Friday 4 March 2005, San Casimiro
Campeche, Campeche - night
After taking ironic photos of the Howard Johnson and Best Western hotels, we bid farewell to Palenque. We drove northeast through a thinning Mayan mist, retracing part of Monday's route, seeing the lush agricultural countryside we'd missed that black stormy night. Population growth has led to the near elimination of original jungle in lowland Chiapas. Jungle soils are notoriously thin and unfertile; the situation may not be sustainable. Slash-and-burn can't continue forever.
Our elevation dropped from low to lower as we cruised through the swamplands surrounding the great Laguna de Terminos. On solid stretches, every few cows had their flocks of egrets, happily munching bugs; in wetter zones, mangrove thickets pressed against the road for miles.
CHECKPOINTS: We encountered more checkpoints as we drove north in Campeche state to the Gulf coast at Sabancuy. No, we're not carrying animals or drugs or weapons; yes, we're just tourists, vacationers.
Sabancuy sits on the lee side of a long thin sand spit running 100 miles along the bottom of the Gulf. Mexican cities swarm with taxis; in most places,bothersome small cars. Here they're pedicabs, or small surreys towed behind motorbikes. Life moves slower. The sky is clear, the wind is frest, and a few roads are paved.
We lunched on fine tortas whilst gazing upon construction equipment, then crossed onto the sand spit and beheld the green glow of Gulf waters. The beach stretches forever, scattered with empty palapas and thatched huts. The high-tide line is thick with seashells, chunks of coral -- calcium central! Pelicans sit on every waterlogged post and piling, in every tied-up boat. The onshore vegetation is a sort of gray scrub -- again, not the sort of jungle we'd expected. Coconuts washed up on the shore like fuzzy skulls. We walked slowly in the sand, grabbed a few shells, ducked under palapas' thatching, thought about hanging hamacas here for a couple weeks. But how could we recharge the cameras and computers? So, on to Campeche city...
CAMPECHE is the state capital, under 200,000 population, a modern city with a 16th-century heart, formerly walled. The kilometer-square historic district feels very much like Antigua, Guatemala -- narrow straight cobbled streets fronted by colorful low plastered (or modern concrete) buildings hiding courtyards and gardens and who knows what? Imagine Antigue with political pull, more money, and no earthquakes. The rulers are pushing Campeche as a tourist magnet; they may succeed sometime.
The expensive new hotels are on the long malecon, the waterfront. The cheap old places are in the historic district, and are either full or aren't so cheap. We finally settled on the Hotel Campeche off the zocalo. Great location, minimal rooms, overpriced, but the best of the lot that we could get into.
Guidebooks say Campeche's streets are best seen at night, with music and performances in parks and plazas. The cheerleading competition in the downtown sports arena was certainly amplified enough, music reverberating for blocks. Ancient walls and churches are dramatically lit. The roads and walks are thronged -- is it just because it's Friday night We took the room for two nights, so we'll have Saturday and Sunday to poke around.
CEBOLLAS: We supped at La Parroquia, a famed cheap but classy eatery. We were too late for the comidas corridas (daily specials) so we attacked birds. I feasted on pollo escabeche, chicken stewed with onions and garlic and chiles. I fear that I shall be unbearable tonight. (Are there some nights when I *am* bearable?)
Every Mexican hostelry we've so far encountered has provided tiny bars of the same brand of soap, Rosa Venus. Is this a monopoly? But we can't tell at the Hotel Campeche because they unwrapped the soap. And provided plastic towels that absorb nothing. And supplied sheets too small for the beds, and beds too thin for our backs. And no hot water. And I won't mention the toilet. At least everything is reasonably new and clean.
|
Personal notes:
Barbi, how are you doing? How's your health? Uncle Ray is worried about you.
Terry, do you have any contacts or recommendations for Belize? We may be laying-over there during Semana Santa. And just when the hell is Easter this year?
Sharon, you'd probably go absolutely nuts driving down here. Heh heh.
Tracy, the UFO activity level is low but ghosts and chupracabras are everywhere. And of course the ancient Romans (or Egyptians or Atlanteans) helped build the pyramids. But everybody knows that.
