SAN MIGUEL TZINACAPAN
Mary Carlsen teaches English with some home made flashcards she
brought with her.
Monday to Friday, everyone will be paired up with local young people
to investigate local topics and institutions in San Miguel and Cuetzalan;
other group meetings
Social service projects and home visits in San Miguel each afternoon when
possible
There will also be time for exploring the historic sites of the
area.
By Barbara Hansen
Times Staff Writer
April 8, 2001
CUETZALAN, Mexico -- On Sundays, the remote mountain
town of Cuetzalan turns
into a marketplace swarming with Nahua and Totonac
Indians doing their weekly
shopping alongside visitors hunting for hand-woven
garments, pottery, spices,
coffee, chiles and good things to eat.
I had wanted to see this town since reading about it
in a Mexican novel and
acquiring a Cuetzalan shawl elsewhere in Mexico. The
trip became possible
last September when I spent a few days in Puebla,
which is the nearest major
city.
My plan was to arrive in Cuetzalan on Saturday so I
could be at the market
early Sunday. I set out from Puebla on an early bus.
The ride took 3 1/2
hours, interrupted by a parade in the town of Oriental.
Taxis, mule carts,
tractors, boys on horseback, pretty girls and endless
bands of schoolchildren
marched proudly across the highway in honor of Mexican
Independence Day that
weekend.
Despite the holiday, I had no trouble getting a room
in Cuetzalan. Young boys
meet the buses to tout hotels and carry luggage the
short distance to the
center of town.
Hotel Posada Cuetzalan was my first choice, on the
recommendation of friends,
but I hadn't made a reservation and it was full. I
ended up in the Hotel
Viky, with a spotless room and bath with plenty of
hot water. The rooms
surrounding mine were full of families on holiday.
I could hear giggling
children at play in the hallway.
Cuetzalan is tucked into a hillside in the northern
mountains of the state of
Puebla, on the side that sweeps down to the state
of Veracruz and the Gulf of
Mexico. Humid currents from the gulf produce the mists
that often shroud the
town's old buildings and moisten the cobblestone streets
so that you have to
walk carefully. The name of the town comes from the
quetzal, a flamboyant
bird regarded as sacred in ancient Mexico.
The bus ride from Puebla runs through gradually rising
foothills. At
Zaragoza, the bus leaves the main highway and turns
toward Cuetzalan -- the
end of the road at an altitude of almost 3,000 feet.
Flowers bloomed profusely in the increasingly lush
landscape when I was
there; I identified red salvia and pink, yellow and
white datura, as well as
dried corn plants tied up like ghostly scarecrows.
The Spaniards came to Cuetzalan in 1547, 28 years after
Hernando Cortes
landed at Veracruz and set off on the conquest of
Mexico.
The town's primary claim to the interest of outsiders
is its proximity to
Yohualichán, an archeological zone about five
miles away. Yohualichán was a
ceremonial center for the Totonac people between the
years 200 and 650, and
some of its excavated features are similar to the
larger pyramids at El Tajìn
(see related story).
Cuetzalan has about 45,000 inhabitants, 55 percent
of them Indian, the rest
mestizo. It is widely known for its weaving of huipils,
the lacy white
triangular garment that local Indian women wear over
their blouses. It's also
the heart of a coffee-growing region. Each October,
the town celebrates both
in a Feria del Cafe y el Huipil, timed to coincide
with the Oct. 4 feast day
of St. Francis of Assisi, the town's patron saint.
Last year's fair started
Sept. 30, two weeks after I arrived, and continued
through Oct. 8.
The Saturday of my visit, the main entertainment in
the evening was a
competition in the plaza for feria queen. The teenage
finalists paraded in
short dresses, then in regional costumes, each reciting
Cuetzalan's history
and attractions. Enthusiastic onlookers rooted for
their favorites despite a
downpour.
September is the rainy season, and rain fell throughout my weekend.
Thoroughly dampened, I went in search of a welcoming
place for dinner and
stumbled upon Restaurante Cuca. I watched Independence
Day fireworks through
the open windows as I ate nopales (cactus) salad and
sincronizadas (ham and
cheese quesadillas), washed down with agua de sandìa,
a fresh watermelon
drink. A guitarist sang and bantered with other holiday
visitors who filled
the tables in the small room.
On Sunday, church bells rang early, but I awoke on
my own, eager to get to
the market. By 8 o'clock, the plaza was full of vendors
selling fruits,
vegetables, shoes and many other items, as well as
the handmade garments that
I had come for.
