The central plaza.
A portico along one side of the plaza.
The Parroquia, or parish church, of Cocula.
NEWS UPDATE
1 year ago
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
It's great to be focused back on Mexico and the promise of some kind of life there eventually. I was starting to feel like all my efforts to learn Spanish and Mexican culture were going to end up being past hobbies with no practical value. As I grew discouraged with what Guadalajara had to offer, I was just ready to return home and defer any judgement about anything related to things SOB (South of the border) for a while.
Then, almost as an afterthought, I went to visit Cocula - about an hour and a half Southwest of GDL. My main reason for visiting was to pay my respects to the parents of my one close Mexcican friend in the U.S., Mañuel. His mother Doña Margarita met me at the bus station, and we walked the several blocks to their house. There we were joined by her husband, el Profesor, and Elena, a girl who is novia of one of the younger sons. Elena and I climbed into the back of the family pickup, and off we wenrt for a night-time tour of the city, under an velvety black sky filled with brilliant stars. Even in the center of town, the ambient light was low enought to see a faint satellite trace a path across the sky, and the broad wash of the Milky Way - something I hadn't seen since a night at the Wyoming ranch.
We passed through neighborhoods filled with colonial homes and storefronts. Up cobblestone streets we went following the contour of hills surrounding the center of town. The homes warmly illuminated from within offered many glimpses of life behind open front doors - kitchens and salons, and interior courtyards framed by ornate ironwork. Over the streets were strung row after row of silver and white paper decorations called papel picado remaining from a religious fiesta but seeming to foretell the coming of nocha buena and the other end of year celebrations.
When we returned from our drive, we had dinner and talked for a while before turning in for the night. See the previous post for the unfortunate outcome of the evening - I had been looking forward to seeing more of the little city, but due to my illness and circumstances that required me to be elsewhere, I caught only tantalizing glimpses of the place in the morning.
On reflection, I began to realize that what Cocula seemed to offer was a realization of the vision that set us on this course some five years earlier, when I read On Mexico Time, about a writer and artist couple who fled their stressed-out deadening lives in Los Angeles for the beauty and wonder of a new life in San Miguel de Allende.
That was before San Miguel was overwhelmed with wealthy socialites and other well-off gringos who gentrified the place and snapped up all the fine old colonial homes, dolling them up suitably for publication in Architectural Digest, and displacing Mexicans in the process as the original residents were increasingly relegated to the roles of service people in their own community. I always felt sort of passed by, deprived of the opportunity to participate in the discovery of such a special place, and certainly priced out now that people are paying near-California bubble amounts for the few occasionally available nice casas antiguas.
But here was Cocula, with not a single gringo resident known to be lurking, and only a handful of day tourists from time to time. Yet the town had the wonderful buildings, the friendly and safe population, the Parochia (church) equal to San Miguel's, the hills surrounding the town, the near-perfect climate...
This place I almost passed up the opportunity to visit brought me jarringly back to the original vision that started our journey. While Merida was charming and fascinating, and Guadalajara probably worth a weekend visit, they felt like mere distractions and a diversion that always left me unsettled and uncommited.
At the first opportunity, I'll be back in Cocula to explore and learn more about what this tranquil city of 40,000 has to offer. Mañuel's parents have graciously invited me back to stay with them whenever and for as long as I like, and have even suggested renting out the rooms newly constructed on the second floor of their home. From the back terrace, you can see the horse and cow in the neighboring back yard.
The dream is still alive.
Then, almost as an afterthought, I went to visit Cocula - about an hour and a half Southwest of GDL. My main reason for visiting was to pay my respects to the parents of my one close Mexcican friend in the U.S., Mañuel. His mother Doña Margarita met me at the bus station, and we walked the several blocks to their house. There we were joined by her husband, el Profesor, and Elena, a girl who is novia of one of the younger sons. Elena and I climbed into the back of the family pickup, and off we wenrt for a night-time tour of the city, under an velvety black sky filled with brilliant stars. Even in the center of town, the ambient light was low enought to see a faint satellite trace a path across the sky, and the broad wash of the Milky Way - something I hadn't seen since a night at the Wyoming ranch.
