Saints and Skeletons

Zipolite 1

2012-01-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

October 28, 1991

Tequila-laced sweat pricked at my skin and plastered my hair to my scalp. I lifted my head to look out the no-see-um netting covering the door opening, but the hammering inside my skull sent it burrowing back to my twisted pillow and soaked sheets. My clothes, wedged against the combi’s wall, smelled like a skid row bar.

The sun was already inching up the sky and the trailer park cooked. It was going to be a hot one, for sure. The fishermen were gone.

“It’s ten. Get up,” Sam growled from somewhere outside in the shade.

I groaned and sat up, legs dangling in the doorway, and rooted around in the cargo net strung from the curtain bar behind the seats for the bottle of aspirin. I was going to have to get up and close the pullout bed if I wanted to open the cooler for cold water to wash down the aspirin tablets. I groped in the closet for something to wear and dragged my green shift over my head. It was almost clean. I didn’t have much of a choice since my suitcases had been ripped-off out of the combi. Even in Mexico, replacing a wardrobe was costly.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked Sam when I eventually stepped out of the bus.

“Better than you look. You and your new boyfriend have fun last night?” His tone was angry, mocking. Parsley wagged her tail but stayed put under the table, a worried expression in her eyes. She knew that tone and so did I.

I bent down to pet her and keep Sam from seeing my face and replied in a neutral voice,

“Yeah. It was a gas. Too bad you didn’t come. You’d have liked the band. I think the style of music is called salsa tropical.”

“Who told you that? William?”

“I didn’t even see William. I met up with people from the beach.”

“What happened to your buddies from the VW?”

I looked across the trailer park to the closed up orange combi and a bolt of excitement ran through me. Was Fernando still sleeping? We got in from our tryst on the beach barely before the sun came up. La madrugada, he called it. I needed to look that up in my dictionary, which lay on the table by Sam’s elbow. I could look it up later.

Sam’s look frightened me. I should have adjusted my face. Uh-oh, I realized I was smiling. After ten years, he could read me, but he didn’t know what he was reading. He knew I never smiled before coffee though. I’d better be careful.

“You were smoking marijuana. The smell nauseates me.”

“They don’t speak English. Smoking doesn’t require language.”

Are you asking to visit a Mexican jail?”

“Don’t start your narc shit, Sam.”

“Stay away from marijuana.”

“You’re so uptight.”

“Just don’t get caught. I don’t have any influence in Mexico.”

“What about your get-out-of-jail-free card? Don’t you have your badge? Maybe your DEA ID?” Now I was doing the baiting. I wanted to deflect him from questioning me about the residents of the orange combi. I knew from long experience that an argument would do the trick. “Maybe you’d like to bust all the people smoking pot at the club.”

“Christ. You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”

I busied myself collecting my towel and toiletries for the shower and wondered how I was going to ditch Sam. He felt like a heavy anchor I needed to weigh.

Fernando

2009-02-23T12:17:00.000-08:00

Puerto Escondido for only a peso, but costly in the end. My pals from the Instituto planned to visit this haven for young gringo surfers—a snarky crowd and certainly not Sam’s type, but I wanted to hook-up with my friends, especially cute William.

I pushed a tropical salsa mix into the cassette deck as I considered the coin toss. Maybe Sam was right and this wasn’t such a good idea. But he had already nosed the combi out of Pochutla’s centro commercial and turned north onto the highway.

The late afternoon sun angled toward the Pacific, painting our first view of Puerto Escondido a rosy gold that brushed across the buildings, which fanned up the hillside from a strip of sand. Puffs of cumulus clouds congregated over the ocean and reached toward the lighthouse presiding over the point that rose sharply behind the old fishing village and marked the north corner of the mouth of the bay. The cobbled waterfront thoroughfare, shaded by tall coconut palms on the beach side was closed to all but foot traffic, I discovered at the end of the road where we were forced to park. Trees, bushes, and vines, blooming in a Crayola rainbow of colors, cascaded down the slope on the opposite side of the street from every wall, gate and rooftop. Stone steps twisted up between the tourist and surf shops, restaurants, bars and tiendas that brimmed with blushing mangoes, succulent papayas, trays of astringent smelling limes and oranges, and sweet, bee-attracting pineapples. I craned around corners and doors, snapping pictures, and hoping to discover the mystery of each enticing passage as it disappeared around the high, glass-shard topped stone walls.

Sam stopped in front of a bar and sniffed the air.

“Aren’t surfers a bunch of stoners?” he asked.

“Keep your DEA badge in your pocket.”

“I don’t have a DEA badge. What are you getting at?” Sam’s look would have frozen Hell. “Let’s get going. Quit taking pictures. I’m tired and hungry.”

I focused my lens on Sam’s familiar frown. Click. Click.

“Put that damn camera away.”

“Quit nagging me. You’re such a stick-in-the-mud.”

“You’re selfish and irresponsible. I’m going to find somewhere to sleep tonight.” He spun on his heel and stalked off in the direction of the parked camper. A sensation of giddy lightness came over me, and I grinned at the passers-by.

