(Tamarindo is a derisive term Mexicans apply to traffic cops who wear tan uniforms; the color of tamarind pods.)
While the skinny guy stood on the street as lookout (in case some real cops came along), the fat one reached his hands into the passenger side window, four fingers raised on each hand and said, "Ochociento pesos." 800 pesos. About $80 U. S. at that time. Nothing about any violation. Nothing about how we'd have to go to court. Just "Ochocientos pesos."
Being new to driving in Mexico, and wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of Gomez Palacio, I negotiated a "fine" of "doscientos pesos:" about $20.
Today I don't pay bribes. Extortionist policemen usually give up if you're firm in refusing. Just demand your ticket. They hate that because they can't be on the road extorting others if they have to testify, so they let you go with a "warning."
According to one study, Mexico has about 350,000 police officers divided into a bewildering array of about 3,000 different forces, characterized by "their corruption, growing militarization, poor preparation and ineffectiveness in the face of increasingly severe crime."
During the time I have lived in this country, I've seen signs that the situation is improving. I have seen little evidence that San Miguel's traffic police are corrupt, even though they are paid poorly.
Our police received spiffy new uniforms a couple of years ago. Here's a couple of patrolmen modeling theirs.
Kind of looks like they're posing for GQ.
Every morning at 7:00 AM, our force of traficantes forms up to receive their daily briefing and instructions.
The ratio of three jefes (chiefs) to twelve cops seems about right...
The briefing takes about a half hour. Sometimes it is a little wearing.
Note that the officer to the woman's left is wearing a "diamond" earring. Have dress codes of U. S. police forces become similarly relaxed?
After getting their marching orders, they... uh... march.
The marching ends with a little playfulness. Then it's time for... a coffee break.
It's a little disconcerting at first; police officers walking the streets carrying coffee or cokes, smoking cigarettes. You'll see the same in Paris except that there, they drink and smoke in threes, reducing police coverage by 67%. It's a union thing.
You may not have noticed, but in none of these pictures do you see any of the traficantes carrying firearms. That's because they're not armed. We have a different police force for crime deterrence. They get to carry guns. And there's yet another force for crime investigation. All three departments' jurisdictions overlap with various state and federal police forces. You can be assured that if you bring an issue to a policeman, he'll tell you it belongs to a different department.
Lack of firearms shows you how far down the pecking order traficantes are. But all is not lost. The traffic cops do wear holsters...
... containing pliers and screwdrivers. Phillips and flat. Here's why:
If a Mexican driver got a written ticket for illegal parking, he'd never pay the fine, nor would any jurisdiction in Mexico have the capability to collect. There's no computers, no linking of municipalities with the DMV. Even if someone in law enforcement actually managed to catch up with a scofflaw and collect, he'd probably just pocket the fines, anyway.
(Nobody in the Mexican government would ever authorize a policeman to handle money. When you get your dirver's license, you have to take the appropriate forms to a bank, get a receipt, and take it back to the DMV to get your license. Any other way, license fees would never reach the government.)
So how San Miguel, and every other city and county in Mexico forces car owners to pay their fines is to remove their license plates. That's why cops have tools on their belts. (I have fantasies of screwdriver quick-draw contests.)
Here a traficante removes the license plates of this double-parked truck while the owner looks on. The owner arrived just as the policeman finished writing out the ticket. Fishing out his wallet, he offered the cop $50 pesos to forget about the violation. Being one of our honest San Miguel cops, he refused the bribe. (Or maybe he refused it because I was standing there with a camera. Whatever.)
A friend of mine told me he tried to talk (or bribe) his way out of a parking ticket. The cop took his plates in the end, and my friend told him he'd move his illegally parked car right away. The cop told him he could stay there because he had already received a ticket, so he was good for the whole day. Think about it. My friend only had one set of license plates.
You have to redeem your plates within a couple of days or the fine goes up. But until you do, you can park anywhere you want, because they can't give you another ticket. If you're stopped while driving without your plates, your car may be impounded, so people are pretty good about paying up. Eventually.
The system for identifying frequent violators is simple. When your plates arrive at the Presidencia, a clerk writes the date on the back with an indelible laundry marker. If your plates arrive with one or more dates written on them, the fine is higher. Of course, everyone knows to remove the dates with fingernail polish remover. There's a workaround for everything in Mexico.
On the highways, traffic laws are enforced by state or federal police. I found this picture of some federales on the internet.
Federales are notoriously corrupt, so letting them sleep on the job actually reduces the crime rate, probably.
We expats complain about the police. Hell, Mexicans complain about the police. Many are extortionists. But most are good guys, just trying to support their families. We all need to be thankful that we don't have Russian police.
I'll take our traficantes over these guys any time.
That wasn't fair. But you gotta admit there's an element of truth for those who see archeological sites as theme parks—the same people you see in bumper-to-bumper rafts on the Snake River.
OK. I'll stop now. I promise.
The upside is that Edzná receives few visitors: some Mexican families showing their children something of their heritage, perhaps a scattering of Germans interested in ancient cultures.
The site is huge.
That's Jean standing down there, dwarfed by the ruins. The main pyramid behind her is the Templo de los Cinco Pisos because it has... uh... five floors. Nobody knows what the Mayans called it. Note the lack of crowds. No dueling tour guides like you get at Uxmal.
Another advantage of visiting lesser-known sites is that you're allowed to climb the pyramids. Climbing is prohibited at the popular ruins because it's dangerous, and the law of large numbers ensures that some members of the crowds are gonna fall and get hurt or killed if they were allowed to.
The stairs to the top of the pyramids are steep. In the photo above, I was shooting down at about a 60° angle and even so the individual steps are still obscured by the edge of the floor I was standing on. Each step is maybe 16" high and only 8" wide—much narrower than my shoe is long. Most visitors descended using the "butt-scoot" method. Out of pride, I walked down, but I was terrified.
I wanted to experience this site in awed silence, and I would have except for this man.
In a booming voice, he held forth from the apex, pretending to be a Mayan priest or king. I petulantly endured his ranting, thinking scornful, dark thoughts. As I continued my ascent, I met up with him and we talked. He turned out to be a sweet, cheerful man, proud of his country's history and anxious to explain it all to me as we stood on the narrow steps.
I felt ashamed that once again I had allowed cultural differences to color my opinion of another person. I'm less prejudiced than I used to be, but I still fall into an attitude of superiority from time to time.
