MAYA-HO DOS!
_{To Central America, 2005}

DIA VIENTE NEUVE:
Jueves 17 March 2005, San Patricio
San Cristobal de Las Casas (SCLC) - Thursday night.

Ay ay ay, what a day! We made the move to Dugulay, so tired that we want to cry, yi yi yi! But enough of that rhyming stuff.

(Note: Much of what I write here is supposed to be funny. And it's probably better if read aloud, with hammy expressions and overly dramatic pauses and sing-song intonations. Wave your hands around at appropriate moments, too.)

LAST NIGHT we supped at El Gato Gordo again. More young vendors came in -- at least dogs and birds usually don't enter eateries here, not like in Guatemala. Anyway, one boy had a whole herd of clay animalitos and I bought another three, at 10 pesos each, cheaper than the last flock (maybe because it's a cheaper comedor).

Then a flock of wild-looking gringos stomped in, of all ages and colors and sexes. There were 18 of'em, a caravan from Chico, California (north of Sacramento) to Central America. There are usually few USAnians in this Euro-swarming city. Those familiar accents are rare here.

VENDOR REPELLENT: We wandered around the nightscape again, found ourselves in the zocalo again, listening to the hot marimba band again, beset by itinerant vendors again. But we observed other bench-sitters and we discovered a vendor repellent: necking. When someone comes near with a rack of gum and cigarettes around their neck, or a shoeshine kit in their hand, or a pile of fabrics over their shoulder and strings of wampum on their arm, just grab your partner and engage in a meaningful lip-lock. (If you don't have a partner, get some.) This works like a charm; they veer away like they've been sprayed.

It's rather quiet here this Thursday night before the onslaught of the weekend and of holy week, Semana Santa. Semana Santa is reputedly a Big Thing here, very intense, with numerous processions and I-don't-know-what-else. All Mexico goes on the road during holy week, and many will come right here. And then, like Carneval marks the days before the Lent season, the whole town erupts in a week-long festival just after Easter. Bullfights on Easter night (ah, the sangria, the blood, but the bulls are only resurrected as hamburger). Whoop-de-doos, day and night. We're glad our car will be parked in a secure lot over that fortnight.

TODAY we had our final breakfast at the Posada Mexico (our last meal there until they get their comedor finished, in maybe two weeks), loaded up our gear, and killed time until our new place was ready by visiting the Amber Museum (see Www.MuseoDelAmbar.Com.Mx) in the crumbling ex-convento at Templo La Merced. It's a splendid place, awesome displays of the 32 colors of Chiapas amber in raw and marvelously worked forms. And of course, you can also buy extraordinary bits of amber work, the real stuff. A dentist volunteering there (and forcing her son to work there because he wasn't in college) gave a lucid explanation of WHY those colors (think: oxidation) and told how to distinguish real from fake amber (burn the real stuff, it smells like copal incense). And there's more to come; the convento is being nicely restored, more exhibits are in process.

Next door, the Templo La Merced is still active. This area (and much of Mexico) is full of Guadelupe-Mary shrines; here was a Jesus shrine, with a crowd of poor-looking worshippers chanting like Tibetans. Eerie, to our honky ears.

We broke down, went to the Zapatista craft shop and bought a great set of tiles depicting coffee culture. Y'all come see it on the kitchen wall in Bisbee in a few months, y'hear?

THE MOVE: Moving into the new place was laborious because we're on a busy narrow street, I had to park at a steep angle on the high sidewalk and dodge impatient traffic while tunneling in through the tailgate to haul out our carload of stuff. But we made it.

Our quaint two-room casita (apartment) is set back in the courtyard of an old hacienda on the outskirts of downtown, with our own private patio (with grapefruit tree, with grapefruit) and several neighboring gringos (no doubt eager to proffer advice on living appropriately here). There is a kitchen. I cooked a meal. For the first time in a month, we're not eating out or subsisting on slap-together sandwiches and panaderia snacks. We hit a supertienda, bought food for a week, at the cost of two days of eating out. Wow. And that set of tiles I mentioned? We passed over another set, depicting corn culture, but it's on the casita's kitchen wall too. I think we'll enjoy spending a month here.

ADDENDUM: The selection of English-language reading material in the Posada Mexico library was rather slim; I read (and returned) RL Stevenson's KIDNAPPED, and a sociological study of Guatemalan women war refugees in Chiapas, and a socialist-communist magazine featuring a long article, a Marxist analysis of Islamic fundamentalism. (I'll give my own take on Marxist analysis later, maybe. I know you can hardly wait.) But there were lots of fine big picture books on Mexican (pre-)history, to while away the time waiting for the internet terminal to be vacated.

DIA TRIENTE:
Viernes 18 March 2005, San Cirilio de Jerusalem
San Cristobal de Las Casas (SCLC) - Friday morning.

The early morning sounds at our new digs are more like Antigua -- less traffic noise than our hostel streetcorner room, but explosions, dogs, roosters, church bells (not as many nor as frenzied as Antiqua, yet). Y'all HAVE read my descriptions of Antigua, right? They're on the website.

