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.

End of Week 25 - Manatees in the Desert: La Presa Valsequillo, Puebla

The sun was glaring through the large pained-glass windows in the SEMARNAT office in Puebla. I had just returned from eating a large “comida corrida” at a nearby restaurant. As I sat at my desk overlooking the parking lot, waiting for a PowerPoint presentation to load, I watched other employees streaming out, leaving early in their government cars. I was exhausted; the kind of sleepiness that only eight hours in front of a computer, a heavy lunch in my stomach, and a Mexican afternoon sun can create.

I have been working to designate Lago Valsequillo, a large reservoir south of Puebla, as a Ramsar site, or a wetland of international importance. It’s the largest lake in the state and one of the only open lakes in the state during the winter dry season. When I talk about Lago Valsequillo as a Ramsar site, I usually describe it as a vast refuge for parched wildlife and a diverse oasis for increasingly rare flora and fauna. I highlight the huge flocks of migratory ducks that feed along its shores, the ospreys that pluck fish from its surface, and the ibises, herons and egrets that wade through its reeds. And I mention the recreation and tourism opportunities that can come with needed conservation efforts.

Lago Valsequillo and Puebla's volcanoes.

In contrast, I also discuss its problems. Lago Valsequillo is a seriously polluted, artificially created body of water. Factories from Tlaxcala and Puebla dump toxins into the lake’s river sources, turning them into oozing scars, thick and black with industrial sludge. The city’s non-existent sewage treatment system pumps thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the lake every day. Its waters are unfit for human use. If this were in New York State, the DEC’s fish advisory bulletin would say something blunt, like “Don’t Eat the Fish!”



Oil slicks on the surface of one of the lake's sources.



The PowerPoint presentation that I was watching slowly open was about the contamination of the lake and strategies used to clean it. I scrolled through the slides quickly, searching for something about the lake’s wildlife. I saw a picture of what looked like a large hippopotamus and assumed that it was some comparison to a lake in another part of the world. In my groggy haze, I kept scrolling through the slides. But then I saw the image again; this time it was superimposed over map of Lago Valsequillo, with an arrow pointing to a cove on the southern shore. I studied the small, fuzzy photo a little closer. The excitement woke me up a little and I could see clearer now.  It was a manatee, on the shore, lying on its back dead, and surrounded by people, but it sure was a manatee.

The unfortunate manatee.
(from the original PowerPoint)

Could it be that there are manatees in Lago Valsequillo? Although Amazonian and West African Manatees do live in freshwater rivers, the West Indian Manatee, the species found in Mexico, does not. West Indian Manatees live in the warm, coastal, salty waters of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. Lago Valsequillo is eight hours and several mountain ranges from the coast. It is 2,000 meters above sea level, and is surrounded by very dry cactus forests and desert scrub. It is cold in Puebla, especially during the winter. Puebla has volcanoes, not coastal salt-water sea-grass lagoons.

Could they have swam up from the ocean in Oaxaca? No, that’s the Pacific coast, and it’s too far and the river is too shallow. Did they escape from the nearby Africam Lion Safari? No, they don’t have manatees at the Africam. A thousand thoughts raced through my head. I decided I had to ask Diego, Ana’s work counterpart.

“Diego, hay manati en Lago Valsequillo?” He turned from his desk and smiled, taking his eyeglasses off. I braced myself for the answer.

“Si…” He paused, waiting for a response. I was stunned. But… How could… Why would… They should… I mean, manatees live in…. I couldn’t think of what to say. Sensing my confusion, he explained. Lago Valsequillo has a species of water lily that efficiently absorbs 80% of the toxins that enter the lake. However, the lilies are invasive and cover more than half of the lake’s surface. They block out the sun, preventing other plant growth, and when they die, their decomposition sucks all of the oxygen out of the lake, killing the fish that the birds feed on. In the early 90s, the government and a group of scientists decided that they should introduce manatees into the lake to eat the lily and control its growth. It was an experiment with a somewhat predictable ending; needless to say, it didn’t work.

Lilies on covering the lake. (from the original PowerPoint)

In a sad twist, the manatees didn’t die from the cold, the lack of salt in the water, the high levels of pollution in the lake, or even from eating the heavy-metal laden lilies. Instead, when the impoverished farmers living around the lake saw the strange, one-ton creatures floating slowly along the surface of the water, they immediately knew what they had found: “monstros!” And naturally, their first reaction was to kill them.

