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Published: October 22nd 2008
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Pan-O-Rama
A view from the top Tilting at windmills is a favorite past time of mine, not to be reserved for the chivalrous or the idle nobility. There is a Cervantino festival, named after the author of Don Quixote, in an old silver mining town called Guanajuato, in a Mexican state with the same name. It is a three-week affair held in October every year, and I was urged by my coworkers to attend it. An arts festival is how it is advertised, with artists and music and a good time promised. What it has to do with Cervantes is uncertain, since he was never there. A better choice to name a festival for would have been Diego Rivera, having been born there and all. The vagaries of festival naming in Mexico elude me.
An arts festival sounds good to me, being a culturally minded renaissance man. To get there, I would have to drive about three hours south and west, through the mountains. Mountains are where silver is mined after all.
I must go and check out all the fine art, I told myself, and maybe buy the gifts I need as souvenirs for my family, who promised not to let me return if I was
empty handed.
“Bring us something from Mexico” the children all say to me when I call home.
“Go to Meijers,” I say. “There is plenty of stuff from Mexico on their shelves.”
They will have none of that, of course. So I put my apprehension about driving in unfamiliar territory aside and make the trip. The scenery is breathtaking. Panoramic vistas speed by as I try to find a place to stop and take a picture. It is hard to look at scenery while driving on a narrow, twisting, climbing and blind cornered road, where only a few feet separate you from the viewing of scenery to the scenery being viewed
When I finally find enough solid ground on the side of the road to pull over, I discover that the little camera I purchased at the Oxxo convenience store could not do the panorama justice. I snapped a shot anyway, futile as it was, because I had made the effort to stop. The panorama will live in my memory always.
There are signs on the side of the road that are consistent to what would be expected in rocky terrain. One is a sign for falling rocks and the other for a steep decline. One sign is not familiar to me, showing a picture of a long horned steer. I see the reason for it, in the cattle that graze freely on the side of the road and up on the hillsides.
Quickly, I surmise that if rocks can fall and roll down the steep hill to crush me, and if there are cattle grazing contentedly and oblivious to their situation standing on those rocks, that both cattle and rocks could fall on me in any combination. Looking up to the tops of the rocky hills above me, the cattle are there, waiting to drop.
“Too much red meat is bad for you,” says my doctor.
“True enough,” I think, “especially if a thousand pounds of it drop on you from the sky, rolling along with a couple of half-ton boulders for good measure.”
I concentrate on the road and my destination, calculating the odds of being killed by falling bovines as remote. Arriving at the edge of Guanajuato, I decide to get a hotel room instead of risking the drive back at night. I take a taxi into downtown for the festival. The town is accessed by the old silver mining tunnels, which have probably been enlarged for automotive traffic. Offshoots from the main tunnel descend down into mysterious catacombs that network under the city, where I am sure old prospectors still pull their obstinate mules along in the dark, braying their objections all the way. Mules don’t care about silver, but they know a scary tunnel when they see one.
The taxi drops me off at the tunnel exit, and I escape into the frenzy of the festival, away from mules and old prospectors. This is where windmill tipping comes into play. While I have no steed Rocinante nor faithful Sancho on El Rucio to squire me, I aim to track down and consume as much art as I can imbibe. It is a noble quest, and like Don Quixote imagines windmills are giants, I imagine great art awaits me in the markets of Guanajuato. If it is present in the makeshift stalls and on the spread out blankets of the street vendors I aim to find it.
With determination and vigor I roam the streets, soaking up the sounds, sights and atmosphere, ever vigilante for the art. There were some stalls set up with painting reproductions and many stalls set up with trinkets and knick knacks of the flea market variety.
Street performers were entertaining the crowds, either as clowns or as pretend statues that would dance for a few pesos, and then stop when they felt the money had run out. Their costumes were very clever, and it was hard to tell if the motionless statue on the pedestal was alive or not. They seemed to especially enjoy scaring the little children by suddenly coming to life.
As night approached the crowds increased, as did the drinking. Now I began to sense the true aim of the festival in the actions of the masses. It was a party, plain and simple. I sat at one of the outdoor cafes with my coffee and watched it. The windmills had won, and though I spent several more hours roaming the streets, I knew I had been vanquished.
I called my trusty steed, Taxi! Take me back to the castle, por favor. We drove back through the now lit tunnels to my hotel. I could not pay the driver in oats, as I had none and it is no longer an accepted currency, so pesos would have to suffice.
A quest is a tool for self discovery, or in my case self re-discovery. Crowds of people jostling and pushing to get the best view or the best parking spot are unsettling to me. I was dissapointed that I was unable to purchase the souvenirs I needed. Part of that is my reluctance to buy anything housed inside a tent. There is no way to know if what I am buying is worth the price paid, and so I am a consumate looker only. Besides that, I really have no idea what my children would like. My wife does the present shopping and I provide the funding. The gifts are always from Mom and Dad, of course.
So I return to my hotel empty handed and empty hearted. The next morning I return to my hotel in San Luis, and ponder what I would do the following weekend. I think I heard about some windmills to the east of here. It might be worth looking into. Taxi!
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