I love travelling, and by that I mean I love just sitting on the bus and going places, relaxing in my seat, watching the fields and towns and people bounce by. I especially love the second-class buses: they are slower, and cheaper, and stop more often, and more people get on and off.
That said, the four-bus, eight-hour trek from Ajijic to Chapala to an offramp near Santa Rosa to La Barca to Uruapan was a bit tiring. By the way, that's pronounced "oor-wah-PAN". Don't say "oor-OO-wah-pan" or the bus driver will make fun of you.
Just a kilometer from Uruapan's central plaza, in the midst of this city's horrible traffic and 200,000 inhabitants, is an oasis. It is called Eduardo Ruiz National Park, and it is every adjective to which a forest aspires: lush, green, fertile, leafy, verdant, mysterious, mossy, cool, refreshing, relaxing...
The park is a network of cobblestone pathways and aqueducts running through a forest of palm and pine and fir and fern, and bisected by a roaring river. The river's source is within the park -- a mysterious calm spring called El Rodillo del Diablo ("The Devil's Kneeprint"). There are fountains and foodstalls, all embraced in the rich greenery of the forest. There's a fish hatchery, where speckled trout await consumption at the restaurant next door. On a Thursday morning there are a few wanderers such as myself, more joggers, and the odd horde of schoolchildren. On Sundays I'm sure this place is packed.
I'm sitting on an ancient stone bench at at the bottom of some cobblestone steps, with my back against a tall rock wall. My feet are up on another rock wall, this one only a foot high, and below my feet runs the river. I'm in a small canyon, and to my right the river runs over a low waterfall. Everywhere is green: the mossy rocks, the broad-leafed plants, the tall treees. This place is refreshing, relaxing, and secluded, a place of solitude and restoration. I'm designating this bench one of my favourite places on the planet.
I like this town. It is large, but manageable -- like Oaxaca. I spent the day walking through the market, which was a more traditional one: more vegetables, more herbs, and I even saw the squash flowers we used to make soup in the cooking class in Oaxaca. There also seem to be an unusual number of "magic" shops, selling talismans, powders, candles and charms to accomplish specific goals by otherwordly means.
After the market I took a cab to Plaza de Los Américas, which I assumed was a shopping center, 'cause that's what the guidebook said. As we left the downtown the streets became wider, and the road took on the look of a classic North American business boulevard. We arrived at the shopping center, but it was tiny. They did have a movie theatre, though, and Charlie's Angels was starting in five minutes, so I went in. Man, what a bad movie.
I was up this morning at 8, and returned to the same market as yesterday for breakfast. I had freshly blendered juice and a greasy torta. It was delicious. This market is a small one, selling only food, and I'm sure I'll be there for breakfast tomorrow.
I walked to the center of town and caught a local bus out to the bus station, and then got on the bus to Paracho, a small town fifty kilometers to the north. As we wound our way up out of the valley I could see small volcanic stumps of mountains, poking up out of the valley floor like afterthoughts. They were all typically conical, with cratered tops, and most were just a few hundred meters high.
After an hour we arrived in Paracho and I got out to explore. There were a lot of indigenous people about, from the Purepécha clan, and the women all wore beautiful black-and-blue-striped blankets. I considered buying one, because it was downright cold up in the mountains, but I'd never seen one for sale and in any event the sun quickly turned things from cold to hot.
Paracho is famous for its guitars. Whether that's because they make good guitars or because they make lots of guitars is hard to say (but I've been assured it's the former). There certainly were a lot of guitar shops, although half were shuttered. Several were filled with wood shavings and half-finished guitars, and sometimes one could see the craftsman at work.
I cruised craft stores, seeing what was there. They certainly had more than guitars, including curved mexican basses, mandolin, violins, and ukeleles. I saw one mandolin made from an armadillo shell (not sure if I could get that through customs) and a small guitar made from half of a gourd. There were other wooden crafts, too: children's toys, lacquered boxes, bowls, wooden spoons of all sizes, and masks. The latter caught my eye -- huge wooden masks were only sixty pesos, but after a bit of deliberation I decided to pass. I had a midmorning snack of pozole in the plaza, and then caught the bus back to Uruapan.
My afternoon was planned to be spent at Tzaráracua, a waterfall down the road, but on the way back into town I saw a billboard advertising the annual Avocado Fair, and so I headed there instead. The bus trundled to the outskirts of town, and dropped me off. I was very excited. The Avocado Fair! Uruapan bills itself as the Avocado Capital of the World, and I was having fantasies of all you can eat guacamole. Come to think of it, what else can you do with avocadoes? Plain and raw, in sandwiches, salads, and soups, or make guacamole. I was eager to see what other strange uses the fair would reveal... mmm... guacamole...
Alas, there was not a single avocado to be found. The Avocado Fair is just like a typical county fair, with rides and fried food and prize-winning bulls. And, it wasn't even open yet.
I've coined a new word: genevic. It's official definition is: "to expend energy with no useful result". But when applied to travelling, it means to walk around and around, revisiting the same places, because you can't find anything better to do. The activity is so named because that's exactly what I did when I visited Geneva.