As weird and unfortunate as this story is, I think I can use all of this to my advantage. Ramsar sites are all unique; they protect endangered species, are examples of rare ecosystems, and are internationally recognized for their ecological value. So let’s be honest; how many other freshwater lakes in the middle of Mexico’s high deserts can claim to have had manatees living there in the recent past? That must be hidden somewhere in at least one of the Ramsar designating criteria!

Lago Valsequillo from San Baltazar de Tetela.

White-faced Ibis on the lake.




Northern Shoveler on the lake.




Eared Grebe on the lake.




Blue-winged Teal on the lake.



First Ever Sighting of a Bonapartes Gull in Oaxca, Mexico

In the first week of January, 2011, a birdwatcher spotted a probable Bonapartes Gull on the Pacific Coast in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Although they can be found on both the Pacific and Gulf Coasts of Mexico, this is the first ever recording of a Bonapartes Gull in Oaxaca, one of the southern-most states in Mexico.

The same species of gull can found in flocks of thousands on the Niagara River in Buffalo and is common there during winter every year. The following video was taken in early January at the locks in the Black Rock Canal.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt8I0FOpxiM&feature=email

(Near) End of Week 23 - How do you use the phones in Mexico?

There is something funny about Mexico that I want to share with everyone - the phone system. I have been avoiding using the phone in Mexico since I arrived and up to this point I have been successful. In fact, Ana and I have yet to buy cell phones and are some of the last hold-outs of the 2010 volunteers. We don’t even have a land line in our house. We figure that with high-speed wireless internet and Skype, we can accomplish pretty much everything we could possibly need to do. It’s a win-win situation; other volunteers will save money by not being able to call us and we won’t have to worry about the same volunteers bothering us all day long with texts (not that you would do that, other volunteers!).

But, at work, I am finding that many people I try to contact outside of the office don’t actually respond to their emails. Whereas I sit in front of my computer anxiously waiting to be distracted by emails, Mexicans, even those with office jobs, don’t seem to be so inclined, so I have to use the dreaded telephone. Fortunately, Peace Corps is kind enough to share the "how to use a phone in Mexico" table with us. But, unfortunately, to use a phone I am somehow supposed to be able to remember all of the instructions without carrying around my computer to look them up.

Let me explain why this is such a big deal - please be patient. If I want to call from a cell phone to a cell phone, or cell phone to land line, and it’s a local call, then no big deal; I just dial the seven or eight-digit number. But if I want to call from a land line - or Nextel cell phone for some reason - to a non-Nextel cell phone, even if it’s a local call, then the trouble starts; I have to dial 044 plus 3, or the two-digit city code (as if I would know that), plus the seven or eight-digit phone number. To make a national long distance call from a cell phone (I’m not sure when reading the instructions if "cell phone" actually signifies "cell phone" or only  "non-Nextel cell phones") or land line to a cell phone in Mexico,  I have to dial 045 plus 3, or the two-digit city code, plus the seven or eight-digit phone number. This is very similar to the previous set of instructions and hard to differentiate. Now, if I want to make a national long distance call from a cell phone or land line to a land line, things change a bit. I have to dial 01 plus 3, or the two-digit city code, plus the seven or eight-digit number. And, to further complicate things; how would I know if I’m calling a cell phone, a Nextel phone, or a land line?

Of course, when attempting to use this information it never actually works. The grammatical logic to the directions can be confusing and can be interpreted multiple different ways as I’ve discovered while trying to write this. For example, when I read "01+3 or 2 digit city code+7 or 8 digit number" from the directions for a national long distance call from a cell phone or land line to a land line, I could interpret it to mean that there are two options for making the call - dial 01 plus 3 or the two-digit city code, then the phone number of seven or eight digits - or I could interpret it to mean that there are three options - dial 01 plus 3 or the two-digit city code plus  seven or the eight-digit number. I won’t go through all of the possible strategies for calling international long distance, either to or from Mexico, but you can see the table of directions at the bottom of this post.

And, well, another curiosity: people in Mexico write phone numbers in many different ways. In the U.S., phone numbers are written with a three-digit area code inside parentheses, followed by three numbers grouped together that are separated by a dash from a grouping of four numbers - i.e. (716) 536-5743. In Mexico, numbers are often written with or without country codes, area codes, or city codes. After the code, if there is a code, the following seven or eight digits are written in either four groups of two (12 34 56 78 / 12 34 56 7) or a group of three and a group of four ala the U.S. of A. (123 4567), or two groups of four (1234 5678), or one large group of consecutive digits (1234567 / 12345678).

