Start peeling the Mexican onion and the first layer you find
is what we call Brochure Mexico: fantasy pictures of quiet beaches, quasi-naked
sun gods and goddesses disporting on empty white sand beaches. And, with the
exception of weekends, few Mexicans.
Puerto Vallarta’s beaches
, for the
most part, are Gringoland Fantasy Island.
|
Dos Americanos in Puerto Vallarta |
The reality, in such a place, beautiful as it is, seems to
be that the Mexican/ Gringo relationship is one of caretaking i.e. the Mexicans
take care of the gringos – clean the houses, wait the tables, drive the taxis,
massage the bellies and backs. Meanwhile the Americanos and Canadianos roast
like chickens in the sun, eat and drink, swim, surf and fish and otherwise keep
to themselves. The Mexicans do the same. No need for Spanish here. Practically
everyone can speak English.
Take off another layer in, say a city like San Miguel De
Allende, you may find a similar hierarchy - though there are fewer English
speakers among the natives. This layer requires at least a 20 or 30-word Spanglish
vocabulary and some interaction with the locals to navigate to bathrooms, order
stuff from menus, hail a taxi to a Pueblo Magico. Possibly, here, there is some
cultural exchange: friendships, charities and other good works that are
maintained by both populations. Still, it’s the gringos more or less on top,
more or less cloistered in ex-pat barrios.
|
Christmas Mass in Guanajuato |
One more layer down you might begin to feel like a stranger
if you cling to English only. The working cities like Oaxaca or Guanajuato, or
San Cristobal seem to have fewer ex-pats, more interaction with the locals. It
helps to have minimal fluency. For those who can manage the Spanish, there are
lots of opportunities for integration. You can blend in and just be a dude or
dudette. You can hop a collectivo out to a small village, chat with other
passengers, get a bit of inside info on places to go and things to see, comfortably
explore the scene. Here you can crack a joke and get a laugh from a native and,
in general, really begin to practice the cultural fluency that is essential to
Mexico: when to use the formal tense, when it’s OK to hug, what you can talk
about and what you should avoid talking about.
|
Tzintzuntzan cemetery after Dios de los Muertos |
Then you come to the tender skin: the small villages, some
of the pueblos magicos like Tzintzuntzan, Cuetzalan or Pátzcuaro, and communities that are
tucked deep into mountains and jungles where even Spanish might be the second
language.
|
Masked dancer from Tocuaro |
Here, you can feel like you are standing on the moon. Here you can
meet a man who fights the devil every night outside his village (after a few
shots of mezcal). Here you trek to a secret waterfall in the jungle passing
still buried ruins of ancient cities. Here you see the brujo for illness and
realignment with the universe. Here is the place of smiles, nods, open palms,
birds, jaguars, monkeys and mosquito nets. There is not much else, but it can
feel like everything.
|
Eric employs the "wedge" |
To negotiate all of these places, we’ve tried to put
together a “wedge” over the last few years - some way in. For Gringoland, the
first layer, there’s not much we feel we can do. The patterns of interaction
seem fairly well set. It’s fine. No judgment here. it’s what some people want
and that’s completely cool with us.
So long as the conduct is respectful, there’s not a thing
wrong with a margarita under a palapa, a few steps away from a coral reef that
you can snorkel to.
But to lift those first layers, to get a little further in,
we employ our wedge on cab drivers, street vendors, and what we call the Wise
Old Men. By now, both of us have developed a patter by which we can move,
carefully, a little closer. After a few formalities, we ask about family –
always family- and listen carefully to what they say. Invariably, the pictures
come out. The stories begin, the hopes and fears find expression. We exchange.
It’s a manipulation, for sure, but one we think is well intentioned. We really
want to know and we just can’t figure out any other way to start the fire.
|
$1000 MX - $55 US hired Adrian & his taxi for a full day tour & conversation about the Patzcuaro pueblos |
Now and then we get lucky and spot a congregation of Wise
Old Men. In a city like, say, Puebla or Merida, we migrate to the zocalo – the
main square. Usually, if we are there at the right time of day, we’ll see them:
tables shoved together, a cloud of cigar smoke, laughter, maybe five or six or
ten caballeros all talking at once. Slyly, we pull up a chair at table nearby
and wait, like predators, for our chance. Sometimes all it takes is a smile and
a nod and, Boom, we’re in. Or, failing that, Lynn might whip out her trusty
camera and ask permission for a photo (she plays the white-haired tourist so
well, saying "guapo!" to charm the men). One way or another, we buzz them like flies until they invite us in or
swat us away. No telling what will transpire, but it’s usually served up with
laughter. One guy once asked Lynn to help him contact an old girlfriend
somewhere in Oregon (she tried but no luck), or another time several WOM
conferred with Eric over local cures for UTIs (corn silk was voted most likely
to succeed). Most often these folks are fire hoses of information that we can
only dip into.
