I finally had the chance to visit a good friend of mine. Eloy, or so he is called, lives about 3.5 hours from Temascalcingo in the city of Celaya, Guanajuato. I left friday night after classes and rolled into Celaya at about 10:30pm. In the darkness I really couldn´t get a good feel for the city (and it is rather large) but Saturday morning we took to the road. My first impression: Tucson, Arizona; except the Mexicans here are legal. Truly a dismal place. Flat, with mountains in the distance, smoggy, and a car dealership on every corner of the main drag, with streets leading to various ventricles of the city. To be honest it felt like an American town, at least how it was laid out, average to say the least. The our tour began: To the left the Universidad de Celaya, to the right the Campbell's soup factory, the Peugeot dealership, can´t miss it Home Depot, and the house at the end of the street where
narcos left three men in 20 paper bags (you do the math). I loved it more by the minute. The journey continued through Cortazar, Salamanca, Irapuato, Silao and finally the the heart of the tanner's pride: León. We were only a few minutes into León when we came across the coveted
Plaza del Zapato, the plaza greatly under-exaggerated, about six square blocks of pure shoes, boots, sandels, belts, wallets, jackets, and anything else leather. I had my heart set on a nice set of boots, not
too picuda but just enough to give me the bad-ass image I´ve never rightfully earned. The first store had a great pair at a great price, but not my size (surprise surprise). The beautiful thing about these vendors is that they work in teams: if they don´t have a specific product, they´ll grab your arm and swiftly guide you to some backroom of some other
puesto and have you talk to another of their "friends" who always has exactly what you´re looking for. So this friend asked me what I was looking for and joking I said
"unas botas de rana" (frog skin boots) and before I had time to smile at my attempted joke the man was off. Where could he possibly have gone? Frog skin boots were the most ridiculous thing I'd ever joked about. Less than seven minutes later
the man was back and very apologetic -
"Lo siento señor, solo tenemos de sapo" (sorry sir, we only have toad skin) and before I could laugh, he continued
"y te olvidé preguntar si queria con cabeza o solitas..." (and, I forgot to ask you if you wanted those boots with or without the heads) and with that produced two pairs of toad skin boots. The first pair, without the head, a most brilliant vermillion, and the second, a most refreshing green, with the head carefully centered just above the pointy toe. The boss came over and explained to me that he only had toad skin, as toads have more skin to offer and covered the entire top part of the foot without having to split the skin, as with a frog. He quickly changed topics to the other fine exotic leathers that he carried: Snake skin, cobra skin, bull skin, manta ray skin, ostrich skin, ostrich-foot skin, armadillo skin, armadillo-stomach skin, crocodile skin, shark skin and then the types of cuts, with the types of toes. He then proceeded to pick out a pair that would fit me nice; a pair of white
picuda croc skin boots (see top picture) aside from being incredibly comfortable, they laughably added four inches to my already size 12 feet! The only way I could pull them off would be to join Montez as a percussionist! No, as good as the price was ($1,400 pesos ($100 USD)), I couldn't do it... I settled on a more conventional, still pointed toe, brown cowhide boot. And damn (see above), they look good!