From the top of the Templo de los Cinco Pisos you can see the jungle canopy stretching to the horizon as well as the plan of the city of Edzná.
Here, we're looking down on the Templo del Noroeste, so called because it's located to the northeast. (The naming conventions for buildings here aren't exactly inspired, but better than, say, at Palenque, where they have names like Templo XIV, Templo XIX, Templo XXIV...)
Mayans didn't discover the structure we call the Roman Arch. Instead, they used the Corbeled Arch, rendering their interior spaces narrow and dark. I found a great example of one at Edzná.
You can see how the width of the arch is limited by the length of the capstone. A longer stone would break.
This photo contains one other item of note. That's a computer-controlled red/green/blue spotlight in the lower left corner of the image. It's one of about 200 on the site. At times when there are more visitors, they put on a light and sound show after dark, illuminating the ruins in flashing colored lights, playing hokey recorded music, and narrated by a bombastic announcer trying to inject a sense of drama into ancient history. Most pathetic is the flashing of lights to simulate lightning. You could do it just as well yourself with a desk lamp.
Archeological sites as theme parks: most of the ruins now have these shows. They're embarrassing. They're pointless. The gullible (myself included) go to see one of these shows one time only. But I'm never going to bother seeing one of the cheesy things again. I suspect most other people feel that way, too.
But the ruins are best seen in the daytime anyway. The sound and light gear isn't obtrusive then. Nothing modern can diminish the greatness and mystery of these buildings.
(There's something ironic about keeping Mayan artifacts in a colonial Spanish military facility, don't you think?)
The fort occupies a beautiful hilltop a couple of miles south of the city and offers a panoramic view of the Gulf of Mexico. Eighteenth-century cast-iron cannon stand at gun slits. During its time, this place was impregnable. The only significant military action against the city, a raid from Mérida during the War of the Casts, failed.
A small but stunning collection of Mayan art and objects is housed in a half-dozen rooms inside the fort.
These faces, with their dignified expressions, come from no primitive jungle tribe culture. The sophistication and skill of their creators is evident. Their impact took my breath away.
No one can doubt these faces are Mayan. Canted, almond-shaped eyes, long arched noses are all around us today as we travel through the Yúcatan.
Technical Note: Photographing the exhibits was difficult: I had to increase CCD sensitivity to ASA 1600 to photograph without flash or tripod (not permitted) and I had to shoot through glass cases. Some of the best pieces were in curved cases which made viewing them (much less photographing them) nearly impossible because of unavoidable reflections off the glass.
Nevertheless, I got many, many images of stunning objects: See them in this Flickr Photoset.
This marvelous house in Tikinmul, southeast of Campeche is not distinctively Mayan, although the two pitched-roof houses flanking it are. The false arches and the scalloped parapet with Dairy Queen ornaments caught my eye, as did the Christmas decorations (four weeks after Christmas) capped with a plastic Santa Claus.
(I find the image of Santa in his fur-lined coat and hat particularly incongruous here in the tropics.)
Traditional Mayan houses are less common than concrete ones, but you still can see plenty or them.
Walls consist of a palisade of thin poles cut from the jungle, often caulked with mud and increasingly, in modern times, plastered and painted. Roofs are palm thatch. Floors often are dirt. Many have no running water or electricity.
I find it jarring when I come across one of these huts with a TV antenna. What must the inhabitants think, watching telenovas while swinging in their hammocks. And hammocks are what they sleep in. They're the only sensible bedding in tropical heat.
Inside this house above we see a dirt floor and a hammock and, if you look closely, a large stereo speaker. Gotta have tunes, man.
Mayan houses typically have doorways on both of the longer walls, providing much-needed cross-ventilation. Many do not have actual doors that shut, although some have fabric hanging over the entrance—for privacy I guess. On the right, you can see where the red mud of the Yucatán was mixed with dry grass and used to fill gaps in the walls. Sort of. On the left, you can see where the mud was once whitewashed. What realtors call pride of ownership.
These people live in circumstances more primitive than I do when I go camping. Yet they stay spotlessly clean.
I have no idea how women keep their huipils looking so crisp and fresh. This woman looks more prosperous than her hut-dwelling campesinas, but I never saw any women in dirty clothes. When I go camping, I look like one of the homeless in Santa Monica after 24 hours.
I am intrigued by the notion that these houses are built by their occupants, working with only shovels and machetes, using whatever materials they find on the land. Below, we see a homeowner and his son edging cautiously into modern times, using the advanced technology of tricicletas to transport materials.
Mayan homes don't have kitchens. No stove, no gas, no refrigerator, no sink. Mayans have to cook over open fires. So Papá is toting firewood for cooking. He's also carrying palm fronds, for patching his roof.
If you look closely, you can see that el hijo is carrying a shotgun. These people don't go down to the local carnicería for meat. In fact, they don't even live anywhere near a carnicería. If they want meat, they have to hunt. Pheasants and quail are plentiful. The sacks in the son's tricicleta appear to be full, so I guess the day's foraging was successful.
Hunting is so important that along the highways that you often see dozens of men pedaling along, shotguns slung across their backs.
These guys didn't forget to collect firewood to cook their game.
I'm not particularly a fan of hunting for sport. But these men are not out for sport or trophies. They're trying to put some protein in their diets.
If town is far away, Mayans who need to go there take the bus. Ratty old buses ply the back roads all over Mexico and they're dirt cheap. There are no real bus stops; you flag one down and get the driver to stop when you reach your destination.
One problem in the Yucatán is that along the highways, one place looks pretty much the same as any other. The road passes straight as an arrow through level terrain, monotonous dry jungle crowding in from the sides.
So, if you live out here, how do you know where home is? How can you tell the bus driver where to stop?
What you do is, you build a bottle tree.
Then you tell the bus driver, "Let me off at the three clears and one green bottle tree." You see them all over the back roads, each one unique. Obtaining bottles is no problem: any twenty feet of Mexican highway will yield a half-dozen. Mexicans are unreconstructed litterers.
A kind of Mayan-Catholic fusion religion provides moral and spiritual structure, in sharp contrast to the growing secularism of the cities. Every pueblo has its little colonial church. (The Spanish needed to do something with all those stones after they tore down the great Mayan cities.) I found an abandoned church near the settlement of Telchaquillo, south of Mérida.