Cya later --Ric & Maureen
|
DIA DIEZ OCHO:
Saturday 5 March 2005, San Virgilio
Hopelchen, Campeche - evening.
The Hotel Campeche featured the most miserable [expletive deleted] bed, a thin mattress on wide wood slats. And then at 3AM they provided loud mechanical thrumming noises. We checked out early, got a reluctant refund of the next night's fare. No further days in Campeche.
At the edge of the zocalo we encountered Claire Mac from Halifax, Nova Scotia, a teacher here. We talked of hemispheric politics and economics and travel. We asked about the road through Belize to Tikal; she hauled us around the corner to a cafe where a "men's coffee club" deliberated and passed us off to a friend who pointed at a large wall map and said that yes, it was a fine road. So that option is still open.
WANDERING: We stuffed ourselves at La Parroquia again, then passed the morning wandering around the (mostly) charming historic district. The museums we'd fancied were either closed or overpriced, so we hit a few old churches. (For a couple of atheists from WASP America, we're certainly taken by the architecture and adornment of old Catholic edifices. Is there a psychosocial point here? Or maybe just indoctrination in Mission appreciation...)
One fine huge old church seemed filled by the desks and computers of government operatives, and had a science exhibit under the dome. Of the working churches, one featured a famous Santo Negro; the cathedral's museum never opened, despite the promise of a self-appointed guide; and another church seemd to have evaporated completely.
But then we entered the small ancient San Francisquito church, midway between the Land Gate and the Sea Gate. The church contains five unique tableaux (including the altarpiece) carved in different baroque styles some centuries ago. They are now undergoing extensive restoration, due to be completed in six years. Repairing; gilding; laboriously brewing red tints from organic materials. Different teams of volunteers come in, mornings and evenings. Don Angel, the caretaker, regaled us for a half hour on the very real glories and history of the work. I guess we must return in a few years, so how it's coming along.
FUERTE: By now it's noonish and we're sweating, so we hop in the air-conditioned (A/C) car and head out of town. En route, we stop at the Fuerte de San Miguel, Campeche's last anti-pirate fortress, on a hilltop overlooking the old port. BIG MISTAKE! It's now the town anthro museum, sith a superb collection of Maya and Aztec artifacts. We're there for another couple hours, absorbing and photographing stuff. There's no A/C other than a breeze atop the ramparts, so we're sweating like filthy pigs. I am, anyway.
We escape inland, across scrubby former jungle lands. The day isn't any cooler but we're on A/C until we reach Edzna, a moderately large Maya site with an absolutely stunning pyramid, the Templo de los Cinco Pisos, among other great stuff. We climb around, sweat some more.
IGUANAS: We've dodged a couple large iquanas on Mexican roads. Think: small dinosaur in the headlights. But the Edzna ruins are SWARMING with the suckers! Walk towards a structure, and one-two-three dozen gowanas scuttle up the rocks and stairs and inclines. The little ones are only a foot long; the big guys are chuckwalla-size, up to a yard long, and impatient. I walked after on a big one in a gap between structures; little lizards scurried out of the grass up the rock faces, and a big one and some rocks crashed down from above. CAUTION: FALLING LIZARDS!
There are no accommodations at Edzna. The only hotel in the region is some miles away, in Hopelchen. It's late afternoon. We roll across the countryside, and just before reaching town, we see a small ruina at the roadside. The sign says, Toh-Cok.
TOH-COK: We stop to take some pictures, and out pops a youngish guy, Jose Rafael, who apparently volunteers there on weekends. We started chatting in English and Espanol; he taught us a little Mayan; we talked for an hour about language, culture, history, birds. And he suggested some little known ruins, markewd only on the Campeche state tourist maps, for us to explore. So: do we continue up the Ruta Puuc to Uxmal and Merida, or do we sidetrack to these first?
We drove on to Hopelchen, the town with just one hotel and no tourist facilities, but with a few German-speaking Mennonite farmers nearby. The temperature was 95°f, according to the car gauge. We passed a young guy bicycling vigorously, wearing a heavy sweatshirt. Well, it *is* winter here...
