Cactus in Mexico

There is indeed much cactus in Mexico, but I’m speaking Australian here, and things went pretty much cactus for a while back there. From Oaxaca Mabel, who continues to hang in there like the trooper of the little car she is, took us on a fairly easy and uneventful journey to the city of Puebla. We did try and visit the nearby ruins of Cacaxtla but enthusiasm for this detour took a hit when we hit a hidden sleeping policeman at speed, eliciting cries of pain from C, whose back is not good, and a stream of profanities from me, whose patience with these damn things is wearing thin. After negotiating the confusingly signposted and, at certain points, absently signposted roads we eventually found the site, closed. Heading back into Puebla we spent as much time driving round the city as we did getting there in an increasingly frustrated attempt to find a hotel. It was during this time that we found out that indicating to change lanes is actually an invitation to the driver behind to close the gap that we are attempting to move into.

Puebla itself was just a transit stop for us, so the next day we moved on for what was supposed to be a quick and easy journey to Teotihuacan, pre-Columban ruins 40km or so north east of Mexico City. To get there we travelled the main roads that circle Mexico City in order to spare C’s back the earthquake like consequences of travelling the tank driver training courses that seem to constitute most of the roads over here. It also increased the odds that Mabel might last the journey in one piece instead of falling apart on us like some circus clown car. Now if you are driving in the Mexico City area there are a few things that it’s good to know. One is the last digit of your car registration, two is the day of the week on which vehicles with that digit are not permitted to drive around the city, and three is whether your car hire company has certified the vehicle to drive these roads regardless of license and day. In our case these vital bits of knowledge are 3, Wednesday and no they hadn’t.

As far as we could pick out with our still woefully inadequate Spanish these are some of the phrases that the non-English speaking police officer who pulled us over this Wednesday spoke; “no disculpe”, ignorance is no excuse, “pagar sancione de 2000 pesos”, the fine is over £100 and “deposito la auto”, we’re going to impound your car. The restriction is an effort to address the city’s environmental problems, a laudable cause that we would have been delighted to support if only we had known, and which our eco-warrior officer was relentless in pursuing. He wasn’t having anything to do with our suggestion that we backtrack and find a non-restricted route to Teotihuacan, even though it would have taken us all the way back to Puebla with possible disastrous consequences for C’s back and Mabel’s suspension. After about 30 minutes of entirely non-productive Spanglish we resorted to the freephone number the car hire company gave us in case of problems. If nothing else they could do a better job of translating the officer’s stream of Spanish for us, though we were rather hoping they could provide a ‘get out of jail’ solution. Their first attempt was obviously predicated on the ‘estupido inglese’ approach and attempted to fob the officer off with the delivery of a replacement vehicle that was permitted to drive the roads this day. Sadly for us the officer remained staunchly committed to his eco principles. This is when he starting playing his “no disculpe” card. The car hire company’s next gambit was to try and subvert the officer’s hard line environmental principles by appealing to interests that were closer to his heart. Sooo…, our eco hero, about £50 the richer, accompanied us in the back of the car as we drove to the nearest point on our journey that was not subject to restrictions. The kicker in all this is that just as we were figuring out that the officer meant to accompany us in our car, instead of escorting us in his own, a government official turned up. He showed us all his ID card, spoke a lot of Spanish with the now very sheepish looking police officer and with our license and vehicle papers returned to us indicated that we could continue on our journey with no further ado. Unfortunately for us the damn roads were so crowded with drivers who have no concept of courtesy on the road that by the time we actually rejoined the traffic the government official had gone and the police officer stopped us again. You’d think the authorities would implement some kind of system that discouraged so much traffic. As we drove along with our expensive and unwelcome passenger we searched vainly for the government official’s car whilst the police officer removed his hat and jacket just in case we did pass him.

Efforts to recuperate our financial loss from the car hire company who suggested this course of action to us, and who supplied us the car that was not allowed to drive the roads of Mexico City (“You didn’t tell us you were going to Mexico City” they said when we called them on the phone number they gave us if we had any problems in Mexico City) are ongoing. Meanwhile, as we drive the ever confusing road network here every sighting of the police is greeted with much trepidation and careful studying of the rear view mirror. The officer who followed us on his quad bike down the road that circles the ruins at Teotihuacan was particularly nerve wracking as he, unlike our friend in Mexico City, was packing a side arm. Fortunately we had obviously not done anything wrong and he left us alone. Not that he would have been able to pick us up for any vehicle restriction violations. Our first day at Teotihuacan saw the departure of Mabel, replaced by the hire company with an altogether more legal and less battered Mabel II.

