Never Trust a Fish Monger with Your Money at a Lucha Libre Match in Mexico

It was dark on the narrow streets that night in downtown Puebla. We were walking through a rainstorm, headed south away from the zocalo towards less explored neighborhoods. Except for us, block after block was empty. As we turned a corner everything grew brighter and the wet pavement glistened with lights. Smoke from grilled tacos and sausages filled the air. Hundreds of people were huddled together on the sidewalks beneath roof overhangs to get out of the cold rain. There were street vendors selling masks; some were simple, others were decorated with neon colors, sequins, lightning bolts or even bull horns. It was fight night at the lucha libre arena; a Mexican wrestling match was about to start.

Of course we had planned on attending. Although I had been to a lucha libre match in Queretaro the year before, I didn't get to see anyone famous for the two dollar admission fee. Needless to say, I got what I paid for; several rounds of old, overweight men in spandex jump suits, running back and forth chasing each other as children in the audience taunted them and suggested they workout a little before the next match. This time we were spending twelve dollars to get in and were going to get to see some of Mexico's most famous - and hopefully most talented - luchadores. "La Sombra" and "La Mascara" were the main event. The Mask versus The Shaddow for the title.

I was with "El Gigante" - that's Andrew's stage name - and we were meeting up with a few of Andrew's Kiwi/Ausi/Austri (the last one is short for Austrian) friends that he had met on top of a mountain somewhere the day before. From the outside, the arena was small and non-descript, with the ambiance of a meat-packing warehouse. It felt like one of those mysterious secret clubs in New York City that have no signs advertising their location. Inside, the arena was dark with only the brightly lit the ring at the center proving that we had come to the right place. The arena looked like a large, deteriorating high school gym. The floor seats were separated from the second tier seats behind them by a chain-linked fence that went all the way to the ceiling high above. A balcony of the third tier seats hung directly above the second tier seats. I could make out the movement of people sitting above us while loud drums and horns blared away from behind hundreds of shadowy faces.    

As we got settled into our seats, I decided I needed to eat something. Several vendors came and went, selling cemitas (sandwiches), brochetas de camaron (shrimp kabobs), churros (sugary fried dough sticks), and papas con salsa y limon (imagine a clear plastic bag of potato chips, soggy from lemon juice, drenched in a blood-like hot sauce). Finally I saw what I wanted; fried fish. I mean, what could be safer than eating some street fish at a Mexican wrestling match? My plate came with three strips of fish, a few slices of lemon, and yes, I poured the bloody salsa on top of it all. It cost 25 pesos. I handed the vendor 200 pesos, needing change. But he didn't have enough in his pocket. He said he would be back "ahorrita" with my change, which after nearly a year down here I think means either before, right now, or later, although at work it usually means never, not going to happen, or go away. As the man walked away, he turned around several times to reassure me that he would be back with my money. I couldn't help but think of my next blog title as he quickly made his way through the crowd, out the front doors of the arena and into the darkness beyond...

What else could I do other than sit back, get a kid to bring me a beer and "enjoy" the event. By the way, did I mention this was Andrew's idea? Then the fighting began; a group of three muscular, shaved, tanned men, wearing nothing more than brightly colored Speedos and full face masks ran from the dressing room - which doubled as the men's bathroom - under the stands. A second, similar looking group of three followed them. Each team was accompanied by a theme song, usually something from one of Tom Cruise's earlier works like Days of Thunder or Top Gun. The two teams taunted, then fought, then taunted each other again. I couldn't tell who was on who's team. The fighting consisted of punching, jumping, running, and strange grappling positions that looked more like something you might have to pay to see on the internet - or at least prove that you're over 18 to enter - especially given the attire.

And this continued for two hours. New matches between new teams started and ended the same way, with the same awkward, nearly naked hugging positions randomly placed in the middle. The fans loved it, even as they were hit with flying sweat and the occasional spitball from the luchadores.  All the while I kept looking through the crowds for the man with my change, waiting anxiously for his return. Other fish vendors came and went. My beer had long since been dry. I was losing hope.

