| General Fiction posted February 4, 2017 | Chapters: |
...11 12 -13- 
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Back to Mexico - the journey's end.
A chapter in the book A Tale of Yucatan
A Tale of Yucatan - Part 13
by tfawcus
| Background A turn-of-the-century travelogue. 19 days on the Yucatan Peninsula. |
The final stage of our journey back to Mexico is a hundred and fifty miles by road in a privately chartered minibus, north along the Interamericana Highway to the border town of La Mesilla.
Highway is perhaps a misnomer. The road rises up, twisting and turning through the Guatemalan highlands, and clinging to the sides of mountains as it threads its circuitous path towards the border. Mostly it is metalled but in places it disintegrates into potholes and even sections of dirt track filled with broken rock, where the road has been swept away by earthquake and flood.
As has been the case throughout Guatemala, every inch of land is hand cultivated, with neatly terraced mountain slopes rising up behind small towns nestling in the valleys. The village people and field workers make bright specks of colour on the hillside with their traditional hand woven cloths, as they toil among the spikes of corn. For the last twenty or thirty miles we follow the course of a wide and muddy torrent which splashes, foaming over jagged boulders strewn about the riverbed that leads us to the border.
Formalities leaving Guatemala and crossing into Mexico are slow and protracted. Papers must be filled in, then pored over by officials before they receive the purple impress of a stamp. A few quetzales change hands on one side of the border; a few more pesos on the other. Eventually we are cleared to drive in a collective taxi the two miles across no-man’s land to Ciudad Cuauhtémoc on the Mexican side. Here we change to another minibus which takes us fifty miles farther on, to Comitán.
Three more times on the Mexican side we are stopped at military road blocks, spaced about five miles apart. Our passports are minutely examined by the sergeant while soldiers who look no more than fifteen or sixteen years old peer in through windows and poke amongst our suitcases with the butts of their rifles. Other watchful eyes look out from sandbagged machine gun emplacements fifty yards farther up the road, where a lever stands ready to raise spikes across the road should anyone decide to make a dash for it. Our driver says they are looking for illegal immigrants from El Salvador and searching, too, for drugs.
Throughout Chiapas there is clear evidence of a strong military presence. Perhaps it is an aftermath of the revolt five years earlier, in 1994, by the Mayan Indians of this region, in which armed rebels of a group calling itself the Zapatista National Liberation Army seized several towns and villages, kidnapping officials and destroying government offices. Resentment still runs high, with the Chiapans having good reason to mistrust the corrupt central government up north in Mexico City, although there is evidence that concessions have been made and an uneasy peace agreement reached.
At Comitán we change again for the final fifty miles into San Cristóbal de las Casas, at the heart of the Chiapas region of southern Mexico.
San Cristóbal has something of the architecture of La Antigua Guatemala, but on a larger, less intimate scale. The people are less open, more sullen and seem distrustful of foreigners. There are some magnificent churches and street markets here and it is easy to let the time slip away as we wander. Half a day is lost in the airline office of Air Caribe, negotiating the change in our tickets back to Cancún . The staff are friendly and most obliging, but they have to make many phone calls to head office before we are eventually able to get the tickets reissued. Here, as on so many occasions in the past ten days, Wendy’s ever more fluent Spanish is an invaluable tool in helping to resolve the muddle and to find an acceptable solution for us. But it all takes time.
Perhaps the most interesting part of our stay is a visit to Na Bolom, a house on the outskirts of the town. For many years it was the home of a Dutch archaeologist, Frans Blom, and his wife Trudy, a Swiss anthropologist and photographer who died here in 1993 at the age of 92. These two shared a passion for the Chiapas region and its Indians, and worked tirelessly to improve their lot. The house is full of photographs, archaeological and anthropological relics and books, but it is more than just a museum; it is also a research institute dedicated to continuing their work in the region. It takes a long walk down semi-deserted streets well away from the centre of town to find it, but the search is well repaid.