I haven't yet heard the piercing ringing sounds of the propane-tank truck dragging its static-grounding chains and disks. We're supposed to hop out and flag down the truck blaring the MARSEILLES (French national anthem) if we need bottled water -- don't fall for the RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD guys. I don't know what they're selling from the truck broadcasting Swiss yodels, but it's been by a couple times already.

And now, since there's nothing else to write about except Marxism, here's a FLASH FROM THE PAST, originally written back at Palenque on Miercoles (Wednesday) 2 March 2005, now updated.

DIA TRIENTE UNO:
Sabado 19 March 2005 - Jose, esposa de Maria
San Cristobal de Las Casas (SCLC) - Saturday morning.

LAST NIGHT we strolled downtown, just missed a military marching band, but we experienced competing amplified marimba bands (one in the zocalo bandstand, one cat-corner in the cathedral plaza) and repelled more vendors. Old women sat on the cathedral steps weaving Palm Sunday ?decorations? from cornstalks, like we'd seen in Antigua and Amalfi in years past. A sliver of moon shone in the black sky.

At the iglesia adjoining the cathedral we ran into the folks from the nextdoor casita. Tall bald loud Jim (think: a deaf Daddy Warbucks in a Hawaiian shirt) and Melanie explained that the explosions we hear daily are due to a local retarded guy who likes to set off fireworks. But I hear explosions all over town. Is there a club or something?

Returning to the casita, I wrote my critique of Marxist analysis re: Islamic fundamentalism but I don't like what I wrote so y'all don't get to read it. Rejoice. Hey, I may wander a bit in these travel notes, but I at least want to try to be somewhat 1) interesting and/or 2) succinct and/or 3) funny. It's damn hard succeeding there with some subjects. So, rejoice. At least until I list what I carry around in my daypack.

PROSPECTS: Whilst internetting we did some research (google on TRAVEL DANGER GUATEMALA) on the safety of traveling through Guatemala now. (We still haven't heard from the cousins about this.) We read some terrible stuff on users' forums, but nothing new on official (publishers' and government) websites. Avoid crowds, demonstrations, dark lonely streets, certain remote tourist magnets; watch for pickpockets, potholes, roadblocks, etc.

So we're still undecided -- but we spent much of yesterday laying around our comfy cozy casita, alternately staring at the foliage and flowers and grapefruit in our enclosed private patio, and reading aloud from the Central America travel guides, picking out highland destinations in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua. We're still inclined to keep going, after this SCLC layover.

Semana Santa (Holy Week) begins on Palm Sunday

DIA TRIENTE DOS:
Domingo de Ramos, 20 March 2005, Palm Sunday
San Cristobal de Las Casas (SCLC) - morning.

LAST NIGHT we (surprise!) strolled downtown, after laying around all day behind the private yellow patio walls and pink gate of our casita. Now that we have a kitchen, we no longer study every menu posted on every eatery we pass, so we can stroll a little faster. We had a purpose: see if any Palm Sunday processions were planned. We found a poster, with a route map and times. We copied the information, went to the zocalo and repelled more vendors, returned home and retired early.

Maureen is reading a fat biography: CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON, the life of the explorer, translator and literary iconoclast. Adventurers had it much rougher in previous times, and so did their wives. Maureen periodically utters expressions of horror.

THIS MORNING we're up early, dressed and nourished and out to reach a waypoint (the zocalo) on the procession route at the appointed time. No sign of processionaires, although we thought we might have heard distant drums and trumpets. We head down to the midpoint, at El Carmen. Still no sign. Two-score cops saunter by as nearby church bells ring. We wait, return to the zocalo, wait, watch families on the cathedral steps weave cornstalks into palm fronds and crosses. No procession.

We stomp up to the start-and-end point of this alleged procession, the huge Templo de Santo Domingo looming over the textile marketplace. The market is just setting up; every single stall and tarp and gunny-sack of weavings and carvings is brought here on human backs and foreheads. Still no procession. Scores of congregants arrive, carrying their woven fronds. The 7:00 AM bells start ringing, 52 regular klangs -- pigeons swarm away from the church, then immediately return. But no procession.

Why this wild procession chase? Couldn't the confradia round up anyone to hit the streets? Do they use a different system of clocks? The diocese has posted schedules and routes of further processions, later in the week. Will those posters prove just as unreliable?

EVENING NOW: After a morning rest it's back to the zocalo. Survivors of noon mass erupt from the cathedral but no more than usual; will Semana Santa be so subdued here? Many more vendors; a tiny dark shrunken old lady is so happy on the return of a braid she dropped unaware. We keep telling them we already have enough for everyone in the family. The usual walks down the usual streets, dodging for midday shade.

And now we're sipping tea, boiling beans, listening to the firecrackers. I'm finally processing pictures, working on Dias Tres now. These next couple weeks might not be the best time for external undertakings (like language school, rather pricey here anyway); so I'll compute, Maureen will draw, we'll listen to our Spanish tapes daily, and plot the next move.

DIA TRIENTE CINCO:
Miercoles 23 March 2005, San Toribio de Mongrovejo
San Cristobal de Las Casas (SCLC) - Wednesday night.

