Wanderlust

Well, it turns out that the 6:05 bus to Jalapa is coming from somewhere else (Cosamaloapan?) and it doesn't arrive until 6:40. But at least it takes 15 minutes less to get to Jalapa than the three and a half hours I had been told to expect. I buy my ticket to el DF in the terminal and get my taxi to the Mesón del Alférez, a colonial mansion converted to hotel, totally charming but kind of dark--I buy two 100-watt bulbs the next day.

The best things about Jalapa are the Parque Juárez and the Museo de Antropología. The plaza principal, the Parque Juárez, is built on a hill, like the city, and therefore operates on various levels, with various institutions tucked into the slopes--el Ágora de la Ciudad, a cultural center where free of charge I see "Baraka," a strange documentary without narration or dialogue that seems to be an illustration for Anthropology 101; la Pinacoteca de Diego Rivera, a small museum that used to house a few of Rivera's works but now has an exhibit of ceramics, somewhat interesting; and the Italian Coffee Company, a delightful café where I can get Earl Grey tea and a brownie. Above, the Parque offers flowers, huge trees, small fountains, and five (!) balloon sellers--can they all possibly make a living? In the afternoon there are an abundant supply of little kiddies chasing pigeons, which kiddies everywhere seem to love to do.

The Museo de Antropología, a 20-peso taxi ride from downtown, is a jewel of architecture and landscape architecture, all beige marble, glass, and greenery. Set on the side of another hill, the route of the exhibits has the visitor descending three marble steps every 10 meters or so. What the visitor is seeing are gorgeous stone prehispanic sculptures, including several mammouth Olmec heads, for which the museum is noted, all found in the state of Veracruz. To the right every once in a while one finds a large glass-walled patio, with more sculptures, surrounded by trees and enormous plants, almost giving the effect of a jungle. From the patios one can drift to the outside grounds, a large expanse of lawn, flowers, and trees. The effect--especially since I have come early and apparently no one else knows that the museum opens at 9--is enormously tranquilizing, as well as awe-inspiring for the beauty of the sculptures and the beauty of their setting. The museum alone is reason to come to Jalapa.

My final day in Jalapa I explore the Parque Paseo de los Lagos, a large wooded space with an apparently artificial lake made to look like two, with geyser-like fountains gushing up. Then I tramp around looking for interesting facades to photograph--Jalapa speaks of a centro histórico, but what is histórico takes looking for--climbing the hill to the market and beyond and discovering stairways leading to a lower space where, conveniently at comida time, is a vegetarian restaurant that was somewhere else last visit.

Back in el DF the next day after five hours on ADO GL (wishing they provided headphones like ETN so one could avoid the movies but discovering that a Dracula movie is a satire on English high society), I focus on getting 13 rolls of film developed, then rediscover that Tlacotalpan is enormously photogenic, the next day have several enlargements made (also of Veracruz and Jalapa) while I shop (vitamins, pajamas, clothes for the gym, my bus ticket home, provisions at the Mercado San Juan).

Concerts seem to be suspended at this time of year, but at least I can do museums on my final day. The Museo Franz Meyer has an exhibit of photos of Mexico City's Centro Histórico taken in the period 1920 to 1940, from which I can see the in 1925 the Zócalo was beautifully landcaped (though, oddly, without benches) and an exhibit of posters in which I can see the controversial poster for last year's Festival Cervantino. The museum itself provides a marvelously pleasant setting sitting in the patio café, with the gurgle of the fountain and the soft Baroque music having a totally relaxing effect.

From the Franz Meyer I cross the Centro Histórico to the Museo de la Ciudad de México to see an exhibit of absolutely incredible sculpture by Victor Hugo Núñez, a Chilean exiled in Mexico since 1974. His large-format sculptures, mostly of people and mostly of iron, are simultaneously realistic and phantasmagorical, inspired by Mexican and Chilean artesanía. I am able to buy a small flattish barro figure, signed by the sculptor, for 50 pesos, after which my photo is taken, to include in a mural of owners of these figures, and I am asked to write a commentary in a book on the fact that I own one. After such an intense viewing experience, more museum-hopping is out of the question, so I eat and wander (buying on the street a purple baseball hat, something I've been seeking for a long time to go with my Guatemalan jacket) until time to get organized for my return home.

The city of Veracruz, el puerto as they call it, is the first of three stops I’m making in the state of Veracruz, to be followed by Tlacotalpan and Jalapa. To break up the distance, I first spend two nights in Mexico City, where on my one day there I walk from the Centro Histórico to the Zona Rosa, admiring the newly renovated Paseo de la Reforma and the series of nacimientos (creches) displayed along it of many different sizes and styles. I rest in a café and stop in two Fonart (government-run artesanía) stores, which I always treat as museums because the objects are exquisite and the prices high. For the first time I see a movie in Mexico City, the Colombian film “María llena eres de gracia,” about a 17-year-old fed up with her job dethorning roses who decides to become a mula, earning big bucks swallowing small packets of cocaine to fly to New York. After many complications, including the death of another mula, the ending is more or less upbeat.

From el DF to Veracruz is a little over five hours on ADO GL, during which I try to focus on the gorgeous scenery rather than the enormous man looming from the next seat. In Veracruz I settle in at the Hotel Colonial, much too expensive but I have decided that a room with a balcony overlooking the zócalo is essential to the experience of Veracruz I want to have. Which can be an interminably musical experience—on one side of the zócalo, under my balcony and extending further east are the portales, arches within which the diners at a series of restaurants and cafés are entertained by a variety of musical groups, many based on the marimba. I bring earplugs because I know from a previous trip that the entertainment will last well past midnight.

