(Los Angeles – Tucson – El Paso – Dallas - Fort Worth – Mexico City – Copper Canyon – Chihuahua – Dallas)
"The Texas Eagle": is two carriages plonked on to the back of "The Sunset Limited" which leaves Los Angeles three times a week for New Orleans. It used to be a genuine transcontinental train across the US to Florida but it hasn`t been able to find its way back following Hurricane Katrina. Our car attendant settles the few sleeping passengers in for a 10pm departure. It`ll be 32 hours before we are uncoupled in San Antonio to join the rest of the "Texas Eagle" which then trundles north to Chicago. the guy across the aisle from me will take 52 hours to get home to Joliet, Ill. He does this each year to escape and relax.
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Dawn in the desert: `Pinal Air Park` was signposted from the adjacent Interstate freeway. Ghostly silvery-white passenger jets (with tails the colours of their previous owners) are glistening in the dawn sunshine under the shadow of a range of ged brown mountains. Scores of jumbo jets, DC10s and other jettisoned aircraft are parked and shuttered: a few in QANTAS red and Cathay green.
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I felt I had woken in a parallel universe. At breakfast I was parked with a table of `Good Ol` Boys` of various ages but identical Gawdfearin` conversation and drawwwwls. The bloke next to me and without the cowboy hat was wearing e red headphones which were yelling hellfire and JEEE-SUS!! into his (and our) ears. He briefly removed the headset before a silent but intensive public prayer, a request to pass the syrup, and a return to the "Headset of `Jeee-SUS!". At the adjoining table there was an extended, public prayer circle of four handholders before they `Amen`ed` and faced up to the usual standard choices of Amtrak fare.
We passed a large and graphic hoarding as desert turned to dusty town: "LORDSBURG.
Welcome to Lordsburg
HEY DAWGS
YOU HAVE:
One Brain
One Body
One Life
USE THEM AND PROTECT THEM CAREFULLY"
The train did not linger, continuing to roll through dusty light brown desert with abandoned car bodies, scattered scrub, distant rugged mountain ranges to the north and south and the ever present parallel Interstate.reeway.
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Tucson, AZ: 20 minutes of `smoking time` to admire another Spanish Mission styled and largely obsolete Santa Fe station house, a dead-quiet downtown with a brand-new circling, trundling streetcar to nowhere in particular.
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El Paso appears in a distant valley, reached by sinuous reverse curves in the weakening afternoon light. Sunset draws long shadows from the pair of high razor-wired security fences between the USA and Cuidad-Juarez, Mexico: one of the most violent cities in North America. The usual huge border-gate Mexican flag flops lackadaisically from the broad white pole in the river valley about a mile from the station. The El Paso station house is built in the style of a low Gothic parish church with waiting hall. It`s another crew-change/smoker`s-walk/cafe-car-restocking-with-junk-food breaks. The platform is tightly fenced. We see only the rear end of San Antonio before trundling into the night with the huge Mexican flag gradually drifting, with its hillsides of smoky housing, towards the back of the train.
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6.30am: Shaken awake by the shunting of the sleeper onto the rest of "The Texas Eagle" and by the great, long, loud, laugh of our new Sleeping Car Attendant as she takes over from the quiet Andre from LA. "Hi, How Y`ALL DOin?"
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Austin: the neat looking capital of Texas, and the only place in Texas where you`ll find liberal politics, I am informed by a university student returning to `school` after the holiday break. The landscape as we leave is eerily familiar now: scrubby paddocks, tumbledown corrugated iron barns and metal windmills on large cattle properties with distant `homesteads`. Along the criss-crossing freeways are huge ads for GUN SHOWS and for `Lap-Band Surgery from only $2500!!`. Two lunch companions from Oregon assure me that it worked for them as they share a single meal order (chicken for him; string beans and mash for her...) and I face up to a plate of `Market Special: Turkey Balls`.
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The Texas greeting is, consistently: "Hi. How`s it goin`?"
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Our car attendant was keen to chat after the morning bunks and linen service was done and there were long stretches with few stops. She`d been working the trains for 5 years and was approaching the level of seniority where she could make some choices. Based In Chicago, she worked trains to San Antonio, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle across all of the western lines. What she really wanted to do now was to work for METRA commuter trains in Chicago so she would be home every night with her 6 kids and wouldn`t have to deal with the increasingly difficult passengers in `coach`. While raising her kids who were now all 18+, she`d been working through a Law degree and really wanted to complete it. Her son was keen on Black History. Could I tell her anything about Aboriginal Australia? In the 10 minutes into Dallas I did my best. She wrote down a list of videos and ideas for her son to follow up (as I was scraping my brain to remember Frontier Theory from UNSW lectures in 1974 and to relate it to Australian history for an black American). I was given a huge hug as I `detrained`... not the usual farewell from train staff in any country.
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DALLAS-FORT WORTH (DFW):
Overheard while waiting for baggage at the newly restored Dallas Union Station: "There`s only one Amtrak employee so the ticket booth is closed when the train is in. When this man gits his bag, yo`all can git a ticket," says the lurking taxi driver who doesn`t want to lose his fare (me) until he realises I`m only going a few blocks downtown. (He is talking about a major city station and the national passenger railroad company: it`s such a shoestring operation). Meanwhile three locals try to cadge cigarettes...