Amber is one of the specialities of the region, formed some 25 to 35 million years ago from the sap of the Courbaril tree and creating deposits in present day Chiapas. For years it has been used for medicine, the magic arts and religious rituals and has been considered to be an amulet for protection and good luck. It is with this in mind that at the very last moment I buy a bracelet and broach for Wendy, both set in curiously wrought Mexican silver and having deep within their hearts the fossilised remains of ancient life.
Soon afterwards, we board a bus to cross the mountains to Tuxtla Gutiérrez for our flight back to Cancún. Although only just over fifty miles, it is a two hour journey. At times we are driving through clouds, as they swirl around the mountain tops and hang over the valleys. When the clouds are like this, our driver tells us, it means that there will be much rain in the afternoon. He is not wrong!
Shortly after our arrival at Tuxtla’s airport the heavens open. For nearly an hour there is a torrential deluge which obliterates the view to the other side of the street. Ten minutes before we are due to board, an announcement is made over the P.A. in Spanish, to say that the airport has been closed. Our flight has been diverted into the larger Aeropuerto Llano San Juan, sixteen miles to the west. Wendy soon has us bundled into taxis which speed us through the outskirts of the city. In some places the roads have become raging torrents of orange mud and it seems doubtful that we will get through. However, we make it, and eventually get airborne for our flight via Villahermosa and Mérida, arriving in Cancún soon after sunset.
To our relief we are met at the airport and driven to the ferry terminal at Puerto Juárez for the twenty minute crossing to Isla Mujeres. There to meet us on the jetty with a huge smile of gold-capped teeth in a nut-brown wrinkled face is Fidel with his tricycle luggage cart. He escorts us to our condominium, two or three hundred yards west along the seafront, overlooking Playa Norte, better known locally - he tells us - as Naughty Beach. I wonder why?
The rooms are luxurious, air conditioned and well furnished with all modern conveniences. The balconies overlook a floodlit swimming pool, the beach and, further out beyond the reef, the distant lights of the mainland. As we sink down into comfortable beds it seems that our adventure is over at last.
The next morning, I wake early to that strange quiet that precedes the dawn. The beach is deserted but for a few Mexican pi dogs and a line of small wading birds bobbing and strutting at the edge of the surf. Sub-tropical breezes tug at coconut palms in the coral sand and dark wisps of cloud scud across the moon’s thin crescent in the east, as the morning star begins to fade, giving way to salmon and azure hues creeping across the sky. A growing chatter and trill of hidden birds heralds the arrival of the new day on this northern shore of the island, a sheltered lee. Waves break gently with a rhythmic murmur, and a solitary frigate bird spills the morning breeze from under the sharp angular outline of a wing as he dips and weaves to stay still.
This is my first taste of Isla Mujeres, the Island of Women, which is to be our home for the last week of the holiday. Legend has it that Caribbean pirates kept home comforts here while they plundered passing traders. Where are the pirates now? They have become the traders, in rows along the streets, their stalls brimming with bric-a-brac, T-shirts, wrought silver trinkets. They sell Mayan lace and woven blankets, wood carvings, and trips to the reef, to ancient ruins and to Cancún’s hotel strip.
‘Almost free!’ they lie, enticing another boatload of tourists from the mainland to part with precious dollars. Every half hour the fast boat comes with its new cargo of flesh oozing from floral prints, eager after twenty minutes on the high seas for group adventure, neatly packaged with free gifts and unmissable offers of three for the price of four. Traps for the unwary.
“Just 27 pesos, señor. I tell you what - I give you a special offer - three for 85 pesos - my best price. Come in and look around. See what you like.”
For our part, we sunbathe, swim and sip exotic cocktails in Charlie’s Bar, while casting sidelong glances at the nubile bodies on Naughty Beach and enjoying the feel of cool sand between the toes.
