The Case for Living Authentically

I've come to the conclusion that trying to suppress your true nature is like attempting to hold a basketball under water. It takes all your concentration, is truly exhausting, and in the end is futile. 

When I tell people that I’ve bought a house in Pozos, a small ghost town in central Mexico, I’m often faced with a blank stare and after a brief hesitation an “Oh,” or from the bolder, a blunt “Why?” I can read the unspoken, “are you out of your mind!”

It’s okay. I understand. I’ve seen that look and heard that “Oh,” many times in my life; and I welcome them because it's my indication that my life is on track.

The first time was when I was barely turned 19 and announced that I’d saved enough money from sorting letters in the Post Office to buy a one-way ticket on a steam boat from Cape Town to London.

Bright-eyed and bushy tailed on the way to
England at age 19

Many of my high school friends were going to university or getting married. I was ravenous for experiences my Catholic up-bringing, all-girls school, and small town in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) had never afforded me. I arrived in London in the summer of 1967 with the equivalent of about $100 in my pocket and a two-week reservation at a hostel. Music was everywhere; Carnaby Street and Kings Road were the axis of the fashion universe; and barefoot hippies passed out flowers in Piccadilly Circus. I was both in culture shock and delirious with joy.

Within a couple of weeks, I had moved into a Thames-side flat with five other girls. There I made a lifelong friend in Maureen. We shared an Irish heritage and had similar coloring: People always took us for sisters. We also had the same birthday, although she had a couple of years on me. She became the older sister I never had. We made weekend trips around the UK and traveled together to Paris, Austria, and the Greek Islands.

Maureen in Greece 1968

She went back to South Africa and a couple of years later I flew over there to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. By then I had moved into a smaller flat in Notting Hill Gate with one room mate: Liza.



Me, Liza with a monkey, and some odd guy
with a dusbin lid in a London alley in the
mid-70s.
(No I have no recollection of what this was about.)



For almost ten years, Liza and I egged each other on in madcap schemes: selling vintage clothes on Portobello Road; operating burger stands at rock festivals; and working in promotion (we were those girls at conventions who demonstrate things): almost all of which earned us both “the look.”

In a formula one race car at the London Auto Show

Liza and I lost touch a few years after I relocated to the States, but thanks to the internet, reconnected again and picked up exactly where we’d left off.

In the late 70s, I got the stare and the “Oh,” when I pretty much ran away and joined the circus. Only it was a recreation of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show that was playing at Wembley Stadium. I got a temp job there and hit it off with cowboys and Indians. They invited me to go touring with them in Japan and Singapore and how could I say “No” to that? Technically, I was the promotion manager but in that type of show, everyone has multiple jobs, so I was also a can-can dancer in the saloon.

Kicking up my heels (second from left)
as a can-can dancer when the
Wild West Show played Japan

After six months in the Far East, the show returned to California where they sponsored me for my green card. I got it on the basis of being a specialist in the American Wild West. (I’m not kidding.) Shortly after, the show went broke and I was left adrift on another new continent, in culture shock again but thrilled to be in Southern California.

I decided to take the opportunity to reinvent myself as the writer I had always secretly wanted to be. God Bless America: you really can be and do anything you want if you work hard enough. And I did. With just a couple of brief periods of employment as a staff writer, for the next 30 years I supported myself as a freelancer. It suits my nature; working on a different story and topic every few weeks. Still, as my 40^th birthday approached, I was restless and craving a change.

You should have seen the looks and heard the “Ohs” and “Whys?” when I decided to shake things up by spending four months traveling through Africa from Cairo to Cape Town by myself. I flew to Egypt and used trains and buses to get to Khartoum in the Sudan. I had to abandon my plans for a total overland experience and fly from there to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia because there was a war in the region. But thereafter I stuck to the land going through Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and arriving in Cape Town, South Africa just in time to celebrate our joint birthday with Maureen.

Wading ashore in Zanzibar 1989

Not long after I got back to California, I garnered a barrage of looks, “Ohs,” and “Whys” when I cast my lot in with a personage of dubious nature. I had the hubris to stand in the path of a human tornado and laugh off the possible consequences. Did I ever get my comeuppance! A few years later after the tornado had passed, leaving my entire life in a catastrophic shambles, I decided it was the Universe telling me it was time to mend my ways. I needed to grow up and be a responsible person. A therapist also told me as much.

