The Pinata of Nada

Jack-in-the-box pinata head wants to give Lynn a lap dance...

Gran Café de la Parroquia

We come into Veracruz after another extended bus ride, Lynn jammed into the window and Eric origami-ed into a tortured Quasimodo. We reach the Hotel Meson del Mar, a few blocks from the center of town just at dusk. We are greeted by a young, charming and slightly ditzy clerk. She appears anxious to please, but, at the same time, not quite sure how to do so. She is as puzzled by our Spanish as we are by hers.  Eventually, we work out enough details to secure the room and park our bags. Hungry, we follow her suggestion to the Gran Café de la Parroquia, a few short blocks away. It is long and brightly lit. Outside the entrance, musicians are lined up waiting their turn to go inside and entertain. There are guitarists, fiddle players, even a band sporting a xylophone totted about by two strong roadies. Just now, as we step inside, a heavyset tenor is wrapping up an operatic number accompanied by an iphone and speaker. His voice is glass-shattering and magnificent. He concludes to waves of applause and then quietly circulates through the café accepting propinas with quiet grace. As he leaves, the next group moves into place, and so it goes.

The masters of the pour

During our stay in Veracruz, the Parroquia will prove to be our salvation. It becomes the one place we are drawn to again and again for the simple but excellent food and, of course, the famous coffee lechero. Quickly we learn the ritual for this wonderful house specialty. The waiter brings each of us a large drinking glass with a small amount of strong coffee in the bottom. Then, when we are ready, we bang the side of the glass with a spoon. Quickly a waiter materializes with two large silver kettles; one with more coffee and the second with hot milk. He pours the milk like a waterfall, filling the entire glass right to the very, very top. The precision is amazing, and they do it perfectly every time. Not a wasted drop.

We sip our elixirs with deep pleasure. With usual foresight and efficiency, Lynn pulls out a schedule that has the time and place for the various upcoming Carnaval celebrations. We already see that the celebrations are not set to begin for a couple of days and won’t really kick into gear until the weekend. The full implication of this escapes us for the moment. What the heck, we’re a little early. There will be plenty of things to do before the party starts, right?

We walk back to the hotel satisfied with a loosey goosey plan to hop on a city tour bus, the usual first step for figuring out our excursions, and see what strikes our fancy. As we walk, Eric notices a strange monument in the courtyard of a building. It is a bronze statute of a perfectly rendered machine gun pointing out at the harbor. Lying beside it, also in bronze, is a dead naval midshipman. We make a note to check it out at some point. The other thing Eric notices is just the slightest twinge in his lower back. No biggie, but still…

Where the hell are we going (Spanish translation: Donde??)

The next morning, after desayuno at Parroquia, we cross the street and board the Chi-Chi bus that, by all appearances, looks to be the usual city tour bus. We pay up and climb aboard. Two young Mexican women on holiday, greet us with smiles and pleasantries. One is named Maria, the other ‘s name is unpronounceable. We call her Amiga. After an odd warmup with a Jack-in-the-box character in an oversized head mask who switches back and forth between playfully molesting the passengers and performing an odd pole humping dance at the front of the bus, we’re off to the city. Yay! But no. Instead the bus leaves the city, hangs a sharp right at the stunningly ripe sewage treatment plant and makes toward a brooding complex of fortresses out in the harbor: San Juan de Ulua.

Our guide speaks no English, but does speak rapidfire Spanish. She says something about the fort, something about paying, something about being in the sun for an hour and a half. With the help of signage we get that this fort was built some time in the 16^th century from stones that were part of a sacred Totonaca pyramid torn down by the Spanish (per usual).  The unusual walls were made from pyramid pieces and coral plucked from the harbor and cemented into huge, 8-foot thick blocks. It truly looks impregnable. It had its own internal water canals for receiving ships and even its own waste management system – large sharks that once plied the canals between the sections of the fort.

