And so I am now in Querétaro, turns out it is a huge city we’ve never heard of! With a population of 1.6 million, twice the size of Marseille France, my last French address, and growing rapidly, this city is a major player in the Mexican economy. Driving through it on my way to Pablo’s, I was gasping at its modernity, heck we could have been in the US! What a contrast between the small sleepy villages full of stray dogs amongst unfinished cinder blocks constructions and these well appointed shops, busy freeway on-ramps and beautiful towers full of luxury apartments.
I arrived at Pablo’s impressive gated community’s condo around 5, he warmly greeted me at the portal and we both carried America’s charge up to his place. His introduced me to his charming Mexican live-in girlfriend, let’s call her Brie, partially her real name as I couldn’t pronounce the rest. I was a little shocked that he would so willingly invite a stranger into his home like so, and I profusely thanked him again for this generous hospitality. I was given my own quarters, private room, private bathroom, what a deal! We decided that I was staying 2 nights, tonight we’re going out to eat, tomorrow pétanque as they play a mélée on Saturdays, and I’ll be on my way to Puebla, going south on Monday.

Pablo had arranged for us to go to this bar restaurant specializing in craft beers and had called a few of his friends to join us. We were to be 8 and we had a table reserved at this busy and popular establishment. We were there first and soon were joined by the friends, some French some Mexican, all young urban professionals up and coming and all so nice and warmly welcoming me into their mist. I was introduced as this old geezer crazy enough to ride a motorcycle to Brazil, so of course the conversations were easy to start and quite lively. I really enjoyed the evening, the conversations, the beers, the music, the beers, and the food was quite good. I even enjoyed the inhaling, what? It’s legal in California! I must say though that even though Pablo with his long hair and cool demeanor looks like a bonafide hippie, he himself doesn’t partake in these substances, I’m not even sure he remarked my temporary absence from the table when me and my new friend shared in the magic moment. Anyhoo, I had a grand old time, capping an eventful day, and doggone it I deserve it and I’m worth it!

The next morning, off we went to pétanque, their club, La Belle Boule, meets on saturdays for a mélée format type of playing. Basically, you pick your number from a hat and get assigned partners and opponents for 3 games. I know a lot of you have no idea what pétanque is, so I’ll explain briefly. This game originated in Provence a little more than a century ago, it is played with steel balls, and the objective is to have your balls as close as possible to the little wooden round jack, called a cochonet, literally a piglet, beating or getting closer to the jack than your adversaries. You may shoot away better balls than yours by striking them, that’s always spectacular to see, and at the end of a ‘mene’ or hand, we count the number of balls or points that are closer than the opposing team. The game ends with whomever reach the number 13. Simple enough, no? We’ll it is said that pétanque takes 5 minutes to learn and a lifetime to get good at it.

Surprisingly, to a lot of my pétanque friends, I actually never played when I was in France. Back then I regarded this pasttime with I guess a little disdain, this was a game that the elders played, retirees having nothing else to do. I was reluctantly brought to it at the insistance of this French guy I really didn’t know well, he was the parent of one of my son’s schoolmate, you know the type of acquaintances you don’t really want to be rude to… And he kept at it for months and months, when are you coming to play, this is fun come on… One day I gave up, I rode my Harley to their field and, whaddya know! I was hooked! Got my own set of balls and this was now a ritual, every Sunday when I was still in the San Francisco Bay Area, I gladly would spend all hours, sometime into the night, playing like a kid with all these new friends. We even had a yearly tradition, a pétanque retreat at a friend’s place in the Phoenix area, 6 or 8 guys depending on the year, no women, playing together for an extended weekend, drinking pastis all day, farting, burping, smoking cigarettes, well that was then, having those grand meals and wines and telling each other dirty jokes and stories, ah men, Paradise in Paradise Valley, the horror of it all !

It’s been about 15 years since that fateful beginning and it is now an important part of my life, yes it’s a hobby, and yes I realize I do have the time to play now, like the retirees I silently mocked in my youth… I play quite often, a few of my friends have their own pistes, or courts, and on a regular weekly basis, we rotate between private backyard pétanque aficionados. An excuse to play like kids, to rib each other, we bring wines, cheese etc.. and we have a ball playing with balls that we call boules.

I’m not very good at it though, but I’ve improved quite a bit from my humble beginning. You see there are 3 types of players: the shooters, really the stars of the show, those who can shoot away the balls that seem too good to beat, the pointers who start first, adroitly launching their boules in the direction of the cochonet hoping to get as close as possible, and people who can do both of these tasks. I can’t shoot for shit, but I try when I have to, but my ratio of success is still miserably low compared to most of my shooters friends. If I succeed in shooting it’s by luck frankly, but I’m known to be lucky, so yeah! I’m a fairly decent pointer but I have my days, o well, I’m not that competitive anyway, it’s the banter and the camaraderie and the zen of it that enthralls me in this game. I go to tournaments, won a few surprisingly but secretly I know that it’s mostly because of my partners talent.

It was a very pleasant morning at la Belle Boule, I won my first game handily, I had a good partner, Edgar, but then I was his opponent on a tête à tête bout, so he won! The third game? We’ll who cares, lets just say that that it was a great day of pétanque and a pleasure to meet a few other friends of Pablo’s. Quite a few French people in this lot, we were invited that evening to a house party, and of course we brought the necessary accoutrements for conviviality, beers and Tequila, when in Rome… This was a great time as well, new people to meet, we played cards, darts, I got a lot of tips and advice on routes from another hard core biker… This group seems quite solid in their friendship, it’s nice to see people getting along so well. This bunch was mostly French, expatriates working hard and making a life for themselves in this huge land so diverse and intriguing… I noticed that they naturally took on the values of their host country, its warmth, the instant welcoming smiles, the generosity, politeness and respect of others, definitely not the usual characteristics we usually associate with French nationals?

So Yes, I promised I’d be back, I will probably meet again some of these people on pétanque fields somewhere on some tournament, but I now have an excuse to return to Queratero some day. I told my lovely wife that I will take her to San Miguel de Allende, a beautiful destination indeed, so I have no choice, it will be only a little more than an hour away, no excuse not to return and explore some more of what I’ve missed in this never heard of place….

It’s been 4 days since I left Querétaro, so much has happened since, all good though, I’ve gotta catch up and tell you, but that will be next..