Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

Houston Economics

Houston Economics

02/27/09 04:46 PM Filed in: USA

Looking at the sunrise through the 24th-story window of my doctor’s office, I see a forest of cranes. Houston is building apace, an economic powerhouse defying economic gravity the way its skyscrapers defy the Newtonian kind. Recession? What recession?

Someone is investing in Houston’s future. In the financial centers, I can see little trace of the Wall Street crash. Houses in River Oaks remain elegant and exquisitely maintained. The Galleria is jammed, the parking valets hopping. There’s money here. I imagine bankers hunched over piles of mortgages, tucked away in their JPMorgan Chase fortress, their elegant building near the historic center.

Financiers of probity have left marks in Houston. The motto on the State National Building reads,”FRVGALITY IS THE MOTHER OF THE VIRTVES.” Indeed. The kind of sentiment that breeds confidence. Trustworthy hands guide Houston’s economics.

More signs of growth—the old part of town is undergoing a renaissance. Marvelous historic buildings are being renovated, finding new life as restaurants, cafés, and professional offices. Dr. M. M. Henderson, Dentist appears to be the first tenant in this spruced-up space, his 1930s-style sign stenciled on the window.

Look closer, though, and you see cracks beginning to appear. Dr. Henderson won’t be practicing here after all. Looks like the bank—JPMorgan Chase perhaps—has repossessed the place, and they’re hoping to unload it fast.

I saw these things all over town: boarded up storefronts, closed restaurants, homeless hordes riding the MetroRail without paying fares—taking small revenge against financiers who awarded themselves record bonuses while their companies tanked. I wonder whose IRA contains the securitized loan on Dr. Henderson’s building? Is 1014 Prairie Street one of mine? It was all done on easy credit. For a while, everyone was tapping their home equity, wearing out their plastic, flipping retirement condos in Arizona.

Not for a minute am I swayed by arguments that no one saw the crash coming. Get real: we all saw it coming. But so many were playing the game, hoping to get off the speeding train just before it hit that sharp, unbanked curve. Those whose motto should have been “Frvgality is the mother of the virtves” busied themselves mixing toxic loans in with the good ones until no one knew what they were getting. Stewart Parnell, owner of Peanut Corp. of America, mixed salmonella infected peanuts into his shipments. Stewart declined a request by Congressman Greg Walden of Oregon to eat some of his company's own product. Good move, Stew. And you can bet executives at JPMorgan Chase would decline to take their bonuses in securitized bundled loans if someone asked them to. The downtown is beginning to look careworn. The smaller developments are feeling the crunch first. But southward along Fannin and Main Streets, high rises still sprout up at a blistering pace. Are they real? Is there actual money behind them, or some kind of tricky derivative? When they’re finished, will they fill up with businesses? Would you bet your IRA on it?

Keeping Tulum Green

Keeping Tulum Green

02/24/09 11:49 AM Filed in: Mexico

This is what resort development looks like in Tulum.

I hardly can imagine less environmental impact in a resort area. A few palapa roofs peek through the jungle, that’s all.

How is this possible? How did such a desirable stretch of Caribbean coastline avoid construction of mega resorts? This abandoned power tower tells the tale. Built some 20-30 years ago, it was intended to carry high tension lines along the coastline. But although the towers were built, the lines were never strung. Local residents talk about how disagreements between the government, developers and drug kingpins caused the project to be abandoned. True or not, failure to run power down the coast has protected the area south of Tulum from the ravages of resort builders.

Residents and visitors alike learn to live with limited power. Our host at Jade, Juan, installed this wind generator to provide a small amount of electricity. He uses it to power a handful of extremely low wattage bulbs strung along pathways and inside palapas. We appreciated being able to recharge our laptop computers and cellphones. If you look closely at the first image above, you can just make out three other wind generators erected by Juan’s neighbors.

Wind and solar power often isn’t enough for a hotel. Larger places installed diesel generators in order to provide their guests with the bright lights of the city. Not as green as the alternatives, the cost of running them nevertheless severely limits the amount of power consumed by visitors. Notice how this generator is backed up with a bank of batteries, so it doesn’t have to run continuously. Note also the row of worn-out batteries on the floor to the right. They’re highly toxic and will require careful recycling.

