January - 2008
Jan. 21: Taxco
My Grandmother Gauger kept an immaculate, sweet smelling house. She was a wonderful baker, grew flowers, spoiled her grandchildren rotten, wore flowered dresses that she sewed herself, never used strong language except in German, and wouldn't dream of going to town except in black pumps and hose. In short, Grandma G. was a sweet little old lady - EXCEPT- Sunday afternoons when Pro Wrestling was on TV. She'd be yelling and hollaring and totally caught up in the whole thing.
Obviously I didn't get that gene. I left the Lucha Libre after 10 minutes. The warm up music was great. Crowd watching was great. Weather was great. The fighting was just silly - they'd be falling down before they were even touched.
I got back to Taxco at about noon, I'm glad that I left an extra day, neither shipper has everything ready yet, we've re-set two deadlines, one should be ready tonight, the other is on the homestretch, and I should be able to pick up papers tomorrow morning. We'll see if this deadline happens, or not, I really wanted to take a bus out to the caves tomorrow, but if it doesn't happen, so be it. This is, after all, the land of mañana.
Jan. 20:Chilpancingo, Guerrero
The Running of the Bulls, Taxco style. Years ago, Alice and I had gone to the Running of the Bulls during the Festival of San Fermin, in Pomplona, Spain. Because of the huge influx of young foreigners, this was a festival fueled, in part, by large amounts of cheap vino tinto. The festival of Sta. Prisca here in Taxco, is more local, more multi-generational, and fueled, in part, by large amounts of corn on the cob, churros, and faith.
After the evening mass, they brought out the "bulls", paper mache armed with spinners, Roman Candles, and fire crackers. One bull at a time, carried aloft by a fast runner, would get lit, and then chase anyone brave enough to jump into the fray. Each bull would end up in a big bang. Some of the bulls got mixed in with the general crowd, sparks were flying, girls were screaming, I was laughing like an idiot. I just don´t have enough superlatives for Taxco, just one caveat - bring sensible walking shoes, it´s all up and down.
I got into Chilpancingo yesterday afternoon, its the capital of Guerrero, a nice enough city, big downtown park, big central market, and nothing here for me except as a jumping off point to Chilapa. Refreshingly, I haven´t seen a single US chain store or restaurant, just an OXXO on every corner, like the 7-11´s on every corner in Bangkok. I did make the early morning bus trip to Chilapa for the weekly market. It was good, in that it was lots of regional clothing on the women, a real turkey and goat market, but nothing that would work in the store. The handicrafts were very original,and authentic, like handmade wooden burro saddles, wooden tortilla presses, nice tortilla baskets, handthrown clay comales, or grills, but nothing that would really work outside of ranchos in Guerrero.
It was a white knuckled ride getting there, the combi driver was really whipping around the mountain roads, I didn´t know if I was just not used to mountain driving anymore, or because I was in the back, it was the crack the whip effect. The lady next to me, tho, did comment on how the driver seemed in a big hurry, and the ride back wasn´t like that at all.
I´m at an internet cafe downtown Chilpancingo, I had a real expresso, and I´m waiting for a free Lucha Libre set up in the park, it starts at 5 pm. Lucha Libre is wrestling, these are the guys that wear the hoods, and take roles, or whatever, I´ve never seen a live one, nor, for that matter, I guess I´ve never actually seen a Lucha Libre on TV either. ?? its a must do once in your life?? I´m soon to find out.
Jan. 18: Taxco
I finished working at 4 pm, so I feel like a kid who got let out of school early. Today is the Fiesta of Sta. Prisca, there´s been all sorts of venders and a big brass band on the square, that even had 4 guys just in the rhythm section. Its like the marching bands in India, I don´t know if they´re really good or bad, but they are lots of fun.