I bought a little house in a family suburb. I worked really hard. But I quit writing screenplays (even though I’d sold two) and novels. Instead, I concentrated on magazine articles and eventually started ghost writing books for other people. I did volunteer work and joined groups and served on boards. I took vacations in Europe and stayed in proper hotels and went to museums. (I’m not knocking that, they were wonderful trips, just different for me). I ate healthily and went to the gym three times a week. And slowly and inexorably over the next ten years, I slid into a depression.

For the first time in my life, I became an insomniac. I would be so tired during the day I’d fall into a coma on the sofa in the afternoons. I wasted my life away doing Sudoku puzzles and watching Home and Garden TV. If someone invited me somewhere, I’d go; but I never initiated anything.  I'd lost my joy. Then, in the space of a year, Maureen died from breast cancer and Liza died from a melanoma that spread to her liver. Their deaths affected me deeply. I started to feel like I was squandering my own good health by not living an authentic life.

I finally lost control of the basketball when I was attending a board meeting of a non-profit called APECA that does good work in the Amazon disseminating health information and building rainwater catchment tanks to provide clean drinking water to remote villages. One of the other board members, Kee Kee, said she was thinking of going to Peru to see the operation. Out of nowhere and with no aforethought, I heard my own voice saying, “I’ll come with you.”

Bam! The ball hit me in the face. 

Within about a month, we were flying to Lima then on to Iquitos, one of the most exotic cities I’ve ever been to, and then were on a tiny boat chugging two hours down the Amazon to APECA headquarters deep in the jungle.

Me and Kee Kee sailing down the Amazon

We slogged through the rainforest knee-deep in mud; fought off mosquitoes; met extraordinary people doing remarkable things; learned about natural rainforest remedies; ate weird food and drank vile boiled river water; saw the fabled pink dolphins; and gorged on star fruit right off the tree.



$5 each in Whole Foods.
Free in the jungle!



One experience was particularly memorable. Our guide, Pablo, took us another two hours down the river and along a small tributary of the Amazon called Shatto.

Pablo and me paddling down Shatto

We camped out on platforms under mosquito nets hundreds of miles from the nearest electricity. We had one truly magical night when we glided down the river on the current in a small boat. Being so far from any artificial light, the night sky was absolutely extraordinary. There was a cacophony of jungle creatures and we could see eyes glinting all around us. Pablo, with some kind of uncanny knack, would occasional thrust a spear into the black water and come up with a fish on the end of it.

Pablo speared these fish in the pitch dark

That night, I felt my joy!

Other significant things happened on that trip. For one, while I had lost Maureen and Liza, I found a new soul sister in Kee Kee Although years apart in age, we bonded instantly and stayed close after returning to Santa Monica where we both lived.

There’s something else: I’ll simply tell the story and let you come to your own conclusions. One night when camping at Shatto, Kee Kee and I awoke simultaneously. We could hear a particularly strange and plaintive noise from what we took to be a bird or other jungle creature. We also could hear Pablo walking around outside. Next day, Pablo quite casually told us that he’d encountered a wailing spirit. It was, he said, someone who had just died and was visiting people and places that they’d known before moving on. We asked him if he was concerned that it was someone he knew, but he said, “No. It could be anyone.” He went on to tell us hair raising stories about the spirits – both good and evil – that populate the jungle. The people who live there are quite matter-of-fact about them.

A week later when I got back to Los Angeles, there were multiple messages waiting for me to say that Tornado Man, with whom I had not had contact for several years, had died from lung cancer that night. In these matters, I prefer to let the mystery be. But you have to admit it was a pretty weird coincidence! In any event, his death was also the end of cycle of my life and my trip to the Amazon was the birth of a new one.

It took another several more years for me to pull up stakes and drive to Mexico. And what a lot of looks, “Ohs,” and “Whys” I got in response to that decision. But hey, to me that just an indication that I was me again. It’s interesting to note that the first night I was in Mexico, I slept for eight hours and have slept like a baby ever since.

And so that brings me back to this decision to buy this house in a small ghost town. Right now, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be. I’m deliriously happy. I know it’s not for everyone – or hardly anyone, for that matter. So it’s quite okay for you to be skeptical and give me the look: I'm cool with it.

