Back in all my farmer-tanned glory...

Just got back from Puerto Vallarta, and I understand a few things now... The lane markers on streets are merely suggestions for a route of travel, so if there's enough room to maneuver your car between the bus on your right and the car on the left, ride that line and accelerate like hell, because whoever gets to the intersection first has the right of way. Also, when you're stopped at an intersection and there's a bunch of traffic blocking your path, just keep creeping out until the other cars are clearing your bumper by inches. Sooner or later someone will lose their nerve and let you through...

Ate a metric ton of fantastic Mexican food, walked a bunch, swam some, did some hiking down the El Naugalito river, and all with only slight digestive discomfort... Good times, good times...

I didn't listen to my ipod much while I was down there. When I travel, I like to try to experience the culture, and for me, part of that is listening to whatever music is around.

Now someone may call me closed-minded, but I don't get Tejano music. I've listened to it at length several times since I moved out here 16 years ago, and I find it mildly irritating. If I'm in a restaurant where it's playing, I can handle that. But to just play it on my car radio? It feels jittery and polka-like to me, and I ain't a polka fan.

But something weird happened in Mexico... At night in the hotel room, I'd be changing the channel on the TV, and I'd stop on Bandamax or some other Mexican music channel, and it would start to click. It wasn't like those were my only music options -- the hotel had Mtv and VH1 (though VH1 was spending a lot of time showing Miami Vice en espanol -- that was sort of entertaining in its own way, seeing Don Johnson with someone else's voice coming out of his mouth), but I ended up watching Bandamax for a while most every night, and it was starting to make sense to me.

I had a theory while I was down there, that perhaps the music actually produced in Mexico had a slower tempo to match the general attitudes there, and that perhaps Tejano was sped up a bit to match that (supposed) faster-pace of urban U.S. life. But once I got back, I put on a Tejano station, and that doesn't seem to be the case. It may just be that music in Mexico fits the environment so well that they mesh together somehow, and that Tejano in the U.S. (at least to me) feels forced. Who knows? Any opinions out there?

Just so you know, the Mexican pop stations were pretty interesting too. Mix of Spanish and English-language songs, and very fun and infectious. Heard the Black Eyed Peas a lot, along with some occasional Gnarls Barkley and Gorillaz.

So yeah, had a great time, but by the end, I was ready to be back... So much that we ate hamburgers at the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch on our last full day...