found beautifully curated in street ‘museums’ across the city. Her pieces are geometrical and trippy. They are whimsical, geometric designs portraying faces with oversized features and multiple orifices. They are extremely colorful and original and therefore become easy to identify. I find myself believing I am now a connoisseur. I start pointing out her work to our guide. He smiles when I do this, as I am only right about half of the time. It is July, mid afternoon, the interior of the car is sweltering and hot wind is blowing through our rolled-down windows, carrying in bus exhaust and the heat of the city. I have killed the battery on my camera, and my internal battery is flashing red. I need a recharge. Derrik can tell I am wilting. He makes a quick left and asks me if an ice cream would help. I am about to agree when I look up and see us heading for Dairy Queen. “No, I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”
I suggest against my better judgment. I really wanted to keep this trip authentic to the local culture. “I think you will really like this place,” Derrik answers back. I am relieved as we turn right into a shopping center, away from Dairy Queen, and park. We walk across the lot and into a local ice cream shop called Tepoznieves. They offer over a hundred flavors of ice cream. Tequila with lime or fig and mango with chile are just a few. I settle on a scoop of coconut and a second scoop of pineapple with chile. They hand us tiny little spoons, and we head out to the patio to cool off and enjoy our tiny treats. A little breeze cut across the patio and cooled my outside while the ice cream cooled the inside. Here was another reason to come back. There have been several days since my return from this trip that I had wished I could replace one of the Dairy Queens on this side of the border with a Tepoznieves. Instead of satiating my hunger, the ice cream
Oh, down in Mexico I never really been so I don’t really know Oh, Mexico I guess I’ll have to go –James Taylor “Mexico”
seemed to revitalize it. It had only been about three hours since lunch, but I was hungry again. I wasn’t alone. When Derrik recommended we go for a taco, my girlfriend and I provided a gutteral “yes” at the same time. Jinx. We climbed back into the car and drove to La Cacho district. The restaurant we were looking for was in a sort of taco alley. Six individually owned taco shops, billowing smoke, offering curbside stools and packed from end to end, stuffed and crowded into a half block of real estate. Each restaurant looked the same to me, but Derrik said Tacos Los Paisas was his favorite (it had also recently made Anthony Bourdain’s list of favorite TJ eateries), so we followed his lead. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the place was still busy. We each grabbed a Strawberry Fanta out of the dining room fridge and made our way to the inside counter. We were greeted with a plate of smoky red salsa and fire roasted green and yellow peppers. Derrik ordered all of us a Samurai taco. It seemed appropriate, as the meat was being mesquite grilled in front of us by a Teppanyaki chef using an old Weber BBQ instead of a grill. The taco was a tostada inside of a tortilla, topped with barbecued pork, fresh cut onions and a creamy avocado sauce. The first bite was heavenly. I tore through the rest of the taco. Maybe it was all one giant bite with fits of chewing mixed in. It was instantly evident that tacos like this were the reason we had a proliferation of taco joints in the US. They were all trying to achieve this level of authenticity. Yet another reason to return. If you are married or have a significant other, you know this next part to be true. You cannot leave the house on an adventure and do fun boy stuff all day without balancing out the gender scales by adding some girl stuff in the mix, too. Girl stuff generally means shopping. We were in Mexico the day prior to Opening Day at Del Mar, and my girl was in need of a big floppy hat and shoes. It was getting late in the day, and she was convinced that she was not going to have a chance to find these muchneeded items before tomorrow’s event. Derrik suggested we shop here, in TJ. Even though she was in the back seat, I could feel my girlfriend’s eyes roll. And honestly, I was on the same page. The places we had seen so far surely couldn’t offer the selection or styles needed to dress up for the races, but Derrik had not been wrong all day. Even so, for the first time I can recall, I had to quite literally drag my girlfriend into a mall to shop. I just may have joined her in her little shopping excursion, but you cannot force me to write about it. Suffice it to say, this mall (bizarrely) looked like every other mall I had been in. The mall boasted stores with American names, international products and busy women pushing strollers and hefting giant bags (presumably full of shoes, hats and purses) out to their SUV’s. She found a hat and shoes (Steve Madden’s) at our very first stop. Derrik had saved me and proved us wrong again. Thank you. We piled back into the car and headed for the border. After driving a few blocks, Derrik suggested one last stop if we were up for it. “No more shopping,” I laughed. “No, not shopping,” he replied. And then one magical word rolled out: “Mezcal.” “In!” was our instant reply.
134 |
| Indian Summer 2013 Issue