Llama for Lunch Page 5

  Mexicans were unfailingly friendly to me. As soon as I spoke to them they would smile. They didn’t know what I wanted, I could have been about to complain, but they smiled and seemed happy to help me. Even with my fractured Spanish I got by reasonably well.

  The weather was divine in the mornings and warm in the afternoons, but on my first night in the town I nearly froze. The evening had been reasonably cool so I had a hot shower and got into bed. Half an hour later I was almost asleep when the cold fell on me as though someone had chucked a bucket of water over the bed. My whole body went into spasms of shivering. I got up and put on all the warm clothes I had, including long-johns and a cardigan, but still I shivered. In the morning I asked for another blanket and during the day a very heavy one materialised on the bed. I doubled it over and, of course, sweated all through the next night. Now I understood why there was a large, obviously well-used, open fireplace in my room. Even with this as encouragement I don’t think I’d survive the winter here.

  This was the wet season, which lasts from May to October, and the nights were stormy. Active volcanos dwell in this mountain area and after I returned to Australia I heard that an earthquake had killed many people in San Miguel.

  I loved my delightful room, especially the minute streetfront balcony where I put out food for my friends the sparrows, who came every morning for breakfast. On my first morning a couple of sparrows had flown down to sit on the electricity wires strung across the street close to the balcony. They had perched there for so long looking hopeful that I wondered if they were accustomed to receiving hand outs. I put some of my crumbled toast on top of the balcony rail and within minutes they were eating it. Other little birds hopped around in the courtyard below the other side of my room, filching the fallout from the budgies that spent their days in cages hung on the wall.

  Standing at the hotel reception desk in the early morning when I first arrived, I had heard the loud cheeping of birds. The sound seemed to be emanating from the reception room itself but, although I looked around, I couldn’t see any cages. I asked the receptionist about this and she pointed to the floor. On a low bench I saw a stack of cages piled three high and covered with a cloth. Underneath the cover a dozen budgerigars were chirping to let it be known that they wanted to go outside to their places on the wall. The sparrows hop in and out of the creepers and crevices of the walls all around the cages and I wondered how the poor little budgies watching them felt about this. As I observed the sparrows flying around in the mornings, zipping in and out among the roof tops and landing on my wires, I thought of the bumper sticker that my hang-gliding nephew displays: ‘Hang gliders know why the birds sing.’ I bet the caged budgies know why the birds sing. I wondered if they still longed for the feel of the wind beneath their wings.

  One night as I came out of the cafe up the road from the hotel, I noticed a huge black cloud hanging over the nearby hills. Back at the hotel I climbed up to sit on the roof patio and watch this marvellous, inky cloud stream down off the mountain dragging the rain behind it and bringing the storm. At first a few big splatters fell and then a deluge followed, accompanied by deafening claps of thunder and brilliant stabs of lightning. As soon as the rain began two of the hotel girls rushed outside to bring the budgies in.

  Another evening we had the grandmother of all storms. I had got used to it raining a little most evenings but this was excessive. At four o’clock the sky was dark and lowering and it was raining a little, but by five, when I had gone out for a walk, it was throwing it down by the bucketful. I walked around for a while looking into some attractive, drowned courtyards but, much as I love a storm, after half an hour I gave up. This town was not built for hoofing about in such an assault. Even with my brolly aloft I got soaked and the turmoil was no longer fun. The houses had no gutters – water simply ran off their flat roofs by means of a whacking great pipe, which sent it splashing down into streets that were soon awash in torrents. Too bad if your car happened to be underneath a pipe.

  At the hotel I sat on my balcony above the courtyard, thrilled by the stupendous thunder and lightning right overhead, while rain poured from the roof pipes and splashed to flood the courtyard, thoroughly washing the flagstones and making everything sparkle. In my room, water started rushing through the unglazed bathroom window and very old wooden French doors that opened onto the balcony on the street side. I thought I’d soon need a boat. Fortunately the floor was tiled, so no damage was done.

