wow
right let's do this hi everyone and welcome back to mexico obviously yeah i haven't gone
anywhere else um i'm not in culiacan anymore but this video is about culiacan firstly a couple
of things you might notice a bit of a weird setup here there's this like black thing um
it's because it's one of those tables that comes out of the wall because this place is quite small
so i can't like move so you're stuck with this position and also i'm a bit sick still so if you
saw my community tab on instagram you know that i was basically dying in los mochis about a week ago
so i didn't film a video there it just wasn't physically possible but hopefully my voice will
not go like barry white my sexy voice throughout this video so um let's get going the first thing i
want to say is the word normality that's a theme of this and i'll come back to that at the end
and also something about these culiacan videos is that i had to be quite diplomatic about what
i included in the videos because you may not know that youtube isn't exactly liberal in what
in allowing youtubers to talk about certain things or show certain things so i
i was a bit lucky with the jesus malverde a bit because i kind of mentioned the d word and the c
word if you know what i mean and in the past in videos in colombia in japan
korea vietnam i've had videos demonetized blocked worldwide because of the subject matter so
i had to be a selective about what i talked about and show showed yeah that's right you
know i had to be a bit indirect when saying certain things like when i said about um
oh there's a lot of affluence here what i was really referring to was the fact that
you know it's possibly due to the dc's if you know what i mean the drug cartels they won't demonetize
this one so what did i think of culiacan overall i bloody loved it i really liked it i've said
many times before not just in mexico that i tend to approach cities or new places with a completely
blank mind one where i don't take into into consideration people's recommendations people's
suggestions people's warnings things like that but i have to admit going to culiacan i did go
there with a bit of that misconception in the back of my head i think it's natural when you you hear
at least personally for me all i've ever heard about clear can and all anyone has ever told
me about culiacan has been danger chaos murder acid baths and it was weird for me to go to a
place to have that misconception in the back of my head it's difficult to describe even though
i did my best not to go there with that clear can is mexican normality there's that normality word
again you know walking around the central area it's just hard-working everyday people going to
to work to college whatever just as everywhere else in mexico you know not everyone in culiacan
is connected to cartels as i said in one of the videos everyone i found in culiacan that i spoke
to that i dealt with airbnb hosts food places you know everyone was helpful welcoming hospitable i
always use those words in videos but it's true there wasn't this aggression or you know lack of
human touch if you know what i mean that i kind of expected durango i've said before there is
an aggression or grittiness in some people or not lack of politeness but the politeness level
is kind of lower than elsewhere in mexico sinaloa and particularly clear can was just like the rest
of mexico in terms of how people are obviously there might be exceptions there are exceptions
everywhere but on the whole in general my experience of the people in clear cam was
brilliantly positive it was brilliant let's go on to food okay so many people said to me that
sinaloa has some of the best food in mexico and i have to say they're right it's a state that is
completely almost not on people's radar in terms of food people always talk about oaxaca oaxaca
um or you know other well-known food places i don't like the food in oaxaca i didn't
really like oaxaca at all guanajuato you know the food there was terrible in comparison to culiacan
the thing about the food is that it's so different it's almost like a new country
uh that bloody sushi sashimi i know that you know that typically the proper sushi sashimi would be
um like the fried rolls with the sauce on the top but what do you want me to do ask them to take it
back and you know make some other stuff no i'm not made of money but it was still you know kind
of sits in a lot of sushi i also had you know other food in my own life when i'm not filming
so i had a lot of other dishes as well that were just divine and completely different
from what i would see elsewhere in mexico the big problem though with food and i got
this is going to be controversial i feel like a heroin addict who is desperate for corn tortillas
and this isn't just about culiacan or sinaloa but northern mexico in general i think i feel like
durango is the the border of where corn tortillas become flower tortillas if you know what i mean
oh my god flour tortillas i can't deal with them anymore they're just nowhere near as good or tasty
or whatever you know yeah the food is perfectly fine it's perfectly edible but in in terms of my
own preference flour tortillas are terrible and i'm not saying that you know anything is either
