CLICK HERE FOR MORE STORIES

The Dif­fer­ence in a Day

by Thad­deus Tripp Ressler

Cuet­za­lan is a very dif­fer­ent place on a Mon­day morn­ing than it was Sun­day morn­ing. On Sun­day at 8 a.m. many ven­dors on the top tier above the square were dili­gent­ly build­ing their tents. Flower sell­ers were trim­ming and arrang­ing. On the low­er tiers teenage girls and gray-haired moun­tain women in col­or­ful vest­ments were try­ing to place hang­ers filled with neck­laces, dream catch­ers, or pen­dants, high in their umbrel­las, or arrange their wares on tables and hang­ing matri­ces. Today though, no one moved with pur­pose. There were no tents to set up, no tables to arrange, no tourists to hag­gle with, noth­ing going on.

Yes­ter­day had been loud and rau­cous. I saw the famous Voladores de Cuet­za­lan per­form their rit­u­al and civic duties that are meant to bring the rain. Dressed in col­or­ful garb it involves whis­tles and drums, danc­ing, and a hun­dred-foot-tall tree trunk sunk into the ground in front of the town church.

I watched as two of the Voladores climbed to the top an hour ear­li­er to set the ropes. At the top there’s a sus­pend­ed wood­en square for a “bench”, attached to the met­al cap at the top of the pole with ropes. They sat on this square rotat­ing around the pole to emplace the ropes, ensur­ing that each wrap­ping was tight against the one before it. It was both fas­ci­nat­ing and nerve wrack­ing to watch. Appar­ent­ly they screwed up, because at one point they unwound the ropes and did it again. Safe­ty first, I guess, I still would’ve liked a har­ness were I in their place.

Just before eleven the crowd gath­ered close. One man in charge of the high-pitched whistling and drums start­ed his rou­tine. After a few moments the Voladores lined up and walked in rhythm to the pole, then cir­cled around it and danced in rhythm to the whistling. Once fin­ished with the dance they took turns kneel­ing before the pole and say­ing a lit­tle prayer. And well they should, the steps to the top of this pole are sim­ple one by fours nailed into it. There’s a rope woven up the pole, but to be hon­est, that didn’t change my feel­ings on the sub­ject.

The Cuet­za­lan Voladores are proud­ly the only Voladores that allow women, a girl in this par­tic­u­lar case. She couldn’t have been more than thir­teen or four­teen. It must have been her first time, because she moved very cau­tious­ly up the lad­der, unlike the rest. She got about twen­ty feet up when the elder states­men of the group, which I think was her father climbed up next to her to lend his sup­port. It took her a bit, but she got it and every­one cheered.

Once at the top the group tie the rope to them­selves. Now mind you, this is the only safe­ty device in the whole affair. No net, no har­ness, no safe­ty cable, just you and your rela­tion­ship with the Almighty. After a few min­utes of preps and checks the main dancer who had been work­ing the whis­tle and wrist drum, stood on the cap and played the whis­tle and drum music and danced for a few min­utes to set the mood. Then silence as he took his place near the girl’s side, to bal­ance the weight.

Then they rotat­ed the square, and before they got through one rota­tion, they threw them­selves back­wards into the air. The main dancer must have hand­ed off the whis­tle and drum to one of the oth­er Voladores, because while he sat at the top, the music was now com­ing in spi­rals from the swing­ing ropes.

Then in a move that made my jaw drop, that man start­ed shim­my­ing his way down one of the ropes. About halfway down, he pro­ceed­ed to wrap his leg in the rope and flipped upside down for a few turns. That man then right­ed him­self and shim­mied the rest of the way down. Had I enough jaw left over for it, my chin would’ve been scrap­ing pave­ment. Here’s a link to the full 15 minute video.

On Sun­days the mar­ket extends onto and down the main road. Tents, tarps, umbrel­las, and ropes cov­er near­ly every square inch of space above the street. Under the mul­ti­col­ored ceil­ing of plas­tic and fab­ric are ven­dors of all types. Each one spe­cial­iz­ing in their own thing. One table has beans of all dif­fer­ent vari­eties. Anoth­er has a tarp on the ground with bananas still on the stalk, mamey, lychee, and avo­ca­dos. A guy with a cool­er sit­ting on a card table is sell­ing still warm tamales, while the guy next to him sells fruit syrups from a wheel­bar­row. There is no rhyme or rea­son to where ven­dors sell, they just set up wher­ev­er there’s space.

There was one tent that I vis­it­ed on the two Sun­days I was in Cuet­za­lan, the fried fish tent. Tables were set up in a horse­shoe sur­round­ing the servers and cooks, with bench­es under­neath. Com­mu­nal din­ing at its finest! First come first served is the order of the day. When they run out, they run out, and that’s all there is too it. That includes drinks, which is how I got to try san­gria soda. There’s no alco­hol in it, but it did remind me of san­gria. I would love to have had it cold­er, but they ran out of ice too. Who cares about the drink though, these guys were fry­ing up whole fish dust­ed in God knows what, that was absolute­ly incred­i­ble. The skin was crispy-crunchy, and the meat was del­i­cate and moist. I would’ve said it could have been eat­en just as it was, but they had a chipo­tle sauce that was absolute­ly to die for. It was smokey. It was rich. It had a touch of sweet­ness. It could’ve used a touch more heat, but I lost my mind over this stuff. I got every last bit of skin and meat that I could off that fish and wished there was anoth­er whole one to fol­low it. How­ev­er, the first time I didn’t find them until lat­er in the day and they were start­ing to close up shop, and the sec­ond time it start­ed to pour so they closed ear­ly.

Today though, Mon­day, none of that was going on. The square was clear. The own­er of the break­fast restau­rant clos­est to the square sat lazi­ly scrolling through her phone. Her nor­mal­ly sharp eyes and tongue on vaca­tion when the waves of tourists weren’t around. She glanced up and instead of sell­ing me on try­ing her tlay­oyos or chi­laquiles, she mere­ly nod­ded and said, “Buenos días.”

What I need­ed was cof­fee, cafe de olla to be pre­cise. This is a mix­ture of cof­fee, cin­na­mon, and depend­ing on the place, some­times con­tains car­damom and/or choco­late. The cin­na­mon and what­ev­er else is boiled up before­hand to extract the fla­vors, and then the cof­fee is added. Some places put pil­on­cil­lo sug­ar direct­ly in the cof­fee, some allow you to add it your­self. All said and done, this is a beau­ti­ful way to cof­fee in the morn­ing. And today I had time to write rather than expe­ri­ence and that’s exact­ly what I was going to do.

 

 

 

 

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________