Huitepec April 6, 2022
All the Creatures at this Party.
We arrive at Eugenio’s cabins just in time for dinner. The collection of tiny bungalows sit among white pines on the eastern slope of San Cristobal’s westernmost mountain, Huitepec, a Nahuatl term for Mountain of Hummingbirds. The electricity immediately fails upon our arrival, leaving me to get to know his menagerie mostly in the dark—sheep, cats, dogs, chickens, and an especially aggressive male turkey. These birds originated from this region of Central America, and this particularly imposing fellow with the puffed chest, inching up to my chair, wants me to know exactly who was here first.
In these parts, turkeys are called Guajolote, or Guajolotl, not to be confused with Guajolota, which is an outlandishly starchy breakfast consisting of tamales crammed inside of tortas. Fortunately for the gobbler flexing his muscles against my knee, dinner tonight does not include turkey. Instead, some Israeli travelers have prepared a delicious dish composed, I think, of eggs and potato, although in the darkness I cannot be sure of the ingredients.
The guests for the evening all speak English, which makes this a somewhat rare event for me. Géronimo is a ceramic artist from Mexico who lives in the woods nearby with his young family—he has a downtown exhibition on the 9th. Moran and Or are from Tel Aviv, where they have invented a box that converts a person’s electrocardiograph into music. Heather is a septuagenarian wanderer from Nova Scotia, whom I have known since my years on the Yucatan coast. She was stranded abroad for most of the pandemic, and it has taken a toll—she struggles for words now and frequently loses her train of thought. She is grateful for the temporary home in the woods that Eugenio provides. Like my neighbor Jodie, who considers Eugenio her best friend, she wishes she could live happily ever after in a place like this. So do we all.
However, Jodie has had it with San Cristobal and, in a radical move, plans to depart at the end of the month. As our neighbor—in fact, our first friend here—she has been calling this place home more than 3 years, and she fully intended to retire here, selling her delicious chocolates at the fanciest hotels that would have her. But she is currently an illegal immigrant with an expired visa, afraid to leave the city, lest she get deported upon inspection. Mexico’s solution is for her to apply for residency, but that requires a level of solvency she cannot meet. She will have to find another country. She will have to say goodbye to Eugenio.
She has been in this position before. Antarctica was home for some years until her marriage ended. Then it was solo in Uganda, where she almost married a man “with big beautiful lips.” The engagement ended badly when she learned she was about to become the legal property of a man, that is, chattel. Uganda thus became untenable, and she relocated a few more times before finding San Cristobal. Jodie is pushing 70, and she shakes when she contemplates the next move ahead.
Medellin, Colombia, is one option she is considering—there are no residency requirements, and the cost of living is low—but I am not sure Medellin will fix her problems. Jodie finds herself mostly friendless these days. She has high standards, perhaps too high for her own good, and certainly too high for the likes of me. However, as neighbors, we get along fine, even if I have to receive an earful about yet another former-friend that let her down somehow. Jodie carries enormous baggage, which she likes to unload on the unsuspecting, and my back is simply not strong enough. So I decide to find her a better friend.
Heather is someone I knew in Puerto Morelos, but she recently abandoned the beach town for newer adventures here in San Cristobal. At 73, she has had a quite a few. When the pandemic hit, she became trapped in Guatemala for almost a year, and even when she was finally allowed to return home, she was forced to walk across the Canadian border with all her possessions. She repeatedly laments that the journey has aged her, and yet Puerto Morelos was too boring; so here she is in San Cristobal, a difficult walking city, without knowing the language. Without knowing anything, really, except me and Eugenio. It is important that these two ladies meet each other and become friends, I believe, if but for my sake, so I introduce them.
“Have you ever been to Medellin?” Jodie immediately asks.
“No, have you ever been to Belize?” asks Heather.
“No, have you ever been to Uganda?”
“No, have you been to Guatemala?”
“Why, yes, I have—“
“Oh, I hated it there. I got so sick.”
And so the conversation goes, with each lonely woman trying to share her fears and complaints with another who already has too many of her own. They are like northern poles of two magnets—when pushed together, their terrified testimonies repel each other.
Huitepec Reserva.
