Footprints: Shoe Chains to Sandals

Finally after days of nail biting over the weather that had all but paralyzed Portland, we escaped to Mexico – but just barely. Even with the help of our friend Connie, we still had to strap on our shoe chains, hoist our backpacks and crunch down our impassable street to meet her at the bottom of the neighborhood - bundled as though we were beginning an adventure in the Yukon and not the Yucatan.

The plane buffeted and bounced us first to Dallas on a crowded flight that was accommodating three days of ice delayed Portland travelers, to a far more laid back flight to Cancun. Our indicator of a great flight is when the attendant notices Eric grimacing in his seat and moves us to an exit row. Ahhh relief!

One quick night in party-central Cancun started our transition to a sandy paradise of swinging hammocks and gentle seaside breezes on Isla Holbox (ole-bosch). We folded ourselves into bus seats for the 3-hour drive to Chiquilá, Quintana Roo where the Holbox Express “lancha” took us a on a short 20-minute ride across a windy bay, escorted by huge frigate birds, to the beginning of our new adventure. We couldn’t help but notice that the majority of our fellow passengers were an international collection of oldsters like us and young travelers of the barefoot, backpack, and tie-dye variety.

At last, the crew deposited us at the terminal on Holbox. We discovered that the primary mode of transport was golf carts (carritos) that worked perfectly for the sandy, unpaved roads of the island. More bouncing through the main streets of souvenir shops and tour offices and out onto the beach where we passed knots of barefoot, possibly chemically altered, hippies ogling the sunset- including one couple that appeared to be picking bugs out of their Bob Marley dreadlocks -to our room at the isolated beachfront hotel, the Golden Paradise.

After a night’s rest listening to the incoming tide break under the hotel, we awoke to see pelicans, gulls and cormorants roosting on the pilings below our room. The fresh sea air scent mixed with pungent seaweed that the locals are hope will rebuild their eroding beaches. Our hotel keeper, Amanda, her son, Juanito, and their little black dog are warm and welcoming as is as the large Mexican family on holiday next door.

As we ventured out to explore the town’s sandy center in “la manana”, we couldn’t help but notice a collapsed portion of a building just down the beach from our place that had clearly been overwhelmed by encroaching tides of this subsiding coastline. That, along with a collapsed palapa that looked for all the world like some native representation of a radar dish, gave our little spot a decidedly unique feel. Just behind our place, a skeleton crew of workmen were cutting rebar and cementing in concrete bricks on another building that seemed destined for the same fate as the palapa. Nevertheless, the workmen went about their tasks with the stoic industriousness that seems ubiquitous in Mexico. This is Holbox, a place of shifting sands and changing times.

The beach walk into town helped us get the lay of the land and we managed to find an excellent breakfast spot owned by an island veteran who hailed from Austria and who proudly showed us her ancient golf cart (which according to her was the very first one on the island). We were waited on by a dour and slim Italiana named Donatelle who, after warming to us, became a fountain of information. The island was clearly a grab-bag of expats, locals, and tourists all coming and going in some kind of island-wide soiree.

Wandering on into “downtown” Holbox, we encountered Mauricio, a tour seller from Mexico City who explained that he had reached the point in his life where partying had to end and the serious business of getting a living had to begin. Holbox, he decided was just the place to undertake this transformation. His sales technique was unusual – one part confessional, one part soft sell.  He would begin by extolling the fantastic adventure that awaited us on one of his tours and then lapse into admissions of existential crisis.  He was trying, he confided, to turn over a new leaf, but in spite of all good intentions, the pull of the island’s festive atmosphere and anxiety about meeting his sales goals often got the better of him, which required a day or two of penance, reflection and some restorative pot smoking. We encountered Mauricio again on day 2, apparently refreshed from one such soul search. He took the opportunity to let us know that he had taken another step toward his new life – he had shaved!

And there was Axel, the smooth, unflappable young entrepreneur and tour seller. His family literally had a corner on the tour business – the Blue Pompano - which occupied one of the busiest corners in town and was obviously one of the places you go when you wanted to get something done. We came to discover that there was no problem, tour wise, that Axel could not master, but more on that later.