Last night I had to go finish up papers with my silver shipper after 5 pm, I knew that would take me past the church just at the time when they were having the blessing of the animals, and a costume contest for them at the same time. It´s sort of like when there´s a car accident, you don´t want to look, you feel bad for everyone, and then you still sneak a peek at the last moment. I didn´t want to see pets all dressed up and unhappy, but it wasn´t like that all.
I don´t think the turtles had any idea that they had gone anywhere. The canaries were in their cages anyway, so it was probably like being in a motor home. The rooster that I saw (a big fat Rhode Island Red with a hankerchief around his neck) was taking it all in with equanimity, his owner was a little old lady, he was so big, she was so tiny, he almost didn´t fit under her arm. Most of the pets were dogs, and it was a big party for them. Lots of little fluffy lap dogs who looked only all too used to being dressed up in pink bailerina tutus. One white dog had a Day of the Dead skeleton suit on, most had what looked like doggy pijamas on, no dog even seemed to mind or notice their clothes, they were too excited being around all the other dogs.
The People´s Choice Vote probably went to one woman who had made a small ambulence, complete with a doctor and patient hooked up to an IV - she had made like human bodies, complete with arms and clothes, and then put her pigeons in the clothes, sort of like straight jackets. Ágain, the pigeons didn´t look too uncomfortable, so I´m glad that I did swing by to take a look.
Tonight they set off the fire works around the church, this I definitely do want to see. The fireworks are on a bamboo frame surrounding a paper mache bull, and then someone wears the whole contraption. I saw over 30 of these "bulls" lined up by the church, all for tonight, I want to see how the heck the fire works can go off without blowing anyone up, or catching the bulls on fire, it should be fun.
I´m off to Chilpancingo tomorrow morning, to catch the Tiangis, or Indian Market in Chilapa early Sunday morning. I´m going to miss my terraza here at the hotel. I´d get out on the terraza just as the sun was creeping over the mountains, and start my day with sun salutations and my yoga practice, which doesn´t take up any space in my suitcase, and is always with me. Its a wonderful way to start the day, and I send my gratitude to Marlene and Wendy, and all yogis and yoginis the world over, Namaste.
Jan. 15: Taxco
I´m not in the habit with going home with strange men that I meet at breakfast, but I did this morning. I was at my favorite little hole in the wall (Gaby´s Economical Kitchen), having the usual Huevos a la Mexican. She makes this unbelievable green salsa, and her beans aren´t overcooked, and no lard, plus she does her own tortillas on the comal, or grill - Anyway, there´s a man sharing my table (there´s only 3 tables in the whole place) and we strike up a conversation.
He´s one of the best silversmiths in Taxco, but he doesn´t sell any of his work here except in one gallery, because everyone would copy his work, which is true, I see this all over the world with my venders. Even with Nid´s kid sister and her little bracelets in ChiangMai, Thailand. But everyone knows him. Gaby lets him put the breakfast on his tab, etc., so I figure that it´s safe enough.
It was cool to see the lost wax castings, just to see the wax molds, but what amazed me was this one pot. It was hand hammered, no seams, no soldering, just one beautiful piece of .999 silver. It was gorgeous, and totally out of my price range, well over $1000.
I spent the rest of the day well within my price range, I really like what I´m buying this year, I´ve just got to get over the mindset of, one for me, three for the shop....I´d also promised myself that I wouldn´t work after 6 pm, but didn´t knock off until after 7. That´s ok, the tamale lady doesn´t set up until 8 pm.
I did hear one of her stories. No wonder that she was grumping that night- she´s had to move around 3 times in the last year with her tamales. The city keeps telling her that she can´t be here, she can´t be there, they´re fixing the street. Then, when the street is fixed, she can´t be there because the street is better. But it hasn´t seemed to hurt her business. There´s a non-stop stream of people buying from her, at least in the time that I´m eating tamales. Plus when the pot is empty, she just goes home.
Gotta go, there are tamales calling my name, loud and clear.
