Veracruz Update #2

I’ve been seduced by the lure of being busy. It’s easy really. I make lists of things to do and places to go and as I travel this lists just get longer. For every item I check off, I meet someone or see something that adds another three items. Since last I wrote I have visited the Naval Museum and the Veracruz City Museum, found a really cool looking arts cinema, and attended a traditional afternoon dance at the Zocalo. I also met some scary clowns, was offered a job teaching English to local tour guides, and inadvertently attended a hot air balloon race (from the ground.) I went to the beach again and finally put my germafobia on hold long enough to enjoy time in the water. With all that accomplished I still have not managed to complete one single phone call to any of the people I am supposed to be in contact with. Is mercury in retrograde?

Despite all the new experiences, I don’t feel overwhelmed or hurried. I contemplate my plan, but once I know what my day is about I just go to it.  I am more present here and now than I have been in a long time. This is what travel does for me. It’s like an ongoing meditation. I pack a book and my journal in my purse because I eat most of my meals alone and today I wasn’t sure how long I would be on the bus, but I didn’t read a single page.

I realize reading is what I do to escape and here I don’t want to escape anything, I want to engage. Yesterday was my big adventure. I set an alarm to wake up at 7:00AM, but I was awake before then. I took my time getting ready, but then I caught a cab to the second class bus station and got on a bus to Cardel. There is something a little nerve wracking about getting on a bus to a place you’ve never been before. I’m always afraid I’ll miss it or I’ll fall asleep, but to my surprise this time I didn’t feel the same anxiety. While I am definitely a gringa with a very non-Mexican accent, my Spanish is clear enough and I ask a lot of questions. I felt confident that I would arrive where I needed to be and like magic, an hour later I arrived in the main plaza of Cardel, a small town just waking up. Most of the shops were still closed, but I bought a ham and cheese pastry from a street vendor, it was still warm, and I sat on a park bench enjoying the quiet of the morning.

Two men approached me, one in a wheel chair. He handed me a flyer and launched into a well-rehearsed spiel about how this organization had helped him get a job and could I donate. He couldn’t get all the way through before finally giving up and saying “Your hair. It’s like cotton. I just love it.”  The other man agreed and they had a short conversation about it that made me laugh. I gave them a few pesos, but they lingered to chat with me about the US and the weather, nothing deep. Then I said my goodbyes and caught a cab to the ruins of Cempoala. The cab driver looked a bit like the Mexican version of my Dad except that he had tattoos on both arms. He was also chatty and eager to tell me how to catch a collective cab back for a fraction of what he charged me. He showed me where to wait and what to say then left me at the door of the ruins.

It was a bit creepy. Unlike the crush of people loitering on the boardwalk, enjoying the beach or cramming the sidewalks to shop in the plazas and the Zocalo in Veracruz, Cempaola at first glance was empty. Sunday in a Catholic country…nothing looked open. Even the ruins didn’t look open. There was no one at the door to the park or the museum, so I just let myself in. Thankfully I found a tour group mid tour, so I tagged along and caught some basic explanations about the Totonac people and the layout of their city. What’s left of it was buried, exhumed, and in some part reconstructed by the government. There were no fences. You could easily climb to the top of any of the temples, but the guide implored us not to in order to preserve the sight for future visitors. The sun had just begun to peak, so I found a grove of short palm trees to shade me as I listened. Too soon it ended but then came five men dressed in brightly colored garb playing drums and the flute. Four were there to perform a Totonac special ceremony; the fifth was there to collect 15 pesos from anyone who wanted to see it.

I gave my donation, but asked him to at least explain it to me. From where I stood it just seemed like they were playing and dancing around a pole. Turns out each man represented an element…earth, water, wind, air and they were all integral to asking God to send rain and bless the crops with fertility. In order to do this the each climbed up the pole which was pretty tall, then took some long ropes and wrapped them around the top of the pole.

“Van a volar,” The fifth guy told me. They are going to fly. And so they did…I took video.

