Friendly Mexicans

So far, everyone in Mexico has been exceptionally friendly (except, I suppose, for the border official who gave us the run around and didn’t want to give us a six month visa). We’ve run into a couple of other travelers who, when they heard we came south through Matamoros, have asked whether things really are as violent in northern Mexico as everyone always hears. For our part, at least, we never had a problem and never even felt uncomfortable. About the only problem we’ve had is the occasional local who’s had a bit too much to drink and is aggressively friendly while trying to practice his English – which isn’t a problem, per se, it just takes awhile sometimes to say goodbye and get away without being rude.

We’ve also had some great encounters. Last weekend some of the Mexican guests at out hotel were having a barbeque, and forced upon us a few beers and plates of carne asada. Delicious, and the first really spicy salsa we’ve had so far in Mexico (of course it was the homemade salsa that turned out to be atomic; everything we’ve gotten at restaurants and street stalls has been pleasantly zippy but not bad). We would have been in heaven if we hadn’t just gotten back from eating, and so we wound up overfull and a bit tipsy. Still, there are worse fates to be had.

But my favorite example happened yesterday. We walked up to the ghost town, Ciudad Fantasma, to poke around the ruins there. On our way back down, we heard sheep and goats and stopped to watch a guy climbing around on a slope herding his small flock. He saw us and we waved to him. He then came literally running down the mountain, motioning for us to wait. Ducking into his house, he came back with a book of figures from 1826, apparently records of the silver mine’s production for that year. He also brought out three pieces of stone that glistened in the sunlight, covered in crystals of what I’m assuming is fool’s gold but might actually have a bit of actual silver in it. We admired the rocks (and our fingers got all sparkly from the crystals, which amused me) and tried to hand them back and continue home, but he wanted us to keep them. They would be a treasure for any rock collector, but we really can’t afford to be carrying around a couple of extra pounds of stone in our packs. We took the smallest piece and eventually convinced him that was all we wanted; he seemed a bit disappointed we didn’t like the other two, but eventually got the idea after we did a bit of improvisational theatre about how it would be too heavy to take all of them. We said gracias, all shook hands, and Petra and I trudged off home looking at our new shiny rock.