The beach south of Tulum lacks other utilities, like water mains. Most water is trucked in using tankers. Visitors have to learn to conserve.

Sewage is handled similarly. “Honey wagons” are a common sight along the beach road, plying their unpleasant trade, pumping out holding tanks. Residents embrace green living enthusiastically. Some places compost organic refuse. Handmade signs warn motorists to avoid running over the crabs that for reasons known only to themselves, insist on scuttling across the road.

Not everyone understands how to properly protect the environment. These men are raking up (unsightly) kelp that washed up onto the beach. That wrack provides shelter and food for tiny creatures that are integral parts of the plant and animal community.

People who live here tell us their fear that someday, CFE (the electric company) will succeed in putting the South coast on the grid. They know that if this happens, developers will be right behind. Land prices will skyrocket, owners will sell out, speculators will snap up miles of beach front, and this area will become another Cancún. No matter how lightly we tread, Laura and I are damaging this fragile place. Multiply our impact by the thousands of visitors who come here, and it’s clear that this section of coast is on its way to becoming the sterile strand that we see along the pacific Ocean in Southern California—even if the power lines don’t come. Better see it while it lasts...

Tulum Restaurants

Tulum Restaurants

02/22/09 09:56 AM Filed in: Mexico

If you visit Tulum, there are some exceptional restaurants, like El Tábano! (The Horse Fly). Operated by a young couple who settled here looking for an alternative lifestyle, the place manages to be informal, artistic and sophisticated all at the same time.

The menu at El Tábano! more than compensates for its location on the wrong side of the road—the side away from the beach. Dishes that change from day to day are posted on the chalkboard beside a Dali-esque clock. Laura and I shared the cold tomato and papaya soup. She tried the vegetable lasagna made with tortillas instead of pasta; I enjoyed the mero (grouper) stuffed with tangerine segments. To drink, we were given fresh pineapple and pear juice blended with fresh ginger.

Food doesn’t get much more creative than that. El Tábano! has the same laid-back, friendly feel of most places along the Tulum coast. Owner Laura engaged us in conversation during much of our meal, while tending her eighteen-month-old son. A homey touch: the Veracruzana cook, working in her open air kitchen, performed frequent taste tests of her sauces by dripping her ladle into her palm and licking it—her palm, that is. A couple of other places worth noting: OM Tulum Hotel Cabanas and Beach Club contains a fine restaurant, where I consumed a delicious Greek octopus salad and Laura raved about her crab taquitos. Owned by a son of Laura’s San Miguel friend, Beatriz, Om is geared more toward young party-goers, but all is serene during lunchtime and the deck right on the beach makes a spectacular setting for some excellent dining. Finally, Posada Margherita, another hotel, offers a superb Italian restaurant. This place is definitely not your typical red-’n’-dead Italian restaurant. You can’t get pizza here, either. You don’t even get a menu. On arrival, we were seated in a lounge area and served a huge tray of antipasti (Niçoise olives, pistachio nuts, slices of Parmigiano Reggiano and three kinds of focaccia), while the restaurant owner sat with us to discuss what we might consider for our dinners. Laura chose homemade pasta in shrimp sauce. When I say homemade, I mean the owner asked the kitchen to begin mixing the flour and water and rolling out the pasta dough as soon as she had ordered. I ordered the unbelievably fresh huachinango (red snapper) poached in sea water, served in a sauce of large tomato chunks and capers. My serving was large enough for two, but I ate it all anyway, following it with the creamiest tiramisu I’d ever tasted. These restaurants are a little on the expensive side, but they’re worth every peso. For us, they took our beach vacation into the realm of the exquisite.

Palapa Living

Palapa Living

02/21/09 06:23 PM Filed in: Mexico

Visitors to Tulum do not get the option of staying in a high rise hotel: there aren’t any. But if you want to live in a palapa—well—there’s lots of those. We’re staying at Jade (reminder to gringos—that’s pronounced HAH-day), where we sleep under palm thatch roofs. What could be more romantic?

