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Published: October 6th 2009
You know you
men in big hats and moustaches start appearing everywhere...So this is it, 24 days to go and over 4000 kilometres to cover. I have devised a plan to fill in the gaps of what I didn't see last year. Of course, Mexico is a massive country and you can but scrape the surface in the short time I have had here.
The brief stop in San Cristobal de las Casas was just for shopping, coming back to this city made me realise how much I love Mexico, the colours, the food, the people, this town's very pretty with it's cobbled streets, craft market and smart eateries. The town is also packed with amber jewellery shops, Chiapas being the second biggest region after the Baltic for finding this fossilised tree sap. I even managed to find a yoga class here which put me in good spirits for collecting Zapatista souvenirs.
It went back to Oaxaca as well, the city I spent Day of the Dead in last year. Right now everywhere in Mexico is decked out in red, white and green shiny, tinsel decorations. It's not early preparation for Xmas but part of the Independence Day celebrations on the 16th September. They have a new flavour for
raspados here in Oaxaca that I haven't tried before - it's vanilla sauce; which tastes like custard powder; served with condensed milk on top. I realised how much I've missed
elotes - that delicious corn on the cob, smothered in mayonnaise, rolled in cheese and sprinkled in chilli powder. The same concoction goes in the cup of
eziote; grains of corn with an added squirt of lime. A crowd had gathered in the plaza for Wednesday night's dancing, a few pairs had started to salsa when the weather turned and started to pour, it's as bad as British weather!
I had a ride out to the Zapotec settlement of Mitla, the town now surrounds the remains of this ancient city built from 200AD. What is left is not impressive in size like Monte Alban but fascinating because of it's detailed mosaics. I love these geometric patterns that look so fresh and modern today as they were almost 2000 years ago. The townsfolk still speak a dialect of Zapotec language and are cashing in with craft stalls and ice-cream carts - carrot and coconut being worthy of a sample!
On the way back to town I stopped at Tule, the
grounds of the church here are home to El Arbol del Tule, a Montezuma Cypress tree reported to be the world's oldest living biomass sporting a trunk circumference of 36.2 metres. It's incredible to think that this tree is over 2000 years old - if only it could talk! Sad to think that it has to be protected from the local Indian population who want to chop it down to make tables and chairs. What I don't understand is why it is that the people who are supposed to worship mother earth are the very people who have the least regard for their environment. They are happy to throw plastic bottles into rivers and cut down the natural environment to make a quick buck.
Puebla, (meaning 'village') is Mexico's fourth largest city, flat and built on a perfect grid you can see straight down these streets. More of a functional city than a tourist destination, though it is proud and grand and has a few worthwhile sights and museums that I enjoyed, but not as much as sitting back in the cinema and enjoying the silver screen! The Convent of Santa Rosa is famous for being the birthplace of
Mmmm...mole!
Pron. mo-ley mole, the nuns won a cooking contest that awarded them the decoration of the convent kitchen. Mole Poblano is essentially a sauce made from chilli and chocolate, served over chicken and accompanied by rice. It is rich, spicy, sweet and has a very intense flavour. It is the Mexican answer to Chicken Tikka Massala and every family has a secret recipe, I have it all over my face, hands and the table-cloth, just like at the Taj Mahal on a Saturday night.
Next stop, Taxco an enchanting town I was totally surprised with. The main road curves around the bottom of the hill and white painted houses elbow and squeeze their way into any available space on the steep slope. All the taxis are white Beetles, which scuttle and swerve their way around the cobbled streets. This is a silver mining town now famous for silver-smithing, boasting hundreds of shops and stalls selling the precious metal from as little as $1 up to $2000 (I bought some very small earrings). I loved the street food here - corn tortillas filled with many delights, my favourites being broad bean paste, courgette flowers and mushrooms with chilli, served with a handful
of salted pumpkin seeds on the side.
Cacahumilpa caves make a great trip out of town, being a bit of a cave fan, I know my stalactites from my stalagmites and these ones were awesome. I was impressed by the sheer enormity and beauty of the formations, the chambers were massive enough to swallow the group of 100 I was in (it was Sunday) and still makes you feel dwarfed. We walked for 2km into the deep; marvelling at the mineral deposits that took such shapes as the Princess of Monaco's legs in a mini-skirt, the Virgin of Guadalupe, an eagle eating a snake from the Mexican flag and Osama Bin Laden...so that's where he's been hiding!
Travelling at a fast pace now I got the morning bus to Cuernavaca, to spend the day there before catching the night bus to Guadalajara. It was a day well spent, they were warming up for Independence Day and had dancing in the plaza. I loved the fact that the central point in the Zocalo was not a bandstand but a hexagonal building housing
licuado kiosks. There was therefore no excuse not to have a choco-banana smoothie for elevenses. I stopped
by the tourist information for some tips on what to do on a Monday morning in town (Monday being the day when everything is usually closed). I'm travelling without a guidebook now which is actually quite liberating, though I did take notes from the Lonely Planet and have photo's of maps stored on my camera. I find the essential information to be the name of a cheap/good hostel/hotel and which bus route will take you from the terminal and back. Everything else you can generally get from the Tourist Office - depending on how bored/forthcoming they are. Lucky for me the Ethnobotanical Garden and Traditional Mayan Medicine Museum were open - something I'd like to learn more about. Something I didn't want to see on my stroll round town were the fresh rabbit skins for sale outside a pet shop. What an advert!
