The Cat's Old

The cat's old. The cat's old and sometime she pees on stuff. The cat's old and sometimes she pees on stuff and she definitely peed on the backpack before we left home. Today, we finally had to make history of it because you can't really get a smell like that out and particularly not when you are in a place where the water you wash with smells a little funny, too. This is a long (and heavily stylized, no?) introduction to the bus trip we took out to the big box this morning.

In Merida, it was called Walmart. In Panajachel, it had a different name but the employees all had Walmart badges. Here, neither appeared to be the case. When we asked a clerk about backpacks and she walked us to two different parts of the store to show us the displays of mostly lucha libre packs for kids and actual luggage, we concluded--based on her helpfulness and generally pleasant demeanor--it couldn't possibly be a Walmart. It wasn't until we wandered through the produce section that we realized all of the fruit had come from the States and was displayed in milk crates with the Walmart logo on them. Foiled again.

We've commented, actually, on how few American franchises and chains there are here compared to other places we've been in Mexico. There is a single Starbucks in the center of town, the Walmart we discovered today and a Domino's/Blockbuster combo up the hill from our neighborhood, but to date that's all we've seen.

We spent some time at the Biblioteca Publica today and understand why so many Americans find this an attractive place to retire. There are lectures and book talks and SMA hosts a writing conference each winter that entertains celebrated novelists. This year, Barbara Kingsolver was the keynote speaker. Next week, they are showing a Johnny Weissmuller film and having a lecture on Jose Saramago. I can't decide about which I am more pleased. Within the library, there is a small theater for stage productions and films and a cafe and meeting rooms and books and books and books. The library is housed in a former convent and so the cells are used for different genres and purposes and there are multiple courtyards. Simply, it's lovely, and it made me want to live there: not in SMA but in the SMA library.

We had lunch at a little outdoor place around the corner from home with a small menu. They had tacos: fish, chicken, beef and shrimp. We ordered one of each and shared them. The fish and chicken were delicious, served with a vat of onions, tomato and cilantro and a jug of chimichurri sauce. The others were teriyaki: enough said.

We came back in time to avoid the rains and good we did because today's downpour flooded the streets. I wrote for a bit and Chris read and napped before heading out with his guitar to a Song Circle we read about in one of the local papers. Unfortunately, while he did find the building on the other side of town, there was no Song Circle to be found. Our neighbor, Lydia, saw him on the way back in and told him about another opportunity to play on Tuesday nights so we'll put that on the agenda for next week.

We're delaying our trip to Guanajuato a day or two because we lost our internet connection today so weren't able to arrange our accommodations there and we took our things to the lavanderia today and they won't be ready until after the buses leave tomorrow. In the meantime, Chris is playing his guitar on the porch and I'm fixing to listen to him.

Sixteen Chapel of the Americas

Today, we hit a couple of milestones: first cab ride, first trip out of SMA, first nap, first meal in the marketplace, first walk without the map and it was all good.

We went to the town of Atotonilco, which is only seven miles outside of San Miguel, but if you don't know how to get there it may as well be 70. We hailed a cab which was easy and negotiated a price which was relatively easy and then enjoyed having the cool breeze of open road hit us through the window. After all of those years of having no heat in my bedroom and no AC anywhere in the house, I've grown accustomed to the control and comfort of choosing the exact temperature I want for every room I'm in. Because it's an adventure to be here, I like having nothing but a rickety ceiling fan and white curtains to block out the heat of the afternoon sun; that being said, it makes a car ride doubly refreshing. Like many cities, SMA is charming in the center and becomes nittier and grittier as you work your way to the outskirts. Chris paid careful attention to our routes; he would like to rent a car and do some exploring on our own and return to Atotonilco to visit the hot springs on that venture. Today, we had the driver take us to the Santuario de Atotonilco and we spent all of our time there. One tourism brochure that we picked up called it the Sixteen Chapel of the Americas, because it is renowned for its art. It was built in the 1740s and the entire interior is covered in murals by the indigenous artist Miguel Antonio Martinez de Pocasangre. It is breathtakingly beautiful. There isn't a place to land your eyes where there isn't something to entice them. It is a mixture of pastoral and fiery scenes, many of which Chris took pictures of although it is difficult to recreate the grandeur on film. Also, it was a bit dark and no flash photography is allowed in the sanctuary in an effort to preserve the paintings. (The World Monuments Fund put the church on its list of the world's 100 most endangered monuments.) In many ways, the Santuario is reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel, except that the Sistine Chapel is in the heart of the Apostolic Palace in the heart of Vatican City in the heart of Rome and everywhere else you look there is also something breathtaking to behold. The Santuario is in the middle of nothing. There are outbuildings in ruins behind it and a few stalls across the street where elderly men and women sell religious medals, rosaries and crowns of thorns (they're sharp), but there is little else. When he dropped us off, the cab driver asked if we would like him to stay and wait. We didn't wan't to keep him that long, but he said it was impossible to spend more than 20 minutes seeing the town, because there was nothing to see; he was right. It makes the place more remarkable somehow that it is tucked away in the middle of a speck of a town. I'm so glad we went, and everyone should.

