the tigers of the north

so saturday i came to the capital to see los tigres del norte. if you don`t know how they are, they are like the beatles of ranchera music. i love ranchera (and banda) and i was not going to pass up the opportunity to see "puerta negra" en vivo. i brought my boots. i brought my washington belt buckle. i brought my love of mexican ranchera. the concert was great. i knew some of the songs, but these guys must have 50 albums. no joke. we left around one thirty, and they were still going strong, taking requests and everything. the show was over three hours long and they played four nites in row at different venues around the country. these guys are truly tigres. mirna has a crush on the lead singer. alexa likes the sax-accordian player. i kinda dug the drummer, although i´ve always had a thing for good accordian playing.
now i´m in nebaj, quiche. our plan was to come up on wednesday, but monday nite i got food poisoning. just your standard pukes and poops. so we had to postpone the trip a bit. not a big deal. we came up yesterday. from antigua it took us 11 hours to get here. the trip included: a tourist shuttle to chi chi (we´re on vacation), crossing a protestors´ baracade at los encuentros, getting stuck for 3.5 hours in road construction, and a finale of the trip that closely resembled a thrill ride at 6 flags. i hate rollar coasters. what i hate more is being on a school bus at nite on a cliff edge highway with a camionetta driver who`s been stuck in traffic and anxious to get home. i honestly had to close my eyes for part of the trip. nebaj is part of the ixil triangle. i thought it was going to be a small rustic town. it´s huge. bigger than ipala by far. the colonial church is pretty nice. and there´s a plaza. and in the plaza, because it´s xmas time, is throbbing andean xmas music and an animatronic santa claus. deeply disturbing. but even more disturbing is that the santa is in fact not animatronic. but it´s an actual person in a suit with a plasic face mask moving jerkily to the music as if he were animatronic. alexa and i had to move in for a closer inspection. he gave us a wave. i really want to take a foto. but i don`t want to have to pay. maybe tomorrow i´ll change my mind.
tomorrow we head to cotzal for beth´s quiche wedding. updates to follow . . .