Just Trying to Get By, Puebla

"TAMALES ATOLE TAMALEEEEES!!!" I hear in a low, gurgled voice over a loudspeaker. "TAMALES ATOLE TAMALEEEEES!!!" It’s coming from a salesman riding his tricycle down the street in front of my house, selling coffee-like drinks and breakfast tamales. He's there every day at the same time, so it must be 7am, time to get out of bed and get ready for work.

Over the next half hour I slowly wake myself up. I soon hear the song of the natural gas truck getting closer, selling cylinders of gas for 200 pesos, its tune still stuck in my head from the day before. Over its loudspeaker I hear "El Gaaas", the sound crescending upward. Its followed by "Hidrogas..." I eventually get the courage to put on some clothes, go into the cold courtyard behind our house, turn on our gas and light the water boiler. Luckily there's still gas and I don't have to flag the truck down as it roles by. And, thankfully, I didn’t have to fight off Fifi, the landlord’s screeching, biting, obnoxious white poodle.

At 9am I leave the house and start the journey to the office. The woman in the apartment on one side of my home is rolling up the white metal gate to the pharmacy that she runs from her front room. On the weekends, she sits at the register with her sister's ten year old daughter, helping her with her homework while her sister is at work somewhere else. On the other side of my house a grandmother sets up a table with homemade "jugos y gelatinas", selling them for ten pesos each. The front door is open to her living room where you can buy all sorts of salty and sugary snacks. The two women that usually sit at the corner under a tarp as they bake handmade blue corn tortillas, or if you ask, add cheese, beans, and crispy chicharon to make quesadillas, haven't yet arrived. It's still early and their food is more of a lunch than a breakfast.

I wait at the corner for the bus. I pick the first one going to the CAPU bus terminal because it will go by my office and it usually doesn't take more than two minutes before one comes by. The bus might be white, green, red, purple, or any number of other color combinations. This time, it's a bright yellow number 10. As it comes closer I wave and it slams on its breaks, pulling over near the sidewalk. I jump on quickly and hold on tight. I hand the bus driver ten pesos for a six peso ride. As the bus starts speeding forward, the driver collects my money, makes my change and hands me my bus ticket. He steers the bus back into traffic, closing in on 40 or 50 miles per hour, all the while shifting gears on the manual transmission. He is talking to the dispatcher on a cell phone held between his head and his shoulder. The amazing thing is that he only has one arm, and it’s his left arm, on the opposite side of the gear shift and the boarding passengers with money.

The bus driver isn't going to wait for me - or the eighty year old grandmother behind me - to get on and sit down before speeding back up. The bus driver isn't just some jerk though; he either owns the bus or rents it from the bus company. He is just one of maybe thirty bright yellow number 10s, and one of a hundred buses with the same route, all competing for customers. The money he makes is is spent on the licensing fee for renting the bus, the taxes paid to the municipality for operating the bus, and the gas that the bus burns to speed down crowded streets during traffic jams. The leftover money is the "profit." If he gets stuck behind another bus on his route, he gets no passengers. Sometimes, two buses line up side by side and race down the street, not stopping for new passengers until one gets far enough ahead to beat the other through stoplight as it turns red, stranding the loser.

After I get my change I struggle down the narrow aisle as the bus bounces down the poorly paved road at very high speeds. I finally find a seat somewhere near the back. It isn't long before someone gets on the bus offering to sell a CD of banda music or rancheros, burned on her computer from downloaded MP3s. She demonstrates the CDs with the stereo and speakers she has hooked up around her waist. It’s only twenty pesos, but I really don't need the CD, so I pass. Sometimes it’s live music; a teenage boy with a guitar, a two-piece mariachi band, or a blind person singing a hymn about the grace of god, asking for whatever change you have left from the bus ticket. Sometimes it’s a man trying sell "cacahuates", or even "papas", ready to add salsa and limón to your peanuts and potato chips if you ask. Or maybe it’s an old man, down on his luck, asking for two pesos, or five. Anything you can spare.

About 25 minutes later, after going past the round-a-bout at dangerously high speeds, I stand up, press the button above me to signal that I want to get off, hold on tight as the bus comes to a halt, then jump off as fast as I can as the bus never really comes to a complete stop.

As I walk down the road towards the office, a stray dog, a beautiful golden retriever, catches up and waits for the light to turn red with me at the corner. I wonder if it’s one of the same dogs that kept me up all night while they held their neighborhood watch meeting; apparently cats aren't welcomed on my block. The dog's obviously in a rush. He's panting heavily and his tongue is drooping out of his open mouth. He's got places to go, things to do, people to see. Maybe he's off to another important meeting, or getting home to his family after working the all-night shift at factory. I half expect it to turn to me and ask "Hey, need any CDs? How 'bout a cell phone? Sweet bread maybe? I have four puppies for sale..." But then, if he could talk, he probably wouldn’t speak English. It isn't scared; he glances up at me out of the corner of his eye but quickly looks back at the light. It's smart enough to know not to test traffic in Puebla and as soon as the light turns he takes off faster than me.

