from the dark end of the bar

Yellow, orange, brown and blue.

Waking up was a bit like surfacing from some mile-deep ocean. Residue from the previous day coated my eyes, and all I could see were blurry bright colors that ran together. Everything was damp and clammy, and a mild cocktail of mildew and sweat hung in the atmosphere. My helmet smelled like ass. Its lining was covered in a thin slime, and my soaked gloves were crumpled in a tight ball on the floor.

Outside the rain had finally stopped but a thick mist clouded the air, shrouding the hilltops that ringed the town. I didn't care. I was so happy to be alive and off the bike that I could have walked for miles in the rain that day. My first mission was to hit an old coffee house off Papantla's main square called Cafe Catedral, reputed to feature fantastic fresh-made buns and coffee served continuously from ancient tin decanters. I needed somewhere to sit, observe, and work out my day.. and this place was perfect. There were wooden booths with tables covered in newspapers, most of which were occupied by old men in fedoras and stained, but freshly pressed dress shirts. No one smiled or batted an eyelash when I walked in alone. I was politely handed a pair of tongs with which to select my preferred bun, and the excellent coffee flowed in short order from, yes, an enormous metal jug.

I needed to figure out how to get to El Tajin, a city of Totonac ruins about 10 kilometers southwest of town. No way was I getting back on the bike again, and I'd never taken a bus in Mexico before, which I figured would be an adventure in itself. With my oh-so-challenged Spanish, I asked the only young person working in the cafe where I could catch a bus headed there, which happened to be right around the corner. So I finished my third cup of coffee, and propelled by the most fantastically euphoric caffeine-fueled high, I marched to the bus stop in my deliciously comfortable street clothes, ready take on the rest of the day. I found a nice clean piece of yellow painted wall to lean against and waited.

And waited.

And waited some more. And the rain came back, more heavily this time. In dense, steamy streams.

An hour passed. Buses for nearby towns pulled in and rumbled off, spewing diesel-flavored clouds, while I kept my section of yellow-painted concrete warm with my own increasing body heat. Maybe it's closed today, I thought. Who else would go visit ruins on a day like this, other than a slightly psychotic guera? But eventually one came, and after 30 more minutes or so I was walking up the entrance drive past hoards of venders with everything from hand-embroidered blouses to umbrellas for sale. I picked up a hooded plastic rain cape that made me sweat like hell.

But El Tajin was amazing. Rather than take any of the tours I just wandered the grounds by myself, trudging through the mud that lay beneath endless acres of brilliant green rain-drenched grass. Everywhere were blocky, age-stained, half-crumbling pyramid structures with intricate carvings, many of which were fully intact despite being over 900 years old. I thought about placing one of my pieces here, as what could constitute "grand gestures in the landscape" more readily than these things? But no. They were sacred, and best left alone. They didn't need someone like me interfering with their meanings.

I wandered for about an hour, enjoying being lost amongst the massive chunks of stone. Right at a moment when I was becoming hungry enough to eat one of my own body parts, some women appeared near the back of the compound with slices of jicama, limes and little bags of sweet chili powder for sale. For 10 pesos (roughly 80 cents) I now had lunch. I found a dry place to sit and relish the moment.  The crisp, wet sweetness of that jicama is something I'll never forget.

When I got back to Papantla, the heat had intensified and steam rose up from cracks running down the middle of the steep city streets. It was still early enough in the day to sort out where to put the next embroidery, a process now governed by emotional, intuitive reactions I had to places and people rather than a need to adhere to some grand plan or concept. So I took another long walk, up and down side streets and alleys, looking for inspiration. I found it in an enormous concrete statue of a Totonac Volador, perched on the highest hill in the city, from which point you could see everything, all the churches and pink and yellow and green houses and storefronts that poked out from beneath the semi-tropical foliage engulfing the landscape.

At his feet I placed the very first in the series I made for Mexico.

Later that night I splurged on some dinner at a restaurant with a balcony overlooking the zocalo (splurging, by the way, constitutes spending 70 or 80 pesos on a meal - that's the equivalent of about 6 bucks).

Seated to my left were two fellow gringo/as, whom I'd passed and said hello to earlier in the day while I was walking toward the entrance of El Tajin. They invited me over, and together we shared shots of Xanath, a liqueur made from vanilla cultivated nearby. For the first time since leaving San Miguel I had some other wanderers to talk to. They were young, from the United States, and traveling on the cheap as I was, bumming around Mexico by bus for two weeks. Being with them allowed me to release all the pent up impressions and sense of awe I could barely contain over the previous week, cooling down the intense loneliness that came with being immersed in another culture and language alone. Encounters like this, along with texts and conversations with close friends back home, gave me the will to keep going.

And that was a very good thing.. because the rain started coming down harder.