Carnaval

On numerous occasions I have seen photos and news footage of Mardi Gras in Rio de Janeiro. The beautiful Latin women and men in the street parades wearing as little as possible and generally behaving as though they have been on a diet of viagra for a month. Looked terrific I thought, though I realized that these would be selected shots of the few most spectacular looking revelers. Besides which, that was Brazil, a land of beautiful people.

Nonetheless I thought the Mexican version of Carnaval could be worth a look. It is held in the city of Veracruz and like Rio is an annual event. I couldn't find any friends who had either been to it or knew anything about it even though it is supposed to be number three on the list, in terms of wanton behavior on a grand scale. Number two was New Orleans which was a bit far away for me. Veracruz was just right, the neighboring state from home in fact.

Distance aside I was looking for an excuse to play with a new toy. I had recently bought a Harley and the idea of going to carnaval on the bike would quite obviously be Easy Rider relived. I would be discovering Mexico as Peter Fonda had America. I would be befriended by hippies in the mountains, profoundly moved by the simple life of farming families I encountered, most likely meet up with Jack Nicholson and then top it all off with sex, drugs and rock and roll at carnival, preferably in a cemetery. Eventually I would be sacrificed on the altar of the search for freedom in an ever more constraining world. I would be an example to free spirits everywhere.

It all seemed to fit together beautifully. I ran the more tangible parts of the plan past my girlfriend Eva. She was enthusiastic, so we loaded up the bike in preparation to search for enlightenment and the real Mexico.

This simple act, loading up the bike, was in itself enlightening. It quickly became obvious that Captain America and his side kick Billy must have been high all the time, not just when they were smoking dope around the camp fire at night. Where did they put clean clothes? All they had was a bed roll each. I now realised why they wore the same clothes for the whole movie: they didn't have any others. I always reckoned Billy looked like he wouldn't smell too good, but Peter Fonda was seriously cool. What about him? He must have been pretty ripe as well.

As opposed to those boys, we had two large saddlebags bulging at the seams and another largish pack on the rear luggage rack.

We headed into the mountains. Actually, if you leave Oaxaca City it is not possible not to head into the mountains, given that the city is in a valley. To get to Veracruz from Oaxaca it was necessary to cross the Sierra Madre. In the spirit of adventure we avoided the freeway and took a back route. This was two hundred kilometers of tight bends. The road climbed to nine thousand feet and passed through cloud forest. The air was fresh, the vistas breathtaking, we were free spirits. Within two hours we had sore arses.

From the highest point on the road there was a view, looking east, across the state of Veracruz. It is almost entirely coastal plain. The mountains drop down onto this large, low-lying, hot, steamy, wet plain which joins the base of the Sierra Madre to the Gulf of Mexico.

This particular day we were above the clouds on the plain. There was a thick, unbroken, grey/white doonah suspended at four thousand feet across the whole plain. It was spectacular in its own subdued way. Up in the Sierra however we were lucky enough to strike a beautiful day, hardly a cloud to be seen. As I leaned the bike into the curves I could feel the dream. From the highest point we then dropped down through the cloud. About five thousand feet of descent in twenty minutes, with the temperature climbing as we fell. The destination was a town called Tuxtapec. It was a spectacular first day's travel. The road surface was excellent and I felt as though the route had been designed especially for motor-bikes.

We had left Oaxaca a week earlier than was necessary to arrive in Veracruz for carnival and the game plan was to pass that week cruising around the state, so instead of heading straight for Veracruz City we headed south.

First stop was a little tourist spot called Catemaco a day's ride from Tuxtapec. We arrived in town mid afternoon and soon realized that tourism was sufficiently important to the place to ensure that it was approached with some degree of thought by the local chamber of commerce, or its Mexican equivalent. This, combined with us so obviously being tourists (one of the problems with being endlessly fascinating, free spirited adventurers is that not everybody immediately recognises you as such) and there being a distinct shortage of such in town at the time, meant that we received some immediate and rather amusing attention.

It went like this. At the neatly manicured (by Mexican standards) entrance to town there was a tourist information booth. Now I realize that Captain America and Billy wouldn't have stopped at such a place, but the guys in their snappy matching shirts were obviously lacking customers and were keen that we should stop, so I pulled over anyway.

There were three or four of these guys and they were all eager to help. They hung on our every word and offered suggestions all at once. They even had a couple of scooters there ready to guide visitors unfamiliar with the town to a suitable hotel. We chatted a bit and accepted a suggestion to be guided to a hotel that sounded like it would meet our requirements.