Guadalajara was only meant to be a convenient stop over for my journey up north, I stayed one night, which was more than sufficient. Despite the climax to the 'Cry for Independence' (celebrated on the night of the 15th) the townsfolk looked a pretty sullen and desperate bunch. Everyone crowded and shoved their way into the
Sculpture in Guadalajara
Modelled on Chorlton and the Wheelies? centre for the 10.00pm countdown, shouted 'Viva Mexico', watched the fireworks, then shoved and pushed their way home again. I was a bit disappointed and wished I had been back in Taxco or Cuernavaca, places that had a little more soul about them. The one saving grace was a chance encounter on a David LaChapelle exhibition at the university gallery, a photographer famous for his highly stylised fashion work.
That evening I boarded the night bus to Los Mochis, 19 hours later I had crossed one time zone and reached the hot desert landscape of northern Mexico. There's a lot of space up her and not a lot going on apart from cowboys and their cows. It has a mining and logging history - which was the reason the train track was built through the Copper Canyon in the first place. Actually it was gold mining not copper that the canyon is so named because of the colour it appears in the parched dry season. Right now the scrubby trees and sparse grass are green and the valley floor is bright yellow with flowers. This is one of the world's greatest rail journeys - through a canyon seven times
greater than the more famous Grand Canyon in the US, 665 kms of track and 87 tunnels. I caught the thrice weekly second class train from El Fuerte to Creel through some spectacular scenery; there's lots of rock pictures to show for it! The engine chugs slowly up the tracks stopping at isolated stations to let people off in what looks like the middle of nowhere. This looks like somewhere Dr Quinn Medicine woman would hang out with her mates from Little House on the Prairie.
Creel's a funny place built almost entirely from breeze block, it looks so temporary but was founded along with the radio early in the 18th century. Nowadays the many hotels and souvenir shops outnumber all other businesses. The enterprising Margarita runs four in the area including backpacker style Casa Margarita's where for 100 peso/$5 you get a dorm bed, breakfast and dinner, tasty too! What is slightly weird is that there's two double beds in the dorm which they try and get you to share with perfect strangers! The town serves as a base for excursions into the canyon. The vista from the train stop at Divisidero was so amazing that I went
back for a second look, it's the point at which three valleys meet, their deep rifts forming an incredible folding of the earth's crust. Another special attraction is the 'flying rock', a wobbly stone above a sheer drop the brave can perch on if they have the nerve, or stupidity - one woman died last year so a local hotel has painted a yellow 'do-not-cross' line, which everyone ignores. Another excursion is by bike on a route that takes you to a small cave used as a dwelling, the valleys of the frogs, the monks and the mushrooms and a horseshoe shaped lake. The valley reminded me of some of the strange eroded landscapes I saw on the Salar de Uyuni tour in Bolivia. The 'monks' was my favourite and I returned there for a day to sit and write from a rocky perch, imagining the days when the Apaches ambushed the prospectors in these lands.
This region is traditionally home to the Tarahumara people - translating to 'those who run fast'. I only saw them strolling but apparently their ball games can last for days and cover miles at high altitude. Incidentally Creel is 2400 masl and has
a nice fresh climate. They are a very private and shy society, most of whom don't speak Spanish, conceding contact with foreigners only when they need to negotiate a price. Their handicrafts are ecological, making use of the native pine trees weaving baskets from their needles and making carvings from the bark.
I make the journey to Chihuahua by bus (the cheaper and faster option), this is cowboy town and a bit rough around the edges but not as soulless as Guadalajara. It's prized gem is a stunning Art Deco mansion built in 1911 for Don Gamero, a wealthy mining engineer, now the property of the University it has been well preserved and an unusual encounter here. Chihuahua is famous for being the home of hero of the Revolution, Pancho Villa and the final resting place of Manual Hidalgo who was executed by the Conservative forces.
Back in Mexico City I have five days left of sight seeing before I fly home, there is so much to do in this vast metropolis that I never even make it back into the city centre. Basing myself in Coyoacan again I tour the pyramids of Teotihuacan, the floating gardens of
Xocomilcho, the gee-gees, the University science museum and a Mexican hairdresser, which is the bravest thing I've done in a long time! The Temple of the Sun at Teotihuacan is one of the largest in the world, made even more mysterious by the fact that no one knows very much about the culture that built it. The Aztecs found it in ruins after the Teotihuacanos left it abandoned and adopted some of the sites but it was so covered in jungle that the conquistadors never exploited it and it was not excavated until 1906.
The owners of the hostel are so pleased that I've come back after almost losing me to the dangerous night in my very first hours here in 2008, that they instruct their chauffeur to drive me to the airport. It's the end of another era and a mind full of memories that will stay with me forever...Thank you to everyone who has made this year an amazing experience, stay in touch and watch this space for where the Harris tours next!
You might be wondering why it is you haven't heard about my Oaxaca and San Cristobal adventures. It's because I am very naughty and behind on my homework and STILL haven't written them...promise to catch up pronto!
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