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For better or worse,everything on this site is original. My cartoons just randomly occur to me, and my writing comes from my life experience. I hope that you have a pleasurable visit, perhaps a smile or a feeling of pleasant nostalgia, if my experiences mirror your own in some way. I am open for business, my contact details are on the contact page and I welcome any offers of publication or purchase. Thank you for visiting. |
Olmec Basalt heads in Villahermosa, and the Mayan ruins at Comalcalco and Palenque, Mexico. August 1998. The TSS which we used, or would use in the future (maybe) to follow buried pipelines underwater, is a portable magnetometer, hooked up to the ROV’s electronic circuitry. It consisted of three magnetic coils, arrayed like a whale’s tail on the back of the vehicle, and an electronics pod. One of the coils had burnt out in an unfortunate incident, where it was left powered up whilst on deck. The system still worked with only two, but its accuracy was affected and under the job specifications would not be acceptable. Our Italian superintendent, decided that while we were in Paraiso, he might as well send the damaged component by DHL couriers back to Italy, so that they could send a replacement. The nearest depot was in a town about 60 km away, called Villahermosa, so he decided to hire a car to take the faulty unit there. He could not go himself because he was needed for planning meetings every day. So he asked me to run the errand on his behalf. He knew that I had been busy learning Spanish, with the exception of the words for snake danger and alligator. I was flattered and I instantly agreed; a chance to drive in Mexico, and see a bit of the countryside was too attractive a prospect to turn down. I knew that ‘Hermosa’ meant beautiful, and Villa meant Pancho, no it meant town. So I was guessing that it was a beautiful town. I was to drive to Dos Bocus to pick up the package early the following morning, and then go straight to Villahermosa. I asked T if he wanted to tag along, but he wasn’t enthusiastic,. I think that his unfortunate experience in Mexico City and then, with that awful hotel in Carmen when we were going home last time, had put him off Mexico. So he wasn’t terribly keen to experience the Country any more than he had to. Hertz dropped the car off at the hotel the night before, so after a hearty breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, tortillas, orange juice, and coffee; I set off just as the sun was rising. The boss was already at the boat and he had wrapped the coil in cardboard and Impresub tape. He had also typed out the details, weight, measurements, consignor consignee, and full contact details. And on a separate sheet, a map and directions to Villahermosa. The directions stopped at the outskirts of the city, so I guess it was up to me to find the DHL office. My car was a white Toyota sedan, something about the same size as a Ford Escort. The coil was in the boot, I had my paper work, I had a full tank of gas, a full pack of cigarettes, the sun was up and I was wearing sunglasses. There was only one thing to do; so I hit it! I didn’t know if there was a highway in that direction, the only thing I knew for sure was that Villahermosa was south of Paraiso, in the direction of a small city called Comalcalco. I very quickly picked up signs for highway 186 heading in that direction, so I opened the window turned up the radio and cruised, that is until I hit my first ‘Topes’ bumper. Driving in Ireland, one is used to encountering speed bumps on residential roads, and we are also used to seeing signs warning us to slow down. I discovered that day in Mexico that, sometimes there are signed warnings, mostly not, and the authorities are quite happy to have these speed ramps, on what we would consider major roads, but not motorways. I had less than a second to react once I had seen it, so I did slam on the brakes, but way too late to avoid an uncomfortable jolt amidst the smoke and the squeal of tyres. My equilibrium was upset for a few moments, but I learned a valuable lesson about driving in Mexico. Keep your eyes open and don’t speed at night on secondary roads. Highway186 bypassed Comalcalco, but as I drew near to the town, I saw touristy type signs by the roadside, advertising Mayan ruins, quite close by. There was a photograph on the signs of ‘a partially reclaimed from’ the jungle, stepped pyramid and buildings surrounding it. How very exciting I thought, something to visit on the way back perhaps? On I drove through virtually flat green countryside, with jungle very close by on both sides.. The large green fronds of the tropics dominated, impenetrable, and I wondered what treasures lay waiting to be discovered behind that thick green curtain. Some way further on from Comalcalco, similar roadside billboards appeared advertising those amazing Basalt Heads, and encouraging tourists