|
Rogelio, Emilio, and Eric in Morelia |
And then, once in an azul moon, you find the Man on the Bench,
as we did this time in Guanajuato (GTO). He was Rogelio, a trade and customs
lawyer, fluent in English, familiar with Oregon, hilarious story teller, who
just happened to be sitting on a bench in Plaza Maxiamora – near our casita –
when we attacked. Before long, we were making plans for a dinner with his
15-year old son Emilio. Within a week, we had met several times and, over
drinks, one night, Rogelio suggested an outing to a museum near Morelia, a town a few hours from Guanajuato. He mentioned there was some art by Picasso and
Goya, which sounded great to us. We had no idea what we were about to
experience…
On a hill, just outside Morelia, stands a museum, Museo
Centro Cultural Tres Marias, devoted to one
|
Original Picasso |
subject only: bullfighting. At the
entrance, there is a 20-ft tall sculpture of a mounted picador, to his side is
a perfectly rendered bronze fighting bull. Inside the entrance, there is a
long, brilliantly colored mural that depicts in abstract forms the stages of
the bullfight. Already we were feeling awestruck. The museum appeared to be
closed, but instead, we discovered that a private tour had been arranged for us
conducted by the museum curator, Moises, and his assistant. We were, along with
Rogelio, the invited guests of Don Salvator Ferrer, the patron and founder of
the museum. We had sensed some tentativeness from Rogelio when he extended the
invitation and now we understood why. Bullfighting is a controversial, but
nevertheless, fundamental component of Mexican art and folklore (the opera
Carmen, for example). To Rogelio, who is an aficionado, this place is holy
ground. And, not surprisingly, rather low key since bullfighting has been
banned in much of Latin America. Even when it is open to the public, there are
not huge crowds waiting to get in and, it seems, Don Salvator, would prefer to
keep it that way – a place for those who want to understand how this ritual
contest between man and animal is, and has always been, an art form that has
evolved through the centuries and has ignited the passions of Picasso, Goya,
Dali, and a host of other painters, sculptors, and performers.
We were first ushered into an enormous (23,000 volume)
research library that contained books dating back centuries. These volumes
traced the evolution of bullfighting, bull breeding and lineage and even
included books and articles on medical techniques for saving the lives and
limbs of gored toreadors – and luckless spectators.
|
Bronze horse brought to Tres Marias from Bilbao in Spain |
From there, we were taken into the various galleries of the
museum, which is enormous. There are capes, swords, and muletas, from famous
bullfighters like Manolete and Dominguin. There are one of a kind Aztec
renderings of the first bullfights – which were much more like gladiatorial
games. In other galleries are stuffed bulls and their breeding history,
decorated like fallen heroes, with the killing blow of the recibiendo, still visible on their backs. And then hall after hall
of Spanish and Mexican painters and their renderings of all the different
aspects of the art form, including flamenco dance depictions- and of course
Carmen, once again.
But then, as if this overwhelming argument for the validity
of the art form wasn’t enough, we came to the Goyas and the Picassos. These were
not prints or reproductions. These were the originals. There were 28 Goyas,
arranged in the sequence of a bullfight from the first third (tercero), where
the torero sizes up the bull using a cape and covered wooden stick, to the
second third, where the bull is stimulated, but not injured, with banderillas,
to the final third (muerte) where the torero and the bull fight to the death.
It is a stunning display – one which would be sufficient to draw crowds to any
museum in the world.
And then, Picasso. A room the size of a small single story
house given over to his paintings, ceramics, sketches devoted to
bullfighting.
There is even a
traje de luces (suit of lights) that Picasso stitched and embroidered, entirely
by hand, for the bull fighter, Dominguin. To see this much of such a master’s
work was overwhelming. One could spend days in this room alone. We doubt there
is anything like it in the world.
Before we knew it, the day was over. Moises, had one last
surprise for us: a gorgeous book that contained the story of the museum’s
creation and a number of reprinted paintings and posters and a Skype session
with Don Salvator who thanked us for
the visit. We could not, in our craziest dreams, imagined a more perfect day.
As our days in Guanajuato wound down, we saw both Rogelio
(now Roy, to us) and Emilio for drinks, chess games and, as a last beautiful
gesture, and invitation to their home for drinks and dinner. This, above all,
was the most intimate time we had ever spent in Mexico passing the time with
both of these new friends and their sweet dog Laika.
|
A paddler in the cemetery? |
|
Beautiful masks in Pátzcuaro |
But, alas, we had further to fly. By the next day, after
long goodbyes and promises to stay connected, we left Guanajuato for Pátzcuaro,
a small village by a lake and our adventures took yet another amazing turn.