Mexican Madness: 2005-2006

Greetings from Canada South, or more correctly Vancouver South. San Patricio-Melaque has more North Americans, and especially Canadians, bunkered in for the winter than anywhere else we had visited so far. I guess the fact it is a quiet beach town, inexpensive lodging, a good breakfast place and charter flights direct from Vancouver to an airport nearby brings the Canuks. We arrived in Melaque, as it is known, yesterday and have already met several of our compatriots, all of whom return year after year to the same place. We did have a good day on the beach yesterday.

But back to our route getting here. We have been travelling by bus, mostly much more luxurious buses than we ever experienced in Canada. Our first four hour trip from Mexico City to Morelia was on the ETN line. They charge more but give you Airline Business Class seats, just three abreast and enough legroom to lie back comfortably without your knees touching your chest. You get a soft drink and a sandwich to tide you over and movies, dubbed in Spanish, to while away the trip. For our next leg, from Morelia to Guadalajara we downgraded to Premera Plus, a first class bus, similar to ETN but with four seats across and a bit cheaper. It too was a comfortable ride. Even our second class bus ride of 1 1/2 hours along the Pacific Coast was a comfortable, new bus. The difference was no washroom, a little less leg room and no snacks.

The city buses are a little different. They are cheap, crowded and on their last legs, but they get you where you need to go. In Guadalajara, there are two classes of buses. You can choose to pay 8 pesos instead of the standard 4 pesos and ride in a long distance style bus and make fewer stops. We rode in both types in the city.

Taxis are plentiful and the drivers friendly. Some of the bus terminals have booths where you prepay the taxi fare to ensure a standard rate. Otherwise, you ask the driver what the fare is and trust he is not charging you a premium tourist rate. You soon learn what the standard rate should be. Often it is less expensive to return to the bus station than to take the taxi from the bus station to your hotel; supply and demand I guess.

We have been going down in altitude ever since we left Mexico City and consequently it has been getting progressively warmer, thank goodness. Morelia, our first stop, is a city of over 500,000 at 1920 meters. It is nice and warm when the sun reaches the streets, but we needed extra blankets to stay warm at night. The historic center of town is filled with Colonial buildings, all well restored and maintained. The tourist and downtown life centers around a huge cathedral, built between 1640 and 1744, set between two well kept parks. This was still the holiday season and the parks were decorated with Christmas scenes that lit up beautifully at night. Crowds of mostly Mexican tourist kept the economy going.

Morelia was originally called Valladolid, after a town in Spain. It was renamed Morelia to commemorate Jose Maria Morelos, a revolutionary priest born in Morelia in 1765. He and another priest, Miguel Hidalgo, are considered to be leaders of the move towards Mexican independence from Spain. The Spanish after initial success and eventual defeat executed both in 1815 and 1811 respectively. Several of the buildings in the historic center had huge murals depicting Morelos and his role in the liberation of Mexico.

The cathedral and adjacent parks are surrounded by commercial and public buildings, similar in design to the Zocalo in Mexico City. A series of columns and arches support the second stories of the building to create a covered sidewalk cafe area. These Portales give protection from the sun and the rain and make a good spot to sit and drink and watch the world go by.

There are several other attractive parks in town, including the Fuente Las Tarascas. We saw several reproductions of this fountain with its pedestals of three bare-breasted Tarasco women holding a huge basket of fruit aloft. Right behind the Tarascos stretches a 2 Km long aqueduct with 253 arches, built in 1785-1788 to supply the city with water.

The Morelia area is noted for its artisans. The Casa de las Artesanias, in the Plaza San Francisco, just east of the cathedral, is a display place for all the best craftwork created in surrounding towns. If you were in the market for carved furniture or beautifully painted dishes for your house, and you had a way of transporting them home, this is the place to go.

One of the main reasons we came to Morelia was to visit the winter home of the Monarch butterflies. Each year Monarchs migrate from Canada and the US to the forests east of Morelia where they hibernate from November to April before heading north again to lay their eggs, hatch, become a pupa and finally metamorphose into Monarchs again. A French Canadian couple, Jean and Marie-Helene had come to Morelia to attend the wedding of their son David to a Morelian girl, Daniela. David is currently doing his Masters at the University of Western Ontario, where he is studying the effect of butterfly hormones on their maturation and migration. David met Daniela two years ago when he was working at the Rosario butterfly sanctuary for six months. We were more than willing to join this family group on a tour to Rosario.