There's a Guy for That

Dealing with bureaucracy anywhere can be challenging, but especially so in Mexico. The problem is if there are any rules no one quite seems to know what they are; or the rules change every week. Gringos here spend an inordinate amount of time worriedly exchanging information, passed along like that game of telephone and so in the end totally wrong, about the latest regulations for, say, owning a foreign car in Mexico or getting your visa renewed. You can go to official government websites that Google will adventurously translate from Spanish to English for you only to find the person working the desk at the local office will have completely different\outdated\up-dated information and you haven’t brought the right paperwork or enough money for the fee. I know someone who got her car impounded a week ago over a regulation she didn’t know existed.

The answer, I’ve discovered, is to find someone who knows a guy. (And before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I’m speaking generically, of course: the "guy" could be a woman.)

I’m a pretty independent person and for the most part like to take care of business myself. But now I’m having to learn a whole new way of doing things. When I wanted to change my status from tourist to resident, I looked up the info and thought I knew what documentation I needed and how many copies to make of it. Then I would just take it to the immigration office and file my application. Hah! Before I actually embarked on this foolish endeavor, my friend Eleanor took me firmly in hand and said I was not to attempt this myself; she had a guy for that.

Apollinaire came to the house, filled in all the paperwork for me (which was in Spanish way beyond my reading a menu/getting directions level of comprehension); held up a white sheet for a back-drop and took the right size and type of photo; and then took it all away to file for me. A week later he called and asked me to meet him at the immigration office. We walked to the head of the line, where he greeted the official by name. She scrutinized my driver’s license, fingerprinted me, and handed me my laminated FM3 visa in the space of about 10 minutes. When I saw a number of bewildered looking gringos wandering around the building with manila envelopes clutched in their sweaty hands, I was really glad I had a guy. (By the way: only a month old, this visa type of visa was phased out in June and no one really knows that implies for those of us holding one!)

The next step was getting my stuff into the country. With my new visa I had six months to bring my personal household goods into Mexico without incurring import fees. But to do so, you have to make a list of every single item you want to import in both Spanish and English. I’ve heard some horror stories about things that happen at customs. I mostly had a lot of boxes and had long since forgotten what was in them.

Itemising this stuff would have been a challenge.

Man: Did I need a guy for that! Enter Mario of Goldenbear moving.  He picked up my stuff in California and delivered it to my door in Pozos. He took care of everything that needed to be done at the border for me, no questions asked.  



Mario (r.) the guy for getting your stuff here.

So whether you have furniture that needs refinishing; clothes that need altering; or are looking for health insurance, a cell phone, or a massage, you just have to ask around because for sure someone will have a guy for that.

But now I have a dilemma.  My new old house needs a bathroom make-over. The floor is covered with death-trap high gloss tiles, the paint is peeling off the walls, and the unenclosed shower wets everything in the entire room except the person standing under it. (But it does have a lovely vintage sink.)

This great old sink will find a place in
the new bathroom

Fortunately, I know what to do because I have a guy for that in the guise of my friend Ruth, a wonderful designer. She came up with great ideas and made an architect’s rendering that I now need someone to execute. And that’s the problem. Everyone I speak to in my new home town has a guy for that. There’s a plethora of go-to guys in Pozos.

Designer "guy" Ruth came up with this incredible plan
for my bathroom. Now I just need a guy to do it.

Do I go with the guy who’s worked in the states and understands Gringoese? Or do I opt for the guy who does great work but speaks no English? Or the guy who’s apparently totally hot and who cares what he speaks? Or the one who’s really cheap? And this is a small town so will anyone be offended if I don’t choose their guy?

I need someone to help me decide what to do. Is there a guy for that?

The Best Laid Plans …

So, yes, I do remember that when I sold my 80-year-old house in Los Angeles a few years ago, I went all Scarlett O’Hara and raised my fist to the sky declaring, “As God is my witness, I’ll never buy an old house again.”  

You tell 'em, girl

I have total recall of how exhilarated I felt when I got rid of most of what I owned, enabling me to fit into a 600-square-foot bungalow near the beach and being all excited because I was unencumbered and light on my feet. And how liberating it was to just call the landlord when the plumbing was acting up.

Further, it’s burned into my psyche that the most miserable I’ve ever been in my life was in the early 90s when I lived in Fawnskin, a tiny community in the San Bernardino Mountains.  After three years I hot-footed it back to Los Angeles, done with solitude, wood fires, shoveling snow and the whole damn mountain woman lifestyle.