HOPELCHEN: The guidebooks say many people hereabouts speak no Spanish, just the local Maya language (there are 23 distinct Maya languages); but we (Maureen) had no trouble communicating about lodging and food. Next to the bus station, the Hotel Los Arcos is better than last night's dump, at half the price. If we sidetrack to those little-known ruinas, away from our planned route, we may be back here atin tomorrow night. But we're out of beer and it's not sold on Sunday. Oh, the tragedy!
The small town kicks out on Saturday night. Music and cruising the main, voices and laughter and music. The air is smoky -- besides active slash-and-burn, all stoves are wood-fired. We eat smoky fried flesh and tortillas at the bus-stop comedor, as good as any we've had. Food and lodging tonight cost US$22.00. I think we're off the tourist track.
|
NOTED:
* Some towns and villages and sites have large populations of low-grade feral (or at least ownerless) dogs prowling everywhere. Other places, like Palenque and Campeche towns, none are to be seen. We read about extermination programs. It's a dog's life.
* Small tropical roadside villages consist of thatch houses, or concrete with thatch roofs. We saw one such structure being thatched by a team, back on the Gulf coast. In the hamlets, many such houses (or shacks) have no front door, just a couple thin chairs for watching the passing world. And behing them we see hammocks, and TVs. Welcome to the world.
* THE PEOPLE'S GUIDE TO MEXICO (our 1995 edition) says that radio is a national obsession in Mexico, but except in major cities, we've picked up nothing. Yet TVs blare nearly everywhere we stop. I suspect that in a decade, satellite RV has killed radio here.
* For breakfast we often just snap up some granola. As we drive through the day, we'll munch on not-too-sweet panaderia pastries and slurp unsweetened sodas. We're losing weight, thinning down. The bread-and-water diet will do that, hey? To hell with Atkins.
* We haven't seen cacti for days. Occasional plots of large agaves (probley magueys for pulque or mescal) are spotted. Otherwise, from the road, the vegetation looks like some deciduous forest in the eastern US, maybe Pennsylvania in the winter. This is jungle?
|
DIA DIEZ NEUVE:
Sunday 6 March 2005, San Basilio
Uxmal, Yucatan - night.
We crawled across from the Hopelchen bus-stop hotel to the same comedor, breakfasted well and cheap, strolled around the zocalo area for a Sunday morning look-see. Last night the voices sang, the church bells rang, and I sometimes awoke to what I thought were chorus of laughter. Maybe these were only crowds of calling birds. Maybe.
We then headed south on that sidetrip, looking for little-known ruins. If the Campeche state tourist bureau had actually put up road signs instead of just marking their throwaway maps, maybe the sites would be better known. But we didn't see any.
Correction: we saw ONE sign for such a ruin, Santa Rosa Xotopa. But the road looked like 20 miles of potholes. Would our tires have survived? We tried and abandoned that route.
RUTA PUUC: We backtracked through Hopelchen and drove northeast to the Ruta Puuc (the name Puuc applies to a culture and style of Maya building, ca. CE 600-900, Late Classic period.) We almost made it.
After a wild grutas chase (grutas = grottoes = caves) we found the Grutas Xtacumbilxunaan but blew a tire. We limped into the lovely nearby Mayan village of Balonchen where (after confused directions and driving into wild places) we finally located the tire-patch guys. (Vulkanadores can usually be located behind huge piles of old tires, but there were none such in this tidy town. Only two tires in the yard of a house-and-shop gave away the secret.) Much hot hard hand-work left us patched and changed and rolling, for a total cost of 30 pesos (US$2.70).
(North of Hopelchen we drove past a Sunday gathering of Mennonites -- tall thin blonde guys in clean cawboy garb, women in long gingham and calico dresses, no kids in sight.)
By now the day was nearly shot, and so were we -- hot, fatigued, ready to drop. We pass by many towns where uniformed teams contest on the futbol pitch, and we marvel at their energy in the heat. Oh yeah, it's winter here.
We managed to drag ourselves to Yet Another Ruin, at Sayil. The unique assymetrical Palacio is astounding, but we're too weary to appreciate the rest of the site. So as darkness approaches, we head on to shelter near Uxmal.
RUINAS UXMAL are high on our to-see list, especially the much-touted LIGHT AND SOUND SHOW.