No doors or windows occupy the church's openings. Holes in the roof let in sunlight and birds.
So I was surprised to find a Virgin and flowers inside. It looks like this church isn't abandoned after all. A few Mayan families worship here. Christmas decorations are still up. Apparently people here like to extend the season. A Christmas tree stands in front of the altar.
The stand is an old tire. Some of the festive red ornaments are—Coke cans. Mayans are poor. They make do with what they have.
The plan was to surround the city with a hexagon of ten-foot-thick walls. All of today's restored historic center is situated within the original outline of the fortifications.
At eight points along the wall, bastions were built to house artillery with interlocking fields of fire, protecting the curtain walls in between. Large bronze cannon provided firepower.
Pictured is one of the two bronze cannon remaining in Campeche, here displayed inside one of the city gates rather than on the ramparts of a bastion as originally placed.
Seven of the original eight bastions survive, along with some sections of wall. One is used as a museum with a small exhibit of Mayan stone carvings, such as this exquisite pair of Chac masks.
The seaward walls once plunged into the ocean. Over the years, land was reclaimed from the Gulf so that today, the walls are well inland.
One of the bulwarks has an intriguing narrow doorway.
What could be inside?
Ah. The facilities. A one-holer for what, maybe a hundred men? I imagine the defenders had to hold off more than pirates. It doesn't appear to be any cleaner than restrooms on the autopistas. Mexican baños have been consistent over the centuries.
Later, other defenses were added. Two 18th-century forts were built to the north and south of the city.
This is the northern fort, now a museum: The Fuerte Museo San José del Alto. Note the beveled apertures to allow swiveling of cannon, and the sinuous, easily defended passage to the gate. At the end of the passage, there's a working drawbridge over a dry moat. Forts such as this one were already outmoded in Europe, but during colonial times, no enemy power had siege cannon in the Americas to reduce the walls.
Pirates no longer plunder in Campeche, but they spread evil here even today. Tee shirts with skull-and-crossbones stencils infest shop windows, and the waiters at the disco across the street from our hotel are required to wear buccaneer costumes. They look stupid.
We were in Campeche for five days, and I didn't have time to explore even half of the old fortifications and the museums they now house, making the city a candidate for another visit sometime.
Hundreds of small-time fishermen go out at night or in the early morning. Their fleet is ratty, but they provide much of the food for the city.
Mostly nets are used—except for the shark fishermen. The nets are suspended from crude poles cut in the mangroves.
The fishermen catch squid, and small white fish; for example, dorado and sea bass. Some drag for octopus, conch and shrimp. Those are the main choices on every menu in town. Ever try octopus and conch ceviche? It's quite good, actually.
Carlos here wanted to pose for me. He was well along in the process of drinking away the day's cares when I met him.
He told me, "That's another photo for your collection." Thanks, Carlos.
Fishermen build shacks for cleaning fish, to provide shelter for the guy watching the boats overnight, for just hanging out and drinking beer.
This shack is luxuriously furnished with an old overstuffed chair.
Gulls hang out, too. They like this particular boat. I saw them perched like this several days in a row.
Rich fishermen have larger boats, some with cabins built on the sterns.
Poor fishermen, like these cormorants, use more modest gear.
Yep. It's the SS For Women Only.
Small fishermen find it hard to make a living anymore. Rents are high, gas costs too much, competition from other food sources is tough. They're a dying breed. In a few years, they'll be gone. Better see them while you can.
The Málecon runs for several miles along the Gulf, giving everyone access to the shore. The waterfront is not blocked off by high rises like Cancun or Miami. Obnoxious discos like Señor Frogs are mercifully absent from the coast road. Residents run, walk, bicycle or skate along the Málecon, giving the populace a youthful, wholesome character.
Every morning, eight kayaks race down the waterfront. They time their races to correspond exactly with the time that Jean takes her shower, giving me time to observe and photograph the contest.
In addition to building a gorgeous waterfront, Campechanos have renovated the historical center, restoring buildings and painting them in pastels. (Pastels? In Mexico?) As a result, the city was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, something San Miguel has yet to achieve.
The city is not a "living museum" like Williamsburg VA. It's not overrun with souvenir shops and galleries like San Miguel. Behind Campeche's beautiful façades are gyms, language schools, banks, tienditas, juice bars and bookstores. This is a working town where people live real lives.
Surprisingly few tourists visit here, although the city is hoping for more. (They should be careful what they wish for.) Mexicans or Europeans come here for proximity to Mayan ruins. Americans mostly want sun, sand, suds and sex, so they go to Playa del Carmen instead.
Behind doors fronting sidewalks we saw gracious courtyards. Unlike San Miguel, where colonial residents drew water from public fountains, 18th-century Campechanos channeled rainwater from their roofs into cisterns, so most courtyards have old-fashioned well-like structures.
An old converted public building on the square houses a balcony restaurant where Jean ordered Café Americano. The waiter brought her a demitasse of espresso. Jean said, "¡Señor! Con agua caliente por favor."
The waiter went out and came back with a coffee cup full to the brim with hot water. Hmm. No room to mix in the espresso. So Jean said, "¡No señor! Quiero un tea pot." (Yeah. She really said that.)
So the waiter brings her a cereal bowl full of hot water and sets it down alongside the full coffee cup and her rapidly cooling espresso. Finally I take pity on her and say, "Una taza más, por favor, sin agua."
The waiter brings an empty cup and she makes Café Americano, pouring hot water from her cereal bowl into her cup.
(Jean has just got to work on her Spanish.)
Jean waits patiently for hot water.
San Miguel has approximately one museum. Campeche has approximately ten. This small museum consists of three rooms in a restored colonial mansion, decorated in the Cuban furniture favored by the rich of that era.
At least two museums have excellent exhibits of Pre-Columbian Mayan objects. This figure from a temple frieze is housed in a bastion (part of the city's old fortifications) called Baluarte de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad.
Churches are undergoing restoration, too. This gilt altarpiece is in La Parroquoia de la Purísima Concepción del Sagrario.
Seven bastions survive, most surmounted by the type of guard cupola found on forts all over the Spanish Caribbean; yet one more example of Campeche's fine preservation and restoration work.
The cathedral is not as ornate, inside and out, as San Miguel's parroquoia, but lighting does a lot for its nighttime appearance, especially as seen from a bench in the plaza.