We passed through neighborhoods filled with colonial homes and storefronts. Up cobblestone streets we went following the contour of hills surrounding the center of town. The homes warmly illuminated from within offered many glimpses of life behind open front doors - kitchens and salons, and interior courtyards framed by ornate ironwork. Over the streets were strung row after row of silver and white paper decorations called papel picado remaining from a religious fiesta but seeming to foretell the coming of nocha buena and the other end of year celebrations.
When we returned from our drive, we had dinner and talked for a while before turning in for the night. See the previous post for the unfortunate outcome of the evening - I had been looking forward to seeing more of the little city, but due to my illness and circumstances that required me to be elsewhere, I caught only tantalizing glimpses of the place in the morning.
On reflection, I began to realize that what Cocula seemed to offer was a realization of the vision that set us on this course some five years earlier, when I read On Mexico Time, about a writer and artist couple who fled their stressed-out deadening lives in Los Angeles for the beauty and wonder of a new life in San Miguel de Allende.
That was before San Miguel was overwhelmed with wealthy socialites and other well-off gringos who gentrified the place and snapped up all the fine old colonial homes, dolling them up suitably for publication in Architectural Digest, and displacing Mexicans in the process as the original residents were increasingly relegated to the roles of service people in their own community. I always felt sort of passed by, deprived of the opportunity to participate in the discovery of such a special place, and certainly priced out now that people are paying near-California bubble amounts for the few occasionally available nice casas antiguas.
But here was Cocula, with not a single gringo resident known to be lurking, and only a handful of day tourists from time to time. Yet the town had the wonderful buildings, the friendly and safe population, the Parochia (church) equal to San Miguel's, the hills surrounding the town, the near-perfect climate...
This place I almost passed up the opportunity to visit brought me jarringly back to the original vision that started our journey. While Merida was charming and fascinating, and Guadalajara probably worth a weekend visit, they felt like mere distractions and a diversion that always left me unsettled and uncommited.
At the first opportunity, I'll be back in Cocula to explore and learn more about what this tranquil city of 40,000 has to offer. Mañuel's parents have graciously invited me back to stay with them whenever and for as long as I like, and have even suggested renting out the rooms newly constructed on the second floor of their home. From the back terrace, you can see the horse and cow in the neighboring back yard.
The dream is still alive.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
The Thanksgiving That Didn't Happen
Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn’t learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn’t learn a little,
at least we didn’t get sick,
and if we got sick,
at least we didn’t die;
so, let us be thankful.
-The Buddha
Well, that turned out to be a timely message for today (and my entire trip) when it showed up in my mailbox. Last night I was in Cocula, Jalisco - an hour and a half from Guadalajara (more on Cocula in a later blog entry). I was visiting the parents of my friend Mañuel, and we went out to dinner at a little family-run corner place. Guess I shouldn't have had the lady put all the raw onion and lettuce and radishes in my pozole, because starting about midnigh and going all night, I was - well - going all night. It was so bad I started to panic about how I could get back to GDL on a bus for a planned trip to Ajijic the next day. In the morning, I wandered out to find Doña Marguerita, Mañuel's mom, and told her about my predicament. Off she went to the farmacìa, and returned a short time later with some yellow capsuls and pepto bismal tablets. She also gave me some apple juice and some Sprite with about two-thirds of a cup of corn flour mixed in it.
Miraculously, all the action stopped, and I felt well enought to shower and figure out what to do next. El Professor (how I address Mañuel's retired school teacher father) offered to take me to Ajijic directly, a one hour ride he said. I accepted on the condition that I pay for the gas.
Well, the three of us rode in the little pickup front seat, an hour and a half ride. If there are nicer people on the face of the earth, I don't knowhere one would find them. They dropped me off at the place I was supposed to be to walk down to the neighborhood where a party of 30 gringos were gathering in a nicer Ajijic home for Dia de Gracias.