Our room is tucked under the highest roof visible in this photo, with an open deck affording sweeping views of the ocean.

Jade offers just seven rooms. We feel less like customers, more like personal friends of the owners, Juan and Marta. Between outings, we stop in the kitchen when one or the other is working. There, we’re offered a coffee or a slice of cake, and conversation with two interesting and accomplished people. Marta is a graphic designer educated at Monterrey Tech. Juan is a professional diver. Some of his old gear is on display in one of the common areas.

Built of natural materials, our room has an organic feel. Rough-hewn floorboards, posts made from peeled poles, and a thick layer of palm thatch to keep out rain make a unique space. Soft breezes blow into the seaward-facing windows and out the ones that overlook the jungle.

I’ve always thought palapa builders cut palm thatch from nearby jungle as needed, and perhaps in some places, they still do. But the uniformity of the fronds from which our roof is formed suggest that thatch is a standardized building material, sold perhaps by the square meter.

And so it is. Down the beach, we saw bundles awaiting incorporation into a roof. This thatch is of some other natural material than palm. (Juan’s dog, Chile, accompanies us on our beach walks. Here, he inspects the bundles.)

Palapa construction is rudimentary by McMansion standards. A tinaco—a water tank—is precariously stowed in the peak of our roof. Rooftop tinacos are common fixtures in San Miguel de Allende. But seeing one resting on rafters, held in place with ropes, makes me a little nervous. All of the plumbing in our room is exposed. The nature of thatch prohibits hiding them inside the walls.

Most everything in our place hangs from rafters, like this chair that Laura is relaxing in. Canvas bags stuffed between rafters serve as our wardrobe. Windows consist of plastic sheeting tacked to poles; we drag them open or closed as needed.

People accustomed to wall-to-wall carpeting and mirrored bathrooms might not be comfortable in a room like ours. In some ways, life in a palapa is more like camping out than staying in a hotel. But we like the ocean breezes, the sound of surf, the faint sway and creaking of our room, the sound of geckos chittering somewhere in the fronds that shelter us.

End-of-the-Road Paradise

End-of-the-Road Paradise

02/19/09 08:29 AM Filed in: Mexico

Stress from preparing tax returns, moving house for the fifth time in twelve months, and way too many medical visits to Houston took its toll on us. For relief, Laura and I took a short trip to Mexico’s Caribbean coast, hoping sun, sand, and surf would soak the tension away.

We drove south on the road from Cancún, passing all the big resorts springing up along the highway, avoiding the rampant growth at Playa del Carmen. We reached the last real town on the Quintana Roo coast, Tulum. There, where the coast highway turns inland, we took a seaward fork through the jungle, hugging the shore, to within a couple of kilometers from where the pavement gives out. The red arrow marks our destination.

The main draw for visitors to Tulum—mainly day trippers from Cancún and Playa del Carmen—is a small Mayan ruin perched on a bluff overlooking the sea. It’s choked with tour buses and the crowds they brought. We didn’t go there. We were looking instead for solitude and relaxation, and that’s what we found.

The beach this far south is remarkably uncrowded. Imagine—undeveloped Caribbean coast! We walked for hours, encountering but a handful of other beach goers. No mega resorts spoil views or blare music. What lodgings are here tend to be modest. This small palapa house exemplifies the best of the road south of Tulum.

Nature is our architect. In Cancún, a bent palm tree might be removed as unsightly, perhaps replaced by a perfect tree torn out of the jungle. Here, we are permitted to marvel at the tenacity of growing things.

Crews of janitors remove unsightly driftwood that washes onto the beach at Akumal. South of Tulum, it’s left in place, allowing us to admire the texture of a mollusk-encrusted log.

We sometimes found nature’s artistry incorporated into human art; here, a pair of palm tree roots that had grown together. Someone had cut away the trunks and inverted them. They resemble prehistoric dolphins.

Farther on, we found a post decorated with some of the sea fans that regularly wash onto the beach. Years ago, I saw impromptu artwork incorporating objects from nature when as a young man I prowled the Mendocino Coast in Northern California. The Tulum coastline brings back the playful feeling of that time.

