Hodomania by Benjamin Simpson

Saturday November 01, 2008

[This post is a continuation of the post called ‘Las Quince Letres‘ ]

Saturday night at 10 I was sitting in the lobby of the hostel.  At dinner last night the German and the Englishman (for simplicity sake I will call them Hans and Simon) made plans to visit the disco in the mine.  I had trepidations, if it was a bar in a mine, an old fashioned belly up to the bar sort of place, I would be all over it, but it’s a disco, and I’m not all that happy about discos.  The music rarely hits my dancing bone, so I end up standing around, the loud music apposed to talking.
But damn it!  I had to visit a drinking establishment in the middle of the mountain.  Despite the knowledge of disappointment, I had to be able to say, in a random conversation, ‘I got drunk in a mine once.”
It has to do with not missing opportunities.  While I lived in New York in the summer of ‘93 I never went up the Empire State building, the Stature of Liberty, or the World Trade Center.  I got kicked off the premises of the World Trade Center for riding my bicycle through it on a Sunday, but that does not really count.
What the hell am I babbling about?  When you have the chance to do something, do it.  The skyscrapers might not be there when you return.  And even if it is stupid and pointless, it just might make a good blog entry.

Ok, back to Saturday night, my partners in discoing were not there yet so I distracted myself with looking at the bookshelves.  There are four shelves of exchange books, and I am quickly burning through them.  I have yet to find any English language books for sale in this town, so I have been reading some great books by Vonnegut, Christie, LeGuin and even an Eric Newby about his life before becoming a famous travel writer.  But I have also been reading some really crappy crime dramas and even a romance.
The two arrive and explain that that they met some exchange students from Guadalajara who want to come along, but they will not be ready until 11.  So we drink some 9-peso XX beers while waiting.
The four exchange students arrive, which is actually five, and we step out into the cold 7,500 foot Zacatecas December evening.  Everyone zips up their jackets and stuffs their hands in their pockets.
There is a little confusion, bumping into each other, before I realize that I am the only one who knows where we are going.  So I point in the correct direction and head off.  There are introductions all around while walking down the street.  The four exchange students are all early 20-something European girls.  They say their names, which instantly disappear from my brain, and their countries, France, Denmark etc…
The introductions are interrupted by the girls saying they want a taxi.  I say that it is not very far and that walking would be better.  They hum and haw, and I realize that they really want to take a taxi.  Ok, I say, there is a taxi rank just over there, but I feel like walking, so those who want a taxi can go that way and those who want to walk can come with me.  The girls and the boy with them head for the taxi stand; Hans and Simon come with me.   There never was a formal introduction to the boy with the girls.  He was about their age, but looked Hispanic.  His thick black hair jutted three inches from his head in all directions, a genetic fight between curled African and straight Hispanic.
The three walkers made quiet comments that they are students, not real travelers.  With the underlying thought that we’re better because we are real world travelers, traveling the true way, walking and seeing the locals and their world.  Which, of course is bullshit, but nice romantic bullshit.
The girls are waiting for us in the mine train.  Which is not really a train.  The tracks were removed and the tunnel floor concreted over, with a small guide groove running down the center of the tunnel, like an RC car on a track.  The engine is a small car, with an imitation smoke stack and round boiler for effect.  Despite the unreality of the train, there is a beautiful surreal feeling of trundling down a tight stone tunnel into the heart of the mountain.
After five minutes we exited at a collection of tunnels, connected with archways.  Floodlights were mounted on the ceiling, with collected cables running through eyelets in every direction.  There were two bouncers guarding the locked gate into the rest of the mine, and we entered the club.  On each side were glass cases with ‘Club Mine’ t-shirts and lighters and other stuff for sale.  There was a bored looking girl exchanging coats for tickets behind one.
In a small cavern was the bar and a suit wearing man escorted us into the disco, placing us at a counter along the wall.  The music was playing, but no one was really dancing yet.
The cavern was a large dome, maybe 200 feet across and 100 feet high.  The rock was a soft brown and the chisel and mining marks were clearly visible.  On a stone shelf 20 feet over the bar were the two DJ’s.  The dance floor was in the center of the room, and circular, surrounding this were low round tables with chairs, and then tall round tables and stools and finally a high counter running round the edge of the wall, with stools.
Simon and I looked at the few, busy looking men with trays and orange ‘La Mina’ polo shirts and orange hard hats, and decided to visit the bar ourselves.
We went and stood at the bar and they ignored us until on of the bartenders pointed toward the woman with the cash register at the end.  Simon ordered a beer and she took his money and gave him a receipt, with the bartender promptly took and gave him the beer.
I asked for ginebra.  She looked confused.  I asked again, trying to pronounce the word slowly.  She still looked confused.  I found the drink menu on the bar and pointed to:  Genebra:  Beefeaters $65, Negro Oso $35.  She smiled and took my 35 pesos.
The barman glanced at the receipt, began to spin round, stopped and looked at the receipt again.  Then he took a quick glance at me before turning around.
I guess no one orders gin here.
He grabs a bottle and pours it into a measuring glass, and I notice that it says vodka on the bottle; Negro Oso obviously makes both Vodka and Gin.  I stop him and say “No vodka.”  He smiles and says “Si, ginebra.”  I reach over and gently turn the bottle in his hand to show the vodka label.  He looks surprised and turns back to the collection of bottles. I get a gin on ice with soda water and a twist of lime.
I still haven’t found tonic water.