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Opposite my room in the Downtown Crowne Plaza is a conference entitled: "Managing Multiple Tasks, Objectives and Deadlines": I`m so glad I`ve left that particular world behind. At the next table over dinner the organisers were allocating rooms to delegates and arguing out the program. I`m SO glad i`ve left THAT world behind...
You`ve got to love a town that names its local bus interchange: `Rosa Parks Plaza` with a suitable sculpture of Ms Parks on a bus seat you can share. It was also one of the scarier places I walked through after dark... After that I stuck to `the DART` (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) which was well populated light rail, brightly lit, and could even get me to the airport. I like that you can `take the DART` directly from `Westmoreland` to `LBJ`, which is far more direct communication between those two gentlemen than they practised during their Vietnam War years.
Having briefly considered the MacDonalds near Rosa Parks Plaza for a fast breakfast (very secure indeed) I sampled a 7eleven "bear paw": a flat pastry bun wrapped around sweet almond with five deep parallel scratches across the surface. It came with the usual American `small` bucket of dribbled and bitter coffee.
To get from a DART stop to Downtown Dallas (after searching for a safeish breakfast option), I took the McKinney Avenue Trolley. What should roll up on a bleak, grey, drizzly morning but an old Melbourne W2 tram. The driver complained about how cold and drafty the `streetcar` was even with it`s fancy new doors and air conditioning. "Don`t those MelbORN people know how to get warm?"
Actually, `Downtown` isn`t really downtown in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex which spreads over many suburban `downtowns` over hundreds of square miles. Dallas and Fort Worth are attempting to reestablish safe heritage downtown central areas with restored buildings, `new` lofts and apartments and clusters of community centres networked by light rail. It seems to be working.
One building which won`t be redeveloped is the old Texas Book Depository overlooking Dealy Plaza. It`s now the `6th Floor Museum` to a dead Kennedy who was largely hated by Texas politicians when he dared to visit Dallas to drum up support for his re-election funding. He and Jackie are spoken of in hushed and reverent tones these days. It`s quite a shock to emerge from excellent displays and videos of the `60`s, the Kennedy's and the immediate aftermath of the assassination, to be confronted by THAT window looking down to the Plaza and intersection, with everything in place (apart from the spent cartridges) as it was on the day of the assassination. The following explanatory displays of police bravery and ineptitude (Jack Ruby, anyone?) and the conspiracy theories and inquiries and Kennedy legacy follow. Despite Vietnam, LBJ is very much a local hero for carrying through the liberal social legislation which JFK had initiated.
And for those of you hoping to receive a particular pair of memorial salt and pepper shakers as souvenirs, I am sorry to report that the death of JFK is now dealt with far more reverently now, than it was when I was last in Dallas in
1970.
One block from the museum bookshop is a high rise middle school. The motto for Lasseter Early College is: `Service is the rent you pay for the space you occupy here on Earth`.
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Fort Worth StockYards (A National Historical site with so many lovely souvenirs, but sadly so little room):
`COWTOWN COLISEUM
RODEO FRI & SAT 8PM
GOD BLESS TEXAS`
The `draaanks` in the adjacent bar are served in glasses the size of substantial terrariums. Local business types were downing several gigantic lunchtime Bourbons before returning to work. On my way back to the bus with a bucket of Coke and something vaguely beef and Mexican in my gut I refused several offers of photos, sitting on tethered longhorn cows, suitably hatted.
The largest, even domineering, nineteenth century buildings in the towns making up the metroplex seem to be the the courthouses: massive red brick: turreted and towering; seemingly designed to bring fear and respect of law to the frontier. Most of them have been replaced by something larger and blander and are now local museums in these days of high rise air conditioned downtown American jails. Down the road from the Denton County Court House (on its dominating hilltop) is `Chasin` Tail BBQ`.
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The West End DART (light rail) station at 10am: a young black guy, perhaps on certain salubrious substances is in turn spooked by, or jumping at and screaming at small flocks of pigeons. One of Dallas` Finest: burly, black-uniformed, neckless, wrap-around sunglasses, very armed, white-helmeted and cruising by on a Segway yells to him: `Do you want me to bring my gun?`
Young guy yells: `Yes! Ahm sick of them poopin` on me`.
`Me too,` says the cop, as he Segways further along...
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II didn`t make it to South Fork Ranch, but you may like to know that the main gay and lesbian bars in Dallas are called `JR`s` and `SuEllen` (respectively).
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You soon understand why Texans are soooo nice to each other; so many of them are (legally) carrying guns. It was sobering to read a report in `USA Today` about gun detections by security staff at US airports. In the more liberal north eastern states, guns fund in carry-on luggage are confiscated (much to the chagrin of Texans who just seem to carry them around with their keys and cards...). The highest `discovered gun` statistics are at Texan airports (120 in 2014 at DFW Airport alone). The most frequent excuse was: `Oh, I just forgot it was in my bag.` (!!). Once the gun is discovered, Texan Security Personnel inform the owner that if they take their gun back to their parked car and lock it in the glovebox, they can still make their flight. (!!!) It must really upset some Americans driving into Mexico to be confronted by a large sign: "GUNS BANNED IN MEXICO" and warning them to get rid of weapons before the Mexican border check. Ironic on several levels.