“Are you coming?” He demanded from several feet away.

“I thought you were leaving,” I said, slowing my pace.

“Don’t sound so happy.”

Puerto Escondido boasts two trailer parks right on the beach. Las Palmas Trailer Park nestled in a coconut grove at the north end of the bay. The camping spaces, defined by the trees, had brick barbecues with a metal grates. Although the park was sparsely populated, I felt safe enough because of the tall chain link fence separating me from the beach, but Sam complained that it was too empty.

“Where are all the surfers staying?” He asked.

I ignored him and checked the bathrooms. They worked. They had real toilet paper rather than rolls of brown crepe paper that might be left over from some celebration a decade past like the t.p. at Pepe’s Trailer Park in Zihuatanejo. The shower water even felt warmish—a plus.

“The bathrooms are okay. We’ll stay.”

Business was brisk at the nearby restaurants, and people were heading out to the clubs. Music spilled down the rough paved streets and echoed off the stone walls lining the hillside above us.

“Too noisy. Let’s go.” Sam said.

“Then let’s take a look at the place down the street,” I said, trying to be cooperative.

Although not fenced, the other park was private and pretty, set about with flowering hibiscus and blooming hedges. It was also uninhabited and dark, making me nervous. Sam, ever cautious, turned us back to Las Palmas. For once we agreed.

We staked our claim halfway between the beach and the bathroom. I sat in the wide side door of the combi and gazed toward the mouth of the bay across a fleet of low, open boats drawn up on the beach like colorful beached whales, but I didn’t start to unpack. Instead I thrust a folding chair toward Sam and handed him one of the Pacifico beers I picked up at the tienda. I figured he couldn’t talk if he had a beer bottle to his lips.

Parsley was giving me that “feed me” look. I fixed her bowl. “That place smells good,” I said of a tiny taco joint visible at the edge of the trailer park. “Let’s get dinner.”

“Are you nuts? Looks worse than the roach-coach back home.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Aren’t there any coffee shops here?”

“Sam, we’re in Mexico, not Marin.”

“Whatever. Let’s go.”

Parsley finished eating and we strolled onto the esplanade.

“What about that one?” I pointed to a place tucked under a thatched roof and blaring salsa music.

He looked at a menu posted by the entrance. “I want a hamburger,” and walked on.

“You won’t find a Lyons.”

We walked to the end of the esplanade, reading menus and quibbling over which to choose. Each was too dirty, cost too much, or served the wrong food. All I wanted was some dinner—a quesadilla, tacos, whatever.

“Isn’t that where you’re supposed to meet William and Kathleen?” He nodded to a dumpy looking cinderblock building with faded paint and peeling trim, squatting at the edge of the street. An old sign said “Sports Bar” and the familiar flicker of television lit the interior. Sam trudged up the several steps to the door. “They have hamburgers.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I said when we stepped inside. A sports bar, indeed. Two huge TV’s showed games and the patrons crowding the small, smoky room shouted and cheered in English.

Sam marched toward a table, but stopped and threw himself into reverse like a cartoon character—I could almost see him back-pedaling— when he realized the smoke was coming from numerous joints passing through the crowd.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. I looked forward to coming back for the World Series—Sam was sure to stay away!

We settled on a fish restaurant that was on the other side of the esplanade from Las Palmas and up a few steps. The roof was palm thatched and the walls were open air. Diners perched on stools at tall tables, which surrounded a central kitchen open to view. Our waiter was very obliging and brought a dish of scraps along with the bowl of water we ordered for Parsley. My Huachinango Mojo de Ajo (Pacific Red Snapper drenched in garlic) was fresh and grilled perfectly. Palm fronds clacked in the gentle sea breeze and the balmy night smelled fresh and salty. The fish was so delicious, I forgot to notice if mole was on the menu.

After dinner with our bellies full, and our attitudes toward one another more kindly, Sam and I cruised arm-in-arm with the flow of tourists, lovers, drunk surfers, and locals, noting places to explore in the coming days. We located the bank, the post office, and we found the only grocery store that was open where we bought purified water and a few provisions before going back to the combi to set-up camp. Sam and I both felt optimistic when he said good night.

Sam snored to wake the dead inside my no-see-um-netted bus when an orange combi pulled into our trailer park close to midnight. I lounged in my sling chair under the Coleman lantern, reading Gabriel Garcia Marques’ Love in the Time of Cholera. Parsley, alert at the edge of my tiny circle of light, kept watch on the two attractive men who emerged from the VW, set-up camp and disappeared back into it, pulling the door closed behind them.

The laughter of fishermen woke me at 7:00 A.M. The camper already baked in the heat. I stretched and pulled myself out of the sheets that covered the pull-out bunk that doubled as a back seat and took a look through the gauze of the no-see-um netting Velcroed into the door opening. The edge of the bay was about seventy five feet away from my front door. Tiny waves moved in, foaming onto the shore. The fishermen sat in clusters mending their nets, cleaning their catches, or preparing to launch the green, yellow and red pangas. There was much jollity and cat-calling back and forth between the boats. Gulls squabbling over bits of discarded fish guts, punctuated the fishermen’s conversations with their calls. Too bad my limited Spanish wouldn’t allow me to eavesdrop.