Fortunately, there is a break from these humanitarian crises, and it is the nature just beyond Eugenio’s walled compound. Somewhere above us lies the summit of Huitepec, at 2700 meters (9000 feet), the tallest hill ringing the city. A hundred years ago, it was an active volcano, but Mexicans cannot wait on cataclysm forever, so today the mountaintop is covered with radio and digital antennas. Twisted switchbacks characterize the service road to the top—a place for trucks, not for hikers—so we seek an alternative highpoint on the wilder eastern flanks.
One option for climbing Huitepec is the designated reserve, accessed from the Chamula Road, which today is blocked by State Police, searching for assailants unknown. However, clueless walkers are allowed to proceed without question, so we do. Huitepec Reserva, 40 pesos entrance fee, sits at the low pass above the notorious town of San Juan Chamula, where native belief and criminality find some unholy union. Turkeys holler at our arrival—I recall the previous threat.
Our trail only reaches 2500 meters before topping out, some 600 feet below the summit, in a forest thick with deciduous old growth—Madron, Encino Blanco y Colorado, and Naranjillo, whose orange fruits will ripen just in time for offerings at Day of the Dead. Among the various ferns and moss-weathered trunks are numerous hardy Polypore fungi, whose woody flat surfaces resemble coffee tables, some longer than my forearm. Below the leafy floor, the rich soil is covered in mycelia awaiting the return of the rainy season in two months, when Huitepec becomes a dynamic cloud forest once again.
Beyond our present ascent lies a wooded escarpment tangled with thorny vines and other botanical symbionts. The bromeliad growth on one burdened tree seems sure to take it down. Yet there is no deadfall in this forest, as all downed timber is subject to foragers. They are undoubtedly roaming still, with their machetes and dogs and peculiar views on public domain, all of which invites us to proceed no further. We descend to the Chamula Road, where we hope those State Police have found what they are looking for. This is why Jodie, with her expired tourist visa, never leaves the city.
Arroz con Leche.
Back at Eugenio’s cabañas we make our next ascent of Huitepec, although the volcanic ravines surrounding us are not encouraging. He advises us to proceed with caution, as the local ejido is involved in some property dispute with the government preserve. The dirt road beyond Eugenio’s place rises steeply to a small church that marks the end of the road. Beyond here we are on our own. Trails spread in all directions through an old oak forest. The trees have large bulbous leaves, with small oval acorns, but their own photosynthetic biomass is matched by the carpets of ferns and bromeliads piled upon the gnarled branches.
Suddenly, deep within the woods, we come upon a woman in a brilliant blue sweater and black sheep-skin skirt, at work. She is raking, which strikes me as odd, as we are in the middle of a forest littered with oak leaves. There are more workers scattered among the trees, as well as approaching dogs, and I get the feeling I may be trespassing, but there is no telling. This lady certainly isn’t.
Returning to Eugenio’s, Jodie is asking to stay overnight in order to keep her cat calm as she acclimates to her new home. The cat will not be able to follow Jodie to Colombia, which, I think, is good news for the cat. Meanwhile, Heather is fretting in front of a foreign computer screen, having discovered that her bank card has stopped working. In Canada, this would not be a problem, but in Chiapas it most definitely is. Eugenio listens to her patiently as she vents, which is all she ever wanted, but Jodie jostles for his attention with questions about the sociability of his various animals. “It is better not to touch the turkey,” he advises gently.
In the kitchen, lunch is almost ready. The cooks are a bunch of pre-adolescent Tzotzil boys, whom Eugenio the Philosopher employs to run small errands, but mostly to attend his informal classroom. One of them wields a barbecue torch to maintain the stove flames, while another adds milk and sugar to a pot of boiling rice—Arroz con Dulce—more of a dessert than a lunch, really, but the boys are in charge of this commune. Eugenio’s trust in them astonishes the boys, who have never known such power and responsibility. Heather and Jodie are less enthused about the arrangements, given the chaos that children create, but beggars cannot be choosers. It may be a long night at the cabañas, especially if the turkey gets inside.
Of more general concern, a recent mild earthquake on Huitepec may or may not signal a new eruption on the mountain. For now, the summit horizon of antennas and transponders appears quiet. If the summit does blow, the first thing to go will be the entire communication grid of San Cristóbal de las Casas. And, of course, the electricity at Eugenio’s place.