How to not find bars in Mexico

by leaffin at 07:46 PM on April 15, 2005

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a Mexican city with a friend trying to find a bar to have a pre-dinner drink. We walked around to well-travelled pedestrian areas and only found fast food sorts of places and little shops. No such luck! How could we be missing all of the bars in a 10 block radius in a city of 250,000 people? Well, it was actually a case of mistaken identity, if you can follow me. That, and a lack of bars around the city center.

As it turns out, I´m still in the same town (yes, the same town as bad-kisser and good-kisser, though no kissing has happened since I got back a couple of days ago), and although I`ve since found the cool bars, I now know what the problem was.

I woke up this morning and wanted to buy some veggies and eggs for breakfast and set out. I walked about half a block and heard blaring pop music, which would (in the States) probably be the sign of a bar, restaurant or really trendy clothing store. No such luck. It was a pharmacy. Huh?! I walked a few more doors down and heard more blaring rock music. Nope, not a bar or restaurant... just a small little gift shop. Crazy. Granted, the piercing place a block or so away from my hostal usually has punk or rap or rock blaring, but that´s a bit more expected. I just don`t get it. Next thing I know, I´ll find a butcher´s shop playing Celine Dion. Complete sidenote, I got my haircut the other day in a place that had the TV tuned into a talk show... the person cutting my hair actually paused several times to check out what has happening on the TV, but thank god, I still got a decent haircut.

Since I have found the town´s bars, I don´t mind the bit of fucking with my head with the music. I just kinda chuckle as I walk by, and I actually kinda like it. The pharmacy nearby usually switches off between pop music and salsa. Very entertaining.