Aventura numero dos

We’ve started the second part of our adventure, having left central Mexico, and its cooler climes, to arrive yesterday in the Yucatán, and its hot, humid stickiness. Gone is the urban sprawl of Mexico city, and the old silver towns with their stacks of colorful homes in the mountains to its north. Here, the land is flat as far as the eye can see, with a tangle of jungle, one with a rather petite height, on both sides of the road.

It seems to me that many more people speak (or understand) English here. I have gotten used to answering questions in Spanish, and though my responses are minimal and to the point (often, yes or no), the response I get is, “Habla español?” “Hablo expañol muy poco,” I reply while pinching my index finger and thumb together to show that I’ve nearly used up my entire vocabulary.

We visited some ruins today called Ek’ Balam. They’re close by to Valladolid, where we’re staying for 2 nights on our way to Mérida. We’ve stayed here before, about 10 years ago, back before there was Domino’s Pizza in Mexico. There’s one right next door to our hotel–a slight disappointment that this rustic old colonial town has had a good scrub and modernization means an American pizza chain. I say slight because it’s wrong to expect the quaint and wonderful places–the ones trapped in the past that don’t necessarily want to be a time capsule, but are that way because of economics or other misfortune–it’s wrong to want these sorts of places to stay backward for our amusement.

Still, despite the Domino’s, Valladolid has the same Spanish colonial charm I am getting quite familiar with from our travels through Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende. If only the picturesque and colorful towns did not mean the demise of the buildings and culture of the former inhabitants of these cities, the native populations. Here, in the Yucatán, it was the Maya who lost out.

The weirdest way to eat corn

This street food snack from San Miguel de Allende  is 15 pesos (about $1.25) and is prepared as such:

1) insert wooden stick into ear of corn
2) slather corn with mayonnaise from a huge jar that has been sitting, open, in the heat since it left the factory
3) sprinkle on some cheese that is similar to parmesan
4) sprinkle on chili powder

Margarita!

Learn more about Tequila here

Uttering 2 words successfully: a small victory!

Small victories are a plenty when learning a new language on the road, and actually being able to use it with the affirmative return gesture of a nod or the word, “yes.”

Like just now at breakfast, I pointed at the cereal and fruit in front of me when presented the menu and said, “Es todo.” Or, “That’s all.” It’s not an award winning speech in a foreign tongue, but the words sort of slipped out naturally, without thinking about them. The fact that they made sense to another human being is that small victory I started out talking about.

It’s fun and makes me want to keep learning and trying to speak, though most of the time I get nervous and tongue tied.

Last night, trying to say bottled water, “Agua embotellada,” it came out all broken and wrong. At these times, I am a 2-year-old with a speech impediment. The waiter understood me, though, with a smile. The kind type of smile reserved for idiots and fools one feels sorry for.

After that, I repeated the word… Em-bot-ay-odda. I knew how to say it–though it is a tough one–several times to myself. Benjamin leaned in towards me and said, “Do you realize you’re sitting here in a restaurant saying the word ‘bottle’ over and over to no one in particular?”

Just call me loco.

We are but children here

Looking around the café, we are the youngest white people in town, by about 20 years. I knew of San Miguel as an artists’ community. I’d pictured an enclave of more middle-aged and even 30-something women with hairy armpits and an eclectic fashion sense, and men who wore tunics and smelled of pachouli. I’m not saying that artists are, by essence, hippy types. But for whatever reason–the small-town mountain locale?–this is what I’d pictured.

Instead, I should have envisioned a community of white-haired, newly retired dream seekers and followers from the U.S. and Canada, mixed in with some real ancients who must use 2 canes to walk and look as if they could keel over at any minute. There are much fewer of these men and women–who, I should add–ingnite the girl scout within me: I so desperately want to help them cross the street. But, here they are taking their baby steps on slick, flagstone streets and eating solid food at Argentine-style steakhouses. Catching a glimpse of a couple who must have been in their mid 90s at the market the other day as they held on to each other for dear life while stepping off a high curb, Benjamin asked with a smile, “Is that us?” (obviously speaking in future tense).

It’s quiet here, as one would expect. It’s peaceful. There’s not a lot to do but gander at churches, visit the many art galleries, peruse the market. Perhaps we should have stayed longer in Guanajuato, where there is more to see–we didn’t scratch the surface there, of museums, tunnels, and silver mines.

But, our time here is not wasted. We met an indigenous couple hunched over intricate works of beads at the market selling Mexican handicrafts. They are from Nayarit, Huichol Indians–animists–who practice peyote ceremonies. I asked if I could take their photo. The man said no, until after we made some purchases, at which time he donned a large feather-decorated hat and posed for my camera.

We bought treats at a bakery. The system here is to grab a large, silver tray (about 18″ wide) that resembles a large pizza pan, a pair of tongs, and fill the tray with as little or as much as you want. Benjamin chose about a dozen items–cookies and an empanada for 41 pesos (less than $3.50). We nibbled on our treats in El Jardín Principal, the central plaza, and washed them down with aguas frescas (fruit water) while telling a few people with clipboards and empty plastic cups waved under the nose, “No entiendo.” I think I’ll use that back at home when asked for my signature or money on the street.

