A few years ago,
I went to school in Zacatecas, Mexico.
This is a beautiful old mining town nestled high in the mountains of
Central Mexico. I had been there several
times before, but this was the first time I had been there for weeks at a
time. I loved it.
The silver mine
was actually deep under the city and produced staggering amounts of silver ore
from the seventeenth century to just a few decades ago. The town shut down the mine, in part, because
they were tired of the blasting rocking the buildings' foundations. It must have been like living in a permanent
earthquake zone. (Oh, wait!--that was
even before the mine opened.)
Today, the town
still specializes in a lot of silver jewelry.
The mine, however, has turned into a nightclub. You can ride down the mine shaft in old ore
cars to a dance floor, deep below the center of town, where you can literally
rock through the night.
I have to admit,
the night club was never my thing:
places where you can still hear the music from last week reverberating
should be avoided. On the other hand, I
love Zacatecas. I love the old world
charm of the town, the way the streets randomly intersect, the great food, and the
French architecture.
It surprises the
first-time tourist how much the town resembles parts of Paris. Before the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1918
overturned the cultural identity of Mexico, the country copied the art and
architecture of France. The wealthy
elite spoke French, guzzled champagne, and ate in the best French restaurants. When the revolution started, President
Porfirio Díaz fled to spend his final days in Paris. Mexico more or less rejected almost
everything European--but kept its belle époque buildings. (Well, artillery in the war did rearrange the
architecture of a few of them, but you get the general idea.)
The layout of
the city is atypical of Mexico. Most
towns in Mexico follow a strict pattern.
During the Spanish Colonial period, the King found it rather hard to
rule colonies three thousand miles away, so he set up a special group--the
Council of the Indies--to set laws for the administration of the colonies. The council was full of experts (that means
they were mostly lawyers who had never been to the New World).
The council's
rules included the layout of the town, the width of the streets, and the strict
position of the church on the town plaza.
This is why the center of town looks pretty much the same whether you
are in Tegucigalpa, Chihuahua, or Santa Fe.
Zacatecas, however, is different.
The discovery of
silver ore produced a rush to the town.
Long before Spain knew of the discovery, the town was already
established. And it is a mess: twisty streets that turn a corner and turn
into stairs. Alleys that turn into
avenues that turn into alleys again. And
every street goes up and down hills like a roller coaster. It's beautiful! Zacatecas is my favorite town in Mexico.
In 1913, Ambrose
Bierce decided that he wanted to travel and visit the Civil War battlefields
where he had once fought. So, naturally,
he went to El Paso, Texas, and crossed the border to Ciudad Juárez, where he
joined the revolutionary army of Pancho Villa.
If you have ever read anything of Bierce, you know this makes perfect
sense. (Nor is it very surprising that
Bierce simply vanished, never to be seen again.)
Or maybe
not? No one is really sure that Bierce
went to Mexico or if he really joined Villa's army. But, unless he shows up tomorrow, we are
pretty sure that he vanished--it is one of the great romantic mysteries of the
Twentieth Century.
Years ago,
Hollywood decided to make a movie about the whole affair, called The Old
Gringo. Gregory Peck played the part
of Ambrose Bierce and for reasons that only make sense to Hollywood, they added
Jane Fonda to play...Jane Fonda. (Or
whatever she was doing in the movie, I was only paying attention to the scenery!). A lot of the movie was filmed in Zacatecas,
in places I knew perfectly.
Every day after
class, I used to go sit at a sidewalk cafe, where an imitation French waiter
would bring me an Indio beer and a crystal bowl of peanuts, while I read a
newspaper or simply watched the people on the street. Every day, I was conscious that I was sitting
in exactly the same place, at the same table, in the same restaurant
where Gregory Peck sat in the movie.
And every day, I
had the same thought:
"Hell. I am the Old Gringo."
A friend of mine wrote a screenplay also about an "Old Gringo". It was kind of confusing. I never quite figured out the point of the story.
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