The final match began. La Sombra, dressed in a black cape and purple mask, ran with his team out into the ring. La Mascara, dressed in red spandex from head to toe, followed with his team (and a little person dressed in a psycho chicken costume). The match began, same as the others, although with a few more aerial acrobatics than before. Regardless of the improvements, the psycho chicken was still the most entertaining part.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man who had sold me the fried fish walk in through the front door of the arena. I could see that he had my change in his hands. I got out of my seat and started walking towards him to try to seal the deal. When I was right next to him I reached out my hand for my money. Suddenly, I saw a look of horror cross his face. He lunged towards me and shoved me to the floor. Just then, two massive luchadores flew from the ring crashing into the crowd right where I was just standing, crushing the empty chairs they fell on. From the cold concrete floor, I looked at the fish vendor who had pushed me out of the way of imminent doom lying next to me, saving me from the eternal hold of The Shaddow. He smiled as he handed me my change. In Mexico, not only can you trust a wrestling arena fish monger with your money, you can trust him with your life.

Disclaimer - This story is entirely, 100% factual... Except for the dramatic ending. When the vendor walked in through the front door, he immediately made his way towards me and gave me my change without incident. There was no close call, no near death experience. The wrestling match ended suddenly soon afterwards with an announcement over the arena loudspeakers whose meaning will forever remain a mystery to us non-Spanish speakers. Although the vendor didn't "actually" save my life, his fish didn't kill me, either.

sportimes.com.mx

porrafresapuebla.blogspot.com

thecubsfan.com

The Windshield Washer, Puebla

The bus driver pulled to the side of the road and parked. He signaled  to someone we had passed in the intersection, waving for that person to come over. I saw the top of a man's head pass outside along the side of the bus, from each window to the next, bouncing up and down as he ran to talk to the bus driver. When he reached the front of the bus he jumped onto the hood and climbed towards the windshield. He was the windshield washer.

The windshield washer looked thirty years old. His shirt was dirty and ripped and his pants were dark with grease and oil. His face was rugged; his skin was thick and sun-worn and he hadn't shaved in a few days. He carried a rubbery piece of plastic in his mouth, had a rag in his belt and a bottle of grey, soapy water in his pocket. He quickly pulled out the bottle and sprayed the windshield, working from the top to the bottom in controlled zigzags. Ho took out the rag and lathered up the soapy water until the entire left half of the windshield was covered in soap suds. He soon disappeared behind the froth.

A subdued version of a cumbia song was playing loudly over the sound system on the bus. The accordions were the voice and the drums made the beat. It was slow and rhythmic. The windshield washer appeared suddenly at the top of the window in a clearing in the lather. He began scraping away the suds in long, connected arcs, from side to side, from top to bottom, moving in unison with the 4/4 beat of the song until the entire windshield was clean. He repeated the process on the right side of the windshield; spraying the soapy water, lathering it up, then scraping it away.

When he was done he paused for a moment to look at his work. He cocked his head to the side, examining the windshield - the entire windshield. He was deep in thought. His face wrinkled slowly in discomfort, displeased with the results of his work. He took out his tools again, focusing on a small smudge in the center of the glass. He sprayed, lathered, scraped, and examined. This time his face softened. He put away his tools and jumped off the hood. He was satisfied with his art.

The windshield washer walked to the side window and the bus driver paid him for his work. The music kept playing as the windshield washer walked away. He had earned ten pesos - about 80 cents - and a smile of satisfaction.

The Sierra Negra - In 24 Hours

I could see for miles in all directions. Flat pastures, brown from a lack of rain and overgrazing. Irrigated crops fields, artificial green oasis' in an otherwise barren plain. Pico de Orizaba, Mexico's tallest mountain, towered over us to our left. From our vantage point on the highway 2,000 meters above sea level, we were still 3,600 meters below its icy peak. And although it was now 9am, we were still trapped in Pico's pre-dawn shadow.

Pico de Orizaba

I was in a pick-up truck with my SEMARNAT co-workers on a highway in Puebla's altiplano, driving southeast towards Tehuacan. We were going to visit small communities in the Sierra Negra mountain range that divides the state of Puebla from the state of Veracruz. Pico de Orizaba defines the northwestern end of the range, the more traversed, populated part of the mountains. We were headed in the opposite direction.

We arrived in Tehuacan, the "land of the gods" in nahuatl, at about 10am. Tehuacan lies in a valley about 1,500 meters above sea level.  The Sierra Negras form the northern edge of that valley. Tall peaks, steep slopes, and sheer rock faces loomed large over the city, forming an intimidating barrier that stretched as far as I could see in both directions. All of the moisture that collects in the air over the Gulf of Mexico falls on the eastern Veracruz side of the Sierra Negras, leaving Tehuacan hot and dry.