Back in the disco and the dance floor is filling up. Ricky Martin sings something in Spanish, and I watch the people dance, and the video on the four flat screen TV’s mounted on the wall.
The girls are dancing, and they dance well, comfortable and relaxed as they move, even though we are standing in front of the counter, between the tables, in a walkway, rather than on the dance floor.
Their male friend dances with them, moving from girl to girl, flirtatiously, but innocently.  Hans is not dancing, he does not look like he has ever danced, and he stands on the other side of the group, not drinking, and watching the happenings.  The Englishman is dancing, but off to the side, and he is dancing in a quiet insecure sort of way.  He doesn’t look comfortable, but moves because the girls are dancing, and they are young and cute, and there is probably a little hope for later in the evening in his mind.
I sit on a stool and sip my drink and smoke a cigarette.
The music sways back and forth between English and Spanish.  After Ricky Martin, is a modern version of ‘I Will Survive’ then a Spanish song, then Britney Spears.  Next is a Spanish song that must be famous, because everyone cheers at the first few thumping beats and sings along.  The whole dance floor raises their arms in unison with the chorus.
It is, of course, mostly young people, college age.  There are couples who are specifically dancing with each other.  There are mixed groups, dancing in a circle, and their eyes wander from the group, searching out partners for the evening.
There are older people too.  Married couples in their 40’s dancing easily with each other, and even one old lady, sitting quietly while three generations milled and danced around her.
The next time at the bar the cashier nodded and asked me something I did not understand, but I answered with ‘Si, Ginebra” and she nodded and took my money.  The bartender easily made my drink this time.
The gin was beginning to sink in, and I felt out of place.  Uncomfortable.  I did not want to dance to this music, it does not make my feet tap.  I don’t like dancing to music I don’t like, because I cannot relax to the music, and dance self-consciously and badly.  And I don’t want to dance badly because, well, I don’t want to look stupid.
Maybe another gin and I will feel like dancing.
Another gin and the Bloodhound Gang sing their romantic song about the Discovery Channel.  It has a good beat, I can dance to this, but as I dance people push through our dancing group.  We are officially in a walkway.  Each time this happens I break rhythm and each time it is harder to start back up again.  Eventually near the end of the song, I give up and sit back down on the stool and go back to watching the people and the laser light show.
The night drags on, and I become more and more bored with the music and the people.  Some of the local boys have drunk enough courage to come over and dance with the white European girls.
I don’t need to be here any more.  I scream goodnight into the ear of the Simon and quietly disappear, trundling into the cold night air on the train.  I shake my head at the eager taxi drivers and walk home.
I can feel the alcohol in my body, but I don’t feel drunk, not drunk enough to fall asleep, I know that I will get home and the sugar or whatever it is will not allow me to sleep for some time.  I don’t want to sit alone on my deck waiting for sleep.