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AeroMexico`s inflight meal: the usual dry and cold croissant with chemical cheese slice and see through ham (what is it that airlines do to something as simple as a bloody croissant to make it so unlike real food?) and a small plastic bag of "Ready to Eat BUNNY LUV classic cut and peeled baby carrots" with a squeezy thing of Heinz sweet mustard as a dip. They were gooooood!!! How simple and actually vaguely nutritious. I`m not looking forward to the return flight to Dallas on American Airlines with "food to buy"...
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CUIDAD de MEXICO:
The first inkling was that water on the bathroom floor seemed to be running uphill, away from the drain. From a rooftop breakfast table overlooking the Cathedral and Plaza de la Constitution, distant church towers lean in slightly opposing directions. Even more modern buildings seem to be slightly not-so-straight. Once at ground level, some streets have a seemingly roller-coaster effect while buildings bulge forward slightly or lean away from pavements. The long, straight(ish) Federal and City Government buildings fronting the Plaza also roll and weave and lean and bulge. Some high-rise buildings, originally flush with each other, seem to be departing company with 3 degree leans. They are all still occupied and functioning, although some of the more alarmingly awry church towers have been buttressed by solid concrete walls covered with tiles for 10 to 20 metres in height.
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A walking tour took us to Aztec ruins at the eastern side of the cathedral. The Spanish sought to destroy previous civilisations by demolishing their buildings and incorporating temple stonework into new cathedrals, directly replacing one culture with another. In building new-over-old in reclaimed and sinking swamp land from the vast original lakes, buildings are slowly descending into the mire but at different rates, depending which parts of them were built upon Aztec foundatins. The 1985 earthquake hastened this process, therefore the oddly angled towers and roller-coaster pavements. The original cathedral organ, located behind a gently lit black crucifixion (black because poison placed on its foot, which was regularly kissed by the priest, was soaked into the original wood, thus saving the priest) can not be played as it will accelerate the slow decline of the building. The remains of the original temple (discovered during Metro construction in the 1970`s) now ironically prop up the buildings supposed to replace them. Inside the vast cathedral you can trace, through a series of Gothic arches, a gradual and increasing lean to the left throughout the building.
There are several `nice little earners` for the church: buy a brass replica of the part of your body which hurts and pin it to a red board to be included in prayers. Or: purchase a suitable length of ribbon and attach a small note (or photo) about a person who is spreading evil gossip. Attach it with a small padlock below the correct saint and the gossip will cease.The Cathedral Arcade provided your full range of statuary, communion dollies and herbal remedies, balanced by a bookshop further long the back street which provided an interesting collection of Communist and Nazi literature, and a helpful city map.
A later visit to the archeological museum stepped us through the Aztec human sacrifice process (largely confined to the chosen few in the upper classes or the odd slave captured in battle, we were informed). Some critical original items were stolen by the Spanish rulers over 300 years, landing in Austria (care of the Hapsburgs: keeping treasures within the family).
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Plaza de la Constitution (right under my window) was full of police vans, helicopters and armed vehicles and lovely PR police/ who would pose happily in their bullet proof vests with kiddies. At the base of the huge national flag was the police brass band which performed semi-permanently all day til 10.30pm with rattly drums and squeaky trumpets. The major performance was at sunset for the lowering of the massive flag. I enjoyed this each night with a glass of Baja California merlot in one hand and camera in the other. Around the perimeter of the plaza were some of the burliest female cops in even burlier bullet proof vests, keeping the peace and keeping the shoeshine guys in business at the start of each new day. It was explained to us that the city government tried to keep the plaza full of displays and performances as it reduced the chance of protest in front of the lines of Federal and city government buildings.
The police departed smartly on Sunday night, beginning with the squawky band and finishing with the line of departing helicopters at 10.30. The peace was difficult to get used to...
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Teotihuacan on Sunday: the family day out for Mexicans, and a day of public, impassioned snogging in streets and vehicles of all kinds by couples of all persuasions. Travelling north to the pyramids of pre-Aztec civilisations on the crowded freeways (compulsory stop to wonder at varieties of aloe vero plant and hairless edible dogs followed by `gift shop`). A `gift`is, by definition, some item that you don`t want to live with as it`ll be going to someone else`. Think on this when you next enter a `gift` shop...
Actually the aloe vera family plant was quite interesting: scoop out the centre for drinking (and for the basis of alcoholic drinks), peel back the leaves for a waxy paper, cut across the sharp ends of the leaves and pull gently and you have a needle attached to its own twine.
