'This porridge is too hot," Goldilocks exclaimed. So she tasted the porridge from the second bowl. "This porridge is too cold." So she tasted the last bowl of porridge. "Ahhh, this porridge is just right!" she said happily.......now is it just me or should someone have told Goldilocks to freakin' harden the hell up!?
I believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life. Thankfully these days that's not a far fetched notion as the further we look out into our universe the more we realise that there are possibilities that life, even intelligent life, could actually have made the cut somewhere just as we have. In astronomy, the habitable zone or the Goldilocks zone is the distance from a star where a planet of the same type as our own can maintain water on its surface and in turn support life that may be equivalent to ours. Indeed from a mathematical perspectice the Drake equation is a formula used to determine/estimate both the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy and also the possibilty of intelligent civilizations. The results from those equations, whilst not overwhelming, still suggests that it is feasible to assume that there are possibly between 1-10 intelligent civilizations just in our galaxy...and by the way, if you're a smarty like me and immediately said, 'Well der Fred, the one in our galaxy is on Earth', note carefully that I did add the world 'intelligent'...then of course there are also the billions of other galaxies circulating in the universe but then they could be supporting rebellion bases who may want to bring down the Galactic Empire, so we won't get into that discussion either.
As a kid I was always fascinated by astronomy and for some reason always held onto snippets of random information that related to the subject. One of those snippets that still intrigues me is the story of the WOW! signal - check it out if you're interested (WOW!). Basically what happened was that back in 1977 an astronomer that was working on a project specifically designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligent life encountered an extremely long interstellar signal whose location and intensity was dramatically different from anything else that had been encountered before or since. This in turn got me to thinking, what if our intergalactic neighbours had a pretty odd sense of humour and what if we had just missed a cracking joke? I mean if I was in charge of sending a signal out of home base to our neighbours I'd love to shoot out something such as 'Dogs balls, we have a hankering for delicious dogs balls, do you guys deliver? And if I don't get my order in 14 years is it free?' or perhaps, 'Hammer says we're too legit to quit and Ice says that we should stop, collaborate and listen, can you guys get back to us on that!'. Yeah, how about that? The small dreams I have. So now you're asking, what the hell does this all have to do with Mexico!? And truly, not much really, aside from my thinking as to how damn odd it would be for alien life forms to make there way down to Mexico one sunny afternoon and check out something like the Lucha Libre (free wrestling) that is such big business in Cuidad de Mexico. I mean I went down to the Consejo mundial de lucha libre (aka Arena Mexico) one evening to check out these masked crusaders and one of the much beloved art forms of Latino culture, and man oh man, it was a trip! But I'll get back to that a little later.
Now I'm not sure if you remember but in my last post there was mention of a BBQ that I would apparently be hosting at the hostal on the evening after my arrival. Information on the ground was kind of scarce, it involved Patrick saying, 'Henry, tomorrow night you will be hosting a BBQ for around 30 people'. Then the following evening after having spent several hours in the sun atop pyramids of granduer, I rolled into the hostel a little tired and weary. There behind the reception desk were bags of food and the simple order from Patrick of 'Now you cook!'. Ummm really Patrick? What exactly am I making? You want me to make guacamole for 30 people from two avocados? And please tell me that you actually had a realistic plan for the 5kgs of carrots that you bought!? It was only with some time contemplating in the kitchen and with the good grace and assitance of Vinko Milic, a chef from Cabo on the Baja peninsula, that we managed to pull it off. In the end it actually ended up being that Vinko managed to get it together and I was desiginated to acting as Patrick's bitch for the evening, a role that had me running up and down the three flights of stairs in the hostel for 2-3hrs.
Vinko at the grill - giving it the Cabo touch - Hostal Regina - Mexico City
Hey, who has the chef's hat? I'm the CHEF damn it!
See the sheepish looks that Tom and Kyall are sporting? Yeah, good 'ole Kyall urinated on the reception desk from the third floor the evening before - stellar performance!
They just both sneezed at the same time - it really looks like it could have been anything hey
As always our nights at Hostal Regina carried over to early mornings at the hostel. Somewhere at about 4am, huddled around the glowing embers of a BBQ that was having its last rites read, Frichot came up with the ingenious idea of placing some of the left over raw potatoes into the hearth in the aid of post alcohol redemption. Needless to say, the plan didn't work and several potatoes were witnessed exiting the orbit of Hostal Regina at around that time. I think the next day I did read a small article of news in the Mexico City local regarding the surreal occurrence of potatoes falling from the sky. My Spanish is only very basic however, the meaning may have been lost in my errant translation.
Downtown Mexico City - The Torre Latinoamericano in the background
The massive Mexican flag at the Zocalo
View of Mexico City from the Torre Latinoamericano
View of Mexico City from the Torre Latinoamericano
The next day was relatively cruisy for myself and Jetson. We managed to make an appearance in the foyer somewhere close to noon even if our heads were somehow conducting impromptu bongo lessons. The light of day, even though mildly disconcerting was something that we feared we were required to brave at this point. So we took in the company of both Rachel and Nino for the afternoon and went strolling around the Zocalo and city centre to see what we could find. If you did the maths in that moment then you would have figured out that you had two Australians, a lovely English lass and a soccer mad Swiss walking around the heart of Mexico City ,something was bound to give...........so of course we stopped in a bar to watch a champions league match between Barcelona and Arsenal, now that's Mexico City sightseeing for you! We did however manage to pull ourselves away from the bar after the match and after drowning several Sol's so as to make our way to the observation deck of the Torre Latinoamericana for a 360 degree view of Mexico City, Distrito Federal. At 183 metres it is one of the tallest buildings in the capital and offers exciting views of a sprawling city that unbelievably is built upon what was once the bed of Lake Texcoco, which in was the support for the old Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. Seriously, just look at the photos that I've included and imagine all of it as water, it's kind of insane isn't it!?