Although seemingly impenetrable, we began our journey up and over the wall. A narrow road, prone to rockslides, wound its way along dangerous cliffs. Parts of the road had been washed out recently - within the last ten years - and had not been repaired. It seemed unlikely that the guard rails could stop the force of our multi-ton truck if they had to. Desert scrub vegetation was accentuated with forty foot tall candelabra  and "old man's beard" cactus.

Candelabra Cactus

Oak forest

After about an hour of going up, our road leveled off and began meandering through an evergreen oak forest. The canopy was thick and the leaves were large, dark green, and waxy. The air was cool and moist, and smelled like rich organic earth. The trees were tall and thick, but not straight. They tilted this way and that, new branches broke off at odd angles, and knots the size of cars formed wherever they pleased. The trees were covered in mosses, lichens and bromeliads. Each tree was an ecosystem that took hundreds of years to form.

Mountain creek in the oak forest.

Soon we had reached the top of the mountain range, about 3,500 meters above sea level. The oak forests were below us and had transitioned into a blanketing pine forest. A constant, cool breeze blew through the tops of the trees. The air moving through the pine needles was the only sound we could hear.

Pine forest

As we began our descent down the other side of the mountains, the forests were no longer pristine and untouched. Large swaths of trees had been cut and replaced with pastures or corn fields. At about 2,000 meters our road became engulfed in fog. We were heading down through a high, narrow valley. In most places its seep walls were barren with thousands of acres of rock that was once tropical cloud forest, once dominated by tree ferns and short hardwoods. The people who live here use slash and burn techniques to make room for corn fields. Unfortunately, their new corn fields last only two or three years; the deforested slopes quickly erode, leaving only rock not even suitable for corn. Over the last fifty years the people that live here have continued to move up the valley, into ever steeper and less hospitable parts of the mountains, searching for what little land is left to farm, before moving on again. Sierra Negra means black mountains in English. It was named that because its deep forests made the mountains appear black from below. In a few years, the name won't mean anything.

Church in the cloud forest.

Slash and burn in the cloud forest.

A mother and child at the meeting.

We reached the base of the other side of the mountains at 1pm, three hours after leaving Tehuacan. We were at sea level surrounded by dense rainforest, although it was difficult to see far through the afternoon haze. In one direction was the Sierra Negra,  in the other the coastal plain that stretched about a hundred miles towards the Gulf of Mexico. The humidity percentage was near 100 and the temperature was at least that high. In one community, we met with people at a community center for about two hours, signing them up for temporary employment projects that SEMARNAT pays for. Some of these projects make sense, like erosion control walls or tree plantings. Others do not. SEMARNAT routinely pays people to build greenhouses for coffee seedlings and watering holes for cows. Coffee plantations and livestock are the leading causes of deforestation in Mexico. SEMARNAT is Mexico's federal environmental agency and tries to give people alternatives to environmentally destructive ways of supporting themselves. I had always assumed we were trying to give them alternatives to coffee and cows.

A river in the rainforest.

We stayed in one of the mountain communities overnight. The next day we headed back towards Tehuacan, up and over the Sierra Negra, retracing our route from the day before. After passing Tehuacan, we got back on the highway and were on our way to Puebla. In the distance, thunder clouds were forming over the altiplano, pouring down from the mountains on the other side of the state. It soon began to rain. Streams of water were pouring through the eroded ravines in the desert. Growing impatient with the small car in front of us, our driver, who was Mexican and grew up in Puebla, moved into the lane with oncoming traffic to try to pass it. Our pick-up truck began swerving out of control. The driver was repeating rapidly that he didn't know what was going on, that there was something wrong with the road, there was something wrong with the road, all in Spanish. I was in the front seat and started to panic. It was raining so hard that I could hardly see the road even with the windshield wipers going at full speed. Although we started that morning in a tropical rainforest and we were now in a Mexican desert that was nearly 100 degrees only moments before, I could see that there was nearly a half foot of slushy snow on the highway, causing the driver to lose control of the truck. He had no idea what was going on and thought the road was broken.

Snow on the road.

