Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Mexican Hospitality and Mud Slides

On our hike to Pico del Águila, we met Moises Aguilar from Orizaba. I had heard of the city and wanted to go, so we caught a ride with our new friend and made the four-hour car trip when he decided to visit his family. Then we experienced true Mexican hospitality. “Es tu casa” (This is your house) was repeated to me over and over again when I thanked our hosts for the delicious breakfasts, the place to stay or for doing our laundry.

The Aguilars took us places we couldn’t have found on our own: a zip line over elephant waterfall, a hike around the accompanying dam, and a spelunking venture into the caves of Galicia.

In the tiny town of La Cuesta Del Mexicano about 30 minutes south of Orizaba on windy mountain roads is the relatively hidden treasure of Orizaba’s caves. Driving in, school children would yell out “Las Grutas” advertising their services as tour guides in the small caverns. We picked up Moises Gonzales, a 10-year-old who knew his way around the rock formations, inside and out. The first cave was easy to navigate. The city had strung up lights to show the walking route. The second cave, much larger and more impressive, necessitated lights, and, during rainy season, boots (I didn’t have any). The mud was thick, and I came out with shoes covered in a mix of thick mud and guano. The venture was not for anyone who wanted to keep their fingernails clean, but the slippery trek was well worth it when we arrived at the large rooms and turned our flashlight upward to see what years of dripping moisture had formed in the jagged ceiling.
As a slid down the path in the cave Moises kept telling me, “It’s better in March – there isn’t so much mud.”
Back at the first cavern Moises showed us the inside route to climb to the top of the small hill. I’m not much of a climber, but the way was easy enough for me to make it to the top and look out over the valley of Ixtaczoquitlan, home of coffee and sugar cane farmers who speak their indigenous language of Nahuatl, an Aztec language spoken by 1.5 million people in Mexico. Moises taught me a few words, though he claimed that he couldn’t speak the language himself.
I looked out over the greenery as Zach said, “And just think, we’re in the middle of God knows where Mexico.”
This is the life, I thought as I watched a little boy get a haircut in his backyard down the hill – the life of a Mexican people who had lived and worked in that valley for generations.

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