After I bought El professor and his esposa a refresco and slice of cake from the pasteleria where they left me and we exchanged parting wishes, I first walked a few blocks to find a yogurt (my Thanksgiving dinner). As I walked through the area of highway above the lake where all the businesses are clustered, I was struck by how much it looked like Pleasant Hill, or some other California strip-mall area. The usual minivans, SUV's, and luxury cars, full of casual-dressed white people. Shorts, golf shirts, little ankle-biter dogs on leashes...it didn't have any Mexican vibe at all. In the store, there was a stupefying Stepford effect, with sort of dazed looking white shoppers cruising aisles full of US-standards commodities. In one odd area there was an aisle of glassed-in locked cases full of various fancy Canadian and US condiments, safe from pilfering like expensive liquor in a ghetto supermarket.
Then I continued on the find the house with the gathering. I imagine Beverly Hills looks a lot like this neighborhood. Very luxurious and well-primped, with many lush arrays of flowering vines and trees. When I arrive at the home, I was stunned by the sumptuous layout, construction, and decor. I had just spent the night in a typical Mexican house, with the ten years of handprints on the walls, the giant vases full of gaudy artifical flowers, the oddly displaced plumbing and light fixtures, and quaint provincial sala furniture (but sweet and as inviting as you can imagine). In the three small bedrooms, little sala, and cocina El Professor Encarnaciòn amd Doña Marguerita Lopez had raised four boys and a girl. Here now I was in this gleaming oversize sprawling home where I single guy lived. In place of the Lopez milk cow, sheep, and goat, his back yard was full of manicured lawn. His gardener was tending a full bar, and his regular maid and a friend stood ready in the kitchen to finish preparation of the meal while sending out trays of hors doeuvres.
I was introduced to a number of the prosperous-looking mostly older white guests. I used a common Mexican expression of greeting on being introduced to one - the friend who had introduced us shook her head and commented "Oh, don't use any Spanish in him, he doesn't understand a word". "Not a word!" he confirmed enthusiastically, then mouthed an exagerated "No hab-lo es-pan-yole".
A number of people wanted to know if I was looking for a place in Ajijic or Chapala down the road. I tried to mask my revulsion at the impressions I was forming about this un-Mexican enclave, and respect the choice these folks had made to create an insular island for themselves, where Mexicans only existed to mow grass, walk dogs, cook, clean, and man the local cash registers. Learn the language? Why bother. Dish TV brings in all the latest swill in pristine English...there was some football game on the giant screen TV nested in custom cabinets. No one was watching, but it was on just to show it was available I guess.
One fellow had on an oversize Guyabera shirt, like the ones popular in Yucatan for a century. I asked him if that's where he got it. "Mail order them from Pennsylvania", he said. "Look, uses a zipper instead of buttons.". My friend sitting next to him turned the label out to see if it originated from Yucatan. "China", she said, and everyone had a laugh over that.
I found myself in the kitchen, chatting with the Mexican maids - the only people present I felt I could relate to. At first they were shy, but when I said "La verdad es, prefiero Cocula donde no hay tantos gringos." they giggled and warmed up. We had some pleasant conversation, then I feared I would get them in trouble so I went back into the party area, excused myself to the host and friend who got me invited, grabbed my stuff, and walked back up to the highway to catch a bus to the city.
I felt bad that I had caused Sr and Sra Lopez a three hour drive for this, with me staying but a few minutes. I had been afraid of a digestive emergency on the bus - should have had faith in Dra Lopez' miracle cure. But they approached the trip to deliver me like everything else in their lives - as something to be enjoyed and experienced to the fullest, and all the more if it was helpful to someone who was connected to their family.
How I wished I had brought all my bags down with me the night before instead of leaving stuff at the hotel in GDL. I would have enjoyed the extra time with them in Cocula for an extra day and night, and would certainly not have given that up for this horrifying venture into gringolandia that I had so planned on. As they say, life is what passes you by while you're making other plans.
Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn’t learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn’t learn a little,
at least we didn’t get sick,
and if we got sick,
at least we didn’t die;
so, let us be thankful.