Presently, stout women in shiny dresses appeared, hefting gigantic blue enamel pots and baskets laden with steaming hot tortillas wrapped in bright napkins. They began to dish up breakfast for their men. The rich smell of tortillas and roasted chilies got my stomach to rumbling. Sam, already up, sat in the shade in one of the folding oak “archaeologist” chairs I carried and watched the scene.

“It’s about time you woke up.”

“It’s only seven.”

“I’m ready for breakfast. C’mon. Hurry up.”

“Did you make coffee?” I asked, needling him as I hauled myself out of the camper and into the warm, dappled sunlight of Las Palmas. Clearly Sam hadn’t bothered to set-up the stove and drip a pot.

I grabbed my towel from the locker and ambled off to Las Palmas’ shower house. Luxuriating in the warm stream, I complimented myself on my ability to pick a park., and remembered the trailer park in Puerto Vallarta.

I had limped into town after another harrowing trek down a drenched and treacherous mountain road and losing a shock absorber in the process. I didn’t take the time to check out the facilities before paying the tariff, triple what I paid elsewhere. It turned out the park was located just south of a pig farm and the breeze off the ocean blew right through the sty into my windows. To make matters worse, there was not another soul camping there. If I hadn’t been so tired from the arduous drive from Mazatlán, I might have noticed the lack of company and the barnyard smell, but as it was, I paid the twelve dollars and went to bed.

In the morning, when I went to the bathhouse for a shower, I found, as the night attendant claimed that ‘the water in the shower was hot and would last as long as I would’, but he neglected to mention the reptiles, insects, and mad dogs who would be bathing with me. That bathroom was filthy. It was the first hot shower I encountered since Tucson, and I couldn’t touch anything—including the water. I moved to a hotel and learned my lesson—check first.

“The showers are great, Sam. This park was a good choice.”

“I’d be more comfortable in a hotel in Huatulco. Can’t you hurry up?”

Once I was dressed in the embroidered drop-waist “ropa típica” sundress I bought in Oaxaca City after my suitcases were stolen, we left Las Palmas to rustle up some breakfast. Our trailer park neighbors had not stirred.

Typically, Sam chose the most gringo-style restaurant on the walking mall.
Runny eggs and argument comprised breakfast. I envied the fishermen their happy banter and delectable smelling tidbits served from the giant blue pots. It didn’t matter what triggered our discord, it was always about the same thing: Sam took a contract job with the DEA chasing cocaine dealers through the jungle in Belize two years before and straining our relationship to breaking. I threw him out one night in the midst of a lamp-smashing, shouting match on our houseboat in Sausalito and we had been split-up until I arrived in Oaxaca to study Spanish. After almost a decade together, I’d come to enjoy my single status and I was not rushing to make up. He followed me down to my school with a suitcase of clothes after I was robbed in hopes that I might change my mind, but I resented it. He couldn’t understand that I didn’t want him there. Hadn’t we always enjoyed traveling together in the past? Australia, Belize, Mexico—camping or sailing or touring—it was an adventure. Then, on my first night in town, when the combi was broken into and all my suitcases were stolen, leaving me with the jeans and t-shirt I was wearing at the time, and in a panic, I called Sam.

Reluctantly, I agreed that I would put up with him if he brought me some new clothes and a printer for my portable Toshiba computer. I was ecstatic that the ladrones—thieves—hadn’t found the secret compartment built in between the front seats that held the computer, my Nikon camera and lenses, and the pullout Clarion tape deck I installed before leaving. They weren’t very worldly robbers because they left behind my 350 hp Honda gas generator that plugged into the electrical system and ran the computer, printer, and lamp anywhere I chose to stop and write, but they did take all my clothes and shoes.

Breakfast over and our provisioning accomplished at the under stocked and over priced tourist grocery store, we returned to camp to put on bathing suits and get ready for the beach. Three months in Mexico and I had lost an entire dress size.

“Must be the salsa!” I told Parsley as I slid out of my dress and into a new bikini and sarong for my day on the shore.

“Why don’t you trot over there and meet the guys from California. I bet they want to go to the beach with you,” Hal said using his most snide tone and gesturing his shining, hairless pate toward the orange combi. I glanced over, but there was no sign of life. The license plate read Mexico D.F., Distrito Federal, or Mexico City.

“It’s from Mexico City.”

“Whatever. Take them to the beach.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?” I hoped Sam didn’t hear the glee in my voice and walked off toward the gate, Parsley at my side.

