Zapotecan Village Trek 3

Part 3 of the village trek.

Posted 8th September 2010 by David McGuinness

We joined Emilia for breakfast and she made us some fried eggs and some delicious bread (we were beginning to tire somewhat of tortillas at every meal) and a banana. We said goodbye to Daniel met with Manuel, our instantly likeable guide and were on our way to La Neveria. We didn’t get far before we stopped outside Manuel’s own home. He told his wife he was going to la Neveria and would be back later. In the Sierra Norte they do not use daylight savings hours as in the rest of Mexico so there had been some confusion as to when he was to leave. This is something you always have to double-check here – is that “our time” or “your time”? His wife looked him up and down and asked him was he not taking his jacket. It seems the some of the same conventions permeate the whole world. Neither age (Manuel was 67 though he didn’t look it) nor culture seem to have any effect on the maternal instinct.

Manuel explained among other things that the route markers are estimates and not exact. This was something I had begun to suspect as the hours seemed to exceed what I would have expected from the kilometres we had been covering. He reckoned if you add about a quarter to their estimates you are closer to the truth. He pointed out Té do poleo a magic herb that cures all stomach problems, and then pointing to a hiking sign pointing in a very ambiguous direction explained how some tourists come to the region and go hiking without a guide and regularly get lost (which didn’t surprise me in the slightest) and the guides would get called out to look for them at night. “Besides, you can’t ask the signs any questions” he added with a grin. We had started to see a lot of hovering birds and Manuel explained that they were called Colibri but that the locals called them “chupa rosa” (which means “suck pink”) as they stuck their beaks into every flower they passed.

Everywhere we walked new life was springing forth from death – moss and mushrooms growing out of rotten tree trunks, flowers sprouting from donkey pats, anywhere something died, it was recycled into life by something new. A sense of eternity seemed to pervade the whole forest.

We descended through a steep forest and down to a river. We crossed the river and took a break before the ascent to La Neveria. On the way up Manuel pointed out Durazno (a yellow fruit), mageito (a small flowering agave), a type of lemongrass they use for tea and the variety of mushrooms was mind boggling. Manuela explained that there were three categories of mushrooms of which the last is sort of a mix of the first two – edible, poisonous and hallucinogenic! He pointed out that even the edible ones can make people very sick if they are not cooked properly. At 67 years of age, and bounding through the forest and up the hills with a very light step, Manuel was someone to take lifestyle tips from!

We arrived into La Neveria and Fulencio showed us to our cabin and we headed to the comedor for lunch. Unlike the other villages the set-up here was outside the village – in order to enjoy the full tranquillity of the jungle Fulencio explained. Marguerita was our cook here and she prepared us a delicious squash and squash-flower stew with rice and tortilla, and an apple for dessert. We stayed to chat with her as we waited for our afternoon walk to la Cascada (the waterfall). She showed Karla around her kitchen which had both an old-fashioned fire stove and a modern hot plate. She used each for different purposes. The apples were from the trees that grew outside the comedor and variety of apple trees grew in the area.

Fulcencio met us again and we started our walk to la Cascada. Fulcencio pointed out various oak trees, bromeliads and ferns. He also explained a bit more about the animals that live around here though they kept to themselves – rabbits, skunks, coyotes, something which sounded like a raccoon from his description, snakes and a couple of other things my Spanish vocabulary lacked and my Spanish translator refused to help with. After about an hour we arrived at the waterfall, which was very not spectacular – but was quite pretty. The walk and Fulcencio’s company had certainly made the trip worthwhile.

After we got back to the comedor we picked up some chocolate for the following day and I had a couple of beers waiting for dinner and we chatted with Marguerita. She explained a lot about the eco-project we were on and how the villages organise themselves. The jobs as guides, as well the tourism organisers and cooks were all voluntary (i.e. unpaid) jobs that would rotate every year. This was not something I had been aware of. She explained that everyone took on a voluntary job for the benefit of the community as a whole and that they would do one year on and two years off. The community would also ensure that married couples would work in different years to ensure one of them would have the means to work the fields etc. Not all villages run on exactly the same model we found out later (e.g. some had paid guides) but the basic principle was the same. The volume of traffic through the comedor varied according to the weather, the season and more recently the global economic downturn and the bird flu epidemic but could drop to zero for weeks at a time. Marguerita said she liked the job when there were people and she certainly seemed happy for our company as we were hers. Dinner was a Tlayuda (a large crispy tortilla served with tomato, avocado, cheese, beans and (optional) pig fat. It was delicious! After dinner we met with a couple of other trekkers (from Australia) who were heading the same way as us for the next couple of days but we had separate guides so would not be hiking together. After a another beer or two it was time for bed.

This blog is part of an Off-The-Beaten-Track Travel Diary. Click on the links below to navigate through this journey.