San Pancho Vida

Out of Order

Sorry, dear readers, but no post this week. My Mac is going in for a tune-up before I leave again in a few days -- to drive to Mexico.

Please check in again next week for some News from the Road!

xo

C

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A Trip to Talpa -- Part Three: One Foggy Morning

On this visit to Talpa de Allende a few years back, I am staying at Hacienda Jacarandas, a sprawling bed and breakfast ranch which, sadly, is no longer operating as such. My hosts are Guy and Bill, longtime residents of Talpa, the only gringos in town for many years. In previous days, Guy has taken me along on his shopping trips and introduced me to the town, a ten minute drive down the hill from the ranch. Bill has walked me down the hill to meet Raúl and Estela Sanchez, their nearest neighbors, and arranged for me to have a horseback ride -- which I’ve done, and which turned out to be, “Here’s a horse. See you later.”

Now, both Bill and Guy (in cahoots with Raúl) have set me up for another visit to Raúl’s ranch. It’s something I must do, they insist: a real welcome to Talpa. It seems to me they’re up to something but  I haven’t a clue what it is. All I know is that I must get up way before I want to tomorrow morning in order to be at Raúl’s before 8 a.m.

Thursday morning at 7:40, I step out of my room onto the upper veranda. The valley is hushed and chill, filled to its brim with frigid fog. Downstairs, in Guy’s kitchen, I cradle a cup of tea to warm my hands. No time for another: I have to go. The men are chuckling as I leave, knowing what’s in store for me. I head down the dirt road toward Raúl’s rancho, the sounds of invisible horses snorting in the field, the deep bellow of a cow muffled by the thick cloud that veils the valley. Raúl and the dogs greet me in the barnyard. “¿Lista?” Raúl asks, grinning.

Sí, I’m ready, I reply. For what? I wonder to myself.

He leads me into the big corral where angular cows have staked out their territory, aloof and watchful, their calves at their sides. The milking is done, mostly. In the corner, beside the rail fence, a big oil drum is upended to make a table. On it are a couple of tall turquoise plastic drinking glasses, a spoon, a tin of Mexican cocoa which, Raúl explains, Estela has sweetened with sugar. Raúl puts a couple of scoops of cocoa into one of the glasses, then reaches down behind the drum to heft an unmarked jug, from which he pours a few healthy glugs of cane alcohol, stirring it into the cocoa to make a thin chocolatey syrup.

He motions for me to follow him to a huge black and white cow, her back legs hobbled, a calf standing with its neck touching her flanks. He loops the calf’s rope leash over the cow's horns to get him out of the way and stoops to her udder, where he proceeds to pull, the warm milk foaming into the chocolate until the glass is full and frothy as a good cappuccino.

Raúl rises, beaming, and presents me with my gift: this is a pajarete, the traditional welcome drink and the reason for my early morning invitation. I take a sip. It is heavenly, tasting like a slightly warm brandy Alexander, with a touch of sweetness and more than a touch of kick. I grin at Raúl, wipe off my milk mustache, and take another swig. Yum! Pretty interesting breakfast.

Raúl releases the calf, who returns to mom’s udder and its own non-chocolate, non-alcoholic version of the pajarete. The calves stay with their mothers until a new calf is born, and both begin and end the milking process each morning, which strikes me as a humane and efficient method of assuring milk for all. 

I’ve had four or five slurps by now, and my eyes are already beginning to cross. What a mellow morning, and the fog isn’t cold at all! In fact, it’s just about perfect! I carry my pajarete with me as Raúl takes me on a tour of the ranch. 

He takes me out to meet his goats. Raúl, who only needs a bandolero across his chest to resemble a perfect movie bandito, has a pet name for every single animal on the ranch. He introduces me to them all -- the dogs, the horses, the cows, the goats.

I follow him happily -- very happily -- back across the big front porch of the ranch house, which is tack room, kitchen, and family photo gallery.

I stop to chat with Estela, who is tending her nopal cactus and seems to think my condition is pretty funny, but Raúl has one more pet he wants me to meet, the papa of all those calves.