We passed through Tehuacan at 10am, 24 hours after leaving Tehuacan the day before. In that short amount of time, we had passed through deserts, primordial oak and pine forests, the remnants of cloud forests, and through a rainforested plain, all in the same mountain range. We had driven through communities whose principal language wasn't Spanish or English, but one of the many indigenous languages spoken in Mexico. We stayed in a town that was disconnected from the world; that wasn't part of Veracruz because of arbitrary political boundaries, and that wasn't quite part of Puebla because of its remoteness. And the trip ended with a snow storm in the hot, dry altiplano desert.   

Snow along the highway.

A dust storm followed the snow.

Stygian Owl

Hoot















Call

Military Macaws and the Canyon de Sabino - Tehuacan Cuicatlan Biosphere Reserve (Reserva de la Biosfera Tehuacan Cuicatlan)

"Buenos tardes, quiero hacer reservaciones en Alas Verdes para la proxima semana." I said in perfect Spanish. I wanted to make reservations at the Alas Verdes, or Green Wings camp site in Tecomavaca on the Oaxaca side of the Tehuacan-Cuicatlan Biosphere Reserve. No one responded. I repeated myself, in fewer words. "Hola..." Finally, I heard a woman's voice softly say "No hablo Ingles." She wanted me to know that she couldn't speak English and that I should probably call back later.

I guess my Spanish wasn't as good as I thought. She had seen right through my cover, but I persisted. "Pero yo hablo espanol" I replied. There was a pause, but then I continued. I told her that I was looking for Leobardo Ramos Correa and had found his contact information on the Alas Verdes website. It was a beautiful web site, incredibly user-friendly and informative, with great photos as well as birds chirping in the background. It obviously took some time and money to build. She told me that she was Leobardo's sister but didn't know what Alas Verdes was. I was confused, but told her that I had found an excellent web site advertising Alas Verdes, a camp site with cabins in the Canyon de Sabino with nesting Military Macaws, in Tecomavaca, Oaxaca. She asked why I would want to stay in her town for two days, which mad me a little nervous. Although she never sounded like she knew what Alas Verdes was, she took my reservation information and telephone number and asked that I call back the day before we arrive.

The night before the trip, I called the phone number again to confirm our reservation. I reached a different woman, Leobardo's cousin. I could barely understand her Spanish. I repeated my story again and asked if the reservation was confirmed. I think she said yes. She asked why I would want to stay there for so long, two nights. I couldn't explain myself in Spanish so I ignored the question. I asked if there would be transportation to the site. I think she told me to meet Leobardo at the tourism office next to the basketball court in Tecomavaca at 1pm. I asked if there would be food at the camp site like the web site suggests. I didn't hear her response. I decided to tell her that it would be best if there was food at the site since we had no transportation and no room in our backpacks to carry everything we needed for the three days and two nights. To be honest, I didn't know what she said in response, but it all sounded positive so I just said thank you and hung up. Although my wife speaks perfect Spanish, she usually makes me do the talking, which sets us up for, well, good stories after its all over.

We left Puebla for the two hour bus trip to Tehuacan, a city in the state of Puebla just outside of the Biosphere Reserve, on Wednesday after work. It was Easter weekend so we had Thursday and Friday off. That night we stayed with John and Tammy, other volunteers, who live in Tehuacan but work in the Biosphere Reserve. They had been helping us with the logistics of the trip and using us  guinea pigs - willing guinea pigs - in an experiment to test the workings of the Tecomovaca site. They wanted to see how easy it was for a tourist to make reservations and actually get to the site, and how nice the accommodations at the site really were.
We left Tehuacan the following morning on a city bus to go to Teotitlan, a community on the Oaxaca side of the reserve two hours from Tehuacan. In Teotitlan, we had to ask people if they knew where the bus to Tecomovaca was. All directions led nowhere. We walked in circles for a while, then in a series of four right angles, then reversed course, until after a half an hour we found what looked like a bus terminal. Outside was a pickup truck with a red tarp covering benches bolted to its bed. This was it, and after waiting for a few more passengers, we were off.

 Last year's rains caused massive land slides in the hills above Teotitlan.