Luckily, Los Quince Letres is on the way home.
The bar is reasonably full at this time of night, which I would guess at the mid one o’clock range.  There is a stool open at the bar so I sit down.  The spry middle-aged man sitting on my right says hola, and I return the hello.  The bartender looks at me and I smile and ask for ‘Ginebra con heilo’.  He looks slightly taken aback, and I repeat the request.  He gives me an ‘Ok whatever you want’ sort of look, reaches to the bottles and pulls out ‘Negro Oso’ and shows it to me, I nod and say ‘Si’.
The man sitting next to me, and I, sip our drinks, smoke cigarettes and have a conversation.  He speaks a small amount of English so it is the usual stunted interchange.
We do the where are you from question? (Los Angeles) Then how long are you here?  My answer of three months stumps him for a moment.  Why are you here?  And I answer with work.  What work? I answer with escritor y photographia.  Almost all of them ignore the photography part and ask what I write.
At this point I feel a little strange, like I am cheating, or pulling a fast one.  I am saying that I am a writer, but I have made almost no money at writing.  I believe am not really a writer until someone else, someone I don’t know, pays for a piece.  But then the other side kicks in, the side that says that I write every day, so I am a writer.  A little exchange from the movie ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ pops into my head,
Holly Golightly: What do you do, anyway?
Paul Varjak: I’m a writer, I guess.
Holly Golightly: You guess? Don’t you know?
Paul Varjak: OK, positive statement. Ringing affirmative. I’m a writer.

My newest drinking partner and I continue to drink, he works in construction in Zacatecas, and wants to know what my novel will be about, I tell about working in a bar in California, and the people in the bar, he smiles and nods his head.  I get up to pee, and pause for a moment, my hand resting on the stool, just to catch my bearings.  I guess I’ve had enough to drink.
Back from the bathroom and there is some gin to finish, and I can’t leave it, so another cigarette with my friend.  I look at the paintings and photographs on the wall.  I ask if one day, if my book is famous, I can hang the cover on the wall.  He says yes, we can find a place for your book and I nod and smile feeling good.
The cigarette and gin are done, the tab is paid and I am out the swinging doors onto the street.  A quick shiver and zip up the jacket, and with my head down, walk the single car wide cobble stoned street.
The streets are empty and well lit, so I walk down the middle of the street.  There are wooden doors, and I know that down here, near the center of town, behind the door are beautiful private courtyards, open to the sky with arches holding up the walkways.  These were the houses of the rich men who owned the mines.
On my right is a stone church, with the flying buttresses leaping almost into the street.
At the next corner a traffic light stands at red for no vehicles.
I smile at my temporary home.  The shuttered shops that sell my simple food and goods.  The thirty steps leading from one street to another, which are wide enough to make an impromptu amphitheater on most nights for brass bands and clowns.
At home I sit on the deck, for one last cigarette and look at the dark domed cathedral looming out of the night, and smile.
This place feels good.

Before I left, I heard horrible stories about drugs, but I have not come even close to experiencing any problems.  A local told me it was probably not a good idea to go wandering in the countryside around Zacatecas.  Because of the crack down on drug dealers, they were just moving out into the country.

I did have problems with my cigarettes, it seems they do not have rolling tobacco and papers in this country, or at least this city.  When I asked in shops, they looked horrified, like I was asking for Marajuana.

But there is one other thing that I find really strange and that is the acceptance of the drug ‘Ecstasy’ here.  Or as it is more commonly known as “E”.  There are signs all over the place, saying where you can or cannot take “E”.