At the pyramids: huge, seething crowds and many peripatetic retail `opportunities`. But first: a slow shuffling queue through the remains of a palace (from a vast city dating from AD250 until the civilisation collapsed in the 8th century) with original brown/orange paintings well preserved. Then the spectacle of the long vast roadway from the Pyramid of the Moon to the Pyramid of the Sun. "There are many people. It is Sunday. We will allow 90 minutes if you wish to climb," said our lovely guide. After looking over the vast site from the palace battlements we descended to the swooping sellers of textiles, sombreros, drinks, assorted painted wooden kitsch in wearable or house-decoratable forms and my particular favourite: bow and arrow sets festooned with bright feathers. These were enthusiastically pitched to children and demonstrated by shooting arrows directly into the air above the crowds. What could possibly go wrong?
After clambering to the halfway point of the Moon pyramid (the limit, due to ongoing archaeological investigations), I ambled down the long road to the base of the Pyramid of the Sun (15 minutes) then I ambled to the end of the queue to climb (10 minutes), decided it wasn`t going to happen in the allotted time, so perched on the wall to people-watch the itinerant salespeople ""working the queue" and the Sunday crowds: entertainment enough until the due time.
Nothing had prepared me for what was to follow: Guadalupe.
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So, in December 1531, a recently converted Indian, standing on an Aztec shrine apparently saw a vision of the Blessed Virgin several times. It was only after the image mysteriously appeared on his cloak that the local bishop believed his reports of visions. Leaving aside the mystery and historical convenience of this for the Church, let alone the Spanish colonial masters, the image has become associated with all sorts of miracles and the cult is strong (up to 7 million visitors to the basilica in one day each December we are told) in spite of some in the church believing it to be idolatory.
So.... a long drive back through rural and then favela Mexico brought us to a chaotic intersection north of the city. Squeezing through various battered tour buses and vans we were directed to a shop to buy items to be blessed. (It seems that Mexican day tours don`t stop for lunch, so the two American blokes and I were on the hunt for food in this eclectic forest of Catholic decorative memorabilia.Opposite the life sized Christ on the Cross (a `steal` at $5995) we found a small ice chest full of Drumsticks. Problem solved). Our tour guide asked one of the Americans why he was not buying any of the lovely sacred items. He quietly responded: "I can`t find anything with a Star of David on it."
Meanwhile, the Spanish speakers were trawling the place on a kind of Blessed Virgin Supermarket Sweep. Suitably equipped and `pink dotted` so we wouldn`t get lost ("Just go to John Paul II between the old and new basilicas and wait and we will find you."), we braved the jam of tour buses and were funnelled along a narrow steel and concrete laneway, following the curve of the the huge 1960`s Basilica building and emerged in front of what looked like a large red outdoor hotel check-in desk.
Under the curved roofline was a large sign: `BENEDICIONES`. Under the sign, surrounded by two telescreens, was a bored looking priest. In front of him was a large carafe of holy water. Once the crowd was five deep, The priest began the amplified benediction, then dipped what looked like a short feather duster into the carafe, lifted it (as the crowd lifted their statuary, framed prints of saints, children and other religious paraphernalia) and paused. With a few more well rehearsed words, the priest swooped the feather duster at the crowd, sluicing them with two swooshes of holy water (the second one very moist indeed to reach those at the back) as they lifted their items to be suitably sprinkled. After several sluices, the priest returned to stoic bored-looking stillness, until the next mob collected (about every 5 minutes, all day) and the our allocated crowd moved on, quite excited and chattering loudly by now, and holding their statues/images/children aloft as they moved down the ramp...
We were under the altar. Above us the service continued with choir and much waving of banners from behind the altar. We were funnelled, shuffling slowly down into semi-darkness. Above us, to our left, we were promised we would see the blessed image of Guadalupe.
Nothing prepared me for the pair of conveyor-belt footways in the nether regions beneath the altar.
The two Americans were struggling to maintain a semblance of dignity by this stage. Our tour guide was tacitly colluding while, ensuring that those of faith could experience all that Guadaluppe Basilica could offer on a crowded Sunday in 45 minutes.
We shuffled onto our allocated conveyor belt, avoiding a couple of potentially crushable children in the darkness, and were conveyed slowly along for 10 metres, gazing upwards for our several seconds to view the image, before stepping off and being corralled up another dark ramp towards the light. With a brief glance the 4000 or so worshippers on several levels in the round and darkened Basilica, we were outside and heading towards John Paul II. A constant stream of visitors is moved down, through and out all day, allowing the religious services to continue undisturbed. It was part Disneyland, part adulation, and part the John Cleese/Monty Python piece where a dodgy architect designs a deceptive entry to a block of flats.
Circumnavigating John Paul II we entered one of the two original stone Spanish Baroque Basilicas. Under pillars which had collapsed during the 1985 earthquake (now propped up in mass concrete) was an elderly lady selling small souvenirs, doing a roaring trade. To her left was a large spotlit painting of Mexican Indians willingly and passively converting to the Roman Catholic faith. It bore little resemblance to my readings of Spanish colonial history, except for a doubting indigenous group in the background of the picture, being watched over by Spanish soldiers. If the next picture had shown was was next done to them, it may have come closer to reflecting reality... but this was about Faith, not `reality` and the South American tour people wallowed and photographed happily in the once-in-a-lifetime-experience.
