Brian Blickenstaff
“You want to go get some beers?” I asked. Sylvan said yes. We were thirsty and bored, and we didn't have any money to spend on silver – beer, however, was a different story. We had already seen the Cathedral de Santa Prisca, after which I realized I would die a happy man if I never set foot in another. I think Sylvan, being Swiss, and growing up in a relatively close proximity to some of the world’s biggest cathedrals, felt the same. His sideways glances at paintings of Jesus and Moses were mirror images of my own.
Almost exactly one-year prior, I had gone on a class trip to Italy. We had studied religion – St. Francis – and art. Both subjects involved visiting cathedrals, big and small, important and seemingly inconsequential. Taxco's cathedral was nice, just like the others had been. I guess I was jaded. Sylvan must have been too.
We walked away from the Cathedral, across a busy turnabout, dodging Volkswagen Taxis and buses, and climbed a three-story staircase to a rooftop bar. It was empty except for the staff. A waiter emerged from a shaded enclosure and told us to sit anywhere. We picked a sunny spot by the railing; I faced the cathedral. Sylvan looked up the hill at the statue of Jesus – it looked exactly like the famous statue in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Taxco, unlike Rio, is built into the side of a mountain. The whole city is shaped like a giant triangle that tapers off at the top. There, Jesus Cristo stands, like the star on a Christmas tree, arms wide open.
I watched Sylvan stare intently up at the statue. He idly sipped his beer.
“Did you hear Bonnie tell us not to go up there?” I asked.
“She didn't say not to go up there. She said not to wander above the zocalo or the silver markets,” Sylvan said. Taxco is known in Mexico as the “silver city.” The mines there had been worked heavily for hundreds of years and the silver products of the region were well known for their good quality and reasonable prices. The silver markets, like the zocalo and the cathedral were all located in the depth of a valley. The statue, up on the summit, seemed a long way off.
“Well, the Jesus is above the markets. Is it not?” I pointed out
“But we wouldn't wander, we would take a ride.” He gestured to the many Volkswagen Buses that were zooming down the hill and around the turnabout, where they picked up and dropped off passengers before climbing back up.
“You think they go up to the top?” I asked. “You know, even the bus driver told me not to go into the city. He said we could get mugged if we went above the market.”
Sylvan didn't reply. I changed the subject.
“Tell me about Angola.”
Sylvan was an employee of the International Red Cross. Over the last two years he had been stationed in Angola doing some kind of aid work. In 2002, Angola “ended” a twenty-seven year civil war. Like many war veterans, or witnesses of violence, he seemed to not want to talk about it; the conversation quickly turned to Portuguese. We were both in Mexico participating in Spanish language immersion programs, and I was curious about the relationship between the two languages. I had heard they were sisters.
Our discussion was interrupted when our waiter came to check on us. Sylvan seized the opportunity to question him about the buses and the statue. The conversation was in rapid Spanish; I had no chance. Afterward, fresh beer in hand, Sylvan told me the buses, known as “cambis” could take us to the top of the hill, right up to the statue. It would cost less then a dollar.
Sylvan had called me out; there was no way to save face. The man had been to war-torn Africa and here I was, visibly nervous about taking a bus ride up a hill. As we walked to the turnabout I considered the facts: It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and I wouldn't be alone; my companion, a student for two weeks, was more or less fluent in the language (a fact that made me incredibly jealous); and we would be on a bus, not aimlessly wandering a maze of back alleys. Plus, there was something about Sylvan’s namesake – the well known American “learning center” – that gave him some sort of vague credibility.
I told myself it was an adventure and thought of the bedtime stories my dad used to tell me. As recent college graduates, my dad and his roommate were dropped off, by my grandmother, at the U.S./Mexico border. For several months, the pair traveled by foot, bus, and train as far south as Bolivia. It is a story of danger and laughter; the kind of experience that leaves a person to die satisfied.
The two of us were the only foreigners on the bus. I smiled in anticipation as the cambi filled and continued to fill, far past what I considered its reasonable capacity. Most of the passengers didn’t give us a second glance, which surprised me, as we must have looked incredibly out of place. I was dressed as a typical jeans-and-t-shirt American university student, complete with a backpack and sunglasses. If I looked out of place, Sylvan must have seemed from another planet – he had a strange affinity to jump suits and was completely decked out, literally from head to toe, in Puma brand apparel.
Flicking his cigarette out the window, our pudgy driver directed his rumbling, coughing cambi up the road. As we climbed, I divided my time between looking at the buildings and the people we drove past, and the increasingly panoramic views of the cathedral and the rest of the valley. Every time the road switched back, the Cathedral seemed to shrink away, smaller and smaller. The statue of Jesus, on the other hand, stood bigger and more inviting. Something about the posture of the statue, its open arms, made me think of Santa Clause. I wanted to go sit on its lap.
As I eagerly looked back and forth, out the left, then right hand windows, I noticed a little girl, perched on her mother's lap, staring at me. Her mother was seated on a bench opposite mine; our legs were awkwardly scrunched off to either side so that it was possible for us both to sit.
“Hola,” I said to the girl. She shrank bashfully, but without looking away, into the hair of her dark skinned, Indian mother. Many, perhaps the majority of Mexicans, have both a physical and cultural resemblance to their native ancestors. This is only the case with a minority of Americans. The North American Indians were violently routed and destroyed, rather than violently assimilated, as their Mexican neighbors had been.
I repeated my greeting to the girl's smiling mother, who was coaxing her daughter out of her hair. I heard the girl say something about “verde,” and “ojos” and realized my green eyes could, at times, be a bit of a spectacle.