We had a light dinner in town and decided to eschew the kidney punching ride in a carrito taxi for a long moonlit walk back to the hotel, passing nightspots filled with young, seriously hip smokers; bongo beaters strewn on the beach immersed in some kind of moonstruck new age ritual; silent Mexican workers toting supplies to and fro; stray dogs, tourists, and on and on. Eventually we passed beyond the town and the few streetlights into the darker reaches of the island only to discover that we had wandered onto a road that was being slowly reclaimed by an incoming tide. We backtracked and found our street by walking toward the dark hulk of the building we had encountered that morning. Finally, we climbed the stairs to our room that already was feeling like home.

On Day 2, we signed up with Axel for a tour of three of Holbox’s must see stops: The Cenote, Isla Pasion, and Isla de Pajaros (Bird Island). The small lancha held seven of us, two Mexican couples, ourselves, and a young man from Spain who had taken a temporary job on the island. The first stop, The Cenote, was a bit of a misnomer. It was actually a fresh water spring in the middle of a mangrove-fringed islet. The water was beautifully clear and cool and perfect for swimming. Afterwards, a family on the island fixed a lunch of pan-fried local fish, and coconut juice in the shell. Then, most took a brief rest in a hammock or another swim. We returned to the boat and were greeted by a small -ish crocodile waiting in the water beside the dock. Hmm. It didn’t take long for most of us to put together that the croc had the same access to the spring that we did. Yikes!  Isla Pasion was a very small islet that one could wade around in a few minutes, filled with birds, iguanas, and various forms of sea life hanging out on the sandy perimeter. The final stop, Isla de Pajaros, was a bird sanctuary closed to foot traffic, except for a multi-storied bird blind that overlooked a pelican and heron roosting area. It was fascinating to watch these large creatures flying underneath us as we gaped at them from the blind.

 Beaches, bikinis, and reptilian creatures were beginning to make us feel like Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor in Night of the Iguana, so we returned to Holbox and settled for an early dinner and a planning session with Axel. We were to depart the next day for a tour he arranged for us of Chichen Itza on the way to the mainland town of Valladolid.  Because Chichen is such a popular tourist site, Axel put together an itinerary that would get us there, via ferry and taxi, early enough to explore the ruins without the midday crowds. We packed and bedded down early with the intention of meeting up with Alex at 5:30 the next morning. He had planned everything down to the sack lunches (actually breakfasts) for our road trip.

Alas, the best-laid plans of mice and tour guides… the next morning Lynn awoke with a nasty cough and fever. As tough as she is, this development put our plan in jeopardy. We met Axel in the pre-dawn darkness and explained the situation. He devised a modified plan that would allow us the option of postponing the trip if necessary. Arriving at the dock, we encountered yet another problem: the early ferry had been canceled making it unlikely that we could get to Chichen early enough anyhow. Not to worry, Axel immediately hired a small lancha and placed us aboard. In a flash, we found ourselves crossing the moonlit channel between Holbox and the mainland in a small boat, without running lights or lifejackets, clinging to the railings as we bounced and skittered, like fugitive drug runners, over some considerable swells at breakneck speed under a beautiful full moon.

At last, on the mainland side, exhausted, tired, and in Lynn’s case, horribly sick, we opted to bypass Chichen for a day of recovery in Valladolid. After a long and sleepy cab ride, we found a perfect little traditional hotel in Valladolid and poured ourselves into bed.

La Differencia

As our trip is winding down, we’ve had a chance to reflect on the past two months and ask ourselves what we really loved about Mexico, what we learned, and how different the Mexican ways of life that we saw and participated in were from our own.

Eric narrowly misses being bussed

 At first glance, Mexico shouldn’t “work” as a country at all.  The tap water isn’t typically drinkable. The air and noise pollution can be overwhelming. Many streets are paved with ankle-twisting cobblestone. Often, sidewalks are far too narrow and jammed with people trying to squeeze by each other while buses, cars, scooters whisk by just inches away… and on and on.

But Mexico does work. At least, that’s what we discovered, but we had to “bend” a little, duck and weave a little, learn to laugh at things that just seemed ridiculously crazy, to see how it all fits so beautifully together.

The linchpin, the thing that holds it all together, is the family, the pervasiveness of it, the fun of it, the comfort, safety and love that is there. From that strong base comes people who are kind, fun-loving, open, honest and curious.

The festival of the Virgin Dolores was a family affair, as was every other day in Mexico!

