Young People (Compared to Us) Visit

For our last night in Patzcuaro we shared our RV Park with two young couples. One couple, Tom and Laurel and their two charming kids were from Bellingham, WA. They have been living in Guanajuato, MX for the past few months. They took a leave of absence from their teaching jobs to learn Spanish. The other couple, Brit and (old timers disease here – I forgot her name!) were from Asheville, NC and were passing through Patzcuaro heading for the beach on a surfing honeymoon. We shared a couple of beers and snacks with them. They were all very nice people, and the kids were two of the nicest I have met. Sorry Jayde and Sierrah, excluding my granddaughters!.

We then went to bed tucked under our multiple blankets. It got very cold that night but not as bad as the next night when my friend Michael reported on his Blob that his birdbath had frozen into a block of ice! Very unusual for this far South. I am happy to be leaving this weather.

Bypassing Mexico City

We will be leaving Patzcuaro tomorrow morning. We will stop outside of Merida, about an hour East of Patzcuaro. We will leave the motorhome in a WalMart parking lot and take a cab into the Centro to have a look around. We have enjoyed Patzcuaro with it’s thin air and cool nights, a by-product of it’s 7,100 foot altitude, but it is time to move on. Almost a third of our time down here has expired and there is much more yet to be seen!

Mexico City is a traffic nightmare. Driving a fifty foot long motorhome / Honda combination through the city is not an option. For some years now Mexico City had had a complicated system of certain vehicles being banned from driving on certain days, this system being based on licence numbers of vehicles. Now this same system is still in effect but now not only includes the whole Federal District State (DF) but also includes all licence plates, not just DF plates as in the past. In other words, it includes us. I have also been advised that all vehicles driven in the city must have a smog test sticker on them.

We have been searching for a simple route towards the South of Mexico which avoids the DF. They have a saying down here that “All roads lead to Mexico City”, and that is becoming glaringly apparent. I asked Forum members on RV.Net and received an excellent suggestion. This however took us to the North of Mexico City into territory we had explored last winter. We wanted something new so we started looking again. We think we have found a route to the South of the DF that will eventually get us to the city of Puebla. We think it will take us two or three days from here to there and it is unlikely we will find Internet along the way. Be patient with me and I will post again when I can.

One bonus is this route takes us through the territory controlled by Emiliano Zapata from 1911 until his ambush and murder by Government troops in 1919. Zapata, along with his contemporary, Pancho Villa, fought for the return of Hacienda land to the peasants with the cry of “Tierra y Libertad!” (Land and Freedom). The building to which he was lured and ambushed is still standing and the walls still display the bullet holes of the ambush as well as a small museum featuring the bullet riddled and blood stained clothing he was wearing at the time.

Mexico is a Noisy Country

Mexico is a noisy Country! Everything is done at full blast. Trucks parade around the streets with huge sound systems and speakers blaring about their products, be it chickens, tortillas, restaurants or health products. Taxis constantly beep their horns to remind you to keep moving and not hold them up. They do this even when they are in gridlock traffic and there is no purpose whatever to be gained for doing it. They just do it. When you are stopped at a light and it turns green, the person behind beeps his horn no matter how quick you are onto the accelerator. Busses either play an annoying little tune to advise you of their presence or else they too beep their horn as they go down the street, just in case you are waiting for a ride and failed to see them.

Kids drive their cars around with the sound systems cranked up as loud as they will go. In narrow streets sometimes it feels as if the whole street is “thudding” to the beat of the latest Latino Rap or Hip Hop sensation (as if there is a difference), the lyrics making, I suspect, no more sense in Spanish than they do in English. In the Centros, especially on Market Day, the crowds are heavy and parking spaces few. You cannot get around without bumping against parked cars, setting off car alarms which without exception are totally ignored, both by their owners and by the crowds milling about setting them off.

Trains go by RV Parks and hotels in the middle of the night sounding their whistles way more than necessary and trucks use their engine brakes everywhere and at all hours in blatant violation of signs warning against their use. Roosters are everywhere and have no clocks or sympathy. Mexico is a noisy Country.

In contrast, if you ask a Mexican what they like about their home they will tell you “tranquility”.  It is a paradox.

Santa Clara del Cobre

Santa Clara del Cobre was an old copper mining centre from 1553 onward. Although the mines are now closed, the town has become a centre for copperware where the leftover copper ore from the closed mines is used to create unbelievable treasures.

Edit: I have just been told by my friend Michael that most of the copper now comes from scrap wire.

The streets are lined with stalls of craftsmen selling their wares. I wish we had some way to bring “stuff” back home. We have not been in a town yet where we did not say, “if only we had the room…”. We did buy some pounded copper address numbers for the house. The benches around the Centro Plaza as well as the garbage cans on the street are solid copper. Here is a Santa Clara feast for the eyes:

The “Bull Dance”

When we got back to the RV Park today there was a large family gathering going on in the property next door. The music was loud (so what else is new here in Mexico?) and I went over and peeked through the hedge.