He offers me a second pajarete. I beg off. Really, one is just plenty.

I bid farewell to my extraordinary host and his critters and stroll merrily back up the lane to the hacienda. The fog is shredding around me, a little warmth sneaking through from the sun, but it’s hardly necessary. I am warm already from top to toe as I enter the yard and share a good laugh with Guy and Bill, who have had a few pajarete moments themselves over the years.

I can only thank them for helping me have one, too.

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A Trip to Talpa -- Part Two

For me, Talpa de Allende is a town of many charms. Nestled as it is high in a valley, surrounded by soft hills climbing to tall pine-furred mountains, its climate is unlike any Mexico I'd previously met. It is prone, some parts of the year, to a chill morning fog that melts in the warmth of the noontime sun.

Talpa's everyday nature is that of a ranch town. Horses are everywhere, clopping down cobbled streets, working in the fields, the conveyance of choice.

Talpa's aroma, besides eau de ranch, is a warm, sugary sweetness from the guava candy factories scattered about the town.

Talpa is famous for its rollos de guayaba. And for its chewing gum sculpture.

Okay, it's not exactly chewing gum. Chicle is the same stuff that chewing gum is made from, but here it is prepared for the purpose of sculpture, the sap harvested from trees, boiled with dyes, and used to make art.

Above guava candy, above chicle art, Talpa is most famous for being the home of Nuestra Señora de Rosario, the Virgin of Rosario.

She's a tiny thing, less than 18" tall, but she is mighty powerful in these parts. Many legends circulate as to her origins and miraculous feats. It is generally agreed that she was made sometime around 1600 of a cornstalk paste and was eventually placed upon the altar of the parish church.

After that, the tales vary somewhat. The following seems the most prevalent.

In 1644, a visiting church official decided that she and several other similar rustic saintly figures had become a bit too bedraggled for display, and ordered that they be removed and respectfully buried, as was tradition. On the morning of September 19, a young peasant girl came to help with the work of wrapping the old figures. She reached for the tiny statue of the Virgin, whereupon it began to glow as bright as the sun! Suddenly the statue was not only no-longer-bedraggled, but rather resplendent and in perfect condition. People fainted all over the church. Needless to say, they moved the little Virgin into a special spot and over time built a bigger church around her.

Another story is told about a bishop from Mascota who thought this miraculous statue really needed to be in his church instead, and used his authority to have her moved. The next morning, she was back in place on her Talpa altar, and several people swore there were tiny footprints all the way from Mascota to the Talpa plaza!

In any case, ever since the morning of September 19, 1644, the little Virgin has received quite a lot of attention. She is renowned for performing all kinds of miracles, especially healing people of illnesses and injuries. Five times a year, there are major festivals in her honor. Year round, pilgrims walk into Talpa from all over, from miles and miles away, on missions of thanks and prayer. 

I was extremely fortunate to witness this beautiful procession a few years ago. This is different from the pilgrimages. These people are carrying one of the Virgin's several proxies, who circulate throughout the year blessing crops and animals, attending festivals and bestowing grace where needed. One can hear these processions coming from far back in the hills, as the walkers fire bottle rockets along the way on their journey to the Basílica.

In the Basílica, Nuestra Señora de Rosario stays on her altar except for a few days each year, when she is brought down to walk around town, and to be cleaned and dressed in new clothes. 

Behind the Basílica is a wonderful museum with displays of stunning retablos, some quite old, thanking the Virgin for her works.

Next week, we'll see another side of Talpa when I take you to visit Raúl, a local rancher who is full of surprises!

Get plenty of sleep, as we have to get up really early for this adventure. See you next Friday!

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Regarding Who Are You?, my post of May 27, I am delighted that so many readers have communicated with me to let me know who you are! What a treat to hear from you. Thanks, and keep in touch!

A Trip to Talpa de Allende

This week finds your faithful blogger laid up with a really miserable flu bug and unable to think my way out of a wet paper bag. So I’ve decided this is the perfect time to start a story I’ve been saving. 