The great advantage of this location comes my first night, when I hear the music accompanying the Ballet Fokclórico de Veracruz, rush downstairs, and see a delightful performance of Mexican tapateo (vaguely related to flamenco but much less sophisticated), including the dance in which the señoritas put glasses on their heads (in this case with votive candles inide) and the dance in which the couples use their feet to tie bows in a sash. At 8, it being Tuesday, a band takes over the platform on which the dancing has taken place and below couples, just folks, start to do the danzón, a sedate sort of fox trot especially favored by the over-50 crowd.

I’ve come to Veracruz to warm up from Guanajuato’s chill, and I do enjoy feeling the heat of the sun in my tank top and sandals, but downtown Veracruz I find to be dirty and deteriorated. There’s the Malecón, a paseoa by the Gulf of Mexico featuring huge tankers and schlocky souvenir shops (the boats giving harbor tours weren’t when I felt like one), which is dwarfed by the Malecón in Havana. There’s San Juan de Ulúa, a warehouse for Spanish traders when Mexico was a colony, then with towers added a fortress against pirates, finally a prison of very ill repute before becoming a museum, which is worth shooting a roll of film but is less impressive than El Morro in Havana. The market, where I buy provisions for my in-the-room meals, would have been fascinating before I moved to Mexico but is now ho-hum. The fish market is nothing much compared to the cast-iron one in Manaus.

I dutifully spend my three days in Veracruz tramping around seeing the other tourist sights, and I enjoy the exhibit of photography at the Fototeca and the scale model of the walled city at the Naval Museum. I find myself returning daily to the Malecón to stroll and shoot pictures.On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve the number of tables outside the restaurants in the portales is doubled or tripled and that whole side of the zócalo becomes an enormous party, with continuous music. At 7, as the party continues, the Ballet Folclórico performs for the third night in a row; I watch briefly from my balcony while I organize my possessions for my departure the next morning. At 8 I notice that the party has thinned out and that there are many stacks of chairs that were occupied earlier. At 8:30 I realize the music has stopped; maybe the musicians have gigs elsewhere? Then I realize that all the people have gone, except for a cluster of perhaps 30 at tables off in the direction of the street. I decide it will be possible to sleep before midnight and leave on the 9:30 bus, and I celebrate the New Year eating olives I have bought at the supermarket down the street while watching the ball drop at Times Square, 11 p.m. Mexican time, on my TV. But sleep is not possible because a little later sappy recorded music breaks out, at midnight the bells of the cathedral go wild, people are singing, and I reset my alarm and decide it will be the 10:30 bus after all.

The bus is asecond-class line (TRV) leaving from the first-class section of the bus terminal, which causes me considerable confusion and scurrying around with my luggage. In between its innumerable stops to let people on and off, we see the Gulf of Mexico on the left and then Lake Alvarado, quite large, on the right. The lake is the mouth of the Río Papaloapan (Nahautl—Aztec—for butterflies), a river that forms the western border of Tlalcotalpan, my destination. I am going to Tlalcotalpan on the emphatic recommendation of José Luis, who owns the paletería I patronize almost daily to buy an agua de fruta to propel me up the hill I climb on the way home from my daily errands. It’s the only city I haven’t yet visited of the nine Mexican cities on the Unesco list of Patrimonio de la Humanidad (World Heritage Sites). The bus conveniently drops me in front of the Posada Doña Lala, my hotel, which is across the street from the river.

With Tlalcotalpan it is love at first sight—all over there are houses (not restaurants) with portales, painted in the most magnificent colors, blue with apricot trim, aquamarine with fuschia trim, chartreuse with yellow trim, a photographer’s dream. The windows are seven feet tall with metal rejas (bars). There are two churches on two lovely plazas, although the kiosk in the Plaza Zaragoza is being destroyed to be rebuilt. There are two museums not worth mentioning. There is no grafitti and no trash lying around.My hotel (painted peach) gives me a room whose balcony has a view of the river, which I can also gaze at from the back of a string of riverfront restaurants (taking shots of the sunset, of course) and more immediately taking a paseo in a little boat with outboard motor, good for seeing palacial riverfront mansions owned by former politicians.

Various aspects here are reminiscent of Cuba—the tall windows with rejas, the mahogany rocking chairs one frequently sees, the accent dropping the final s, even the food I end up eating, rice and beans with fried bananas. A vegetarian not really purist who has been known to eat fish, I find the prices breathtaking at the seafood restaurants, so I decide against paying more than I want to for something I don’t really want to eat.The other Cuba-like aspect is the lack of a newstand—a man carrying a newspaper tells me they are sold by muchachos roaming the streets, whom I don’t encounter. I’m suffering news withdrawal from the lack of a paper, the lack of CNN en español among the cable TV channels in my room, and the lack of a cybercafé that’s open on New Year’s Day or on Sunday the 2d. But perhaps the news withdrawal is appropriate to a place as relaxing as this.

I have a transportation dilemma as to the transition from here to Jalapa. I can go back to Veracruz on the same second-class line, which leaves hourly, and from there take a bus to Jalapa (of which I don’t know the frequency) or I can take a first-class bus from here direct to Jalapa—leaving at 6:05 a.m., the only departure. Which after some internal struggle I decide to do. (To be continued.)