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2 February 2008
To visit Mexico has been something I have wanted to do for decades. My first excursion south of the border was with my parents when I was 14. When I was 27, I accepted a one-way ride to Acapulco at the spur of the moment. With little money and no way back, I was there for several months. But essentially apart from the occasional visit to border towns as well as Mexican restaurants across the US and in Paris, London and Amsterdam that was it. Nevertheless, with a conviction that Mexico comprises the central cultural matrix of North America, the desire and longing to re-experience this country has been persistent.
Richard and I crossed the border at Tijuana on the first of December 2007 and taxied to Lois' abode, La Mission, in Rosarito. The contrast between the area and northern Baja from the time in college during a school break when I drove to Ensenada in a desperate attempt to escape the California rains was profound with the hills and coast now crammed with ex-patriot homes and urban-suburban sprawl. Southern Baja with its great expanse of empty, rugged terrain became more welcoming and reminiscent of what I remembered from the early 1960s. We took an overnight bus with our backpacks (an experience in itself) to La Paz, the overnight ferry from there to Mazatlán and a flight (two actually) from the splendid coastal town to Merida – our launch for the Yucatan and our primary destination.
The two month Mexican travels became in time divided into pre-Oaxacan and post-Oaxacan durations. The earlier period was Mayaland: Uxmal, Mayapan, Chitzen Itza, Tulum and Palenque. All were encounters with magnificent and intriguing centres. The beauty of the edifices, palaces, temples, ball courts let alone sculpture, stelae, pottery, etc. along with the enveloping gentleness of the Mayan people was a highlight. In Tulum, living in a thatched palapa with swinging beds for a week right on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, I had to comment to Richard, "It doesn't get any better than this!" As a pagan, however, I both thrilled over the Mayan legacy and recoiled over their ancient sanguinary ways. I can recognise the need and sanctity of blood in their rituals but struggle to reconcile that undeniable aspect of former earthen religion with the pagan aspirations of today. This is something with which I am still dealing.
An overnight bus took us from Palenque to Oaxaca. Despite the bandito horror stories with which we had been previously plied, the ride was uneventful, and I could almost describe myself as slightly disappointed after the nervous anticipation. Oaxaca is a supremely beautiful colonial city though the casual visitor may not appreciate how much the town is really a fortress – courtyards barricaded from the outside; grill work – though lovely – over every window. After visiting the Museo de Oaxaca attached to the Iglesia de Santa Domingo, for maybe the first time I felt deep shame as a European/European descendent for how such stunning achievements of indigenous Mexican civilisations were annihilated by our forebears.
The 1995 Lonely Planet travel survival kit guide lent to us by Stef and Gary contains the following suggestion for the Cerro del Fortín:
"This wooded hill overlooking the city from the north-west is a great place to escape the city noise and smells, with fine views and pleasant walking. From the large open-air Guelaguetza auditorium just above the highway that winds around the middle slopes, a quiet road leads up to the Cerro del Fortín observatory, with a track branching to the Nundehui planetarium. On foot you can reach the hill by the Escalera del Fortín, a long stairway climbing up from Crespo. It's about two km, uphill all the way, from the zócalo to the observatory. Beyond the observatory, a foot trail leads to the top of the hill, marked by a cross, 20 to 30 minutes' walk further up."
So, as good pagans, we climbed to the top of the Cerro del Fortín on new year's eve to watch the sun set on 2007. Sitting on a rock, I had just figured how the ubiquitous crosses on summits could be encircled and transformed into the alchemical symbol of the earth mounted on a supporting post when I noticed someone in the distance. I did not think further on this but continued my shamanically animated conversation with Richard until I looked up and realised the one had become two who, with menacing stealthy side steps towards us, revealed that each had long steel daggers. Total reality check. I had thought to put my money pouch with my 'valuables' as Stef had suggested for Mexico City, but we were not there yet, and, I suppose still in the dreamy afterglow of having fallen in love in Tulum, I had naively walked right into the setup. The men were frighteningly angry and waved and thrust their blades at us. I think in this moment I understood Tom's rant against uneven power; I certainly knew utter powerlessness, humiliation, disadvantage and loss of any sense of pride and fully knew that we had to get these men to move on as soon as possible and at whatever cost. I surrendered my money, and my cell phone was also taken, but I pleaded to be allowed to keep my credit cards. Richard, however, who had created a "work of art" with his digital camera over the previous month of Guadalupe shrines and processions, Mayan sites and the legacies of pre-Columbian artefacts, tried desperately to conceal his camera. I had to – and was allowed to – intervene and convince Richard to hand the camera over to them. Then, suddenly, they were off into the woods, and Richard was out of there. My knees no longer allow me to keep up with him, and I then also realised that I did not have my credit cards. I turned after the bandits only next to see my money pouch lying on the ground with the cards along with my jacket that Richard had pulled out of his shoulder bag (which they took along with his reading glasses, flashlight, medicines, etc.) I lamented that Richard had run off with the water, but that had been in the bag as well. I gathered up the stuff strewn on the ground along with Richard's drawing of the transformed cross and proceeded on the long, slow downward trek back to the city.