About an hour later we were pretty sure that we had arrived in Tecomavaca and motioned for the "bus" driver to let us out. Tecomovaca was a quite, dusty town at the base of a tall desert mountain range. We quickly found the basketball court, assuming there would be only one, and asked for the tourism office. None of the old cowboy hat wearing men knew of such a thing. We asked if they had heard of Alas Verdes, and after talking amongst themselves for a while, they said no. After some searching, we decided to go into the municipal office, which was by the basketball court, and ask if they could help us. At first, the woman in the office didn't seem to know what Alas Verdes was either. So I clarified "The Cabins!" after I got the feeling that there probably weren't too many cabins for tourists in town. I told her I was looking for Leobardo and had his cell phone number. I finally got my first positive response, a response that made me think they could understand what I was saying: "Leobardo no trabaja aqui y no hay recepcion..." Leobardo didn't work there anymore and there is no cell phone reception in this town.

I was all out of ideas. Now that Ana realized that we might be putting our tent up in that basketball court, she decided to weigh in on the conversation. Through some sort of magic and the use of strange sounds that evoked equally strange responses (or what I'm told is Spanish), Ana discovered that Leobardo's brother worked at the municipality and at the cabins. The woman at the municipality used a radio to call him in to town to come talk to us. I realized that since there was no cell phone service, there probably wasn't any internet service either, and that no one who lived here or worked at the camp site was aware that they had a web site calling it Alas Verdes.

About an hour later Leobardo's brother showed up at the office and said he would drive us to the camp site. He asked if we had brought food and was surprised when we told him no. He took us to a little corner store where we bought water, canned tuna and bread to keep us alive for the next few days. He then took us to his house where his wife prepared us a lunch of fried chicken, green salad, and black beans. She also served some of the freshest, best nopal (cactus) I have ever had. I guess they figured that we could survive two days if we had at least one good meal in us before we left.

We finally arrived at the camp site in Leobardo's brother's pickup truck late in the afternoon on Thursday. We made arrangements for a guided tour of the canyon to see the Military Macaws the following morning. Before leaving, he asked us if we were sure that we wanted to stay there overnight, or at least if we preferred the cabin rather than our tent. He offered the cabin for no extra charge in case it rained on us that night. He even offered to bring us some fruit in the morning so that we had the energy to hike up the mountain. We confirmed that we did indeed want to stay at the camp site and use our tent. And as he drove away, I wondered in secret if I had made some huge mistake in that decision.

But the camp site was great. There were two newly completed cabins, a bathroom with working hot water showers, and a picnic shelter for us to use to stay out of the sun. Tall cactus made up most of the vegetation in the dry forest around us. A creek with crystal clear, cold water ran through the canyon and out into a broader valley below the camp site. It was nearly 100 degrees out, so we sat in the creek underneath a tall cypress tree until the sun started to set. We listened to birds call as dusk turned to night, and as songbird sounds faded into owls hooting.

The creek that cut created the canyon.

Ana underneath a candelabra cactus.

Leobardo's brother returned the following morning at 5am with fruit, as promised, and we started our hike up into the canyon. He came with other tour guides and several large groups of other tourists. Although it seemed deserted when we arrived the previous day, the site was apparently very popular and well organized, especially for people with their own transportation and a fluency in Spanish.  We walked for about an hour in the darkness while the full moon illuminated the pathway enough for me to see without a flashlight. We reached on outcropping overlooking the mile long, 20 meter wide, 200 meter deep canyon and waited as the sun began coming up from behind the distant mountains.

Canyon de Sabino

As the rock faces of the canyon began to heat up in the sun's rays, we started to hear strange calls coming from below. The calls sounded prehistoric, like screeching Pterodactyls, and were coming from the macaws as they began emerging from sleep in the rock wall. As they took flight, I could see how agile they were, darting through the narrow canyon and its intricate maze of crevices. These massive birds with green heads, blue backs, yellow chests, and long red tails began screaming at each other. One would perch on the other's favorite tree and a frenzied argument followed by a chase would follow. It is a scene that has probably been reproduced there hundreds of thousands of times for thousands of years.

Macaws at a nesting site in the canyon wall.

So why did we decide to travel all this way, with little or no hope of actually arriving, just to see s few birds? Aside from the breathtaking landscape of the canyon and the bird's beautiful colors, Military Macaws are also extremely rare. Overhunting for the illegal pet trade has completely decimated their populations. Today, they only exist in about five locations in Mexico and this site is home to the largest known group, about 90 individuals. They nest in the canyon walls during the spring and until recently were only protected from hunting by the impenetrable nature of the vertical rock walls of the canyon. Since the Biosphere Reserve has been established, tourism has been used to support communities that once relied on the extraction of flora and fauna, promoting the protection of what now draws tourists. We wanted to help contribute to the protection of what we have lost nearly everywhere else.