Immediately upon our acceptance of this suggestion, the most enthusiastic of the information providers burst from the pack and jumped on one of the scooters. He took off, fast. In fact he shot off so quickly that we were left standing on the footpath watching him disappearing rapidly into the distance. It wasn't even worth trying to put helmets on and give chase. He was gone. Maybe it was a macho thing, that he felt a need to demonstrate his little scooter was well capable of keeping ahead of a larger bike. Whatever the reason, he certainly wasn't indulging in time wasting activities like looking in his mirrors.

We looked quizzically at each other, then at the remaining guides and then fell about laughing. This was obviously a guide who approached his work with much gusto. Commendable really. It took us so long to stop laughing that he had time to realise he had arrived at the hotel without the paying punters, turn around and come back in search of us. We were exactly where he had left us. It was a lovely way to enter the town.

Catemaco was a not bad little spot. It had developed as a tourist destination on account of the fact it was built on the side of a lake which was reasonably attractive. There were also some spectacular waterfalls nearby and it wasn't far to the coast. Unfortunately building design in the town had been left to the whims of developers. Architectural good taste not being a developer's strength, the buildings had a rather Guatemalanesque sort of a look about them. Innovation was restricted to what could be done with a concrete box design and liberal use of garish colours. A bit unusual really as I normally think of Mexicans as having a wonderful sense of style when it comes to painting buildings. The only saving grace was that it was located in a hot tropical climate and accordingly there was a fair bit of lush vegetation which softened the overall look of the place. Huge mango trees are wonderful additions to any town and bougainvilleas can give a lovely lift to even the worst of buildings.

After a couple of days in Catemaco we headed to an area known as The Tuxlas, the two towns in the area being Santiago Tuxtla and San Andrés Tuxtla.

Added to the many other self-indulgent reasons for this trip was the attraction of it being Mexico's cigar producing area. It is only a hop and a skip from Veracruz to Cuba. Well, not much more than a Suzie Maroney swim actually. Which, at the risk of being a little unkind to Suzie, does raise the point of what she thought the big deal was. Cubans swim from Havana to Florida on a daily basis and don't seek publicity for having done so. But that's by the by.

The region is close enough in proximity, climate and soil types to Cuba that it is a good source of smokes. This is where all the Mexican cigars come from and the Tuxtlas area is littered with growers and small factories.

The reason I mention this, is that aside from long standing addictions to alcohol, horse-power, women, slothfulness.……well, enough of that. Suffice to say, I have a great fondness of cigars. Cigarettes I will smoke from time to time, but the taste of the chemicals in them really is unpleasant. However, I find a nice bit of unadulterated leaf a real joy.

Cigar factories are wonderful places and I have had the pleasure of looking around the Partagas factory in Havana. This is the source of some of the world's finest and I am convinced that if there is a heaven then that factory must be the entry gate.

It is a large place and some four hundred-odd rollers 'work there'. I was going to say, 'are gainfully employed there', but given the Cuban system that would be drawing a rather long bow. Those of us who enjoy a nice smoke gain from their employment. The Cuban government gains from their employment. The ones that sweat though, well that's another matter all together. A living, working example of the Cuban employees joke…… "we pretend to work and the government pretends to pay us."

One of the many things I love about the place is that it's the only factory of any sort I have ever been in where I didn't see one bit of stainless steel. Everything is wood and leather, materials which readily absorb aromas. Gads it has a wonderful feel and smell to it. On the occasions I have had the pleasure of being in that factory, it has only been the last vestiges of common decency which prevented me from leaping into the piles of tobacco and cigars and rolling in them, just as a dog would on a sheep long dead. Actually, if I were to be completely frank, the thought of spending time in a Cuban prison was also somewhat of a self-control inducer.

So, the idea of being able to visit a factory in Veracruz was very attractive. Given the rate at which I consume cigars I can't afford the Cubans, unless friends visiting the place can bring me back some bought on the black market. But even that is not always satisfactory as the quality of the ones available on the street tends to be variable at best. They are often the product of the jackaroos in the factories who are still learning the trade. Still, with all due respect to the Mexicans, the Cuban black market smokes do tend to be better value for money than the Mexican home product.

That's nitpicking though. I draw a great deal of pleasure from Mexican cigars and being amongst the world's source of the little darlings is one of the many pleasures of living in Latin America. Anyway, as we cruised across the hot sweaty coastal plains of Veracruz I could feel that we had entered good country for producing a fine smoke. Upon arrival we did indeed visit a factory, a fine little establishment in Santiago Tuxtla which employed about fifty rollers.