We hit the beach at about 9:30, trudging through the sand with towels, lotion, water, book, hat and all the accoutrement needed for a heavy day of leisure by the seaside. I found a likely spot under a thatched umbrella shading an unoccupied weather-beaten wooden chair. stationed in front of a funky beachside restaurant that was playing some good old rock and roll. a The surf was higher on this side of the bay and the deep sandy beach sloped gently to the water’s edge. On Sunday morning, both tourists and locals were staking claims to the beachfront real estate. Kids ran in and out of the water splashing and laughing; girls basted themselves with coconut oil and stretched out to roast in the sun; surfers, stalking the perfect wave passed by carrying their boards; young men milled around the restaurants eyeing the girls while making plans and deals in low voices, or greeted each other in loud voices, “Que onda, guay?” Lots of palm slapping. Mothers, aunts and grandmothers sat in the shade of the palapas and fussed over picnics, children, and each other. A wiry, dark-skinned ten-year-old came up and asked what I would like to order and returned with my first Negra Modelo of the day.

Sam never showed up and I passed a relaxed beach day drinking beer, meeting people, eating fresh fried fish, swimming when I felt hot, and learning all the local gossip. In the afternoon, a band set-up and played reggae. A handsome kid asked me to dance. He was probably no more than twenty, but he was charming and claimed to have some “killer mota”. It wasn’t hard to convince me to hook up with him later that evening at a popular salsa club on the hill. Hanibal promised that we would get “muy prendida,”and he would teach us more Spanish. Alright! William, who had joined me during the afternoon, said he’d love to check-out the club after he was finished watching the World Series game at the local video bar. I bet myself that Sam would refuse to go. Where was Sam, anyway?

The shadows stretched behind me as the sun sank toward the sea. I gathered my things, paid my bar tab and Parsley and I trudged back to Las Palmas through the sand. Sam, it turned out, lay in bed, miserable with a debilitating case of Turista and encouraged me to go out and leave him alone. I took another shower and tossed on a melon-colored flounced sundress, added a bit of green eye pencil and some lipstick and voila! I was ready to knock ‘em dead at the salsa club.

“Hola. Hallo! Do you want a drink?” a tall, pale, somewhat soft-looking man with black hair greeted me in heavily accented English. One of the orange combi neighbors hailing me from his barbeque pit.

I smiled, “Hi,” and walked over to introduce myself. “Yo soy Ana,” I said as I extended my hand.

“My name is Gerardo from the north of Mexico Ceety,” he replied pumping my hand a bit longer than necessary and breathing what I took to be the exhaust of a tequila distillery.

It seemed that everyone here in Pto. Escondido spoke English. Gerardo appeared to be thirty five, or slightly older. It was hard to tell because, up close, he had that worn look of an alcoholic. After a minute or two of polite small talk in a combination of my broken Spanish and his slurred English I declined his offer of a cocktail and made an excuse to leave. As I turned to go, the door of the orange combi slid open and time slowed. A slender, medium-build man with light brown hair curling into ringlets onto his forehead and neck stepped out. He was wearing an ancient pair of flowered Hawaiian Baggies with dress tassel loafers and no socks, no shirt. He was brilliant, golden. Dazzled, I rooted into the sand, melting into a pool of jelly knees and rubber elbows with a wildly beating heart. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he approached across the sandy path from the orange combi. He looked young, sleepy eyed and innocent, but something in his manner said he was older. He sauntered over to me and took my hand.

“Fernando Leon, a sus ordenes,” he introduced himself, his smile lighting up his sea blue eyes. Warmth flowed through him.

Fernando. Fernando Leon. Fernando from the orange combi, from the north of Mexico City. My mind repeated his name over like a mantra. I was still holding his and hand gazing into the vast Pacific of his eyes when I heard myself inviting him out for the evening, drawing him toward the esplanade, “Voy a encontrar unos amigos en el club de salsa anoche. No quires venir? Te gusto bailar?

“Oh! Wait!” I remembered Sam, sick in my bus. “I have to go say goodbye to my traveling companion. I’ll be right there—esperame, esperame!”

I ran to my VW bus and leaned in to tell Sam I was off to the video bar to meet with William and Katherine.

“Sam, you’re welcome to join us if you feel better,” I fibbed crossing my fingers to negate the lie. While I informed him of the plan, I surreptitiously slipped a condom into my tiny black suede shoulder bag along with a fistful of pesos and my lipstick. With a final, guilty goodbye, I skipped off across Las Palmas, my excitement a cloud of sparkling particulate whirling around me.

Fernando, Parsley, and I set off to the video bar with Geraldo lurching behind us. Fernando took my elbow to guide me into a faster pace, obviously uncomfortable because of his drunken friend. We found the video bar and went in. The last game of the World Series blared from four screens placed around the small bar. The Minnesota Twins were crushing the Atlanta Braves in their second World Series win in five years at the Metrodome. William, glued to the screen, clutched a sweating Corona and four empties littered the bar in front of him. Katherine hadn’t arrived yet. I wondered if she’s made it to Puerto Escondido at all.

“So, William,” I sidled up to him, “are you hungry?”

“Not yet. It’s only the 5th inning. I’ll grab a bite here.” His eyes never left the game.

“How’s the food?”