Of all of the uses to which the fort was put: defense, navigation lighthouse, storage, customhouse, the most harrowing was its use as a prison during the late 18^th and early 19^th century. The guide leads us through room after room, each one darker, dirtier, and more hellish than the last. At one point she singles out Eric to demonstrate how prisoners were shackled to the wall with their necks cuffed and forced into an upward posture It is excruciating to hold a few minutes, let alone hours or days, even without the guide’s hand firmly shoving him into the coral encrusted wall. It is impossible to imagine how anyone could have survived here at all. In its heyday, it was crowded, rat infested, constantly wet, and dark as night. At one point, during a bit of playacting, the guide lets out a scream that nearly clears one of the dark rooms of all of us tourists. We, along with our two women companions, burst into the blinding, hot sunlight with genuine gratitude. Then it’s over. We hop the bus. Yay, now we'll se the city. But no. We turn left at the sewage plant and we’re back to the starting point on the Malecon without the slightest clue about the nature of Veracruz City itself.

Lynn gives herself a bad case of Tourista

In the days to follow, we flounder about the local neighborhoods. We visit the Naval Museum and learn that the sculpture of the dead midshipman was a monument to the young cadets who tried to defend the city against American forces who invaded Veracruz in 1914, the so called Tampico Affair. Otherwise, we find no celebrations whatsoever. Even the main zocalo is all but deserted, with stacks of unassembled bleachers and cordons of cops circling gigantic amps and stages. At one point, we break out of the Parroquia routine and order coffee and lunch near the zocalo just to try to do something different. We try to re-strategize. But our conversations are broken up by wave upon wave of street vendors.  Says Lynn “Why don’t we try…um, oh no gracias, to go to…um no gracias…the…um no gracias, no gracias, no gracias, no gracias. Each vendor ignores our dismissals, each one pulls out item after item and finally relents with an eyeroll only after we have declined almost everything she or he is carrying.

The Old Man and the Fee

One older gentleman comes to our table, taps Eric on the shoulder and produces a book of yellowed 3x5 cards that appear to have names written on them. He says something undecipherable and begins moving his finger down the list. Eric is completely baffled. Every attempt to understand with basic Spanish questions is thwarted. Somehow, Eric gets the notion that these must be music venues or groups and that he is trying to sell us tickets. We consult the program we have with us, but nothing matches. We express our puzzlement. He looks Eric in the eye and then again moves his finger down the page. More questions, more confusion. Finally, there is nothing to say. He looks at Eric, Eric looks back at him. He shrugs and walks slowly away, seemingly baffled. We continue to try to have an uninterrupted conversation, but to no avail. We dearly wish we had not ordered lunch here. Lynn, reduced to silence, studies a woman sitting next to us who is not plagued by the same mobbing as we are. She watches and sees that as the vendors approach her, she merely raises a finger, wags it, shakes her head, and the vendor caroms off without a word. Could it be so SIMPLE?

A vendor moves in. Lynn lifts her finger and shakes her head. The effect is instantaneous. The woman stops as though she has been Tasered. She veers away from the table. A lucky shot? Another one approaches from the opposite direction. Lynn takes aim. POW a direct hit, she totters away. The only one who seems immune is the old gentleman who returns again to Eric. Again, he points his finger, moves down the list, but this time, there is nothing to say. The second staring contest ends with a shake of his head. Having nothing else to do, Eric watches to see what clues he can gather as to this strange man’s intent. Finally, he sees him strike up a conversation with a small band of guitar and sax players standing in the shade nearby. Answer: he is asking if we have a musical request. Just as our lunch is served, he is back once again. Almost with relief, Eric pulls out a few pesos and points to a song. He returns to the band, the song plays. Then, the old fellow begins to hit up the other tables for the song Eric has requested. No one complains, but we had to wonder how much they appreciated the social obligation Eric had just saddled them with.

By the time we leave, Eric is slipping into sickness. He will spend days in bed waiting to mend for Carnaval . But it will never come because we forgot to secure the room for even the first night of festivities. The hotel, and every other is booked solid. By the time Eric is on the mend, we have to board a morning bus back to Puebla. What we thought would be the main event in our trip, was nothing but quiet streets, museum tours and a bit of rain. Veracruz? We don’t know what to tell you. We don’t think we’ve been. Almost at the very moment we pull out of the bus station, the Desfiles De Los Ninos, the kickoff to the celebrations, gets underway out on the Malecon. We think we hear fireworks.

