Revisiting Morelia

We jump on a bus in Zihuatanejo. It’s an Ultra which means a seat that reclines, a footrest that goes up, personal TV and a little snack provided. Totally deluxe. We make a brief stop in Ixtapa, land of massive all-inclusive hotels with dozens of landscapers out mowing the grass beyond the gates where absolutely no one goes except for the buses bringing the guests to and from the airport. Then onto the highway through the countryside that brings back so many memories of our adventures in 2009-2011. Watching the world go by is heaven. We climb into the Sierra Madres del Sur. The road is in great shape, the verge is dusty, little villages spring up alongside the road, restaurants that are no more than posts and a tin roof serve up lunches for travellers, piglets scurry off the road, vendors hang out beside the topes (the speed bumps) where all the vehicles stop, selling popsicles, little bags of fruit, artisanal goods. Every few miles an upright truck tire half-buried in the dirt advertises the services of someone who will fix your flat. Most of the road is just two lanes, one in each direction, with a generous shoulder where all the slower-moving traffic stays, leaving the middle of the road for passing at all times. It’s all very courteous, very Mexican.

The views are gobsmacking. Rough, bare mountains that shimmer in the high altitude sunshine. Bright, green man-made reservoirs covered in waterbirds and the round enclosures of fish farms. The mountains, hazy in the heat, tower above the road. Tons of agriculture up here, tidy rows of citrus and mango trees with their unripe fruit dangling on long stems. Trenches cut for irrigation around the lush trees while the wild grasses on the other side of the fencing is long and withered, looking like it would ignite at the sight of a match.

We go by Lake Patzcuaro, a memorable stop on our last tour. In the middle sits the island of Janitzio, with a monumental statue of Morelos (one of Mexico’s heroes, the engine behind the war of independence) that dwarfs the island. We pull into the outskirts of Morelia and it is much bigger than I remember. Out the bus window we look down into other vehicles on the road, vans packed to bursting with ten people or more people, battered pick up trucks heavy with firewood and the labourers lying on top, snoozing in the late day sun. Buskers shuffle in front of the traffic at the lights, spinning balls, juggling pins, timing the performance to leave just enough time to do the rounds of the car windows before the light changes.

We hop in a couple of taxis (maximum four people in the cities) to our hotel. I try chatting up our shy driver but he’s not having it. My attempts to engage about New Year’s traditions in Morelia, the Monarcas (the Morelia soccer team), even his kids (always a winner) all fall flat. He drops us at our hotel, a five-minute walk from the cathedral, considered one of the most beautiful in Mexico. The Centro Histórico is all one and two-storey grey or pink stone buildings with elaborate archways. Most open doors lead to a central courtyard, some of which are still open to the sky (for the stack effect) with some ornate water feature to combat the heat. Dealing with the climate with design is sadly not a tradition that has been taken up by the more modern buildings. The city is quieter than I remembered, despite it being high season holidays. It is a university town and all the students have gone home. The people are courteous and friendly. We go out to dinner, sitting in a covered pedestrian walkway facing the zocalo and order a tasting menu cooked up by a young Michóacan woman who has developed new twists on old classics that really showcase the best of what this state has to offer. The meal is amazing. The Mexican wine is also delicious and we are serenaded by an endless procession of musicians; a guitarist who sings completely off tune, a violinist playing to a tape of all things Disney, another young guitarist singing Beatles tunes. There must be some unwritten time limit because no one lingers longer than about ten minutes. There are also the vendors that hit you up as you eat, offering up bags of seeds, tchatchkes or just straight up begging. As a sitting target you need to be either entirely cold-hearted or have a pocket full of pesos.

We wander through the artisanal market after dinner which is jam-packed with “national tourists” (the cab drivers’ way of distinguishing Mexicans on holiday from the likes of us, gringos). Everything that can be made from leather, hand-painted pottery, embroidered clothes, shopping bags, bracelets, sweets (for which Morelia is famous), honey, etc. Each stall is about ten feet across and not an inch of it isn’t dripping with product. The smaller booths have barely enough space for the vendor in the middle, the larger ones you literally have to squeeze into. "Pasale, pasale, para servirle, a sus ordenes, muy barato". (Come in, come in, here to serve you, at your command, very cheap) are repeated in a different order by just about everyone. You have to have a very keen eye to not get distracted by the volume of stuff and find what you are looking for in the sea of goods.

Everyone is feeling a little funny so we have a quiet night. The next morning we head out to wander around, finding a nice little place on the other side of the zocalo for breakfast. The building is a gem, the front is floor to (high) ceiling wooden bookcases and ancient ladders on rollers, the back is a lovely zinc bar with beautiful tilework. The name for tiles in Spanish is one of the first I learned and, I think, one of the most poetic. Azulejos, “blue far”.

We walk through the main market. Outdoors, ringing the actual building, is the vegetable section, lettuce, squash, peppers, massive blackberries, little tomatillos, all spread out on low tables. There are also the guys selling dvds and cds and tapes, matches and kitchen utensils. Inside, there is the meat section, pig heads hanging from wires above the stalls, their eyebrows cut away, giving them all a surprised look. Cow heads are lined up on the counter with all the skin removed but the bit around the snout. Bright yellow chickens are laid out on their backs, their feet catching on your clothes as you squeeze pas the crowds in the aisle. There are the cooked food stalls, tiny, aproned women standing behind their tiled countertops stirring bubbling terracotta vats of moles and beans and stews. We always make the mistake of eating before we come to the market. Everyone is out doing their shopping for the New Year’s Eve meal.

