bee season.

"you're either on the bus or you're off the bus"

sarah tambien and i took a trip back to the 60s on the weekend. her favourite chicago-based artist, andrew bird, decided to come to a music festival in mexico - and she didn't want to miss it! sarah wanted a partner-in-crime for her little adventure, and since everyone knows about my over-impulsive behaviours, she knew she could count on me.

chapter 1: "do they have hypnotic treatments to cure sleeping through alarms?" - me

our flight to cuernevaca was early saturday morning. friday evening we had celebrated our last night with all the girls with a sex in the city party, so i had gone to bed without packing, and completely unprepared. in true flemo form, i set my alarm leaving lots of time to shower and pack... and then slept right through it. i should mention that i also slept through TEN phone calls from sarah trying to wake me up. she ended up driving over and finding me still asleep when our cab was supposed to be picking us up! i threw a few things into a suitcase and we were out the door in less then 15 minutes. that'll make my parents proud.

chapter 2: "this is what happens when you let me plan!" - sarah tambien

we booked our tickets without knowing much about the concert at all. we knew it was an all-day festival that was only accessible by bus, but that was about it. our plan, according to sarah tambien, was going to be to bring all our luggage to the festival and camp there. uhh, great idea. except for one small snag. there wasn't actually camping allowed at the concert site. luckily, we thought to read through the spanish website at midnight the night before and were able to put some of the facts together. we booked a cheap hotel in cuernevaca, and planned to sleep there even though the concert was about an hour away. somehow, we also missed (or perhaps ignored) the messages that it would be cold, wet, muddy and rainy at the show. so, we showed up in flip flops, without rain gear and only one layer piece. yes, its true, we are THAT smart.

chapter 3: "besame mucho" - andrew bird

the location of the colmena festival itself was breathtaking. after managing to perfectly time our cab-plane-cab-hotel-cab-bus combination, we arrived at the jardin sagrado (otherwise known as sacred garden), which was an ecologically-friendly sanctuary sheltered by bee-hived shaped cliffs and small mountains. the location was idyllic, the acoustics were brilliant and the music was relaxing. having just finished a full year of teaching, sarah and i were exhausted. after we walked the long muddy path into the concert, we put down a sarong and lay down and relaxed for about an hour. we looked more like nappers then concert-goers, i imagine. even with the crowds of people, long lines for food and stinky toilets, sarah and i relaxed and enjoyed every minute. by the time the enchanting voice of andrew bird hit the stage, we hadn't let the chilly weather or on-again off-again rain get us down.

chapter 4: "which way to cuerna?" - both of us

andrew bird's show was short, but his presence was captivating. if you haven't heard him already, please go and download him now. you definitely won't be disappointed and you might even fall in love. sigur ros, a fabulously mellow group with classical influences (and even a brass band in their back pocket) was the big ticket item of the night. the problem remained that there were more then 6,000 people in the middle of nowhere that needed to be shuttled back to their various towns. mexicans are known for many lovely things, but being efficiently organized would definitely NOT be one of them. we really didn't want to be waiting in lines for hours into the night for our bus, so we broke the number one concert rule and actually left early. OF COURSE, in true mexican form, it still took them more then 45 minutes to get the first few hundred people organized! i don't want to even think of what it would have been like if we had been in the middle of the throngs of people that left at the official end of the concert.

chapter 5: "flying solo" - sarah tambien

as quickly as i had arrived, i turned around and left. i was out of monterrey for little more then 30 hours! i left sarah behind for her first solo travel adventure (something i truly believe every person should experience once in their life)... leaving my pseudo 60s adventure behind.