We emerged, squinting, into the daylight to "wait by John Paul II". While doing so, we noticed that the two sections of the original basilica appeared to be parting company as one building leaned about 3 degrees away from the other. The service had finished now and lots of uniformed youth groups were emerging from the church, many with mariachi band instruments for a competition that was to follow. We made our way against the tide of the thrilled-and-newly-blessed-and-moistened pilgrims with their frames and sculpted images, back to the counter of BENEDICIONES. A crowd was patiently waiting in front of the telescreens, but there was no priest. A bit more shuffling brought us out onto the street where our priest appeared to be performing a benediction to a broken-down red car and its inhabitants.
At this point, the father of a Peruvian family wanted to return for just one more photo. His son, who had spent the day doing alienated-and-bored-and-mute-adolescent (he did it very well) yelled "Oh Shit!!" then moped back down the concrete Basilica lane to his family.
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Under the pavement gratings is the buffing hiss and howl and rubbery smell of the very French rubber-tyred metro network. It`s clean and crowded and efficient and fast, but has a rather Mexican rough and scratchy edge about it (and that`s not just the dire warnings about theft, pickpocketing and the groping of women that every traveller hears). In peak hours the carriages at one end of trains are for women and children only, and enforced by a massed army of Transit Police. Loud trumpet and squeezebox jazz is played in the stations to discourage buskers, but the pedestrian tunnels are a maze of rugs or cardboard laid out on pavements with stuff to sell, from socks to earbuds to costume jewellery. Inside the trains is a whole other `retail` experience.
On one return trip to Xochimilco the travel experience included: sales pitches for silver bracelets, neck-hanging loudspeaker samples of bootleg Greatest Hits CDs, knee and wrist braces, copies of the Mexican Civil Law and constitution, transit guides and interesting booklets on Nazism, Communism and Jewish Conspiracies. Beggars display their `stumps` and give graphic and impassioned speeches as they, and their coin-rattling minders, push through the standees to collect. In the rushing crowds of the transfer subways between metro lines, impromptu inoculation tables had been set up for free shots for influenza and meningococcal disease: `while you wait` (for a train).
On the `trolebus` you are at the mercy of the driver`s taste in music. Mariachi rules. You have been warned.
The return Metro trip also included live `rap` performances (the young guy collected more than enough for the train fare: it was a young crowd) and a singing blind girl with LOUD sound track and sweetly wavering amplified voice. She collected quite successfully while most of the carriage ignored the older sight-impaired bloke with the guide dog who quietly sidled from the train at a subsequent stop. So, even extended long journeys in tunnels are never boring...especially when you are jammed in a peak hour crowd and the two young girls next to you are deep-kissing passionately for several stops, maintaining the `tonsil-hockey` as they slowly backed off the train and onto the nearby escalator.
Many metro lines are in the medians of highways and the city-bound lanes of many were blocked by police allow protest marchers to head downtown without interruption. There were many red banners and posters of young men`s faces carried by the crowds. Getting around town was becoming increasingly difficult as buses were stopped and trains were packed, so I headed back to the hotel. Emerging from the metro subway I found myself marooned on the far side of Constitution Plaza as all of the protest marchers from across the city had converged to fill the huge space occupied until recently by the police. Bearing the dire official DEFAT warnings in mind (avoid all large crowds and demonstrations for your own safety), I dived in, sidling between marchers to cover half the width of the Plaza to reach my pub. Treading gingerly and nodding and smiling can only take you so far when a street-wide placard is pushing you further into the mob. A sideways sprint got me to the shuttered and barred shops under the hotel and two armed security guys `assisted` me inside.
You`ve seen the photos: it was a huge demonstration protesting the murders of more than 40 teacher-training students in a mass killing in November. Passionate speeches in front of the students` portraits followed by speakers holding individual portraits and appearing to speak more personally and emotionally. With riot police in bulletproof gear and masks lurking down back lanes, there was potential for a nastier event. As police had actively worked to close roads to assist the protesters, this seemed unlikely, although the silhouettes of uniforms and their large guns on the roofline of the President`s offices didn`t entirely inspire confidence. The protest ended quickly at 8pm and the Plaza was left to the buskers and cleaners by 9pm.
As to buskers: there was a group of `superheroes` and other wondrous costumed and made-up creatures outside the hotel each night, happy to be photographed. On the opposite corner were nightly performances by historically suspect but energetic `Aztec` dancers. Around the Plaza and shopping areas were professional brown-uniformed harmonium players; winding with one hand and aiming an empty hat at passers-by with the other
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"The mariachis, would serenade
And they would not shut up til they were paid"
- Tom Lehrer
XOCHIMILCO:
Several days of immersing yourself into the `subtleties` and `restraint` of the Mexicans` sense of colour cannot prepare you for the riot of primary and fluorescent paint jobs of the gondolas on the ancient canals south of the city. As you are `punted` , a `kitchen` boat ties up behind you to produce tacos and quesadillas and beer and a succession of boatloads of luridly uuniformed mariachi bands offer to play a song for $50. If you decline, they return to bored checking of mobile phones until the next boatload appears. If you `buy` a song, the singer boards your boat while the trumpets and guitars pump out the song, mixing in with the more distant performances of several other bands and numerous punting family boats. The floating islands of food crops surround you with occasional displays of carnivorous plants. Floating `retail opportunities` for tasteful souvenirs reappeared before the clambering across many moored boats to the further `retail opportunities` standing on the steep steps, yelling their offers.