After that the tour left and I was really on my own. It was nice to get to visit the ruins that way. Peaceful.  I stopped by the small museum and then put my cab driver’s instructions to good use by wedging myself into a cab carrying no less than 7 people. From Cardel I attempted to catch a bus to Quiahuitzlan, but when I tried to tell the lady where I wanted to go she didn’t know where it was (bad sign). She decided I need to be on a bus to Villa Rica, so that’s what I did and it took me right to the entrance of Quiahuitzlan.

As soon as I got off the bus, I kind of wished I hadn’t. Quiahuitzlan is in the middle of nowhere. Literally, it’s a bus stop on a highway. As soon as the bus pulled away there was no traffic in either direction just a sign with a pyramid and an arrow up an empty road. There were signs on both sides, so I crossed the street because on that side of the road there were two houses and what looked like a farm or a ranch. I was told I could catch a cab that would take me up the mountain to the ruins, but looking around I realized that was an overstatement. There was no cab, no truck, no bus, no traffic. I lingered a few minutes but the only sound was of cicadas. I walk a little ways up the path and ran into an elderly couple sitting outside beneath a tree.

Man: Hey.

Me: Hey.

Man: Where are you going?

Me: Quiahuitzlan.

Woman: To the ruins? (As if there were anything else in the vicinity)

Me: Yeah.

Woman: How are you going to get there?

Me: I thought I’d catch a cab.

Man: Probably not, they both laughed revealing a handful of teeth between them. It’s a long walk. Walk slow so you don’t get too hot or you can ask the lady at the hotel.

Woman: Where are you from?

I still don’t know where this mythical hotel is. And it was a long walk, all up hill, winding through a quiet forest with very large spiders and noisy lizards skittering through the underbrush. The road was paved. I don’t think I would have dared if it weren’t. And just when I thought I was really alone, a car would appear out of nowhere to drive past me. I don’t approve of hitchhiking in general, but when you’re hiking up a big ass mountain to get to the exact same place that every car is going to….well don’t worry mom no one picked me up. I walked every step and was covered in sweat from head to toe.

At the top was an incredible view. I could see all the way to Villa Rica. Then as is usually true, from the mountain climbed were the steps of the mountain left to climb. I took a break by the tombs. A man was selling fresh coconut, but I opted for water and sat in the shade to catch my breath. When I was ready I continued to explore the ruins, walking up stone steps to find another set of tombs mostly inhabited by large frolicking butterflies whose wings clapped as they ran into each other.

 The other tourists were all Mexican and tried to stare at me without staring. At first no one would look me in the eye…then finally a woman approached me and apologized to me.

“We saw you walking, but there are 10 people in our car. I felt so ugly to have passed you.”

That broke the ice. Then everyone wanted to talk to me and take my picture. Turns out the lady lived in Canada for several years and had been to Seattle. She was on vacation with her husband and his family touring the sights the way we might go to Yellowstone.    

“Why are you so strong?” she asked me. I didn’t know what to say. “You walked all that way. I couldn’t do it,” she said.

I don’t feel particularly strong. In fact, Mexican bootcamp has a way of showing me just how out of shape I am. Today I went back to Zumba and yeah...it wore me out. But something I did notice, they maybe has nothing to do with the strength it takes to walk up a big hill is the unexpected absence of fear. The first few weeks I lived in Spain, I would enjoy each day to the fullest then come home and in the privacy of my tiny room, hyperventilate from all the newness. It was the same when I arrived in Japan. It’s like when you look up at the sky and realize just how tiny you are in comparison. Traveling has a way of illustrating the immensity of the world. It is so big and there are so many people in it living so many different lives. Yet those small connections and seemingly trivial conversations bring the world back down to a manageable size.

That’s the point right? Strangely I have arrived at a place in life where the world feels manageable and even with all the complications of busses and telephones and the great unknowns and unexpected, I just have this feeling that everything is working out exactly the way it’s supposed to. Today after Zumba David and his cousin Gabriel invited me to their home for lunch. We talked about my program and he has several families he thinks would be interested in hosting our youth. I have prepared an application and will hopefully be hosting a meeting to introduce myself to them this weekend. In the meantime, I am headed to Xalapa tomorrow. It's coming together. :)