I looked around to see who was there and what the food looked like. The patrons were mostly American surfer types with long sun bleached hair and fabulous tans. There were a couple of the type of men you see in crummy bars around the world, casual, a little seedy, like soldiers of fortune in between wars or dealers waiting to score. The few women seemed mostly to go with the surfer crowd, bleach blonds, mini skirts or short shorts and bra tops with maximum tans and fresh faces. Even the bartender was a middle aged gringo, graying at the temples, but fit and healthy looking in a light blue guayabera-style shirt and white jeans. An escaped nine to fiver down for a surfing holiday who never went home? The bar was decorated in surfer regalia: a couple of boards floated under the thatch, plastic Hawaiian leis draped surfing photos, a few colorful croton plants in the windows, and even a ceramic sculpture of a woody with boards on top sitting on the juke box, which, by the way, played every surfing hit from the 1960’s: “lets go surfing now, everyone’s learning how, come on a safari with me,” and competed with the televisions.

People munched piles of fries with ketchup, meat sandwiches that resembled hamburgers, and one guy even had a ballpark frank. The plates were served with frijoles and rice instead of potato salad and pickles, but this was Mexico.

English cheers and boos erupted around us and Fernando looked uncomfortable. Geraldo managed to find us and sucked up his third tequila slammer. He was having trouble sitting on his bar stool. I didn’t think he’d make it to dinner.

“What do you want to eat?’ I asked Fernando.

“Tacos,” he responded immediately.

“I love tacos,” I lied, “Where shall we go?”

I was one of the lucky tourists—I could eat just about anything I wanted without getting diarrhea, but I’d never eaten a taco. Fernando glanced at Geraldo, his head sagging almost to the bar top, and grabbed my arm, spun me toward the door and ran me out into the fading sunlight. Parsley, determined that she loved this new guy, bounded at his thigh, happily. Bars bored her. Fernando escorted me up one side of the mall and down the other in search of tacos and talking the entire time in a slow, simple manner that I could almost understand.
We found a spotlessly clean taquería he approved of. It was a platform of concrete raised up perhaps three feet above the pedestrian mall with thatched umbrellas shading a collection of very tall, very tiny round tables.

Fernando showed me how to eat the tiny rounds of tortillas stuffed with sessos, cabeza, and al pastor (brains, cow cheeks and marinated pork,) slathered in picante salsa and introduced me to Mexico’s popular icy, sweetened tamarind drinks. He regaled me with the story of his three years in Germany with a German girlfriend he met in Cancun while he was working at a resort. She spoke a smattering of Spanish, but he knew no German at first.

“I completely understand your frustration,” I said. I felt the same way—here I was with a young God, and all I could do was gaze at him and hope that he didn’t think I was too stupid. Gazing wasn’t that bad, actually.

Fernando, it turned out, was a great talker. He talked to me continually for countless hours as we drove 15,000 miles of Mexico and Guatemala over the next year. To my very great surprise, I was able to understand him. His theories about politics, the World Order, Mexico, the indigenous, education, dog training, love. And everything he had to say about his life, his family, his errors, his accomplishments. I had never gotten to know anyone so well so fast. And in a foreign language. Fernando did not speak English but I picked up Fernando's Spanish in no time.

I ate my tacos al pastor, pork sliced very thin and layered over a giant skewer that revolves in a heating element and cooks continuously until the skewer is empty, and my favorite kind. The meat is reddish in color and has a vaguely honey-baked ham flavor. The best al pastor, I came to find, was cooked on busy city streets and dusted with exhaust carbon and automotive lead by every passing bus and car, but Taqueria La Concha in Puerto Escondido turned out a pretty good al pastor, too. We drank our tamarindos and gazed in each others eyes. I ordered a Tres Equis and as I sipped it, he said he didn’t drink, wooing me with his clean living.

Meanwhile, Gerardo had lumbered past us, drunker than before, slurring epithets under his breath and swearing at the people he ran into. On his third pass, he happened to look up and see Fernando. He staggered up the steps and poured himself into the empty chair at our table and began an obnoxious diatribe against Americans in Spanglish. We paid our bill and hurried out into the evening, leaving Gerardo behind, muttering indignantly.

It was too early to go to the club but we searched out the stairs that led up to it and the village beyond. From the stairs, we saw that Puerto Escondido was built around a pretty, open-ended bay, stretching south from the point where the lighthouse stands, around to a natural outcropping of rock that juts up through the sand and into the water. Most of the town is built on the mountain, but the tourist section is drawn along the littoral, right in the sand. The main street was converted to a walking mall with a few hotels, restaurants, and many shops. We stood side-by-side on a bougainvillea-covered wall and watched the sunset while lightning arced between us.

Saints and Skeletons

2008-09-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

I
Sam and I headed out of Oaxaca onto the narrow country road winding toward the Pacific. We cruised my 1969 VW pop-top camper as though chugging an old Chris Craft along the sloughs of some sleepy delta. The ride felt thick and smooth—I had installed air shocks in place of the regular stiff factory stock.

