Day 29 - Tuesday 18th October 2005

I had heard good things about the colonial city of Zacatecas, and it has a name that rolls right off the tongue, so I got on yet another bus journey and arrived mid afternoon. After not really having any contact with any other travellers for a few days I decided to stay in the hostel in town where I would hopefully be able to meet some.

Immediately on checking in, I bumped into 4 English guys from Bath travelling together, who were staying in town for a few days. We sat around and had a beer or two for the rest of the afternoon. Ok so maybe I should have gone out and explored the fine colonial city I had just arrived in, but I was jaded from my bus journey and the thought of walking around didnt appeal to me at that moment.

Before I knew it, the sun was setting and I needed to dig my jumper out of my bag for about the first time in Mexico (apart from on the air conditioned buses). Zacatecas is about 2500m above sea level, so during the day when the sun was shining it was really warm, but during the evening the temperature fell to probably somewhere around the temperature of a late August evening in England. Not cold, but a definate chill in the air.

When the sun had been set for a few hours and the temperature had dropped, we went out to have a look at what was going on in the city, and its bars. The streets were crammed with different kinds of performers, ranging from clowns (Mexicans love their street clowns) to a guy dressed as a Golum like creature who was quite frankly, freaky.

After the street entertainers packed up and went home for the night, we went to bar to try to meet some hopefully not Golum lookalike Mexican girls. Unfortunately, the bars were about as crowded as bars in Haverhill would be on a Tuesday night (for anyone not familiar with Haverhill, that means they were empty), so after a game of pool or two, we called it a night and went back to the hostel.