Some visitors prefer active pastimes. A kiteboarding school satisfies their needs.

Absent from the menu of offered activities: party boats, parasailers, jet skis, banana boat rides. There are no noisy motors to interfere with the sound of breaking surf. At one time, it was necessary to reserve certain portions of the beach for topless sunbathing—pretty much frowned on in conservative Mexico.

No longer. We’re in clothing-optional country today. We could walk to a place where we were not in front of someone’s palapa hotel, shuck our swimsuits, and splash in the surf unencumbered by confining fabric.

This place is like Eden: plenty of jungle, sand, and water, It’s easy to find a mile or so for your own exclusive use. A warm place, a nurturing place, where with gentle breezes playing on our skins, we leave behind the cares of everyday life.

...on a Bicycle

...on a Bicycle?

02/17/09 04:16 PM Filed in: Mexico

A couple of posts ago I mentioned some Mexicans’ propensity for decorating vehicles with religious images. Shortly after writing, I happened upon this motorcycle.

Displayed on the windscreen: a pair of images that serves both as a demonstration of faith—and an embodiment of an expletive I used when I was a young and irreverent smartass. I guess I still am. A smartass, that is.

Chicken 'n' Ribs

Chicken 'n' Ribs

02/12/09 02:16 AM Filed in: Mexico

Out on the Calzada de la Estación—the Train Station Road—there hangs a sign advertising the best roast chicken in San Miguel de Allende.

This is an example of those modest businesses that give Mexico much of its character; the kind of humble place I love. Housed in a sturdy wooden shack, it squats next to a weed filled vacant lot. In a nod to modernity, a quasi-professionally designed banner has been strung across the front. It’s ugly, but these things are cheap—important in a low-volume business.

A boy sits in front of the building, awaiting infrequent customers. The yellow cinderblock structure is a fire pit. Inside, mesquite coals line a trench, giving off intense heat. Ribs and flattened chickens impaled on wooden stakes cook slowly, taking on beautiful color and smokey flavor. The aroma is enticing.

This truly is slow food, expertly prepared. The method is ancient. The first ever cooked food probably was roasted on sticks over an open fire much like this. Ovens, cast-iron pots, and Teflon sauté pans came much later. The place has no name, called only by what it serves: Pollo al Pastor—Shepherd’s Chicken.

Life in Atotonilco

Life in Atotonilco

02/08/09 01:14 PM Filed in: Mexico

We look out the main door of the Santuario de Atotonilco, past a 250-year-old threshold worn down by generations of feet. The wooden plank is deeply scalloped between the harder knots, signalling great age.

Outside, an old woman leans against a pillar. She’s begging. She sits in the spot where she laid her claim long ago. Her spot. Squatter’s rights. No one challenges her right to it. To the right of the Santuario door, a welcoming entrance leads to a gift shop and restaurant run by nuns from the local convent—a good place for a light lunch.

Paul (El Guapo) Latoures places our snack order with one of the sisters: carrot and potato taquitos and big glasses of fresh squeezed orange juice. Lunch for two: 80 pesos.

Paul addresses the nun as Madre, not Sister. If 80 pesos is too expensive, a woman across the street will make you a gordita for ten. This morning, as every morning, she gathers fallen branches for her fire. She pats out gorditas by hand and cooks them on her simple comal—a circular piece of sheet metal.

The young man in a wheelchair is another Atotonilco fixture. His profound developmental disablement causes me to look away, unable to face a life so cruel. His mother wheels him out in front of the Santuario every day. She supports herself and her son on donations from passers-by.

The boy’s posture never changes. The abonizing arch in his back appears to be permanent. He lies in his chair, looking at the sky, making sudden inhuman cries. Hundreds of thousands of perigrinos—pilgrims—visit Atotonilco every year. They arrive in smokey old chartered buses or in rusty pickup trucks. Some come on foot, walking for days to get here. They sleep in dormitories. They buy religious souvenirs from the vendors who have sprung up to serve them.

For sale here: icons, statuettes, printed prayers, sketches of Christ and Our Lady of Guadalupe. A vendor sits patiently behind hundreds of rosaries.