to visit the museum and La Venta Park OMGosh would it be possible to see these incredible artefacts that I first heard of through the books of Erich von Daniken, in which he erroneously claimed that these sculptures represented extra terrestrial beings, who visited Mesoamerica to instruct the natives on how to build their stepped pyramids and temples. I recall that he offered as proof positive of his theory, the obvious aviator’s helmet’ and ,how else could those huge lumps of rock be transported over one hundred and fifty kilometres, from the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, but by space people levitating the rocks in a ‘tractor beam’? There were a few pseudo scientists who engaged in this ‘science-fact’ gibberish, attributing everything from the pyramids, to the Great Wall of China to Stonehenge, to extraterrestrial visitors; obviously the only ones who could manage those Herculean feats……….apart from Hercules. Their quasi theories were very popular among my hippie friends in high school, but even looking at the photographs that were offered as ‘incontrovertible proof, ’ anyone could see that the claimed aviator helmets and delta winged jets, were simply headdresses and tropical birds.. I thought to myself, as soon as I make my delivery I will find that Park and the museum. I drove into the centre of Villahermosa, it was indeed a picturesque town, I drove around the parque twice. It had the typical raised square, with seats, shade trees and the Iglesia dominating one side. It was a busier town centre than Paraiso; also it was a bigger square and church. In those days before GPS, one had to ask locals for directions, so after my double circuit of the centre, I stopped on one of the corners, intending to ask a shopkeeper for directions to the DHL office. I went through the Spanish of it in my head, because I was unlikely to find an English speaker, so “Disculpe, ¿podría decirme la dirección de la oficina de DHL por favor?” I figured that even if I got it arseways, I would sound lost and polite,. There were three roads leading off from where I was parked, and on one of the corners there was a music shop, selling all the latest CDs. This was just one of the many thousands of small music emporiums, assuaging the seemingly insatiable musical appetite of Mexico. I had witnessed this phenomenon in Carmen during my stay at the Acuario. Each store plays music at ear-splitting volume from speakers outside, and I fully expected as I turned my radio off and swung the driver’s door open, to hear Juan Gabrielle singing Asi Fui , his latest runaway musical success. But, what do think I heard? Only the Corrs ‘Give me a Reason’. Well I couldn’t help having a little smile to myself, so I sat with the door open listening, waiting for the ubiquitous diddly idly di bit. I saw it as an omen of good fortune, a blessing on my little trip of exploration. I just had to seek directions from the pretty little girl, almost lost behind the CDs, hanging on the walls and ceiling in prodigious profusion, and piled high on the counter of the tiny record store. The shop was more like big stall, which I imagined would be folded up at night, thrown in the back of a pickup and driven off somewhere. I had to bend almost double to go in, and even so the see-through cellophane packages trailed along the back of my head and neck as I was ‘tractor beamed’ in almost by the most beautiful dark eyes imaginable, which locked on to mine before I even crossed the threshold. She drew me in, her olive skin, her deep dark eyes, her black shiny hair, a bare smooth be-bangled arm outstretched towards me. She was the most beautiful and tiny thing I had ever seen. As I took her hand and blurted out my prearranged question, she held me with those incredible eyes and intoned “buenos dias alto, cómo estás?” She held my hand and then brought her left hand up, to begin stroking it gently. As she stroked, she held my eyes and smiled up at me. “Ah si, La oficina de DHL está a Dos cuadras arriba a la izquierda, she broke off momentarily to gesture in the direction the “dos cuadras” (two blocks up, on the left) lay. She then resumed, in what was the most delicious and sensual manner, even if it was completely innocent and not meant as such. I was utterly captivated, and it was she who broke the ice. Continuing to stroke my hand gently, stare into my eyes and smile, she asked me “Gringo?” “¿Eres Americano? When she spoke, the tips of her front teeth appeared briefly, pearly white against the ruby red of her lips. “No, soy Irlandés, de Irlanda.” She looked at me quizzically, “Irlanda? Inglaterra?” “Proxima Inglaterra” I answered. “Ah, bueno” she said. I was feeling a little bit awkward, not really sure what the hand stroking was about, so I gently and reluctantly withdrew mine, smiling as I did so, and asked her for a CD of Juan Gabrielle. She produced from behind her counter, a double album, which cost me eighty