We left the bike at the front door of the factory and a few locals inspected it while we were shown around by a very obliging woman. As we wandered I inspected the smokes. There's nothing like visiting a factory for a deal. Whereas in Cuba it was workers palming you a few on the quiet in exchange for the ever popular greenbacks, in Tuxtla it was genuine direct from the factory deals. I had hoped to buy a box, but despite having no space in the saddlebags I couldn't resist buying two. At a buck a smoke for large coronas they were very cheap and proved to be fine quality.

Happy that I now had sufficient nice smokes in the saddlebags to get me through carnival and beyond, we headed north. We pushed on and made it to Veracruz City that night. We were still a few days ahead of the official kick off of carnival, so decided next morning to head up to Xalapa.

Xalapa is a lovely regional city. I love the old colonial centres of Mexican cities. They abound with lovely architecture. Beautiful masonry work and stylishly painted adobe finishes. And generally speaking, without overly tall buildings. Xalapa is one of many wonderful examples of these characteristics. The setting is the foothills of the Sierra Madre and being up off the coastal plain gives it a comfortable temperate climate. Though it can be a bit foggy and dank at times.

It is sufficiently large to be spread through the undulating hills and this makes it a city which reveals itself to you piece by piece. This lends it a nice aspect. It also happens to be a university city which gives it a nicely contemporary touch.

The down-side of the setting is that for new comers, finding your way around town can be a bit disorienting and we found this out within our first half hour in town. At one point, while on a three lane freeway, we realized we were completely bushed. So I pulled over to the side and stopped.

To discuss which exit we should have taken I turned around on the seat. In doing so I put a foot down to steady the bike, only to discover I had pulled up right next to a quite deep and steeply angled gutter. I had leather soled boots on and that combined with some loose gravel on the inclining concrete meant that to my horror I found I had no traction at all. Down we went.

Lying in the gutter, on the side of a busy freeway, with a heavily laden motor bike on top of you, is a most ignominious state of affairs. Made worse by the fact that I then discovered I couldn't get enough traction to lift the damn thing. I am certainly not going to admit that I didn't have the strength. Cursing and struggling we eventually managed to get it upright.

My almost new pride and joy escaped with only a minor scratch or two, but the chagrin was profoundly damaging. This would never have happened to Captain America.

We stayed with a friend of Eva's and had a very pleasant weekend being shown around. I like the Mexican cuisine and for me the highlight of this weekend was an eating experience.

We were taken out to see another spectacular waterfall. These seem to be as common as muck in Veracruz. There's plenty of water about. After the inspection our host decided that we had done enough to warrant a cool fizzy drink. There was a tourist trap next to the falls so we stopped in and blew the froth off a couple of cold ones.

In the course of this trip I was learning that Jorachos as the natives of Veracruz are known, are rather partial to a cool drink on a hot day, and it is always hot. And this trait is not restricted to the men. By time we had downed a couple the appetite was sufficiently stimulated that we started to consider food. It was decided that we should head to Xico a nearby town where there was a restaurant which evidently turned on a good feed and was only open on the weekends.

By time we got to Xico the worms were really biting and the beer had produced a pressing need for toilets, so we headed straight to the restaurant. As can be seen from the photo below, it was a pretty casual sort of a joint. The ubiquitous beer company plastic tables and chairs don't add much to the décor of any place. And the hand done sign on the wall advertising the house specialties didn't exactly reek of professionalism. How deceptive appearances can be.

The matron of the establishment appeared and gave us a menu each. This was a photocopied half A4 sheet with a typed out selection of dishes. Though roughly cut, it was done on red paper, so some attempt was being made at presentation.

On the urging of our tour guide we started with a shot of tequila each. At two o'clock on top of nothing other than beer the tequila certainly found it's mark. Stimulated the appetite no end. I applied my attention to the photocopy to see if I could decipher anything.

I am absolutely hopeless at remembering the names of dishes. And that's in English, in Spanish, hah. On this list I could only recognize a few of the most basic and common dishes. There looked to be some quite interesting things though so I asked Jenny (our host and guide) if she could recommend anything.

She could indeed and in fact she spoke so highly of many good things that I didn't recognise it was decided she should just order for the three of us. Which she did. With gusto.

