I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write tonight before dozing off. It’s blowing a gale outside and, when I got back from my trip to Taxco quite late this evening, Socorro served me a delicious bowl of warming and soporific spicy corn soup. Now that I’m sitting cosy in my bed listening to the wind howl outside I’m feeling I could almost fall asleep right away. At the same time, though, I want to record something of the last two days before they pass me by and the next round of new experiences and feelings come upon me...
It’s Saturday today so there were no classes and I decided to head out to Taxco – a pretty little silver mining town about two hours away from Tepoztlan. Liliana, Socorro’s daughter, started me off on the first stage of my journey by dropping me off in Cuernavaca, the nearest sizeable town where she works. Then it was another case of me having to suss out and familiarise myself with Mexican transport. The ‘Estrella De Rojo’ bus to and from Taxco was very comfortable (and the children’s film they showed helpful for my Spanish - featuring the adventures of 5 little golden Labrador puppies, one of whom defends himself from his foes by farting on them!). Using ‘collectivos’, though, as I learned to do when I actually got to Taxco, was a lot more interesting. These are small Volkswagen vans that drive up and down and around all the main roads in Mexican towns, picking up passengers on an ad-hoc basis and charging about 4 pesos (less than 20p) for you to be dropped off wherever you want en-route. They can get quite packed (and the drivers will stop here there and everywhere to pick up more fares, so they can also be kind of tardy). However, they are a fun and cheap way of getting around – with the drivers and passengers usually liking to ‘charlar un poco’ (chat a bit) as the collectivo rattles along.
Taxco was definitely worth the day-trip - but probably not much more. I started off with the gilt and gore heavy cathedral - and I say gore because Mexican churches seem to go in for very gruesome waxwork depictions of Christ on the cross and the martyrdom of various saints (a trait also reflected in Mexico’s local and national press, where newspaper reports of murders or assaults are usually accompanied by unsavoury blood and guts colour photos of the victims!). Then, I passed some time in two small museums – one about Taxco’s silver mining history and the other focusing more on the town’s general past, particularly around the time of the Spanish conquests. This could have been a little dry but a very enthusiastic little old Mexican lady gave me a bit of a personal tour and, besides, everything is proving good practise for my Spanish at the moment – whether it is reading Cosmo or learning about Cortes!
The rest of the day was spent pretty much admiring all the silver that was for sale in the town (apparently this is one of the best places in the world to buy the precious metal). Shopping venues ranged from exclusive and contemporary boutiques to ramshackle market stalls. The market was definitely the most interesting place, but you could barely move for people bustling about, and for vendors trying to sell tacos, cakes, fruits and sweeties amongst the jewellery and tableware. I bought myself some new silver hoop earrings which I hope will stay shinier and tarnish less than the cheap and cheerful ones I tend to keep buying back in the UK (always when I lose the pair before - I will have to take good care of these new ones). I nearly got roped into buying many other things, but managed to avoid it – particularly in a shop where a taxi driver dropped me off for ‘free’ (obviously in cahoots with the shop's owner!) after I went up the ‘teleferico’ (which, as I hope my pictures show, gave the best views of Taxco and its lovely hillside surroundings). I should have known better as this kind of ploy reminded me of previous times in Istanbul and Egypt when, upon asking for directions, I, oops, somehow always ended up in someone’s carpet or perfume shop! However, in this particular store, after listening to a lot of chat about hallmarks and mining techniques, I managed to sneak away without parting with any more cash. In general, from what I’ve experienced so far, the atmosphere in Mexican markets and shops isn’t as ‘hassly’ or pressurised as other places I’ve been to in the past.
So, that was today – pretty full and fairly tiring, particularly after yesterday, when, upon returning from classes, I went out on an unexpectedly long, but very interesting walk with Socorro and her granddaughter, Dariana. First we went through the town and then all the way out under the ‘autopista’ (motorway) tunnel to the outskirts of the 'pueblo' where Socorro grew up. She was raised in pretty basic conditions it seems (if my translation and understanding were correct she talked about her house consisting of 4 pillars of wood with a canopy over it). However, times appear to have changed, and her old neighbourhood certainly looks like it is improving, with posh holiday homes for wealthy Americans beginning to crop up.
I hope it doesn't spoil things too much as Tepoztlan really is a place that continues to blow me away everyday with its natural and mystical beauty (oh, and, fact-finders and Bright Eyes aficionados like me – I have discovered that this is where Conor Oberst and his aptly named ‘Mystic Valley Band’ recorded their recent album). From a distance the hills look like heads of broccoli, or the soft green patches of moss you find on damp stones in the woods. The land just seems to be so fertile and the trees so abundant here... Tepoztlan is also a place where UFOs are supposed to have been sighted. I’d read a little bit about this in my guidebook, and seen some tacky postcards with UFOs on in the town. In halting Spanish, I managed to talk a little bit about it to Socorro (who recognised the claims but then laughed them off – I think they have much to do with all the hippies and New-Agers around here). Dariana also had plenty to say about martians and OVNIs, as UFOs are known here.
Aged 9, Dariana really is a lovely kid and a pleasure to be around. She’s very bright, confident and curious and was happy to take hold of my hand and chat away to me yesterday while we walked through Tepoztlan (spending time with children is great when learning a language as you can get away with speaking slowly and sticking to the simple stuff – no politics, religion or philosophy, just favourite colours, animals and pop stars!). In fact, quite interestingly, at the beginning of our walk, once she’d seen that we’d hit it off, Socorro sent Dariana and I off to wander around the shops and buy sweets with while she waited to meet with a ‘muchacha’ (young woman) who she apparently needed to talk to. Socorro told me a few days ago that she and some other women in the town ran a kind of money lending club and she explained yesterday, when we all reconvened, that this particular woman owed them some money. Let’s just say I hope she paid up! Socorro is a wonderful hostess, who has definitely been very warm and hospitable towards me. However, I think she has a certain standing in the community around here and I doubt you’d want to get on the wrong side of her. Later in the evening, as I was leaving to go out for drinks with some of the other students, she told me that if anyone in the street tried to ‘molestar’ (hassle or bother) me, I was to tell them that I was living with her as her guest. “People around here respect me,” she said, very sternly – and I didn’t doubt it (I had indeed seen, during our walk, that absolutely everyone in Tepoztlan knows her and shows a certain sort of reverence when they speak to her). In fact, if there was a Mexican mafiosa I would not be at all surprised if Socorro's family were part of it, with their sidelines in money lending clubs, taxi-driving, and selling off land for development (something else she has told me she is doing – flogging one of the lego-block extensions in her home to an American woman)! However, rather than thinking about it too much, I’m just going to make the most of the sense of security and kudos that being taken into the bosom of this very fascinating family gives me. Yes, I don’t think anyone would dare to ‘molest’ me if they knew they would have Socorro (or her sumo-wrestler built son, Juan Carlos) to answer to!
Luckily no-one did as I made the walk down to Pascal’s bar to meet a few of the others from the school for a drink on Friday night. It was a nice evening, buoyed up by good conversation and some particularly potent but very well made margaritas. This was the first time, I think, that I have drunk tequila since I was a student. It was a good reintroduction, though, even if it made for a wobbly walk home…
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