Teotihuacan itself is an impressive site founded around 300B.C. and abandoned around 850A.D. Unusually for a region apparently littered with civilisations with names that end in ‘ec, the people responsible for this site are called the Teotihuacanos. Current theory however does suggest that, like all tribes in this part of the world, they were descended from the more ancient Olmec civilisation. As with the ruins we visited at Monte Alban, the Aztecs knew this site after it fell to ruin and some of the names applied now, such as the 2 mile Street Of The Dead which runs the length of the site, were given by them. Other names given to buildings at the site (Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid of the Moon, Jaguar Palace etc.) are modern day archaeological guesswork and convenience. C, I, the inevitable hordes of schoolchildren and only marginally fewer vendors shared the best part of the day at this fascinating site. The vendors were hawking what actually turned out in some cases to be some very tempting but impossibly heavy or bulky Teotihuacan art, as well as some more martial tack. We escaped relatively lightly with a few cheap baubles and some T-shirts, whilst the children demonstrated their yearning for culture by snapping up the replica tomahawks and bows and arrows. In exploring the site I came close to giving the Street of the Dead a modern twist by nearly expiring whilst climbing the treacherous steps of the huge Pyramid of the Sun under the hot sun. The climb up the smaller Pyramid of the Moon was equally treacherous, though more for the unrestored and very jagged rubble that always threatened to trip the unwary into what surely would have been a very nasty fall at the top. We left the site in the afternoon chanting the by now familiar “no gracias” to the hordes of vendors who didn’t seem to appreciate that we had already repeatedly refused their myriad competitors in our journey down the Street of the Dead.

We left Teotihucan in our shiney new Mabel II, certified with any day of the week access to the capitol that would ensure that the police of Mexico City would not be molesting her. No, they were going to be far more interested in the squealing of metal on metal that soon started coming from the front left wheel and which shouted to all and sundry “This car is not roadworthy”. On the basis that no signpost means carry on straight ahead we nearly ended up in Tepeapulco, the opposite direction of our intended destination Pachuca. When are we going to learn that signposting is more of a vague art than an exact science over here? When we eventually find the right road it looks more like the battlefields of Flanders tarmac’ed over. Some of the holes are trench like and the huge one I misjudged can’t have done whatever was wrong with Mabel II’s wheel any good whatsoever.

For the first time in Mexico we were able to just drive to our destination and find a decent hotel straight away without an involuntary tour of half the town. It was a trap. Although a known name, the food was questionable, the air conditioning ineffective, the TV reception as intermittent as the road signs and the ever present hordes of children were waiting for us. Do they not have schools over here? Having said that, Pachuca itself is a fine city, the least touristy yet best we visited on this trip in Mexico. We were here to pay respects to my maternal ancestors, my great great grandfather being a Cornishman who tried his mining luck here when the Cornish mining industry started to collapse in the 19th century. His son married a Mexican woman from the nearby town of Huasca, and from this union I claim my one sixteenth Mexican heritage. He and some of his siblings are buried in the English cemetery, perched serenely on a hill above the mining town of Mineral Del Monte where they worked some 100-150 years ago. The town itself is well worth a visit, nestled prettily amongst the surrounding hills. It is retains the influences introduced by the Cornish miners who lived here, and only a bad experience in my youth whilst holidaying in Cornwall prevented me from trying a pasty from one of the many shops selling them. The cobbled streets were right out of the English south west and further contributed to both Mabel II and C’s woes.

With our time in Mexico drawing mercifully to an end, for it has not been the best experience of our tour, we head on. We should have returned Mabel II back to Acapulco but we count ourselves lucky that we managed to get back to Mexico City airport without any involuntary high speed conversion into a tricycle. It is a typical Mexican car journey for us. Mabel II nearly ended her life here when a Mexican white van man decided he wanted to be in our lane. The fact that we were occupying the space he wanted didn’t seem to deter him one iota, and if we had had Mabel I’s braking efficiency I suspect we would still be discussing the situation with the police even now. More lost than anything else we chance upon the airport more by luck than judgement, at one stage navigating by following low flying aircraft. We end up at an airport hotel belonging to one of Mexico’s top hotel chains and rather than spend another couple of hours trying to find our way to one of the cheaper hotels we can see just over the road we take the financial hit and stay. We actually have two nights before our scheduled departure, but a couple of hours listening to the young scamps who I swear have been following us these last couple of weeks charging up and down outside our room convinces us of the wisdom of rescheduling our flights for the next day, despite a consequent cost that exceeds the price of the room.

So there you go. Mexico; fabulous ruins and I would recommend the mining areas of Mineral Del Monte to anyone, even without the added interest of family history, but I suspect our fond memories of the country will be restricted to an altogether easier holiday we once took in the north of the country.

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