I can’t think of a better breakfast than a guajolota, a tamal, drenched in salsa verde, encased in a fluffy torta roll for convenience and mobility. The price? About eighty cents. (Eight pesos.) As I sit in this cybercafe, it’s happily settling in my stomach.
My flight, although it was delayed and the passport line at the Mexico City airport was quite long, went off without a hitch.
Ruben, our host, and Martin met me at the airport. We hopped a cab back to their house, where we dropped our things and Ruben ordered in some small tacos. Basically like regular tacos, but mini sized — each of us got about 10 for around two bucks. I’ve been impressed at how cheap things seem to be here. I mean, I knew Mexico was cheap, but I figured that this being the capital and all that things would be more, but hey, what do I know?
Ruben is a twenty-something graphic designer who lives in the southern end of the city, near the Zapatas station. He shares a two room apartment with his brother and his bro’s wife, Margarita. It’s a simple, but functional pad. When we walked in, the brother was busy shooting down Nazi planes on an Xbox 360 game. All three of them are graphic designers and each have their own computer. They all speak English very well and are all from DF, the capital state.
After dinner, I suggested that we go for a walk, so Ruben took us to Coyoacan, a plaza bursting with parents and their kids, tourists, locals, rastas, hippies, and everyone else. Ruben told us that the plaza was filled every weekend evening, all year long, with various foodstalls and assorted other vendors. There were about a thousand taco stands, even fritangas (Yes, Monica, it is a real word!), churros, and omigosh, fried bananas!
In the words of Señor Boyk, there isn’t anything in this world that can’t be improved by frying it. So take a banana split, but instead of splitting it, imagine it bubbling in a big vat of oil that probably would give you a heart attack. But forget about the oil, just concentrate on the crunchy sweet exterior that is then plopped into a small, paper hot dog platter, whereupon it’s covered in whipped cream, nuts, strawberries and mangos. How much for all of this? How about the low price of eighty cents. Split three ways, I can’t think of a cheaper dessert.
After a stroll through the market, where we saw some lucha libre masks, leatherwork, t-shirts, jewelery, we stopped in at a corner place on the edge of the plaza for a churro relleno (stuffed churro), mine with caramel (cajeta) and Ruben’s with a rum-like pinapple filling.
We then spotted a local arena that was advertising for an upcoming lucha libre match — sadly, it’s on Saturday, so I’ll miss it. But each fighter had great names, like “Thunder Black” and obviously, Shrek. (WTF?) Lower down on the poster was advertising for a “mini” fight between dwarf fighters (Los Minis) — our money’s on “Mini Sexy Man.” No question about that. (There were a bunch of these posters up, so Martin snagged one.)
We’re about to head out to Teotihuacan, although rain is threatening. Today, or later this week, I look forward to sharing lunch, or rather, comida, with the legendary Franc Contreras.