Obviously they don’t want you taking it in front of police cruisers…

And there are some that say not in front of their driveway…

and do not do E while standing next to a VW Beetle…

But for some reason the major hotels in town want you to do it on their sidewalk…

and in the town center you are allowed…

but the most suprising was in the center of the shopping district, in the middle of the day when everyone is shopping, is a club, called “Casa Revera”, advertising out in the open, and cars kept driving in and giving money for some sort of “ticket”.  What is this world coming to…

At The Quince Letres I sat next to Claudia, a young female lawyer in town. We watched her friend, sitting on the other side of the table, do shot after shot of Tequila. I asked for a vocabulary lesson from Claudia, and because she had spent some time in France her English was better than my Spanish.
(I know, I know, you learn French in France, not English, but that is what she said)
Below is a picture of the vocabulary lesson.

I went to Guadalupe today.
It is strange how the picture in your head is sometimes very different from reality.
I was expecting a small town out in the middle of nowhere. With a small rural community and a huge church dominating the landscape. I expected it to feel reverent, somehow monastic.
It was nothing like that.
I thought it was 15 miles from Zacatecas, but it is actually about four miles away, and a suburb.
It took a while of riding down small streets before finding the Church.
In front of the church was a large square, with graffiti on the central bandstand.
I went to the museum next door and the gates were locked.
There was a two paragraph sign on the gate, which the only part I could read was Cerrado, 13-18 de Noviembre.
So it was closed for the next week.
I decided since it was so closed, to return next week, when things were open.

P. S. On a completely side note, I climbed on the motorcycle and began riding off and there was a weird tug, or hinderance just as I started off.
I looked down at the front tyre and saw my lock, which I wrap around the tire and front forks broken. The lock had snapped with the force of the acceleration.
I guess that was a useless lock.
It was the barrel type, where there are four seperate barrals that spin around, each with 0-9 on it.
I think I will buy a different type of lock next time.

P.P.S. It costs 40 pesos to repair a flat motorcycle tire.

    Upon waking this morning, my feet itched.
    No I don’t have some sort of Mexican foot disease.
    I needed to get out of town for a little while.
    Go for a meander on the motorcycle.
    I contemplated where to go, and decided on a visit to the virgin. She is a very famous virgin who lives on a wall of a church in Guadalupe. Guadalupe is only fifteen or so miles a way, so it would be a good few hours visiting the church and the town.
    But no, God did not want me to visit the virgin.
    It’s not like I’m a bad person.
    Really.
    On the motorcycle, pushing the start button, something felt weird. It felt low, I looked at the rear tire and there must have been ten pounds of pressure in it, not flat like a pancake, but low, maybe like a jelly doughnut.
    (Hhhhmmmmm, that reminds me, there is a bakery around the corner that makes jelly doughnuts.)
    So I look for a nail, find nothing, ride the bike slowly over the cobblestone streets to the gas station. Fill up the tire, still find no hole. Ride home, fill a pan with soapy water, spread the bubbling water over the tire and eventually find the pinprick leak in the tire.
    The tire is removed in ten minutes, and Ernesto, the hostel owner, says he will get it repaired for me.
    Now what to do with my day?
    Oh yes, a doughnut, it’s a jelly.
–
–

My temporarily amputated motorcycle in its normal parking spot, with the entrance to the Hostel on the right and the door to my apartment at the top of the stairs on the left.