“De donde eres?” asked her mother.
Suddenly unable to remember how to say the United States, in Spanish, I told her that I was from “America.”
“Me too,” she said. Some of the other passengers in the cambi laughed. My face reddened.
“California,” I quickly replied, still unable to remember the three illusive words. My embarrassment seemed to be directly correlated to my inability to remember vocabulary.
“Eres de los Estados Unidos,” she informed me in a motherly tone. Oh yeah. That’s how you say it.
At this point, the bus made an abrupt stop; the girl and her mother grabbed their things and we exchanged good byes. They squeezed out of the bus, paid the driver, and disappeared around a white washed retaining wall with broken bottles on top. I silently returned to my window-watching.
A short time later, after numerous stops, Sylvan and I were the last passengers on the bus. We drove around several more switchbacks before coming to the end of the paved road. The statue was still several hundred vertical feet above.
Our driver shut off the engine and in the new, relatively profound silence, lit another cigarette. I looked nervously at Sylvan, who, calm as always, climbed out of the cambi. “Come on,” he said impatiently. I checked my fear and hoped out.
As the bus had made its final switchbacks, the surrounding buildings had quickly deteriorated in quality. Instead of the whitewashed, small yet reasonable homes we had seen farther down the mountainside, rebar was now visible sticking out of many of the walls; along with rusted sheet-metal rooftops. I remembered the warnings: Don't go above the market. You could get mugged!
“What now?” I asked.
“We walk,” Sylvan told me. He asked the driver about the statue. The driver gestured to a path that wound to the right, out of the city and eventually, into the forest.
What am I doing up here?
I, once again, considered the facts – the broad daylight, my fluent companion. I kicked at some rocks as we walked toward the trailhead; it was more of a dirt road then a pedestrian path. A small, water-forged ditch ran down the center of the road and occasionally wound off to one side or the other. I shot a fleeting look at Jesus and looped my thumbs through the shoulder straps of my backpack.
We had been walking for seconds, when three local men, in their mid twenties, came out of the nearest house and approached us. The youngest of the three – handsome and shirtless – greeted us in English.
“Hey friends!” I looked down the road at the rumbling cambi as it turned out of view. “Friends, what are you doing here?”
“We're walking to the statue,” said Sylvan confidently. I kept my distance, mouth shut.
“Ah, yes. Jesus,” he glanced at his friends – one on either side. “Where are you from?”
“Switzerland,” Sylvan offered up easily.
I was able to dryly choke out, “The U.S.” I focused, intently, at stopping my body from shaking. I took a deep breath and, thinking of my camera, tightened my grip on my backpack's straps.
“Ah, an American!”
Oh shit.
“Where in the states are you from?”
“California.”
“Oh. I worked in El Monte for four years. Do you know it?”
“Yeah. I'm from Claremont, right next door!” At this, I relaxed a bit. The two of us laughed.
“Well you guys be careful up here, OK? You could get into trouble.” We told him we would, and before the three of them walked off, they gave us more specific directions to the top of the mountain.
After a several minutes of silent walking, we came to a small trail. At the intersection of the dirt road and this new trail, well outside city limits, was a tiny snack bar. The two teenage girls that were sitting behind the counter giggled when Sylvan asked them if the small trail would take us to the statue. We had been instructed by our English speaking “friend” to look for a smaller trail that pointed up and to the left. The girls told us we were on the right track. I bought a bottle of water, and we began on the new path, in a more direct route to the summit.
The small hiking trail we were now on was steeper and less forgiving than the washed out dirt road had been. The two of us were relieved when the path entered the thick forest. It was a sign that we were getting close. The high canopy also provided a natural barrier between the afternoon sun and us. Despite being cool and peaceful, the serenity of the forest led my mind to wander. I began to imagine, with startling clarity, images of armed bandits stepping out from behind trees and robbing us mercilessly. I quickly vetoed Sylvan's motion to take the opportunity to sit in the shade and rest.
“No way, man. Let’s keep going.” I didn't care any more if he knew I was scared. I was scared; I was terrified. You should be too, you crazy bastard. I found myself suddenly angry with the guy. He was making me look bad. First, he learned Spanish in two weeks – granted he already spoke fluent Portuguese. Now, he remained completely calm as I chewed on my receding fingernails, and pulled and pushed, vainly trying to crack my stubborn, swollen knuckles.
After rounding a bend, I let out a yelp. Something had moved, quickly, off the trail to my left. It turned out to be a couple of teenagers who had been necking in the dirt behind a tree on the side of the trail. They snickered. I took a deep breath; Sylvan openly laughed. Around the next switchback the same thing happened. Apparently, we had been walking through Taxco's own “lover's lane.” At this point I was beginning to lose it. I could feel my hair turning grey and I noticed that I was taking short, quick breaths. When the statue, in full size, became visible through the trees, I couldn't hold back my smile.
We emerged from the forest to find ourselves standing on black asphalt. A Volkswagen taxi darted around a turn and parked next to several other cars, all of which sat no more then fifty feet from the back of the statue. I passed a group of American tourists, hungrily snapping photographs, and purchased another bottle of water from a nearby snack bar. For the next hour, the two of us sat in the shadow of Jesus, sipping water and smiling.
“I think we should take a cab back.”
Brian Blickenstaff is originally from Claremont, California. He first enrolled at Northland College in 2002. During what should have been his junior year ( '04-'05), he took the year off and traveled to both Spain and Mexico.