A little senorita shows off her pretty dress

Fathers snuggle with their kids after knocking confetti-filled eggs on each other's heads, Semana Santa tradition

 Of course, this is also the country of drug lords, corrupt politicians, criminal gangs, revolutionaries and petty thieves, so it’s not perfect by any means. But, as we found ourselves more immersed in the families that we met and lived with along the way, we could look past all the bad stuff and really enjoy the people. We really came to admire their resilience and patience, their willingness to meet us halfway if we made any kind of effort to use their language or crack a joke or join in the fun. They gave these little gifts, regalos, to us all of the time. 

Guadelupe, the Mercado's egg lady

Saying farewell to Guadelupe

Lynn gives flowers to an egg lady in the town Mercado, three gentlemen stop what they are doing to talk to us about the importance of certain holidays, they struggle with their English, we struggle with our Spanish and in the end, hearty handshakes and kisses on the cheek. A waitress poses for a picture and then gives us her email along with a goodbye hug. Cab drivers show us the beauty of whatever city we’ve arrived in. Everywhere, all the time, people greet you with a “buenos dias,” or  ‘tardes” or “noches”. Smiles, nods, interest, acceptance, humor.

And then the surprises. The sudden explosion of fireworks for no discernible reason, the eruption of music in the street, a clown performs on the steps of a building and then… Oh, look, a parade!

For what?  A saint, a special day, just because it seems like a good idea… any old reason at all. Flowers grace the feet of statues, or line church steps, or are carried by young men to be given to young women. Mariachi bands perform for patrons eating lunch, while still other bands wait their turn to play for tips (propinas).

Fruit, grains, flowers and all - a surprise for the festival of Dolores

The smell of delicious food circles around you.

Oaxaca Mercado

Always-smiling produce lady

In the historic districts the beautiful architecture stands out, the museums filled with old and new art. There are shops for every kind of trinket, blanket, painting, wood carving, t-shirt.

And more surprises and puzzles: In a crèche scene showing the birth of Jesus, not only are there the usual shepherds and wise men, but also figures of baseball players standing guard over the manger. Little offerings include full bottles of coke and bouquets of plastic flowers. What does it mean?

Baseball player creche

Hotel rooms with treacherous little steps in weird places. Clothing stores full of the tackiest American brands side by side with elegant clothing and native textiles.

Buses that are filled to groaning and yet with everyone managing to find room for huge bags of whatever while people hop on and off of the bus, sometimes while its still moving. Beautiful street art side by side with graffiti rendered by unknown hands. It sometimes feels a dreamy movie of some kind of post-apocalyptic yet heavenly cityscape.

And the people we met; our long suffering teacher and master cook Alfonso, our wonderful Oaxacan host family we mentioned in previous posts, Roberto and Blanca from Huatulco, Tom and Deb in San Cristobal, Karen and Ben in Oaxaca, and John and Marlee in Guanajuato, Mexicans and gringos, alike, who were in the swing of things and added much joy and laughter.

Marlee & John in Dolores Hidalgo

The Heart of Mexico, Part I

Despite all of its cultural attractions, the intensity of Mexico City finally got to us. Instead of staying the full week that we had originally planned, we decided to weigh anchor a few days ahead of our original itinerary and take a side trip to Morelia, about four hours north of the capitol. Boarding yet another excellent Mexican bus, we sank into our seats with a sigh of relief.

Morelia Cathedral

 Upon arrival, we knew we’d made the right decision. Morelia is a fairly small city with a much “slower” feel to it. Yet, it is also a place steeped in Mexican history. The town is, in fact, renamed (from Valladoliod) for Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, a key figure in the Mexican Independence movement. It is also a World Heritage Site owing to the fact that the heart of the city is a very well preserved example of beautiful colonial architecture, and, additionally, contains a stunning cathedral in the main square.

Our hotel, the Meson de los Remedios, was a family-run place and was truly top drawer - even though our first sight of it was unpromising, to say the least. As we got out of our cab we discovered that the entire sidewalk in front of the hotel had been completely torn asunder as part of a block-long rebuilding project. The workmen, seeing us dismount with our bags, paused as the dilemma we all faced became apparent: We had to get “there” from “here” and there was no in between. A worker rapped on the hotel door and the manager answered with a look of horror on her face. Apparently she had not been in the loop when the work had begun earlier in the day. We looked at her, she looked at us, and the workers scratched their heads. Then, without so much as a word, 2x4s were knocked together and Lynn and I with bags in tow were assisted over the wet concrete on a tiny bridge with many smiles all around. Impossible not to love the people here!