Don’t mix gin, beer and tequila.
Damn am I hung over.
I just went to my morning breakfast dive restaurant, as I have no idea what anything is, I am slowly working my way down the list under eggs.  This morning was scrambled eggs with ham and a side of refried beans, chips and tortillas.  With coffee and a bottle of water it was 46 pesos.  Which is about 3.50 USD.
Last night was a good night, I began watching CNN sometime in the late afternoon, sipping some gin and cucumber.  There is a fruit stall down the street which sells cups of chopped fruit, so in the morning I had bought a cup of cucumber.  The lady asked if I wanted some sort of red sauce on my cucumber.   It seemed wrong, so I said no, then she asked if I wanted salt on my cucumber.  I again refused.  Then she asked if I wanted fresh lime squeezed over my cucumber.  I said yes to that.
I ran out of gin sometime between the calling of Ohio and the closing of the polls on the west coast, so I headed next door to the hostel to buy some beer.  The beer is in a fridge on the tiny mezzanine level, next to the television.  There were a few people sitting around watching CNN, including the German gentleman who I went to the club with the other night.
I joined them and drank beer.  There was a young man from Eastern Europe and we got in some sort of political argument, I am not sure what it was about, as things in my brain were getting a little fuzzy by this time.
Just as the polls closed in California, CNN called the election for Obama.
I smiled, that was a good thing.
McCain’s concession speech was good; he looked relaxed and comfortable, as if a great burden was released from his shoulders.
It was an amazing moment to see Jessie Jackson crying.
And then Obama spoke, and I have to say, it was one of the most inspiring beautiful speeches I have ever heard.  Ok, it was late, and I was drunk, but I definitely had extra moisture in my eyes.
That was an amazing point of history.
The German said that the speech was a little boring, and everyone looked at him wide eyed.  The rest of us agreed that it was an amazing moment and a historical speech.
The gentleman in charge of the hostel, every time I stumbled by to go outside to have a cigarette, grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously and congratulated me.  I am not sure if he was congratulating me, or Obama, or the United States in general, but if felt good.
When paying for my beers, I had a shot of tequila.
Why does it always seem like a good idea to do one last shot before going to bed?
I woke up hearing voices, and quickly realized that the TV was still on.
Nothing intelligent will emanate from my brain today.

This morning I looked up Prop 8, the one trying to ban gay marriage in California, it seems like it will pass.  Last night I had hope that things were going to get better, that human beings were not all evil.  But this brings me back down again.  I would like to think that it is the last gasp of the hate-full Bush presidency, but I cannot really believe that.  I will stick today, after some hope from yesterday, to being Benjamin the Donkey from Animal Farm.

And on a completely different note, my e-mail is working again, when the server crashed, it somehow reset one of the settings, and so I was still receiving e-mails, but could not enter to read them.

I just thought I would drop a line and say hello.

I have decided to stay in Zacatacas for a couple months.  On Friday I moved into a small apartment run by the Hostel Villa Colonial, I now have my own kitchen and balcony with a little desk overlooking the Cathedral in the center of town.

If anyone happens to be in the neighborhood stop by for a drink:

Hostel Villa Colonial
Primero de Mayo y Callejon de Mono prieto, CP 98000 Centro Historico
Zacatecas 98000, MEXICO

or view it here:

http://hotels.lonelyplanet.com/hotel/Zacatecas-Hostal-Villa-Colonial-P1000776822.html

I have been laying low and reading and reading and reading, and writing odd bits and pieces for myself for the past week or so.

and on another note, I have not been able to get my e-mail for five days.  The server for the company that has worked flawlessly for five years, crashed.

I am awaiting their reply on how to get my e-mail again, but am slightly worried that, maybe, all my past e-mails are gone.

Damn I hope not.

Got myself a bottle of Ginebra (pronounced hen-ebra) to sit and watch CNN tomorrow.  (Don’t know what Ginebra is?  Just remove the last four letters…)

October 24, 2008

Mina el Eden

Entering an old mine is always exciting.  The cramped spaces, the feeling of danger, that the whole world about to crash down upon your head.  As a child I was afraid of going down mines.  But I did it, but was constantly nervous, looking up and the ceiling and waiting for it to fall.
I still have those feelings now, of small claustrophobic spaces, my flesh crawls when I watch people squeeze through cracks in tunnels just the light of the torch on the helmet lighting the way.
It must be like roller coasters for me, there is a sense of danger, of fear.
I did not feel fear once while in this mine.  I guess the closest would be standing on a metal grate looking through it to the water two stories below.

I was a little disappointed because it felt like Disneyland.  It felt like a recreation of a mine for the unadventurous explorer.  The smallest tunnel was wide enough for two people to walk side by side.  And the floor was concreted smooth and flat for the whole journey.

