A Tale of Two Ciudades

Now that Miranda and I have kicked our Scrabble habit cold turkey, our G.A.D.D.* has once again flared up.

(*Geographic Attention Deficit Disorder -- a chronic condition that causes the afflicted to frequently flit from place to place in uncontrollable fits of exploration. A.k.a., “Wanderlust”.)

Despite having barely scratched the surface of Puebla, we went on our first out-of-town excursion this past weekend. On Saturday, we boarded a bus that I thought was bound for Mexico City, but was actually pointed toward Cuernavaca (Miranda tricked me as part of a low-key Valentines adventure).

Cuernavaca was nicknamed the “City of Eternal Spring” by some nerdy German naturalist in the 1900s, and it was easy to see why as soon as we arrived. I disembarked the bus (yeah, we’ve learned to avoid driving like the plague or prime-time Leno) – overdressed in a sweatshirt and light jacket only to find temperatures that perennially stay in the 75-80 degree range. Not surprisingly, Cuernavaca is a favorite escape for citizens of nearby Mexico City as well as for non-Mexican tourists. With its warm, dry and stable climate and its abundant vegetation, Cuernavaca is like San Diego – sans the surfboards and stiff tits.

The bed & breakfast that Miranda had reserved online was a multi-level, mostly open-air home awash in orchids, violets and cacti – all protected by two attack Chihuahuas named Carmen Miranda and Coco Chanel. Bill, the proprietor, is a retired Arizona public high school art teacher with a seriously green thumb and a gourmand’s touch – a true renaissance man. It’s hard to say which was more delightful – Bill’s food or his flowers. The guy can make hibiscus grow out of a hand grenade, and a gourmet meal out of bread crumbs and butter. During our stay, Bill was so accommodating and hospitable, so helpful and humble, that it made it hard to not feel bad for secretly despising his two yipping bitches.

Upon arriving around 10 am, Bill gave us a quick tour of the place, then whipped us up what he would consider a quick snack and what you and I would consider an epicurean gem: A pan-roasted poblano pepper (sweet and smoky) with Spanish manchego cheese wrapped in a fresh corn tortilla, served with a plate of homemade tangerine bread. Thankfully, Bill is in his mid-60s, otherwise I might have returned from the trip wifeless.

As anxious as we were to venture out into the center of town that morning, we became highly engaged in conversation with Bill and his two other guests – a couple of cheerful ladies from Houston, about Bill’s age, who stayed at the B&B years back and have remained close friends with Bill ever since. While Miranda and I munched, Bill and the girls shared their favorite spots in Cuernavaca and beyond, asked us about our jobs, congratulated us on securing a six-month stint in Mexico, and demanded I send them a link to my blog. It was refreshing to encounter older Americans who embraced Mexico not as a trio of snowbirds but as passionate expats and travelers who detested bus tours and souvenir shops.

Around 11 pm, Miranda and I bid Bill and the ladies a fond adieu and made our way toward the city center. We quickly learned that to truly experience Cuernavaca, you need to peek behind the walls of the less-than-spectacular houses and buildings, as this town is all about its hidden courtyards and gardens. Many of the best restaurants and cafes are situated in terraces behind old converted homes, and many of those old homes once housed A-list Hollywood celebrities and mobsters back in Cuernavaca’s heyday. John Wayne, Rita Hayworth, Al Capone and Bugsy Segal all either lived in or frequently visited/hid out in Cuernavaca.

We visited the home of Robert Brady – a highly eccentric American artist and collector who used to hobnob with the who’s who of Hollywood at his extravagant pool/garden parties in the 1960s and 70s. Not a particularly accomplished artist, Brady it seems was more famous for being famous… and a player – a sort of Paris Hilton with a penis and paint brushes.

Brady died of cancer in Cuernavaca in 1986 after 26 years of swanking it up. His house and all its contents look exactly (more or less) as they did the day Big Bob bit the dust. And oh what contents there are. Upon purchasing the sprawling house in 1960, Brady transformed it into a private art and collectible museum. His eclectic collection occupies 14 rooms of the house, featuring art, crafts, antiques and archaeological tidbits from around the world. Save for the stories of Brady’s frequent bashes, the highlight of the house tour is the original "Self-Portrait with Monkey", painted by the one and only Frida Kahlo.

But the real pinnacle of our weekend was Sunday, when, upon Bill’s strong recommendation, Miranda and I hopped on a little bus and headed to a town called Tepoztlán – or, as I now like to call it, my future retirement home.

What looks like a combination of the Fourth of July, Mardi Gras and the mayor’s birthday to an American is just the street market on any given Saturday or Sunday in Tepoztlán. The lion’s share of streets and squares in the center of town are converted into a pedestrian playground of food stalls, flower stands, and cubicles of arts and crafts. Clotheslines of colorful banners flutter above in the breeze; a band of town elders toot tubas and trombones; mothers and fathers spin their children in the plaza as pigeons take cover; and the heart health of each citizen is tested every few minutes with the sudden explosion of petardos (firecrackers), tossed to amplify the merriment. (The petardos actually help identify the tourists, who flinch and clutch their chest or cover their ears upon detonation, while the locals remain unfazed by the blasts though enjoy pointing and laughing at each deafened gringo.)

As if this astonishing mix of colors and movement and sounds and smells wasn’t enough, the entire town of Tepoztlán is engulfed in jagged, pine-crusted mountains. Few things in life compare to sitting in an open-air food pavilion amid these mountains with your Valentine while a local septuagenarian street chef and her daughter prepare you an authentic blue-corn chicken quesadilla. I told the old woman who provided our amazing lunch that I had traveled to many places, but had seldom seen a town so enchanting and full of vitality. She smiled and said, “Que suerte que has viajado por el mundo” (“How lucky that you have traveled the world”). I told her that if I were from Tepoztlán, I might not have ever felt the need to.

Supposedly there are some famous remains of a temple built on top of a nearby Tepozteco mountain, but these remains were not visible from any angle of the Sunday market. Sure, we could have gone off the beaten path to explore the temple’s carcass, but this was a day dedicated not to relics and ruins, but to the living, to everything awake, laughing and alive.