Jan. 13: Well, I´ve really come down in the world, at least here in Taxco, and I think it´s all good. Usually I stay at the Posada San Javier, way up on the hill. It´s got beautiful grounds, a swimming pool that´s too cold to use, and it´s really quiet - but - its also gotten too expensive, especially since I´m on the road longer this year, I really need to watch the budget. So I´m way down the hill, close to the bus station, but it´s got great views of looking up at the town, several sunny terrazas, and a friendly dog and cat, plus potted plants, windows that open to catch the breeze, and lots of noise. It´ll be just fine.
It´s also got Alex. He grew up pretty much in the States, from kindergarden up until he was 18 years old, which was four years ago. He´d been in the states the whole time, illegally, and then got in a car accident - it was bad, he´s short a kidney, has a pretty significant scar on his head, and a major limp and was deported.- But as he said, he really appreciates life now, as it can totally change in instant. Out of the mouth of babes. Everyone has a story. I wanted to get a story from the tamale vender last night, but she was too busy squabbling with her husband, so I want to go back tonight, both for a story and fresh homemade tamales (if it had a green salad with it, I would´ve given it 4 stars for a meal, both in the bread and circus catagories - sitting on the steps of the church watching the world go by, with a plate of chile and cheese tamales - eat your heart out, Rick Bailis.)
Most of the silver places are closed on Sunday, so I went to museums and did a little bit of looking for what´s new in Taxco silver. One of the things that I saw that I really like was the liquid silver teamed up with Swarovski crystals. I also went to the William Sprattling museum, he´s the gringo who revived the moribund silver industry in Taxco, starting in 1930. I had told Chris that I especially liked the Taxco silver because it was almost a white silver. He´s sold silver for much longer than I have, so he scoffed at me, said that sterling was sterling, and there was no difference.
I asked one of the silversmiths last year why the Taxco silver was whiter, and he said that it was in the finishing, but maybe he just told me what I wanted to hear. But Spratling had a good quote (sorry, its my translation, so it might be a little loose)"The true color of silver is white, like that of the hottest heat, and that of the coldest cold. It´s also the color of the first food that man takes, and the color of light".
I also went to the local museum at the Casa Humboldt, it was the second time that I´ve gone. They have an 18th century catafalque, or funerary celbration piramid, for lack of a better description. It´s a funeral alter, painted canvas with 4 sides, each representing an aspect of death. The amazing thing is that its the only known one still in existence, and it was uncovered from the Santa Prisca church storeroom during the 1988 restoration. There was other things, too, that were unearthed then. Sometimes the church hid their valuables during times of unrest and revolution, I wonder how long these things were hidden for.
I have yet to go to the Sta. Prisca church on this trip, might do so tonight, it´s done in the Churreisque (sp?) style, I call it Mexican Baroque - if you can gild it or throw on some cheribun, then do so.
Taxco really is one of my favorite places in Mexico, its only 3 hours south of Mexico City, if anyone ever gets a chance to go, I´d highly encourage you to do so. The Guerrero countryside is spectacular and Taxco is the crown jewel. They´ve tried to save as many old buildings as possible, and new buildings have to be done in colonial style, but its a real, working town, not all dolled up like San Miguel de Allende. Plus the food - three kinds of pozole alone - I´ve got enough time to try them all. There´s one restuarant that´s a favorite with the locals, its the Sta. Fe, and its been around a long time. What I liked was all the pictures on the walls, of the Beautiful People, but circa 1970, spred collars,bell bottoms, side burns, high hair and serious eye liner.
Jan. 11 : Tonala
Well, I´m just checking as, as I´m checking out, and won´t get to a computer for awhile. It´s a llllooooonnngg bus trip tomorrow from Guadalajara, to Mexico City, then a 3 hour bus ride to Taxco, with a change of bus terminals thrown in for good measure. I´ve gotta pack, too bad, there´s something going on in the town center tonight, I left when the band was just warming up, and they had guys on stilts dancing in the crowd, it´s some kind of kids program. Wish me luck for getting up at 5 AM, I haven´t seen that hour in awhile.
