Morelia: knees, chandeliers, mangos & the internet
Sunday, March 22
We arrived Sunday night in monumental Morelia, the capital of Michoacán. The Spanish originally named it Valladolid, after a favorite Spanish town; following Mexican independence it was renamed for the beloved general Morelos. In 2009 the city of nearly a million sprawls to fill its broad valley, the grand colonial center ringed by humble neighborhoods of businesses and small cement-block houses till it reaches the ring-road (Periférico) and starts climbing the hills in brand-new modern suburbs. Tourism is centered in the imposing Centro Histórico, and that’s where we started, taking a room off the courtyard in a massive formal mansion-turned-hotel right on the square. The stairways glowed with blue-and-white tiles, a pianist played in the now-covered courtyard, and it was only slightly disconcerting to find that the hotel is now a Best Western.
Monday, March 23
After eggs, salsa and beans in a little place not far from the Zócalo, we spent Monday morning strolling the length of the city center, poking our noses into the regal courtyards of grand old colonial mansions, now banks and government buildings. We sought out some calm in the vast Cathedral, whose original baroque interior was perhaps unfortunately, but tastefully, redone in the neoclassical sensibilities of the 19th century. Sunlight drifted through the high oval windows (known in Spanish, Dad tells me, as “ojos de buey” – “ox’s eyes”), aiming dusty shafts of light at the gilded curlicues in quiet corners. Now and then people stepped in from the outside world, pausing in the central nave to offer comfortable gestures of reverence toward the altar: stooping to one knee; dipping the head; crossing themselves; occasionally a full bow or bending to both knees for a reverent moment of divine consultation. The raised, carved pulpit was further adorned with a tuft of mini-chandelier, a crystal tassel.
A few blocks away in la Casa de las Dulces we lost ourselves in decadent terraced ranks of sweets: candied figs and fruits cut up into colored dice; dulce de leche with nuts and seeds; glittering sugared limes stuffed with coconut. Then we wandered down the hill a bit, dodging traffic and following the aqueduct past a fountain and down a broad avenue lined with trees, which I noticed because trees are a rarity among the gray stone streets, sidewalks and buildings of the old city. A long cobbled avenue led to the Santuario de Guadalupe. A woman made her way down the pedestrian street toward the church, slowly, on her knees, lifting the skirt of her dress out of the way. Her husband and grandchildren went behind and before her, picking up and laying down a pair of folded rebozos as a path to cushion her bare knees from the cobbles.
Not surprisingly, we arrived at the church first. It is absolutely baroque to the gills. Built in 1708-1716, the sanctuary honors the Virgin of Guadalupe with lavish enthusiasm. Resources of the time were evidently abundant, and the designers were of the “more is more” school, particularly if the “more” involved red, gold or bulging protuberances. Briefly blinded, we hung around gawping at the encrustations long enough to witness the arrival of the knee-walking pilgrim, her sober-faced family, dressed in their best, still paving the way for her with the shawls. She kept on going, shuffle by shuffle, right up to the altar, where the small procession stopped and she bowed her head in prayer, perhaps having paid her debt to the Virgin for mercies granted.
Sympathetically exhausted, we stopped on our way back at a café right under the aqueduct, where I blissfully sucked down a thick “agua de mango” (“aguas de fruta” are fresh-squeezed fruit juices thinned a bit with water) and Dad read the “for rent” ads in the local paper. He and L do quite a bit of research at the National Archives in Mexico City, and they are considering renting a place somewhere in central Mexico for part of the winter, where they can both be warm and hunker down to concentrate on writing.
Tuesday, March 24
Accordingly, Tuesday found us in the car in las afueras, the outer parts of town, surviving on mandarinas and cookies while navigating the wild world of Morelia rentals via Mexican cell phone. Over the course of the day we met with five agents and visited two houses and five furnished apartments all over the southern suburbs of the city, of which only one seemed like a feasible place to live. We learned a lot about how the city is put together. Around three we finally stopped for lunch at a little “comida casera” (home cooking) restaurant, a setting very much like the Wednesday night potluck at the Eureka Baptist church: long communal tables covered with plastic poinsettia tablecloths; several generations eating together and passing the tortillas while the kids drove matchbox cars around the bowls of salsa and chopped onion. You went up to the lunch lady and you chose a first course (soup or rice) and a second (chicken in sauce, beef in sauce, stew). Then you got your own silverware and sat down at a table with a bunch of people you didn’t know. I had noodle soup in a rich mystery red broth and chicken in green salsa; Dad had spicy rice and some kind of stew. Perfectly tasty and amazingly cheap.
Today, March 27, I am writing you from the public library in Patzcuaro, which is housed in the barrel nave of a former church with an extravagent historical mural where the altar used to be. Iron brackets hold rustic chandeliers out over the single row of Internet cubicles. About 6 preteens are crowded around the station next to me, cackling, so I feel right at home despite the vaulted ceiling and stone archways.