We pay up, drag oursleves in, climb yet more towering structures (in glare-lit darkness), and are seated in plastic chairs atop an ancient 'stadium.' Colored lights play across the magnificient temples, highlighting the glorious intricate brutal carvings, while LOUD tinny dramatic music and LOUD over-the-top scenery-chewing voices dramatize what may or may not be actual legends and lore and history of Uxmal.
The sky is dark, the stars are bright, Orion is high overhead, and blinded spectators are wandering out into the scenery, chased off when the lights come back up. The whole affair was rather funny, except that I was nodding off, even when the amplification overloaded and the antediluvian rocks vibrated.
The nearest 'budget' accommodation is at Rancho Uxmal, a couple miles north of the ruinas. This is a moderately decayed, formerly almost classic, concrete motel with thatched dining pavilion and empty swimming pool. You can tell that it's a fairly classy joint -- the A/C and overhead fan are almost quiet, there are two wooden school chairs and a steel DOMINO'S PIZZA card table in the room, and the toilet has a seat. Like our last few habitations, it's all concrete with solid tile floors, the water is neither hot nor cold, and there's a single (mini-florescent) light bulb in one wall. In previous lives, the front and bathroom doors opened and closed on tall thin closets. One wall is (inexpertly) painted with a large jungle mural. Other than that, the decor is minimal. And all for 350 pesos, US$32.50.
And then there's the refreshment service, with 20 peso beers. Ah well, I shouldn't bitch. We're in a tourist-intensive zone, we can expect such prices.
FRED AND SANDY from Winnipeg checked into the Rancho Uxmal shortly after us, and we all found ourselves the only guests in the dining patio after returning from the L&S spectacle. We all munched fajitas and asadas, swapped tales of travel to Guatemala and Urugray and elsewhere, had a fine chat. See VirtualTourist.com/redlats
Meanwhile, we've decided to abandon the lowlands -- we'll skip Chichen Itza and Tulum and Belize and Tikal this trip, it's just too late in the season, too hot. We'll see Uxmal Ruinas and maybe Merida, then head back through Palenque to San Cristobal and the highlands.
DIA VIENTE:
Monday 7 March 2005, Ss Perpetua y Felicitas
Palenque, Chiapas - evening.
We left early for Uxmal Ruinas this morning and only had a few tour groups to contend with. At times, we were alone amid the stupendous constructions; other times, quite not.
The visible ruins are not as extensive as El Tejin or Palenque, but magnificent in bulk and detail and exhibition of power. And the irony: from atop the Gran Pyramide one sees the jungle canopy spreading to far horizons, touched by low hills, pierced by the other tall Uxmal ruins -- and by a nearby orange concrete resort hotel, equal in size to the largest ancient structures but with rather less majesty.
(Note: I won't attempt to describe the appearance of any of the ancient sites. There are scores of books that do so much better than I ever could. Do a little online research.)
Atop the Gran Pyramide I met DAVID AND NICOLE from the States; her first Central American trip, his nth. We exchanged travel ideas etc, climbed down from that towering height, and went our separate ways -- only to rejoin in the lunchroom. Nothing like club sandwiches and french fries to relieve culture shock for USAnians, eh? See DavidWeis.Com
BUG-OUT: Uxmal was terrific, swarming with giant iquanas, and the breeze was nice, but by noon the air was still and the temperature and humidity had reached 100. We were deeply fatigued and saw absolutely no prospect for a change of weather in our course. So we will BUG-OUT OF HERE, even skipping Merida; my goal there was to acquire hammocks, and we can do so elsewhere. We're heading immediately to the highlands, the better to survive and enjoy. Tomorrow we'll be in the mountain fastness of San Cristobal de las Casas. We may stay a month, sitting out Semana Santa (Easter week) there and immersing in language school, before continuing southward.
From Uxmal to Campeche and back to Palenque, where we know of comfortable and reasonable overnighting, was a six-hour drive. I set the autopilot to 70 mph (110 klicks) and we did it nonstop, flashing across the soggy coastal plains and dry hills, arriving just before dark. Temperature stayed near 100°f the whole way.
We did our pyramid-climbing just in time. Fields are burning across Yucatan and Campeche and Tobasco and lower Chiapas, the air thick and smoky, combining with satanic heat and humidity for a hideous effect (as seen by anyone but slash-and-burn agriculturalists). The thin soils are fertilized, as are our thin lungs. We exit the car; our glasses fog up. Few locals wear glasses.
