I call this adventure: "the time we almost bought weed in Mexico"

So I have one of my many many confessions.  I am a victim of this technological generation; I have been infected by an impulsive need to think of cute or snippy status updates for Facebook and I catch myself thinking in phrases of 140 characters or less.  I punctuate my own thoughts and reactions with hashtags.  I admit this because during my entire four months in Mexico, my one recurring thought--my mantra if you will--was "Ohhhh Mexico."  Usually, this was accompanied in my mind with a hashtag that connected this latest episode with all the other memorable, inane, and "so ridiculous they sound more like fiction than fact" misadventures I encountered. 

The epitome of #Ohhhhh Mexico moments came at the beginning of our trip to Puerto Escondido.  After arriving in the city of Oaxaca we had a gap of about eight or nine hours before our next bus was scheduled to leave.  We had intended to explore the city center, wandering in and out of shops and historic buildings until we needed to return to the bus station.  Minutes after arriving in Oaxaca, though, the heavens opened up  and began pouring.  We were forced to seek refuge at a restaurant with a covered patio, cold and dripping with rain water and disappointment.  

I should mention at this point that we had come to Oaxaca with something of a mission.  My friend Caroline, or Caz, smoked cigarettes with her own rolling tobacco.  Finding tobacco, however, had proved to be a bit of a challenge and we had only located a couple of suitable places thus far.  Knowing that Oaxaca was a major city, we figured we would be able to locate at least one tobacconist in town.  After a cursory exploration of the shops in the city center, though, we were forced to admit that tobacco was not to be found.  We still had several hours before leaving Oaxaca, though, so Caz and I decided we'd explore the local mall in the hopes that we might stumble upon rolling tobacco at the mall.  We interviewed several people, each of whom gave us a different answer (all entirely in Spanish, a language with which neither Cazzie nor I was all that proficient) and after six or seven mall employees told us they didn't know where we could find rolling tobacco, we were ready to admit defeat.  

Caz snapped this picture at some point during our
misadventure.  By the end of this cab ride, we had
somewhat lost the smiles, though it's possible we're laughing
at the thought of the two of us rolling up to some seedy
backdoor location and purchasing weed thinking it was
some local variety of tobacco

We rolled our still-dripping selves out to the main entrance and I hailed a taxi.  As he loaded our sodden luggage into the trunk of the car, I showed him Caroline's bag of rolling tobacco and asked if he knew where we could find this particular brand of tobacco.  The conversation went something like this: 

Me: We want buy this, where possible to buy this?

Taxi Driver: Yes, yes, I know a place.

Me: Yes?

Taxi Driver: Yes, yes, we go.

So we happily piled into the taxi and took off.  As we drove through the maze of a parking lot, Caroline grew increasingly anxious--was I sure he knew where he was going? should we ask again if he knew where we could find a tobacconist?  Eventually she just started chattering to the driver that we needed a tobacconist, we needed a tobacconist.  Finally she realized that he wasn't understanding her words so she translated it as best as she could, "tobacco, para fumar.  Tobacco."  Now, I feel obligated to state that while I had never explicitly said "Me gustaria comprar tobacco," or "I would like to buy tobacco," I believed it to be clearly implied when I handed our driver the bag with huge stamped letters TOBACCO on the front.  The driver took her bag of tobacco again and inspected it closely--examining the front logo, opening and closing the bag, and (somewhat oddly) smelling the tobacco.  Then he started talking animatedly, which was problematic because I only understand when people speak slowly and clearly, and even then it's pretty hit and miss.  My brain finally caught on a single word, however: mota.  At that one word, everything became clear; he thought that Caz and I, two obvious foreigners, were asking him to take us to buy marijuana.  

Over the next few minutes I simultaneously struggled to stifle both laughter and horror and desperately tried to find the words to coherently explain that no, we did not wish to buy marijuana, thank you, and would he please just take us back to the city center.  It was thus that we returned to our companions, sticky with sweat and rain and empty-handed but for the story of the time we almost bought weed in #Mexico.