I woke up to a glorious sunrise. From my 7th floor room I was looking to the north, straight into the mass of the La Malinche dormant volcano, which was side illuminated in gold by the rising sun. I have often thought about La Malinche as what Los Humeros must have looked like prior to the paroxysmic eruption of the Xaltipan Ignimbrite; an unusually large andesitic volcano (even when compared with Popocatepetel or Pico de Orizaba), with a lonely small dome of rhyolite in the flank, showing that a silicic magma chamber is in the process of growing and gaining strength. How is that for causing Poblanos to worry? Fortunately, I will not be here to witness it, because heeding my mother’s advice I am getting away from here. My Mom was Veracruzana, you know, and she had an atavistic dislike for Poblanos:
Perro,
perico, o poblano
no lo
toques con la mano.
Tócalo
con un palito
porque
es animal maldito.
I drove north to Tlaxcala, which is only an hour away, and confirmed that it is a little town with very little to its credit, and then crossed the Sierra de Puebla, which is a misnomer for a series of fertile valleys and small volcanic ranges. It was absolutely beautiful! Framed to the west by the majestic Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl volcanoes, and covered in a mantle of green from pine forests and corn fields, this is the ultimate paradise. Did you know that the original manna from the gods first flowed in this region, from the humble maguey? Also called the century plant, the central cogollo of this large agave is hollowed out, and every morning the tlachiquero collects a liter or so of sweet aguamiel from the hollow by sucking it into his acocote. And so he goes from plant to plant to finally bring his harvest to the processing plant where it is emptied into large vats and allowed to ferment to produce the manna of heaven, pulque. I was crossing through this blessed region and of course had to have a large tornillo of curado de tuna. I will admit it is an acquired flavor, but if it was good enough for the Aztec emperors it sure was good for me.
Eventually I reached the edge of the altiplano, a region deeply dissected by enormous canyons in the head of which I found Pueblos Mágicos such as Chignahuapan and Zacatlán del las Manzanas. This designation of Pueblos Mágicos is a bit of a marketing ploy, but to get it a community cleans itself up, gets brightly painted, and the local artisans and gastronomy are brought into the limelight for the delight of the visitor. You cannot go wrong visiting them.
My goals were to visit the archaeologic zone of El Tajín and to reach the small fishermen’s coastal village of Tecolutla, which was a favorite vacation spot of my parents. As I recall it, it was a full-day trip to get there, partly because my Dad was a slow and careful driver, and partly because they enjoyed stopping in every town, magical or not, to have a cup of coffee, walk around the plaza, and let us kids get rid of the pent up excess energy. The other part of the long trip were the narrow highways with many curves, which were often clogged by slow moving cargo trucks. And windy roads they were, because from Zacatlán the topography drops like a stone from the 2,500 m elevation of the altiplano to the 100 m elevation of the coastal plain. Fortunately there is now a modern highway that cuts the trip down from 6 hours to 3 hours, so I was able to reach El Tajín by 3 pm.
El Tajín is a Post-Classic site, and in conjunction with Cantona extended the Teotihuacán trading route, both in time and geographically, to the coastal plain. They developed a unique type of architecture, with pyramids where the paraments were made up by row after row of niches. For the longest time it was thought that they could have housed figurines of a vast pantheon of gods, but modern interpretations differ from just a cool architectural design to allusions to a place of origin with many caves. Two other claims to fame of the region are the Voladores de Papantla, folk dancers that climb unto a 15 m pole, and in groups of four tie themselves by the feet to long ropes coiled at the top, and “fly” slowly through the air as the rope uncoils over many turns. The top dancer stays on top of the pole, and as his buddies soar through the air he dances rhythmically balanced on the tiny top of the pole! The region’s second claim to fame is to be the origin of the vanilla plant, which you can buy in a pot, and of the fragrant vanilla bean, delight of all pastry and ice cream lovers around the world.
Here I was in the final stretch approaching the coast, pondering if the Tecolutla of my childhood would be totally unrecognizable. No, it wasn’t. It is still the charming little town that welcomes families to come pass a few days by the beach, in very comfortable boutique hotels modestly priced to meet the budget of families with little kids. Even the ongoing repair of main street was there, still going on 60 years after I was first there!
Tecolutla is at the join of the Rio Tecolutla and the Gulf coast, so it has both a river front and a long, long beach. Right away I changed into my old uniform of swimming trunks, shirt and sandals, and went out to get reacquainted with the town. I walked down to the riverfront, and realized something was missing: We always came up the coast and ended on the other side of the river, and we had to wait for the panga to cross us and the car. It was a very simple ferry, that probably carried no more than four cars at a time, but for us kids was the harbinger of wild adventure. Alas, the old panga is no more, and now a days you cross the river upstream from the mouth, through a rather mundane bridge.
I ate too much at dinner time, as usual here in Mexico, so I took a long walk along the beach, before retiring to bed.
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