It was partly because most people that entered had done it for years and the mestres wanted of course to show to the youngers who's the boss in the ring. But still, I should have showed them more!

I ran out of cash in Saturday evening because my trustful and generous (:D) moneylender, Paulina, forgot to withdraw me money on the previous night. This was a bit of a problem because my mexican buddies had about 500 pesos in their bank account so I had to actually spare money for the first time in Mexico so far. On Sunday evening we left to the city of Veracruz and slept in the house of a friend that I just met in the Capoeira event. He was a friend of my tricking friend in Guadalajara, but still... I love the Mexican hospitality! The staying in the house was a really fun experience, there was 4 dogs, a few birds and 3 chimpanzees living in the same house and as soon as I walked outside the room of my buddy, hell broke loose and they started to shout and bark as loud as they could.

On Monday morning Carlos had to go to school and we rest decided to go to a beach for the day. We even did some tricking there, here's a few pics of that!

Group foto at the rocks

My and Bigode doing some aerials

Pose!

Btwist close-up

Backflip to water :)

The others left on Monday afternoon, my flight back to Guadalajara wasn't until Tuesday evening. After many hours of continous begging (yes I know, embarrasing, but what can I do?), I could lend 500 pesos from my buddies, which would have to do it for the rest of the trip. This wasn't actually the easiest thing to do, because I had to reserver 350 pesos only for the taxi rides to the airport in Veracruz and in Guadalajara to my house. That left me 150 pesos money to spend (9 euros). The first day we went to a gimnastic hall which costed 60 pesos already. After breakfast on the next I had about 20 pesos left to spend for the whole day. Although we only went to a big shopping centre to hang out and tried to do some tricking in the blistering wind that was in Veracruz that day, the 20 pesos wasn't of course enough, t. I had to arrange a bit my taxi drive home, but eventually it all went good and I got home safely! Here's a few pics still from Veracruz.

Carlos in front of his house

Street view in the city

There were a lot of funny-looking tourist busses in the centre of the city

Another street view

Cafe Barroquia - really big and famous cafeteria in the centre of Veracruz

I just put a little list of things that I hadn't done before the trip. 1. I haven't done sports for four straight days without hurting or straing my muscles 2. I have never slept with monkeys. 3. I haven't spoken only spanish for five days. 4. I have "never" traveled without having a single beer during the trip. Most of the points are of course pretty easily achievable, but especially the last makes me feel really proud of myself.

Alltogether the trip was simply AWESOME and I was one of my best experiences so far here in Mexico. I didn't learn that much during the event much I got to know a lot of new people and the capoeira culture and also saw some really beautiful places. Totally worth it!

After Veracruz it has been basically just that one Spanish exam. The rest of the time there has been a farewell party every single day (excluding today) and I can really feel it now when writing this blog update at 2am. The parties have been really fun and I already start to miss all the good friends that I made here in Guadalajara!!! Some of them have already left to their trips (mostly to Central America) and some will after this weekend or so. Luckily some will return for another semester to study here so I'll get to see them again! Although this time it will be a bit different, because I'll be only doing the internship and will come to school only for sports. But I don't want to think about those things just yet, now I'm concentrated on preparing and packing my stuff for traveling around the world.

That's basically all that has happened so far here in Guadalajara. I don't have the time or will to write about more things, but just in short: Diego had his birthday on the first of Dec and we are going to celebrate it tomorrow. We were paintballing yesterday with 10 people. It was awesome. I passed all my courses.

So, this is what has happened to Kalle in the first part of his journey. Let's pray for the ancient gods that his trip stays as successful also in the future and that his money doesn't run out before the end of the trip. The future episodes include a massive 3-day stay in Finland, almost a month in Thailand/Filippines/Singapore, returning on January to Mexico and traveling here for 3 more weeks and doing an internship in yet-not-decided company in Guadalajara. He is hoping to put the next blog update somewhere in South-east-asia, let us see.

But until that..

..Last greetings from Mexico!

Peace!