During the 'incident', there was no feeling of wonder or miraculousness; not even an iota. That came afterwards with the understanding that we were still alive and had got through the ordeal physically unharmed and intact. Neither of us felt any resentment toward the Zapotecs. We had foolishly walked into something we should not have and had only ourselves to blame. After the fact, it was to me like a New Age workshop: I may have learned something, there was the high of – in this case – an undoubted adrenalin rush, and it was exorbitantly expensive. The violation also reminded me of the final transaction and exchange with my sister: I had walked stupidly and trustingly right into a setup, and again it was undeniably costly. But after showering back at the hotel, we had a lovely bringing in the new year on the zócalo with margaritas and embraces from everyone at our neighbouring tables. And we had survived. But subsequently, for the first time in my life, I found myself welcoming the presence of policemen, and also, for the first time, I can now understand the desire to bear firearms.
As with new year's eve, our basic diet throughout Mexico has been margaritas and chile rellenos. Admittedly, I had the best ever chicken mole in Puebla as well as the most delicious fresh orange juice ubiquitously. I remain enthralled with the overall dignity and warmth of the Mexican people. And our two day stay in Teotihuacán allowed me to realise that the gods still live there. I began to wonder if these ancient ceremonial centres were purely theatrical – Spartan, yes, with streams of torch-bearing athletes running up and over the stepped divides which fill the Avenida de los Muertes and climbing the steep ascents to the Pyramids of the 'Sun' and 'Moon' – with the already dead placed as sacrificial victims after they had died from other causes. I had had one of the best conversations with my father on top of the great pyramid while my mother, unknown to us, experienced her first terror of acrophobia on the penultimate level below. Memories, memories, but also a reconnection with something reassuring and magnificent and, for me, a further sign of the approaching pagan avalanche.
The Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Mexico City is an overwhelming experience unlike any other. Then, too, in the capital, there is the pain and beauty that infuses the Frida Kahlo Museum. But equally not to be missed is the former home (given to the Mexican people upon her death) of and by Diego Rivera's mistress, Dolores Olmeda Patino – a stunningly gorgeous and always elegantly stylish woman, utterly fascinating as was Rivera's wife Kahlo but in diametrically opposite ways. The International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture conference followed in another colonial wonderland, the city of Morelia, capital of the state of Michoacán – stimulating and fun on many, many fronts and including an all-day excursion to the El Rosario Monarch Butterfly (Mariposa monarca) Sanctuary along with, finally, a taste or more of pulche.
Longing for the heat we had formerly known in the Yucatan and prompted by the temperature reports on CNN Espagnol, we overnight bussed to Acapulco – a crowded, congested, overly built-up and wondrously hot resort I had first visited with my parents fifty-four years ago. This was unadulterated nostalgia. The 'scene' I had known upon my second visit survived in almost unrecognisable remnants. How places change over time as well as the wide-eyed and still innocent youth who had experienced the highs and lows of Acapulco forty-one years ago until a generous stranger took pity and gave him an airplane ticket home. After five enjoyable days, we took a nearly 30 hour bus ride back to Mazatlán with the Tres Estrellas de Oro line – supposedly 'Three Stars of Gold'. The bus was not cleaned, vomit was in the aisle for most of the trip, there were no paper towels, soap or toilet paper – and this was reputedly 'first class', but the coastal drive revealed lush coconut palm groves, banana plantations, lovely beaches and one otherworldly location after the next – all jutting out into the sparkling sea. It was something I would not have wanted to miss. Two days recovering and relaxing at the Hotel La Siesta with a balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean as Mazatlán prepared for Carnival and then our flight to Tijuana to walk out of Mexico as we had come in (albeit a much lengthier walk-out than it is a walk-in) but full of treasured memories as well as, hopefully, some learning ones.