We signed up with a tour group that took us on a long 3 1/2 hour drive in a minivan, the last part over quite rough roads, to the parking lot of the Rosario sanctuary at about 3200 meters. We arrived at noon, along with many other tourists, to be surrounded by clouds of butterflies almost dive-bombing us as they fluttered above us. The Monarchs rest in the trees overnight but as soon as it gets warm, they leave their roosts to seek moisture on the ground. We could see them hovering near small puddles or looking for dew on low lying bushes. They were so numerous you had to be careful not to step on them. We followed the crowds past lines of souvenir booths and small restaurants to a path leading up into the forest to see the place where the Monarchs spend the night at 3600 M. There we saw thousands of them clustered on the trunks and branches of the trees, turning the forest yellow and orange with their wings. We were fascinated and despite the numbers of people around, found the visit well worth while, especially with our expert guide, David, to explain what was happening.

Friday, 30 December is our anniversary and a little extra celebration was in order. After all, 40 years is a long time to still be together. Hotel Alameda, one of the best hotels on the central plaza, advertised a performance of the Danza de los Viejitos every Friday and Saturday night in their bar area. We arrived after 9 PM to drink Margueritas and enjoy the entertainment. A singer and keyboard player provided a warm-up to the main attraction. Three musicians, dressed in traditional garb, came on and played a few Mexican numbers until the arrival of four 'old men' with wide brimmed hats decorated with coloured ribbons over scraggy long grey hair. Their faces were covered in leering, toothless old man masks and they came into the room slowly, leaning on wooden canes. The music increased in tempo and their canes and feet in flat wooden sandals kept up with the beat until they were performing a wild dance around the room. To the delight of the audience, they performed several dances until finally reverting to their old, tottering personas and leaving us to applaud their efforts.

Pátzcuaro is a small craft town near Morelia known for its craft markets. We took a local bus for a short day trip. The town was like a smaller version of Morelia with a center plaza surrounded by shops under Portales. In the main square stands a statue of a parish priest Vasco de Quiroga, who saved the village from the sadistic, even for those days, Nuñode Guzman in 1536. Quiroga pioneered village cooperatives, taught them good agricultural practices and helped the villages develop craft specialities, most of which are still practised today. There were lots of artesan shops, some quite good, but once again most of it is too large to carry around in backpacks. I visited the Museo de Artes Populares where the best examples of painted wooden trays, ornate laquerware, embroidered clothes and other crafts were displayed. My only disappointment was that I was not permitted to take a photo of the unusual floor in one room of the historic building housing the displays. It was constructed on stone slabs arranged in checkerboard fashion with each stone outlined with cow vertebrae.

That day was New Years Eve. Back in Morelia there were fireworks in the central plaza to mark the event but we chose to buy a bottle of wine to enjoy at our hotel. That was a mistake. Mexicans prefer beer and hard liquor not wine. We bought the bottle of white wine from Chile in one of the better stores but it was awful. I am sure it had gone off. Oh, well, that should teach us to stick to beer.

After my week of Spanish lessons in Guatemala last year, another week of lessons seemed like a good idea. My choice was a small school in Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara. Since we would be arriving in the coldest time of the year, I chose to study for a week in a city that was lower altitude and promised warmer weather than Mexico City. Guadalajara, at1540 M, but the climate was very nice. We still needed a blanket at night but it never got too cold while we there and the days were lovely. The school had just nine students, grouped into three classes, while I was there. Each day Dave and Evan, two college students from Florida, and I learned more vocabulary and practised speaking our halting Spanish with Laura for the first two hours, beginning at 9 AM and with Guillermo for the second two hour session from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM. After that it was some homework and time to tour places of interest.

Ray and I opted for a homestay, which provided us with a room, all meals and an opportunity to practise our new Spanish skills with the family. We arrived atthe home of Christina Guerro, a divorced woman with four sons and four grandsons, on New Years Day. She was expecting her extended family for the afternoon meal and of course we were included. Another couple from Milwaukee, Minnesota, Tad and Vicki, were also staying with Christina and studying Spanish at the same school. They were a great source of info as they had been in Tlaquepaque one week before us and spoke much better Spanish.