The Place of the Noisy Birds

We descend out of the clouds and cold of Xalapa and swoop into friendly, small Papantla – portal to the ancient city of El Tajin and home to voladores, vanilla and noisy birds. As with many of the mountain pueblas we are seeing on this trek, Papantla itself boasts few must-see attractions, but we don’t mind a bit. The hum of a small village just rumbling and honking through a typical workday suits us just fine. Besides, it’s warm!

Our no-frills, but comfy, hotel, the El Tajin, perches on a high hill that overlooks the bustling zocalo and the main church – everything seems in order. Unlike the rather cockeyed layout of Xalapa, we ‘get’ this place right away. We know where to go for ice cream, coffee, food, and people watching.

Because we have had to spend much time and energy rearranging our itinerary due to uncooperative bus schedules and a certain amount of backtracking on our part, we don’t feel compelled to spring into action. We decide to kick back; sleep in late and just let the city wake us up when it damn well pleases. It works. After a long night and a lazy morning, we begin to research how and when to get to El Tajin. On the advice of a cab driver, we decide to say manana and take the rest of the day parking ourselves here and there around the zocalo, Lynn with camera and Eric with ice cream cone. Writers have it much easier than paparazzi.

The city swirls around us as we take a walk through some of the neighborhoods. Apart from the occasional glance at Eric’s tallness and/or Lynn’s un-Mexican wardrobe (stylish wide brimmed hat complemented by hiking boots) no one seems to pay us much mind. On one corner, a gang of ninos is laughing and playing with balloon toys. Across the street from them, a hog is offloaded in front of a butcher shop and quickly figures out where he is bound. He desperately tries to climb back into the pickup squealing horrendously. It is brutal, but its unvarnished life not presented in cellophane and styrofoam ala Fred Meyer.

A little later we find a great restaurant that overlooks the zocalo. There is a parade of music, people, honking cars, and dogs. On a hill above it all, yet another troupe of voladores – one of whom is a cab driver we spoke to earlier –spin around and around in the sky to flute music and drums. What visions they must have!

Original National Geographic illustration of the city

The next morning, we hop a cab and make our way out to the El Tajin archeological zone, yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s early enough that we find ourselves almost alone. A guide at the gate asks us in Spanish if we would like a tour. Preferring to wander on our own, and thinking that we might have to struggle with Spanish language explanations, we beg off. As we discover later, this was a mistake.

As we walked into the first main plaza of the old city, we are struck by its utter uniqueness. It is so unlike anything we have seen up to this point.  What’s more, no one seems to know who actually began construction of the city around 100 AD. Although the Olmecs were nearby, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that they were present in sufficient numbers to have built it. Other Gulf Coast peoples, the Totonacs, and Xapanecs were present, but based on what we could learn, it seems like the neighboring Huastecs were the primary builders and occupants throughout the thousand years or so that the city flourished. Its construction is basically rock covered with painted cement. A few examples of the walls remain with smudges of primary colors. The city must have been stunning in its heyday. Most intriguing is the strange niche designs that cover the buildings, believed to have been related to a kind of calendar. In fact, the main “attraction” of the site is the so-called Pyramid of Niches, a spectacular work of art that has exactly 365 niches carved into its walls. There is nothing else like it throughout Mexico.

Eric's pano - note the regularity of the hills suggesting buried structures

At first glance, the site seems small when compared to Uxmal, Palenque or Calakmul. There are no comparably sized pyramids here, although there are something like 20 ball courts throughout the city – more than have been found at any other site - where the ceremonial game known all through Mesoamerica was played. It’s an easier site to get around. The few places where you can climb the structures are gradual stone stairways. The walkways are wide and level, though cobbled, and the layout of the city center feels compact. But this is an illusion. The city once contained hundreds of thousands of mixed ethnicity people. It wielded enormous power throughout the area that is now Veracruz state and beyond. It’s hard to believe unless you take a long second look through professional eyes at all of the surrounding environment. Enter the guide, Juan, whom we had turned down earlier at the gate.