It seems the most interesting part of traveling in Mexico is rarely the final destinations, although the Canyon de Sabino and the flock of Military Macaws challenges that idea. Instead, the fun is in getting to there. Whether it be on a fancy inter-city bus, a smaller, less comfortable minivan shuttle, some guy's pick up truck with a tarp over the back, or a combination of all of these, transportation in Mexico is always an adventure. But the truth is, I could never get to a national park in the US without my own car and/or a lot of money.
Navigating the strange accents, mixtures of indigenous languages, and my own un-proficiency(?) in Spanish makes each day, at the very least, interesting. And besides, everything is more exciting when absolutely nothing makes any sense.

Sunset on the first night.

One of two grey foxes that visit the camp site regularly.

An endemic Russet-crowned Motmot.

End of Week 38 - Mexico Is Loud

Today, my image of Enrique Iglesias as a baby-faced, innocent, youthful pop-singer who grows younger with age was forever shattered in the frozen foods aisle at the Chedraui supermarket near the central bus station in Puebla. Every month that passes by in Mexico Enrique has a new number one song. Most are in Spanish. His new one, however, is in English. I suppose back home you may have heard this one, called "Tonight I'm loving you." Well, the truth is that the song is not as sweet as it sounds. Apparently, Enrique really wants you to know that tonight he's f*****g you, in as many words.

I learned this because at Chedraui, like all supermarkets here, they blast music within the store to advertise different sales, often using two or three separate stereos and songs for competing products in the same aisle. And they don’t censor songs in English, since noone here speaks English anyways. I’m not sure how this is supposed to make me want to buy Lalla's new chicharron flavored ice cream, however. (That flavor may or may not actually exist.)

Even the Walmarts here have the same sort of marketing scheme; loud + noise = sales. I just can't picture this sort of client abuse happening at one Danny Wegmans' fine establishments back in wholesome Western New York.

After leaving the supermarket we headed to the nearest bus stop. The huge outdoor market surrounding this Chedraui is even more eardrum breakingly crazy. For three blocks, every stall sells stereo equipment, home entertainment systems, pirated CDs and DVDs, and very, very, very graphic pornography. Since they all basically have the same stuff, they compete with each other through noise. Apparently, the stall with the loudest explosions, deepest base, highest-pitched screams, and most obnoxious disco lights wins.  At night, the frenzy of lasers, flashes of color and noises is mesmerizing and terrifying. I am usually suprised to find random flyers for strip clubs in my pockets the next day.

After running for our lives to cross the eight-lane road to get to our bus stop, we flagged down a yellow number 10 and ran to the back of the bus to escape. Upon take off - buses here are more like rockets than metros - the speakers and subwoofers began pumping Mexican polka music, called banda, and we started getting jolted out of our seats with every minor bump in the road. The bus, like many others we have ridden in, was lacking an adequate shock absorption system, or, like Ana suggested, had square-shaped tires made from concrete blocks. Suddenly, one of our shopping bags ripped open and I ran down the aisle chasing an onion as it bounced between the rows of seats and confused passengers I thought to myself, can't anyone save me from this? That's when I noticed that Jesus was on the bus with us too, sharing in my suffering.

Jesus suffering.

This sort of torture is common here, and not to get too graphic, but after eating the normal dinner assortment of Mexican tacos, beans, chilies, and hot sauces, that roller coaster of a ride home from the bus station routinely leaves me crying and begging for mercy, or, a least, a bathroom.

I can relate to this culture though. When I was a kid, my favorite color was "neon." My shirts, pants, socks, and shoes were all electric blue, lime green, or hot orange. I had spiked hair, a rat tail, and wore Buffalo Bills style zoobas. It's safe to say that Mexico's style - like my childhood look - is just plain loud.

Buffalo Bills Zoobas.

End of Week 36 - Peace Corps Conference at Mision La Muralla, Amealco Queretaro

Mision La Muralla

As our giant tour bus drove down old cobble-stone roads towards our hotel in Amealco for our first conference with Peace Corps and the other volunteers since we all left for our different sites last November, the surroundings felt strangely like Fall back in the northeast. From our high vantage point on the bus we could see the deep valleys below and the tall hills above. Small towns formed along ancient mountain streams that once ran clean and clear through the altiplano of Mexico. The trees on the hillsides had lost their leaves which blanketed the ground in different shades of oranges, yellows, reds, and browns. The corn fields had been harvested many months before and only dried stalks remained. I could almost see red barns and mills pressing freshly harvested apples into cider in the distance. But then, this wasn't Fall in Buffalo - it was Mexico and it was the beginning of spring.


