After days of ANTICIPATION (I`d been dying to get to a match in México, or any foreign soccer-loving country for that matter, since chanting, dancing, and literally rocking Berlin`s U-bahn with the crazy fans at a Munich-Liverpool match two summers ago!), the five of  us - Vancouver, Toronto (me), London, Manchester, and San Fran – met up around 430 at the hostel to set out for our first Méxican soccer match! 

After a quick bite at the hostel (and I did my nails! ) we walked the few blocks East to Calz. Independencia Sur. (more or less by the Mercado Libertad) to catch the train to the stadium. 

We all wore red, blue and white; Guadalajara`s winning team, the Chivas`, colours.  We were decked out perfectly, though still so clearly foreigners (three of the five of us ridiculously blonde-as-blonde gueras!). 

We pushed our way in to the crowded station and paid our fares… just in time to see a packed (I mean pig-pen PACKED)  train whip through the station without even stopping.  Everyone was in Chivas colours. 

Five more trains FLEW into the station, stopped for maybe a handful of people to FLY OFF (about a fraction of those that actually needed to!), while others elbowed, smacked, and head-butted their way ON to the train.  We tried - and Van and I got feisty! – All to no avail.  We were stranded!

The five of us abandoned the subway plan and ran to the streets… we caught a cab to the stadium, in hopes to beat the hundreds of crammed subway cars, and ACTUALLY perhaps get tickets for the game!

We soon found ourselves backed up (though comfortably, in a less pig-pen like container) in traffic FILLED with Chivas supporters!  It was starting to look like we`d picked the game of the season!  Cars with screaming (red and blue-wearing) teenagers rocked out to reggaeton  in front of us and quiet (red and blue-wearing) families sat humbly behind us.  Then, to our utter SHOCK and SURPRISE, BUS after BUS after BUSLOAD OF CHIVAS SUPPORTS tumbled by us in the right lane!  COACH BUS LOADS!  Shipping in nearby towns, schools, possibly entire SUBURBS or STATES of Chivas supporters! 

HUNDREDS upon HUNDREDS of people (THIS is NO exaggeration!) hung out the windows of these COUNTLESS buses… chanting, shrieking, dancing, cheering!  They just flew by us.  There was NO WAY we were getting tickets tonight.  No way.  But we cheered with them anyway.

Then we got stuck in traffic – dead stuck - and whilst we continued cheering for the CHIVAS a bus full of boys decided to change the tone, and started cheering “spring break, spring break – SHOW US YOUR BOOBS!“, though in Spanish… which our cab driver so kindly translated.  Great.  We were literally stopped dead beside them for at least 10 minutes, and then crept along neck in neck with them for another 15.  I asked him to stop translating after a while… but he continued giggling all the way to the stadium…

Not surprisingly, tickets were LONG sold out when we finally arrived to the stadium, so we decided to grab some beers to pass the time and sort out a game plan.

Sad Chiva-supporting faces sulked, hung their heads and wandered the massive perimeter of the stadium… but no one seemed particularly surprised.  Hardly anyone wore blue for the other team.

We grabbed a 28-crate of Tecate cerveza (all that was left) and I somehow ended up being handed a free t-shirt, an armful of free beer from a very sexy Méxican lady in a Tecate shirt… I nearly didn`t take it… she was too smooth, and I didn`t trust her and her free corner store booze when I was ALREADY buying the product… but everyone said I was crazy. 

We sat outside on the stoop with hundreds of other stranded fans and shruggingly began the 30-odd beer challenge between the five of us.  We nearly got ourselves a set of scalped tickets once or twice, but each time it (a) seemed like a very sketchy drug deal, and (b) fell through.  Needless to say we remained quite content. 

The party was really OUTSIDE the stadium anyway!  There were DEFINITELY more of us outside than in – and the sidewalks near the convenience store where we`d bought our beer, and the long row of makeshift outdoor bars on the stadiums opposite side were teeming with action.  Though the game inside was only broadcasted on satellite, and the TVs in the outdoor bars were only showing another soccer game elsewhere in Latin America…

We cabbed it to another bar after about an hour to watch the game… which ended up being pretty unexciting anyway. 

Gave up!  Went out for the night!  Isn`t the real adventure in the journey anyway?  Never really in the destination. 

It seems to me this is always the case…