Full moon and luna eclipse

I guess I got so transfixed by asking hippies about diarrhea that I forgot to write for a while. Yesterday we had a full moon here and a full lunar eclipse. The last time that happened was actually on my last birthday in Amsterdam in March when we all gathered to celebrate and watch the clouds slowly creep over the smoky crescent right when the eclipse was supposed to complete. But luckily this time, there was no forecast of cloud cover and the eclipse happened at primetime Mexico. Gringos in town had been really excited about the eclipse for days, as you can imagine. It is already auspicious to be celebrating full moons especially when traveling much less a lunar eclipse to double your pleasure. People in town constantly ask me what time it is because unlike all other tourists, I wear a watch because I got places to be. A couple of days ago I went to see a documentary on Zapatistas at a local independent cinema with some folks from the posada and one hippie looked at the schedule and asked, “its february?” Time and month people may not know but everyone seems fully aware of the lunar cycles and its effects on my toenails.

For the eclipse, we packed 2 vans full of people, dreadlocks, beers, guitars, drums, dogs… i think there were dogs, music, harmonicas, windpipes, enthusiasm, firewood, hot chocolate and 1 Japanese girl and off we went, over the roads, and up the hills and down the pastures and into the darkness, searching for the perfect spot. Actually we weren’t searching at all because the drivers knew where we were going. To the farmland of some local communities that live up on the hill and once we got out of the vans, we were greeted by seemingly ferocious dogs and rifle wielding men that all turned out to be super sweet. The men likely thought we were crazy to be watching the eclipse out in the cold in the dark, considering you could watch it inside on TV. Such is the constant contrast between gringos and Mexicans. Why go natural when you can have it canned?

As I was preparing to use my super night vision to locate my friends from the other van, about 5 people dropped to their knees and started chanting ‘OM’. Some other people decided to take the firewood and start building a fire. Others thought drinking beer and listening to reggae on the vans’ radio was the right thing to do while others still just wanted to sit in silence and smoke cigarettes. I found a girlfriend and had a glass of wine with her. This pretty much sums up the kind of people I have been exposed to here in Chiapas.

Once we watched the eclipse complete, we went to the fire and played music, drank hot chocolate, cracked jokes and listened to one Mexican guy go completely gaga over the Japanese girl (big fan of manga). Its great being one of something. One Indian girl means all the hippies like your country and you. One Japanese girl means all the manga freaks think you might as well be Princess Mononoke.

vocabulary: eclipse = el eclipse; new moon = la luna nueva; full moon = la luna llena; Japanese girl = la Japonésa