Inverted cornices & niches unique to El Tajin

We were taking a quick water break perched on a bench near the main part of the city when he approached us and asked Eric, in Spanish, where he learned to speak Spanish. Eric replied. Then, Juan began to talk to us in letter-perfect English! It felt like a small, friendly joke, so we began to chat with him. Clearly he was waiting for the tour buses to arrive and had some time to kill. As the conversation continued, we expressed our fascination with the site and the curious regularity of the hills around us. He immediately responded with a stunningly detailed explanation of how enormous the city had actually been, how the rotational farming developed by the inhabitants made it possible to sustain huge populations, when the city flourished and fell, and on and on. He knew all of this, not merely from academic study or from attending guide school, but because he was one of the people who actually helped excavate the place, building by building.

Central plaza with ball court & original walkways

Within 30 minutes, we were gazing around us with new eyes. Look at the fossils in the walkways, yes they were deliberately set there, look at the detail of the construction, notice they used river rock, a sacred material, to build the inner walls, see these fragments of paint here…it was almost too much to absorb. If only we had taken the time earlier to talk to him a little more instead of plunging headfirst into the city, we might have come away with an even deeper sense of awe than we already felt.  He walked us back to the entrance as the tour buses rolled up. He wasn’t sure whether he would be hired. It was a day-to-day thing. Although he didn’t ask for it, we paid him about what a full-guided tour would have cost. It was well worth it. If any of our blog readers ever go to El Tajin, please seek out Juan. You can’t miss him. Smiling, friendly and genuinely passionate about the work done there, he will give you the special lens to see what is hidden in the stones.

We return to Papantla, again greeted by city bustle and by the flocks of noisy birds, which seem to occupy every inch of telephone wire, tree branch, and rooftop eve in town.  We watch and listen.

Cold Feet in a River of Time

Getting cold in Mexico?  
Ridiculous! And yet, as we stepped off the bus in Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz state, that’s exactly what we felt: cold, damned cold in fact. In past years we’d chuckled a bit about how the Mexicans in other parts of the country often bundled up when the temperatures dropped just a few degrees into what we would call comfortable. But as we made our way to the handsome little hotel just off the main part of town, Posada Del Cafeto, we took stock of our respective wardrobes – light jackets, summer tops, quick dry pants, etc. and quickly realized that we might well have to put on every single thing we brought –including bathing suits - or spend the next several days shivering in the chilly mountain air.

Even our spacious tile-floored, two-room suite was an icebox. Air conditioning? Si. Central heating? Lo siento, no tenemos.  At night the temperatures dropped to the 30s – enough to make our teeth chatter like canastas. Walking to the bathroom was a bit like tiptoe-ing over blocks of ice. Nevertheless, Xalapa was a must see town and the gateway to several fascinating pueblos magicos nearby. We huddled over our tacos at The Best Taco Stand Ever – Tacos Chema – and dug in for our 4-night stay. Chema was recommended by the taxi driver who drove us into town from the bus station. He said it was a must go kind of place, and it was. Waiters dressed in crisp white aprons and wearing surgical masks took orders for tacos con chicken, two types of chorizo, and any number of other tasty meats whose names we couldn’t translate. Once delivered, customers walk back to the front of the little café to slather on white beans, spicy marinated vegetables, guacomole with jalapeno, etc. It was a race to see if we could consume the delicious tacos before they disintegrated on our plates. Either way, we won.

Eric's lips are blue in chilly Xalapa

Unlike virtually every Mexican town we’d visited in the past, Xalapa did not have the usual layout of a big central zocalo, church on one side, government buildings on the other that we had grown accustomed to. There were verdant green spaces bordering the central district and a beautiful park just a few blocks from the town center, but not really a space where large numbers of folks hung out doing their thing, other than Chema and a few coffee houses serving delicious Xalapa brews.