-The Buddha
Well, that turned out to be a timely message for today (and my entire trip) when it showed up in my mailbox. Last night I was in Cocula, Jalisco - an hour and a half from Guadalajara (more on Cocula in a later blog entry). I was visiting the parents of my friend Mañuel, and we went out to dinner at a little family-run corner place. Guess I shouldn't have had the lady put all the raw onion and lettuce and radishes in my pozole, because starting about midnigh and going all night, I was - well - going all night. It was so bad I started to panic about how I could get back to GDL on a bus for a planned trip to Ajijic the next day. In the morning, I wandered out to find Doña Marguerita, Mañuel's mom, and told her about my predicament. Off she went to the farmacìa, and returned a short time later with some yellow capsuls and pepto bismal tablets. She also gave me some apple juice and some Sprite with about two-thirds of a cup of corn flour mixed in it.
Miraculously, all the action stopped, and I felt well enought to shower and figure out what to do next. El Professor (how I address Mañuel's retired school teacher father) offered to take me to Ajijic directly, a one hour ride he said. I accepted on the condition that I pay for the gas.
Well, the three of us rode in the little pickup front seat, an hour and a half ride. If there are nicer people on the face of the earth, I don't knowhere one would find them. They dropped me off at the place I was supposed to be to walk down to the neighborhood where a party of 30 gringos were gathering in a nicer Ajijic home for Dia de Gracias.
After I bought El professor and his esposa a refresco and slice of cake from the pasteleria where they left me and we exchanged parting wishes, I first walked a few blocks to find a yogurt (my Thanksgiving dinner). As I walked through the area of highway above the lake where all the businesses are clustered, I was struck by how much it looked like Pleasant Hill, or some other California strip-mall area. The usual minivans, SUV's, and luxury cars, full of casual-dressed white people. Shorts, golf shirts, little ankle-biter dogs on leashes...it didn't have any Mexican vibe at all. In the store, there was a stupefying Stepford effect, with sort of dazed looking white shoppers cruising aisles full of US-standards commodities. In one odd area there was an aisle of glassed-in locked cases full of various fancy Canadian and US condiments, safe from pilfering like expensive liquor in a ghetto supermarket.
Then I continued on the find the house with the gathering. I imagine Beverly Hills looks a lot like this neighborhood. Very luxurious and well-primped, with many lush arrays of flowering vines and trees. When I arrive at the home, I was stunned by the sumptuous layout, construction, and decor. I had just spent the night in a typical Mexican house, with the ten years of handprints on the walls, the giant vases full of gaudy artifical flowers, the oddly displaced plumbing and light fixtures, and quaint provincial sala furniture (but sweet and as inviting as you can imagine). In the three small bedrooms, little sala, and cocina El Professor Encarnaciòn amd Doña Marguerita Lopez had raised four boys and a girl. Here now I was in this gleaming oversize sprawling home where I single guy lived. In place of the Lopez milk cow, sheep, and goat, his back yard was full of manicured lawn. His gardener was tending a full bar, and his regular maid and a friend stood ready in the kitchen to finish preparation of the meal while sending out trays of hors doeuvres.
I was introduced to a number of the prosperous-looking mostly older white guests. I used a common Mexican expression of greeting on being introduced to one - the friend who had introduced us shook her head and commented "Oh, don't use any Spanish in him, he doesn't understand a word". "Not a word!" he confirmed enthusiastically, then mouthed an exagerated "No hab-lo es-pan-yole".
A number of people wanted to know if I was looking for a place in Ajijic or Chapala down the road. I tried to mask my revulsion at the impressions I was forming about this un-Mexican enclave, and respect the choice these folks had made to create an insular island for themselves, where Mexicans only existed to mow grass, walk dogs, cook, clean, and man the local cash registers. Learn the language? Why bother. Dish TV brings in all the latest swill in pristine English...there was some football game on the giant screen TV nested in custom cabinets. No one was watching, but it was on just to show it was available I guess.
One fellow had on an oversize Guyabera shirt, like the ones popular in Yucatan for a century. I asked him if that's where he got it. "Mail order them from Pennsylvania", he said. "Look, uses a zipper instead of buttons.". My friend sitting next to him turned the label out to see if it originated from Yucatan. "China", she said, and everyone had a laugh over that.
