I finished at the newspaper on Wednesday, which was a little bit sad, but not too sad because it means that it's almost time to go travelling. Over the last months I have written articles, been on a mini field trip to Chapala, proof-read, and updated the entire online business directory... I can now safely say that I never want to fall into a job with the generic title of "admin".
I have enjoyed it though, mainly because Mexican news is completely insane. I've only been here for a few weeks, but here are some of the biggest and best news stories the paper has covered in that time:
Pemex gas explosion in Mexico City:
Because I wrote this, and it made the front page.
Nine-year-old gives birth in Guadalajara:
A crazy story, which turned out to be not so crazy and just sad once it was confirmed that she was actually 15, and the baby was her step-father's. It did result in me going for drinks with a guy from the Daily Mail, however.
New government elected:
After 18 years of ruling by a centre-right government, a new 'liberal' party have taken over as of this month.
The most powerful woman in Mexico was arrested:
The head of the teacher's union, Elba Esther Gordillo was finally arrested by the new government for the charge of embezzling 2 BILLION pesos. That's more than 104 MILLION British Pounds. The average monthly wage for a teacher in Mexico is 2,760 Pounds... can you imagine the head of the NUT in the UK stealing that much money and getting away with it for years simply because they were friends with the Prime Minister? Well, possibly. The crazy thing is that all the old government had to say about the situation was that Gordillo was only arrested as a political move. Also true, but does nobody care how terrible the crime really is?
Mother arrested for kidnapping own daughter:
The ultimate chav? Maria de Lourdes Rangel Aguilar stole her own 6-year-old from the father she was living with so that she could hold a ransom for 200,000 pesos. She eventually returned her daughter in exchange for only 47,500 pesos. I wonder how that little girl will feel when she grows up to realise the exact amount of pesos that her own mother valued her at.
Reconsidering stereotypes after penniless sojourn in Mexico City:
Because I wrote this as well.
Mexican man is world's richest for 4th year in a row:
The owner of Telcel mobile network is worth an estimated US$73 billion. This was also written by yours truly and appeared on the front page.
Tigers in the cartel house:
Drugs cartels have some pretty unique security, apparently!
And several nasty stories about tourists being raped, people being beheaded, dumped bodies, hoaxes about dumped bodies, and general sky-high crime rates. But I do love the way the newspaper will always put a positive spin on things, for instance:
Kidnappers ask for lower ransoms:
At least it's becoming more affordable to retrieve your loved ones from the mafia.
Yesterday I found myself on a tour of the pretty famous nearby town of Tequila, with some Puerto Vallarta friends who have come up to visit. I'd been looking forward to this trip, and told myself that I wouldn't stay out that late the night before, since the trip started early in the morning and I was already pretty shattered from the week.
At 3am the night before, we finally emerged from a bar in Chapultapec where the barmen wore pleasingly stereotypical Mexican moustaches and our bill was mysteriously missing half the drinks we'd had... I can pinpoint the exact moment that my 8-hour sleep rule disintegrated as the one where I finished off the tumbler of Mezcal that nobody else would drink. Getting up at 7.30 on Thursday morning was difficult.
Our coach took about 45 minutes to get to the first Agave fields from Guadalajara. We hadn't gone far before the landscape suddenly looked inredibly, well, Mexican. Mountains and cacti and the funny blue plants called agave, from which tequila is made. We stopped at the first distillery to watch a moustachio'd man slice up one of the plants and talk about how the tequila is made. It was complusary to wear big straw hats through all of this, of course. We were given parts of the plant to eat, which to be honest tasted very bland considering that we were alarmingly told not to touch our eyes after eating it. I always find it amusing at places like this where they are obviously determind not to waste any of the prized plant/fruit/object, and insist that every single part is delicious and useful. I am pretty sure that no Mexican farmers sit at their breakfast tables tucking into agave plant and leaves.
Inside the distillary, the tour group were sat around a table with 5 bottles of varying shades of tequila- and this was just the beginning. By 11am we were all pretty drunk and singing Mexican drinking songs, led by the tour guide... I don´t think it helped that the four of us still had the alcohol from last night running through us.
Tequila itself is a small but pretty town, with small, straight and colourful roads highlighting the mountains at the end of them. We made a stop at the Jose Cuervo distillary where we had two-for-one margaritas, before dashing into the local museum to see the largest tequila bottle in the world.
The rest of the day consisted of a slow, hot lunch in the hills and several stops to try more kinds of tequila creams and liquors. Hardly anyone bought anything, (despite there being 5litre bottles for 10 pounds!) but this didn´t seem to matter... nor did the fact that we were all rapidly dehydrating and dizzy. It was probably part of the tour plan, so that our day would become a happy blurry haze and we´d need to do it again. We enjoyed ourselves though. And when I finally got to bed last night, I think I completely passed out. I love Mexico.
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