Does all of this sound frightening to you too? Because, as if that wasn’t enough, using the phone in the office is even more complicated. To use the phone in the office - and I’m not making this up - I have to dial *61*1645#3 then use the appropriate technique described above, followed by the seven or eight-digit phone number. Each of the large office rooms, like the one I work in, has its own phone and its own unique code for being able to use it. I usually call from Diego's office. Diego is Ana’s counterpart and boss; I work in his office because the space I use there is the most stable, less frequently rotating desk space that I can find. I have managed to stay there without being moved to a different computer and/or desk longer than any other place I have tried so far. It has been almost a week, that is, if I start counting the days today and don’t get moved again for another week. All of this means that if I want to call someone from work for work related reasons, I have to do it in front of Ana's boss, as he watches. This is a little embarrassing, for one because I can never get the phone to work, and secondly because my Spanish isn't so great.

It usually takes about ten attempts before I figure out what to do on the office phone. Every once-in-a-while I reach who I was trying to call, but am asked by a recording to enter an extension; today, after about two months of giving up at this point, I learned that in order to enter an extension into the office phone, I first have to press 9 and then quickly type the extension before the effect that the magical 9 has wears off.  If it's a long distance call or a call to a cell phone, I have to register the call in a book beside the phone. I wonder how I am supposed to register all of the mistake calls that I make?

End of Week 21 - Veracruz, La Mancha, and The Gulf of Mexico

I've always wanted to see the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf coast is famous for its bayous, shrimp, oil, and hurricanes, none of which exist where I come from in Buffalo, NY. Is the Gulf tropical, like the Caribbean, with crystal clear blue waters, or is it like the Atlantic, cold and immense? Being in Mexico, I had to find out.
About six years ago I took a trip to New Orleans, thinking I would also have a chance to see the Gulf. With my family, we drove to Venice, the last town on the road south following the Mississippi River. I thought I would find beautiful sand beaches and an amazing sunset on the coast. Instead, after miles of cypress forests and swamps in the delta - impressive in their own right - we arrived in Venice, a small, rusty, forgotten port on the river, still miles from where the Mississippi reaches the Gulf of Mexico. After Katrina, I'm not even sure Venice still exists.



Veracruz



Several years later, after spending almost five months in the high deserts and volcanic mountains of central Mexico, I needed a change and set my sights on the Gulf of Mexico. From Puebla, the nearest Gulf town is Veracruz, a busy oil port on the coast. Ana and I decided to spend the week after Christmas there, eating the seafood, going to the beaches, hiking and camping. We looked forward to the warm temperatures on the coast after several long months in frigid (or luke-warm by my standards) Queretaro and Puebla.

  The bus ride between Puebla and Veracruz is breathtaking. After several hours of desert, we passed by the snow-capped Pico de Orizaba, an active volcano and the tallest mountain in Mexico. After passing Pico, we traveled down into a deep valley, marking the entrance into the state of Veracruz. The vegetation quickly became thicker, greener, and more tropical, as the humidity levels rose. Gorgeous river canyons and cliff faces passed by one after the other. From there to the city of Veracruz was a long flat plain, mostly fruit plantations and sugar cane fields.

After arriving at the bust station in the city, we ate a "comida corrida" at one of many small restaurants across the street froom the station. Although there isn't much I expect to ever fully know about Mexico, I do know this; the food is great! A comida corrida is what you eat for lunch in Mexico. It's fast, filling, and inexpensive. For usually less than three dollars, you get a three course meal with a soup, a guisado (the main course of meat, rice, and vegetable) and a desert, with agua included (agua translates to water but is always some sort of juice in Mexico). The all-you-can-eat warm corn tortillas are perfect for dipping in the sauce that bathes whatever meat you order, and the meat is always perfectly tender. The agua varies, but is sometimes a fruit juice, orchata which is a sweetened rice juice, or jamaica, a juice made from hibiscus flowers. At the restaurant near the bus station in Veracruz, we ate beef and meatballs, in sauces with names that I can' pronounce, but better than any you can find in the States.