As you might guess, I went genevic today and that, as usual, put me in a mildly bad mood. I returned to my hotel but I was out of books, and the TV was showing an incomprehensible Mexican soap opera, and I was tired of seeing the same old stuff in every city, and lonely. I went to bed early.
Today I climbed a volcano, but that was the easy part.
After breakfast at my usual torta and juice stands, I collected some bread and fruit from the market and headed off to the bus stop. I caught the bus to Angahuan (ANG-a-wan), and as soon as I got off the bus a guide pretty much assigned himself to me. We and his horse walked up the road towards the town, talking about the tour. Up the mountain, to the church, two horses, something I didn't catch... we did some negotiations, he basically wouldn't budge from his price, and so I agreed to pay too much.
With that settled we stopped at a house to pick up my horse. After a few minutes my guide reappeared with my (hopefully) trusty steed. Without further ado he instructed me to hop aboard, then handed me the knotted rope that was the reins. "Left. Right. Stop," he said, demonstrating the operational modes of my vehicle. Then, we were off.
My horse was a salty black, not too big, and walked with a comfortable roll. After a few minutes, though, it broke into what I believe is a canter, or maybe a trot, and then the torture began. As it picked up the pace its gait left me bouncing on the saddle, with the hard leather slapping my ass twice each second. My lower verterbrae were accordianing up and down, my head rolled about like one of those head-on-a-spring souvenir gadgets, and my backpack lurched in time on my shoulders. I looked ahead to Jessie, my guide, and his horse was doing the same thing, and he looked as comfortable as can be. I tried standing in stirrups, but that was too tiring and the horse gave me a funny look. The heavy thumping has making it hard to breathe, and now I had to pee.
We trotted through Angahuan, a Purépecha village. Children watched me ride by but didn't return my smile; announcements blared over a loudspeaker in the Purépecha language; my ass-whooping continued. Occasionally the horse would walk, and occasionally it would trot, and I can only assume it knew what it was doing.
We stopped at the major embarcation point, where tourist buses were lined up, and I relieved my abused bladder. I climbed back aboard my stallion (name, starts with a 'p', unpronounceable). We descended gingerly down a rutted path into the forest, following the dusty trail through thin trees. We picked up the pace we passed a wild cloud of hornet buzzing around a nest. The trail turned into a road, and we followed it through corn fields and green avocado groves.
I learned a bit about my horse. It preferred to walk in the middle of the road, where the sand was softest. It liked to go fast on the uphill, and slow on the downhill. It broke into a bone-jarring trot at every opportunity -- but I was starting to adjust. Leaning back in the saddle took some of the pressure off my back, and flapping my arms like a chicken, just like you see the cowboys do in the movies, seemed to help as well. Occasionally my horse would let out a heavy sigh or two (and I don't blame it, having to bounce all two hundred pounds of me and cargo along the trail), and I could hear the occasional whistle of his tail through the air. Behind me, Jessie urged his horse on with kissy noises and clicks, and occasionally said "ooz," which I presume is Purépecha for "giddy-up".
The mountain loomed in the distance, but it was only a minor looming. Other mountains were taller, but Paricutín was such a recent volcano that its smooth black cone stood out in sharp contrast to the surrounding forested hills. In fact, Paricutín is about the same age as my parents: it was born on February 20, 1943 when a farmer noticed a spitting hole in his field. He tried to cover up the hole, but that didn't work, and soon he and the whole village took the hint and fled. The volcano grew until 1952, and since then it has emitted only wispy steam.
We entered the lava field, following an ashen grey flat toward the base of the mountain. Jumbles of sharp, bubbly lava rock emerged from the ash and stretched into the distance. Trees had taken root among the boulders, and grass filled in some of the sandier spots. We continued on, and the mountain seemed incredibly far away. My body was aching from the bouncing abuse, and now the stomach-churning jostling was giving me heartburn. The horse alternated between a merciful walk and a tortuous trot, as it saw fit, and slowly we approached the volcano. Once, as we climbed out of an arroyo, the horse gave me a glimpse of a clean, powerful gallop. It lasted just a few steps, though, just a tease, and then the trotting resumed.
Our pace was good. We passed a few other guided tourists on horses, and some flashily dressed cyclists. At the sight of the cyclists I wondered two things: first, why do bicyclists think they can wear the most godawful loud and ugly shirts just because they are bicyclists? Second, just what did they think they were doing out here, in a field of deep powdery sand, on bicycles? Alas, neither question was asked or answered and we trotted on.
Finally we reached the base of the mountain. Jessie tied up his horse while I expertly made mine almost stop. He held the reins while I dismounted, and upon touching terra firma I discovered I could no longer walk. My knees and thighs screamed at the injustice of being suddenly thrust into what, at one point, had been a perfectly acceptable posture. Fortunately, their objections were short-lived and after a bit of convincing they agreed to let me walk.
Jessie scrambled off into the lava field, leading me around the base of the mountain. After a few minutes we reached a patch of steaming white rocks. This was one of the many natural vents that dot the mountain and surrounding lava fields. Jessie called the collection of vents a "little volcano", but was firm in stating that the stumpy remnants of volcanoes that littered the valley floor were not, in fact, volcanoes, but were just hills. Note that Jessie is not a geologist.
We began our assault upon the mountain proper, heading straight up the immense pile of gravel. Sharp lava rock led up and up. Pieces ranged from finger-sized to fist-sized to face-sized to fanny-sized. Jessie scrambled ahead of me, then stopped, while I employed a more orthodox slow-and-steady pace. The rocks slid underfoot, making both balance and progress tenuous. The mountain, though, was not big, and after twenty minutes we reached the top.
We gazed down into the giant conical crater, then circumnavigated the several-hundred-meter-in-diameter rim, then sat to enjoy the view. I gave Jessie my extra water bottle; the day was cloudy and one bottle was plenty for me. I also offered him some food, but he wasn't interested, and so I sat and munched on some fresh buns and partook of the vista.
A black lava field stretched out below us, and to the left was another volcano, looking very much like a big pile of sand. The lava field smoked and steamed in places, and at its farthest ends it was dotted with green. Beyond the lava were corn and avocado fields, and then conical stumps of ancient volcanoes, with the odd hamlet nestled in the middle, and then larger mountains stretching off into a blue haze.
After a while we descended. It took about two minutes: we leaped down a giant sandy wash, bounding in great soft leaps towards the base. Sandy black ash filled my shoes; the wind filled my hair. I couldn't remember running ever feeling as easy as this. In no time we were back with the horses. I fed each a carrot, then we remounted and were on our way.
By this point being on the horse almost felt natural. I could tell when it was going to trot or walk, and my body had started to understand how to accomodate the bouncing beast beneath me. Still, on some long stretches where the horse got bouncing a bit too much, I pulled on the reins and requested a nice, relieving walk -- if only for a few seconds.
After an hour or so we reached the remains of the village of San Juan. It had been buried in the lava flow, and all that remained was the church's tower, standing like a shipwreck in a frozen boiling sea of black.
Again we climbed onto our horses and continued on. We were now in the home stretch. Another man road alongside Jessie and they talked in Purépecha. It sounded like a combination of Chinese and backwards English. We rode back through the cobblestone streets of Angahuan, and I was riding with flair now, my free hand back and to the side, flapping in time to the horse, almost counterbalancing the blows to my body.
We finally reached my horse's home, nearly five hours after departing. I paid Jessie and we unceremoniously departed. He'd been a good guide, if a little quiet and brisk, and I'd let him overcharge me, but I'd had a great time learning how to ride a horse (oh, and climbing the volcano).
I left Uruapan after paying a final visit to my regular torta and juice place. My whole body hurt from the previous day's excursion: my neck, my shoulders, my back, and my legs. I wasn't in the mood for much walking, so I took a cab to the bus station and then caught a bus to Patzcuaro, about an hour away.
Patzcuaro is an old, old town set on a lake of the same name. The buildings in the central area are all a uniform two-tone white and red, which is quaint but a little monotonous. Ancient churches abound, as do craft shops, both of which are the legacy of Vasco de Quiroga. He was a bishop in the mid-1500's who was sent to this region to clean up the mess left by the notoriously cruel conquistador, Nuño de Guzman. Using ideas from Sir Thomas More's Utopia, Quiroga setup village cooperatives and encouraged each village to develop a craft specialty. He also commissioned a special statue of the Virgin, to be installed in his basilica, made out of a corncob-and-honey paste. This statue now has a reputation for performing miracles, and when I visited pilgrims were climbing the stairs behind the statue to touch the Virgin's cape and wash themselves in its healing aura.
All the Mexican towns are starting to look the same. Central plaza, big old churches, markets, taco stands. I find myself wandering around and around, and I don't really see anything any more. The food is usually interesting, but I can't always eat. I'm out of books and so I can't just sit and relax and read. I'm lonely, too -- meeting people so far off the beaten backpacker trail is a daunting prospect. I'm looking forward to Morelia, where I'll be staying for a while with friends, and I'm sure they have a store with English books.
Morelia felt like a vacation. That sounds strange, I know -- to many people, I've been doing nothing but vacationing for the past 5 weeks. But travelling in Mexico isn't always relaxing, and it isn't always fun, and sometimes it is even hard work. But in Morelia I was able to unwind, relax, and just enjoy being somewhere. I didn't explore the city much. I didn't update my website. I didn't even write in my journal. Instead, I read books, and watched the Mexican soccer winter championships, which Morelia eventually won, and enjoyed the comraderie of the religious brothers with whom I was staying.
Sometimes I walked the streets with Rafa, a 30 year old priest and friend of the family. It was like being with Clark Kent -- to the casual observer, he looks like a mild-mannered man, with a big, earnest face and kind eyes. But underneath, he is SuperHolyMan, able to forgive sins with a single wave of his hand. Rafa enjoys being just one of the regular folk, and doesn't like to abuse or even recognize the position in society he has earned with the white collar he never wears. On my first night in Morelia we went to a friend's house and played dominoes, drank beer, and ate fried pork skins, and as they swore back and forth about my inept domino-playing ability, it was easy to forget as I was amidst holy men.