Big Heads and Carnival

---

Not Big Heads at Carnaval though. Big Olmec heads in the park/museum and yes, Carnival is happening here now - later then most other places.

Wanted to get off the gringo backpacker trail - and I have definately done that here. Have see 3 other "gringo" people in this city of almost 700,000. A few Mexican tourists it seems, but while a prosperous city due to oil since the 1970s, it is not on the tourist map except for the Parqu-Museo La Venta in a nice city park where Olmec heads (Olmecs were the people in this region from about 1100-400 BC and whose relics include large sculpted heads, precursor it is thought to Mayan culture) were moved in the late 50´s after from La Venta after oil was discovered and it was feared they might be lost. Good musuem, nice stroll though tropical leafy landscape (and visit to zoo which is also there) - again they were a very hierarchical society whose cities were for the rulers and who lived off the peasants (who were probably those who survived). All these ruins make me pensive about the situation of North American/Western society - what will be left 1000++ years from now and how will people interpret it, and are were in our post-industrialism and increasingly divided societies headed for a major collapse (Mayan calendar predicts ending in 2012) and how will things change especially without many who live more basically and simply with know how on survival. (don´t worry not downer thoughts). Still I know that while I love the bus rides through rural villages, I would be one who would leave the villages for broader horizons and stimulation.

Villahermosa is a very different place than those I have been. Have hated it, really liked it, and up and down - think that it could be a good city to live in (if you were Mexican) - more modern, prosperous, less indigenous. On the drive from Palenque mainly past large tracts of cattle grazing land - flat again here, green, much swampy. Bus got checked leaving Chiapas and am glad to admit that I have since seen no police with large rifles and heavy duty vests (just the large batons). More cars in the country, and now the city is full of cars, many taxis, but few collectivos.

When I got in I was overwhelmed - large choatic bus terminal, long line for taxis so I walked to find a hotel (no hostels here - paying 210 pesos a night - nice room but being an oil town little decent super budget accomodation). Went to the Zona Luz - pedestrianized "historic" city centre - where more midrange and budget hotels are - loud, crowded sidewalks with overweight women in small sandals and too tight clothing shuffling along past shoe shops (I think Mexicans must have a shoe fetish with the number of shoe stores I see) and cheap clothing stores - more like the mall on St-Hubert in Montreal. It was also hot. Found my hotel and then wandered to a few galleries and found that it was Carnaval. So I went to watch the parade. It passes along major street (this town is not a good grid but streets wind around) with people standing to watch instead of the seats - began with about 20 minutes of souped up (and barely souped up) cars slowly driving - not very interesting cars (and as you know I do not find cars interesting) only mior modifications in headlights, mufflers, open engines - and I thought what the ·$%& is this - but then real floats, and dancers and drum groups came by and it was actually a very good parade. Then more festivities at the waterfront - an area by the river which has been done up with a bandstand, an open air food court and drinking places - really quite nice. (and for carnaval some amusement park rides, extra bandstands, food vendors with hotdogs, churros etc and beer by the 6 pack. Very crowded. Many overwieght women in skimpy dress again - notice how women in Mexico (except for Mayan traditional women) flout their sexuality much more than in North America, clothes cling more on all, and the salsa dancing and movement - the second float of the parade had prepubesent girls in bikini like costumes grinding away - much more sensual - even mothers with a buch of young kids hanging on, and while the gender roles more defined here (and men at Carnaval wore so much hair goop) it is also very family oriented - kids out, dads looking after the kids too - much more so than at home. Though I realize that I could never be like that - think to failed salsa lesson in Vallodolid - yes admit that I am more of a "librarian - bookish" type.

Today I went to La Venta Museum which is in a large park with a lagoon about 3 km from the centre a more prosperous area with many middle class families out and about, past nicer places (didn´t make it up to the new modern city hall/ mall/ convention centre) and realize that the Zona Luz is more the trashy (lower middle class/working class mall girl) area of town and how middle class this city is. Many parks, squares laid out - wide treed boulevards with lotsa cars. Much is new and modern - sculptures in the park, lookouts, and prices in general are higher than elsewhere that I have been and not the tourist markup either - the oil boom mark up. Not a small rich enclave living off surrounding poor like San Cristobal (though it is funny on where you are makes you interpret things differently - initially in the zona luz I longed for the more latte San Cristobal) but most see better off (and expanding). A place like San Cristobal made me think of travel more - how in such a place us backpackers can live well, be relatively "rich" or a least live a charmed bohemian life - one that I could not live in out own countries - and how we become so priveleged. Here no one really cares that you are here (yes, a few looks - some curious, others maybe a bit hostile, a few more leering from men than elsewhere - I haven´t gotten very much - being older and dressing relatively conservatively). But here, at the park and in the other areas, you don´t feel so much better off - more a living city.

Tommorow I am off. Still Deciding where to.

---