Campeche has a lot to offer, and the best can't be described in photographs. For example, one night Jean and I were walking down the Málecon, getting a little exercise. Jean asked two middle-aged women if they knew of a restaurant nearby. She suddenly found herself involved in an animated conversation. Minutes later, two of their adult children joined us. After an extended discussion of our plight (our pitiful hunger and what to do about it), we were hustled into the back of a subcompact car (Four of us in the back seat!) and driven to a palapa restaurant. They were so friendly and helpful, treating us like old neighbors they'd just run into in the street.
The following night, we ate at a Lebanese restaurant. Our waitress wanted to practice her English, so she talked to us through half the meal. She told us about her American boyfriend and her hope that he'll marry her and take her to the U. S. She talked about her parents' concern that she's 23 years old and still not married and having babies. She was open and sweet and gave us hugs and kisses when the meal was over.
Campechanos have a reputation for friendliness and generosity and we ran smack into it without even looking for it. Of all Mexican cities we've visited, Campeche is one of the best. It's attractive, interesting, and friendly.
But all cities have problems, and Campeche has some that are disfiguring and avoidable. A city that has done so much restoration and beautification should not allow lapses to spoil the ambience.
For example, our hotel is no beauty.
A expansion project has left it looking like a scene from Bagdhad. The work is stalled—no workers are on the job. As is so common in Mexico, the money ran out, or the permit was capriciously revoked. The top two floors are finished and inside they're quite nice. One of our room's windows appears just below the lowest palm frond on the left. We have a balcony around the corner overlooking the málecon and the ocean.
The design of the hotel is utilitarian and has a sort of Stalin-era Soviet feel somewhat mitigated by the brick-red paint. It's definitely not going to win any architectural awards. But there are worse buildings here.
For sheer ugliness in a major downtown building, this one stands out. How any city would allow something like this to be built is beyond me. It would be condemned in Newark, New Jersey.
And those antennas! They loom over the historic center, marring the skyline to the south. We have similar antenna problems in San Miguel's Centro Histórico, but nothing as massively ugly as these. Mexicans gotta have their cell phones and walkie-talkies, so they gotta have antennas and they apparently don't care if they make their cities look crappy so long as they can stay connected.
—§—
It's hazardous to swim in the Gulf of Mexico: a real shame in a city with such a gorgeous waterfront.
Raw sewage discharges into the bay. Near the city center, the sewer lines run far out into the gulf so that inshore waters seem clean. But at the edges of town, rivulets of nasty fluids run down the mud flats and into the Gulf. The stench is overpowering.
Campeche does not have a sandy beach, just a rocky shore and mud flats. People throw trash off the seawall. It's best not to look over the edge while walking on the málecon.
Some time ago, this sign was erected to encourage cleaning the shore and keeping it litter-free. It failed to reduce the amount of plastic bottles, styrofoam takeout containers and general garbage dumped here. The sign itself is rusting, deteriorating into another piece of shoreline trash.
While we're on the subject of hazards, take a look at these power meters.
These are so wrong. First of all, my shoulder brushed against these wires as I walked by. The electrical tape is unraveling and it's just a matter of days before hot, uninsulated wires will be exposed. Secondly, somebody is blatantly stealing power. Apparently the power company or the police or whoever is supposed to care about this is so corrupt that you can do this kind of thing right out on a busy street with impunity.
Remember that gilded altar I wrote about yesterday? The restoration work is perfectly lovely. And the Church is asking the parishoners to support the work. Fair enough.
But this notice seems a little pushy to me. It's implying that Jesus is personally tracking your contributions. Sounds to me like we're just a couple of steps away from going back to indulgences.
The real crime here is that the pressure will affect poor, ignorant people the most. Educated, well-off parishoners know better and won't be pushed around. But those who can least afford to contribute will do whatever they have to to avoid the displeasure of the Lord.
—§—
I've written about bad civic art in these postings. Campeche has some doozies. 
You got to have your inspiring monuments at the entrances to town. This one is at the south entrance to Campeche. A huge naked Mayan is erupting through the pavement, holding a torch which is burning his fingers. Looks to me like a still from a horror movie. They Came from Beneath the Earth.
If that isn't bad enough, check out the Mexican eagle with the snake in its beak.
Why this modern sculpture is incongruously placed beside a 17th century bastion is beyond me. But juxtaposition aside, this sculpture is just simply bad. Probably some mayor's nephew went to art school for a couple of semesters and then was awarded a cushy contract to create this unnecessary and execrable work. I mean, surely nobody who actually knows something about civic monuments had anything to do with this piece of crap, did they?
—§—
Lastly, we try to keep 'em out, but it's like trying to stop cold germs. There's no truly effective defense.
No American city has allowed one of these to be built in the last 30 years, I think. I hope. I know McDonalds got their ears pinned back when they tried to put a few feet of neon lighting on the roof of their otherwise wine-country-esque store on the outskirts of Sonoma.
City governments everywhere are at best, semi-functional. Bad decisions get made every day. Influence is peddled. Campeche is no different than San Miguel or Sonoma in this respect.
Despite what seem to be almost deliberate efforts to ruin the city, Campeche's beauty prevails. Efforts in the past 10-20 years appear to be turning the tide against creeping ugliness. Good for the campechanos.
On Sunday, families come to the plaza to relax, to buy a treat, maybe to attend mass in the Santuario de la Virgen de Izamal or one of the barrio churches.
It's hot here. Year-round high temperatures are in the 80s-90s. Ice cream is a big seller in the plaza.
Ice cream sellers clank on gongs to attract attention. Traditional Mayan men commonly wear light-colored clothes, sandals and straw hats. For some reason, they roll up the cuffs of their trousers.
Women wear huipiles (colorfully embroided short dresses) or the gala terno (a white dress embroidered with white lace), often with lace-hemmed slips that hang below the dresses.
Half-hour carriage rides cost gringos $50 pesos ($4.50 US). Local people probably pay less than half that.
This guy's handsome green carriage carries an advertisement for the No Name Broiled Chicken Company.
Only on Sunday, you can get charcoal-grilled chicken with soup or rice, delivered to your home. Order by telephone. I bet it's the driver's wife's business.
Speaking of chicken, in the neighboring town of Tixcocob (the hammock-making center of the Yucatán) I found Bobbo's chicken stand.