Just in case you think I'm
making this up.

A year ago, I wholeheartedly agreed with those friends who said, "Okay, live in Mexico if you must but for heaven’s sake, don’t go and buy a house."

 “Of course not,” I said. “I’m not totally crazy.”

Do you hear God busting a gut right now?

Because what I have gone and done? Why, I’ve bought a 300-year-old colonial house, bigger than anything I’ve ever lived in before, that needs fixing and furnishing and that I’ll likely be working on for the rest of my life.



Looking at my front door from the courtyard.



The washing machine gets filled from a hose with water from an actual garden well, the house is heated only by a wood fire, and in the kitchen there’s a plastic bag duct-taped around the overhead light bulb. I can only guess the rain comes in and since clouds are gathering, I’m sure I’m about to find out. Oh, yes, and it’s in a ghost town 7,500 feet up in the Mexican highlands.

An actual well

But ohmygod, it’s so cool!

The house has bullet holes from the Mexican revolution around the 12-foot high front door, two-foot thick rock walls, and every room has French doors that open to a courtyard with pomegranate, lemon and fig trees; lavender and rosemary; succulents and cacti. Steps lead up to a roof terrace with a stunning view of the church and the town’s picturesque ruins.

My view

Golondrinas have built a nest in the entry way and it currently has babies in it (the seller tells me the swallows come back to the same spot every year). So I’ve named my new home, Casa de la Golondrina.

These sweet golondrina tiles are popular here.
I'd like to score some for my bathroom.

Gulp. This bathroom.

If you haven’t guessed yet, it’s in Pozos. I did lay down clues when I blogged about Pozos some time ago. From the moment I set foot in the town, it was almost an inevitability that I would end up there. I don’t why know; it’s just so. I looked at all the houses I could afford in town and from the moment I walked into this one, it called to me although at first I resisted. I’ve always strongly believed that buying a house is an entirely emotional decision. I’ve experienced it myself before, and I’ve seen it in other peoples’ faces when I’ve been selling. I always knew who would be the one to make an offer on the house.

Pozos rush hour.

Buying a house in Mexico is vastly different than buying in the States. There are no credit scores, mortgage applications, bank appraisals, inspections, termite reports, punch lists, disclosures, escrow, and so on and so forth. Once the buyer and seller have agreed on a price, they go to a notorio: an attorney who specializes in real estate matters. The notorio takes care of some business like a permit for foreigners, title searches and possible liens, camital gains tax if any, and then both parties sign a document that’s kind of a combination contract and deed. The buyer pays minimal closing costs, and then you make an exchange of the money and the keys! My file of paperwork for the sale of my last house in California is six inches thick. This transaction was completed in a five-page document. Of course, without all those inspections and disclosures, you are pretty much buying a pig in a poke.

But it’s so freakin’ cool!

It's really cool.

The next part of this blog is like an academy awards speech in which I thank everyone who helped make this possible. So if you are one of them, read on. If not, go and look at the pictures.

I’d like to thank Pam Ernst, Anthony Perez, and Claudine Rajah at Ameriprise in Santa Monica, California, whose brilliant handling of my retirement funds made it possible for me to take this flyer without feeling like I’ll end up in the poor house. Nick Hamblen was the realtor in Pozos who patiently showed me houses and knew this one was mine even before I did. He also held a luncheon for me at which I met the ex-pat townsfolk (yes, they fit around a table).  Sculptor John Osmond, an early adopter of Pozos, was the first person to take me there and became my go-to guy for all Pozos knowledge. The seller (I’ll respect her privacy but she can identify herself if she wants) entrusted her much loved home to me along with some of her furniture, plants, the golondrinas, and the home’s welcoming spirits (um, what now …?). Mario Ortiz at Golden Bear Moving went above and beyond anything expected of him to get my belongings out of storage in California even to meeting my brother, Jimmy, at a truckstop to pick up some additional pieces of furniture to transport to Mexico so that I’ll have my meager amount of much loved stuff in my new house very shortly. And finally, Eleanor Piazza, whom I brazenly made my sounding board about buying a house although it meant I would be vacating her casita. She good-naturedly even went looking at houses with me!

Come back next week when I'll be taking an up-close and personal look at buyer’s remorse.