Villages with tongue twisting names peeked from under profusions of blooming vines. Churches, soccer fields, and markets overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits, dark skinned families carrying pottery and crafts, and plots of marigolds pungent-ripe with golden flowers drifted by our open windows. The countryside smelled of fresh tortillas, burning chilies, chickens, goats, and the ubiquitous corn. As we ascended the foothills, the terraces of maize stretched into the clouds that hung around the high peaks above us like wooly ruffs.

Sam drove; I popped some old Moody Blues into the tape deck and cranked it up, making it impossible to talk and leaving me plenty of time to savor the shifting view of Mexico. I settled into my wide, red leather seat that some previous owner had pulled out of a Cadillac and installed into the VW.

I could feel Sam rankle, and I didn’t care. We drove in silence. I was still pissed-off that he’d followed me to Oaxaca—even though he had brought me a suitcase of clothes to replace my entire wardrobe stolen from the bus on my first night in town. It was bad enough that he’d signed up for the same session at my language school, but he finagled lodging with my hosts. Worse, we’d shared a room for three weeks and I’d settled right in to the old relationship. I hated that it was so familiar, so easy, but mostly I was disgusted with myself.

***
When Sam cleared customs at the Mexico City airport, lugging the promised suitcase along with his own bulging duffle, I had already fallen into the easy groove of Spanish classes, cooking, and lively cultural exchanges at Instituto Cutural Oaxaca and was comfortably settled at the Maldonaldo’s home with Parsley, my 12 year old German Sheppard.

The drive between Mexico City and Oaxaca took about twelve hours in the old bus, and we planned to drive all night; I didn’t want to miss any lessons. Sam, Parsley, and I had travelled by car plenty over our eight years together, through the Pacific Northwest, several trips down the Baja Peninsula—once pulling a 23’ sailboat on a trailer, up the Australian eastern seaboard—Brisbane to Cairns, and a month in Mexico and Belize. We had it down, the rhythm of the road. Drive and ride, drive and sleep, pit-stop, walk the dog, eat, change drivers.

“I’ll drive first,” I offered. “I can get us out of the city and onto 190 through Cuautla by dark. Then you drive.” It was six p.m. I had left Oaxaca at five that morning and was exhausted.

I drove; Sam slept. West of Cuautla the sun disappeared behind the distant dead volcanoes, their peaks worn to two-dimensional flatness against the yellowy haze, cooling to ash with the twilight. I’d crossed this prehistoric valley, with its moonscape of cones jutting here and there from the vast expanse of empty grassland earlier in the day and experienced the strangest sense of déjà vu.

I knew this place. I had planted corn kernels in the rocky, fertile soil. See my brown stick-like legs, my dusty feet bound to leather soles by strips of tanned hide, jutting from the thread-bare hem of my rough jute-colored tunic. See my pointed stick plunge into the ground. See my calloused, rough-working hand dip into the cloth bag, drop the seed into the hole. Look about, see the others, dark-skinned against their light tunics, ragged black hair flowing forward across bent shoulders—dig, reach, drop, dig, reach, drop against the backdrop of smoking cones.

This is why I’d come to Mexico. To uncover my ancient roots, my heritage of past lives. And I was going to write about it. I’d been in-country for over two months and so far, this valley held the strongest pull, the sharpest vision. I thrilled to my discovery.

“Ann, I can’t live without you.”

I flinched, startled back from my past-life musings. “You got divorced?”

“I will. I need you, please give me the excuse,” he mumbled, his hang-dog body language barking “loser.”

Nettled, “Get over it, Sam. Don’t bring me into it—if you don’t love your wife and don’t want to be married to her—get a divorce.”

I dumped Sam two years before when he ran off to Belize to chase drug smugglers, and I didn’t need him following me around Mexico, spoiling my big adventure. But I was the one who called for help after the robbery and here we were, travelling together toward Oaxaca and three weeks of language school.

***
I returned my attention to the ribbon of tar, at times barely a car width that wound higher into the mountains. The afternoon air became crisp and fresh. Familiar smells of mountain and wood smoke swirled through our open windows. In places the mist hung heavy in the pines. Adobe huts gave way to wooden cottages that were scattered further and further from their neighbors. The spectacular scenery unfolded as we rounded each bend. Fresh water streams proliferated, spilling over tumbled stones and fell down steep cliffs, disappearing into fern lined canyons. In sunny pockets, brilliant red, yellow and orange flowers crowded against the dark forest. The people we saw wore woolen clothes and hats, stout boots, and thick woolen shawls to protect against the chilling dampness of the shadows.

We shivered in shorts and sandals, from the awesome beauty of the cloud forest and the chill breeze flooding into the cabin of the bus as we reached the summit of the range. To our surprise, a small wood-hewn restaurant with white smoke billowing from the chimneystack sat atop the pass.

“I’m cold. Let’s stop for some lunch and change into something warmer. Are you hungry?”

“I could use some coffee. This road beats hell—what've you gotten me into?” Sam said.

