Feria Day Two...The Pyramid and the Cathedral

"We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring 

Will be to arrive where we started 

And know the place for the first time."...T. S. Eliot

Mexico has always had this perplexing dichotomy. Almost everywhere you go there are the two; the Indian and the Mestizo. Here in Cuetzalan, you really see this in spades. The Feria de San Francisco has two parts, the Feria de Cafe and the Feria de Huipil. This is a great coffee growing region and has been for a couple of hundred years. Coffee was brought here by Europeans and is now a major part of the local economy. The day before we arrived, the Reina de Cafe was crowned. This is definitely for the Mestizo part of town, the rich folks. There were six candidates, all from upper class families. We could see this as several had posters all over town campaigning for the crown. Right across from our hotel was a poster for Diana, that her family had obviously paid for. 

So the first of our three days was mostly for coffee and the more Mestizo way of life. But the second and third days would be almost all dedicated to the traditional indigenous way of life. 

I had been a bit a bit worried the day before as the Volador pole had no ropes on it. The Voladores are the "flyers", men (and occasional women) who fly off of a tall pole, attached around the waist by ropes wound around the top of the pole. As the volador drops, the rope unwinds, so he flys around the pole, slowly descending to the ground. There are four Voladores and they go around the pole 13 times, for a total of 52, an important number in the Mesoamerican calendar. The pole here in Cuetzalan is the tallest anywhere. It is a very straight trunk of a pine tree, 110 feet tall. Every year, the Voladores go out in the forest, find the perfect tree and bring it here. They then attach ropes, a ladder, and the top, which is a wooden square, which they all sit on before flying off. This is an ancient tradition dating at least back to the Totonacs and taken over by the Aztecs. But where were the ropes and the Voladores?

We started the day with breakfast at El Portal, a restaurant overlooking the plaza. Here we met a couple from Berkeley, Alice and Robert. Robert is a retired Berkeley Parks and Recreation employee, Alice owns an import shop called Tail of the Yak. They travel in Mexico a lot and gave us some great ideas for future Mexico travel. 

As we were talking, we suddenly saw a couple of men on top of the volador pole, bringing up the ropes. Here they were!  So we hurried down to the plaza to see the flying men. When I asked one of the Voladores when they would take off, he told me in half an hour. I forgot, when in Mexico, always take timing with a grain of salt. 

For there was a big crowd gathering, not for the Voladores, but for first communion. Pretty young girls, all dressed in white, with their parents and godparents, all standing patiently in the hot sun. Many of these girls and boys were from nearby San Andres or San Miguel Tzinacapan, with their mamas and dressed up in the white skirts and white embroidered blouses and lacy overshawls. While the waiting parallel lines, one for girls, one boys,  got longer and longer and snaked eventually around the whole square, we sat on a ledge against the church wall and slowly got to know the nice women who sat with us, mostly vendors of cross stitched mementos and hand woven shawls from these same towns.  

Church bells rang, but still the parishioners weren't allowed in the church. The crowd slowly grew to several hundred and still they were not let in. 

Finally, after 1 1/2 hours, they slowly went in the church. Now that the plaza had cleared out, the Voladores were free to fly. 

They came up to their pole, five of them, all dressed up in their volador uniform of white shirt, red pants, a little hat like a yarmulke, and a big sash around their chest. While the leader blew his wooden flute and tapped on his small hand held drum, they danced around the pole, stomping their feet and bowing in reverence. 

After about five minutes of this, they each quickly climbed the ladder to the top, 110 feet above the ground. I got woozy just looking at them. 

At the top, they all scrunched together on the wooden square. Suddenly, the leader stood up on the center of the pole. He started playing his flute and tapping his drum, dancing on this tiny space, about 1/2 yard wide, 110 feet up. Good grief!  This is not a job for the squeamish or some one with a fear of heights. 

After five or ten minutes of playing his flute, the leader suddenly started bending way back, arms outstretched, like some kind of yoga pose. Then he would bow over each of the Voladores, brushing them with sashes coming off of his hat, in a kind of blessing.

Then, he danced a lot longer on the very top of the tiny pole, dancing, drumming, piping, turning to the four directions, and then, at a signal none of us heard, four Voladores leaned back and dropped off of the square, as you would as a scuba diver dropping off your boat into the ocean. Only here there was no ocean, only 110 feet of empty space above a concrete plaza. Gasps were heard throughout the crowd, including your humble blogger. As they came down, they spun, while the ropes they were attached to slowly unwound. 

And so did the piper on the top. 

So the four Voladores slowly descended, upside down, going around and around. We realized, the lower they descend, the faster the whirl speed for them!  They have a secure rope around their waists, but they descend down headfirst most of the way by holding the rope between their feet, as well.  Arms spread out, like birds. 

During this amazing spectacle, the leader continued to play his flute and tap his drum at the top of the pole. As they neared the ground, the four Voladores stretched out a hand down past their heads, so they could feel the ground. Then, right on time, they righted themselves and landed much like someone coming in for a parachute landing. The large crowed gave them a well deserved applause. Each of the Voladores then went around the crowd, little hat in hand, for a tip. 

Well, by this time we were quite famished. We saw our new friends, Alice and Robert and they had a couple of friends with them, Henry and Rosa. Henry is an expat, originally from New York, who has lived in Mexico for many years. He owns a bookstore in Oaxaca, one we have been to many times in the past. We went back up to La Milagrosita and had an amazing lunch, including a mole that was the cook's grandma's recipe and a pasta with a tasty pesto sauce made from local leaves not basil.

With us also are Henry and Rosa's friends Luz and Antonio, who both work, but both have worked on several wonderful projects in Ocotlan -- furthering education for preschoolers and for women and also a fund that offers reasonable loans to the livestock ranchers there.  Luz and Amy discovered they share a passion for growing vegetables in water and nutrient saving "Subirrigation" pots, and, Antonio works in water management, especially trying to alert oaxaca to its problem of dropping groundwater levels -- just like we are having, especially in the Central Valley! 

After this, we headed out by combi to the nearby town of San Miguel Tzinacapan, where we had heard there would be some traditional music - huapango music, the kind people dance to in pairs with lots of elegant foot stamping - starting at "4:00 pm".   

As we came in to town, we saw the locals bringing back their town's saint, Archangel Michael, who had come in to Cuetzalan that morning to pay respects to San Francisco and preside over the first communion of their kids. 

Well, as happens many times, our information was wrong and nothing was happening until much later.   But as we were about to give up, we learned San Miguel's traditional dancers were due to dance -- but in Cuetzalan!  As we came back into town we saw a lot of dancer groups, in a procession, going up to the Guadalupe church, where they and a wax St Francis were blessed before a very formal parade down to the church. 

It just so happened that the parade went right past our hotel room, so we hurried back and watched the parade, with all sorts of dancing and music. 

By now, the sun was almost setting and from our hotel room we had a great view of the top half of the Voladores pole. There were several Voladores troupes in town and they would go flying about every half hour. So we had a great view, at least the top half, of the flight of the Voladores in the beautiful evening light. 

We then headed down to plaza, where all the dance troups were dancing, all at the same time. And it was time for more tasty, greasy street food. It was a marvelous, crazy way to end our second day.