12.3 Tehuacan Museo
Tehuacan Museo
We had two days off in a row! Nearly a miracle here, where everyone works on Saturdays at Berlitz (and many, many other companies as well).
We decided to take a little road trip. We wanted to visit the little town of Tehuacan, in the state of Pueblo, for two reasons.
One, in the Coe book we had read that the museum there had samples of the complete history of corn. Corn, or more properly, maize, is the backbone of pre-Columbian American history. It provided the main staple that allowed the population to increase to urban levels. Its history used o be a mystery. For instance, when I was a kid the teachers told us that corn was some kind of hybrid grain rather miraculously assembled from mysterious predecessors which had yet to be discovered. Recently this was proved to be untrue. It is a plant which underwent successive improvements as people nurtured it over centuries.
(As an aside, it is a crime that the Mexican corn industry is currently being destroyed by the United States agricultural subsidies. Almost 60% of the maize sold here is from the U.S which can undercut the prices because the farmers receive massive subsidies from the government. This is in essence like removing a country?s ability to sustain itself. Two additional facts increase the offense. First, the subsidies are illegal according to NAFTA, a policy which the US constantly exploits to its advantage by breaking the rules which it set up. Second, the introduction of genetically modified maize makes the farmer dependant upon manufactured seeds, to the detriment of the variety which is native. Criminal, I say. But enough politics.)
The second reason we wanted to visit Tehuacan is that we had visited it briefly and liked the looks of it. The visit was on the famous Love Motel sojourn on our return from Texas. We liked the puebla because I seemed prosperous, friendly and especially because it had about a million pet shops and pet veterinarians. These are just about non-existent in Oaxaca.
So, on the morning after El Grito we rose. Late. We just aren?t used to being up to almost 2:00. I am sure the mezcal had something to do with it too. We packed for overnight and took off.
First we went to take some photos of a Happy Food and the hand-made merry-go-round we had seen the night before. Alas, it was already dissembled! We were quite surprised since we?d expected the fair to go through the week end, but not so! So we took a different route out of the city. We gassed up, and while driving past the permanent market of the city I remembered another Happy Food sign we?d seen but never photographed.
?There it is!? I said, so Suzanne pulled over. I got out to photograph it, and on the way back to the car stopped and bought a half chicken from a rotiseria. It was lunch time, after all. So we munched delicious, tender chicken and tortillas and got onto 190 out of the city.
We had decided to take the Mexico Libre (free road) road this time. Sure the cuota (toll road) is larger and faster, but we have driven on the cuota so many times that is familiar and (no matter how pretty the countryside is on the cuota) we figured this gave us an opportunity to see some of the country which we had not seen before. Without even checking a map, off we went, taking the libre right fork instead of the usual pay-road cuota left fork.
On the first part of the road I said, ?You know, this looks familiar.? Suzanne agreed. Then up ahead we saw the turnoff for the road that leads to Suchiltongo, a ruin we visited long ago. Suchiltongo is a cool ruin, not just for the graves (which are locked up) but also because there they found one of the distinctive types of Mexican pottery called, naturally enough, the Suchiltongo Bowl. This is a bowl with grooves in the bottom which was used to grind up chile to make one of Mexico?s distinctive foods: the salsa. Along with the comal, which was and is still used to cook tortillas, this bowl indicated that the essential diet of Central America had been established thousands of years ago.
So we took a picture of it from a distance, because that pyramid is pretty distinctive. To our surprise, it came out! This little camera is great, but it generally does not take long-distance pictures well.
So then we said, ?Well, NOW we?re on a new road!? We can to a fork and headed north through this little town, San Francisco Telixtuahuaca. We stopped only to toss the leftover chicken and bones, plus some salad, to a starving dog. But after a while in the town I spoke again
?You know, this city looks familiar,? I said. Suzanne agreed, but we thought maybe it was just that the street into it was another tree-lined way. But the puebla was small, and soon we were buzzing down the double-lane tarmac again.
Mexico is a beautiful country, if you like mountains and grandiose hills. They have a tremendous variety of forms. Enough that I am tempted to get a geology book and figure out what they are called and why they are shaped as they are. We started to climb the long and twisty roads that always mark the ends of the valleys. But after a while the long night caught up with me, and I decided to take a quick nap. So I dropped the seat back (Yea, love that feature on Jumboita!) and, despite the twists and turns, snoozed.
I woke up from some or another pleasant dream. It was hot. I said so. I looked around, and the entire ecology had changed. No trees now, just scrub and a lot of tall, single cacti. San Pedros, I think.
?Same as la Canada,? commented Suzanne.
Sometimes, like right now, I really wish I had a Spanish keyboard. This whole log is misspelled because I don?t. Spanish has a lot of accents which I cannot duplicate and, even with my limited Spanish, I know the text is wrong. But at this moment, I wish I had the squiggle that goes over the ?second N? for Spanish. There is the usual N, like in English, but the second one with the squiggle is the special (entirely non-English) sound which is probably best known in the word Senor. If written as it is pronounced in English it would be something like Senyor.
