| Carol Ann (Gratsos) Howell... page 4... Vacation 2...OAXACA'S PEOPLE OF THE CLOUDS |
| You're in southern Mexico winding your way through the mountains of the Sierra Madre Del Sur. Dead trees and saguaro cactus pierce the rocky mountainsides. It is said that the famous Ixtl�n of Carlos Castaneda's JOURNEY TO IXTLAN was in these mountains, very possible. There is something eerie and surreal about them. They make you think of Salvador Dal� and Franz Kafka. You are following a stream that waters the many farms that emerge as the pass widens. The narrow strip of flat land has been made into farms growing corn, tomatoes, bananas. Goats, burros and Brahma cattle wait and graze beside the road. The sky is alive with huge clouds changing shape constantly, influencing the mood of all that exists below. You look down into the lush valley at the town of Oaxaca, capital of the state. At five thousand feet the nights are cold and the sun burns in the daytime. The state of Oaxaca is the birthplace of Benito Juarez, the first president of the Republic. The city of Oaxaca, with a population of one hundred thirty thousand, has a different flavor from Mexico City or Guadalajara. It's a very Indian town. The majority of the people are Zapotec, the People of the Clouds*. Their skin is a dark muddy color. They are short, some under five feet tall, with rounded features, at times looking negroid, resembling the Olmec heads. The Zapotec women still wear black and white printed turbans wrapped around their heads with one end streaming down, which is a good base for carrying things on their heads, like baskets full of produce, bags of oranges, bags on top of bags, piles of folded fabric, all with no hands. The only time they use a hand is when they come to a sudden stop or make a ninety degree turn. And you know that the long turbans are good for carrying babies. Sometimes you see a woman walking down the street with a bundle tightly tied to her chest, no face showing, it's a baby. The women always wear their black hair in braids, either hanging down or tied up and entwined with bright-colored fabric. You observe that the Zapotecs are a somber introverted people as far as tourists are concerned. Your taxi takes you to Hotel Francia, a second class hotel one block from the z�calo. The hotel is famous for its food and service, very pleasant and typically Mexican. D.H. Lawrence wrote MORNINGS IN MEXICO here. Your room is on the second floor. The ceilings of both bedroom and bathroom are two stories high. The bathroom has a clerestory window. All the walls are stark white stucco and the floors are tiled. From your bedroom, a balcony looks onto the street. The entrance to the room opens onto an inner courtyard on the second level. It's surrounded by arches. On its tiled floor sit potted plants and soft chairs for lounging and dreaming. Downstairs in the dining room the coffee is made in an espresso machine. It tastes like Turkish coffee, thick and dark. They don't give refills. If you want a second cup, you must make a new order and you get a fresh cup and freshly made coffee. And you've found out that the beer of Oaxaca is excellent, especially the dark Negra Modelo. And you like the apple juice which is very popular, called "Manzana" which comes in a can and tastes like liquid applesauce. But when there is no agua mineral available, you drink the refreshing clear apple drink in a bottle, Sidral. So much to experience here for the palate. You see black beans for the first time because you've never been this far south. French rolls were ubiquitous in Mexico City and Guadalajara, but in Oaxaca you see rolls and tortillas. You know now that those ugly brown oranges are dark orange and sweet on the inside, not at all acid. At the z�calo you drink refresco de tamarindo and horchata, which tastes like liquid rice pudding. But in the evening you drink tequila and mezcal with the locals in celebration of the maguey cactus. Each morning brings to your sleep-clothed ears muffled sounds and the songs of birds. Then you wake to the sound of a newsboy passing beneath your window singing his salesman's song. You step out onto the balcony to find the market has sprung up overnight in the middle of the street, flanked on each side by stores. It resembles a Persian market. The Old Market goes on for blocks. It's said that Don Juan of Carlos Castaneda's books frequented this market. On Saturdays the Zapotec and Mixtec Indians come with their tooled leather, blankets, ponchos, shawls, embroidered blouses, laces, mezcal and the famous black pottery with its open work. There are no flies as long as the weather is cool. The oranges are as big as our grapefruits and are displayed in piles: three on the bottom, then one in the middle, then one on top of that one. Amazing! You watch the Indians counting and tying their onions together. But you're careful of taking their pictures, they don't like it. But when you ask a man if you can photograph his oranges, he says, "C�mo no," but thinks you're a little daft. When you leave the market, you stroll down other streets. You walk into a shop where there is a very smart parrot who can speak Spanish. You wish you could roll you r's the way he can. Behind a glass enclosure you see a beautiful necklace, a work of art. At first glance it seems to be a mass of silver globs. A closer look reveals hundreds of tiny men and women in abstract with tormented faces. You wonder if it's a statement on the human condition, and you are reminded of a quote from the famous Mexican writer/poet/philosopher Octavio Paz who said, "The cult of life, if it is truly profound and total, is also the cult of death, because the two are inseparable."** You watch a woman walking across the street carrying six coffee cups. Not in a bag. Not in a box. No, too complicated. She just ties all the handles together and walks casually as if she were carrying a bag. You walk over to see Hotel El Presidente, a good place to write Edgar Allen Poe stories, strange and eerie like the cacti and the dead trees on the mountains. El Presidente used to be a convent. Then came the revolution (Benito Juarez and all that) and it became a prison. Now it is restored and converted to an elegant hotel. Yet certain enormous spaces echo. In your mind's ear you hear the moaning of the nuns who changed their minds, and the wailing of the prisoners, the sound of chains ... but it is only the rain outside. In the evening you take yourself out to dinner at the elegant El Patio Restaurant. You begin with soup of the garden, as it is called in Spanish. The waiter prepares Steak Diane for you on a grill near your table. Fabulous! Then for dessert, he prepares at your table-- Platanos Singapore: bananas in butter with rum and Kahlua. Sinful! All this is in a setting of arches, red brick floor, flowers and trailing green plants. Ah, Mexico! The following day you move to the Calesa Real Hotel, higher class than the Francia. You hear tourists call the area from Oaxaca to the Yucatan the "Ruins Run." So you sign up for a tour of the ruins of Monte Alb�n twenty minutes away. Built by the Zapotecs, it has pyramids, tombs, staircases, sculptures, glyphs, bas-reliefs, platforms with temples, and an interior stairway. The famous "dancers," your guide tells you, were not dancers at all but figures in the medical clinic. The drawings made on the stones depict deformities caused by incest. Originally the heads and lips of babies were deliberately deformed, but later, after intermarriage, some deformities happened at birth. Still, the ability of the artists to depict what they saw is incredible, considering the tools they had. The ancient Zapotecs' numbering system was nothing primitive either. They had the zero, a dot equaled one and a bar equaled five. With the zero, the bar and the dot they were able to do complicated mathematical and scientific calculations. The number thirteen was sacred. The next day you go to Mitla, forty-two kilometers from Oaxaca. You share a taxi with some Italian tourists and a guide who tells you that Mitla means "Place of the Dead." One unusual thing about Mitla is that the dead were entombed below ground. It has been only partially explored. You touch the magnificent bas-reliefs, sculptures and elaborate cut-stonework. The temple and tomb walls are covered with geometrical patterns of the hook and ladder design and reminiscent of Ancient Greek art. You find that Oaxaca is a good place to feel the differences that Mexico has to offer. You go mountain climbing, people watching and you sit in the z�calo and listen to the music and contemplate the madness on the highways in your country. You sip a little mezcal and admire the bougainvillea blossoms, and let your soul drift back into history. Back, back to the days when there were only the People of the Clouds. ***** |