As we’re leaving a very tall, overladen dump truck comes rumbling around the corner. Each outdoor stall has a tarpaulin for shade with one end tied to the building and the other strung across the street. They are probably put in place every morning by the stall owners and are therefore quite low, as the top height (of most women AND men here) seems to be about 5’6”. There is a lot of standing around watching but it’s clear that the truck is not going to make it. A woman appears from a stall with a broom to try to push the tarp up and over but she barely even reaches the tarp, even on her tippy toes, prompting giggles from her friends. Wil steps in, pulling himself up on the truck with one hand on the mirror and the other on the broom and manages to lift it just high enough for the truck to inch its way through.

Like a lot of streets in Morelia, there is a theme to the stores —religious artefacts on one block, watches & clocks on another, and then the gazpacho block where we have to make a quick stop. Morelian gazpacho isn’t soup, it’s a plastic pint glass filled with finely chopped fruit, apple, mango, watermelon, cantaloup, layered with grated cheese, salt, hot sauce, orange juice and a little squeeze of lime on the top. Deelish.

We stop in at Tata Mezcaleria to make sure all is good with our dinner reservation. I ask a waiter who goes rushing off to find the manager. I’m so sorry, she says, obviously distraught. We have no more room tonight. We are completely booked. I tell her I sent her a deposit to hold the table and she asks for my name. Ah, Saracobe? (this is how it sounds in Mexico), her tense face relaxing in relief, yes yes. we have your table. Would you like to be at the communal table or this one for five. Communal, please!

We spend some time around the aqueduct, built at the end of the 1700’s as a make-work project for the indigenous locals at the tail end of a two-year drought. It brought water from a town two kilometres away which has since been absorbed by the sprawling city. The 250+ arches of pink stone are in remarkable shape. We are awed by the engineering feat of designing this structure before laser levels and surveying equipment. Henri comments, wouldn’t it suck to discover after building a kilometre and a half that the beginning wasn’t high enough to make it the whole way.

I spend some time on the phone booking our tickets for the bus to Zitacuaro, close to our next destination. The lady is very helpful but just cannot seem to accept the fact, asking several times for each of us in turn, that we only have one last name.

We head to Chango for lunch, sitting on the covered rooftop with views of the surrounding mountains. Another talented young woman chef. The kitchen didn’t have the timing right (to the deep embarrassment of our waiter) but the food was unreal and definitely worth the wait, coconut shrimp, grilled octopus, amazing burgers and a ceviche that was out of this world. We shop for shoes on the way back to the hotel. Henri is determined to buy Wil a pair for Christmas but his size just does not exist in Morelia. Our question upon entering the store producing first an incredulous echo of the size “Trece!? Trece!?” 13, 13? followed by uncontrolled giggling. It’s the thought that counts.

We take it easy for a while and then head out to the Cathedral for what is meant to be the New Year’s light show. We ask around but, as usual, the answer (as with directions or where’s the closest bakery or when does the light show happen) seems to depend on who you ask. We didn’t get a definitive answer about the lights so we just headed over and hoped for the best. There was a stream of people in their Sunday best heading in for the 8:30 mass but no light show. Classic evening in the zocalo — vendors selling churros (long deep-fried donuts filled with chocolate or cajeta), bags of chips sprinkled with hot sauce, or helium balloons or dollar-store toys to play with in the square. We hung out for a while, people watching while Henri relived his childhood in Mexico throwing light-up whirly toys into the air.

We headed to the restaurant a bit early and were seated at the communal table. We were happy to be there but the faces of those who were seated beside us showed that it wasn’t mutual. I don’t think it was us but there was obviously a lot of pressure to provide a dinner of a certain caliber for new year’s and the communal table wasn’t cutting it for some. A youngish couple was seated next to us and she spent the first ten minutes pouting after which he and then she disappeared for a while. They finally settled in and basically spent the whole time looking at their individual phones, with brief interludes of taking pictures of their dishes or each other at more photogenic locations around the restaurant. The group on our other side, a young granny who’d spent some time at the plastic surgeon, her daughter and son-in-law and granddaughter and two other young men sat on the other side. None of them were sitting at the table together for the first half hour and when they were they were on their individual phones. There was no conversation to speak of but they all put on their best smiles for the photos they had the waiter and then Alice take when the waiter didn’t wait for the perfect moment. The smiles were so unnatural it was weird. After the main course they finally interacted with one another when the granddaughter pulled out the game where you put the phone up on your forehead for the others to help you guess. It was interesting to see how mexico-centric the words were : avocado, frida kahlo, teotihuacan, monte alban, angel de independencia, etc.

The meal was yummy. The Mexican wines were as well but the vibe was weird. A few minutes before midnight the staff delivered a small bowl of 12 grapes and a little glass of bubbly. Mexican tradition states that you eat a grape for every month for good luck in the new year. Grapes or no grapes we were all feeling incredibly lucky to be here and to be together walking home through the quiet streets of Morelia.

Feliz año!