Anyway, we were going through la Canada, and the N there is the second kind of N, so it is la Canyada really, in English.
?Same ecology as Canada,? said Suzanne. So we cruised along, getting more and more warm as we descended. And I started to think this looked familiar. So I pulled out the map and studied it. Let?s see, turn off the 190, turn north at San Francisco, follow the road, and this goes to Teotitlan.
?Hey, this IS la Canada!? I said. ?This is going to take us to Teotitlan!? Good ol? 135 again.
So in fact, it isn?t new road after all. We had driven through la Canada on our first big Oaxacan trip, and stopped in Teotitlan. Oh well, so much for the new roads!
La Canada is a little valley surrounded by really steep mountains so it is really hot and dry. It is home to the Cuicatec people, one of Oaxaca?s distinctive indigenous peoples. There was never enough water there to form cities, so no ruins either. So, no stopping. Just a long and hot drive. I mean, not much rally to say about a place which is mainly?dare I repeat it??hot and dry.
After about four hours we started to climb again, heading towards the city of Teotitaln. There it is! Was. Zoom, past, gas up again. We always gas up on half a tank. This is Mexico. When you see it, get it.
But NOW we were on new road! Absolutely and for sure. Zig, zag and curve up, then down. We left behind the la Canada valley, and descended into the Tehuacan Valley. It was a different as night and day. The land as covered with cornfields, not dry dirt and scrub. We started to go through little pueblas again.
At one point I looked leftward and saw a remarkable geographic sight. Tall, REALLY tall cliffs that looked almost like columns that rose from among trees on slope and ended topped by hills, with more trees. They were really quite amazing in appearance.
?Looks like something out of Glorantha,? I said. Again, I pulled out the little camera to try to take a long-distance shot, expecting not to be able to see them. But they came out, sort of. Here?s a picture.
In another little puebla we were slowed by an ambulance which was pooting along, its backdoors open. Weird. Slow. We poodled along behind it and began to see huge crowds on the sides of the roads.
?Are we in a parade?? I said aloud. We laughed.
?It?s like that time I was on Dale?s cycle,? commented Suzanne. Years ago when we visited Dale in Elgin he took her on a ride on his Harley and they did end up in a parade, tooting along and waving to the crowds. Well, we got a chance to pass and we did, and that was when we saw the first runners.
The first of MANY runners. And as we went along, very slowly, we passed more and more of them. Even a couple of women! And lots and lots of people in crowds along the side, cheering the runner on and handing them bags of water which they drank, or as often, dumped on their heads.
We found the local enthusiasm to be cheerful and entertaining. And more than once we heard, as we passed by, ?Mire! Gueras!?
And his is where I could use a Spanish keyboard again, because guera is pronounced Gooera. There is an umlaut above the U. It?s not used very much at all, but it is in this word. As I think I have explained before, we are generally addressed as guera or guero. We will be walking through the market, for instance, and we hear, ?Psssst, guero,? as a little old lady uses a traditional attention getting hiss, motioning towards us with the distinctive arm out, fingers pointed down motioning towards the onions or peaches or oranges or whatever she is selling. I had mentioned elsewhere, too, that people often address each other by using some physical feature, and it is no insult or racial slur to do so. So someone with dark skin is called Negro (blackie) or someone with slanted eyes (which are fairly common) is Chino (Chinese) or someone overweight is Gordo (Chubby) and someone with light skin is, you guessed it, Guero (Lighty). Not just us, but even light-skinned Mexicans are Guero.
So, amidst that parade of runners, we too were a feature. ?Look! Lighties!? We are used to it. Good thing, too, once we got to Tehuacan. It was, one again, pretty clear that the town doesn?t get very many tourists. Almost everyone show saw us, afoot or in the car, would do a double-take and watch. And we?d wave to them, and they would smile and wave back.
It took us about six hours to drive from Oaxaca to Tehuacan on the camino libre. Mostly hot and dry. But we got to see those mountains, and be in a pseudo parade!
We were relying on the Sanbourne book for directions in Tehuacan. It lists places to say and eat, and also has maps. It was what guided us to the Love Motel in the first place (though they did not identify it as such. It has apparently changed owners since the book as done.) But we were looking for a different hotel it had recommended, and which we had seen in driving around on our first trip when we were seeking food. But the map of the city as abominable. It has many sights such as the prison, jail or railroad station (which is not used anymore) shown, and streets marked, but not named, making is nearly useless. The address of the hotel was, at least, correct. Nonetheless, my Streetwise skill proved useful once again, and within a very reasonable time we found our way there, booked a room and parked. The room was only US$26 a night. New looking, clean, amidst many eating places. And, we discovered, just about across the street from the museum! Depending on where the museum was, that is, not trusting the Sanbourne?s map.