Towards the end of our stay we make an excursion back to the mainland to visit Chichén Itzá, the most famous and best restored of Yucatán’s Mayan sites. It is well that I should finish at Chichén Itzá for we came to Central America to follow the Mayan route, and this is a fitting end to it. The journey by car from Cancún is between two and three hours. We are lucky that it is a damp day with steady drizzle for much of the time. Blazing sun at the height of the day, combined with high tropical humidity could have made such a journey refined torture.
Unlike Tikal, Chichén Itzá is a major tourist destination. It is much more accessible, the ruins are far more recent and in better condition and consequently the whole place is overrun by visitors. Despite that, one cannot help but be impressed. People talk with much awe about the incredible alignment of these buildings to chart the course of the heavens, to divide the year into seasons based on the passage of the solstice, and of the ingenuity of the ancient race who devised our three hundred and sixty five day calendar. However, below the surface, one also feels the sweat and toil of human misery; those generations of conquered slaves upon whose bones and blood this place was built.
What now remains? A horde of visitors scrambling over the stones. High in the trees above the temples there is the curious click of the mot-mot bird, whose pendulous tail beats out time, in mockery of the faded magnificence and crumbling ruins of this once mighty civilisation.
It seems appropriate to finish with a short poem, and - of course - to thank those of you who have travelled with me for some or all of this Central American journey, these rambling reminiscences of an old man!
Chichén Itzá
Toltec temples ascend to gods guarding
the secrets of time.
What brave nation built so high above the jungle floor
to divide the years into precise segments,
and to appease the gods of their own imagination
with human sacrifice?
What splendour daubed this city and lit its walls with sound
as priests assumed the feathers of the Quetzal bird
- extinct emblem of their fallen dynasty -
and donned the hideous death mask of the jaguar,
stealing from the gods the panoply of power?
They assumed too much,
these human gods.
Some mightier force than they
has let run the sands of time,
wiped out the gaudy colours,
muted the mysterious echoes,
and replaced them with a jungle growth of vines,
the vibrant hue of flowers
and a brilliant flash of blue
that marks the mot-mot
clock bird,
sole tenant of the creviced stone,
who idly beats his pendulous tail
in mockery
and wears a russet chest
as token of the blood
sun-dried upon these altar stones
in Mayan Chichén Itzá,
whose limestone pools
once filled with sacrificial bones
now cool the cohorts of a new invasion;
a turnstile tourist horde.
Highway is perhaps a misnomer. The road rises up, twisting and turning through the Guatemalan highlands, and clinging to the sides of mountains as it threads its circuitous path towards the border. Mostly it is metalled but in places it disintegrates into potholes and even sections of dirt track filled with broken rock, where the road has been swept away by earthquake and flood.
As has been the case throughout Guatemala, every inch of land is hand cultivated, with neatly terraced mountain slopes rising up behind small towns nestling in the valleys. The village people and field workers make bright specks of colour on the hillside with their traditional hand woven cloths, as they toil among the spikes of corn. For the last twenty or thirty miles we follow the course of a wide and muddy torrent which splashes, foaming over jagged boulders strewn about the riverbed that leads us to the border.
Formalities leaving Guatemala and crossing into Mexico are slow and protracted. Papers must be filled in, then pored over by officials before they receive the purple impress of a stamp. A few quetzales change hands on one side of the border; a few more pesos on the other. Eventually we are cleared to drive in a collective taxi the two miles across no-man’s land to Ciudad Cuauhtémoc on the Mexican side. Here we change to another minibus which takes us fifty miles farther on, to Comitán.
Three more times on the Mexican side we are stopped at military road blocks, spaced about five miles apart. Our passports are minutely examined by the sergeant while soldiers who look no more than fifteen or sixteen years old peer in through windows and poke amongst our suitcases with the butts of their rifles. Other watchful eyes look out from sandbagged machine gun emplacements fifty yards farther up the road, where a lever stands ready to raise spikes across the road should anyone decide to make a dash for it. Our driver says they are looking for illegal immigrants from El Salvador and searching, too, for drugs.
