A History in Mexico
Journeys to a Life in La Peñita de Jaltemba
Chapter One
To escape the long dark winters of Alaska and our work-a-day lives there, Bruce and I began vacationing in Mexico in 1986.
On this, our first trip to Mexico, we flew into Mazatlan and discovered a wonderful old pensión named the Olas Altas Inn. It is located in the far south end of Mazatlan, on the ocean in what is known as the Olas Altas (high waves) District of Old Town. True to its name, this small hotel was built overlooking a rocky outcropping with persistently big waves crashing below. Like many older budget hotels, the huge and high ceilinged rooms were clean and sparsely furnished. Especially at night, we thrilled to the boom of the waves, echoing around our room.
We would return to this small hotel in many subsequent visits, to renew our first Mexican friendship with the proprietor, Sr. Marquart and enjoy a stay at our first-great-find in Mexico; Olas Altas Inn. Years later, the Marquart family built a new hotel which is named; Hotel Olas Altas Inn and the former location was closed. It is located far north, amid the glitzy jumble of other new hotels in The Golden Zone; in more ways than one, far from the old Olas Altas District. Except for the friendly Marquart family, the new hotel is nothing like its namesake. Sr. Marquart must have named it that way, purely for sentimental reasons.
Our intent on this first trip was to acquaint ourselves with Mazatlan, then travel south to San Blas.
San Blas was not then referenced in every guide book, but I had read about it, briefly mentioned in one or two. A rustic small town at an ancient seaport, Puerto San Blas has a lot of history and it sounded like the perfect destination for us.
At that time, travel by train was still possible in Mexico. We decided to begin the trip via rail, from Mazatlan to Tepic, the inland capital of the state of Nayarit. Tepic was the closest we could get to San Blas by train, before the mainline route veered eastward to Guadalajara. From Tepic, we would continue to San Blas by bus.
It took several days to figure out how to buy train tickets. I went to the Mazatlan train station twice, but the agent's window was always closed. We spoke hardly a word of Spanish, so every errand was an adventure. We strolled about, fascinated and charmed by the colonial architecture and small garden parks of Old Town Mazatlan; a friendly place that seemed to be stuck in time. Eventually, I found a travel agency that would sell us train tickets: Reserved Seat, First Class Especial!
On our early morning departure day, we arrived on time at the train station. Again, it was all but abandoned. An agent assured me that we had not missed our train. It would be late, he told me, but he had no of idea how late. It seemed though that the rest of the world had a pretty good idea. It was over an hour before a few other passengers started drifting in. None of them seemed to actually expect a train to be there. No one watched anxiously down the track for the train to come into view. I suppose we were amongst the Mexican version of travelers who insist on showing up way too early for a departure.
Another hour passed. Then, as if on cue, a crush of people started flooding in, seemingly from all directions. Suddenly it was like watching a movie in fast-forward. The platform was quickly transformed; packed solid with all sorts of travelers. There were big, extended families, piles of baggage and boxes, and vendors setting up charcoal braziers, frying fish and selling tacos.
We remarked to each other that it was a good thing we had reserved seats!
I was working as a passenger train conductor on the Alaska Railroad at that time. The chaos building around us was way beyond what I had ever seen, even on the rowdiest, most out-of-control day on the Whittier Shuttle. I wished that my train crew back home could see this!
When the train finally pulled into the station, it was obvious that we would not be witnessing an orderly boarding of this train. People jammed into the vestibules and were jumping off even before the train stopped. When there was an inch to spare, people were trying to squeeze through and onto the train as arriving passengers tried to squeeze off. We hung back and watched in amazement. Like the meeting of two irresistible forces, the mass of people who wished to get off the train found that they were blocked by the mass of people flooding on. Some people were getting off the train by climbing out the windows, while others on the platform were passing baggage, cargo, and even children through the windows.
Was this just business as usual? Did this madness repeat itself every day? I could not imagine working on a train like this.
It would be several years later, before we heard of Semana Santa. But this was it and we were right in the middle of it; the Easter holiday, Holy Week, or Semana Santa, the biggest, busiest, and longest of holidays in a nation that loves holidays. Far from being content with a mere Easter egg hunt, throughout Mexico this is a time of daily fiestas, special meals, Passion Plays, parades, pageantry, and travel. It seems that everyone in Mexico travels somewhere during this week or two-week celebration.
This was a very long train. There must have been fifteen passenger coaches. At the far off, distant end of the train, shimmering in the dusty heat, I could see there was a string of ten or so first class coaches and sleeping cars. We were at the wrong end of the very clogged platform; a virtual sea of travelers between us and where we should have been. The phrase: you can’t get there from here, came to mind.
I spotted the Train Conductor on the platform and introduced myself as a conductor from Alaska. We enjoyed a nice, but brief chat. I showed him our tickets. He laughed and told me it was only important to get on the train. Eventually we did.