To our delight the bed was comfortable (actually, the room had 3 double beds in it!), the towels were fluffy, a shower high enough we didn?t have to duck to wash our hair, and cable TV! Down side: the bathroom door was lower than my head. But I am getting used to that. Well, it was Thursday night, and since we had cable that meant that we could watch Gilmore Girls (one of the few shows we regularly watch down here). We had an hour to look around, and went looking for the museum, thought we found it. Closed of course (being a holiday and late at night), but we saw an aquarium and went to see it closely. The proprietor/owner was a young man named Israel who knew some English and wanted to use it. So we chatted for a while, him expressing his desire to see the US but not being able to now that he has a one-year old son. Since he wanted to see Disneyland we assured him he could use his son as an excuse in the near future to visit the US. He complained that here was no place to learn more English or practice with native speakers in Tehuacan. ?I ask my teacher how I pronounce my name in English, and she no tell me!?
?Lo mismo en Espanol,? I assured him. He seemed a little disappointed at that.
We got back, watched Gilmore Girls. A rerun, but Suzanne had never seen it. Then we went out to eat.
We decided to go to a Sushi restaurant that was just a few doors down from our hotel. Now, the sushi in Oaxaca was a disaster. The ?cronchy rolls? and mezcal in a sake bottle were just too much. But this is Tehuacan! So we tried it.
And it was surprisingly good! We didn?t try the raw fish part, which we were sure would have been frozen. But the rolls we did eat were delicious and fresh. The tempura had heavy, thick batter too (same as in Oaxaca) but we didn?t mind. At least they had wasabi here! We liked it. Afterwards I told the owner (who wore a little Japanese jacket to take the order) that it was better than in Oaxaca, and now we would have to come to Tehuacan if we wanted sushi. He smiled. We wished our Spanish was good enough to ask him why he opened a Japanese restaurant in this little town. Sure, we could ask that with our Spanish, but probably not understand the answer. Maybe by the time we go back!
Next morning we walked to the nearby zocalo for breakfast. Delicious. Sitting on the sidewalk table we were again reminded hat this town doesn?t get many tourists. Then we strolled to the museum which was supposed to open at 10 AM. Well, it is Mexico, and the day after a fiesta, so it opened at 10:30.
It is a cute little museum. It has an entryway with a minimal sales shop, one large room with artifacts, another with basketry and a third with an exhibit of the ecology of Tehuacan Valley.
The artifacts were quite handsome. We had never before seen the articulated statues, tied together in the display with string. And there were several nice statues, though I kick myself for not writing down the name of the striped goddess. In addition to this one was another, which had holes in it so when a fire was made inside it smoke could come out from its mouth and hands. There were also a number of flutes with animal heads on them,, like this opossum. There were also a couple of cups shaped like breasts, as we had seen in the museum near Cerro de las Minas. It was a little irritating that the artifacts were not labeled to tell us where they came from, nor what era they were from.
And the maize. The tiny ear in the photo is about the size of a nickel, that were thousands of years old. Then some that were only small, others medium, others larger. Plus thousand-year-old husks of other plants domesticated ages ago.
These were all discovered by a scientist who had set out to discover them He chose the place in Mexico where he thought the most samples would have been preserved because of the dryness, which was Tehuacan, and scored by eventually assembling the entire sequence from the original wild plant to domesticated ears. So maybe Tehuacan is not the place where the domestication of maize occurred, but it is the place where it is best documented.
Suzanne, who makes baskets, was wowed out by the basketry display. I thought it was interesting. The nature display was mostly interesting because the local names of the animals were there, labeled over the badly stuffed displays. I as astonished (yes, astonished, not surprised) to discover that the deer were white tail deer, like on the east coast of the US, not the mule deer common to west. Astonished because muleys are adapted to live in mountainous country, the white tail in forests and fields. Ain?t nature wonderful!
The entire museum took about an hour and a half, at most. It is typical of these small town museums, even though this one was an official government one. But it was a sweet little place.
Afterwards we looked around the town a bit more, then got in the car and looked for the Chinese restaurant we had seen. After all, if they can make sushi, why not Chinese? We found it after a while, meanwhile viewing the other parts of the town. But after reading the menu I decided it was unlikely to be good (Chinese food was a tiny part of the entire menu) and since we were not really very hungry we decided not to ruin the experience and took off.
On the way home we took the cuota. After six hours to get there (Did I tell you they were hot and dry?) it?s just two and a half hours on the cuota. Suzanne mentioned that it was quite an engineering feat to have made this new road through the mountains, but I said I thought it must have followed some older road. Thus on the way I kept my eyes open and sure enough, here and there were the old road. Or rather, the old burro path. Sometimes it seemed it might have been large enough for wheeled vehicles, but many parts I saw were nothing more than said paths. Most of the countryside we went through was quite bleak as well, and I doubted that the indigenous folk could have made it through. There was not even water for most of the trip. Occasional valleys with trees and corn, but not much. And a lot of mountains, not hills, mountains. I had to admire that even burros ever got through.
And so, back to Oaxaca. Our cute little city and home. We had school the next day, so sacked out early after a notably pleasant outing.
Though I don?t think I will driven through the Canada again soon.