Among the rosaries hang flails. Pilgrims flagellate themselves. Some wear hair shirts. Others tie prickly pear pads to their chests so cactus spines will score their flesh. Still others crawl the last few miles to the Santurario on their knees.

These flails look too festive to be used for mortification of the flesh. Do pilgrims actually buy and use them? Or are they purchased by tourists in search of gruesome souvenirs? Atotonilco is a center of great faith, and to my naïve Protestant outlook, a chilling morbidity. A decal on the door of an employee’s truck bears an image of Christ in agony; not the pleasant figure recalled from my childhood Sunday school. I’m unable to grasp the level of devotion that would motivate someone to display a face like this one on his car. I don’t understand a person submitting to real, bloody scourgings as does the man who plays Christ on Good Friday here. I can’t comprehend how parents can hold wailing, terrified toddlers aloft to witness the young man being whipped that day.

Yet I find the people who worship here to be kind, friendly, common people. Not a hint of fanaticism or psychosis on their faces. Gentle people. People generous with neighbors and strangers alike, comfortable with God.

They come here and make their devotions. Then they wander across the street to a stall to buy a naranjada. They sit in the sun, enjoying their drinks. Life in Atotonilco is slow and peaceful. I don’t see hateful or angry people here: no impatient drivers, no pouting teenagers. How can a place so focused on pain and suffering exude such tranquility? Does the one cause the other? Or is Atotonilco just another sleepy Mexican town, albeit one that somehow manages to absorb the torments of penitents?

Restoring Atotonilco Sanctuary

Restoring Atotonilco Sanctuary

02/02/09 09:53 AM Filed in: Mexico

Atotonilco (the village) is dominated by a church, El Santuario de Atotonilco, one of the more extraordinary places in Mexico. In 1740, Father Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro undertook to build it: a monument to the life of Christ.

As an example of colonial architecture, the exterior of the Church of Jesus the Nazarene, as it is sometimes called, isn’t significant. It’s what’s inside that counts. The walls are covered with incredible murals created by a local painter, Miguel Antonio Martínez Pocasangre—like this one, visible above the main altar.

The church contains more art than one could imagine. This chapel is hung with gilt frames holding exquisite glass paintings of scenes from the life of Christ. The images focus on violence, blood and pain.

Guanajuato woodcarvers contributed many sculptures, including this unidentified figure with hands outstretched in benediction.

The most famous of Atotonlico’s treasured carvings is called El Señor de la Columna, a tortured depiction of scourged Christ.

Every year at the beginning of Holy Week, Our Lord of the Column is carried in a torchlit procession from its niche at Atotonilco to San Miguel de Allende, where it remains until after Easter. Over the years, El Santuario de Atotonilco fell into neglect. Parts of the edifice crumbled, the roof developed leaks, and frescoes deteriorated. Portions of this ceiling have become completely obliterated.

Some murals have become so washed out that their subjects are now lost.

In 1996, funds were raised for conservation and restoration. Parts of the church were repaired and some of the frescoes renovated. But the work was underfunded and progressed slowly. Last year, UNESCO recognized El Santuario de Atotonilco as a World Heritage Site, and everything changed. Suddenly the sanctuary has become filled with scaffolds bearing restoration experts. Crumbling stonework is being patched and plastered. White-suited conservationists painstakingly repair murals.

The ceiling shown below was restored during the 1986 effort. The transformation is astounding. Subject matter retains its original grimness, but bright color dispels some of the gloom.

Tourists have begun arriving. No longer can I sit in one of the old pews on a Tuesday morning, the sole occupant of this place. Milling crowds from Mexico City and San Luis Potosi wield cameras, ignoring signs asking them not to use flashes. Restoration of the exterior awaits. The head of the Virgin here has eroded away completely. But given UNESCO recognition, funding for such work at last is assured.

Atotonilco is being saved in the nick of time. I don’t think it would have lasted another ten years without intervention. Its salvation is a blessing, but it may also be a curse. The sanctuary will be preserved for generations of pilgrims and visitors, but it is being transformed into a tourist destination. The paintings have been saved, but I’m afraid the sleepy country church placidly baking in the sun may be lost.