  During the night more heavy rain fell and at one time I woke to find that my feet were wet. I couldn’t work out how this had happened until I looked up and saw that the roof was leaking from a hole where a light had once been suspended. I had already noticed the remains of old kerosene light fittings in the verandah alcoves and other places in the hotel. I was surprised that the electric power held out through this onslaught – there were a few big flickers. I didn’t look forward to telling the housemaid that I’d wet my bed.

  When morning dawned the sun shone brilliantly and it was bliss to sit on a low wall waiting for a bus. This is one way to see life, I mused – sit in the gutter with a few of the local people. The bus driver must have had child-care duty that day, as he had his two-year-old baby girl with him. In these tin buses there was a flat area like an extended dashboard alongside the driver on which there was usually a box for the fare money, or else the money was simply spread on a piece of cloth. There didn’t seem to be any fear of theft. Neither was there a feeling of danger in the streets. People carried handbags and wore bumbags without fearing robbers. I noticed that people also paid as they got off the bus rather than when coming aboard. This driver had squeezed a rug into an indentation next to his money and his baby slept on it unconcerned. Later the wee one sat up on the front of the dash and watched the oncoming traffic. What a good little girl. There was not a peep out of her.

  At times I saw other people working with a child in tow. A school teacher who was taking a group of older children out held a tot that was sucking on a bottle by the hand. I don’t think it was in school.

  Turning my attention, reluctantly, to my damaged tooth, I decided to ask directions to a dentist from the man who ran the book shop at the library. A waspish little fellow, he was the only English speaker I’d found, but so far his track record wasn’t good. It was he who had directed me to a mythical book shop when I asked him where I could buy a Spanish dictionary. He was the sort of person who goes to live in foreign climes, considers the place his own and gets jealous of anybody else elbowing in. When you ask these people something they tell you the answer very fast and in the local accent so that you won’t understand. The book shop, I discovered much later by accident after several fruitless searches, was in a street called Jesus, but it was not pronounced the way it was written in English and he sure as all hell wasn’t going to write it down. But he did tell me the address of a dentist down the road, probably hoping I was going there to endure much pain.

  Once at the dentist’s I discovered, by pantomime, that ‘El Dottore’ was away. I got another dentist’s address but was told not to go there until Monday. I supposed I’d live till then. I ate lunch in a tiny local cafe, unfortunately called the Colon. A set meal called comida – lunch – began with scrumptious tomato-based soup with melted corn chips, chunks of white goat’s cheese and avocado in it. I am such a messy eater that I normally never eat soup in public, but now I splashed it all down my front with gay abandon and didn’t give a hoot. I’d watched the locals at table and decided that anything goes. They slurped soup and shovelled food into their mouths with rolled-up flat bread. I was in my right element here. Following the soup came a thin beefsteak that was small, tough, but tasty and covered with a delectable meat sauce. It was like a lucky dip trying to find the meat but there was plenty to mix with the sauce – the cheese on top of it, rice and the ubiquitous bean paste that you are given with every meal as a side dish.

  But no chilli. I asked for some and was given a big bowl from which I ladled liberally.
I had expected Mexican food to have lots of chilli.

  Lastly came a teeny sweet so small you could have put it in your eye. I think it was meant to be a creme caramel. The entire meal cost about five dollars including great coffee. Mexicans eat three meals; desayanyo (breakfast), comida (lunch) and cena (dinner), but lunch is the main meal of the day. Most meals contained the staples: tortillas – patties of pressed corn – and beans.

  While eating I stared across the road at the San Francisco church, the dark old stone wall of which goes straight up like the rampart of one of those grim medieval castles that were built expressly to keep out marauders. The wall was a huge stone blob roughly made from rocks with no hand or toe holds on its face, but there were small octagonal windows set into it way up high. These windows and little holes in the stone work close by were inhabited by pigeons. It must have been nesting time because every now and then one determined pigeon, who between times rested in nearby window ledges, kept trying to invade one of the nesting sites. The occupier, equally determined, would repulse his incursion and back he’d go to his ledge to prepare for a fresh assault. Again and again he did this. Talk about a slow learner.

