4am marching band

Friday night was responsible drinking at the same old revolution place, where children selling wrist-bands weave between the backpackers, and dogs wander under tables. Saturday we went on a school excursion - just six of us - to an area that is officially autonomous Z---tista territory. This means that they are disassociated from the Mexican government, receive no support, pay no taxes - they have their own privately-funded hospital and school. We all had to show our passports on entry and then submit to an interview about our nationalities, professions, membership of organisations, and reasons for visiting the zone. We actually went through this same process three times, in three separate sheds, with separate desks full of balaclava-clad men (and women, in the case of the final shed, which was the house of government). It was all very deliberately officious... We were given a speech in Spanish about the group, of which I could only understand very little. After sixty minutes or so the speaker asked if there were any questions, and all we could say was "can we take photos?" We were granted permission and then everyone took turns posing. Slightly perverse, but amazing really in all. We stopped at a festival in a nearby town on the way back to San Cristobal - a lively basketball game, carnival rides, and more marimba than you could poke a stick at. Saturday night I met with my new Mexican friends again for some boxes of beer, and spent the later hours in a reggae/ska club before a 3am roadside hamburger. It rained all Sunday so I hung around town with some fellow students, watching movies and eating big meals in comfortable places. This morning a marching band went past my door at 4am, while someone rang the doorbell (and then everyone else´s doorbell) repeatedly. This marks the start of the Festival de Guadalupe. Despite the rain today, there are more fireworks, more mariachi bands, and even more marimba than usual. And it´s going to get crazier every day until December 12 - the national holiday that is bigger than Christmas (according to a local source). Nuts...