On board, it was unreal. Other people like us, prone to claustrophobia, can imagine how we were feeling as we tried to navigate the clogged aisle and head for the rear of the train. I hoped only that Bruce would not start hyperventilating. Seats designed for two people, held whole families. Even the overhead luggage racks were full of people. By the time we made it through the first coach, the train was starting to pull out, and our option to get off and blow-off the whole idea was slowly click-clacking away.
As in many instances of our travels, with enough time, this train trip would evolve from a current nightmare to become a fun and fond memory. At the time, we would not have believed that this would eventually become something we could laugh about. We felt as if we had made our first big mistake in Mexico.
This slow train had traveled all the way to Acaponeta before we made our way to the first class Pullman cars. The mood on the train was becoming more relaxed and finally, so were we. There was music and laughter as families broke out their packed lunches. The views were getting better and better; pastoral scenes of green pastures and grazing livestock unfolded around each bend as we began our ascent of the Sierra Madres. Cooler mountain air poured through the wide open vestibule doors.
We took a break in the first open vestibule we found with enough floor space for our own two feet and our backpacks. A man came through selling beer from a "cooler". We used about 50% of our Spanish vocabulary and bought dos cervezas; two cans of warm Tecate. Like our fellow passengers, our mood was improving.
Still, we had no seats. Continuing to the rear, each coach now had its own Pullman Conductor, but as we presented our tickets, we were told they were full, to keep going. Out the windows, glimpsing the rear of the train on tight curves, we could see that we would soon run out of train.
Eventually, we came upon an open, empty roomette. We went in, closed the sliding door and turned on the air conditioning. It was a bit like having seen hell, being happily in heaven.
This train was a mix of old passenger coaches purchased by the Ferrocarril de Mexico from U.S.railroads as they upgraded their fleets and abandoned passenger service to Amtrak. The glory days of U.S. train travel on the Sante Fe, Union Pacific and others were represented in these once proud and fine antiquities. All of this passenger equipment was very familiar to me. My brother John and I are third generation railroaders. From the time we were babies, our family made many wonderful, transcontinental trips on our nation’s finest trains, traveling on coaches just like these. This particular coach and roomette which Bruce and I were in, formerly in service on the Burlington Zephyr, gave me a certain feeling of déjà vu. It is quite possible that I had traveled on this very coach, many years before.
Our pleasant daydreams were interrupted when a trainman slid open the door to gruffly ask what we were doing in there. He looked at our tickets and said that these were not our seats. I looked down the empty hall, and seeing no one, I asked him if someone else wanted them.
Of course, with my limited Spanish, I was only able to guess at what we were conversing about. Obvious though, was his desire that we move out. I told him, or I think I told him that, if these were not our seats, I would buy them from him and I started digging out the cash. He refused. I told him that if he could find us our seats, we would be happy to move. He left in a huff and we closed the door.
This scenario played out a couple more times with progressively higher authorities opening our door until the Big Boss, (my new, best friend!) the Train Conductor was the one abruptly opening the door. He remembered me and tried to force a smile, but he seemed less than thrilled at our reunion. By this time, I suppose we were within an hour of Tepic. A really big guy, this conductor; he filled the whole doorway. After a bit of cajoling, he seemed to deflate and perhaps out of pity, resigned himself to just lift our tickets and let us stay.
We enjoyed what was left of the trip in our cozy little roomette. Emboldened, we even left our door open. The roomette across the hall also had the sliding door open, with the heavy drapes partially closed. Sometimes when the train was swaying through a curve, the drapes would swing and we could see the roomette was stuffed with kitchen staff, all dressed in white and giving us sweaty looks that were not overly friendly. Oh well.
The train station at Tepic was surprisingly small and quiet compared to the one in Mazatlan. As the train pulled out, we were all but alone on an empty platform. There was one dusty taxi, parked off in the shade. I woke the driver and asked him what the fare was to the main bus station. (Even in those early days, we knew better than to get into a taxi without knowing the fare.) His quote seemed high to us. Maybe he wanted to go back to his siesta. I knew the distance was not great and we wanted to stretch our legs, so we decided to hoof it.
True, the distance was not great as the crow flies, (just less than a kilometer) but we found no roads heading in what I knew was the right direction. So we hopped a fence and took off, cross-country. We crossed a field of crops and zigzagged through the edge of a vast cemetery (the Panteón Hidalgo; I had never seen such a display of plastic flowers). A sugar refinery ahead was belching out a huge cloud of thick black smoke drifting low to the ground, but it was easy to stay upwind. We wandered through their facility, weaving through tall stockpiles of cane and sure enough, we came out at a roadway, very close to the bus depot.
Relating this trip now, some 23 years later, I am surprised at what a full day this was and I am reminded of how green we were. We were still a long bus ride away from San Blas, but we were young and had great stamina. Like a couple of farm boys going to the big city for the first time, we were excited to be exploring on this very foreign soil, where everything seemed strangely both new and old at the same time.
Thanks for reading!
Tom
Next installment:
Love in the bus station, a wild ride to San Blas,
and a photo safari gone awryMuchos Gracias to my Critical Readers Group:
Allison Williams
David Thompson
Fran Bischof
Jack Bischof
Jane Hill
Kerry Ramsay
Ken Rauch