A word about meal times in Mexico; they are on a different schedule than we are at home. Mexicans who must be in the office early have coffee and maybe a bread between 7 and 9 AM (Desayuno), then stop later in the morning for Almuerzo, a large breakfast. This tides them over until the main meal of the day between 3 and 5 PM (Comida), leaving appetite for a snack or desert about 9 PM. Christina was very good about adjusting the mealtimes so that Ray and I could make excursions to different places directly from school. We usually grabbed a snack to eat on the way and had our main meal after we returned at 6 or 7 PM and skipped the late night snack.

Tlaquepaque, like all other towns, has a church on a central plaza where all the action can be found. Several streets radiating out from the plaza were lined with street vendors selling mostly souvenirs of dubious quality. I wasn't impressed with the street vendors but I was impressed with the upscale shops on a pedestrian mall. They offered all the furniture and trimmings you would want if you had unlimited resources and a huge house. Most of the furnishings were of giant proportion and would not have even fit through our front door. They were interesting to explore anyway.

El Parian, a block from the central plaza in Tlaquepaque, is a square city block of upscale bars and restaurants around a large central courtyard and band shell. Mariachi bands stroll around singing for whichever group pays their fare. Some of the musicians are quite good. We were lucky enough to be there, enjoying a beer on the afternoon of Los Tres Reyes, 6 January. This festival day marks the arrival of the Three Kings bearing gifts for the baby Jesus. Children in Mexico receive their gifts on this day. We were treated to a concert in the band shell with an excellent woman singer accompanied by a large Mariachi band. Ray liked her enough to buy her CD. When the woman finished her number, a man who was a great showman, but not as good a singer followed her.

We took the local bus to the center of Guadalajara to explore the large cathedral and parks in the historic center. A long pedestrian mall led to an open area with unusual sculptures, by whom we never did discover. Alice in Wonderland-like people in the shape of chairs and sofas offered their laps to weary shoppers and photo snapping tourists, like us.

Guadalajara is full of reminders of Hidalgo. There is a large statue of him in a plaza behind the cathedral that is a favourite pigeon roost. A huge mural of Hidalgo, painted by local artist, Jose Clemente Orozco, in 1937, stands over the staircase in the Palacio de Gobierno, next to the cathedral. The Instituto Cultural de Cabañas, in a huge complex that served as an orphanage for over 150 years, stands at the end of the pedestrian mall. We went inside to see a very dramatic series of murals by Orozco depicting the rather violent history of Mexico, and of course including Hidalgo.

Ray was fascinated with the large, three storey market in Guadalajara. If you ever pictured yourself in hand tooled cowboy boots, a leather or straw hat and seated on a horse with the fanciest saddle ever seen, this is the place to go. Booth after booth beckoned us with their display of leather goods in every imaginable colour.

I was more interested in the multi-story jewellery store nearby. Individual jewellers rent a small piece of the counter and display their goods, mainly gold, to prospective buyers. I even fell for a pair of gold hoop earrings that Ray insisted I buy. At least I can easily transport a pair of earrings.

We took a trip with the teachers and the other students of the Spanish school to visit an old cemetery in Guadalajara. The cemetary was started in 1842 by a priest who founded the adjacent hospital. It is no longer in use but serves as a museum and a lesson in local history. In one area, a huge tree grows around the remnants of a grave. It is said to have grown from a stake driven into the grave to ensure the vampire buried there never rose again. The grave of Victoria Hurtado, dated 1894, has a hand holding a sheaf of paper bursting forth from the grave stone. Victoria suffered an epileptic seizure and instead of determining if she was dead, her three children placed her in her coffin. She stayed alive long enough to write a new will on paper she conveniently had at hand in the coffin. The three greedy children were left out of her will and everything was left to the poor instead.

Another afternoon we took an hour bus trip to the nearby Lago Chapala. The water level of the lake has dropped dramatically in recent years and water plants now choke the shoreline. Some families were swimming in an area that had been partially cleared of weeds, but it didn't look very inviting to us. We wandered along a boardwalk past more stands selling souvenirs to a restaurant overlooking the water. We enjoyed some Guacamole and a beer and listened to a Mariachi band serenade a table nearby. We enjoyed the short time we spent there but had no desire to return another day.