I love the cartoon of the chicken getting a hot foot.
So many independent, proprietor-run businesses thrive in Mexico, each with its own unique approach. The claim to fame of the Delgado Mortuary is 24-hour service—probably a strong selling point in a tropical country.
The hearse is a minivan with landau irons artlessly painted on the rear windows. I like the Delgado Mortuary. I'd use them.
Jean and I ate comida at a restaurant called Los Mestizos, the owners proudly announcing their mixed Spanish-Mayan ancestry. That kind of pride is refreshing in a country dominated by snooty criollos claiming pure Castillian blood, as if that were an asset.
Jean wanted to know who their decorator was.
This restaurant was, shall we say—colorful, even by Mexican standards, where hot pink is a neutral. It was a bustling, friendly place with excellent food including many Yucatecan specialties. I ordered Dzoto-Bichay. Reaching out to English-speaking customers, the menu described this dish as "Chaya tamale with hard boiled eggs and moiled [sic] seed served with a tomato sauce." It was delicious.
What we're looking at here is not the entire pyramid. It's only the pyramid on top of the pyramid. The actual base, not pictured here, covers an area equivalent to eight football fields.
Only three pyramids remain in Izamal. The Spanish conquistadors did not see them as valuable archeological sites that should be preserved. They saw them as symbols of pagan culture that needed to be eradicated. They enslaved the indigenous people to destroy their patrimony and used the stones to build this:
Construction of the Convent of San Antonio de Padua began in 1533 by tearing down the major Mayan temple, the Ppapp-Hol-Chac pyramid, and reprocessing the stones. The Spanish succeeded in replacing Mayan temples with Catholic ones, but they failed to completely replace the Mayan gods with a Christian one. People here still pray to Chac when they need some rain.
Where the convent walls are plastered, they're painted yellow, as is most of the town.
Inside the walls, cool arcades bound the Atrium, a huge grassy forecourt.
On the west side, the Santuario de la Virgen de Izamal dominates the forecourt.
The Virgin of Izamal is one of a seemingly unlimited number of Mexican Virgins. I like to think of them as the Mayans' revenge. "OK. We'll accept your religion. But first, you gotta make it a lot like our religion. And we like lots of Virgins."
Inside the church (which I couldn't photograph because of services) there's a life-sized stature of the Virgen de Izamal, costumed in satin robes and jewelry. She looks like a fine doll. When Pope John Paul II visited Mexico in 1993, he brought a silver crown for her which she now wears. In exchange, the good sisters of the convent erected a bronze statue of the Pope outside the entrance to the church.
A few years ago, a worker was scrubbing the walls of the church when he made a discovery.
Sometime in the distant past, someone had whitewashed over 16th-century frescoes. Perhaps the whitewash protected the images through the ages: The colors seem fresh enough. Whatever the case, we are fortunate that they were protected until a time when preservation has become a priority.
I'm not sure who this painting represents: The Virgin of Izamal? Or some other holy figure? The setting may be tropical; a palm grows to her left. But mountains in the background mean this scene cannot be in the Yucatán. And what is the picture she's holding? It's either of three standing figures or a molar with three cavities.
In the end, we're left with a mystery. Nobody really knows who painted this fresco nor who he was painting. Then again, we don't know for certain who built Kinich-Kak-Moo or what it was used for. So soon, knowledge slips away and we're reduced to guessing. In a decade or two, this blog may become unreadable by the communications machines of the future, just as 8" floppy disks are unreadable today. In the end, it may well become a mystery, too.
I saw my first tricicleta on Cózumel. A group of them were waiting to offload goods from the ferry. They were operated by a bunch of guys wearing identical tee shirts identifying them as members of something like "The Union of Tricliclederos, Local #264." Longshoremen. Harry Bridges would have been proud.
Your basic tricicleta hauls freight.
It consists of a steel frame with a pair of bicycle wheels. This rig replaces the forks, front wheel and handlebars of an ordinary bicycle. You steer by twisting the entire front assembly.
Many are used as taxis. An actual automobile-type taxi is gonna cost you at least three bucks. A tricicleta is more like fifty cents. Moreover, cabs aren't air conditioned. Tricicletas have surrey-like tops and fresh breezes. Gringos and upper-class Mexicanos take taxis. Everone else goes for the enviornmentally-friendly option.
A small front sprocket facilitates pedaling heavy loads. Braking is accomplished with whatever the original bike had: a single rear hand brake or a coaster brake. They can't stop quickly. I can only imagine what happens to the passengers if the driver runs into something. That front seat looks sort of like a launching pad. No seat belts, of course. Poor braking and maneuvering probably are the reason you see triciclederos drive so cautiously.
They make good platforms for selling stuff. This guy sells ice cream and brings in a little extra revenue advertising for Willy's grocery—"It's cheaper."
In Izamal, this huipil-clad Mayan woman sells fruit snacks from her tricicleta. She's holding a mango that she's cut into delicate petals and thrust onto a pointed stick. Her husband is peeling jicama.
Eight years ago, all I saw were pedal-powered tricicletas. Today, technology is coming to the Yucatán. Bicycle frames are being replaced by motorcycle rear ends.
They go faster with less effort, but it's still one-wheel braking and no seatbelts. I think I'll stick with the manual model.
About halfway between Mérida and Izamal, tricicletas swarm in the hammock-making town of Tixcocob. They appear to be the most popular form of transportation there, and they come in every imaginable variety. Here, someone welded the motorcycle onto the front.
The owner is a forward-thinking guy, wearing shorts and wraparound sunglasses. Younger Mayans dress like he does. Older men would never wear that stuff. Despite the heat, I always wear long pants in the towns so I won't feel out of place.
In Guadalajara last month, I saw a delightful tricicleta used for delivering drinking water.
It has "kluge" written all over it. Yet it seems perfectly suited for what it does.
This vehicle was pieced together. Literally.
Rusting tack welds hold a plastic BMX bike seat to the frame. Gasoline is gravity-fed into the carbuerator from the dented gas tank via a red plastic hose.
There's something—a rag maybe—wrapped around the joint between the header pipe and the muffler. Why? Surely it isn't holding them together. Looks to me like it's protecting the bailing wire that's holding up the exhaust system. And yes, you sharp-eyed mechanics, that's a pair of vise grips clamped onto something on the front sprocket housing—we can only wonder what.
