At my hotel in Xilitla I met Lety Marquez who lives in SLP, and her Texan husband, Tony. She teaches Spanish here and has rooms to rent. I connected with her when I arrived and am staying in her house for my brief time here along with her mother, husband (who lives between here and San Antonio), her daughter, Brian from Auburn, California, Chris from Sweden, Jack from France, Kumiko from Japan and others I´ve not met. Had some reservations about the accommodations initially as I don´t like shared bathrooms but it´s turned out to be quite comfortable. After I got lodged, I set out to look around the downtown. It´s pretty much standard issue colonial Spanish: big, ornate cathedrals, plazas and collonades. There are a lot of pedestrian malls so walking around town is fairly pleasant and not as hazardous as other towns.
This morning I fully intended to set off early to explore more but got into a protracted conversation with Brian with whom I have a lot in common, it turns out. An interesting guy. He periodically spends long pe
riods away from his home and his wife who he´s been with since they were 15; a year in Saudi Arabia, a year in Slovakia and now who knows how long in Mexico. I walked with him on his way to his English teaching job and he showed me a few sights before we parted. I then explored on my own for the rest of the day. Visited some art musuems, saw some so-so art and more colonial architecture. Of note here in SLP, at least in my limited experience, is the food: it´s terrible! My Lonely Planet talks about the interesting Huastecan fare on offer but its been awful. And, so far, I haven´t even been able to find a tortilleria so thatI can buy some tortillas and make my own dinner. One thing they have in abundance is dessert shops, ice cream parlours, chocolate shops, sweets galore and copy shops (for copying documents, might be related to the university and student population).Feb 21/09: Working on this teeny-tiny laptop which is what there is on offer at this cyber-cafe in Real de Catorce. I feel like Gulliver in Lilliputian land trying to operate this little keyboard. Better than the dial-up I was led to expect by Lonely Planet. Thankfully they've done some modernizing here since my copy was published. This is still a pretty out of the way place, high in the nothern dessert, (2770m) and about as different from either Xilitla or SLP as can be imagined.
Headed off early this morning and was blessed with superbly coordinated connections by chance. Took a long time getting out of the urban sprawl of SLP but soon we were rolling along in a nice newish bus through the moonlike landscape of this huge dessert, the largest in North America. The last 23k of the trip was on a cobbled road and we vibrated along slowly until reaching the mile long tunnel that is cut through the mountain to Real de Catorce. There we had to again change buses as our large one wouldn't fit, in fact there's only room for one way traffic in that tunnel. Finally we were spewed out into the sunlight and into the gamut of a long row of vendors awaiting the tourists. I was surprised to find this to be an unashamedly tourist place, most of the businesses either gift shops or restaurants and guys hanging out with horses attempting to entice tourists for a ride to the mine.
This was a flourishing silver mining town of 40,000 until early last century when the mine gave out and it was nearly abandoned. Recently it has become revitalized,visited by well-heeled Mexicans and tourists from the US, many of them young hippy types drawn by the mystique of the Huichol indians known as the Peyote People. Fiercely independent, they are one of the only groups not subjugated by the Aztecs or the Spanish. Traditionally , they lived by hunting deer an cultivating scattered fields of corn in the high valleys. Their home is in Jalisco to the west but every year they make the 400km pilgrimage across Mexico's central plateau ti this area to seek out the mecal cactus, otherwise known as peyote, that is central to the Huichol's rituals and complex spiritual life. Small amounts of peyote help to ward off hunger, cold and fatigue, while larger amouts are taken on ritual occasions, such as the return from the annual pilgrimage. In particular, peyote is used by shamans whose visions inform them about when to plant and harvest corn, where to hunt deer or how to treat illnesses. The use of peyote also contributes to some rather psychedelic art, animal shapes covered in beads of startling colours and similar beaded bags and wild string art.Lonely Planet did come through with a good hotel recommendation, nice, clean place for 100
pesons per night ($10). After settling in I went exploring and walked the few roughly cobbled streets in a short time. Needing to stretch my legs, I thought I'd walk a ways up the hill behind my hotel. It just kept drawing me up further and I wound up walking to the top, a very steep climb but the view was amazing. This is as amazing in it's own way as Xilitla and at the opposite end of the spectrum: air crisp and dry and very clear, sparse, scrubby vegetation, no flowers, elusive wildlife. I watched an electrical storm pass over the valley way down below, shafts of rain and sunlight filtering down and it seemed I could see much further than the horizon. Tomorrow I'll set off on one of the many trails I saw winding through the nearby mountains. A report will follow.Buenas noches.
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