He dropped us back in the center of SMA and we did some more research about day trips. In Panajachel last summer, there were travel agencies everywhere so it was easy to plan trips but it isn't quite so here, and I think we have settled on making our own way. Thursday morning, we'll go to the bus station at the edge of town and if we get there early enough there is supposed to be a relatively comfortable bus to Guanajuato, where we will stay for a few days. At noontime, we went back to the market and wandered through, where we saw a traveling medic checking the blood pressure of the men who worked in the stalls. We stayed in the market for lunch and had simple good soup and tortillas.

We came home when it started to sprinkle and napped and read (book club peeps--I have a lot to say about both books when we meet in August) and watched Rocky II on television. At some point, there is always a Rocky movie: we saw one in Merida and another in Pana.

We had a destination in mind when we headed out for dinner so left the house unencumbered. There was a place with live music we wanted to visit after dinner that was on the same street but at the other end of the neighborhood, but alas no music this evening (despite an advertisement that said live music tonight). On the way back, Chris suggested we turn in and take a different route home. This is not something I could ever do without a map because there are square blocks here and triangular blocks there and streets that run off into nothing, but he has such a strong internal compass, I don't question his turns. He got us home and we had the opportunity to walk through a different neighborhood than I had yet.

Chris is changing his guitar strings right now so I have a feeling there will be some live music yet in our day and just about my favorite kind, but I'm not too terribly far away from a good night's sleep.

Rain, Rain Go Away

We eased into our day slowly, heading to the Instituto de Allende this morning for breakfast and then to see what we could see. It is a beautiful building with courtyards beyond courtyards and murals throughout, one in particular which recounts the history of Mexico--no small task. We investigated the "field trips" the school organizes to places as close as Dolores Hidalgo and the town of Guanajuato which are within a few hours of here and as far as Mexico City. Chris is doing the research necessary to plan what will probably amount to several trips to outlying regions.

We were finally able to get in the cathedral today and it is striking in its size and in its myriad styles of art. There are traditional religious paintings one would expect in a gothic structure, but there are also detailed and geometric murals subdued in color and vibrant grease paint murals. This church had another mural depicting the scene at Calvary and for the second time we saw a woman in the foreground of the work holding what appears to be the Shroud of Turin. The first time we saw it, we thought it was an anachronism, but now having seen it twice I'm starting to wonder what the tradition is.

It has been raining steadily since we arrived, sometimes heartily and other times lightly, and according to the 10-day forecast, these showers will continue, but this morning, the sun was out and the sky was blue prompting us to return to several of the places we've already been to spend a bit more time. We went back to the public laundry, where we saw the concentration of egrets the other day, and Chris brought his telephoto lens this time and was able to capture some excellent moments on film (I recognize this as an obsolete cliche). They are majestic birds, and their wingspan is remarkable.

We rolled the visit to the public laundry into another walk through Benito Juarez Parque, although we took a different path that headed in a different direction. There are public art installments throughout and a playground in one corner that Antonio Banderas donated when he was here filming Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

On the way home, we stopped at the market for produce and then had lunch at home. Chris went back out in the afternoon to find the bus terminal and information about purchasing tickets for our day (and probably overnight) trips and I stayed in and did some reading and writing, choices which made both of us happy. We had tamales for dinner and now Chris is on the porch playing his guitar.

The day was a bit thin on plot, but we are on vacation.

Abierto vs. Cerrado

Up and out without breakfast and only time for cubiletes con queso and a cup of decaf to go in order to make our trolley tour of the city. We hadn't purchased tickets in advance and the tourism office where we learned of the tour appeared closed. When Chris went to check another travel agency to see if they sold tickets for the same tour, a girl approached me in the plaza and I practiced my rusty and not so trusty Spanish and, in a surprise move, was able to communicate with her. Well, I communicated with her well enough to determine that the office was abierto, not cerrado and that there was still tiempo to comprar the tickets. I don't think we could have discussed Kant, but I was still pleased.

