aaron and i were dropped off by the lovely shannen at 7:30 this morning, in beautiful (sic) fernley nevada. there was barely enough time for me to pee on a bush and a young navy officer with hippy stickers all over the back window of his truck picked us up, taking us to the south end of fallon, where all the converging roads lead to vegas.
a scant 20 minutes later, barely enough time to poop in the bushes, one mario from reno pulled up in his sport utility machine. at first he was wary, asking if we were going to give him gas money, but once underway, he found that i spoke the spanish as well, and had good conversations about mexico, delivery driving (he drives for some UPS type company), and the oscar de la hoya fight he was driving down to see. he lit up when i mentioned that i enjoyed narcocorridos, mexican ranchera ballads singing the praises of drug traffickers. he introduced me to a group called los originales de san juan, who, between ballads about lost loves and how love is crappy, mainly sang about wanting to "split the ass" of a certain so and so, soaking the floor with his blood, and other songs about cars and airplanes full of drugs and flooding chicago with cocaine. good stuff.
mario drove really quick, so much so that we arrived in vegas around 3. as he drove away, we waved, and aaron said that his favorite bit of mario wisdom was when mario was telling of this brothel he visited, that "200 dollars is too much for a blowjob. I'll just jack off and save the money."
we took a bus across the strip to maryland parkway, the street best known to college students and indigents. after visiting my friend frank, who owns balcony lights record store, we were unable to get in contact with sara or regan, old friends from the shit town. unperturbed, we sauntered down maryland and got excellent falafels at basha's restaurant (aaron and i agreed on a strong 8 on the falafel rating scale).
this brings us to the present, in which sitting in the university, using a computer to check with our contacts in cancun. hitching into town may be more difficult then i'd expected, apparently there are roadblocks into the city.
aaron informs me that he is thirsty for beer and pool, so i'll digress, but stay tuned, more to come.