good or bad because i have to be all diplomatic on youtube um but really flour tortillas to flour
tortillas are crap in comparison and i can't wait to get back to central mexico to have some proper
corn tortillas with some al pastor um and all that lettuce and stuff on the top that was the
that's the only problem and the oh broth gate 21 that's the new food-related catastrophe that
i didn't put the broth on the gorditas how am i meant to know and there was also a comment like um
oh you should have seen what people were doing with it yeah fair enough if i wasn't filming
but filming is my priority i'm not going to be looking around what people are doing because the
focus is on getting the shot and i'm going to do a video about this i think coming up about
the difference between regular sightseeing and when you're filming a video because they
are completely different and yeah that will be a future video lovely i think culiacan
gets singled out because of its reputation and so many people you know just don't have the balls to
go there i'm talking about youtube couples um but you don't need balls to go there honestly i think
people's fear is it's from within themselves it doesn't come from the place that they're in and if
someone demonstrates that fear that they have then things are going to happen to them i think you
know culiacan more people need to go there it's a gem it's an absolute gem in terms of the people
the things to do the food it's such a contrast to the rest of mexico and and not just culiacan but
in northern mexico in general so i'm really glad i went to culiacan it should not be singled out as
this violent hell hole it's a lovely city it's a little bit grungy in places someone used that in
a comment and i thought that was the best word to sum it up but i love those sort of grungy areas
you know when people say oh you should have gone to this beautiful area to do that walking around
area that wasn't the intention to show beauty it was to show real life and normality in mexico and
that's what clear can for me really demonstrates the last thing i want to talk about again it could
be another controversial thing it's something more about northern mexico in general and the issue of
typical colonial architecture you know i'm talking about the beautifully uh manicured streets of san
miguel and those colorful buildings or whatever that granted are absolutely beautiful i love them
maybe not sam miguel but other places you know but the thing i've recognized that i
have started to realize in northern mexico is that there's more to mexico than that colonial
aspect and also beaches that we read so much about that is covered so much on youtube and in
other media platforms that grungy more modern real life aspect is equally as interesting you know and
when i look at places like mazatlan for example this is a bit of an exception with the northern
mexico thing but this is when i realized i was walking home from filming a vid one of the videos
there i was walking quite a long way and i had to go through some quite crummy areas if i'm honest
and then i got to that central area and everything was perfect it was beautiful and manicured and why
don't i keep saying manicured and i kind of felt like well this is where the investment has gone
and that's understandable because tourism budgets will obviously go to maintaining those areas fair
enough there's never going to be a total level of consistency across every area in a city
anywhere in the world that's fine but the feeling i have now about those colonial areas in centers
of cities that are very touristy is that it's fake and i don't mean fake in like a derogatory
way i mean it in a way that it feels like it's polishing a turd that's a lovely saying where a
city might not be generally the most wonderful and beautiful but this central location is thrown in
and maintained to give this impression of the fact that everything is clean and perfect again
you know i'm not being negative about those areas because they're lovely i absolutely love them but
coming to northern mexico and cities like culiacan durango torreon you see that different side
of mexico in which those colonial areas aren't necessarily required to give that city a feeling
of mexico there is more to mexico than those colonial areas and actually i
feel like i prefer cities that are a bit more authentic in that respect where they haven't got
that huge contrast between places kalia khan was consistent i would say across the board even you
know the central area with the cathedral yeah it was lovely but it wasn't that same level of
makeup put on an ugly person if you know what i mean it was more consistent across the board and
that's what i liked about it it demonstrates mexican normality oh i think i'm done lovely
um yeah i think i've covered everything that's on my laptop to my left brilliant yeah so thanks for
watching i hope you enjoyed the coolio cam videos i thoroughly enjoyed filming them despite the heat
and despite the regular illness but hopefully i'll be better for the chihuahua videos which
i'm starting to film from today in youtube world so i'm probably out filming right now as you watch
this so um they'll be up very soon and i'll uh see you next time from this place chihuahua catch you
later