The tour was in English and Spanish and the tour guide did a nice job of balancing, although when it was their turn the Spanish speakers on the trolley did seem to be laughing a whole lot more than the English speakers. I recommend the tour, however, because it was full of information about the architecture of the region which is breathtaking and largely from the 18th century and the guide pointed out original features compared to more contemporary ones and explained the social significance of many of the buildings we've been passing on our walks. We revisited Benito Juarez Parque on the tour and learned that it was the area in which the town was originally settled by two Franciscan monks and their dogs (who sniffed out the underground springs in the area and dug until water sprang from the earth), and today we noticed dozens of egrets in the tree tops within the park. It seemed anachronistic to see such large white birds flying in a cityscape: anachronistic but phenomenal. The tour continued higher and higher up in the city and deposited us at a vista from which we could see the entire metropolis below us and it was a stunning vantage.

On our way back to the beginning, the guide pointed out a market we hadn't been to yet and so Chris and I made our way there on foot at the conclusion of the tour. Seeing the produce, we decided on the spot to make soup and salsa and bought tomatillos, several different chiles, cilantro, carrots, cabbage, onion, garlic, celery, limes and more. We could have gotten four dozen perfect red roses and/or birds of paradise and/or a new belt and/or a cow's liver all in the same market, but we didn't. Instead, we snaked from doorway to doorway and found an artisan market behind the perishable one and wandered in and out of booths with more than even interesting people could imagine.

We had lunch out, around the corner from home, in a courtyard restaurant passing through the door of which seemed to transport us to another world entirely and then picked up some last minute items for our dinner feast, including a rotisserie chicken that came from a doorway in which there was nothing but a floor to ceiling built-in rotisserie with dozens of chickens roasting and dripping their fat onto a pile of onions and peppers a few of which the woman scraped into a bag with each chicken purchased.

Back home, Chris did a little research on the internet before making a spicy-hot tomatillo salsa in a mortar with a pestle and I threw the rest of our purchases into a pot to simmer for the afternoon. He played his guitar and uploaded photos, and I read until it was time for happy hour and we went around the corner for a drink (well, two, because of it being happy hour and all). I had a beer, but Chris ordered a margarita which turned out to be a glass of tequila with salt around the rim and possibly one lime squeezed into it. I'm still not sure if he thought that was a good thing or a bad thing, but I guess I'll know if he orders another one tomorrow. Our dinner was a success and a perfect combination: the salsa swirled into the soup really made it.

We don't have any sort of a plan for tomorrow, but I'm excited to make one with each new step we take.

A Charming Little Junkyard

We got a later start today for all the right reasons. We slept in and had a simple breakfast at home, although simple may be the wrong word. There isn't any skim milk in this world and so our cereal swam in what seemed like heavy cream. The first thing to catch our attention was within feet of our doorstep. Right around the corner from the casa is a junkyard; the man collects mostly used building materials: there are stacks of cement blocks and piles of wood and a very small shack-like building in front of which we've seen him sitting each time we've walked past. This morning, he was alone in his yard, eyes closed, head thrown back in reverence, listening to Ave Maria playing so loudly that everything else along the street seemed to stop making any noise of its own. Lovely.

We headed to the main square again to book a trolley tour of the city. While we are getting our bearings because Chris is good with a map and cares where he's at, the city sprawls and we thought a motor might help. Unfortunately, the shady lady we talked with yesterday who said we only needed to give her an hour's notice and she could find someone who spoke English to accompany us and translate wasn't actually able to do so today. We'll go tomorrow.

We tried to get back in the cathedral today, which we didn't go into yesterday because there was a mass going on each time we walked past, but there were back-to-back weddings today so again we didn't enter. We did sit in the square for a long time watching as one bridal party departed and another arrived and the wedding bands (mariachis) milled about and as florists switched out one set of lavish arrangements for another. The first wedding was rather subtle but the second was flashy: bright red floor length gowns on the bridesmaids with black bras and sheer black shawls. One of the girls had her hair streaked red to match the gowns. All of this may have been more interesting to me than to Chris but he's a sport.

There was a small church to the left of the cathedral which we did go in and this had a similar mural to the one I described yesterday. Chris took some pics of it and I'm sure he's putting them here. This church also had a statue of Judas and one of St. Divas, who I have never seen mentioned before but it is in keeping with the attention Calvary is paid in this area. I wouldn't even have known who he was except yesterday as I was describing the three crucifixions I wondered if I should know the names of the two criminals with whom Jesus was crucified and so checked online for their names. (I was relieved when I didn't recognize them at all; it made me feel like a less bad Catholic.)