My Love Affair with Mexico Continues

Ever since I moved to Mexico about 10 months ago, I’ve been trying to figure out why I immediately felt so at home in here. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s due to a combination of factors.

Oddly, it reminds of where I grew up in Africa. But it’s not quite so strange when you realize that San Miguel de Allende is roughly the same latitude north as Bulawayo is south: both are 20 degrees from the equator. Both are also situated on high plains although at 6,500 ft, San Miguel is a 1,000 feet higher; and both are land-locked. So the climate is quite similar: hot summers relieved by thunder storms and winters with dry, sunny days but cold nights. And that means that much of the flora and fauna are also familiar.

These aloes grow here.
In Africa we called them red hot pokers

Jacaranda and acacia trees, cascading bougainvillea, cacti and aloes, plumbago, and frangipane all populated the landscape of my youth as they do here.  We used to eat the big, orange-colored papayas – we called them pawpaws –  mangos, passion fruit, and loquats. Occasionally, when I walk through the market, I’ll catch the scent of guavas and be instantly transported. The same applies when I hear doves croo-crooing and crickets chirping (but I could do without the damn mosquitoes!).  Often I’ll be driving along a country road with a narrow strip of paving and red dirt on either side cutting through a largely empty, arid landscape with hills on the horizon and get a momentary flash that I’m back in Africa.

Both places also have small groups of ex-pats existing within much larger host populations. Apparently, wherever the people come from and wherever they land, exp-pat communities share the same characteristics: They’re seething caldrons of adventuresome (sometimes, lost) souls; gossip, scandal, do-gooding, entrepreneurship, nostalgia, comradeship, and cobbled together surrogate family groups.

An ex-pat Christmas. Who wouldn't feel at home?
Thanks, Ruth and Collier.

If the state of Guanajuato reminds me of Africa, the 600-year-old city of San Miguel de Allende, on the other hand, is totally reminiscent of Europe.  You could pick it up and drop in onto a Greek Island or the hills of Tuscany and it could blend right in. And there’s one street that every time I turn into it, I feel like I’m in a London mews with its narrow, cobblestone streets, brick row houses, ironwork and greenery.

San Miguel de Allende
or London Mews?

Another reason for my comfort here is that I lived for 30 years in Los Angeles, where 40 percent of the population is Hispanic. You can’t help but absorb some of the language and culture when you’re that immersed in it. California, of course, used to be Mexico, so Spanish names abound – both of people and places. That gave me an ear for correct pronunciation, although it doesn’t always come out of my mouth the way I hear it in my head!  

Sometimes, too, I feel not so much that I came to a foreign country, but that I went back a couple of decades to a time I lived through once before. That’s not to suggest for a minute that Mexico is “backward.” On the contrary. It’s just that socially people aren’t as reliant on technology, even though they do have it. Occasionally, you’ll see a teenager with those little white buds in his ear or someone walking along the street talking on an iPhone but it’s the exception rather than the rule. I see kids kicking balls around in the street in the evening after school (they all wear uniforms to school, just as I did) and families going out together for dinner or at weekends.  

You get service here like you did in by-gone times. A service station truly is. The attendant pumps your gas, washes your windshield, and offers to check your oil, water, and tire pressure. And it’s easy to find people skilled in the likes of dressmaking or carpentry. Neighbors make elaborate home-cooked meals from scratch and raise chickens in their back yards. There's also a refreshing lack of regulation and political correctness.

Dog on the pharmacy counter:
how quickly would the health
inspector be there in the US!

But I’d be doing a grave disservice to Mexico if I didn’t point out that all these reason put together are only a small part of the picture. I love Mexico because it’s Mexico.  It’s stumbling across a procession of people dressed as Aztecs carrying a crucifix; looking off my patio and seeing a string of burros walking down the street; the guy playing a guitar and singing on the bus; the mariachis in el jardin in those tight pants!; the fish tacos at La Sirena Gorda; strangers in a restaurant wishing you buen provecho; the graciousness of the Mexicans when faced with my atrocious Spanish; and generally the immense kindness shown to strangers.

The only people who should ever wear
skinny jeans.

I could go on but at risk of sounding like a tourist bureau brochure. So suffice it to say that I’m now so love-struck with Mexico that I've changed my status from tourist to resident. I no longer have to make a run to the border every six months to renew my visa. Also, I can bring in my household belongings – few as they are –without paying import duties.