Inside, the restaurant was warm and snug. A bright fire burned in a large fireplace along one wall and local crafts and paintings hung above it. Woven yellow cloths brightened the handful of square wooden tables filling the room. Opposite the fire a little bar and the door into the kitchen took muchof the wall-space. Most amazing was the north facing picture window that looked over the rugged peaks to the end of the earth, farther than my eye could see.

This nameless restaurant wasn’t listed in any of my guidebooks, but appeared like a miraculous vision—just when we most needed a rest. We changed into sweats, socks and shoes then hunkered down in front of the fire to sip our steaming mugs of sweet café de olla while we waited in silence for the dueña to serve her mole de guajillo.

Mole

2007-12-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

Mole
Some things conquer your imagination, not merely exacting tribute, but forcing you to evolve. Mexico, and the book we read in sixth grade, Mexico, Our Neighbors to the South, conquered me. I remember pictures of brightly colored serapes slung over the shoulders of men clad in loose-fitting white pants and sombreros, docile-eyed donkeys piled to the sky with firewood or clay pots, spiny cactus and vast, desolate land. I imagined the beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed women stomping their feet and swirling their ribboned skirts in a spirited hat dance to music played on an accordion. Everything I read captivated me: the romantic legend of the volcanoes—Princess Ixtaccihuatl and her warrior lover, Popocapetl; the bloody Aztecs tearing out human hearts to ensure the sun’s rise each morning; the ranchos and vaqueros (cowboys); even the food— I could almost smell the tortillas warming on the griddle—and a strange dark sauce made out of chocolate called mole. I vowed someday to visit my “neighbors to the South” and know of all these wonders.

Kirby, my college boyfriend, and I, driving a beat-up green truck through the middle of nowhere, were thirsty and gritty. It was at a dusty roadside restaurant in the afternoon of my first trip to Mexico, when I tasted the celebrated sauce—mole. I remember the land was flat and shimmering in the July sun. The heat radiated in waves off the pavement of the narrow highway and the vegetation looked parched and tired—anxious for winter. Ahead, rising out of a distant mirage, loomed a faded turquoise structure with a weathered sign in front: Loncheria Carta Blanca. We were saved.

The single open door led into a cool, dim interior. As our eyes adjusted, we saw rows of metal tables in a quantity to seat scores of luncheon guests, each with four red folding chairs painted with Coca Cola advertisements. But other than a couple of fat red hens roosting near the kitchen door, we were the only patrons.

A small, wiry man dressed in the color of dust brought us a menu and offered a toothless smile. “The chicken mole is delicious today,” he informed us in Spanish.

I asked for a coke, being easily influenced by advertising, and Kirby asked for a Superior. The icy drinks cooled us after our long hot drive from Guymas and we were ready to order. Remembering the mystical and ancient dish made with meat and chocolate, I ordered the mole.

Two cokes later, my plate arrived. On it there was a chicken leg drowning in what looked like a puddle of runny chocolate pudding. The chicken’s skin curled up off the bone as though gasping for breath; the meat drifted away in strings. It was thick, sweet, viscous.

“How can anybody eat this stuff?” I complained to Kirby as I pushed the plate away. “It’s disgusting. Too much chocolate.” This from a confirmed chocoholic.

Instead, we enjoyed his huge plate of enchiladas verdes, frijoles refritos, arroz mexicano, and plenty of hot home-made tortillas while that poor chicken leg foundered in the chocolate mud and, later, vanished back into the kitchen’s maw with the dusty waiter and the disapproving clucks of the hens.

Two decades slipped by. Throughout that time I visited Mexico often, and told my chicken mole story at every opportunity, including that first day at the Spanish language institute in Oaxaca. The school offered an intensive month-long course in Spanish and Mexican culture. As part of the curriculum, we had the choice of weaving classes, pottery making, or cooking lessons—all in Spanish. Every day I cooked wonderful dishes like chili rellenos, gorditas, tamales and enchiladas.

On the first day, Doña Carmen, our instructor, marched us cocineros (cooks) off to the central market to learn about buying food. I was familiar with Mexican markets since I’d been traveling for two months and prepared most of my meals over my camp stove, but I was unprepared for this. Mole was everywhere.

There were vats of mole, tubs of mole, mountains of mole. Mole verde, mole rojo, the famed Oaxacan mole negro, and mole of every color in between. Each puesto (stall) crowded into the huge market building was brimming with displays of mole. Mole—spicy, fresh, and chocolaty—pervaded the air with its rich fragrance. It blended with the meat smells of the butchers’ corridor, mingled with the sweet, ripe smells of fruit and the pungent herbaceous odors of vegetables in the greengrocers’ section. The scent of hot bread and tortillas baking tangled with the mole—a palatable smell. Our every breath was wrapped in mole. It settled over the household goods and wafted through the clothing aisles, spilling out the many doorways, down the narrow sidewalks, and into the dusty exhaust-choked streets of the city. “!Que rico!” was the only way to describe it. Thinking back to Loncheria Carta Blanca and the indignant hens clucking over my uneaten lunch, I wondered how these brown blobs could produce such celestial perfume.