I reach the office and chat with the guard out front. I've been teaching him English. One of his first assignments was to write a brief story of his life in English. In his story he said that he was 33 years old, married and had two kids. It said that when he first got married, he and his wife were very poor. They often went many days without food and could never afford new clothes or medicine. However, he said that since he got the job as the office guard, everything changed. His wife is happy, his kids are healthy, and he built a new addition to his parent’s house that he now lives in.

One of the janitor ladies walks by and I say hello. I've been trying to find a time to help her learn English and teach her how to use a computer. She is really interested but hasn't been able to find a good day for a class. She cleans our office from 8am to 4pm, then goes to another office on the other side of the city and cleans it until 8pm. She tells me that a weekend day might be right, but she works Saturdays and takes care of her daughter's kids on Sundays; so far it hasn't worked out.

After work, I head to the "centro." The historic downtown of Puebla is beautiful; blocks and blocks of three to four-story buildings, all hundreds of years old and ornately decorated with blue "talavera" ceramic tiles made in one of the artisan workshops nearby. Massive chapels tower over zocalos and pedestrian walkways that are booming with all sorts of people looking for something to do, eat, or sell. Street performers attract crowds on every corner. Only a small number of the people are tourists, exploring an undiscovered, vibrant downtown filled with outdoor markets, museums and cafes that would be world famous if it were in one of the calm and "well-planned" cities in the United States.

At the markets, vendors shout out what they are selling and how much it costs. One woman yells "Dulces! Pasteles! Chocolates!" Another man nearby yells "Camotes!” and quickly repeats the price “a diez a diez a diez!" On the side streets, indigenous women in colorful dresses ask for money - or food - to help them support them and their infants that are hanging on their backs, wrapped tight in a bright red cloth tied around the mother's chest. Another man holds out a hat for change as his son plays the accordion for people walking by. A boy, no more than six years old, walks from table to table at a streetside restaurant asking if anyone would like to buy "chicles", or bubblegum. His younger brother is close at hand.

The streets of Puebla are full of life, sometimes heartbreakingly difficult life, but often persevering, beautiful and uplifting life. People are out walking, no matter what time of day. They are shopping, hanging out with their friends, or going to work. Kids play on the sidewalks. The sound of laughter and music is everywhere. Newspaper stands line the streets. The mouthwatering smell of grilled tacos, cemitas, and tortas fills the air. Roadside food stands are lit up at night, with steam billowing off the large soup cauldrons and smoke flowing off the orange flames. There are always lines for the best food. The people are all trying to run businesses, do their jobs, and feed their families. They're all just trying to get by.

End of Week 27 - Cuetzalan, Pueblo Magico

I realized that I had forgotten to pack my swim shorts. I held up my backpack; it was completely full. I sifted through it to see if there was something I could leave behind. Socks, shirts, water... No, I needed all of that. But my winter hat? I wouldn't need that where we were going. The decision was easy; out came my hat and in went my swimsuit.

Two hours into our bus ride to tropical Cuetzalan, as the sun was almost completely set, the road dipped through the mountains and the bus started down the Gulf slope. We were enveloped in a thick fog almost immediately. The bus windows became covered with condensation. As I wiped away the droplets of water with my jacket sleeve I could see that we had entered a tropical jungle; dense foliage, bromeliads, and tree ferns lined the road. I could also see people along the way, illuminated by the buses headlights. But, confusingly, they were bundled up in heavy winter coats, their breath visible as puffs of condensation and they were all clearly shivering. How was it that we were going down thousands of feet into the tropical forests near Veracruz, overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, but the people were dressed like it was the middle of winter in Buffalo? Was packing my swimsuit instead of my hat the wrong decision?

Cuetzalan is known as a Pueblo Magico, or magical town, located in the northernmost part of the state of Puebla. While much of Puebla is very arid, especially during the winter dry season, Cuetzalan is located in a cloud forest, a type of environment that has tropical vegetation and is usually wet, engulfed in clouds. Cloud forests have rapid weather fluctuations due to their locations on mountains, usually at the confluence of different air currents. It might be cold and rainy one day and hot and sunny the next. In this part of Puebla, warm air flows up the mountains from the Gulf of Mexico and collides with cold air flowing down from Mexico's central altiplano and tall volcanoes. They call the constant, drizzle-like mists "chipe chipe."

Cuetzalan at night.