  I’d stopped worrying about looking the wrong way when crossing the road. Motorists here were too polite to run you over. The policeman even stopped the sparse traffic for me. Buses seemed improbable in the tiny streets but they managed – it helped that they were quite small. Volkswagen beetles seemed to be the car of choice. Even official cars were old-style VWs.

  One morning dawned a day of fiesta – Dias Los Locos, the day of the crazies. The church bells had started at seven the night before. They were followed by cannon shots, then more bells joined in until all three nearby churches were clanging away: San Francisco down on the corner with its lovely big peals, the parroquia in the piazza and the little tinny local church’s bell that could hardly be heard as they all tried to outdo each other. On and on they rang, stopping now and then for a cannon shot or two. It was deafening. And it started again early the next morning.

  The day before I had seen a couple of elderly nuns wearing oldfashioned habits preparing for the festival by filling the local church with great bowls massed with beautiful flowers. The hotel staff also deposited roses in bottles covered with silver foil at strategic spots. There were wonderful flowers galore here. Everywhere I went I saw people walking about with armfuls of gladioli, roses or carnations.

  In the morning everybody in the town was out. Rows of children had been sitting on the edges of the blocked-off streets for an hour or more. I went for a walk and had to make a wide detour to get back to the hotel; the town centre was so packed you couldn’t move in it. Then, quite unexpectedly during my detour, I finally came upon the no-longer mythical bookshop. But wouldn’t you know, the sign read ‘closed for the holiday’.

  The parade, luckily for me, passed under my window, and I stood on my balcony to watch. Men walked in front of the high vehicles holding up the overhead cables with forked sticks so that they could pass underneath without fear of electrocution. Good thinking. Everyone wore a mask. The very popular Bill Clinton mask was most realistic. It had big red kisses all over it, a silly fatuous grin and the head was slightly on one side. It really looked like him. One float demonstrated local anti-American feeling. It portrayed US border guards returning Mexican would-be immigrants across the Rio Grande, illustrating a recent case where two men drowned while trying to swim back. Clowns and costumed dancers threw confetti and sweets to the crowd from the floats. Among all this racket one dear donkey placidly plodded wearing a funny hat and garlands of flowers and pulling a small float.

  There seemed to be a contest in Loud. Every truck bore the biggest set of speakers its owners could find. The revellers, dressed up and dancing on the rough cobblestones, looked set to party on all night. The procession took eighty minutes to pass. The next day I wasn’t surprised to see bandaged ankles adorning the walking wounded.

  Never mind dancing, just walking around was hard on the feet. The town slopes uphill from east to west from the square and those cobblestones are murder after a while. It must have been tough on the poor horses in the old days. I heard a horse clip-clopping past my room late one night but apart from a couple that were pulling drays, I didn’t see any in the town though there were plenty of donkeys on the outskirts.

  It was a high step up from the street to the narrow sidewalks and I was told that this was the height at which it was convenient to alight from a carriage. Sidewalks were also only wide enough for one person, so if you met someone coming the other way one of you had to step down into the gutter and give way. Some of the wide doorsteps came right over the footpath and left only six inches to walk on, and old ladies were given to sitting on their steps as though this was now their role in life. The ones who were begging sat on the steps of churches or municipal buildings.

  San Miguel seemed to have more than its share of old women, but there were not many beggars. All of these were old people, a few men but mostly old ladies who, enveloped in their shawls, looked like bundles of rags. All old ladies wore shawls over their heads and shoulders in the traditional manner. Now and then I saw a tiny antiquated one wrapped like an untidy parcel. She hobbled along, bent almost double, so slowly that I couldn’t see how she kept moving.