San Miguel, like Guanajuato, is a colonial-style town with the low, boxy buildings bedecked simply and minimally with wrought iron window grates, old-fashioned street lamps, and painted goldenrod, burnt orange, various shades of red. What I like most, though, are the narrow flagstone streets and sidewalks. There is history in each stone’s placement–the town was founded in 1791.

The sidewalks are so narrow that you must walk single file in some places. Holding hands, one must walk on the street while the other walks on the sidewalk, a foot or two higher. Oncoming pedestrians either step on the street or you do to make room for each other–otherwise you squeeze by each other as if in a crowded bar, though you might be the only 2 people on the block. I like the noise car tires make when they take a corner. They squeal and squeak on the flagstone, and otherwise make a comforting crunkle sound when driving upon it, like the sound of tires on gravel, which–to me–is the sound of arrival and anticipation. A sensory memory, perhaps, from camp grounds when this noise might represent the arrival of friends, or maybe it goes even farther back to childhood, when it meant house guests had turned up.

Check out trip pics on Flickr!

Especially the mummy photos in the Guanajuato album.

CLICK HERE

Comida

Sopa Azteca (Tortilla Soup) | La Esquina de San Fernando, Guanajuato (35 pesos, $3.00)

Totopos (tortilla chips) | Café Olé Olé, San Miguel de Allende

Brochetas de Pollo y Res (skewers of grilled chicken & beef) | Café Olé Olé, San Miguel de Allende (100 pesos, $8.33)

Fajitas de Avestruz (Ostrich Fajitas) | Café Olé Olé, San Miguel de Allende (130 pesos, $10.83)

Trying to buy bus tickets online…

Even though there’s an English language option on the site, most of it’s still in Spanish. Using Google translate to figure out what some instructional copy says, I get this:

Buy your tickets without signing the voucher, and submit the plastic box office by using the 3D WITH CREDIT CARD SECURE, Learn more HERE!

Breakfast at a bus station and lunch at the pyramids

Pan de Dulce de Leche | Got this at the bus station this a.m. on our way to Teotihuacan, the giant pyramids an hour away from México City. Yum! (15 pesos each, $1.25)

Sopes de Cochinita Pibil (fried dough with slow-roasted pork) | Lunch at Los Pirámides (69 pesos, $5.75)

Mixiote el Cordero | This is a traditional Central Méxican dish. It's pit-barbequed meat (in this case lamb) that's been seasoned and wrapped in the semi-transparent outer skin of a maguey plant leaf. Had it for lunch at Los Pirámides, and loved it–but the the portion was way too big (167 pesos, $14.00)

Los Pirámides: it's in a subterranean cave!

Ciudad de México

México City has a gritty side. The zócalo, or city square (said to be one of the largest in the world), has a vague down-and-out vibe. It has nothing to do with the fact that its palatial colonial buildings are sinking into the ground–México City used to be a lake. The feeling comes more from a certain indescribable heaviness to the place, despite–or perhaps because of–the odd, carnivalesque music coming from the organ grinders who stand in front of the Cathedral with hats in hand, hoping for a few pesos. Or maybe the feeling is residual energy from the human sacrifices made here, when the city was called Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs, and the zócalo was the location of their temple dedicated to the gods of war and rain.

In between the square, which is located in the historic district where most tourists stay, and the neighborhood where Benjamin and I are staying–Condesa–I see places I would not want to be walking as I look out from the window of the metro. Even the prostitutes look menacing. Our travels around the city are hampered by the fact that getting into a taxi off the street could result in a robbery or kidnapping. Police and ambulance sirens are in abundance, enough to become white noise. There is plenty of information online about the dangers and crime of México City.

But there is also plenty of charm to be found here, in neighborhoods like Condesa, which travel magazines and guide books describe as hip and bohemian. There are placid parks, wide leafy avenues, bars, cafés, and restaurants with roving musicians and ebullient conversation that flows up and down Tamaulipas Avenue, keeping pace with the hectic traffic.

There are neighborhoods like Coyoacán, the location of Frida Khalo’s Blue House (which is now a museum; a glimpse into her home and private life costs less than five dollars). Here, the tranquil, cobblestone streets are punctuated with the electric fuchsia of bougainvillea and the purple spark of jacaranda trees. With its Spanish colonial-style buildings colored ochre, saffron, azure blue, and lavender, it’s easy to feel as if you’ve traveled to another city altogether. Actually, it used to be this part of town was not in México City–it’s 10 km south of downtown–but as the city constantly expands, the sprawl has consumed this once-village and others.

To get there, we walked through the Viveros de Coyoacán, the main nursery for all of México City’s parks and gardens. It’s like a densely forested park itself, but the vegetation here ranges from seedlings to more mature plants and trees, is all labeled with species names, and kept in tidy rows out in the open or in discreet greenhouses. The city virtually disappears the moment you enter the gate.