I took more videos than photographs in Mexico, but here are some.
I stayed the first few days at the house of a friend of Gustavo, close to his condominium. Walking with him around the neighborhood was like walking with a celebrity: everybody seemed to know him. He has lived his whole life there so he could show me the shop where he bought his first plastic top:
He also showed me the shopping walkway where he used to compete in spintop contests when he was a child (before he was forbidden from entering any more). There he developed his very strong boomerang and the “hand regens”. By the way, as proof of how strong his boomerang is, this was the result when he first tried to throw the Extrem top Neff had modded with a solder ring:
Here is a building with a shape reminiscent of a top in the nearby upscale Polanco district:
We visited the Soumaya private museum (owned by the richest man in the world):
Security did not let me go in with my HP so I had to check it a the entrance with a ticket just for itself. While we were admiring the sculptures of Rodin and Dali an earthquake was felt in Mexico City but inside we did not notice it.
Here I am at the Cometa's headquaters with Gus, Carlos and Salvador, the three players who will probably come to worlds this year. The kid to the right is Brian, a nephew of Gus and a future campeón who was most of the time throwing with us:
And here with more demonstrators at a park:
Salvador de la Rosa is the second one from the left and his brother Omar, who has a very small spintop company (Skyy) the last one on the right.
One morning Gus took me to a large market in search of tops for my collection. We must have asked for a Jumbo Premier in the blister at a dozen different shops. We could not find it but we did get a Junior on the blister, which is more rare, plus a nice trove of other tops, plus a giant balero and a wrestler mask. Gus also got some wooden spoons of different sizes to do the top to the spoon trick (in spite of the blooper in Cautin's video, I saw him nail the spoon over and over). Following my suggestion he got extra spoons that he signed and gave me for those interested (Hall of Fame, etc).
Then we went on a quest for good string. We met the contact for “marina de primera” on a street corner (yeah, it was like searching to buy drugs) but he said he could not deliver before Gus left for Europe. So we went on a search for the best off-the-shelf string. We must have walked 30 blocks through the downtown shop district, asking at every sewing thread shop for tips. The first two good leads were closed for Holy week, but we finally found some. Gus got 6 spools and I got 1. We carried back our haul in the metro and the bus. This is what I brought back to the US, including tops, old posters and displays that Cometa, Gus and Salvador gave me (minus the demonstrator's shirts and T-shirts):
Something I had wanted to visit every time I had been in Mexico city was the Papalote museum, their big children museum. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find just a very small display about tops. But we did bring our tops and here is Brian trying to put one inside a bubble:
I stayed the last couple of nights at Salvador's home. Lupita makes some great tacos! There I finally discovered the secret to Salvador's skill with tops. It is all about Indian magic
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I cannot thank enough Gus and Salvador for all they did for me during my perfect trompo vacations in Mexico City!