By time she had asked the matron of the manor a few pertinent questions and then reeled off a long list of dishes, I was flabbergasted. I was hungry and am by nature a glutton, but it sounded like she had ordered the equivalent of an entire Chinese banquet, all to be served at the same time. And topped it off with a request for another round of tequilas, this time with beers as well. I started to feel a little week.

During the ordering process the matron had come across as being a particularly lovely person. The living epitome of that consummately descriptive Spanish word, simpatico. Though it would be fair to say, by that stage the beer and tequila had started to kick in and the world in general was taking on a lovely warm glow.

I now saw that she was also incredibly efficient. The next round of drinks arrived in a flash and as quick as you can say salud the first of the meal started to appear.

Mercifully we eased off the booze a bit and concentrated on the food. And what a joy it was. The table quickly filled with a most wonderful array of dishes, all with evocative names. There was xonequi, cebollines asados, tampiqueña, chiles en nogada, bruja xiqueña, enchiladas rojas and more.

We ate to our fill and remarkably there wasn't too much. Jenny had judged well what the right amount would be. It was a truly wonderful meal of simply presented dishes and stands out in my mind as one of the more impressive eating experiences I have had, anywhere.

As for the cost, it was ridiculously cheap. We left this wizard of the culinary world a goodly sized tip and went for a well sated walk around the pleasant little pueblo.

Thus the weekend passed. The monday was to be a state public holiday, for Carnaval. It was time to head for the party. We had heard on the radio that a million visitors were expected to pass through the city over the week of the celebrations.

Veracruz city is a bit of an anachronism, by Mexican standards. It is in the area where the Spanish first came-a-conquering and yet the city doesn't have much in the way of a beautiful old colonial centre. At least not to any significant degree. In fact I thought the whole place had a rather new money sort of a feel to it. It is quite open and spread out as well. More like a western world suburban sprawl feeling. Numerous glitzy hotels and restaurants along the waterfront malecon. Huge shopping malls, even some little freeways.

One odd feature is that the central plaza, which is about the only old and lovely part, is very close to the docks. The result is that walking in surrounding streets you can often look up and instead of the streetscape being dominated by prominent buildings, you are confronted by the six-story-high side of a ship.

For digs we prevailed upon another friend of Eva's. Probably just as well we were welcome as finding a hotel could have been very difficult.

It was stinking hot, as Veracruz is want to be. And seeing as carnival is strictly a nocturnal affair we decided to hit the beach for the daylight hours. Adela, our new host, took us to a favorite spot half an hour south of the main city beaches.

In true Jarocho spirit she put an impressive sized esky in the boot with lots of ice in it and we stopped at a grog shop on the way out of town to fill it. We bought enough booze to slake the thirsts of five big blokes, added a bit of tucker and hit the beach.

The entrance to the beach was a wonderful affair. We pulled off the main coastal road onto a sand track that weaved through some low scrub. A hundred yards through this we came to a bit of a sand dune which obviously formed the back drop of the beach. There was the odd beach house around but no sign of any cars. I guessed we must have been in a fairly secluded spot. Wrong. Well, not completely wrong.

Before I had time to think up how to say "do you think this is a good idea" in Spanish, Adela had driven up over the sand dune and down onto the beach. And that's where the other cars were.

It was a great expanse, not overly wide, but smooth and flat with hard packed sand as far as the eye could see in both directions. And about every fifty yards there was a car. All were backed up to the water, boot and doors open with folks doing beachy things.

So we did the same. During the course of the afternoon it became apparent why people preferred to park closer than I had thought was necessary to the water. If you didn't there was a good chance you would have traffic zooming past, between you and the little Caribbean waves. I had a vision of the consequences of boozing Jarochos, driving too fast up the beach while trying to get an eyeful of some lovely in a bikini.

Being distracted and walking into a beach umbrella can be hazardous and a tad embarrassing, but driving over a sunbather at high speed would be downright unsociable.

Adela had seen enough of carnaval to last her a life time, but she most obligingly drove us into the centre of town that night and dropped us as near as possible to the thick of things.

The main action was to be the grand parade and the setting was the Malecon. This is the four lane esplanade that follows the edge of the beach through the city. It's a nice setting for it and mercifully catches the breeze coming in off the Gulf of Mexico.

For the event it had been lined on both sides, for what seemed like a mile or so, with tiered seating. The parade was due to crank up about nine o'clock and it was about that hour when we arrived.