peso’s, about eight dollars. The huge hit, Asi Fui, was on it along with a collection of his music, some live, mostly studio, all of which were to become dearly loved by me over the intervening years. The actual double case with discs is somewhere in a box, but I have its ghost in my I tunes music collection and in the cloud. Songs from it come around every so often on my ever playing shuffled playlist, and when I hear one, in my mind I can I see the sleeve art with the now dead singer, flamboyantly swirling across the stage, mic in hand, thrilling the crowd at the Opera House in Mexico City. I recall instantly buying the album, and that beautiful girl in the record store on the Parque in Villahermosa Mexico. Her stroking my hand gently, allowing me to fall into her beautiful dark eyes. I remember the Corrs, and as I backed out with a “muchas gracias hermosa mujer, adios” her farewell “ Mi nombre es Lourdes, Adios mi Irlandés” (goodbye my Irish.) It was only when I reached the car that I realised that she had told me her name, it was Lourdes. The DHL office was indeed two blocks up and on the left, so I dropped my parcel off, got a copy of the waybill, and headed off to see the massive Olmec heads. It crossed my mind to go back to the record shop to ask Lourdes for directions to La Venta Park, but much as I would have appreciated a second meeting, my life was complicated enough at that moment, so I decided against it. The Park and Museum wasn’t far, and it wasn’t difficult to find. Parking was not a problem and incredibly there was no entrance fee. The heads, there are three at that site, are breathtaking. They have been dated to between three hundred and one thousand BCE, and those archaeological treasures were discovered on, our under the site of the ancient Olmec city of La Venta. The heaviest of the three is 11,000 kg, and in the absence of aliens with tractor beams, they would have had to be dragged, without the use of the wheel, all the way to where they were found. In total there are thirty-three large artefacts on view. As well as the three heads, there are numerous altars and other symbolic carvings, stelae and monoliths, all Olmec in origin. Before the sterling’s, the American archaeologist husband-and-wife duo systematically excavated Olmec sites, the culture had been unknown It was a wonderful experience to walk among them, and be so close to archaeology which is profoundly important to the heritage of humankind. I had a nice lunch of fresh fish in the restaurant right on the banks of the lagoon, in which they had been caught. While I ate, I watched languid pelicans skim the glassy surface of the lake, so close to the water that their wing tip feathers ruffled the surface momentarily, as the great wings flapped slowly. Huge purple, blue and red dragonflies whose diaphanous wings prismadically, it seemed, projected the light of the sun, skipped across the silvered surface, their trailing legs dipping and dappling the water as they skipped. Myriad green lizards scuttled through the rattan roof of the restaurant. Thick green jungle surrounded the lagoon on three sides, and the heavy air was full of the cries of exotic birds and the buzz of exotic insects. After a long and languorous lunch, I set off for the Mayan pyramid and temples in Comalcalco. In less than an hour I was parked at the site. For 150.00 Peso’s, which included the entrance fee, I hired a very knowledgeable young archaeology student, Teodoro, to guide me in Spanish and English, through the various buildings and the temple. The excavations were ongoing while I was there, but at that time some three hundred human built structures had been found, ranging from a large Acropolis to a number of individual temples, a palace, smaller municipal buildings and burial sites. My guide took me through the small museum, exhibiting the many beautiful Mayan artefacts found to date. Comalcalco is thought to have been a satellite city to Palenque, some 200 km to the east, although it is unique in Mayan civilisation, in that it is built of fired bricks, held together with cement made of water and crushed oyster shells, rather than worked sandstone. Many of the bricks are carved on one side, but for some symbolic reason the carved face was the one turned downward. So the carvings were only seen again over a thousand years after they were laid down by the Miami bricklayer, when excavations began in the 19th century. Construction of the grand Plaza was begun around five hundred CE, and it was finally abandoned around one thousand CE, when the Mayan civilisation collapsed. By the time I had finished my tour, and bought my tour guide coffee in the cafeteria, it was late afternoon, and I needed to get back to Paraiso. However, based on Teodoros recommendation, and assuming that I was not required for work. I had decided to ask if I could keep the car and drive to Palenque the following day. Of course I had heard of those most famous Mayan