Week 4: Blink and you'll miss it

Neckers swapped: 2
Drug dealers met by accident: 1
Statues of Don Quixote seen: 5
Mummified children seen: 18
Moped rides taken: 2
Ex-Pinkies met: 2


As the title implies, time is speeding up. I'm sitting in Miguel's house in Guaalajara, while he works this morning, and I'm wondering how I got to the point that there were only two days left in Mexico.

So what happened this week?

Well it all started in Celaya, meeting Gaby, Ex-Pinkie from 2010. For the uninitiated, a Pinkie is a short-term staff member at Kandersteg International Scout Centre (KISC), which is something I did during the Autumn of 2011 (I wrote a blog about it that you can read here, too). She took me for my first ever moped ride, which was exciting.



Mexican traffic was probably a bad place to start, but at least I'll now only be scared of mopeds in India or Vietnam!

She also took me to dinner with the local Scout Group, Grupo 5 Celaya, at which I met some Caminantes, Rovers, Lobatos and Scouters from the group. They were very happy to swap a necker with 1st Helmsley Scout Group in Yorkshire

They also donated me one of their neckerchieves for my own
collection, which was good because I really liked them!

After that, I was shown the rover house of Grupo 5, which I was going to sleep in until someone suggested that I actually went to Hector's house, as he was travelling to Queretaro in the morning, where I needed to go, so he could give me a lift and save me the price of a bus ticket. I was really touched by the gesture, though a little embarrassed when he actually mopped his floor before he would let me in his room! There was just time for some late night necker swapping and badge swapping before bed.

The next day I was off to Queretaro, where I met my fantastic tour guide/friend from Facebook Armando Quintana, who showed me round the beautiful town centre, the local convent and gave me a traditional Oaxacan food experience!

Yum

Having recovered from the Oaxacan food experience, I was off to Guanajuato to meet Erick Perez. Unfortunately for Erick I was about 2 hours late after my bus broke down and we had to stop in a next town to change busses. Good thing Erick had a book to read while he waited! We dropped my stuff in his house and went to see a bit of the town by night, including Estudentinas (wandering groups of musicians who perform local folk tunes), a rock bar, and watching the semi finals of the Mexican league in a very noisy bar

The next day I was shown the sights of Guanajuato, including the Mummies. The story here is that in Mexico you have to keep up payments if you want your family's remains to stay underground; when you can't pay any more, they dig up the body and cremate it. However, when they started digging up bodies in this cemetery, they found that the ground had naturally preserved them, sometimes in incredible condition. I won't put any of the pictures up as some of them (especially the children) are really a bit creepy, and some of you might have been inspired to start eating your own Oaxacan friend grasshoppers and blue tortillas so I don't want to make you sick!

Just kidding- here's one! This is a

 mummified fetus, and reportedly

the smallest mummified human

 in the world.

 



After the mummies we saw more of the town, found something to eat, and took a trip up the funicular railway to see the giant statue at the top of the town. That evening, we found another bar to sit in while we waited for Miguel to arrive from Guadalajara, before finding his cousin's taco restaurant for a bite to eat. I asked if we could head home at that point for some sleep, so we headed home at 1am. At 3am we finally went to sleep, after talking and catching up and generally having a great time.

On Saturday we took a quick trip to San Miguel de Allende to see the sights, and then on to Uriangato (with a detour back to Celaya because I left my water bottle there the first time!). At Uriangato I met up with the Red Jovenes, a network of rover scouts who meet to discuss issues important to Scouting. I also got to participate in a session that is apparently very common in Rovers in Mexico, though somehow up until now I had never encountered it.

Everyone was given some red wine, some cheese and some bread. Then, we went round in a circle, telling stories. The red wine symbolised grief or melancholy, and so first round everyone told a story about a sad time in their lives. Each story was finished with a toast of "Avante" (literally "forwards" or "ahead") and a sip of the wine. The cheese was, in this case, for indecision or neutrality (different clans assign different meanings to the wine, cheese and bread), so a story of that nature was the next round. And finally, the bread symbolised good things and so the final story we told was of a good time in our lives. It was a great thing to be  part of. And afterwards, along with an exchange of campfire songs  I got to swap a necker with one of the new Rovers - even better!

The following morning, Miguel and I sat through a presentation about Scouting in the region, which I didn't really understand but had some very awesome videos which I hope to share on Facebook soon. We then set off in the car back to his house in Guadalajara, some 3 hours away, but I will save that for another blog post as this one has already gone on long enough! And with only two days left in the wonderful wonderful country that is Mexico, the next post might be coming to you from Texas, USA... watch this space.

Here's another mummy, because SERIOUSLY LOOK AT THESE THINGS!!! This one is watching the space with you...