Dogpatch Press

My art of hosts and friends @gatunomx @MeteorZeroFive @lowemond @MZSLV

Here’s a followup to Confuror makes a crossroads for Latin American furries and international fandom. It’s worth extra time to see the city of Gudalajara, so put Confuror on top of any list of furry cons you should visit. Below are its churches, the 18th century Jalisco Government Palace, and The Immolation of Quetzalcoatl sculpture in Plaza Tapatia, which had a snake head too heavy to mount on top so it’s installed on the ground nearby.

Sights in Guadalajara

Guadalajara is sometimes called Mexico’s Silicon Valley. It’s their second most populated city, and the home of tequila and Mariachi and the biggest film fest and book fests in Latin America. I stayed on the northeast side of town in the home of a furry who works at the university. It was in the Tetlan neighborhood, a dense and poorer area. I woke up with the sounds of dogs, parrots, garage noises, music and elotes vendors, and went for a walk.

The houses are painted all colors, with rough brick fronts and lots of metal work. The ragged roof lines are topped with solar water tanks for hot water. Some of them have green courtyards behind gates, or cages for parrots who screech “Hola” when you walk by. The phone poles have burls of handbills taped around and on top of each other. The potholes expose cobbles and the traffic gets chaotic without crosswalks. There are a few separated bike lanes, but they’re not a very used or connected network so you might want to write your will before biking with traffic. Cars and buses pack the streets — the metro is good to ride but has limited reach. Trucks are stacked with blue garrafones of water (camion de agua). A house might get water delivery every few weeks for drinking, and use tap water just for shower or cleaning.

The main drag had panaderias, barberias, toy and clothes shops, and open taco places under tents serving 5 for $25 MXN (about a quarter each), with street dogs lounging around. I got a bag of pan dulces, which you pull off trays with tongs and hand to the cashier on a tray, and saw food to try like torta ahogada, a local sandwich style with carnitas drowned in spicy chili sauce.

The old city center was good for a tour with a carful of furries. We parked in a steep brutalist spiral of a garage, with an old shuttered elevator for valets that was just an open shaft with a vertical conveyor belt to stand on. The historic and colonial architecture reminded me of visiting Europe. The oldest building I saw was an archive from 1500-something, among opulent Catholic churches, plazas, fountains, market seller booths, and street art.

Money and costs

Another visitor described Mexico to me: it’s not necessarily all poor, but like much of Latin America there can be a big class division. It seemed like average wages can be pretty low and I saw a lot of semi-rough neighborhoods. Young Mexicans were grateful to have a con at all while talking about poverty and the quality of things.

Where I’m from in California has high cost of living, so I could afford to tip more on modest rideshare costs and cover even nicer restaurant bills for a group.

Day by day

Besides doing a city tour and staying at a local furry’s house, we went to Cirque du Soleil. This one had the Wheel of Death, and the show blew our minds. it was not the wheel of mild injury. Many of the performers were former Olympians. The incredible clowning included a big furry dog who popped out of one hatch in the stage, then a double immediately popped out another one like a cartoon.

For the first day of ConFuror, the opening ceremony had a live orchestra. I missed the sold-out happy hour and Drink & Draw, but played chess with a fursuiter in a tournament, and did the Animation meet with aspiring pros, students and fans. Uncle Kage did his main stage raconteur show. Mexican furs were grateful to have him fly in even when one shyly laughed that “Tio Cagar” means Uncle Shit, and they hoped he wouldn’t be offended.

After panels and running around in fursuit, I couldn’t find room parties, but they found me. While waiting for an elevator, Mexican furry Rex Shiba came up to say hi. He found out I was visiting from the US, so we had to hang out with his friend Cookie Fox. They knew a room to visit. There was no formal party so we went in quietly but soon had to vacate to another room. That also didn’t last so we ended up in a hallway.

Maybe 15 others sat out of sight, now well after midnight, trying to keep quiet and avoid the overvigilant hotel security 10 or 15 floors down. Rex Shiba helped me learn some Spanish words for furry parties: Des Madre – disaster (furries ruin everything) and Mala Copa – crazy drunk person doing stupid things. “La silencio con” got more and more fun until it couldn’t stay quiet and we were broken up.

Below: The first fursuiter I saw, fellow California fur @Sofbeak and a Mexican fur, and la silencio con in the hall.

It was a night of Weiner Denial. In the fursuit lounge I met @Dirdwolf from Michigan. He heard I was hungry, but it was hard to find food in the hotel or leave in suit, so he generously came back with a box of hot dogs. When I went for the first bite, staff shut down the fursuit lounge. I packed up and hit the elevators, but Rex and Cookie stole me away for hours. By the time we were done I was so hungry that a hall corner beckoned me to sit and wolf them down like an animal. That was a long time to hold weiners before putting them in my mouth.

At 4:30 a.m. outside the hotel, it took about 7 tries to get a rideshare driver to cross town to my host house. His dashboard had a bobblehead dinosaur that nodded along like “good decisions were made.”

Saturday

I saw the international community panel and dealer’s den, and checked food outside the hotel. There was a popular 24 hour taco spot, seafood, and a great tiny cafe with gourmet sandwiches served by the owner. California fur @Velexian and Colorado fur @zeldstarro  were in the lobby and took my stranger invites for lunches. You can just ask people and have great chats.

Back at Confuror, I visited the small and sparse art gallery, then Floor Wars where fursuit dancers battled. My note from the dance is “Great deal of singing”.

Sunday

The Fursuit Fest took the place of a parade and had many photo shoots for different types of suiters. Here’s one from a Mexican suit maker.

The charity auction happened before the closing ceremony. It culminated in a $7,000 bid for a collaborative art mural made at the con. The last dance was disappointingly canceled so I rounded up several furs for a late night restaurant visit. Randomly picking what was open got us to highly rated Casa Bariachi and one of the best dinners I’ve ever had?!

The next day, the furries at our host house did a small art jam. @Lowemond, Mezdoggo, and @MeteorZeroFive were artists dealing at the con or taking commissions to make a living. Drawing helped smooth language barriers, and we made things to remember a fantastic trip that would only happen this way with furries.

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