As we have walked along the streets, I've been quite taken with the door knockers, which come in all shapes and sizes and simplicity and fantasy and so Chris has begun to photograph them for me. He has posted a few. Right now, the frog is my favorite, but we saw a lizard this evening that I think might beat it.

There are crosses and religious statues everywhere, embedded in the architecture, making me wonder if the original purpose for all of these buildings was different or whether it is simply a style. We have to find a Florinda to ask all of our questions!
Our interest is piqued so we climbed high in the city towards a chapel dedicated to Calvary but unfortunately it was closed today. We'll return. On the way back, we stopped for lunch at a little spot that was literally little: at best I would say 15 feet wide by 25 feet deep, including kitchen which was in the same room. There were two tables and we sat within arm's reach of the stove and our tortas and sopa were delicious.

We came back via the Benito Juarez Parque which is like Garfield Park Conservatory but outdoors. It goes on for blocks and the foliage is so lush and dense that the quiet makes it hard to believe that you are still in a city. Between there and home we found a little vegetable market that has what we will need to dine in and an ice cream shop that has what we will need to have ice cream whenever we want. Blackberry today; amaretto tomorrow.

I had an assignment due for my class today and so Chris made dinner while I begrudgingly read articles on the academic effects of having teens complete summer reading assignments. While it isn't my favorite thing to do in Mexico, at least I'm in Mexico. We had cucumbers with basil and blue cheese which were the perfect combination of sweet and salt and spaghetti and fresh bread. Chris played his guitar for a time on the porch until the rain came and now, I think, it is time for bed. Tomorrow we plan to do new things and more things and fun things and be happy.

What's What

Sleeping was rough because of getting used to a new bed in a new house in a new city. Also, there was a storm. Sally mentioned the wall of windows facing the east might leak so I got up in the night to check but all was well. Needless to say, Chris slept on.

Today was long and good. We were up and out by 9 a.m. and wandering around San Miguel. There is a pedestrian path that cuts through several blocks towards the center of town which we took and then continued farther than we did last night. The first church in which we stopped was more European in style--more gilt and chandelier praise rather than the wax and wood worship we've seen in other parts of Mexico. Beautiful cupolas. Chris mentioned the Mexican tendency towards mannequin-like statues. Of course, I've noticed that in this area they do not use stone or marble, but now I'm stuck thinking about Jesus in multiple parts, arms and legs all akimbo in a back storeroom at the Macy's. Beyond the church was the remnants of the convent, cells around a lovely and lush courtyard. Now each cell is used as an artist's studio--weaving, music, painting, ceramics. We had breakfast in a little cafe on the first floor and there was decaf which was a great treat for me since Guatemala offered none, even in the nicer hotel restaurants we visited. In addition to the good cup of coffee, there was a mural on the wall of vaqueros with lassos trying to capture a vampire bat up in the sky above them that was at least as big as the horses the men rode. A little light art to accompany your meal.

We went to church after church, making me think it would be hard to decide where to worship in this town with such an abundance of choice, and we saw two things of particular interest. When we were in Guatemala last year, we went to a church whose patron was Judas. We couldn't recall another time either of us had even seen iconography of Judas in a church, but today we did again and this time with an explanation. Because of his most vile act, Judas suffered the greatest anguish man could and thus is the patron of those most desperate and sad among us. I guess it makes sense to see more of him in second and third world countries than we do at home and in Europe.

Later, we went to another church which had a huge landscape painted on the wall in dark grays and black. You could just make out mountains in the background and people in the foreground. Hanging on the wall with the mural as it's backdrop were three crucifixes: Jesus in the middle flanked by the two criminals with whom he was crucified. The churches here may be more fire and brimstone.

We made it to the Jardin Principal which is lovely, with iron benches all about and shaded by sculpted trees circling a gazebo. It reminded me of Antigua, in part because the square is surrounded by colonial archways on three sides and a church on the fourth.

We spent a chunk of the day finding out what's what. We discovered an abundance of things to do from classical guitar recitals to plays to the film festival later this month. We went to the tourism office to investigate day trips and to the Institute Allende to find out about Spanish classes for Chris and to the public library to learn about what seemed like any and every other thing going on in this joint. We took a bus to figure that out and kind of did, although in a stroke of remarkable fortune the bus simply stopped in front of where we were standing. It isn't really clear if we were at a bus stop. We found the open air market closest to us and it was full of things we'll go back and look at more closely and then buy and then eat.