My disappointment might have something to do with the language barrier.  My guide, Saul, spoke only Spanish, as well as his three other visitors.  There were illuminated signs with information, so I took pictures of them and tried to translate back at the hostel.  But the first one I translated as “In the year of 1898 testify to the womb.” And I am assuming that is not really what it meant.  Although it could be an injunction to respect women, but I am only guessing.
The only other piece of information I gathered that seemed important was that the mine was found in 1546.
Another thing I learnt is that nadir means swim in Spanish.  Which I know, because if you stand next to the railing, with an ice cold pond below you, and you pantomime diving into the water and then doing the breast stroke.  Your guide will smile and say “’nadir’.

The mine is named for Adam and Eve’s first home.  At its peak production between 5 and 7 people died each day in the mine.  So they named it after Eden; someone has a wonderfully sick sense of humor.
But back to the mine itself.  The tour is shaped like an L.  I entered at the entrance near the cable car, the five of us walked through the mine to the corner of the L.  Here was a museum with glass cases of rocks and minerals and gems.  And here was the end of the line for the train.  (Although some sort of small car, with rubber tires and metal paneling to make it look like steam train, which follows a groove in the ground is not really a train, but lets not split hairs.)

The Mineral Museum.

The squared tunnel for the train.

Guests entering the mine on the train.

I guess I should not insult this mine, because there were a couple things that were interesting and even fun.
There were dummies all over the place.  Dummies holding picks and shovels.  Dummies tipping over ore carts.  Dummies lowering other dummies down cliff faces with ropes and a wooden cage.  Although they never smiled for the camera, I had a feeling they were happy for the attention.

And then there were the noises.  There were of course the noises of the other tours, and people talking quietly, but above all this, arriving through hidden speakers, were the noises of picks and shovels working, and the occasional noise of a far off explosion.  The mining noises just made me laugh, rather than understand the mine better.
But there was one thing that made me laugh, and even get excited:  that was the bar.  Yes they built a bar down at the end of the train journey, in the center of the mountain.  It is open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening.  The gates were locked when I was there, but chairs and two empty bars were visible between the pillars of rough rock.
The train trundled up the square tunnel, arriving in the bright sunlight.  There was a whole new group of people waiting, with their hairnets and their orange safety helmets to board the train and enter the mine.

And I walked back through town, marking the streets mentally, so I could find my way back on Thursday night.  To drink in an abandoned mine.
Anyone wanna join me?

Extra photographs:

The god of the mine, quietly waiting in the dark for offerings.

Abandoned machinery in the mine.

And finally a wonderful statue of a miner standing outside the entrance to the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night Disco Club.

(I did visit the club inside a mine, read about it here:  La Club Mina)