Jan. 10 : Tonala (still) Jalisco
There´s a famous mexican dish of raw seafood, called "vuelve a la vida", or "come back to life" that´s supposed to be good for, among other things, really bad hang overs. I didn´t have a hang over, just a bad cold that was hanging on, and I found some stuff at the pharmacy that was my come back to life remedy. It´s made in Switzerland, and has herbs and vitamins, and minerals, and the one mystery ingredient, Deantro. The pharmacist didn´t know what it was either but I had great dreams last night. I was at a girls camp, and we were ALL campers, no matter what our ages, and everyone imaginable was there, old friends, new friends, women I haven´t seen in twenty years, Oprah, you name it. Anyway, they kept giving me jobs to do that I thought I was so ill-suited for, that I just kept laughing and laughing , and each job got sillier, when I woke up in the morning, my face hurt from smiling so much - Does anyone know what Deantro is?
I think I´m done with my buying here, I need to do books tomorrow with my shipper, and unless I have to switch shippers ( that's a long, sad story), I´ll be leaving for Taxco on Sat.
I had to take a taxi out to Salvador´s place yesterday, it´s too far to walk, and I was too late to wait for a bus. Anyway, I had an interesting conversation with the taxi driver, he was really old, and had grown up in Tonala. He said that when he was a kid, all of the surrounding hills were just covered with trees, it was all green, all kinds of trees, cedron, mesquite, pine, poplar, you name it. Anyway, as anyone who´s been to Tonala knows, the hills are bare. The trees had all been cut down to make charcoal, and never replanted. All the super highways are new, all the new neighborhoods, it has to be such a huge difference for the older folks. Even me, I remember when I first started going down to Teotitlan del Valle, there was only one telephone line in the whole town, and if you needed to talk to someone, you called the one number, a kid would jump on his bike, and go get that person, and you´d call back in half an hour or so to see if that person had been found, and could come to the one phone or not. Now there´s cell phones and an internet cafe. It still amazes me.
Wish me luck with my shipper tomorrow, and I think I´m well enough that I don´t need to dose myself with the Vuelve a la Vida again.
Jan. 7: Chip chip chip - my wish list for shopping is getting a little bit smaller, but I still have a ways to go. I´m not running at 100%, the cold that I´ve been holding off for the last week has finally caught up with me. I left with a scratchy throat and the start of a cough, but one of my customers told me about Airborn, which is some kind of herbal vitamin witchdoctor tablet, which seemed to work well while I still had them, placebo effect or not.
I was done in by 5 pm yesterday, didn´t check e mail, didn´t do books, didn´t read or make lists, didn´t do anything except veg on the bed and watch TV, which was just what I needed. Les Miserable was on, with Gerard Depardieu as, of course, Jean Valjean, John Malkovich as Javert (dang his French sounded good), and I don´t know who as the Baron. But the three of them were great - the personification of what the French call "joli/laid" - pretty/ugly - makes for very interesting eye candy. Unfortunately it's in 2 parts, and I don´t know when the second part is.
Spent the day with Berta, she´s been fighting a cold as well. She says that she knows EXACTLY when she got it, she had a White Russian, and they put too much chipped ice in it, and that´s why she´s sick. I had lunch at the market today, and there was an older couple, they both wanted sodas, but "a tiempo", or ambient temperature. After he had to send the 3rd opened bottle back, becasue it had been in the frig, he started getting annoyed and started going on about did she (waitress) want them to get sick, its cold out, why would she give him a cold drink, etc. Makes me wonder if I can blame my cold on crunching ice on the airplane.
I´m off to the hotel to see if I can catch part two of Les Mis, I think Malkovich and Depardieu are both much more joli than ugly.