Cuetzalan has history that goes back well beyond the first Spanish conquistadors and missionaries. It has been inhabitated for thousands of years although it has always been very remote; it was located in the eastern limits of the Aztec empire and the western limits of the Totonaca empire. Today, most of its population is either indigenous Nahuatl or Totonaca. The men wear white cloth pants, cowboy hats and sandals and the woman wear bright, colorful dresses and often don't where any shoes at all, even in the thick mud that makes up most of the roads. Most speak their indigenous language, not spanish.

The name, Cuetzalan, is a bit of a misnomer. To birdwatchers, Quetzals, with a "q", are some of the most sought after birds in the Americas. Resplendent Quetzals are aptly named as they are one of the most beautiful, graceful birds in the world. The Quetzal has sparkling emerald green plumage on its head and back and a brilliant ruby colored chest. Its meter long sparkling green tail feathers were used by Mayan and Aztec rulers in head dresses. To them, the Quetzal was considered divine. Quetzals should be found in cloud forests, like the one in Cuetzalan. Unfortunately, the forests of Cuetzalan was once used as a place to harvest the Quetzal's feathers for ceremonial head dresses. The Quetzal was extirpated from the area hundreds of years ago.

When we got off of the bus at the station in Cuetzalan, what we saw out the bus window on the way in was confirmed: it was cold out! We couldn't really tell where we were; the streets were nearly empty, the town was very dark and cloaked in fog. We finally hailed a taxi and, a half hour later, arrived at our hotel. The hotel, Centro Ecologico San Francisco de Asis, was high in the mountains in a small community deep in the cloud forest above Cuetzalan.

The trees at the hotel.

I woke up early the next morning, hoping the fog had cleared and the temperature had risen. This was not the case. The mist covered the trails at the hotel and it was still very cold out. It was beautiful though - thick white clouds passing slowly through the trees - and there were hundreds of birds chirping above me. Throughout the week I saw several species of warblers, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, a glowing orange Baltimore Oriole, and a Violet Sabrewing, the world's largest hummingbird, and with its iridescent purple color, one of the most spectacular. Every morning I was accompanied by a pair of timid Blue-crowned Motmots. I wouldn't see them until after they had spotted me and taken flight, always to a nearby tree, tempting me to follow. Their feathers are a mix of emerald and turquoise colors, they have a shimmering blue cap, and  ruby red eyes. They have two long, extruding tail feathers shaped like clock pendulums, and when they are agitated they swing them rhythmically back and forth like a pendulum on a grandfather clock.

Blue-crowned Motmot at the hotel.

We used public transportation to travel to the different sites during our stay. In Cuetzalan, the public transportation consists of large pickup trucks with benches on the truck bed covered by a tarp. The tarp is usually tall enough for any local Nahuatl or Totonaca to stand up straight underneath it. Its never tall enough for gringos with German ancestry, however. But, the trucks do leave and return on time, and risk traveling along the perilous, muddy, mountain roads.

The bus.

Cuetzalan is famous for its waterfalls. On Saturday we took a "bus" to Las Amacas, a waterfall about an hour down the mountain from the town. Las Amacas is located at the bottom of a deep ravine, its steep sides covered with thick tropical forests and banana plantations. As the chipe chipe came and went, we watched Black Phoebes and orange-colored Tufted Flycatchers play in the air above the river, catching insects and each other as they darted from rock to rock. Spotted Sandpipers, American Dippers and Louisiana Waterthrush climbed up and down the smooth rock face of the waterfall. Of course it was too cold to go swimming.

The river at Las Amacas.

When we decided to leave Las Amacas, catching the last bus back up the mountain on the side of the road, I caught a glimpse of a large red bird as it flew into a tree fern above the river. As I focused my binoculars, I quickly realized that it was a trogon, a bird in the same family as the Quetzal. Because it was a female, its ruby red stomach was contrasted by a brown head and back. It was as curious about us as we were about it and stared at us, cocking its head like an inquisitive puppy. It would sit still for long periods of time on a tree branch, hiding just enough so that it could still see us, until flying to another nearby branch. We later identified it as a Collared Trogon, for the white ring around its neck.

The female Collared Trogon.

I woke early the second day to find that the weather had completely changed: the sun was shining and it was warmer outside than in our hotel room. We left after breakfast for Yohualichán, an ancient ruin near Cuetzalan whose design was influenced heavily by El Tajin, a much larger series of pyramids in coastal Veracruz. Yohualichan is Nahuatl for "house of the night” and consists of several pyramids, ball-courts and plazas, and was first inhabited 1,500 years ago.




The pyramids at Yohualichan



That afternoon we visited the town of Cuetzalan, which resembles a town from the Middle Ages in Europe. . The streets are narrow and made of cobblestone. Many are steep and built only for pedestrians. The buildings look hundreds of years old but are well-maintained. Large overhangs on the roofs shade the walkways below. In the central zocalo we watched the famous "voladores", or flyers, climb to the top of a tall pole made from a single pine tree, tie themselves to ropes, and then jump off, descending as they circled the pole slowly while their ropes unwound at the top.