The whole area along the waterfront was packed with people and the stands were pretty full. The seating was an exercise in free enterprise at work. Each section of about thirty yards was somebody's territory. What were perceived to be the prime spots, closer to the starting point, had been pre booked, so we strolled along wondering whether it was going to be possible to find a vantage point. It turned out to not be a problem. We didn't walk far before finding a section of stand where they were still selling seats with a perfectly good view of proceedings. And not even at rip-off prices. It was only a couple of dollars a head.

Having walked along a few city blocks of full seating and knowing there was a lot more behind us, it became apparent there were huge numbers of people. Just in the short section of road and stands we could see from our seats there were thousands of Mexicans in party mode. And surprisingly, no foreigners. This was very much a local gig. I had expected to see a lot of foreigners but in the three days we were in town I saw less than ten. Whether the predictions of a million people attending were correct I wouldn't know, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if there were.

So we were ensconced. We had a good vantage point and were ready for the spectacle. And what a spectacle it was. The curtain raiser was provided by the police and army who came along a few minutes in front of the parade to clear the street. This was necessary because large numbers of people were spilling out of the stands, over the barricades onto the road. A large phalanx of rugged looking individuals in Darth Vader riot outfits moved up the street shoulder to shoulder. Their mandate was non negotiable and the revelers seemed pretty well aware of it. They cleared the street back into the stands.

It is Mexico though. Infringing the rules is something controlled only when there is an immediate physical impediment. As soon as the riot troops had rounded the bend the road again filled with instant party. There was a bit of booze about, but not a lot. The regulating factor being twofold, having to lug it in there and the lack of toilets.

The street party was cleared again by police just in front of the first float but likewise it was a temporary affair and for the duration of the parade there were hundreds of people mingling with the floats.

The floats were every bit as impressive as I had expected. Large sparkling affairs and most were equipped with their own generators to run a sound system. Many seemed intent on blasting their way past making as much noise as possible. The air was filled with the sounds of salsa, samba, cumbia, cha-cha-cha and danzón. There were dance troupes by the dozen, all in spectacular outfits, all moving as beautifully fluidly as latin dancers do.

And as for comparing my impressions of the Rio publicity with Veracruz, thinking the number of spectacular looking women in bikinis would probably be limited to little more than would fit on a page or two of the newspaper, wrong. Completely and utterly wrong!

I had never even considered the possibility that there could be so many of those women that I would become bored with looking at them. Rightly so too, I didn't. I did become a little blazé about them though. Incredible.

Maybe it was the influence of Columbus on this place. The conquistador mentality. Whatever the origin, the way those scantily clad lovelies could move, they could conquer anything.

The procession was indeed a grand spectacle. It lasted for an hour or two and was an absolute feast for the senses. An over abundance of colour, movement and latin music. The message was clear. Carnaval is about lust. The lust for sex and the lust for money. The dividing line between the two indecipherable.

The procession was the formal part of the nights activities, but by no means the end. As the enormous crowd left the Malecon and spilled back into the surrounding streets the party continued in a hundred different spots. Bars and restaurants filled and there were bands in the street in a few different places. We soon found that trying to dance salsa on asphalt wasn't a whole lot of fun and headed to a great little plaza we had been to before.

It's a small plaza in the centre of town, about forty yards across and is an outdoor dance area much frequented by the locals. Most particularly middle aged and upwards. And accordingly the favored music is Danzón which is a bit slower than Salsa and the likes. There is a little raised podium for the band and the dance area is surrounded by a couple of rows of outdoor tables. The surface of the square has been laid with marble tiles which make a terrific dance floor and the area is walled in by surrounding two story buildings, which are beautifully decrepit. Fuel for the dancing was available at a little open fronted bar serving beer and tequila in plastic cups and there was the odd food stall about.

The music only goes till about midnight, I guess out of respect for people living in the area, but it's a terrific little spot and we had a couple of very pleasant evenings there. There were bands coming and going, with a reasonable mix of livelier stuff amongst the Danzón. Being outdoors is not only a nice idea, for dancing salsa in that climate it is almost essential.

Thus passed carnaval a la Veracruz. Hot sticky days spent trying to keep cool, either at the beach or in large open restaurants, indulging in the wonderful array of seafood's. Nights spent dancing, drinking Tequila and strolling around, reveling in the great fluid circus.

The search for the free spirit of Mexico had been a mixture of the exotic and the wonderful. And I concluded that it must be a more tranquilo place than the united states, on account of the fact we didn't get shot up by red necks on the way home from carnaval.