ruins, but over coffee he gave me a very good general background to the site, thoroughly whetting my appetite for a visit in person. It had being a wonderful day for me. Through the artefacts that I had seen, I had immersed myself in the pre-Columbian history of Meso America, which close-up is utterly breathtaking. The beauty of the Olmec and Mayan carvings art work and architecture, is truly stunning. Those civilisations, which collapsed in ruins long before Cortez and his destructive conquistadors arrived in Mexico, had reached a level of craftsmanship and a social sophistication, nurturing the later civilisations of the Mexica, who stood firmly on the shoulders of those early giants. As it happened I was not required for work and the boss had decided to keep the car in case he was needed in Carmen or Veracruz for meetings during the week. I asked if it was okay to take it to go to Palenque the following day, and he readily gave me permission. Palenque is in Chiapas, the neighbouring state to Tabasco, and some 220 km from Paraiso, about a three-hour drive. So I headed off after breakfast the following morning. Notwithstanding the occasional ‘topes’, driving in Mexico was a great pleasure. With the window down and the warm air swirling around the car, getting inside my shirt, caressing my skin. The sunshine brilliant and that blue sky. I drove between vast swathes of tropical jungle, which straddles the border between the two states. Palenque is perhaps the pre-eminent Mayan site in all of Mexico, everything else radiates around it. When I visited, the excavated area occupied approximately 1.2 Km squared; however it was estimated that eighty percent of the ruins, still waited to be discovered in the almost impenetrable jungle, behind the great Pyramid. Seeing the Palenque ruins, for the first time, I was simply transfixed by their Majesty. The cities that the Mayans built for themselves between two hundred BCE and seven hundred CE, while uniquely Meso American in design. In terms of architectural sophistication and artistic beauty, had no peer in their contemporaneous world. Teodoro from Comalcalco had recommended his friend Miguel to guide me through the Acropolis, and as luck would have it, he was free when I arrived. For two hundred pesos (it’s a bigger site) I had an excellently guided tour through the more than sixty individual constructions available at that time. It is estimated that the entire site when fully excavated, comprise more than five hundred. Everywhere one looked, on practically every surface available, there are stunningly gorgeous bass relief carvings and inscriptions, which to a large extent tell the history of the Mayan civilisation. So, Palenque has been instrumental in providing most of the substantive information, on that great civilisation. The Usumacinta River cataracts impressively through the jungle adjacent to the ruins, its crystal clear cooling water, and the smooth rocks, over which it splashes against the forest’s verdant back drop, create a truly idyllic scene. However the river was not simply a cute backdrop for the engineers whom raised the city. There is a large body of evidence, which indicates that they also built a plumbing system, providing water throughout, via an aqueduct and pressurised water flow, up to a height of 6 m. Prior to that discovery, it was believed that the Spaniards brought the first pressurised water systems to the New World. But like so many hard and fast historical rules, the Americas seem. to have broken that one as well Miguel and I had lunch beside the small museum, after which I bought some souvenirs, a beautifully shiny and deeply black carving of a Mayan mask, and a hand painted Mayan great circle calendar, on animal hide, both of which are still on display in our house. The sensations of wonderment that the beauty of the Olmec artefacts in La Venta Park in Villa Hermosa, the Mayan ruins in Comalcalco, and finally the breathtaking gorgeousness of Palenque, engendered in me, do not pass quickly, and never pass fully. The cave paintings in Faunte du Gaume in the Dordogne in France, you whoever in The pyramids, the Sphinx, the Valley of the Kings, New Grange in Ireland, Stonehenge, ancient Rome and the Acropolis in Athens, also engender within me feelings of amazed admiration at what the ancients created, and how the same as us they were. Those three places, visited over two days in that sweltering late August of 1998, were added to the list of places that I have seen which have quite literally taken my breath away. I don’t generally think myself lucky, given my situation; such a belief would be outrageous. However, in terms of the places I’ve seen I am, and writing about them brings back that sense of wonderment anew.
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AuthorJim Nelson is a sixty-two year old, wheelchair bound, incomplete tetraplegic, following a DIY accident in April 2016. ArchivesCategories |