The view of Mexico City from the Torre Latinoamericano
Frichot on the observation deck
The Zocalo as seen from the Torre Latinoamericano
Making our way back to the hostel in the early evening we discovered that we had timed our run to perfection. That evening we had booked ourselves in for what promised to be 'good times' at the Arena Mexico but not even had we managed to take three steps inside the front door than we were being turned around and marched back on our way for stop one of the evening, a fascinating place which we later found to be the local pulqueria. A pulqueria you say? What the hell? Well, a pulqueria none too surprisingly is a place where people sit down to enjoy a thirst quenching drink of pulque, a desperately viscous alcoholic beverage that is made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant, and by all accounts is the traditional native beverage of Mexico. As we entered through the saloon style swinging doors orders were taken promptly and the locals met our whimsical gazes with an almost apologetic look of 'Yeah, sorry guys, our ancient ancestors didn't know what the hell they were doing!'. Somehow I managed to score myself a pint of mango flavoured pulque and when it arrived I attempted to swill it but sheepishly realised that this blob of a beverage wasn't really moving. Taking my first semi-fizzy sip of the drink I felt a somewhat stringy glob of goo hit the back of my throat, it felt like someone had just had a mango induced bukake party in my mouth. Looking around the room it certainly felt that everyone had made their own assessment in the manner that I had, this certainly was going to be an acquired taste. As with most culinary delights that are of dubious nature in foreign lands the selling point quite often is that this stuff is potent in the 'love' department. The 'man juice' or 'Mexican viagra' will make you strong like an ox...and you know what, after I downed that pint I could have probably gone back for another, I was certainly feeling some type of sensation!
Kimble getting ready for some nasty Luche Libre
Commencing proceedings on Mexican cooking night
Commencing getting TequilaNated on Mexican cooking night
Yup, that's how you cook, Mexican style
[A night at the Luche Libre - AWESOME!]
A little later on and feeling somewhat more manly after the pulqueria experience we arrived at the Arena Mexico. It was Luche Libre fight night! So let the masked bandits get their freak on! For the first hour or so, and none too surprisingly at that point, the cheezy wrestling bored the living daylights out of me. I mean if you had watched the WWF as a kid then this seemed to be a masked backyard version of that. As the night progressed however and as many beers were passed into my hands I started to get a feel for the action. I found myself getting up and cheering for absolutely everyone and I also found myself yelling out random abuse and jibes such 'C'mon dude, take him down like a G6' & Yeah, your mama is gonna be making Kan Tong for him tonight'. It ended up being quite an awesome experience and I loved the fact that the crowd were so involved and really into supporting their favourite dirty little Sanchez bandits. By the time we got to the final bout of the night we had ourselves an epic duel between good and evil. I don't remember the names of the combatants but by that time I didn't really care, the whole theatre of the event was a treat and I really didn't want it to end, but it did unfortunately, with good thankfully triumphing over evil. We all get to live, love and fight for another day - phew.
A little later on and feeling somewhat more manly after the pulqueria experience we arrived at the Arena Mexico. It was Luche Libre fight night! So let the masked bandits get their freak on! For the first hour or so, and none too surprisingly at that point, the cheezy wrestling bored the living daylights out of me. I mean if you had watched the WWF as a kid then this seemed to be a masked backyard version of that. As the night progressed however and as many beers were passed into my hands I started to get a feel for the action. I found myself getting up and cheering for absolutely everyone and I also found myself yelling out random abuse and jibes such 'C'mon dude, take him down like a G6' & Yeah, your mama is gonna be making Kan Tong for him tonight'. It ended up being quite an awesome experience and I loved the fact that the crowd were so involved and really into supporting their favourite dirty little Sanchez bandits. By the time we got to the final bout of the night we had ourselves an epic duel between good and evil. I don't remember the names of the combatants but by that time I didn't really care, the whole theatre of the event was a treat and I really didn't want it to end, but it did unfortunately, with good thankfully triumphing over evil. We all get to live, love and fight for another day - phew.
I love the faces these guys pulled, they hadn't even had a drink yet!
OK, so they had drinks by this stage
....and by this stage
Evil did however get its revenge on both Jet and myself latter that evening. Back at the ranch a Mexican cooking class was in full progress and by the time that the luche libre crew showed up there was only one thing that could be done. You guessed it, time to get TequilaNated. This evil, evil little drink seemed to be following me wherever I went and on this evening it seemed as though it was hell bent on taking me down, actually it seemed like it was hell bent on taking everyone down. The Mexican cooking class of course turned into a drinkathon. At random points in the evening I do recall Patrick just walking up to me, turning over the tequila bottle and pouring, whilst at other points I also recall that I thought it would be hilarious to get some random Japanese guys drunk because of their wicked karate moves and the epic faces that they pulled.
It's blurred because the person taking the shot was hammered also...you can figure it out
Alright boys - take the shots and show me those fight moves!
Yeah, whatever I said to Rachel was just hilarious....obviously
That's my 'go to' photo move - seriously, that's all I've got
The night of course drew on, and yes, it happened again. Midnight became 2am, became 4am and became something after 5am. By that time most of the hostel family had cleared out and we were left with only four stalwarts holding up the table, although I was secretly working behind the scenes to get rid of two of them. Several hours later I woke up in the darkness of the TV room wondering how it all ended up there...well, in actual fact I did know but unfortunately it only involved falling asleep. In any case all I'm going to say is that you know who you are and yes, you owe me!
