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12/09/2005: "And Cempoztlitl begat Mayahuel who begat Teotonititlan who begat 400 rabbits of drunkeness which lived in the breast of..."

I dropped Sita off last night at a renowned Tequila historian's office for an interview. For an hour and a half I wandered the streets of central Guadalajara listening to Radio 4's The Consultants on my spanking new MP3/Radio/Recorder player. When her time was up I sneaked into the building and was invited to listen to this bloke's lecture- he had lots more to impart it appeared and was glad of the audience. It was fascinating stuff. I can't pretend I remember it all, but he was talking all about the Aztec history of the Agave and its by-products. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject. When he wasn't cross referencing the Aztec calendar with a page of scribbled astronomical calculations, he was relating the family history of the Gods leading up to Mocteczuma's defeat at the hands of Cortes and co. He even had PowerPoint slides to back up his one-on-one lecture. Incredible bloke. Of course, he owns an agave plantation, is related to a major tequila company and has several books on the subject. One surreal aspect of the interview/lecture was the tiny little chihuahua dog he was looking after. Apparently earlier it'd pissed on the desk narrowly missing the laptop and when I arrived it was tearing the stuffing out of a toy twice its size, making impotent little squeaking noises as he did so. I never understood how we got from wolves to this? Anyroad... We're invited to his casa de campo sometime in the near future. I said I was into photography and really wanted to take some shots from down amongst the plants and the workers, and he said no problems. So I'm looking forward to that.

He was also showing us his own photography. He's a really good photographer and I love the volcanic scenery around Tequila. My favourite was the picture of 3 jimadores (Agave field workers) with pinas de agave on their shoulders walking through the rain. It had it all, the drama of the landscape, the tradition of the workers, with their weatherworn faces, loading their burro, and the rain made everything more vibrant. Two slides later, the camera pulled back to show the water tank, sprinklers and American camera crew who had set up the whole shot with actors. When I'm a millionaire I too am going to provide my own rain for dramatic effects in my snap shots. Can't help but admire the effort though. Great pictures. (I just followed this tutorial to create a similarly dramatic effect in photoshop, see Sita and Panquiman photo in the rain. Yet indoors!)

Of course, no one leaves the office empty-handed, we walked away with our Blankety-Blank Chequebook and Pen 1 hardback book, 2 miniature tequila bottles ('para el camino'), one high class tequila reposado from his distillery, 2 DVDs and 90 minutes of esoteric mesoamerican hisory on a cassette. All gratis and for nothing. Bless this man and his generosity of spirit, time and fermented agave drink.