And I realize that we're approaching the height of the dry season, and that's why the Campeche-Yucatan jungles look so gray. In a few weeks the rains will start, everything will turn lush and verdant -- and our projected trajectory will become The Green Hell. I think we'll try again next winter, earlier.
A tourist trap, er stop on a ridge top a short way north of Uxmal overlooks the vast flat jungle. Finely crafted repros of ancient art are made and sold there, and as freshly whacked coconuts and juices. There we met a California couple who have been hauling their large trailer around Mexico since June 2004, living place-to-place for several weeks at a time. They say it's getting hot, time to drive back to San Diego. Another harbinger...
|
SOUNDTRACK:
As I mentioned, there's almost no radio here. We haven't bought any local CDs yet, have just listened to one talking-book tape, and we mostly manage to lighten our road hours by conversing. Yet music runs through my head anyway; not songs that I'm composing, but old music, evocative music. Here's the internal soundtrack of this trip:
* BUNGLE IN THE JUNGLE (Jethro Tull)
* WHERE DID ROBINSON CRUSOE GO WITH FRIDAY ON SATURDAY NIGHT? (Ian Whitcomb)
* YELLOW BIRD and QUIET VILLAGE (Martin Denny band, with bird sounds)
* DAY-O (The Banana Boat Song) (Harry Belafonte)
* (Just Send My Mail To) THE TIAJUANA JAIL (Kingston Trio)
* FREE MEXICAN AIR FORCE (Peter Rowan)
* SPEEDY GONZALES (Pat Boone, pathetic)
I may expand this list in the future, if I dare.
|
DIA VIENTE UNO:
Tuesday 8 March 2005, St Juan de Dios
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas - evening.
A fine day except for the holdup and death threat.
We drove south from Palenque in uncomfortable sultry morning heat, and quickly rose into a higher, lusher, wilder, cooler jungle set in sharp-edged verdant mountains. The overcast broke down to puffy clouds in a blue sky. A large fringe-collared lizard dashed across the road in front of us, nearly bipedal. We were waved through another military checkpoint. And we encountered a truck.
THE GOOD NEWS: We're out of the miserable lowlands, into the mountains.
THE BAD NEWS: We're stuck on a steep road behind and ancient Coca-Cola truck.
THE GOOD NEWS: It's not a very large truck, and it's well-maintained.
THE BAD NEWS: Several bullet holes can be seen in the back of the truck.
We laughed. Then we passed a sign announcing that we were entering Zapatista territory: ESTA USTED EN TERRITORIO ZAPATISTA * EN REBELDA AQUI MANDA EL PUEBLO, EL GOBIERNO OBEDECE. We photographed this and other revolutionary roadside graphics.
We drove on, slowed for topes, waved off the vendors. Then, a new trick: a little Maya girl pulls up a rope that blocks the road, and an older girl comes to the window, demanding a purchase. This is repeated at the next tope, and the next. This becomes old very quickly.
PEMEX is the state gasoline monopoly; the stations are in all cities and most towns, and goes to PEMEX to purchase petrol. But beyond Palenque, we started seeing signs at small shops, SE VENDA GASOLINA ("We Sell Gas"), and 4- or 20- or 40-liter plastic jugs. And except in the two cities we entered today, no PEMEX signs were visible.
The countryside looks rich; the people look poor. The landscape is thick with cornfields. These aren't flat fields with tractor-wide row spacing; we're not in Kansas anymore. These are more like dense vertical vineyards twisting up steep Sonoma mountainsides, every inch of it handworked, hard-worked.
We drove the sublime mountains and deep valleys, up into sweet pine forests, passing side roads to numerous ruinas y cascadas -- too hot to explore now. We drove through Ocosingo, gateway to the Zapatista-held Lacandon rain forest. And then we drove into trouble.
THE HOLDUP:
Early afternoon, at around the 170 KM post on highway 186, we came into a small valley and found traffic backed up in both directions, a half-dozen vehicles ahead of us to an obstruction. Over a hundred campesinos stood a little way from the road, near signs saying (translated) THIS LAND IS OURS and INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY. A small group were at the pavement, with a roadblock of boards with protruding nails. These people were at the windows of stopped vehicles, with leaflets and demands.