Ten or fifteen couples were dancing around in a large circle. The women were carrying “parcels” in the form of folded blankets or something similar either in their arms or on their heads while the men were carrying bright cloths. In the centre of  the circle was a man wearing a paper mache bulls’ head. The men were all waving their cloths around to attract the “bull’s” attention. Every once in a while the “bull” would charge one of the couples and the man would jump in front to “fight” the “bull” with his cloth “cape”, protecting the woman. There was much laughter accompanying each charge.

I know many of my female Canadian friends are cringing at the overt sexism of this dance but it was very “Mexican” and everyone was having a lot of fun.

SOB/NOB

NOB (North Of the Border) there is a widespread belief that Mexico is full of people whose only desire is to get into the USA.  This could not be further from the truth. Mexicans are very proud of their country and are very content here.

In the past two years I have had the opportunity to talk to many Mexican people. There are many Mexicans who speak English and they want to practice on me. I run into them in restaurants, on the street and in businesses.

I was waiting for Norma as she was shopping one time and sat on a bench in a Centro. A young man in his 30’s sat beside me and started to chat. His English was very good so I asked him where he learned it. He said he works in an auto body shop in Los Angeles. He said he went there a couple of years ago for the high wages but does not like it. He says the wages are good compared to Mexico but he misses his wife and kids so he ends up taking time off and coming home to visit many times a year. He finds it very difficult to keep a room in L.A. as well as support his family here in Mexico on what he earns. He said, “The wages are good but it costs a lot to live there”. He would like to find a job at home where he can be with his family. He does not like Los Angeles and does not feel welcome there.

I was having a muffler replaced on the Honda in Villa Corona last year and the repairman went next door to get his friend to translate for him. I talked to the translator while the muffler work was being done. He had worked in Texas for some time but did not like it. “They don’t like Mexicans up there” he said. He came back home and opened up a car wash and waxing business which is having a hard time getting going. He is afraid he might have to go back to the USA if he can not make a “go” of his business. When the muffler was done I had him wash and hand wax the Honda. He did a very good job.

Yesterday we met a young Mexican man in a cafe in Quiroga who spoke perfect English although with a distinct Southern accent. He translated for the waitress who was trying to explain something to us. We spoke to him later and he lives and works in Carolina where he is a laboratory technician in a paint manufacturing company. He has a Chemistry Degree but had to go to the USA to get a job using his education. He was back in town for the weddings of two relatives but was anxious to get back to work. He will work in the USA for a “few years” and then come home to Mexico to retire. He is not married and is saving his money.

Salvador, an older gentleman we met in Leon last year earned his Mechanical Engineering degree in Mexico and then got a job in the auto industry in Michigan where he worked for thirty some years until he was “downsized” and returned to live in Mexico. He had been gone most of his life but was very happy to be home. “I was never really happy up there”, he said and is very “content” to be back in Mexico where he can live very well on his pension. He now entertains himself playing saxophone in a Jazz band with some of his old school friends.

These are just a few stories out of hundreds of thousands but they do give a general idea of what people here think of having to work NOB. I did not inquire as to the legality of these people’s status in the USA but I suspect that most, if not all were legal. Without exception they would rather be in Mexico and their time in the USA was only a means to that end.

Finding Internet in Patzcuaro

It is becoming very frustrating to find Internet here. We tried a couple of places today that had signs out front but you had to use their computers. There was no WIFI. This is of very limited use to me as my Blog entries are all composed and waiting to send from my laptop.

If you are reading this, it means I have finally been successful in finding WIFI. The last few days posts are below.

NOTE: I finally found WIFI at a hotel on the way into town! It is actually quite convenient to the RV park! You will have quite a bit of reading below to catch up on our adventures!

An Honest Man

We took a drive around the Lago de Patzcuaro today. In the town of Quiroga we stopped to look around the market. I stopped a man wheeling a fridge dolly loaded with hand made leather belts and had a look. I eventually bought one of his beautiful belts but while I was looking and trying them on for size I hung my Nikon D70s over the back of a handy park bench. After I had paid him for the belt and we wandered off to read the menu of a nearby restaurant and started window shopping when I suddenly realized I did not have my camera! I rushed back to the bench and there was both the camera and the belt salesman. He had seen what I had done and stayed with it knowing I would return. I thanked him profusely and he simply told me that there was no problem, it would have been safe there.  Only in Mexico could you leave a $1000 camera on a bench and come back ten minutes later to find it guarded by a complete stranger. Here he is:

Quiroga

Quiroga is a small town on the road around the lake. It dates back to pre-Hispanic times and was re-named for Vasco de Quiroga after the Bishop who was sent in by the Catholic Church to clean up the mess after the Spaniards slaughtered most of the area’s inhabitants. Quiroga was responsible for many of it’s buildings and for organizing the handicrafts. I bought a leather belt and leather sandals while Norma bought a leather jacket, all locally made.

Ituatzio Pyramids

Near Patzcuaro is the Ihuatzio Archaeological Site. It consists of a ceremonial space and two almost completely restored pyramids. I have been unable to get on the Internet to find out any more about the site. Climbing the structures is not allowed but I was able to walk right up to them and touch them. I find it to be an emotional experience to actually touch these ancient structures to try to get a feeling of the people who created them.