It was just a matter of time really. I had been tempting fate and who was I trying to kid that the probiotic yogurt I was guzzling was going to save me from the copious amounts of spicy street tacos, beer and tequila breakfasts I was consuming? I had been punishing my stomach. It was inevitable it going to happen… It was only a question of “when?”
The answer to that question is “today on the bus on the way to Zapopan” .

Today was originally going to be a stay at home rest day as my intention was to go clubbing on Saturday night and do all the Sunday morning after parties and then sleep the rest of the day. But Friday ended up being HUUUGE and so on Saturday night I was in no shape to go out. I party like a 20 year but, sadly, recover like a fifty year old. 

Anyway, so I was up early on Sunday morning and didn’t really want to waste the day anyway so I headed out to Zapopan… BY BUS!!! It seems the forces were against me again and just didn’t want me to get on that bus bound for Zapopan. Clearly, they were signs that I should’ve heeded. The information I had found on the Internet was wrong. It took me ages just to find the right bus stop and while looking for the stop I saw the Zapopan bus pass me by but I couldn’t catch it. Then it took ages for another bus to come.

As soon as I don’t do Bikram for a while, I quickly find myself becoming victim to psychological sways and negative patterns of behaviour. I didn’t need to get a bus in the first place. I could’ve easily afforded a cab. I have all the time in the world at the moment. I didn’t need to go to Zapopan at all, let alone be there at a certain time, yet I found myself getting angry and wound up that my information was wrong and that it was taking me such a long time to go. I was becoming “loss averse” and “committed”!

I always think of Eva Peron’s words when I think of Bikram…
“I found my salvation
In Bikram, may the nation.

Let him save them,

As he saved me.”

OK, so she didn’t actually say that. It was “I found my salvation in PERON, may the nation”. And well actually, they weren’t even her words… They was Andrew Lloyd Webber’s. But hey…

I digress. Back to the bus. So eventually the came and I got on. I assumed it would be a fairly short ride and that the Basilica would be an imposing structure on a large plaza on the main street and I would see it from the bus and so would know when to get off. The Basilica was indeed like that but unfortunately the bus didn’t go anywhere near it. And of course I went way past the Basilica. I knew once I started to see overpasses and highways, I was in trouble.
It was a very long bumpy ride and suddenly I get those horrible pangs in my gut. We’ve all had them. That feeling when you know suddenly it’s a race against the clock to get to a toilet. At this point I’m stuck on a bus. All I could do was clench my buttock cheeks tightly and pray that we’d reach the Basilica soon. Surely there’d be toilets there. Of course we didn’t but I had to get off the bus anyway, because I knew I had gone too far and, well, I was desperate by this stage.

I got off the bus and started to do the “mercy dash” with buttocks clenched tightly around the streets of Zapopan (it’s a big place!) in the hope that I’d find some bar or restaurant where I could relieve myself. After a while, I came across this little hole-in-the-wall place blasting 80’s American Rock…

  
Even though I was on the verge of sel-destruction by this stage, I was too embarrassed just to bolt straight for the toilet so as I entered I quickly grabbed a menu and ordered the first thing I saw. “Lonche de Jamon y agua natural por favor… Now, where’s the toilet???” She shows me the toilet and I’m so grateful and relieved that I can now go and that this whole scenario didn’t end in tears. I go in the toilet, which could best be described as “developing”. It was tiny, there were no windows and no lights so it was pitch black. Not a big deal, I can live with that so I proceed with my business. After I do it, I realise there are more serious plumbing issues and amongst other things, I can’t flush! So here I am, in a tiny hole in the wall place, having taken the dump of a lifetime and now I can’t flush it away. I just wanted to escape but now I had to wait for that stupid ham sandwich that I didn’t want anyway. All I could do was pray that at least no-one else needs to use the toilet while I’m there. But as soon as I was out, another guy was in. Oh God! How embarrassing! But strangely, he came out of toilet and didn’t even blink. Maybe he was being polite or maybe that’s the usual thing there. Who knows?

I relaxed a little after that and now that I had to wait anyway I thought I’d ask the guy behind the bar if he knew where the Musem of Art of Zapopan was. Well, he looked at me as if I was hallucinating. Maybe I’m not even in Zapopan I thought to myself so I had to look like an even bigger loser and ask him, “Where am I?” Yes I was in Zapopan but a long way from everything

To cut a long story short, I eventually walked the rest of the way to The Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan and then to Museum of Modern Art and the to Plaza Andares to do some shopping. It was a loooooong walk! But hey, it’s about the journey and not the destination, right? I left home at 11.30 am and arrived at the Basilica about 2.30 pm. Had I walked the whole way, it would’ve only taken me two hours!

It was all well worth it… The area around the Basilica is gorgeous…
  
And the Basilica itself was a stunning 17th century Franciscan piece of architecture brimming with artworks… 

  
And there was a “feria” going on outside with music and all sorts of street food stalls.  

   
 And even a cute dog…

  
The Museum of Modern Art was great although small with an interesting exhibiton by a Czech artist by the name of Jiri Kovanda.  

  
Then to do some shopping and then back home. I felt a bit like Colombus discovering the new world!!

Anyway, off home now but this time BY TAXI!!!