Which is a good thing, because oh, yes; I bought a house.

Mi Casa es Su Casa?

Since I moved to San Miguel de Allende 10 months ago, I’ve lived in my adorable casita. It was a find on the Guanajuato Craigslist and I took it sight unseen.  

My casita patio off the kitchen

Happily, the gamble paid off and both the casita and Eleanor, above whose house it’s situated, provided me a soft landing in Mexico.  The one-bedroomed casita with it's georgous patio was immediately home and Eleanor has been a font of invaluable help and information about living in Mexico (not to mention a supreme maker of margaritas!)

The casita came furnished and fully loaded, so I didn’t need to bring a lot of stuff with me. This enabled me to travel light: driving down from California with just a couple of suitcases and my little dog Henry. On account of me being Miss Adaptability – a veteran of four continent, five country, ten city,  and approximately 27 house moves – those suitcases contained just enough of what I needed it make any place home. My Bhutanese Buddha tapestry went up on the wall behind the sofa and my red silk drapes in the bedroom.

Buddha presiding over my living room

I whipped out my candles, photographs, a few special books, favorite mug, and French press coffee maker and supplemented them with finds from the flea market and yard sales; and voila, a nest.

The sun coming in through my bedroom window
wakes me up in the morning

I also fell in love with the neighborhood: Fraccionamiento Insurgentes.  Just a short number nine bus ride from el centro, it’s a world away from the lovely but bustling tourist mecca that is San Miguel. As much as I catch my breath every time I see the parrochia or stumble across one of the daily parades or fiestas, I’m equally happy when I crest the hill on the outskirts of town and feel the temperature drop 10 degrees and see the open rolling hills, vast sky, and little white-domed church in my neighborhood. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remind myself that I actually live here and don't have to go back to the rat race next week!

Aztecs and architecture: just another day in
San Miguel de Allende

There are no traffic sounds or overhead jets, so it’s quiet here, too. Except, that is, for the tweeting birds, barking dogs, copulating cats, crowing roosters, church bells, gurgling fountain, thunder storms, and frequent fireworks. But hey, that's just Mexico.

I recently met a gringa, married to a Mexican man, who also lives in Insurgentes. Now Eleanor and I can no long boast that we’re the only ones in the area. I suspect the locals regard us as the thin end of the wedge and are secretly thinking, "there goes the neighborhood." Nevertheless, they treat us with immense kindness. Eva, the lady who runs the laundry, always greets me with a toothy grin and a torrent of very fast Spanish that I nod and smile at. Saul, the guy who makes the best longanisa tacos, will bring them to the door if you call him up with an order. And his wife, Marie, who runs a little clothing shop not only loaned us some of her display racks for our yard sale but had them delivered.  

Our yard sale looked very professional
with Marie's display racks

A few days ago, Eleanor bought a piece of furniture from a consignment store - a lovely painted cabinet - that I brought back in my car. She corralled Adrien, a teenager from a few doors down to help us unload it. He spurned my attempts to take one end, hoisted it on his shoulder, and staggered into the house with it. When Eleanor offered him a tip for a cafecita or a coca, he politely declined it. He had enough money right now, he said.

The beautiful painted cabinet that
Adrien hauled in on his shoulder

I’ll miss all of this tremendously when I move out in a few weeks on to my next adventure, but whoever takes over my casita will be a very lucky person indeed for however long they are here.

How I Went Looking for Jesus on a Donkey and Ended Up a Mexican Movie Star

It started with a weekend road trip to Uruapan in the state of Michoacán, about 160 miles from San Miguel de Allende. I went with my friend, Eleanor, and we were planning to rendezvous with other friends who were going to the same destination by bus. We were all headed for the wonderful annual crafts fair there.



Ceramics at the crafts fair



Michoacán is the headquarters of La Familia drug cartel that has a penchant for beheading people. But it was the beginning of Holy Week, which is a big deal in Mexico. People spend a lot of time in church and in religious processions so we figured the narco traffickers would be too busy with all that to be committing mass homicide.

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again: I love driving in Mexico. We sped south on the magnificent toll roads, mainly through immaculate farm land and occasional marshes that are home to otherworldly white herons.  We only had one uncomfortable moment when we thought we’d missed the by-pass around Morelia, the state capital. So we stopped at a gas station and asked two handsome and kind young men for directions. They led us in their pick-up truck to the on-ramp and waved us off with dazzling smiles.