We waited. Our turn came. Women handed us leaflets, said it was WOMEN'S DAY and demanded a 100 peso 'contribution.' We did NOT want to talk politics, so we played dumb, refused to respond to their language, asked in English, "What's going on? What do you want?"
They became angry. Young men waved cans of spray paint at the car. Another man came over, demanded 200 pesos to allow us to pass. They tried to force us off the road, to let other vehicles pass. Voices were raised; those not immediately next to our can backed away, as if disinclined towards confrontation. Behind us, horns started honking.
Finally we pulled out 80 pesos, they pulled the spiked boards away, and we drove off. Maureen said that the woman 'ringleader' had said, "We can keep you here as long as we want. Or we can take you and kill you." Since we had given no sign of understanding Spanish, we can't know if these were serious threats, or if they were just Mau-Mauing us. But we take all death threats seriously.
[To Mau-Mau: see Tom Wolfe's RADICAL CHIC AND MAU-MAUING THE FLACK-CATCHERS.]
It was at least another 50 klicks into San Cristobal. We drove slowly, expecting to be overtaken by other ex-hostages, but saw none of the other roadblocked vehicles behind us in that distance. Cars, trucks large and small, local and tourist buses -- how long were they trapped there? We saw no weapons in the 'demonstrating' crowd, would the stopped drivers hold their anger for long? We're glad to have gotten away unscathed.
SAN CRISTOBAL: Late afternoon, we drove through more piney mountains into San Cristobal, elevation 7000 feet (2140 meters). It was like a return to Guatemala. The outskirts felt like Quetzaltenango, but with less smog. The heart of this large city (population, a quarter million) feels like Antigua, but with fewer beggers and no earthquake damage. After wandering around in the usual confusion, we found a classy, clean accommodation for the night, the Hotel La Noria. See dtcmexico.com/hnoria or hotel-lanoria.com
But one night ain't enough. We think we want to stay here a month, so we started pounding the pavement, stomping all over town looking for rentals. No luck yet. But we did luck into a fine and different new eatery, El Caldero at #4 Cinco de Mayo, a fresh boutique soup kitchen in a bright space. Omar and Geniver wandered here from Mexico City, were taken by the place, and opened El Caldero two weeks ago. Y'all come and eat here, y'hear?
And maybe tomorrow we'll find our apartment; or maybe we'll just move on.
ADDENDUM:
After Ocosingo, we saw no troops or police until we reached San Cristobal. We discussed whether to report the incident and decided against doing so. We did not want to be detained for debriefing, or 'asked' to identify anyone. We'd stashed our cameras and had carefully avoided looking closely at faces so as not to be in any position to identify anyone. We do not want ANY close encounters with authorities here. I might send a note to the US consulate, mostly to inquire if any other US citizens were caught up in that, and to learn of the outcome. Otherwise, we just want to get on with our trip.
I'm reminded of a geologist we met at several Sonoma County parties, a little milquetoast-looking fellow who likes river-running in wild places. He rafts down the Indus in Pakistan, and rebels and troops fire at their expedition, and a member is shot and killed. He rafts down the Zambezi in Africa, and a boatsman falls overboard and is eaten by crocodiles. If he rafted down the Usumacinta, his party would probably be caught in crossfire between Mexican and Guatemalan troops and Zapatistas, or poison snakes would get somebody. OK, so he's an adventurer, and those things happen. But we don't go with him, we're just travelers; please don't kill us.
San Cristobal is surrounded by Zapatista-friendly territory. It's less than two weeks until Semana Santa. Maureen thinks that if trouble is brewing, the holiday may be an opportune time for another rebel action. And that's why we may just jump to safety in Guatemala, a couple hours south of here. Of course, costs are lower there too, and our budget is strained. What to do?
|
Dragons in the moonlight
Volcanos just before midnight
Something turning left and right
Something burning bright
Roadblocks in the mountains
Hostages in dark daylight
Fear twist and points and spikes
Fear burning bright
Dark eyes in the streets
Vision at the edges
Something is not visible
Something burning bright
|