It doesn't look very sturdy, but that's not the point, is it? In Mexico, you use it until something breaks, and then you fix it with whatever is at hand. You can make stuff work indefinitely that way.
Finally, in this noisy country, people are always seeking ways to increase the decibels. Near the mercado in Izamal, there's a cacophony of competing PA systems. Here's a trike adding to the din.
The modern world is reaching the Yucatán. The pace of life is accelerating. I'm sure that people here appreciate the benefits of mechanization.
But somthing is being lost. I remember years ago seeing a patient grandmother in her huipil, two scrubbed and starched grandsons beside her on a tricicleta bench, being pedaled to school at something less than walking speed. You see fewer of them today.
Twenty minutes later, Dr. Oswaldo Basto Moguel [sic] arrived. A warm, open-faced man sporting a bushy mustache, he quickly reached a diagnosis: conjunctivitis caused by a bacterial infection. He then opened his tackle box and searched for an appropriate medicine.
That's right. His little black bag is a large plastic tackle box with fold-out compartmented trays. It's filled with all kinds of medicines, a selection, he told me, that treats 95% of the conditions he finds on house calls.
Rummaging in the depths of the box, he fished out a tiny bottle of Biodexan antibiotic eye drops. He instructed me to put a drop in each eye three times a day for five days and assured me I was going to feel better immediately.
I asked him what his fee was. He told me $600 pesos ($55 US) for the house call and the medicine. I only had bills to make up $550 pesos or $1,000. He said, "That's OK" and took the $550. I suspect that he charged me half again what he would charge a Mexican patient, but I'm always grateful to be in a position to pay a little more in this country. Besides, it was a lot cheaper than an office call in the US, and I didn't have to drive to the clinic and then to a pharmacy.
And in fact, I did feel better immediately.
But it is today. I want miles of deserted, palm-fringed white sand, clear turquoise water, waiters in white bringing me drinks in hollowed-out pineapples and pelicans drifting across the setting sun. Places like that are out there. It's just that the only ones I've found are either expensive or hard to get to. Progreso is neither, so it doesn't have to try very hard.
Stepping onto the málecon, the first thing you see as your gaze sweeps west is not the sea, not the beach, not the marine sky. You see the pier.
It's the longest pier in Mexico, and it's not there for the pleasure of tourists. Actually, I don't think tourists are even allowed on it, and if they were, there's nothing out there for them. The pier serves as the shipping terminal for the entire Yucatán Peninsula. Semis roll up and down all day and night, hauling loads to container ships. It gives the waterfront a gritty, industrial feel.
The beach in front of the málecon is pleasant enough, uncrowded with gentle, safe surf. But as on any popular Mexican beach, the vendors are out there.
You can't really lie out in the sun and doze because someone is always coming up hawking their wares. This woman wasn't pushy and actually was sort of sweet, but if I had been sitting there daydreaming, she would have annoyed me.
(I love it that the Spanish word meaning "to bother" is molestar. Por favor no molestarme, Señorita. Hey! Don't be molesting me!)
Beachfront businesses have the typical sleazy look. Apparently, when you start a seaside souvenir store, you're advised to make it good and tacky, and to be sure to skimp on the maintenance. Here it's even worse: something about Norteamericanos vacationing on Mexican beaches brings out the worst in both cultures.
Fishermen still go out in the early morning, bring in their fish and sit around drinking beer in the afternoon.
You can get the day's catch in the local restaurants. Unlike the previously-frozen "fresh" fish that you get most everywhere else, my lunch consisted of a whole sea bass that had been caught only hours beforehand.
But the fishermen's days are numbered. To the east of town, the seafront is being bought up by Canadians, Americans, Europeans, and wealthy Mexicans, bent on building vacation or retirement homes. Living on the coast is becoming too expensive for fishermen.
The Government of the State of Yucatán is building a modern, limited access highway from Mérida to Progreso. It will expedite transport from the growing Yucatecan industries. And it will facilitate access to seaside hotels and vacation houses from the airport. The fishermen will be driven off the coast. Well, they can always go work in the factories. Or as gardeners for your McMansion. Or they can reopen El Cheapo.
Years ago, we checked into El Gran Hotel, chosen because it was very close to La Plaza Grande, the central square where everything happens. Big mistake. We've learned that you never stay anywhere near a central plaza: not if you want to get any sleep anyway.
We were shown the best room in El Gran Hotel. It had wide windows opening onto a narrow balcony overlooking a noisy street. Similar windows on the opposite side of the room gave out onto the parking lot of a disco. The ambiance could be described as deafening.
Inside, a semi-circular headboard composed of wedges of alternating clear and deep blue pebbled glass loomed over an sagging double bed. Behind the glass, a dozen fluorescent tubes radiated like a sunburst from the center of the headboard, casting lurid blue and white light over the grimy room.
Horrified, we dragged our luggage downstairs, grabbed a taxi and bolted for the Hyatt, a soulless glass tower that at least had the advantage of being bland and predictable. Even so, the beat from a night club pulsed in our hermetically-sealed tenth-floor room. We had yet to learn that Mexico is a noisy country.
We selected the Hacienda Xcanatún for elegance, comfort and peaceful isolation; it's located twelve kilometers north of the city center well away from any hoorah.
Jean, showing off her fanny pack.
Our hacienda has lots of arches and columns, polished limestone floors, 20-30 foot ceilings, our own private hot tub and six ten-foot double doors in our room alone, permitting cross-breezes and unimpeded passage of mosquitoes. It has a nice patio restaurant that serves exotic Yucatecan dishes. Eco-touring it's not. Water runs constantly to keep the gardens fresh, green and cool. It uses more electricity than the nearby village. But it sure is comfy.
—§—
We hacienda owners—or renters as the case may be—have to be appropriately dressed, and for hombres, that means a Panama hat. One place they're made is in the little town of Bécal, just over the border in the neighboring state of Campeche. There, Mayan weavers crouch in limestone caves, where humidity keeps the palm fibers supple for weaving.
The Señor walks the hacienda grounds, in his new panama hat.
The man at Artesanías Bazar García Rejón who sold me my hat, cut a black band for it, saying that for women, bands could be any color, but for hombres, only black. I'm glad he straightened me out on that. Imagine my embarrassment if I had been caught wearing a red one in public. He showed me how to fold and roll my hat. It's amazing that you can do this, put them in your suitcase and when you unpack, they unroll into a perfect shape.