I found myself in the kitchen, chatting with the Mexican maids - the only people present I felt I could relate to. At first they were shy, but when I said "La verdad es, prefiero Cocula donde no hay tantos gringos." they giggled and warmed up. We had some pleasant conversation, then I feared I would get them in trouble so I went back into the party area, excused myself to the host and friend who got me invited, grabbed my stuff, and walked back up to the highway to catch a bus to the city.
I felt bad that I had caused Sr and Sra Lopez a three hour drive for this, with me staying but a few minutes. I had been afraid of a digestive emergency on the bus - should have had faith in Dra Lopez' miracle cure. But they approached the trip to deliver me like everything else in their lives - as something to be enjoyed and experienced to the fullest, and all the more if it was helpful to someone who was connected to their family.
How I wished I had brought all my bags down with me the night before instead of leaving stuff at the hotel in GDL. I would have enjoyed the extra time with them in Cocula for an extra day and night, and would certainly not have given that up for this horrifying venture into gringolandia that I had so planned on. As they say, life is what passes you by while you're making other plans.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Here are today's random sightings.
Who needs razor wire or smashed bottle shards in the top of the wall to keep out the bad guys, when you can ELECTROCUTE them.
Yes, we love our pets, but they DON'T WEAR DIAPERS! So pick it up.
This is the oldest car I saw here. Not even 2% of the POS wrecks I saw in Yucatan. Many BMWs, high-end SUVs, all manner of shiny new wheels. The real fun starts at night, when there is a dazzling stream of intense blue LEDs that adorn various places on many vehicles. Who knows why this is a studly thing to do? If some flash, that is extra studly.
Walked a neighborhood to check out livability and see what the style was. These two above and below are representative of the nicer ones. Neighborhood quality of life super.
Who needs razor wire or smashed bottle shards in the top of the wall to keep out the bad guys, when you can ELECTROCUTE them.
Yes, we love our pets, but they DON'T WEAR DIAPERS! So pick it up.
This is the oldest car I saw here. Not even 2% of the POS wrecks I saw in Yucatan. Many BMWs, high-end SUVs, all manner of shiny new wheels. The real fun starts at night, when there is a dazzling stream of intense blue LEDs that adorn various places on many vehicles. Who knows why this is a studly thing to do? If some flash, that is extra studly.
Walked a neighborhood to check out livability and see what the style was. These two above and below are representative of the nicer ones. Neighborhood quality of life super.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Not really enough energy to recount all the day´s activities, so here are a few photos with comments from the past twelve hours...
Here´s something you don´t see in Merida...a whole stand full of woolie warming things.
There are a lot of long-time unfinished buildings around the city. Who knows why?
Dirty shopping carts? Not where there is cheap labor. This lady and her partner doing the same would polish the chrome after the sidewalk wash job.
I walked into the giant Mercado Libertad, and thought I'd find something to eat among the food stands...OMG, there were HUNDREDS of them (this picture is of ONE such stall). I am not a person who likes to make choices among even a few options, so I was numbed by the whole thing.
Well now, this should have made my choice easy...chivo (goat) anyone?
I walked through the area of money changer storefronts, and saw this little guy. Again, as with the food stalls - HUNDREDS of cambio places, all in the same area... In the US there would be one or two large corporate predators, and they would use their massive and sophisticated resources to drive all but a few of the individual proprietors out of business.
Here´s something you don´t see in Merida...a whole stand full of woolie warming things.
There are a lot of long-time unfinished buildings around the city. Who knows why?
Dirty shopping carts? Not where there is cheap labor. This lady and her partner doing the same would polish the chrome after the sidewalk wash job.
I walked into the giant Mercado Libertad, and thought I'd find something to eat among the food stands...OMG, there were HUNDREDS of them (this picture is of ONE such stall). I am not a person who likes to make choices among even a few options, so I was numbed by the whole thing.
Well now, this should have made my choice easy...chivo (goat) anyone?
I walked through the area of money changer storefronts, and saw this little guy. Again, as with the food stalls - HUNDREDS of cambio places, all in the same area... In the US there would be one or two large corporate predators, and they would use their massive and sophisticated resources to drive all but a few of the individual proprietors out of business.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