I noticed a crowd at a crude table covered with oilcloth
and sacks of
tortillas and sugar-sprinkled pan dulce (sweet bread).
Behind the table,
Maria Antonia, a tiny woman with gray braids streaming
down her back, tended
big pots of stew, coffee and a thick masa drink called
champurrado. I joined
the others ordering breakfast. Maria Antonia scooped
out the rich, sweet
coffee and strained it through a tiny sieve into a
plastic-foam cup, which
she handed to me.
I took my seat on a hard plank bench and helped myself
to the feather-light
sweet rolls.
The main dish was chilpozonte, meat in a red chile
sauce that was liberally
seasoned with fresh mint leaves. It was delicious,
although the meat was
chewy. This sturdy breakfast cost slightly more than
a dollar and fortified
me for hours of marketing.
Shawls, cotton print huipils and other woven goods
hung like bright banners
from stalls at the top of the steeply terraced plaza.
Soon I had acquired a
white huipil with purple and black flowers and a black
one with flowers and
stars in gaudy colors. Each cost less than $10. From
weavers in the nearby
town of Zacapoaxtla came a shawl distinctively striped
in tan and cream.
Shopping around me were Indian girls in spotless white.
Colorful embroidery
trimmed the sleeves and necks of their blouses, over
which hung dainty white
huipils. Long woven red sashes wrapped their waists.
Some were barefoot, and
some cradled babies in shawls slung over their shoulders.
A frail, white-haired Nahua woman approached me with
a plastic sack
containing a few cotton shawls in an open pattern,
like fine netting. Of
course I couldn't resist. Another offered tiny packets
of cinnamon, which she
said she had roasted and ground herself. Yet another
had coffee from the town
of San Miguel. And a man pulled out packets of peppercorns,
another local
crop. Soon my shopping bag was so stuffed that I had
to return to the hotel
to unload my purchases.
On the way back, I stopped at Restaurante El Encuentro
for a restorative, a
local herbal wine called yolixpan.
When I returned to the plaza a cheerful woman named
Ambrosia was making
garnachas, small tortillas topped with mashed potatoes,
red chile sauce,
chopped green onion and crumbled dried cheese -- delicious,
and only one peso
each. Next to her stand, Blanca and her daughter Erica
were selling homemade
cakes. I bought a slice of sumptuous tres leches cake,
striped with
strawberry filling, covered with soft white frosting
and decorated with
strands of chocolate. From another stand I chose a
borracho, a small piece of
cake soaked in syrup flavored with local orange wine.
To work off these snacks, I roamed through the market,
where I discovered
unfamiliar greens such as tegelite, broad leaves that
are added to beans;
chocoyoles, long green sticks to peel and cook with
beans; and quintoniles,
with pointed green and purple leaves.
Beans, of course, are a major part of the local diet,
and the market was
loaded with them -- large black ayocotes, pale buff
bayos, small
garbancillos, purplish flor de mayo beans, peruanos
and more. One woman sold
flor de frijol (bean flowers), green sprigs with dainty
red flowers for use
in cooking.
Late in the afternoon, I realized I had better stop
if I wanted to get back
to Puebla. But first I stopped at Cafe Selecto de
Cuetzalan near the plaza
for a cafe con leche and a sack of dark-roasted local
coffee beans. Cafe
Americano, plain black coffee, is made with a lighter
roast, and I bought
some of that too.
Because this was the end of the weekend, lots of people
were lined up at the
bus station. Turned away from one crowded bus, I was
lucky to get a seat on
the next. More passengers jammed in at stops along
the way, filling the
aisles.
An Indian so poor that his sandals hung by threads
crossed himself every time
we passed a church. Soon the bus was so packed that
he could not raise his
arm to continue these devotions. A young couple from
Zacapoaxtla stood
placidly beside me for three hours without complaint.
Too late, I realized it
would have been smarter to stay over and return to
Puebla Monday morning,
after the crowds were gone.
When I first looked into Cuetzalan, it seemed mysterious,
isolated and hard
to reach. A tour company in Puebla offered a one-night
trip for $385, and I
almost succumbed. Happily, I found the journey easy,
accommodations plentiful
and the town warm and welcoming. Talk about travel
bargains -- my
all-inclusive, self-conducted tour cost only $46.
Working it out was fun, and being alone gave me freedom
to wander at will. My
only regret was that I didn't stay another night.
Even without its market,
Cuetzalan would be an appealing place to spend a few
days.