Jan. 5: Spent the whole day pounding the pavement. I´m always looking for new suppliers, but my old suppliers still have the best stuff. I stopped at my tin guy, his painted tin this year is absolutely great, and I stopped at the one man who makes the big outdoor animals, he´s developed deer that will make our real deer look twice. He had an order for dolphin and seals from the San Diego zoo, and they were really nice, but I just can´t see them in the midwest. I did get a shark, tho, I thought it might look really cool and weird coming out of the weeds, or if you´ve got a bizarre sense of humor, the shallow end of the pool. Where´s Sheriff Brody when you need him?
As the day was spent pounding the pavement, I also had every meal on the pavement. I love street grunts, I haven´t been inside a real restaurant since Hermosillo. It´s still Christmas season, so there´s a lot of extra food stalls, and tomorrow is King´s Day, so all of the Roca del Reyes vendors are out around the plaza. A Roca is a yeasted bread ring, sort of like a lighter version of Christmas Stollen. Kings Day is also the day that kids get their gifts, and the kids next door to the hotel were swinging away at the piñata when I got back.
I walked down to the WALMART!! of all places tonight. I wanted Decaf coffee and can´t find it here in Tonala. It has to be culture shock for the older people living here, there´s still the traditional market around the plaza here, and a few horses out and about on Sundays, and sometimes in the evenings. And then if you follow the road out of town long enough, you run into a multi-plex cinema, and WalMart.
Also got my cellphone up and running, I bought it in Mexico about 5 years ago, and even then it was a cheapie on its way to being obsolete. Now when the kids at the TelCel (and it's always kids) change the chip so its good for another year, they always look at it like its some kind of artifact from an archeological dig - they´ve heard of these, but never actually seen them -
Jan. 4: I feel like I need to apologize, these really are going to be pretty B O R I N G - I love being in Tonala, but it´s just a week or so of hard work.
I did get out of Hermosillo, no problem, sort of - they switched airlines on me, and the new airline had a much, much lower weight limit - when I later saw the size of the plane, I totally understood. The tall guys who flew couldn´t even stand straight up in the plane. So there I was with 3 bags stuffed full of Seri iron wood, which, weight for weight, may as well have been rocks. My carry on was stuffed, but as carry on, that didn´t count for weight. One bag was ok as checked luggage, the other one would have cost $350 in excess weight just to go on a little over an hour´s ride.
Fortunately, there was an air cargo place just down the road, probably for all the people like me who aren´t expecting such charges. And, as is often the case, there was a skinny little Mexican kid who was only all too willing (for a nice tip) to help me drag bags over the gravel to the cargo place - it was less than $50 to send the bag, and I picked it up today, all in good shape.
The flight was then canceled, but they pulled another plane out of somewhere, and the hour flight became something like 3 hours or more, there were 2 stops between Hermosillo and Guadalajara, we also got to see Los Mochis and Mazatlan. One of the other passengers muttered that with this many stops, it was more like a bus ride rather than an airplane ride. I thought, the only thing missing was the little ladies hopping on the plane at each stop to sell tamales, something that I would´ve greatly appreciated.
Dinner for me ended up being the 3 bags of peanuts that the stewardess bravely passed around after each stop. (I think its either in Chile or Argentina, where the stewards are called sobrecargos, or "excess baggage". Personally, I put them as a cross between little angels of mercy, and kindergarden teachers. Especially on long flights, everyone seems to revert to pretty basic human needs, and when the crowds start to grow restless, here comes the drink cart! here comes the food! Here comes the coffee! everyone gets really quiet during, and after their meals. Just when the stirring starts again, its movie time, snack time, sleep time, duty free time . They´ve got a captive audience, and I am totally grateful for their service).
Hermosillo sits in the Sonoran dessert, so when night starts to fall, all the birds come in off of the plains, and into town to roost in the trees for the night, as that´s the only place there are trees. I don´t know what I saw and heard, it was sort of long and slender like a purple grackle, but they had ivory colored throats, and the noise drowned out the noise from the street as they were all getting situated for the evening.