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Some national `cultural norms` don`t always translate for visitors: Big, boofy blokes on a range of sporting teams are sponsored by a huge bakery company. It seems more than odd to see a team sweating machismo, running onto the field with: `BIMBO` emblazoned across their chests.
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The hotel restaurant was an open affair on the top floor overlooking the Plaza. Each night a different live band (Mexican with squeezebox jazz, Inca panpipes, jazz piano) had battled the squawking and rattling of the police band below, finally giving up. Following the mass protest there was no further competition, and no live band. Diners were left with that bland recorded double act loved by international hotels across the world: Enya and Jenny G.
Adjacent to dining tables in Mexico city restaurants are little stands with waist-high filigreed hooks. These, ladies, are for your collective handbags at the table. All in one place, well away from snatch thieves who might be tempted by handbags draped over chairs.
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Bellas Artes: In the park opposite the ornate marble opera house an old man dry shaves, using his mobile phone as a mirror. Beside him n the bench, ann old lady smokes two cigarettes: one in each corner of her downturned mouth.
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Bad Karma #4:
My Mexico City hotel had a series of `nice little earners` for the staff. The initial room I was given had bubbled glass `looking` into a dark internal courtyard. "Good and quiet" said the helpful concierge. The room`s safe key did not work, so the solution was to move me to an upgraded room. `Nicer to look out,` said the helpful concierge. This room had a terrific view over the Plaza so all seemed good... however the room lacked basic stuff like bottled water, a light with a plug (not just bare wires) and so on. Each item was a separate walk-down-stairs-because-we-only-`Hablo-Espagnole`-on-the-phone-and-a-separate-mimed/verbal-request-and-another-trudge-upstairs-and-a-separate-tip. We played this game for a day or so until I put in some `lavanderia`. I went to collect the clean clothes: "Not back, Sir," said `helpful` desk clerk. I pointed to my white plastic bag under his desk. He checked. "Did not go, Sir," he announced. Next morning it went. That night it was brought to room (another tip) with the usual outrageous hotel laundry bill.
Checkout: 3am(%^#$@^@&$%#) on Thursday:
I woke the night staff sleeping in lobby armchairs under blankets. The drowsy attendant could not see laundry on my bill, didn`t know how to put it there. Waved the papers at me as I wandered out to the taxi on the the deserted street: bill unpaid and no Visa imprint to charge me later. Good!
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Airport security at 4.30am was just hilarious and also the most efficient I`ve experienced. These guys must have been trained in Brazil as they were all smiles, laughed if we didn`t put stuff into the right trays` mimed various poses we were to take to be scanned, congratulated us on our skills and generally had a great time, but were exceptionally thorough. It was a pleasure to be electronically `done over`.
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LOS MOCHIS:
Two hours flying time from Mexico City, commenced with a brilliant early-dawn take off over the massed city lights reflected on the wings of our smallish Embraer jet. A gradual dark purple-pink to orange-yellow sunrise emerged, brilliantly mirrored on the rolling coastal waters as we came in to land, surrounded by dazzling, bright green, irrigated fields.
Breakfast was at Los Mochis` finest hotel: the usual buffet affair with interesting yellow, green and red sludges of varying heat heat and oil content. There was a huge conference in town. Breakfast was full of delegates playing the conference networking `games` enlivened by the blokey Mexican greeting: shake hands, hug, two slaps on backs, unhug, shake hands..to a greater or lesser extent. The few women present were in full and competitive `war paint`, more than keeeping up with the blokes while local radio, TV and the press `worked the tables`.
Ninety minutes to the sleepy town of El Fuerte and 4 hours sleep... before waking up with a start to slap water over my face from a basin decorated with grinning skulls on vines. Slowly wandering the town: it emerged from siesta to the soft cries of children, a little more traffic, salty whiffs from the stained blue fish factory and afternoon business in the town square dominated by the 18th century church (which was busy conducting two consecutive funerals) and the Spanish colonial local government building. This was a square of fusty offices with arched colonnades surrounding a dry fountain. The arcades featured the mural history of the town from Aztecs to Spanish Colony to Revolution and Pancho Villa. They were somewhat more informative than the replica fort museum (the skeleton dressed in evening frock adjacent to the horse drawn hearse was a particular highlight), followed by a long sunset from the ramparts overlooking the river and town square.
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Waiting for "El Chepe", the train through Copper Canyon to Chihuahua: A French family strikes up a conversation as we stand on the concrete platform next to the concrete station house looking at the concrete sleepered tracks (the line was built in 1961 when concrete was cheap?). They live in northern Mexico, about three hours from Tucson, Arizona. The husband is managing a factory which builds doors for the Boeing Dreamliner, which are then exported to Seattle. I`d previously shared a meal with a German family in Mexico City who lived near Guadalajara because that`s where AUDI were manufacturing for the North American market. Tijuana was a boom town because of the manufacture of electronics for the US market. This is the `other` side of NAFTA and the desperation of extended industrial shutdown and unemployment of the `rustbelt` states of the the old manufacturing areas of the northeast US.