Once upon a time, some years ago, I took myself on a birthday adventure to Talpa de Allende, over the mountains from Puerto Vallarta.

Back then, I didn’t know anyone who’d been up there. This was 2005, before the new road was built. It was a long and sometimes risky drive east out of Puerto Vallarta past the turn-off to San Sebastián del Oeste, beyond to Mascota and then on to Talpa de Allende. The bus took six hours to go a distance that, as the crow flies, is under fifty miles.

I didn’t know anyone who lived there, either. But I’d heard about a couple of guys who owned a bed and breakfast that sounded very interesting, and I found out there was a flight a few days a week from Vallarta to Talpa.

So I decided to go.

Maybe I should’ve turned back when I saw the plane, which wasn't much larger than a good-sized tablecloth. Or when the “co-pilot”, a young man hitchhiking to Talpa, reached out the window and squirted water from his water bottle onto the windshield so the pilot could see through the dust to take off. I didn't, though.

And now we are in the air and it's too late to bail. I crane my neck to see the port of Vallarta behind me, the coast curving north, the sea beyond. We climb, in kiddie-roller-coaster fashion. Soon, we are in the mountains—not above them, as this plane doesn’t fly over the mountains as much as it flies between them. I am suspended inside the Sierra del Cuale, crumpled mountains cloaked in green and feathered with palms, threaded here and there with a brilliant waterfall.

In only a short time, the dense jungle thins. The terrain begins to change from peaks and furrows of vivid green to hills of golden brown. I see cultivated plots below me. The pilot had said twenty minutes for the flight, and I am imagining the possibility of landing soon when he turns in his seat and waves grandly toward an area just ahead that looks like a bowl of whipped cream. "Talpa!" he yells over the engine noise. "Can't land! Too much fog."

Now El Capitán turns again in his seat. “Mascota!” he says, pointing then giving me a thumbs up. A wide saucer of valley has opened before us. I can see a town gleaming in the morning sun. The plane drops lower and lower, apparently preparing to land. All I see dead ahead is a road with a few cars on it and a dirt track running beside it. Mascota International Airport, I assume. The little plane bumps and jostles to a stop on what turns out to be a grassy, agave-bearded landing strip.

My baggage and I are gently unloaded. The pilot gives me a bear hug and introduces me to Daniel, the taxi driver who has met the plane. Probably his cousin. Daniel insists I must have a photo of myself at the Mascota Airport, then shows me and the young co-pilot to the waiting cab.

On the steep and curvy drive between Mascota and Talpa de Allende, I learn that the young man I flew with is named Saiib, after his Arab grandfather. He begins to tell me his story. He is studying to be an airplane engineer in Puerto Vallarta. He is going to Talpa to visit his wife and three-month-old baby boy, who are living for a while with her parents there. Saiib tries to visit them once a month, but it is better for her to live here than in the city—less expensive, and her mother can help her with the baby, whose picture he shows me with a wide grin. He is very happy to have had the opportunity to hitch a ride on the plane, as he usually takes the bus, and will on his return to PV in two days. A six hour ride, he grimaces. Moments later, we pass a ramshackle bus at the side of the road. “That’s it,” he says, and we both laugh.

As we slip down the backside of yet another mountain, I see a beautiful domed structure beside the road just ahead. Both Saiib and Daniel make the sign of the cross as we pass it. It is the Mirador del Cristo Rey, the Viewpoint of Christ King. In unison, the men wave their hands like satisfied magicians: there below us is the valley of Talpa de Allende, fog just beginning to shred.

We descend and pass beneath an arch welcoming visitors to the home of Nuestra Señora del Rosario, the tiny Virgin who is the patron saint of Talpa de Allende...

...and who you will meet next week, along with the Chicle Mariachi Band...

...and some other fascinating residents of this engaging town high in the mountains of Jalisco.

Stay well, for goodness sake, and I'll see you next week.

                                        To be continued...

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