Tonala, just 10 Km from Tlaquepaque, is where many of the expensive crafts sold in Tlaquepaque are made. We took the local bus to visit the big Thursday market. It was huge. Streets and streets were lined with booths selling both junk and well-made crafts, but the best wares were sold in the more permanent stores along the streets. We soon got overload and took a beer break. This is becoming a habit Ray said he could get used to. We did find a few things to buy but once again, all those huge pottery planters are too large for our backpacks.

My five days of Spanish lessons at an end, we decided to move on towards the coast. Our first stop was the attractive, smaller town of Colima. At 550 M it was much warmer and for the first time, we used the ceiling fan in our room during the day, but it cooled down very nicely at night. We admired the usual church and town plaza, complete with shops and restaurants under Portales surrounding the plaza. We found some good restaurants and visited the local Palaciao de Gobierno, with more murals of Hidalgo, who served as parish priest in Colima for several years. The building also housed an interesting collection of pottery figures and vessels found in archaeological digs nearby.

Manzanillo, just 1 1/2 hours by bus on the Pacific coast, was recommended as a good small beach resort. We travelled to the small town of Santiago, a few Km farther north along the coast and found a place to stay. We intended staying two nights, and the dark sand beach was not crowded, but the town was right on the main highway and rather noisy. We moved on up the coast to Melaque, where it is much quieter and the beach and water are great. Much to the delight of both the local fishermen and the large pelican population, schools of fish came into the bay about a week ago. Lines of boys and men stand on the shore in front of an abandoned hotel resort that was destroyed in a 1995 earthquake. They throw nets into the sea to catch small silver sardines, used as bait to catch larger yellow tailed snapper. The pelicans, petrels and terns dive into the sea getting their share of the booty. We swam and read our books, sitting on the sand or at tables shaded by umbrellas put out by the restaurants along the beach. We can see why people return here year after year.

Our last full day in Melaque turned out to be a pleasant surprise. While eating at Rooster's, the Canadian breakfast hangout in Melaque, we heard of an excursion we just couldn't pass up. To raise money to help needy children in town, Rooster's runs excursions to a protected island reserve off Playa Perula, about an hour north of Melaque. The first trip was scheduled to take place the next day, Friday, but we had to leave for Puerta Vallarta that day. The organizers, Gary, the Rooster owner and Andy, another Canadian winter resident, were taking a group to the island that morning, Thursday to conduct a cleanup of the beach before the first official excursion. The island we were going to is one of many favoured by Mexican families for a camping holiday during the Christmas season. The problem is that there is no trash collection on the island and 'carry in, carry out' mentality has not hit this area of Mexico. Andy and Gary, and whoever else volunteers to go with them at half the regular price, do a massive garbage cleanup. With about half an hour to collect our bathing suits Ray and I volunteered to go along, as it promised to be fun as well as work.

Andy towed a trailer with five kayaks up the coastal road while the rest of us followed in two other vehicles. We stopped first in the small beach community of Chamala and unloaded kayaks for two couples who were going to paddle the 45 minutes or so to the island. The rest of us proceeded on to a small restaurant on Playa Perula. Everyone, along with two more kayaks, piled into an outboard motorboat for a 20 minute ride out to the island.

We landed on a small sandy crescent beach where the kayaks were already waiting for us. We filled about 10 black garbage bags with paper, plastic bottles, Styrofoam trays and bottle caps before taking to the sea to cool off. We had the use of the kayaks and snorkels and masks so it was a lot of fun. There were schools of yellow tailed and needle-nosed fish to see right off shore. When we had enough of swimming we explored more of the small island to see Boobies nesting on a steep cliff. While we watched, a male Boobie arrived and fed a young bird by regurgitating food into its beak.

Too soon it was time to return to shore. For the return trip we crowded five kayaks and 14 people plus two local crewmen onto the motorboat. Luckily the boat had a 225 HP motor to get us back to Playa Perula. We stopped for a very good ceviche lunch before driving back. It was a great way to end our visit to Melaque.