It`s not all good news for Mexican companies. The local OXXO convenience store chain was distressed when 7eleven moved aggressively onto its patch. `Just like US 7eleven,` said one guide `except they don`t do soda fountain drinks because of the water.` They also don`t stock the moderately small but good range of wines found in US stores. After `experiencing` the desperate `WINE` store (actually a cheque cashing and hard spirits joint with the staff safely behind bars and perspex) near Rosa Parks plaza in Dallas, I could understand why 7eleven was the preferred plonk shop.
El Chepe rolls in, black-uniformed armed guards leaning out from the Dutch doors. Conductors allocated seats as we climbed on, however they were occupied by `sleeping` railway workers. I know how to stand my ground and out-stare blokes who need to shift their butts, ice bins and bunch of flowers out of `my` seat. The gentle roll of the train continued from cactus-scattered dry foothills into gradually more temperate and mountainous regions before spending much of the journeys over the next few days climbing alongside and over rivers to the tops of gorges with hairpin bends and spirals before rumbling through a tunnel to follow yet another stream to higher fir-tree covered alpine country. There were several stops at lodges along the way
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CEROCAHUI::
Is this your image of Mexico?
The grey/brown stone mountain peaks are occasionally revealed by thin cloud and the red dirt roads are becoming sticky mud between grey roofed houses in a slow drizzle. Visitors are rugged up in fur collared woollens or puffer jackets, that`s if they go out at all for fear of getting wet. A ridge of houses looks a little like a tin-roofed adobe of mud brick Cullen Bullen or some outlying valley of Lithgow. Chickens, cows and horses ferret through strewn corn stalks for food. There`s a snorting of warm pigs in roofed wooden sties along the road side. Some pathetic-looking wet burros huddle together under a brightly lit streetlight. Riding down the far ridge is a lone cowboy, canvas sheets attached to either side his saddle wrapped around his legs for warmth. There is a only one splash of colour on the last ridge in town. It`s the cemetery with wild blue and orange wreaths of paper flowers decorating scattered graves behind a barbed-wire covered stone fence.
The rain is heavier now as I retrace the increasingly sodden pathways to the concrete road back to the town square: the Spanish Mission, a scatter of shops and the government office around wet concrete roadways surrounding a bricked quadrangle of wet iron benches and sad looking shrubs. The town is emerging from siesta now, but the kids hang around under the eaves; there are no customers for the ferretaria, carnicceria, and dodgy `fruiteria y cremeria`. After the welcoming margarita and huge three course lunch, getting out of damp clothes for my own siesta is looking like a plan.
I`m awoken by a knock on the door: the attendant has brought kindling to light the pot-bellied stove in the room. I am given strict instructions in mumbled Spanish and jerky mime about keeping the fire lit and how to load the wood. The visiting Mexicans might all be rugged up, but it`s not yet a cold enough `Blackheath` evening to consider heating.
Mexican guests are huddled around the open fire on the broad leather couches of the lounge. The wine-tasting tour of town has been called off as they don`t want to get wet. Another margarita is offered...
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POSADA BARRANCAS:
Is this your image of Mexico?
It is snowing: wide slow-falling, settling flakes. Following an attempt to view Copper Canyon from Cerro del Gallego this morning (more than an hour each way on skidding, precipitous brown-mud roads to view the extensive... er... cloud), was a somewhat clearer, swaying and bumping drive back with views through pine forests and, eventually, of Cerocahui village surrounding the 17th Century Missione far below. Surrounding the town were vertical rock outcrops from sloping grey stone ridges which had been cloud covered the day before.
Posada is only an hour and a bit further up the mountains on the El Chepe train, but its another world. Think mass-bus-tour-hotel-full-of-families-with-kids-of-the-full-range-of-temperament-and-squalling and you kind of have it. Of the bus from the station, surrounded in choking blue diesel smoke from several stalls on the way up the hill we were queued two-deep to check in. As the clerk said: "We go for a walk along the rim at 4 if the weather breaks but I do not think it will", the relentless rain had morphed into snow.
Rooms are perched high with balconies overlooking the canyon, sorry: snow and cloud. Lunch is an all-in affair in an ornate refrectory. Mexican kids are going `troppo` at the sight of snow. The French kids near me are `over it` because they are in Mexico to get away from Winter. The lunch service is hilarious: "Youwillgetlentilsoupandblackbassanddoyouwantwine?"
"White?"
"Weonlyhavered."
The Mexican kids were now a bit `over` the snow as well by now. It was 20 hours til the next train and the parents are pondering the limited options. So was I.
7pm: Dinner with three twenty-something Australian travellers who had been away for 8 months in Kenya, Tanzania, Northern Europe and 7 weeks in Mexico. Several glasses of indifferent Chilean cab sav washed down their `treat` meal in a good hotel after so many weeks of el cheapo travel. Apart from a few contacts with heavily armed men in a couple of checkpoints, their Mexican travels in areas where the Australian government issues dire warnings, had all been fine. Travelling with a very politically aware Spanish speaker in their group helped.