But there was a museum and what a museum it was! We wanted to see it as a way to prep ourselves for our visit to El Tajin, an archeological site further north near Papantla. We were intrigued by the history of the rather mysterious Olmecs and wanted to learn as much as we could about the evolution of that culture as well as the rise and expansion of the Totonac and Huastaco  and other Gulf Coast peoples who were the founders of El Tajin.

The ultramodern layout is constructed like a canyon slicing down into layers of time with side tunnels that open up into rooms filled with artwork, both large and small that clearly define the different cultures that rose and fell from about 1500 BC up to the apotheosis of the Spanish conquistadors of the early 16^th century who were believed to be returning gods. Adding to the feel of tumbling down a cascade of living history are outdoor areas adjoined each cultural period that exhibited statuary as well as the indigenous flora of the primordial jungle.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, the “top” of the museum is not the most recent history; it is the most ancient. The first things you encounter are the famous Olmec heads that glare regally and disdainfully at us lowly visitors. These people, originating in the southeastern part of Veracruz state at the site Tenochtitlan or San Lorenzo, were apparently the first Mesoamerican “super” culture numbering tens or hundreds of thousands of souls. As such, the Olmecs are considered Mexico’s “mother” culture. The most significant finds so far are the formidable Olmec heads. We discovered that, unless you see them together, it is hard to appreciate the individuality of each head. They are all likely representations of rulers from various time periods that are clearly distinct. The faces show heavy scowls and prominent parted lips showing teeth. And unlike art from later evolving Mayan sites, each face captures unique emotions and human qualities.

Honoring mothers who died in childbirth

As you coast down, down, down the museum “river”, you see more examples of art, tools and pottery from the Gulf Coast peoples like the Totonacs and Huastec who emerged, rose, and fell in epochs succeeding the Olmecs. All of these cultures clearly show individual differences in style but, at the same time, all seem to have a familiar humanity overlaid with a baffling alien-“ness”. It’s strange; the art is certainly not “primitive” in any way. Yet, it can’t be said to be “naturalistic” like, say, Greek statuary. Perhaps “representative” is the best word. You can see real human expressions – terror, pain, death, joy, laughter – but the figures seem to hold us at arms length. In one exhibit you see the statues of mothers who died in childbirth, considered heroic in these cultures, with their faces conveying the repose of death, yet they are cast in strange, totemic poses with highly detailed and ornamented dress. They are dignified but distant. In another exhibit you see figurine after figurine of delicate smiling “babyfaces” with odd, slightly inhuman bodies and limbs. Over there is a whimsical statue of an old man leaning on a cane.
Turn around and there is a fully cast statute of a victim literally being skinned alive, screaming in agony, it’s body encircled with hundreds of tiny scalpel-like incisions. How does one sympathize with such visions that are so powerful they can make you laugh out loud or give you a terminal case of the willies?

At the end of the day, we feel completely spent by the time travel through the museum. Fortunately Xalapa is beginning to warm up – just as we fork over pesos for jackets and sweaters!

On a final excursion day before leaving Xalapa, we book an English-speaking guide, Armando, and head up to the hinterlands to see a coffee plantation outside of town and a pueblo magico: Coatepec that is perched on a mountaintop nearby.

The coffee plantation is a wonder. We taste some truly outstanding coffee while Pepe, the owner and chief engineer, walks us through the coffee growth and production process. The requirements for good coffee, we learn, are complex and very technical. The plants themselves grow under the shade of banana groves and produce a fruit, the seed of which is the actual coffee bean. At present, the coffee production in Mexico is, unfortunately, declining due, in large part, to climate change and to a fungus that is killing off the indigenous coffee strains. Pepe shows us some of the new varieties of plants that are now being introduced that appear to be immune to the infestation.

For lunch, Armando takes us to Coatapec, which is a small, very tidy pueblo magico that has a healthy and varied artisanal trade. We sample locally made tacos dorados - cheesy thick tacos that truly melt in your mouth - and wash them down with freshly made jugo fruta.  We’re back in Xalapa in time for an afternoon rainstorm and decide that it’s high time we crank out a blog before we pack up and head north to Papantla and the prehistoric city of El Tajin.