The road climbed even higher into the Sierras then as we approached Uruapen dropped sharply down into a sub-tropical climate zone. Wending our way through the outskirts of the city I almost ran a couple of red lights as I’ve been living in a town with no traffic lights for the last nine months.  We checked into the fancy-pants Plaza Hotel (a whopping $52 a night each for bed and full buffet breakfast) and it was a good choice as it was on the square where the crafts fair was happening.

Lunch was first on our agenda and we certainly earned it. To get to the restaurant we had in mind, we hiked the length of the stunning national park that starts on the edge of the city and scales a large hill. It was lush with tropical foliage and waterfalls around every bend.

A waterfall in the park

Sweaty and low on blood sugar we finally reached the Urani Restaurant and plopped down at an outdoor table overlooking the park. Uruapen claims to be the avocado capital of the world and the macadamia nut capital of Mexico so we leaned into that: guacamole, macadamia encrusted fresh local trout with jicama and mango salad and cappuccino ice cream.  

Macademia nut encrusted trout.

The rest of the afternoon we made a start on the overwhelming display of beautiful craftwork and gaped at the gorgeous women in their ethnic costumes and waist-length hair. We topped off the day downing margaritas in the hotel bar with our friends from San Miguel.



Stunning fine embroidery work by these women



The next morning the big adventure began. This being Palm Sunday and knowing how Mexicans love a parade – especially a religious one - I was convinced there was going to be a procession with a man dressed as Jesus “riding into Jerusalem” on a donkey. I can’t get enough of that kind of thing so we left the hotel early and headed to the cathedral on the plaza. The entire sidewalk was lined with women making and selling intricate palm weavings to be taken into the church and blessed. I grew up Catholic and we always had a simple cross made from palm fronds but I’d never seen anything like this.

Women weaving palm fronds outside the cathedral

There was also a professional looking film crew setting up outside the church so I was more convinced than ever that Jesus was imminent. As we were hanging around a young woman with a clipboard approached us and explained that the crew was making a promotional film for the Mexican tourist board and would we be in it? “Hot damn, yes,” we said without hesitation. Next thing, my hair was being primped and we were being given our instructions by the handsome director, Sergio.

Our director, Sergio

Eleanor was at the bottom of a short flight of steps and I was at the top. We were both supposed to be buying the palm thingies and interacting with the women making them.  There was a camera dolly set up and when Sergio yelled “action” the camera rolled along the sidewalk as Eleanor and I crouched down and “bought” palms. It was all fairly simple but in true movie fashion we did take after take for over an hour.

My vendor, though a beautiful looking woman, was quite surly. I tried desperately to talk to her but she simply scowled at me. I learned later that this commotion was preventing her from selling her wares so I felt bad for her.

My "co-star" wouldn't crack a smile or even tell me her name

I was quite jealous because Eleanor, on the other hand, was having a wonderful interaction with her co-star. And the woman turned out to be a psychic who was telling Eleanor all about her life as they acted out the charade!

After it was finally a wrap and the releases were signed, we realized we didn’t have that long to take in the enormous craft fair so I sadly gave up any idea of seeing Jesus that day and we headed into the mass of tented booths in the middle of plaza. (And where, incidentally, Eleanor took the photo of me that I’ve made my new profile picture.)  As we were trolling the aisles full of ceramics and lacquer work and embroidered clothing, I heard singing.  It was the parade!  I knew it. Abandoning Eleanor, I took off bobbing and weaving through the packed crowd to the perimeter of the plaza where I thought the parade was headed. Nooooo! I missed Jesus! All I caught were the apostles as they headed into the church.

I missed Jesus!

Oh, well. This is only the beginning of holy week. We have a packed few days to come of a bloody and beaten Jesus dragging the cross from church to church – in some cases, town to town – as he’s flogged and then strung up on the cross (seriously, I’m not kidding about this). I’m truly sorry I didn’t catch him on his last good day, but in compensation, I finally became the movie star I knew I was destined to be when I was eight years old.

The Magic of Pozos

So picture this scenario. You’ve driven close to an hour to a remote ghost town 7,500 feet up in the Mexican alto plano with a couple of friends. You park and get out of the car. As you breathe in the crystalline air you realize an odd sound is encroaching on the silence – and it’s coming from your car. The engine is running. In one sickening moment you realize that your engine can only run with the keys in the ignition and you distinctly remember locking the car door from the inside when you got out. That’s what happened to me on Saturday.