8.30: Power supply was getting fragile, coming and going, as the Australians built a snowman on the bar balcony and the guy from the back-blocks of Kempsey experienced his first snowball fight. 8.45: power shut down, very, very, finally. I left the group downing the last of the cab sav and contemplating a snowy walk back to their homestay in Summer clothes. I groped my way back to a coldish room, found the Ipad and by it`s flickering light, did the necessaries and fell into bed fully clothed, with beanie, and stayed that way...
Morning: A six inch layer of balcony snow was reflecting a pink sunrise. Tumbling from bed and into boots, I sighted the full canyon: crisp, clear, silent apart from the crowing of one lone rooster deep in the shadowy green valley. As the sun emerged, the canyon quickly morphed to blinding white cloud, and was gone.
8am: After a blistering cold shower (still no power: but I was now out of yesterday`s clothes, into several new layers, and AWAKE) a warmish breakfst emerged from a dark kitchen with gas and wood fuelled stoves. I sat with a Japanese teacher who travelled the world to snorkel and skindive. She was well travelled, enthusiastic, and thrilled to have seen the Great Barrier Reef. She was currently teaching in Cuidad which...`was full of gang wars but I feel safe walking home to the market and to church`. The manager assured us the train would run and wound be late and the road was being cleared of snow. He would tell us more if the phone and power came back on. They did not.
Checkout was 12. At 11 the cloud lifted, suddenly, for a spectacular sight of stark green cliff faces, snow laden jawline ridges with occasional brown, gapped, rocky teeth. The base of the valleys was clear of snow though streams mirrored the stark sunlight.
I checked out at 12 at the urgings of the maids: the first person to do so (not realising that 12 Checkout was 'Mexican time'), and commenced a lone walk north, trudging through solid fresh floury snow; avoiding the few trickling footfalls of others. At the Point, the end of the semi-trodden track, was the cliff edge and and a sole snowman. In the spare silence, punctuated by the lone rooster somewhere deep in the ravine, 'Snowy' and I, our shadows cast on trackless snows, paused together for some minutes to take in the stilled spectacle of powdered cliffs, ridges, ravines and white-clad trees and peaks stretching far into distant canyons.
At the station we were told that the train was an hour late. We bundled back into the hotel bus to gingerly roll through soft snow a little further to Divisadero, another monumental view with food stalls. The train rattled in and then sat for a further 90 minutes. A large freight train roared through, ensuring the track to Chihuahua was clear. We eased along further rocky river valleys and gorges, climbing towards the tablelands.
CREEL: Late arrival; more sodden snows; a long and lazy day taking in Tarahumara Indian culture and dubious craft shops (because the Misione Shop was closed, sadly) and 4 hours more train with the option to dine ("We only have steak or fish. Other is finish".) The sleeping armed train guards and the dozen armed soldiers meeting and lining up along the train in Chihuahua continued to inspire not-much confidence.
CHIHUAHUA:
Another Baroque cathedral and another pair of town squares surrounded by handsome colonial or Art Nouveau buildings, however they lacked the slightly tumbled appearance of those in the capital. A mere $39 to check one bag on `food to buy` American Airlines before a sometimes lively flight in a tiny (3 across seating but we had to stay where we were booked in the half-full plane to maintain balance) Embraer jet.
DFW:
So here I am, back in the `Land of the Free` (where non-inoculation against measles has led one infection in Disneyland to grow into a national issue) and `Home of the Brave` where carrying guns is legal and Texas is about to legislate 'open carrying' at any time, including in university campuses and frat houses. What could possibly go wrong? BAIL BONDS stores appear in the dodgier edges of downtowns, close to courthouses. On TV are high rotation ads for Emu Oil, sometimes marketed as `Australian Dream` arthritis cream, and where I was fingerprinted and mug-shotted for the 5th time in 6 weeks (TWICE in Dallas, because this is my third `entry` into the US in 8 weeks, so I am obviously verrrry suspect).
My `welcome back' to the Crowne Plaza Downtown Hotel (remember that name and AVOID) was the loss of a stored bag of winter gear, souvenirs, maps and, more importantly oh-so-tasteful gifts for friends. We got through the obfuscation and avoidance stage (that took 12 hours) and are entered into the `seriously looking` stage. Hmmmmmmmmmmm. At that point they offered me free late checkout on Thursday in an attempt to placate me (unsuccessfully....). Tonight they came clean: after tracking CCTV they say the bag was securely stored and 'then it was not there'. I do hope my travel insurance company understands why the hotel does not wish to involve police (??????). I am not being billed for my stay, having completed an all purpose 'incident form' that could only have emerged from the mind of the most banal and pernickety risk assessor.
So, here I am, coming down with the usual vile travellers` cold (and it is a MALE cold...) with two Codrals in one hand, and a mug of potable Dallas tapwater in the other. I have direct line of sight down Elm St to the site of the JFK assassination and a full belly from the local Thai noodle bar after 8 interrresting weeks so, in the scheme of things, the loss of one bag is not so big a deal.
Or maybe it`s just the drugs.
At least I won`t be threatened with an excess baggage fee by Qantas on Thursday.
And so (with potable Texas tapwater): Cheers!