Everyday we lunched at sidewalk cafes in the dappled shade of ancient trees towering over the Zócalo (plaza) amid a carnival of pigeons, tourists, and vendors hawking their crafts, “ Ropa Típica, cheap today!” There were dolls, mythical beasts carved from wood and painted in psychedelic colors, mescal in coke bottles, tiny green- ware pottery strung on hemp fiber, brightly woven belts, serapes, or blouses with intricate embroidery. There were shouts and laughter, honks, and the hum of scores of voices. Waiters carrying tempting plates of food and trailing rich aromas passed between the hodge podge of tables, chairs, potted plants, awnings, and umbrellas that defined the dining areas. I tried every dish on every menu—except mole.

One day in class, Doña arrived armed with ingredients to prepare Mole Amarillo, a main course stew. Rich and yellowish, it had big chunks of chicken, potatoes, and chayote. It was not brown, not sticky, not bubbling like the stinky mud-pots that fascinated me on a trip to see volcanoes. It didn’t contain chocolate, and it was called mole. I loved it.

“Perhaps,” I commented to my classmate, Jacquie, “I could be persuaded to try another color of mole.”

On the third Saturday, some of the cocineros visited the giant Mercado Abasto on the northwest side of town. Tiny shriveled indigenous ladies in colorful costumes sat on wooden fruit crates in the wide corridors, selling mounds of dead grasshoppers displayed on vinyl cloths printed with gaudy fruits and flowers. A peso bought a heaping sardine tin of the dried chapulines. In a moment of lunacy I ate one, to the delight of all, especially the little toothless vendors who grinned and nodded and jabbered all at once in a strange tongue. The grasshopper was quite tasty—crispy and slightly sweet but with a hot and tangy bite. Except that it was a bug. It looked like a bug, and it felt like a bug in my mouth. The sound was the same crunch of insects trapped underfoot in the dry grass of summer camp.

“Okay,” I argued with myself, “if I can eat a bug, I can eat brown paste.”

In class I began to pester Doña Carmen for a promise to demonstrate mole, but her reply was the always the same.

“Oh, mole! It takes too long to make. It’s really difficult,” And shrugging, as though it were all in the hands of Heaven, she spread out the ingredients for picante salsas, sweet atole, but no mole.

On our last day of class, Doña Carmen greeted us in the kitchen at four o’clock as we straggled in from our soon-to-be-missed lunches on the plaza. By the end of the course, our group had dwindled to only five—three other cooks and I, and one “sampler,” my companion, Hal.

The long wooden table that filled our narrow kitchen was laden with tomatoes, plantains, sesame seeds, raisins, four kinds of dried chilis, almonds, oil and thin patties of the crumbly soft Oaxacan chocolate. The same chocolate we bought in the Zócalo wrapped in pink paper and nibbled over our endless grammar exercises. Doña announced that we were going to make mole negro—the quick way.

She instructed us to select only the finest of the fruits and vegetables from the array covering the old table whose wooden surface was burnished to a rich sheen through decades of use. Tom and I had to sift the plumpest out of the half-kilo of sesame seeds while Jacquie ground the almonds to a paste in the molcajete (mortar). Only the reddest tomatoes were good enough to roast and peel; the plantains could not be bruised; the raisins needed to be juicy. Linda was chastised when she blackened the chipotle chilis on the comal and had to start over.

Finally, the chicken was braised moist and tender. The mole ingredients were ground to paste and simmered with broth to a velvety smooth sauce. When the mole was thick, but not too thick, we added just enough of the chocolate to deepen the flavor, adding a rich complexity. A divine aroma took over our tiled kitchen with its old fashioned iron cook top and open shelving. It was only moments until the mole was ready to adorn the chicken pieces now resting in a painted clay serving dish. Someone fluffed the rice in it’s matching clay bowl and set the table.

We were ready to feast. And feast we did! Mescal was passed ‘round, “To mole! Buen Provecho!” we chorused, and then we dug in.

We ate and ate and we ate some more. The kitchen was silent but for the clack of silverware on clay plates and the smacking of lips. We stuffed ourselves, but it was as if the platter had escaped from the fairy tales I read as a kid—it couldn’t be emptied.

We invited the weavers, the potters, and the guitar teacher. We invited the director and the other teachers, and we all ate.

At last the feast was gone. Hal and I were cleaning up and I found myself licking the mole pot. So this was mole—indescribably delicious and just like they claimed in my sixth grade book—food for the Gods!

My love affair with mole had begun. Ah, mole!

Over the two years I lived in Mexico, I sampled mole in every restaurant, cafe, and market stall between Tijuana and Chetumal. Mole became my grail; rich and steaming over rice or vegetables, in a tortilla, or cooked in tamales. I ate the famous turkey mole from Puebla and mole with chicken in a tiny restaurant at Popocapetl’s feet. I ate mole in the morning and mole for lunch.

But, even today, my favorite: red mole from the molino (mill) in Tepoztlán served at night over scrambled eggs with plenty of piping hot tortillas.

¡Que rico!

Mexico has conquered me again.