I also went to the Museum of Sonora - it was pretty good, very comprehensive, and I learned a new word for raccoon, which i´ve already forgotten. What amazes me is what a good job Dr. Torres, and the Casa Grandes crew do, of making copies of prehispanic artifacts, if they were a little more grunged up, they could sit under glass, and i certainly wouldn´t know the difference.
So, its Tonala for me for the next week or so. I really like it here, and I would highly discourage anyone from coming here unless you were on business, you´d be bored out of your mind. I went to dinner to my favorite pozole joint that sets up each night on the square. Pozole is pretty much hominy soup with the kitchen sink thrown in. Every region, town, family, has sort of their own versions, but it is kind of like a salad thrown on top of the soup, I love the stuff. This place had a special homemade sauce (this is always my seach in Mexico, the salsas caseras) it was very oily, dark red, and at first had a taste of toasted bread crumbs and chile. I´m loaded this stuff on, and then as I´m eating, i realize that its got the slow creep - not too hot at first, but then it keeps building, building, building, until the top of your head blows off, or in my case, the nose starts running. Ah, I love the food of Mexico. A wonderful culinary delight for a whopping $1.50.
Time to go up to my room, don´t know how much yoga I´ll be doing this week, its really cold at night and no room heat, i almost wish that my alarm clock didn´t have a thermometer in it, sometimes you´re better off not knowing.
Jan. 2: I´m in beautiful down town Hemosillo, Sonora, and am in a great mood because I finally got a terrific meal down at the market -scrambled eggs a la mexicana, loaded with the local homemade hot sauce, the soft, moist corny flavored tortillas that you just can´t get in the US, and market coffee - the stuff that´s boiled in a blue enamel ware pot on the stove, strained through a sock ' aahhh. -all this doesn´t sound too exciting until you realize that I haven´t had a real meal in 2 days - I got to Mexico City on New Years Eve, just as the last restaurant was closing down, so I had the last of the overcooked brocolli from the Chinese place, and was grateful for that, then nothing was open yet in the moring for breakfast, except McDonalds, so that was fruit and yogurt, lunch was a slice of cheese and chips, yesterday on New Years Day all was closed except for VIPs, which is the equivelant of Dennys, so I hiked to the bus station for a bowl of lentils etc, it was just hard to find food on New Years, when usually Mexico has fresh wonderful food on every street corner. So! It was a big deal to get my first great meal of hopefully many, while here.
I spent the night on the airport floor, I didn´t think that I´d be able to sleep much, as it was pretty noisy, tho not a lot of people around, but I was sleeping on a stone floor, with only one blanket, lots of bright lights, and the thump thump thump of the automatic escalater. Silly me, I guess I can sleep anywhere. I´ve slept through baseball sized hail stones pummeling the train while going though the Alps, slept through an earthquake in Argentina, sleep though the storm of the century in Chile (I got up once that night to go to the bathroom, looked out the window, saw that the palm trees were horizontal, not vertical, so I thought I was dreaming and went back to bed, couldn't believe the devastation that I saw the next morning) so the only time that I woke up at the airport was at the stroke of midnight, and once again at 5 am.
My hotel in Hermosillo makes me happy, its one of the old-time hotels that I remember from early trips to Mexico, plus its a Lonely Planet pick. It´s got the red floor tiles, plain white walls, no TV, spotlessly clean, and the lovely smell of Rosa Venus, the ubiquitus soap to all clean, decent, cheap, small hotels in Mexico. This hotel, the Washington, DC, had been around since 1947, and has a nice facade with Talavera tiles, the inner courtyard, and kept up, but probably never renovated since they started - just my kind of place. They do have a public computer, but no one knew how to crank it up, the monitor makes my 8 year old Dell look like state of the art. I´m off to find Seri ironwood, and see what I can do for getting back to Gaudalajara. If I take the bus, its an 18 hour bus ride, and not cheap, I have enough Mexicana miles to get a one way ticket out of town, but don´t know if seats are available or not - best go find out, as I don´t relish the thought of that long of a bus ride . |
