Sam And Saundra's Year Long Adventure - Part 34

Sam And Saundra’s Year Long Adventure – Part 34

Mexico 

2/4/09 – El Tajin - Ruins/Tour

El Tajin Pyramid

Voladores de Papantla

We wake to a warm day with a cloudy sky.  The RV park is not fabulous, but we do have the biggest yellow flower staring at us every time we leave our trailer.  It almost looks waxed.  Anyway – a Filipino woman and her husband run this trailer park and some family member owns the hotel next door – so we can use the facilities there as well.  The electricity is iffy, water is iffy, but we are excited just to be here and the beauty of the area is unbelievable.  Today we backtrack a few miles to see our first ruins at El Tajin.  We carpool and off we go, back through the areas that were hidden by the dark when we drove in.  The town has many hotels lining the water, but few customers are seen.  It seems that there are two seasons at the seaside. One is winter, when the Norto Americanos come to snowbird – the other is summer, when Mexicanos and Europinos spend time getting away from the sweltering interior heat and whatever the Europinos are escaping.  (This according to one of our fishing guides.)  The road to El Tajin is best traveled on without the trailer.  The road through the town of Papantla is bad. Very bad in places, especially if you are claustrophobic at all. 

El Tajin Apartment Buildings?

We make it to El Tajin. Several men greet us in the parking lot to help us park. Artisan vendors begin to cluster.  We have a guide ready to take us through this multi-building ruin, beginning with an information center that has a replica of the grounds.  At the entry area and to the left, are rows and aisles of vendors.  Our guide is a college graduate, who has had connections with the El Tajin ruins since childhood.  His father worked at the site.  He is extremely knowledgeable and is able to explain the site as it was found, the sections that were restored and the meanings of what we were looking at.  Many carvings in the stones show the ‘game’ that was played in many versions throughout the past Mexico times/people.  At El Tajin, either the winners or the losers, were granted the honor of be the spokesperson to the gods for the people.  The playing field, shaped like a capital ‘I’, had large stone rings on either side of the center of the ‘I’, and the ball was a heavy rubber ball made from the rubber tree that grows in two other areas in Mexico. The original people at this site were of Huasteco origin. The buildings, including the ‘pyramid’ are awesome.  Besides the stone murals (rattlesnakes, jaguars, human sacrifice, eagles), the ‘window panes’ that were part of the design are striking. I don’t want to be too boring, so I will leave it at this description, but if you get a chance – GO SEE IT!

Voladores De Papantla

Back at the gate, the religious rite of  ‘Voladores de Papantla’ is performed for us.  This involves five men in traditional costume, ceremoniously dancing, as one of them creates music with recorder-type flute and drum.  They then climb one very, very, very tall pole that has a rickety square that spins at the top.  They wrap ropes around the pole up there and begin to spin. I begin worrying that the musician is going to plummet as he plays and does “tricks” on top of the pole while they are all spinning and carefully laying the ropes just right.  Then the music changes and four of the men start hanging head first off of the rickety square thingy up there.  Ish! They gradually unravel and come closer to earth, head first, with the rope casually wrapped around one foot.  I am hoping that they have practiced a lot. They finally come within inches of knocking their ceremonial headdresses off, jerk themselves upright and they are safe.  But the musician is still on top of the pole.  You can see the sway in the pole as the four on the ground brace themselves as the musician ‘slides/climbs quickly’ down one of the ropes.  Much clapping.  Wow!

We drive back to the RV Park, stopping at Costa Esmeralda to buy some of the best oranges in the word and to check out what the colorful large multi-gallon jars contained.  The bright pinks, blues, greens, yellows turned out to be cookies made out of colored shredded fresh coconut.  We bought a sampling of these and at least two made it back to camp.  We eat more seafood, walk the beach and fall asleep dreaming of ….