Narrow alley in Cuetzalan.

A street market in Cuetzalan.

Los Voladores.

Voladores.

We were excited for the final day, a trip to the Las Brisas waterfall, thinking that the nice weather from the second day would stick around. But, as the morning hours went by, the temperature actually dropped and the clouds came back. Las Brisas was still an excellent way to end the trip. Views of the mountain forests on the walk down into the waterfall’s valley were outstanding. Mountain peaks faded into the foggy distance. Pine trees were mixed with palm and more rainforesty hardwoods. The Las Brisas waterfall at the bottom was tall and narrow, diving from a rocky ravine into a wide, jade colored pool.

The view from Las Brisas.

Las Brisas

As we started walking up the pathway on our final trip back to the "bus", the town and ultimately our hotel, the clouds opened up and it started to rain hard, not like the chipe chipe from the previous days. Although we didn't have the best weather on the trip, and I wish I had taken my winter hat instead of swimsuit, we did experience the power of being in a cloud forest during the winter. The mountains were gorgeous cloaked in mist and the birds were more likely to sit still in the cover of the trees, hiding from the weather, easy for me to watch them as they watched me.

End of Week 26 - Journey to Cantona, Ancient ruins near Puebla

It was 8:30am on a Sunday morning and we were on a bus headed to Oriental, a forgotten, windswept town on the central "llanos", or plains, of Puebla. We approached the town by crossing through endless, golden wheat fields, overgrazed cattle ranches, and crumbling haciendas whose lands had been redistributed long ago after the Mexican Revolution.

Pico de Orizaba from the south.

Oriental was once an important halfway stop on the railroad that connected the port of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico to Mexico City. Aside from the massive, snow-capped volcano that looms large in the distance, called Pico de Orizaba, Oriental resembles a small, faded, Midwestern town whose railroad was diverted to a larger city and was then bypassed by a superhighway.

Like most visitors, we weren't planning on staying long; we were headed to Cantona, a little known but incredibly important archaeological site in central Mexico. Cantona is believed to be the largest pre-Columbian urban center in Mesoamerica that once stretched over twelve square kilometers of rocky hilltops. It was inhabited by the Olmec-xicalanca for about 400 years until 1,000 A.D., at which time the city was deserted and left to crumble. It is unique for its size, its intact ball-courts, and its massive network of raised roads, all constructed from volcanic rocks without mortar.

The pattern of expansive ruins can be seen from the air. (Source: Google Earth)

When we stepped off of the bus in Oriental, we were immediately singled out as tourists and ushered into an awaiting van headed to Cantona. The van was actually a beat-up 1970s pickup truck with a cab barely tall enough for me to sit up straight on a bench the back. The door locked from the outside, making the uncomfortable ride without windows a little more nerve-racking. We passed through several smaller communities along dirt roads, picking up and dropping off cowboys on their way home from fields and their families who used the van service as their only means of public transportation.

Yucca growing from the walls.

When we arrived to Cantona, about three hours after we left Puebla, we weren't disappointed. The landscape was strange; cacti and yucca dotted with the occasional stands of tall pine trees. The same vegetation grew out from the ruins, with large trees standing atop pyramids or anchored to stone walls.

A tree atop a small pyramid.

 First, we passed through a series of ancient residential complexes, today only pits in the ground and platforms where buildings once stood. We then walked through several ball courts, or long flat areas lined by angled walls that resemble bleachers in a modern stadium. I don't know what kind of game they played. Did the losers get to play the following week or were they sent down to the minors for a ritual human sacrifice?


Ball Courts


As we walked further uphill we were surprised when we came to a large complex of pyramids and courtyards. We didn’t expect such massive structures, more impressive than any we had seen since arriving to Mexico. As we would go up one pyramid, thinking we had finally made it the top, we would be shocked to see another taller pyramid just a little further away. From the top of the pyramid platforms we could see large mounds of rocks in the distance, presumably other unexcavated pyramids. In fact, only one percent of Cantona has been unearthed; the rest still lies in ruins, buried by layers of volcanic ash, dirt, and shrubs. From the looks of the adjacent mounds - crumbling piles of rocks barely visible amongst the cactus - we wondered if the intact pyramids that awed us were really pyramids at all, or were just an elaborate hoax, built in the last decade by the Mexican government to attract tourists.

The largest pyramid in Cantona.

Finally, amid the blazing afternoon sun, we reached the last pyramid in the line. From the ceremonial platform on top we could see ruins stretching for miles in all directions. Beyond the ruins, the llanos reached to distant mountain ranges, some covered in deep green tropical vegetation, others cloaked by clouds. Large dust tornados raged across the dry plains. And Oriental was only a smudge on the landscape, one of many that we could see but would probably never know.

A distant mountain beyond the ruins and the llanos.