Mexico has 160 species of oak trees, the greatest diversity of oak species in any country in the world.  Unfortunately, the majority of Mexico's oak forests have been lost to agriculture and cattle pastures. Thirty-six species of oaks in Mexico are considered globally threatened. The hillsides along the roads in Amealco were covered with oaks and are some of the last remnant oak forests in the country. Even so, as we drove along the road we could see new patches of forest being burned to make room for more cows, sheep, and goats.

The oaks in Amealco were the reason that the landscape looked so familiar. Oak trees in Mexico are a little different from those that I'm used to back in Buffalo, however. Buffalo's oaks are tall and have a predictable leaf shape, sometimes rounded and sometimes pointed, but always clearly oak. Mexico's oaks are shorter and their branches are usually covered with lichens, hanging mosses, and even tropical bromeliads. Their leaves seem to either be very large or very small, sometimes with only hints of oak leaf shapes, but always thick and waxy, probably to retain more water during the long winter dry season. The majority of oaks seem to lose their leaves towards the beginning of spring after several months without rain, although some trees manage to keep their leaves year-round. But, with all of these differences, there's still one constant: oak trees everywhere have acorns.

A leafless oak.

And where there are acorns, there's wildlife eating them. At Hotel Mision La Muralla, our lodging for the week, there was a small ravine that still had some untouched oak trees, amongst its eucalyptus and white ceder plantations. I managed to wake up early every morning throughout the conference and watch local  birds as they congregated in this small patch of forest and competed for space amongst the trees with paintball warriors, paintball being more popular than bird-watching in Mexico.

Golden-fronted Woodpecker in Amealco.

Golden-fronted Woodpecker in Veracruz.

Of course, given the availability of their preferred type of food, I saw several acorn woodpeckers. There were always at least three golden-fronted woodpeckers calling loudly to each other from the tops of trees. Interestingly, the golden-fronted woodpecker's forehead in the center of the country glows like gold in the sunlight, while the same species in Veracruz has a completely red forehead.

I also saw a few flycatchers eating insects above the stagnant pools of water in the ravine. Every morning, the same black phoebe would fly up to me and then land on a rock face nearby in perfect view. An eastern phoebe joined him on that rock one morning. Vermilion flycatchers chased each other from tree to tree, sometimes colliding in mid-air then tumbling to the ground in a feathery, squeaking ball. I couldn't tell if they were mating or ending the relationship with one last fight.  Western wood pewees perched in the trees above the pools of water, at one point devouring a recently captured monarch butterfly.

Black-headed Grosbeak.

Truthfully though, I can't always identify every bird that I see. The western wood pewees that day didn't look quite like the western wood peewees in my guide book. Their bill was too orange and not quite big enough to be the greater pewee. And, of course, there were also several unidentifiable species of sparrows present in large numbers all week. I don't know what it is with sparrows, but they all look exactly the same and none of them look the way they are supposed to.

The tree cover in the ravine made perfect habitat for eastern robins, hermit thrush, and even an orange-billed nightingale thrush. On the second morning I heard a strange rustling in the brush below the trail. I though tit would be another thrush and as I waited for several minutes for something to appear a blue mockingbird came into view. The blue mockingbird is endemic to Mexico and is a deep cobalt blue color, almost black in the shade. I had been hoping to see one on just about every bird watching trip I had taken in Mexico but had been unlucky up until that point. After I saw it and it saw me it flew to the top of a ceder tree and began singing loudly and randomly.   

Surprisingly, very few of the other volunteers are bird watchers even though the majority of them are biologists. By the end the week though, several other volunteers were joining me for my morning bird watching tour. Even though they may have slowed me down a bit (just kidding everyone), I had more fun showing them some of the common species than I would have had by myself chasing down some of the more exotic ones. We did waste a lot of time hunting the blue mockingbird, however, as it called loudly from distant trees in the ravine, all the while obscuring itself just enough to prevent another perfect viewing.

And, of course, the Peace Corps conference was fun too.