We stopped at home to empty our bags and head out in search of a supermercado when we happened on a shriveled woman on our doorstep, who was anxious to find the part-time housekeeper, Lupe. Her name was Patricia and she stayed in the unit upstairs from ours last year and made great friends with Lupe. Not so great, apparently, that she knew how to get in touch with her but good enough that she wanted to, I guess. She's been here several summers in a row and began to tell us all sorts of things to do but then discovered we would only be here for a month and promptly declared we wouldn't really have time to do anything. Her best bit of advice: gallery openings may have only mediocre art but they do have free wine so they are worth attending. (Really this is the same as our experience at home, but there was something charming about this little old woman wearing a fanny pack saying it.) She pointed us in the right direction of a regular old PB&J market which was helpful. We got this and that and those and these and on our way back ran into our downstairs neighbors (Lydia and her daughter, Juno--who looks like she may have been born before the film which would make me like her mother more) on the street. They are here from California for July and August but lived here for eight years previously. Lydia does graduate research in medical anthropology and works with midwives in Mexico. She invited us to a gallery opening (mediocre art, free wine) this evening but it began at 5 and by the time we got back with our groceries it was already 5 and we both needed a break after walking for basically seven hours in a row. She got one of her degrees in Chicago, though, so I'm sure we will find a way to visit with her again.

Since then, hammock time rolled into showers rolled into happy hour rolled into the dinner hour rolled into guitar time which is quickly rolling into bedtime. Our lives are good.

P.S. There are really big snails here slug-slug-slugging along.

No Amount of Wall Hangings Is Ever Enough

We maintained good spirits through: a cab driver who complained all the way to O’Hare about how there is no money to be made taking people to O’Hare; a computerized self-check-in kiosk that was broken; a gate change at the last minute; an even more last minute realization that we wouldn’t be sitting together on any of our flights; the news that the plane had to lose weight in order to fly into the hurricane; the fear that they would start asking the fat to leave and we’d be the first to go; the resultant delay while the airline actually coerced three random people to leave; the uneasiness of flying into the hurricane in the smallest plane in which either of us has ever flown (40 seats in all); and the relative disappointment in the place we rented when we first arrived. We hadn’t even sworn a blood oath ahead of time, but instead of being cranky, we just kept being nice to each other through it.

Sally—our hostess from Vermont—was absolutely honest in her description of the joint and there were lots of pictures to boot. The place looks exactly like the pics she sent so I’m not sure exactly what it was that didn’t set right with us when we walked in the door. Maybe that there wasn’t any TP in the bathroom and we had just come off of about 12 hours of travel, the last leg of which was a packed 90 minute shuttle ride, and then we had to go find a market before we could do anything else. I mean, sometimes you just want to pee first.

So maybe it was that and maybe it was the clutter: Sally has clearly been all over the world. And she’s brought back a little something from everywhere. And it’ all here. There isn’t a surface that doesn’t have something on it. I’m sitting in a room right now that is at best 12 feet by 8 feet and there are eight wall hangings, three book shelves, a king size bed, two night stands, two lamps although one is missing its light bulb, a stool, and a dried flower arrangement from—wild stab in the dark here—1978. It reminds me of the apartments I kept in my early 20s before I realized that just because you own something it doesn’t mean you have to keep owning it forever. Chris immediately started putting some of Sally’s things in the closet and his attempt to clear surfaces helped my psyche. I think, too, it is obvious someone uses this place as their personal space and as we would like to use it as our personal space it just felt weird.

Which made me think of poor nice Mike—the young man we met Tuesday, who is now house sitting for us while we are here—and how it is likely he is thinking the exact same thoughts about me that I am thinking about Sally.

In any case, when it seemed we might not be able to take the idea of staying in this place for a month, we abandoned our unpacking and went in search of food and drink. We wandered a bit, went in the first restaurant we came across and were blessed with the first truly good news of the day: it was still happy hour. Over ice-cold Coronas and a bizarre Italian dinner off of a menu written in French, we discussed some possible avenues to explore regarding our housing conundrum and Chris said we could find someplace else to stay in the next few days. I protested—we won’t get our rent back from Sally—but he showed remarkable dedication to me and to us when he said it was only money and not more important than ensuring our happiness. That guy’s awesome. We returned home for the evening and the place didn’t really seem so bad after all. It has lovely windows and nice archways and is cozy. We decided to curl up and sleep on it. We’re right at the curled up part now. I’m looking forward to tomorrow when we figure out where we are relative to what’s good.