October 17, 2008

Dangling from the Heavens

Friday was a quiet day; I slept in, read my book, and played some solitaire.  Around noon the hostel manager stopped by and told me that the other room with the good view was available.  Would I like to switch?  So I moved to the penthouse suite, the one with the two balconies and the amazing view of the back of the Cathedral, the center of town and the cable cars between the mountains.
In the afternoon I went for a walk around town, the tiny winding streets of the center of town, many of them too steep and thin for cars, so they are covered with steps. Wandering through town I come across the indoor market, with butcher shops cutting up the bloody meat, colorful fruit stalls, children playing games with pog’s on the ground next to the candy stalls, and in the corner a ten foot tall steaming machine with a conveyor belt feeding something into it, and a number of women making things with their hands.
They are making fresh tortillas.  I buy a three-inch tall, six-inch wide stack of steaming tortillas with eight pesos, something like 75 cents.  At the general merchandise stall, I bought some sliced ham, a mozzarella like cheese and a small jar of mayonnaise.  Lunch is completed with a litre box of apple juice.  Sitting on the balcony I eat lunch listening to the people walk by and the cars honk their way through town.
I relax in the afternoon exchanging between bouts of reading and watching bad subtitled movies, (The Saint, Back to the Future II/III).  About an hour after the sun goes down there was the sound of bells and drums.  This was not really new.  In the 24 hours I have been in Zacatacas I have heard the marching band a few times, and the bell of the cathedral ringing at random times, sometimes it’s on the hour, and sometimes at the half hour and then sometimes in between the half hour, for no discernable purpose.  I try to find some sort of order from the ringing, but there seemed to be none.
So now the new bells and drums did not spark my interest.
Until I went to the balcony for a cigarette.
Just to the right of the cathedral a crane stood above the buildings. And hanging from the crane was some sort of scaffolding pyramid.  There were things handing from the scaffolding.  Wait, that can’t be!  That looks like people hanging from the scaffolding.  Is that someone swinging from a trapeze bar?  It must be.  I gotta go take a look.
A two-minute walk from the hostel and I was standing in the main square and dangling one hundred feet above me is the band.  Hanging from the crane’s hook is a twenty food tall cone.  The bottom of the cone are three trapeze swings, and the ladies are spinning and twisting dangling from; at one moment their hands, and then their feet, 100 feet above the 300 year old stone cobble square.  I can just see the black safety belts around their waists, but damn, I couldn’t do that.
But also dangling from the bottom of the cone, like the petals of a flower, are eight musicians.  There are counterbalancing weights in the center, which are controlled by a man on the ground, so the petals move up and down, sometimes they are above the trapeze artists and the spotlights are on the twirling girls, and sometimes they are below with the spotlights on them.
There are four drummers and four bell players.  Each is in his own rig, something like a jet pack.  There feet are on individual metal plates, and there is a metal bar running up the back onto which they are strapped and it curves up and around in a semi circle, so the drums or bells are held in front of them.
This could definitely put most of the performances in Burningman to shame.  And although it would have been nice to see Little Bit in a straight jacket dangling from the middle, in this show there was a single man, with a single four foot wide bell, with him dangling from straps, and his head almost inside the bell, ringing it with all his might, keeping time like a bass drum.
When they were done, the single bell player was the last to become unhooked from the structure, and I was happy to see him remove some earplugs.
I don’t know what to say, it was awesome, and I have no idea why it was done, no idea what the festival is or why there is a band playing in the sky.

UPDATE:
The next night the dangling band is at it again, but the previous night was just the rehearsal.  Tonight are eight wooden frames with torches at the corners on the ground surrounding the flying structure, which is still on the ground.  After the performers in costumes dance and stomp and sing and yell on their platforms, they climb into their rigs and are pulled into the sky.
I wonder what the hell is going on, but it doesn’t matter, I am in awe.

The main square of Zacatecas before the show:

The harness for the bell ringers and drummers, note the foot pads.

The side entrance to the main square, just before the show.

I have no idea what the hell is going on here.

Eight platforms with eight costumed performers.

It includes lots of stomping and shouting and singing.

I still have no idea what the hell is happening.

But she looks like she’s having fun.

Then the giant crane lifs the spiderweb of ropes holding the floating music box aloft.

The ladies soon to be dangling from trapeze wires and the gentleman playing the Bass Bell are lifted up.

And below them are the four bell ringers and the four drummers.

As they are all lifted into the sky.

Higher…

Higher…

and higher, until…

Until the whole thing is dangling from the crane, 100 ft. above the square.

In the beginning the ‘flower’ is closed and the musicians dangle in the center.

But ropes controlled from the ground slowly open up the flower to reveal the three trapeze artists in the middle.

The eight musicians dangling from the edges of the flower, while the trapeze artists wait to start their show.

A trapeze artist swings herself around in the spotlight, just right of center.

Playin’ drums 100 ft in the air.

The piece is lowered back down, with the bell ringer and three trapeze artists.

Ringin’ the damn bell.

Trapeze artist waits to dismount.

The Man with the Bell. (who was the only performer not wearing makeup, he must be the man in charge)

AAAAHHHHHH!!!!     Now that would scare a little kid!

Trapeze artist bum’s a smoke after the show.

Then again, maybe it doesn’t scare little kids.

And I will leave you with a photograph of a lady and her bell, pleasant dreams.