  Early on Monday morning I set off by taxi in search of the dentist. Her surgery was a long way out of town, up on a hilltop in a posh private hospital that was painted brilliant blue and could be seen for miles. Of course I was in the wrong building at first. It was the emergency department. Mind you, after I got the bill I needed the emergency department. Directed to the correct building, I saw a door on one side of it and, walking in, found myself in the drug cupboard. Very handy. I could have had anything I desired, no need to hold up this lot at gunpoint for a fix. Hastily correcting my error before I was arrested, I entered the right door and was sent upstairs, where a charming girl told me that she was the secretary, as well as the nurse, but that the dentist wasn’t there. Two out of three ain’t bad, I guess. But I should have known that no one started work here until at least ten. I waited. La Dentista arrived and said that she would see me at one o’clock. This was kind of her as I realised that this was her siesta time. I hoped she wouldn’t nod off over my tooth.

  I decided to go back to my hotel and return later. Standing outside the hospital I saw a bus come by with ‘Centro’ on it. Why not? I thought, and jumped on. I paid two-and-a-half pesos – fifty cents – and to my total confoundment arrived back almost at my door. I was glad that I had braved the rigours of the crammed, jolting little bus. Made entirely of tin – even the seats were tin – it was a peasant-class bus but squeaky clean. When the next one I took – once I got the hang of it you couldn’t get me off them – stopped at its terminus, two boys – this bus was more upmarket than most, it had a conductor as well as a driver – got out kerosene tin buckets and scrubbed that bus from one end to the other. Inside and out they sloshed away, having a wonderful time. And every time I went past the buses standing on the main streets of the town, they were being washed. So much for Mexico being dirty, as I had been frequently told in the States when I said I intended travelling there.

  Returning to the dentist for my one o’clock appointment, I thought that, with the superior knowledge of buses I had now acquired, I could do the trip again but in reverse. I got on a bus labelled ‘Central’, which you’d think would be the same as ‘Centro’. Not on your nelly. At least I was now understood when I asked directions of the drivers – well, I guess it’s not too hard to say, ‘Ospedale de la Fay’. But it turned out that the bus I had boarded went past the turn-off, so I was put off at the corner at the wrong end of that horribly steep hill. It was a terrific climb and I only just made it in time.

  The charming dentist spoke good English and chatted pleasantly while she X-rayed the offending tooth. Then she told me what needed to be done and proceeded to stuff a great big piece of rubber in my mouth and clamp it in place. A l
ot of people have wanted to do that before now, I can tell you. Was this precaution to protect the dentist or me? Her, I think. After this device had been inserted, the nurse and dentist took turns squirting water and liquid goo into my mouth. The sucker, which was meant to save me from drowning, didn’t quite reach the fluids as the bloody rubber thing was in the way. There I lay, being put through the water torture. I was not able to swallow, as I couldn’t lift my tongue. To have a lot of water shoved in the back of your throat while you are lying down is decidedly not nice – but at least there was no pain.

  To take my mind of my imminent asphyxiation I stared at the purple – yes, purple – gloves of the perpetrators of this crime. I could see Edna Everidge wearing those gloves – they matched the mauve walls nicely. The rest of the gear my tormentors wore looked like they were ready for a trip to the moon – they were totally encapsulated in space suits. I, on the other hand, was utterly unprotected from them.

  The nastiest cruelty was saved for last. The bill for the repair of one filling was two hundred and twenty dollars.

  From the hospital I took one bus down the hill and another to the ‘estacion tren’ – gee I was proud of myself. Still hoping to find the train I had read about for my return to the States I had asked a young man at the tourist bureau in the piazza about it. He had said that there was a train but that it was unreliable. I found a very fine train station, but except for a small freight office at one end, it was an empty echoing shell. The attendant managed to convey to me that there was no passenger train, only cargo ones. I waited for the bus to have its wash and bought a Coke in a lean-to of a cantina for three pesos as opposed to the ten they cost in town. Cantinas are bars/cafes that are for men only in Mexico so I didn’t linger. Then I moseyed on to the long distance bus station where I discovered that there was a bus that goes all the way across the border and on to San Antonio in Texas. The ticket seller told me that the trip takes thirty hours.