All the facts are true; but that’s only part of the story.

We were in Pozos: to use its full name, Mineral de Pozos (Mineral Wells). It is a ghost town but not the kind you typically see in Westerns, with a saloon, a jail, and hitching posts.

The area is rich in minerals and since 1540 has had a checkered boom-and-bust history as a succession of peoples have exploited its silver and gold. By the late 1800s, there were reportedly 500 mining operations fueling a city of more than 70,000 people. It was the first city in the region to have a railway and electricity and boasted a “model school.” But the early 20^th century dealt Pozos a one/two punch as the Mexican Revolution siphoned off workers and then disastrous floods rendered many mines unworkable. The wealthy mine owners packed up their picks and shovels and abandoned the place.

An Abandoned Mine

Now the hills are strewn with their detritus. There are hundreds of fabulous stone ruins of mining operations, haciendas, homes of the wealthy and poor alike; and municipal edifices in various states of decay and reclamation by nature.

Nature Gets Back

The fabled railway station and model school are massive hollow shells: the first for sale and the latter reportedly sold for developing into some kind of art school: because a place so historic and hauntingly beautiful cannot stay forsaken for long.

The Old Railway Station (it could be yours)

Consequently, Pozos is now experiencing yet another renaissance. Some years ago, it was put on the National Registry of Landmarks. A few charming bed and breakfast inns and restaurants have been fashioned from the ruins and the town square has been spruced up. A lavender farm as been established by a group of women. The population has crept up to about 2,000, about 200 of whom are ex-pat Americans and Europeans.

I was taken there for the first time a few months ago by renowned Australian sculptor, John Osmond, who lived in Pozos for 15 years, and who provided an invaluable guide to the history and people of the town.

John Osmond and one of his sculptures

Those who have gravitated towards the rarified air of the ghost town tend to be of a more pioneering and intrepid ilk even than those who land in near-by San Miguel de Allende. Understandably, many of them are artists.

And that brings us back to the story. Barbara, Wendy and I were in Pozos for an art walk. The little town was packed as buses had been laid on from San Miguel. There were 12 official galleries on the map, but it seems like many other places participated. We stopped in on the family that makes pre-Columbian musical instruments; the women’s collective that dresses dolls in traditional Mexican costumes; and the roadside stand selling local crystals and geodes.

Entrance to one of thegalleries in a fixed-up building

The three of us enjoyed a leisurely lunch and a margarita at the posh Hotel Posada de las Minas before getting back on the art route. The last stop of the day was at a remote gallery – an artist’s studio actually – a little way out of town. We bumped along a barely-there road and pulled up outside the small stone building. That’s where I locked my keys in the car

Almost simultaneous with realizing what I’d done, the following thoughts flashed though my mind: this is the worst possible place this could have happened; I’m an idiot; why did I even lock the car in such a remote place; I’m an idiot; I’ve stranded two other people out here in the wilds and we’re all going to die; I’m an idiot; I should call John Osmond and ask who in Pozos could help me but none of us has a phone plus I don’t have his number with me; I’m an idiot; the only way out of this is to break a window. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed. Barbara, who is lovely and gracious and with the hint of a South Carolina drawl turned out to be the epitome of a Steel Magnolia. The only saving grace was she and I both had left our front seat windows open by a couple of inches. While I swung on mine with all my weight in a futile effort to push it down further (well done, Toyota), she went into the studio and asked the artist in residence if she had a coat hanger. As chance would have it, the artist actually had brought a change of clothes with her from her house for later that night and her dress was on a wire hanger. Barbara straightened it out, got it through the window and with me guiding her – down a bit, to the left a bit – actually managed to unlock the door! Thank goodness I have an old car; it wouldn’t have been possible with a more sophisticated lock. The entire incident had transpired in less than ten minutes.

Giddy with relief I twirled my keys on my finger and joked that this had happened because Pozos didn’t want me to leave. Indeed, like many places rich in minerals and crystals, Pozos seems to exert a strange magnetism that you feel either drawn to or repelled by. I’ve been drawn there five times now, twice this week alone and once by accident when I was on my way to somewhere else!

Stay tuned.