Catemaco is a beautiful lagoon with two distinctive colorful Mexican: claims to be the world capital of witchcraft and is home to a colony of macaques relocated from Thailand. Ie, you never know if the tourists which gets into the boat come here to eat them primates in the hand or to get a "clean" spirits 100 weights.
The observation may seem trivial, but it is. If the journey the traveler hits the string with a co-barge must be warned not to mistake the party. Imagine that one brings up skepticism about shamans with a stalwart of witchcraft, or mocks the antics of the monkeys trained to feed left by tourists with a guy who has crossed half the state with his family to view. I said.
Driving along the road 180 from Veracruz have crossed the Alvarado Bridge, witnessing the passage through these lands of lieutenant Hernán Cortés way of his expedition to Guatemala after the conquest of Mexico finalize. Moving between cane plantations and snuff, we reach the heart of the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, where Catemaco, whom history has given a veil of mystery. So here came the Olmecs to pick up huge blocks of stone, cast by the nearby Pajapan volcano, they needed to sculpt their bulky sculptures (the giant heads of African features and vacant stare). How transported to Sale, more than a hundred miles from here, where they found hundreds of years later, is still a mystery.
It is very difficult to choose a boat at the jetty. The offer of "boatmen" is broad. Adam, a teen hairstyle mestizo with NBA star, is our helmsman. With soniquete overpost explains the secrets of the lagoon while seagulls hover overhead, herons and crows. The high is required in the Nanciyaga reserve, taken by a legion of tourists. After dismounting, we walk through the marked trails to the millimeter. Shamans await visitors between the mangroves like a cobra about to pounce on its prey. One of these witches strip rates and promises to scare off evil spirits our (assumes that we, which itself is already worrying) for only 90 weights. I have no body to exorcisms. The explanations of the local guides, each with its respective string of confused tourists in deep jungle, overlap each other.
Lake Catemaco is, every first Friday of March a meeting of shamans, Olmec sorcerers heirs, who gather here from the commotion tourist (visitors in the thousands) to conjure up evil spirits lurking, the legendary "chaneques" hiding in the bush. The arrival of the Catholic religion also contributed his bit to popular iconography, because there was talk of apparitions of the Virgin of Carmen on the banks of the lagoon. For the father's or mother's side, Catemaco emanates spirituality. And spirituality, As with any sanctuary, is priced. That is well aware of the legion of politicians, artists and powerful businessmen, have sharp tongues, merge from a list of customers of these sorcerers.
For the father's or mother's side, Catemaco emanates spirituality. And spirituality, As with any sanctuary, is priced
Back on the boat, Adam leads us deftly routine to the islet of monkeys, adocenados by the usual presence of spectators. Each guide then shows off his skills as helmsman as possible to bring his boat to shore, something similar to what happens in the far Masai Mara with jeeps. The flashes are triggered, hands carefree approach to animals and the traveler wonders, to the primary and general merriment samples: Who are the monkeys? Do they or we? I confess that I felt closer to macaques, that at least pursue a vital goal: get your daily ration of food.
By the waters of the lagoon sailing adrift legends such as "La Llorona", the spectrum of a mother for her children, those who have drowned deseseperada before committing suicide after being abandoned by a Spanish nobleman during the colonial era. Others see the pathetic figure of darkness, the lost soul of their own Malinche, the always misunderstood lover of Hernán Cortés, to purge and his betrayal of the Aztecs.
After the tour lanchera, eat in the restaurant "Palapas", that the wind spreads the lagoon beach snack bar flavoring Mediterranean. Along with outdoor tables is an altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe that looks like a milloncete, full of lights and colors. In the first, a glass of juice and shrimp swimming in bluegill to Veracruz, a fish that we use in meat dry and drained. During the meal, succeed beggars visits with disparate goods. The distorted music of a street gang provided a rudimentary marimba not stop ringing with the same forcefulness that very Spanish spectacle of dancing goat.
These very humble claudican buskers when only three other colleagues in the brotherhood of the Hustler, one of them extremely cachectic, land with its primary keyboard next to the table and choke on their serenade of his predecessors. No one complains when they drop their wooden sticks rhythmically on the xylophone disastrous, although we can not cross word in all food, watered with a model and topped with a tasteless coffee. Back on the road, a sense of mediocrity prevents me concentrate on anything other than the string of shacks that dot its banks, half drowned by the looming proximity of the sea.
