Julia was due to meet up with me at 6:30. At 6:45, I decided to go wait for her in the lobby, which wound up being a good move since she told me upon arriving at about 6:55 that she had forgotten what room I was in. She wanted to eat at Tía Chona, but it was closed. 🙁

We instead walked down Calle Constitución in the opposite direction from the Walk of Fame and looked for food there. This part of Calle Constitución reminded me of Sparks Street in Ottawa, so much so that I actually got hit with a very unexpected wave of homesickness!

We narrowed our dinner choices to tamales from a cart, a gorditas restaurant Julia had been to the night before, and a taco place. I wanted a proper dinner, so the tamales were out. I voted for gorditas to see what they are like in Durango, but when we got there, Julia looked at me sheepishly and said that she preferred to go to the taco place. We did and it wound up being a full service restaurant with lots of different things on the menu. She asked about the non-alcoholic beverage options, so I did the polite thing and asked if she minded if I ordered a beer. Not at all! And she ended up changing her order to beer, too! I had a Victoria and she went with a Modelo.

Everything on the menu looked good, but she told me to try huarache, which she said was a thick maize base with melted cheese, meat, and veg. I chose to have it with al pastor pork! When it came, I wasn’t too impressed by what I was getting for my money, as it looked like I was getting a taco with a really thick shell, but once I’d piled on the various salsas and taken a bite (after confirming that this was finger food), I was sold! It was like eating a Greek pita! Julia burst out laughing when my eyes started to water and I tried to identify the salsa that was the culprit. She informed me that there were chiles hidden under all the melted cheese. Did you know that beer actually helps cut down on the pain from hot chiles?

The al pastor pork was fantastic and didn’t taste anything like what I get in Maz (not better or worse, just different). Julia said that foods in Mexico have the same name, but vary from region to region and that just because I like something in one region won’t mean I will like it in another, and vice-versa.

It was 7:57 by the time we had paid and so we rushed to Plaza de armas to catch the tour, which started at 8:00. But once we had our tickets, we were informed that it actually starts at 8:30. They just put 8:00 on the brochure to make sure they get going on time! Sneaky! We had time to walk down Constitución a bit to check out the craft market, where we sampled some coffee-flavoured booze and a really good (albeit sweet) cinnamon whisky!

The tour was based on Mexican artist Benigno Montoya (I guess “The Princess Bride” isn’t known in Mexico, because I’m the only one who found the name funny). There is a museum in Durango dedicated to his funerary arts. The tour was to take us through a cemetery to look at some of his sculptures and see the tombs of famous people from Durango.

Again, I won’t pretend that I understood a fraction of the tour, but it was well worth my time just for the experience of spending two hours in a pitch dark cemetery laughing! I thought that the tour would be scary, but it was mostly just entertaining. There was a guy dressed like a monk with a spooky skull mask who would sometimes stand in the shadows waiting to be noticed, but he never actually jumped out at anyone. He also had some stories to tell and I could get just enough to know that he was hilarious and not trying to be scary at all despite his appearance!

Our main tour guide called himself El conde de la capa negra (the count of the black cloak) and a third character was Lady Black, whose face was covered by a thick veil. The man who played the count told us that he is a professional actor paid by Durango tourism and that this is his full-time job. Not a bad gig!

I was surprised by how much we were able to see even in the dark. My camera has a good flash! Unfortunately, it ran out of juice before the tour ended and my last pictures were taken with my crappy iPhone camera. You’ll see the difference!

Walking around the cemetery was dangerous. Lots of tripping hazards and even open holes!

This tomb was so sad. It belongs to a six-month-old baby and ends with “I’ll never forget you, my porcelain doll.”

Here’s the monk telling us about his problems buying Doritos at Oxxo (I got the gist of it!):

This is where Lady Black joined us. The effect was really well done, since she’s all in black and emerges like a ghost from the shadows! Speaking of ghosts, El conde told us about how the week before he had a private group of 40 people from Culiacán and half the group, including himself, saw a ghost. He broke character to share this story and I could tell that it had really freaked him out!

His megaphone looks a little imposing, but he had it on very low volume:

We saw so many lovely sculptures:

An entrepreneurial woman was waiting for us at the end of the tour. She was literally running a restaurant out of the trunk of her car! Look at her professional sign! Almost everyone lined up to get something, but Julia and I were stuffed from dinner and not curious. I told her how that’s not legal in Canada and after some stumbling, Julia understood that it was for hygiene reasons. She found that rather absurd, saying that we’d probably faint if we saw how restaurants handle our food out of sight. I completely agree with her!

There was a boy napping on the bus on the way back to Plaza de armas. I have no idea how he managed to stay up there in the lurching traffic, but he slept soundly! Another thing you wouldn’t see NOB (north of the border)!

This tour was $60 and wouldn’t have been worth it to me if I was on my own. But from what I got out of it, it would be totally worth it to someone who better understands Spanish than I do. I had had no interest in the Benigo Montoya museum and found myself regretting that I wouldn’t have time to take a tour of it!

It was past 10:30 when we were dropped off at Plaza de armas and I was overdue for bed. Julia debated getting a cab back to her hotel, saying that she never walks after dark anywhere, but I felt perfectly safe walking the few blocks down 20 de noviembre. Before we separated, she said that she might be back on Isla this week and would pop in if she is. So we may see each other again. If not, we have some great memories!

Saturday was a really full and fun day in Durango. I didn’t do all of what I had thought I’d do, but having had the opportunity to share my day with someone made up for that. I got a chance to step out of my comfort zone and do a few things I wouldn’t have done on my own because of the language barrier and, so, I got a richer experience.