Panama hats became popular when Ferdinand DeLessups (builder of the Suez Canal and initiator of the Panama Canal) was photographed wearing his. At last I have one too, one engineer following the example of another.
—§—
Tonight there's a fair and fiesta in the tiny village outside the walls of our hacienda. Fireworks are exploding overhead. The bass from a band is making our windows vibrate in resonance. An excited voice is yelling in machine-gun Spanish over a PA system. Mexico hasn't changed; it's noisy wherever we go.
But we have changed. The noise from the fair doesn't seem as intrusive as it once was. Actually, it's kind of comforting. I fell asleep to the lullaby of the bass player.
A number of small ruins dot the Puuc Route, a hilly part of the generally flat Yucatán Peninsula. Because we arrived late, we visited only one site; Sayil.
The minor sites have been left in a state more like they were when John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood traveled here early in the 19th Century. As I walked through Sayil, I tried to imagine what they must have thought, peering through the dry jungle, as they first glimpsed unnatural piles of rocks...
... that on closer inspection bore carvings of glyphs, cut into rubble-blocked doorways by an unknown people who used an alphabet.
Clear away enough trees and underbrush, and entire buildings emerge from the jungle. Catherwood drew them almost two centuries ago, inspiring travelers down to the present day to explore the Mayan World.
Tulum. Frederick Catherwood
This small pyramidal temple is known as El Mirador—The Lookout. 
The structure on top is called a roof comb and is purely decorative. Trees and plants have been allowed to remain growing on the roof. In time, roots will surely tear the stones from the roof comb.
The main ruin at Sayil is El Palacio, which had 90 rooms and is thought to have housed on the order of 350 members of the ruling elite. It was built more than a thousand years ago, while European culture stagnated in the dark ages.
A half collapsed room provides a cutaway view showing how Mayan buildings were constructed.
Interior spaces were narrow because Mayan builders had not discovered the keyed arch. Without a keystone, they could only be made as wide as a corbeled arch (cantilevered stones) would allow.
El Palacio has several Chac (rain god) masks and other carvings in fine condition.
The elephant-like noses of most Chac masks have been broken off, so it's exciting to find one intact. You're more likely to find whole Chac figures on friezes.
Mayans lacked the arch and the wheel, but they were better astronomers and calendar-makers than their European contemporaries. Their culture collapsed before the arrival of the Spanish, who nevertheless did their best to eradicate any surviving traces of Mayan culture. Still, much was protected by the jungle, hidden from the eyes of Spanish hacienda owners and Catholic church-builders.
We received two invitations to Christmas Eve parties. One was a large, fancy event for the glitterati, mostly gringo, at a mansion at the country club. The other was a gathering of Rosario's family in her modest home. We chose option #2.
Rosario is our cook. She is illiterate, as is often the case with girls in her generation that come from poor families. Ana Maria, Rosario's daughter, works as our housekeeper. Rosario is thirteen years older than Ana Maria, another reason Rosario couldn't go to school. Ana Maria did go to school; she reads and writes for her mother when needed.
Ana Maria's eight-year-old daughter, Teresa, often comes to our house before school, where she draws or watches TV or plays with Rosita, our Boston Terrier. On Christmas Eve, she dressed as an angel.
I love the intimacy of Mexican people. Boys hug each other. Girls hold hands or link arms as they walk down the street. Teresa automatically includes her cousin, Humberto, in her photograph, draping her arm around his shoulder, he with his hand around her waist.
A huge, round table had been set up in the living room for Christmas dinner. A dozen chairs, no two of which matched, were pulled up to it. Jean and I were asked to sit, and dish after dish of food was brought out. The women had cooked all day. Cousins, nephews and nieces drifted in and out of the room, sitting to eat and then moving on, making room for others. Rosario didn't own enough dishes for everyone, so some of us used plates, others, bowls, and as each person finished, dishes were cycled through the kitchen for washing and drying for the next person.
Dinner was festive and delicious. Jean had prepared a Costco-sized box of Duncan Hines brownie mix which was a big hit.
There was to be a posada in Rosario's fracciónmiento, and three of her grandchildren had major roles.
Teresa was, of course, an angel.Two of her cousins were Mary and Joseph. Their mothers made their costumes. Mary, Joseph and the angel rode around in the back of a pickup truck (what else?) leading a procession of neighbors from house to house, singing and asking for room at the inn. Afterward, the kids broke open a piñata. Then everyone drank ponche (punch made from cooked fruit) or atole (a thick, hot drink made from ground corn).
Here's what we got for Christmas: Talking in Spanish, a delicious meal that cost maybe twenty bucks for twenty people, the warmth of a nice family, lots of hugs and kisses, and a Christmas Eve that was about the birth of Christ.
Here's what we didn't get: Champagne, designer gowns, canapes, one-upmanship and Burl Ives singing It's a Holly Jolly Christmas.
Good deal, huh?
No, they are not. What they are doing is lying in wait. They are waiting for a nice fat fish to swim by.
Mexican drivers call these cops tiburones (sharks). They are criminals.
We encountered them on our way to the airport in Mexico CIty. Our friend, Elena, a bilingual woman born and raised in Mexico City is chauffeuring us in her van. She knows how cops work in Mexico. Good thing, too.
A few miles past the toll gate, two cops pull us over. It seems we have committed a violation. Our minivan's license plate number ends in a seven (or maybe it's an eight). It is illegal to drive in Mexico CIty on a Tuesday if your license plate ends in a seven or an eight. Really.
[Well, it's not entirely crazy. Mexico City does have a major congestion problem, and world-class air pollution. In an attempt at mitigation, driving is prohibited one day a week. Your no-drive day is determined by the final digit of your license plate. A seven or eight means never on Tuesday. I'll leave the practicality and effectiveness of this system to your imagination.]
The policeman tells Elena she has broken the law. She may not drive her vehicle any farther. We must all get out on the narrow shoulder of the Interstate Highway, where speeders are screaming by unmolested. The car will be impounded. Elena must return to Mexico CIty tomorrow, pay her fine and the tow charges, and then she can recover her car. On Wednesday. When it's legal to drive it.
Elena and the policeman engage in a lengthy discussion. It becomes evident this stop isn't about license plates. Nobody impounds cars for driving on a no-driving day. People aren't left standing on an interstate highway to find their way home.