We spent the first night in the city of Veracruz in a hotel along the Malecon, a seaside promenade on the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf's waters were warm and turbulent, with winter storms blowing far off the coast. The air was thick and wet there, but the constant sea breeze kept the temperatures cool.

Ruddy Turnstone

This coastal part of the city is busy with tourists, restaurants, hotels, and markets. Street performers line the Malecon, and huge crowds gather to watch. Ocean-going container ships come in and out of the port, blowing their fog horns as they leave. Smaller barges make their way busily from dock to dock and from ship to ship. We saw shorebirds like Ruddy Turnstones and Willets along the Malecon. We ate dinner at a large cafe called La Parroquia, famous for the way they pour warm milk into your coffee at your table. They say that if you don't go to La Parraquia, then you haven't been to Veracruz.


After our brief stay in the city, we went by bus a little further north to a community called La Mancha. In the city of Veracruz and less than an hour north in La Mancha there were no signs of the destruction from a recent hurricane that devastated the area less than three months ago. But along the coastal highway in between, vast tracks of trees along the sand dunes were leefless, limbs were broken, and debris was scattered everywhere.

Campsite at La Mancha

We stayed the next three nights in a tent at a community ecotourism center in La Mancha. It had campsites, cabins, bathrooms and showers, a restaurant and guides for tours of the area. Each night, from inside our tent, we went to sleep under the stars, with crickets, frogs, and nighthawks noisily working in the distance. We woke every morning to the sound of the dawn breeze coming from the water and to birds as they began their day. Our campsite was frequented by Montezuma Oropendolas and Brown Jays, each trying to outdo each other for the loudest and strangest noises. http://www.ecoturismolamancha.com/

Montezuma Oropendola

The beach nearby was wide and windswept. Although crowded in some spots, it was completely empty in others. We eventually found a protected cove where the wind and the waves weren't so strong and went swimming. Brown Pelicans dove into the water looking for fish, floated up and down on the waves, and coasted on the air currents just above the surf without ever flapping their wings.  Royal Terns and Osprey soared overhead along the coast, fishing the Gulf's waters. Magnificent Frigatebirds watched from above, waiting for an easy meal to steal from the pelicans and terns. 



Beach at La Mancha



Brown Pelicans



The beach protected a large, inland, mangrove lagoon. At dusk on the second day we took a guided kayak tour of the lagoon. We floated by the mangrove-lined shores, found crocodiles waiting for perched birds to accidentally fall into the water, saw White Ibis fly out from their roost in the trees, watched Ringed Kingfisher dart quickly from tree to tree, shrieking loudly all the way, and watched as flocks of thousands of American White Pelicans soared in formation overhead, migrating on their way from the US Midwest to warmer waters further south. In some places, the lagoon was wide and open, and we watched the sun fall behind the distant mountains as it illuminated the sparkling waters in the lagoon. At other places the lagoon was narrow and dark, the mangroves engulfing you on both sides, close enough to get trapped inside their web of exposed roots.

 

The Mangrove Lagoon



Fishing on the Lagoon

Great Blue Heron (top left, Grey-necked Wood Rail)

The next day, early in the morning as the sun was rising, we took a guided tour of the La Mancha nature preserve. We walked through a wetland area and found Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Heron, and Green Herons feeding in the vegetation. We saw a family of Northern Jacanas, with their bright yellow wings exposed as they jumped up and down from lily pad to lily pad, searching for the perfect spot to feed. We were lucky enough to see a Grey-necked Wood Rail in the reeds, one of the largest species of rails. In the sand dunes and coastal forests we saw orange and black Altamira Orioles, ruddy Squirrel Cuckoos, bright-red crowned Lineated Woodpeckers, neon green Olive-throated Parakeets and brilliantly colored yellow Kiskadees.

Squirrel Cuckoo

Altamira Oriole

Olive-throated Parakeets

On the last day, before heading back to the bus on the side of the highway, we decided to take one last hike into the sand dunes behind our campsite. From a distance, we saw a pair of birds perched on fence posts. As we got closer, we realized that they were Aplomado Falcons, a very rare species found in few other places in North America. The orange, black, and white plumage is astounding. It was a Christmas like no other I had ever had in Buffalo. The falcons were a final treat, and another reason, including the food and the climate, to come back to the Gulf of Mexico.

Aplomado Falcons

 Jelly Fish at La Mancha -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahdpdFykyEo