From Matehuala, we headed westerly for the city of Zacatecas, hoping to avoid the main highways. Easier said than done as there are few roads in general, but reversing back the way we'd come towards Charcas through the Altiplano was the best way.
There was not a cloud in the sky as we flew along through the massive valley in crisp morning air, always watching the roadside for stray cattle, goats, mules or horses. The miles flew by, an endless stretch of barren landscape and rare but random, a man sitting under a scrub tree in the shade. Likely shepherds, but a big smile erupting from a sun blackened face as we'd wave.
The town of Charcas was a pleasant site, much larger than the tiny dust covered villages we'd passed through, their residents eyeing our passing with suspicious but veiled intensity. The main road into Charcas led to the church, through traffic in tight rough streets filled with Volkswagen Rabbits and other old vehicles.
At the turn to the plaza we were waved away by a slim policeman with a face mask, redirecting traffic for the tiny school that had just let out for lunch. We eventually found our way back to the plaza through the maze of tiny streets, riding the wrong way up one-way streets to make our goal.
We found a spot on the crowded square next to a "papas" vendor and it wasn't long before the sight of fresh made potato chips sucked us in for a snack, washed down with a burning flush of Coca-Cola.
Across the street and in front of the church lay a long line of people waiting to get into a business that looked like a Western Union sort of place. There must have been two hundred, each with a sheet of paper in their hands. Kim surmised it may be folks waiting to receive money from relatives in the U.S., but whatever it was, it was a long slow process.
Google showed only a single gas station in the town, a Pemex we'd passed on the way in, so we reversed back to fill up. The attendant was afraid to look at me, until I tapped him and pointed to myself, saying "José". He broke into a big smile and tried to communicate, pointing to the stickers on Kim's bike. As we waited in the shade after filling up, he gingerly came over several feet away and shyly tried to take a picture of us with his cell phone. I waved him over and he handed his phone to another gas attendant, coming near the bike. I pulled him over and put my arm around him for the picture and he was all smiles, waving at us as we rode away.
My GPS said Zacatecas was still hours away, which didn't make too much sense as we'd been riding a few hours already. The road led further into the desert, getting rougher and narrower as it went. I watched as the GPS showed us on a loop, that I assumed was the best way to Zac. After another hour or so, I realized I hadn't switched the navigation preference from "shortest" to "fastest" and we were now on a ridiculously slow and painful out-of-the-way trip through village after village. By the time I'd realized the mistake and made the switch to "fastest", we'd passed the break point and it showed to continue on the same route.
In dusty village after dusty village, we crossed endless topes it seemed, until finally being stopped by a funeral procession to the graveyard in a larger town.
The long stretches were barren, our traveling companions being sky high dust devils and parades of trash and the ever-present tattered shopping bags trapped in branches along the roadsides.
The trip was long, slow and tedious until we finally reached the main highway for our last hour to Zacatecas. We arrived at our AirBNB host's home close to dark, peeled out of our smelly riding gear and chilled a little while.
After a rest, we walked for the city center, up steep streets, huffing and puffing until we got a vista of the golden city lights and cathedral, as well as the illuminated mountain bluff above the city, "La Bufa". It was a spectacular sight and Kim was thrilled to see such a beautiful, European style city after so many dusty little villages.
We wandered the beautifully lit streets in the cold air, finding a little taco place on a pedestrian square across from an old church. The owner showered us with great food and attention, speaking a tiny bit of English. As she attended to us, she began sharing her story. She'd worked in Arlington, Texas for many years, then Austin, but recently had been refused a renewed visa. The Omni Hotel in Austin was asking her to come back and work for them, but she was unable and asked us to pray that a way would be made. Her only alternative would be to pay the "coyotes" $8,000 U.S. to take her illegally, but she couldn't afford it or the danger.
While we were eating, I'd noticed a man standing in the shadows a hundred feet away or so, whom I recognized from seeing him earlier on the streets. He watched us from the shadows the entire time we ate, but I didn't tell Kim until we started walking again. He trailed us a ways until I stopped and looked directly at him, Kim doing the same. I dropped my camera into my messenger bag and took it off to carry by hand. Kim asked why and I explained that it would weight the bag in case I needed to use it as a weapon.
We walked a block or so, suspicious and heads on swivels until we ducked into a tourist shop that was closing. As soon as we got inside, I turned and looked back out the doorway, just as a guy on a dirt bike pulled up and stopped on the opposite side of the street, the helmeted rider looking directly at us through the doorway. I stared at him and he stared at me, the entire time my thoughts racing back to movies where the bad guys used motorcycles. He looked again, then took off. Kim and I looked at each other, then bought a bottle of Mezcal and a Zacatecas decal for the bikes. Kim put the bottle in a plastic bag, emulating my earlier camera-in-bag action and prepared to use it. We gingerly approached the door and looked out, only to see a traffic light. We both burst out laughing when we realized it was just a random motorcyclist who’d had to stop for the traffic light that fed into our suspicious minds.
We slowly walked back to our host's home in the dark, enjoying the city streets. As it turns out, the bottle of Mezcal bottle was used to knock out two people that evening.
The next morning our host Graciela made us breakfast before we left, her pug Macarena entertaining us by getting drunk in the warm sun.
We rode through Zacatecas, an absolutely beautiful European style city with steep, flagstone streets, museums, churches, markets and plazas. The town sits below a huge bluff, "La Bufa", which features a church and plaza with statues of Francisco "Pancho" Villa and others from the revolution. Which Mexican revolution I'm never sure...
We rode to the top and sat watching the city below for a while until the desire to ride the steep streets and explore neighborhoods overwhelmed us.
Kim had found a Couchsurfing couple who agreed to host us for a night, our first experience doing so. Our friends Fanda and Kaschka had insisted we try it back when we met them in Alaska, since they had had great experiences all across Russia and Mongolia, as well as the US. Anyway, we were to meet our hosts around 4 and had the entire day free to wander.
We rode the old center of town before heading for the higher hillside neighborhoods, the steep and narrow streets proving a lot more butt-clenching than expected. Several times we dead-ended on little streets so steep that it was hairy getting turned back down.
At one point on an easier street, I was accelerating uphill when this happened...
Luckily he was unhurt, but I’ll never forget the loud thunk of whatever his head hit, and it added to the crazy traffic and streets.
Late that afternoon, we made our way to the address we'd been given and rolled up to a small apartment home with gated parking. Our host "Ben" came out to greet us and open the gate. After clambering off and getting out of our sweat sack jackets, we got to know each other a bit better.
Ben was actually "Benoit", a young French guy who'd traveled extensively and taught language classes through the French Alliance downtown. We met his beloved, Gaby, a native Zacatecan who owned a small boutique and spa nearby. She had prepared a late lunch for us. After resting a bit, that evening Kim took advantage of Gaby's spa for a massage - her shoulders were tight as a drum from the last day or two - while Ben took me to a small brew pub in the area that featured beer from almost every country in the world.
That night after Gaby's place closed, her family met us for dinner at a small local taco place that had home brewed beer. We had much fun and stayed out too late. Despite our lack of Spanish, we communicated enough and Ben's translation certainly helped. The next day, Ben had a class cancellation and decided to give us a tour of the town. We took the bus to the center and arrived to find a big celebration going on. Apparently it was a tilapia festival - MotoHank had warned us that Mexico used any event to celebrate and boy was he right.
After wandering through tilapia heaven we made our way down to an old market for lunch, then around the downtown area, visiting the amazing catedral(s) and several museums.
The most interesting was the Mask Museum, now incorporated into the ruins of an old cathedral that had a roof collapse sometime in the past. The museum featured masks of all sorts from Mexico and we were in there for hours. The grounds of the museum are beautiful as well and quite relaxing. Ben left us after a great lunch for a class and we wandered the streets until late, catching a bus back.
That evening about 9, Gaby and Ben wanted to take us out so we took a taxi back downtown to a rooftop bar overlooking the city. Bad disco music, good bebidas and outstanding views made the night great.
Next on the agenda was to take us to the oldest cantina in Zacatecas. Gaby explained in broken English that Cantinas had always been male only, filled with man stuff - naked pictures of women, vomit, urine and fist fights. Women were never allowed in, but times had changed and the cantinas were dying out due to a lack of business, so they now allowed anyone and everyone. Sounded like it could be interesting...
When we arrived, the little place was packed. Sticking out like white sore thumbs, we stood and watched the proceedings, laughter and lousy singing, with eyes upon us and sideways glances, musicians and beggars. I noticed the very same man who'd been shadowing us our first evening, and he came over with a sly smile and welcomed us to Zacatecas. It was a very, very odd moment but we faked our way through it. The rest of the evening he watched us.
One nicely dressed man in a suit at the bar kept his eyes on Kim for most of the time that we stood there, eventually getting up and coming over to look us directly in the face. He then began speaking loudly in Spanish, the word "Trump" being the only word we understood. I glanced at Gaby, whose face clearly showed her disdain and upset at what was happening. He continued to speak, and though we knew where the conversation was going, Ben engaged him for a while to deflect his anger. After a while, Ben seemed to have calmed him and then began explaining that the man was a lawyer who had been denied entry to the U.S. recently and was very upset at Trump. I shook his hand, clasped his arm and looked him in the eyes, asking Ben to tell him we had come to Mexico because we loved the nation and her people. His drunken tension eased slightly when he heard it, but continued his verbal barrage.
Ben was not interpreting, for our benefit of course, and when the guy finally stopped for a moment, Ben said he was drunk and also not quite right in the head. This tension continued for a while, then Ben said the man wanted to apologize to us personally, since he had nothing against us but was just angry at Trump.
He showed us his laminated lawyer credentials and then asked for a pen, writing his address and name on the back of one of our cards, telling Ben that one of his uncles had been a Nobel Prize winner. Eventually he faded away, the anger gone and we went back to our conversation, Gaby embarrassed at the situation.
A moment or two later, I noticed two women at the table in front of us turning to stare, then speaking to the men at the table. They turned back to us with big smiles and Ben said they were inviting us to sit down. We all squeezed around and then began communicating, Ben working his butt off as a broken English translator. Ben only spoke a little English, having learned it from tourists while working in Playa Del Carmen.
Our new friends were lively and fun, the two guys being a lawyer and an architect, respectively. They ordered rounds of Mezcal and cervezas, laughing and asking questions about us and our trip south. The night wore on until the bar closed and they invited us to go to another place for dancing, seeming genuinely disappointed that we could not go. They gave us all big hugs and kisses, laughing and waving goodbye as we wandered back down the streets in the early morning hours.
The friendliness of the people we've met here and there on this trip has been quite amazing. Over and over people have come up to us to welcome and offer help if needed, in big towns and small villages, at roadside stops and in stores.
It was with some real sadness that we packed up the next morning for Durango. Zacatecas was a city Kim and I both feel we could live in. Cultured, clean, beautiful and welcoming, as we discussed on our headsets heading north for our next destination.