 

Our room was nothing short of amazing: a colonial two-story affair with a sitting room below and a king-size bed arriba for a few bucks per day. Obviously this had been a residence complete with a beautiful mask-decorated courtyard and lots of garden sitting areas that had been very tastefully transformed into a hotel.  The main square of the town was just a few blocks away, so we took a late afternoon stroll to get our bearings. Immediately, we noted differences from Cuidad Mexico. Streets were swept clean, walls were graffiti-free, and the sky was a beautiful cobalt blue. More importantly, the people of this Michocan city welcomed us at every opportunity. The Helado (gelato) lady thanked us profusely for visiting and complimented us on our excellent Spanish: “pistachio”, “ chocolate”, and “vanilla”

As we began to explore Morelia, the first hints of the convoluted, complex, fascinating, baffling history of Mexican Independence became evident. This part of Mexico, more or less the central highlands, was the very heart of the independence movement that began around 1810 and continues yet today. Without going into a lengthy history lesson, suffice it to say that Morelia is one of the Mexican cities, including Guanajuato, San Miguel Allende, Dolores Hidalgo and others, that were important in the initial taming of the indigenous people by the church and later by the often bloody and chaotic struggle for independence.  

Hidalgo, strange gringos, & Allende prepare for battle

Juan Morelos, Miguel Hidalgo, and Ignacio Allende were the “Big Three” of the independence movement that eventually morphed into the Mexican Revolution about 100 years later. Each of these men, in unique ways, provided impetus to the movement, eventually at the cost of their own lives. They are revered throughout Mexico to this day. 

Santuario de Guadalupe, Morelia

Apart from its secular historical importance, Morelia was also a wealthy Catholic stronghold for many centuries, and that was made plain to us once we saw the stunning interior of the main cathedral. Wow! It is not hard at all to imagine the overwhelming power a place such as this would have had over poor compesino believers. Every nook and cranny is festooned with gold leaf and brilliantly painted wood sculptures on top of wood sculptures that soar upward for several stories. Worshippers might have easily felt transported to a kind of heavenly realm just standing inside such sumptuousness.

There were other sites in Morelia as well: for less than $1.00 US, we visited a fascinating candy museum that folded the history of candy making into the history of the city as told by costumed guides (all in Spanish, alas) We saw how their local quince candy is made by boiling the fruit and sugar together in big copper pans and then cooling it into sugary bricks. An interesting aqueduct provided water for the city’s many fountains that had once been the central water source for residents of the entire city. Beautiful plazas surprised us in each of the city’s neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, Eric was unable to complete the full roster of city sights due to an ugly bout of tourista that put him down for about a day and a half.  Lesson: don’t eat stuff that tastes “off” even if you are really, really hungry; it doesn’t work out well in the end, so to speak. Luckily, bed rest and miso soup did the trick and by the time we were ready to pull up stakes, he was vertical again.

Shopping is not all about pottery!

In the meantime, Lynn explored the city center and dined solo al fresco at a Nuevo Mexican restaurant overlooking Morelia’s busy zocolo. She also allowed her shopping gene to kick in with a trip to Morelia’s artisan’s market for a display of gorgeous local pottery, woodwork, and copper jewelry. Next stop: Guanajuato, our last Mexican city, where the independence movement under Father Hidalgo violently exploded into El Grito de Delores (don’t worry, we’ll explain in Part 2).

Eric never wants to travel any other way than by Mexican bus!!

Mexico City: The Bridge

Democracy Breaking Her Chains, David Siquieros

To leap, as we did, from the depths of the jungle and the silent majesty of Palenque directly into downtown Mexico City in less than two hours on a comfy Russian Interjet airplane was almost too much for us to handle. The pace, the international feel, the traffic and the noise, noise, NOISE, thoroughly rattled our nervous systems right from the moment we hopped into a cab at the airport until we were deposited in front of our somewhat centrally located hotel in the sort of seedy Zona Rosa.

After a 

night of spotty sleep in our less than perfect Hotel Principado (note: do not stay there!), Lynn, ever the navigator secured a decent map of the downtown portion of the city.  We located a great little spot, the Amour Caffé that specialized in great breakfasts, excellent coffee, and MTV videos. With map and guide book as our compass, we laid down a “Culture Trail” that we felt would give us a great sample of the history and art of Mexico writ large. We also resolved to ride the subway as much as possible, despite the generally unwarranted cautions about the dangers of doing so, as it was both cheap and very easy to use once we found our nearby Insurgentes station. We used the “your getting hotter/colder” method of asking many people for directions before locating it. Lynn recently learned that Mexican people always want to be helpful, so they will give directions even when they don’t quite know the actual location of your destination.  An important lesson learned!