Throughout Chiapas there is clear evidence of a strong military presence. Perhaps it is an aftermath of the revolt five years earlier, in 1994, by the Mayan Indians of this region, in which armed rebels of a group calling itself the Zapatista National Liberation Army seized several towns and villages, kidnapping officials and destroying government offices. Resentment still runs high, with the Chiapans having good reason to mistrust the corrupt central government up north in Mexico City, although there is evidence that concessions have been made and an uneasy peace agreement reached.
At Comitán we change again for the final fifty miles into San Cristóbal de las Casas, at the heart of the Chiapas region of southern Mexico.
San Cristóbal has something of the architecture of La Antigua Guatemala, but on a larger, less intimate scale. The people are less open, more sullen and seem distrustful of foreigners. There are some magnificent churches and street markets here and it is easy to let the time slip away as we wander. Half a day is lost in the airline office of Air Caribe, negotiating the change in our tickets back to Cancún . The staff are friendly and most obliging, but they have to make many phone calls to head office before we are eventually able to get the tickets reissued. Here, as on so many occasions in the past ten days, Wendy’s ever more fluent Spanish is an invaluable tool in helping to resolve the muddle and to find an acceptable solution for us. But it all takes time.
Perhaps the most interesting part of our stay is a visit to Na Bolom, a house on the outskirts of the town. For many years it was the home of a Dutch archaeologist, Frans Blom, and his wife Trudy, a Swiss anthropologist and photographer who died here in 1993 at the age of 92. These two shared a passion for the Chiapas region and its Indians, and worked tirelessly to improve their lot. The house is full of photographs, archaeological and anthropological relics and books, but it is more than just a museum; it is also a research institute dedicated to continuing their work in the region. It takes a long walk down semi-deserted streets well away from the centre of town to find it, but the search is well repaid.
Amber is one of the specialities of the region, formed some 25 to 35 million years ago from the sap of the Courbaril tree and creating deposits in present day Chiapas. For years it has been used for medicine, the magic arts and religious rituals and has been considered to be an amulet for protection and good luck. It is with this in mind that at the very last moment I buy a bracelet and broach for Wendy, both set in curiously wrought Mexican silver and having deep within their hearts the fossilised remains of ancient life.
Soon afterwards, we board a bus to cross the mountains to Tuxtla Gutiérrez for our flight back to Cancún. Although only just over fifty miles, it is a two hour journey. At times we are driving through clouds, as they swirl around the mountain tops and hang over the valleys. When the clouds are like this, our driver tells us, it means that there will be much rain in the afternoon. He is not wrong!
Shortly after our arrival at Tuxtla’s airport the heavens open. For nearly an hour there is a torrential deluge which obliterates the view to the other side of the street. Ten minutes before we are due to board, an announcement is made over the P.A. in Spanish, to say that the airport has been closed. Our flight has been diverted into the larger Aeropuerto Llano San Juan, sixteen miles to the west. Wendy soon has us bundled into taxis which speed us through the outskirts of the city. In some places the roads have become raging torrents of orange mud and it seems doubtful that we will get through. However, we make it, and eventually get airborne for our flight via Villahermosa and Mérida, arriving in Cancún soon after sunset.
To our relief we are met at the airport and driven to the ferry terminal at Puerto Juárez for the twenty minute crossing to Isla Mujeres. There to meet us on the jetty with a huge smile of gold-capped teeth in a nut-brown wrinkled face is Fidel with his tricycle luggage cart. He escorts us to our condominium, two or three hundred yards west along the seafront, overlooking Playa Norte, better known locally - he tells us - as Naughty Beach. I wonder why?
The rooms are luxurious, air conditioned and well furnished with all modern conveniences. The balconies overlook a floodlit swimming pool, the beach and, further out beyond the reef, the distant lights of the mainland. As we sink down into comfortable beds it seems that our adventure is over at last.