The cop asks Elena to step out of the car. (He doesn't want Jean and me to witness the conversation.) Elena instinctively responds that her mother told her never to get out of the car if stopped—a brilliant riposte. In Mexico, Mom's law trumps State law every time.
Now going on the offensive, she asks the cop for his name. He replies with a grin, "Augustín Lada." Augustín Lada is the name of an enormously famous singer. The cop, whose badge and name tag are not visible, isn't going to identify himself. Game over man, game over.
Since no bribe is forthcoming, the cop tells Elena that, seeing as she's willing to drive back to San Miguel, he's gonna let her off with a warning. What a nice guy. So we're not going to be fined, and the car's not going to be impounded. But how are we going to get to the airport?
We turn around and return to the toll gate where I took the picture of the tiburones. Elena finds a policeman who is not a state cop (he's wearing a different color uniform) and asks him about the no-drive rule.
What a surprise: Yes, she cannot drive in Mexico City today, but no, the road we are on is not controlled. It's OK to drive on it any day. The State Police had no right to stop her. She describes them. He says he knows who they are and will report them. Sure he will.
Elena drives through the toll gate in the homeward direction. Just for the hell of it, she asks the toll taker what numbers are prohibited today. He tells her three and four. Hmmm. Who should we believe?
She decides to turn back toward Mexico City, taking a different highway, one she's taken many times without ever being stopped. After a few miles, we come to another toll gate. Some Federales are parked there. She asks one about the no-drive rule.
He asks, "What day is it?" (A crack interrogator, he is).
She tells him, "Tuesday."
He says, "Wait a minute." Then he gets on his radio. He doesn't know the rule and he has to ask his jefe. Finally he announces, "Seven and eight. You can't drive if your plate is seven or eight." All right then.
—§—
Just past the toll gate, on the Mexico City side, there's a taxi stand. For $300 pesos ($27 US), the taxista will take us the rest of the way to the airport. His license plate doesn't end in seven or eight. So we thank Elena and get in the cab. At this point, the limited-access highway ends. The road becomes a wide surface street; six center lanes for through traffic, and six outer lanes for local drivers. Immediately we see a sign:
"NO HOY RECIRCULA"
NO APLICA
CARRILES CENTROS
Yep. You can drive any day of the week if you stay in the center lanes. Because, how in the hell would you get to the airport if you couldn't? I look at the cars around me. Sure enough, about 20% have plates ending in seven or eight.
Nearer to the airport, traffic grinds to a halt. Our driver pulls off onto side streets and winds through small commercial districts, trying to get around the jam. In the twenty minutes it takes to reach our destination, I see lots of sevens and eights: drivers ignoring the "no driving today" rule, driving anywhere they damn well please, whenever they please. Of course.
Others aren't.
This man entertained us at Vicente's in Delores Hidalgo, where we'd gone for the excellent carnitas. His music was so execrable it was entertaining. He earned very good tips from us, for his music and for letting me film him.
We say there are two types of wandering minstrels: those you pay to serenade you, and those you pay to leave you alone.
Therapist Sergio Ortega demonstrates head reattachment.
Of course, just like Hugh Hefner, he made me take my shirt off for most of the shoot. You know how that is. I had to fight to hang on to my towel. The photographer kept yelling "More bush! More bush!"
(Thanks and a credit to Pern for that line.)
Check out Sergio's site here. And for real beefcake, click over here.
He's famous for his murals, and he's first in a country of muralists. No city with a modicum of pride is without them in their public buildings. In Guadalajara, I was introduced to another painter: José Clemente Orozco.
Photo: Edward Weston
Orozco's (oh-ROSE-ko's) vision is darker, less optimistic than Rivera's. Concerned about the direction Mexico was taking after La Revolución, he painted cataclysmic murals and drew cynical caricatures of politicians, soldiers and clergy.
An extensive set of his murals depict the Spanish Conquest, in the Cabañas Instituto Cultural. As I walked through the main hall, I saw a group of students lying on the floor, looking up at the ceiling of the rotunda. I lay down with them and took this photo:
Here, although we are looking up, we find ourselves seeing down into an inferno, bodies falling into a hell of conquest, of enslavement. We are disoriented, horrified, as must have been those warred upon by the Spanish. This image represents the essential Orozco. No dancing campañeros here; no abuelas (grandmothers) in their huipils, grinding corn on metates.
Elsewhere in the Cabañas there's a gallery of Orozco's drawings, most of them studies for murals.
Malevolent caricatures of military officers gleefully gesticulate. What are they so happy about? We really don't want to know.
—§—
Miguel Hidalgo (wiki) was one of Mexico's heroes, a priest who helped start and lead the fight for independence from Spain. He is remembered for uttering El Grito (The Cry) which can be considered Mexico's Declaration of Independence, and he did it right here in nearby Delores Hidalgo. He is usually depicted standing heroically erect, with a stern, noble look on his face. Some images show him issuing El Grito. Here's a statue of him on the great plaza in the center of Guadalajara.
It's typical melodramatic State art. He shouts furiously at the Spanish. His outstretched hands hold the broken links of imperialist chains. No elementary school student could be so dull as to fail to get the message.
Orozco's vision of Hidalgo is different—and characteristically, more disturbing.
The good father shouts -¡Viva México! He flails with his left fist; his right holds a burning brand. Below him, a sea of red banners, a mob fighting, people impaled on blades.
What is going on here? Is this the heroic army Hidalgo led to an early near-victory over the Spanish? Where is the patriotism? The glory? This is a brutal orgy of violence. There are no ideals here; only agony, only death.
Hidalgo's image is the focal point of a huge mural. It is impossible to take it in with a single view. It cannot be photographed in its entirety. As the gaze shifts away from the center, the message becomes more obscure, more frightening.
Buttressing the figure of Father Hidalgo is a scene from an insane asylum, or perhaps from Hell. Society's evils wreak havoc. The isms are caught up in a terrible struggle: Fascism, Communism, Capitalism, Catholicism, all jumbled together. Demons catalyze the fight.
Is this what Miguel Hidalgo set loose? Or is it what he was fighting? One thing is certain. Orozco is not allowing us reassuring thoughts of a world made better by one of its heroes.
[Orozco painted for many years in the United States. You can see his murals at Dartmouth and Pomona College, among other places.]