First stop for us was the Museo Nacional Anthropologia This is truly a world-class cultural museum that spans a 6,000 year period documenting the civilizations that came and went in Meso-America according to the whims of climate, history, and location. Here, at last, was the big picture that placed (more or less) in order the rise and fall of the Zapotecs, the Olmecs, the Mayans, the Toltecs, and culminating with the fall of the Aztecs at the hands of disease, environmental devastation, and conquest by the Spanish. 

2300 year old Zapotec fertility figure 

The museum exhibits tell this story beautifully through the fantastic displays of pottery, sculpture, statuary, and everyday items from each of the cultural eras that celebrated fertility, life, humor, and beauty. Such fine work!  So much detail and care. It was obvious that the all-important cultivation of corn had given each of these civilizations the great gift of time. Time to build spectacular city-states as well as time to develop art that surpassed anything produced in early Europe. 

Mayan calendar

Also time to discover and employ mathematical rules that gave some element of predictability and control to an otherwise chaotic and terrifying world. The Mayans, for example, built amazingly accurate calendars tied to observed astronomical rhythms that stabilized crop production.  But these were not, by any means, entirely enlightened civilizations. 

Aztec Death Head

The museum also documented the brutality and cruelty that accompanied the rise of each group with the ever-present evidence of war, death, superstition, blood sacrifice, and slavery - all etched in every artifact. And all silent.

We couldn’t help but wonder how all of this distant, silent history informed the modern Mexico that we had been exploring. It took another visit to yet another part of the city to complete the “time bridge” we had been crossing.  We took a weekend day to visit the Palacio Nacional and the Palacio de Belle Artes where major works of the Mexican muralists, including Diego Rivera, are on display.

Emerging out of the subway into the heart of Mexico City, we were confronted with a truly staggering sight: an enormous plaza bounded on one side by the Palacio Nacional and the Catedral Metropolitana on the other. Because the entire plaza and buildings were constructed on spongy substrata, the buildings appear to be sinking, ever so slightly back into the ground. Sighting along one side of the Palacio Nacional, for example, you can see a pronounced curve where the central portion of the building is actually slightly higher than either end. It looks as though it might tear apart at any moment. Inside, we walked through beautiful courtyards and walkways, all showing evidence of being shored up, to our main destination: the famous Diego Rivera mural The Conquest of Mexico.

The History of Mexico, Diego Rivera

Even though the undermining of the Palacio is a product of poor civic planning on the part of the original Aztec builders, the emotional weight of the Rivera mural, the heaviness of it, seems to strain the building, as though it can barely hold up this monumental work. In one, jaw-dropping, sweeping, vast painting, Rivera ties the ancient past to the present. The mural is really a journey: beginning at the precise point where the Museo had left off.  At the bottom of the towering mural is the subjugation of the indigenous civilizations by a debauched, rabid Cortez. The battles leap out at you. As your eyes climb upwards, you can see and almost hear the suffering, the fascistic repression, the greed and corruption of corporate swine, with even more violence perpetrated against the common people…up and up, through the revolutions, the independence movements, French occupation, still more political upheavals,  and finally the culmination in the modern day  (circa 1930s) Mexican Republic. The term breathtaking, so often overused, is the exact word for this work.

The Great City of Tenochtitlan by Diego Rivera with Cortes' lover, La Malinche modeled after Frida Kahlo

Belle Artes

After a break to rest our eyes and brains, we set off for the Palacio de Bell Artes – yet another beautiful building filled with murals by other masterful painters, such as Orozco and Siqueiros, who continued the themes of exploitation and the struggle for liberation that we had seen in the Rivera work. Rivera and these muralists used their over-sized medium to educate Mexican campesinos about the heavy hand of the Spanish rulers and corruption that was rampant in the new government. All of these were placed in a gorgeous art-deco style building full of light and color. By the time we had finished our visits we were completely wiped out. We took the subway back to the hotel, had a quick bite and hit the sack.

After a few more days of Mexico City, we finally decided to give our nervous systems a rest and decided to head for Morelia, a much smaller town to the north that promised to be restful and, best of all, quiet!