We've been taking it easy (hah!) for a couple days, laying low, barely budging from the casita. Which means that I've been slogging away at the keyboard hour after hour, editing pictures. Almost through with the first week, almost. Doing images ruins me for writing.

Why do I spend more time processing pictures than taking them? Because we use nice little point-and-shoot digicams that introduce color casts which must be removed, and I like to punch up the colors anyway. Because we often hold the cameras at imperfect angles, which I can fix. Because I often shoot in bad light, or use infrared -- more color and contrast fixing. And because I like to manipulate the suckers for artistic effect. That's why.

MONDAY: When girls passing on the street look at me and giggle and whisper, "Santa Claus!" it's time to shave. So I trimmed back; then during siesta we headed to the supertienda (about the size of a K-Mart) for supplies. Do you think that US markets and X-marts play music that is loud and annoying? Hah! Such places are silent refuges, veritable hermitages, compared to Mexican retail outlets.

But we did manage to hear and chat with a Little Old Lady who wondered if we knew her family and friends in Texas. Alas, we're the wrong gringos. She hugged us goodbye.

TUESDAY: Didn't budge all day. Had our Texas neighbors over for a Tres Leches (scrumptuous pastry) dessert and a fine chat. Rather, Maureen and Melanie talked about many things, and Jim (remember hula Daddy Warbucks?) loudly described his life in computers and printing, including how every printer 1) drinks and 2) is tempted by counterfeiting.

I learnt much about counterfeiting:

* Employ the highest-resolution scan possible.
* Check your spelling carefully.
* Don't print money on computer paper. The most basic test checks for acid content on pulp paper. Only use rag (or linen?) paper.
* Print in multiple passes, preferably with professional equipment.
* Don't try to counterfeit Mexican bills -- they use metal threads and plastic windows and many funny tricks.
* All counterfeiters in the US are caught eventually. Almost.

WEDNESDAY: On Palm Sunday we fruitlessly hunted a procession. Ditto today. But at least we found a Semana Santa (Easter week aka spring break) program guide (printed by Pepsi-Cola) and we have hopes of future success.

And we successfully blew a few hundred pesos -- me on more clay animalitos and a fine large Jaguar pot (olla de Jaime) and a muy grande hamaca (big hammock), Maureen on a beautiful handmade shirt etc. And as tonight fades away, we hear a nearby English speaker yelling at whining dogs to SHUT UP, and incessant deep-bass music that's either a slow rave or a fast hymn session. The holiday has begun.

FUTURE: Following Semana Santa, SCLC will celebrate a weeklong Feria Primavera (Spring Fair). Said Fair always crowns a Queen. In the long arcade of the Municipal Palace is a long large display with photos of every Spring Queen since 1901. (Only a few until 1921, constant since then.)

Today, a large stage was erected in front of the Palace, with a long elevated runway stretching across the zocalo to the two-story bandstand. Contestants practiced strutting along the runway this evening. I'm not sure when the show and crowning are scheduled -- guess we'd better check the program guide.

Today in the cathedral were many civilians of all nationalities with cameras, and some local pros (from the state of Chiapas' one TV station) with sound and video equipment, obviously setting up to broadcast the interior events. We've no TV so we'll have to be there to see it. Check the damn program guide.

HORNS: As in Antigua, sirens are rarely heard, but there are occasional car alarms, and LOTS AND LOTS of honking. Communication by horn is an aural gesture, rather like thrusting fingers rudely. Oh yeah, when traffic is slow, honking really speeds thing up. Right.

One of my favorite bumper stickers here: USA SUS CABEZA, NO SUS KLAXON (Use Your Head, Not Your Horn) -- not that anyone pays it any heed, of course.

STREET SOUNDS: Jai Uttal is a California-based jazz-fusion musician, an (East-)Indian-American kid who grew up in Los Angeles with a pop-record-executive father who brought home a couple dozen new singles every day. About 15 years ago Jai went to India for the first time and was overwhelmed by the street music and ambient sounds. With his band he recorded a superb first album (FOOTPRINTS) attempting to portray that sonic environment.

The street sounds here in SCLC, other than the propane-trucks' metallic shreiks, are mostly electric -- car alarms, sound trucks, honking, loud cars with big bass speakers. What were the Mexican street sounds before mobile amplification, 15 or 50 years ago? And is street music in India now driven by boom boxes etc? George Gershwin produced a memorable sonic portrayal with AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. Who would want to portray modern cities in music, and would such portraits be tolerable?

INDIOS: I mentioned earlier that Indigenas (Indios) are a despised class in Mexico, politically and socially. We had an old Irish-American friend who said that he was twelve years old before he learnt that FuckinBrits was not one word. Some years ago ago a young gringo who grew up in a US enclave in Mexico told me that middle-upper-class Mexicans commonly used (in translation) FuckinIndians as a single word. Same attitude.

The indigenous here are generally without land, money, political power or basic respect, within and beyond their own communities. Alcoholism and abandonment and abuse are epidemic. And I don't know of any Mayan-Huichol-Zapotec casinos, no prospects for enrichment or economic development. Here, the Indigenas (Indios is a politically incorrect term) are truly focked.