The next morning, I wake early to that strange quiet that precedes the dawn. The beach is deserted but for a few Mexican pi dogs and a line of small wading birds bobbing and strutting at the edge of the surf. Sub-tropical breezes tug at coconut palms in the coral sand and dark wisps of cloud scud across the moon’s thin crescent in the east, as the morning star begins to fade, giving way to salmon and azure hues creeping across the sky. A growing chatter and trill of hidden birds heralds the arrival of the new day on this northern shore of the island, a sheltered lee. Waves break gently with a rhythmic murmur, and a solitary frigate bird spills the morning breeze from under the sharp angular outline of a wing as he dips and weaves to stay still.
This is my first taste of Isla Mujeres, the Island of Women, which is to be our home for the last week of the holiday. Legend has it that Caribbean pirates kept home comforts here while they plundered passing traders. Where are the pirates now? They have become the traders, in rows along the streets, their stalls brimming with bric-a-brac, T-shirts, wrought silver trinkets. They sell Mayan lace and woven blankets, wood carvings, and trips to the reef, to ancient ruins and to Cancún’s hotel strip.
‘Almost free!’ they lie, enticing another boatload of tourists from the mainland to part with precious dollars. Every half hour the fast boat comes with its new cargo of flesh oozing from floral prints, eager after twenty minutes on the high seas for group adventure, neatly packaged with free gifts and unmissable offers of three for the price of four. Traps for the unwary.
“Just 27 pesos, señor. I tell you what - I give you a special offer - three for 85 pesos - my best price. Come in and look around. See what you like.”
For our part, we sunbathe, swim and sip exotic cocktails in Charlie’s Bar, while casting sidelong glances at the nubile bodies on Naughty Beach and enjoying the feel of cool sand between the toes.
Towards the end of our stay we make an excursion back to the mainland to visit Chichén Itzá, the most famous and best restored of Yucatán’s Mayan sites. It is well that I should finish at Chichén Itzá for we came to Central America to follow the Mayan route, and this is a fitting end to it. The journey by car from Cancún is between two and three hours. We are lucky that it is a damp day with steady drizzle for much of the time. Blazing sun at the height of the day, combined with high tropical humidity could have made such a journey refined torture.
Unlike Tikal, Chichén Itzá is a major tourist destination. It is much more accessible, the ruins are far more recent and in better condition and consequently the whole place is overrun by visitors. Despite that, one cannot help but be impressed. People talk with much awe about the incredible alignment of these buildings to chart the course of the heavens, to divide the year into seasons based on the passage of the solstice, and of the ingenuity of the ancient race who devised our three hundred and sixty five day calendar. However, below the surface, one also feels the sweat and toil of human misery; those generations of conquered slaves upon whose bones and blood this place was built.
What now remains? A horde of visitors scrambling over the stones. High in the trees above the temples there is the curious click of the mot-mot bird, whose pendulous tail beats out time, in mockery of the faded magnificence and crumbling ruins of this once mighty civilisation.
It seems appropriate to finish with a short poem, and - of course - to thank those of you who have travelled with me for some or all of this Central American journey, these rambling reminiscences of an old man!
Chichén Itzá
Toltec temples ascend to gods guarding
the secrets of time.
What brave nation built so high above the jungle floor
to divide the years into precise segments,
and to appease the gods of their own imagination
with human sacrifice?
What splendour daubed this city and lit its walls with sound
as priests assumed the feathers of the Quetzal bird
- extinct emblem of their fallen dynasty -
and donned the hideous death mask of the jaguar,
stealing from the gods the panoply of power?
They assumed too much,
these human gods.
Some mightier force than they
has let run the sands of time,
wiped out the gaudy colours,
muted the mysterious echoes,
and replaced them with a jungle growth of vines,
the vibrant hue of flowers
and a brilliant flash of blue
that marks the mot-mot
clock bird,
sole tenant of the creviced stone,
who idly beats his pendulous tail
in mockery
and wears a russet chest
as token of the blood
sun-dried upon these altar stones
in Mayan Chichén Itzá,
whose limestone pools
once filled with sacrificial bones
now cool the cohorts of a new invasion;
a turnstile tourist horde.
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