Paracutin

 

I must confess that I unashamedly am in love with Mexico with its warts and all! Ever since we spent a year as a family in Guadalajara, I have professed my love for "Mejico"! We made many Mexican friends and, as mentors in 2 Winnipeg high schools to International students, many of whom hailed from Mexico, we made even more friends. We have traveled to Mexico as often as we could and have been to almost all its major cities to visit friends and we have been to many of its beach areas. Puerto Vallarta and a Mexican hotel, El Piscador, just off the Malecon is a particular favorite.

But I shall never be able to visit Mexico again because of my fragile heart condition. So I visit it in my memory. One particular memory is of a volcano in the interior.

Paracutin

When I was about 10 years old, I was at our local movie theatre to take in an afternoon matinee. With the main feature there were also some additional reels of film shown. Along with the ever-present ongoing serial were also a couple of cartoon features and a Movietone news reel featuring the latest events from around the world. It was here that I saw an item that has stayed with me for almost 70 years.

It depicted the life cycle of a cinder volcano from its birth in 1943 to when it went dormant in 1952. It showed a farmer, Dionisio Pulido, standing in his corn field near a large crack in the ground from which rumbling noises were coming and clouds of steam and gases were swirling. From clips taken at different times it showed how the cinder cone grew until it reached its present day height of 424 metres.

During the 8 years of its growth, the lava it secreted covered an area of 26 sq. kms and the volcanic sand it spewed out covered 56 sq. kms. It also buried in lava completely the two towns of Paricutin, with a population of a little over 700, and San Juan Parangaricutiro, with a population just under 3000. In the latter town, the large church built of stone was the only object in both towns that remained sticking up partly above the lava bed. The top parts of the bell tower and another tower and the front apse where the altar was plus the top parts of the high walls were visible. As well, the large door leading into the cathedral was open. Some lava had seeped into the interior. All wooden parts which included the roof had been burned by the intense heat of the lava.

The volcano claimed over 4000 smaller farm animals and 500 horses which all perished because of the noxious fumes and gases from the volcano. No people perished as the lava moved slowly and the people quickly vacated their towns and set up in some uninhabited areas farther away from the reach of the lava.

When Patti and I and our two boys were in Guadalajara in 1989 -90 where she and I were teachers at the American school and our two boys were students in the Spanish/English bilingual program, we decided to visit this volcano I had such an interest in from age 10. One long weekend - and there are many in Mexico - on a Friday after school was out, we took a bus from Guadalajara to Uruapan, a 5-hour ride. The bus was a luxuriously outfitted highway cruiser. It put to shame all the Greyhound buses I had ridden in in Canada and the U.S.

When we arrived in Uruapan we checked into a hotel and then went on an exploratory trip through this city styled in colonial Spanish architecture. We enjoyed a great Mexican meal and then we retired early for our bus trip to the town of Angajuan which was the jumping off place if you wanted to see the volcano.

Saturday morning, we arrived at the bus depot, we bought our tickets which were quite cheap, and we boarded our bus. It was a very poor cousin to the one we had arrived in the day before. It was of the school bus variety with a side front entrance and further back a side exit door. The bus was red and white and obviously had about 500 000 kms on its odometer. There were all kinds of crates and boxes stacked on the roof. Inside as we found seating, we realized with no surprise that we were the only non-Mexicans on the bus. Paricutin was still not the tourist destination that it is today.

The passengers were obviously villagers and farmers going home from their market trip to Uruapan. They were all mestizos which is to say they were of Spanish and aboriginal descent. They were friendly and we got a lot of smiles. Our two sons, who are very fair complexioned, received a lot of stares. David in particular was almost white-blonde and he received the lion’s share of stares. Fortunately for him, no one tried to touch his fair hair for good luck as was wont to happen on the buses and combis in Guadalajara.

With a loud roar and a belch of diesel exhaust we were off. One could not really converse over the noise of the bus engine without shouting. After about a 2 hour journey we arrived in the small town of Angajuan. As we were disembarking, one of the passengers, a clean-cut young man approached us with a piece of paper in his hand. He spoke to us in very good English. He told us he had written down the address of his parent’s home or casa. If we needed any help at all during our visit, he told us he was at our service.

We checked into a small inn and then after asking for directions with our recently acquired few Spanish phrases and receiving instructions from the innkeeper in his mixed Spanish and a few English words he knew, we set off to go on our expedition to the volcano. Arriving at a corral, we arranged for the hire of two horses and the necessary guide to get us to San Juan Parangaricutiro and our closeup of Paricutin volcano.

Nathan rode in front of me on my horse and David shared a saddle with Patti. Our guide led the way. After about a half hour ride down a twisting path through the lava field where some plant life and scrubby trees were making a comeback, we arrived at the remains of the church. Our guide tethered our horses while we all went exploring.

We made our way into the church. It was an awe-inspiring experience. The altar had some fresh flowers on it. It was apparent that many Mexicans also visited this church and many brought flowers. In the past, some lava had flowed into the church through the windows and the entrance doors. There were some large solid blobs of lava almost boulder-like that had been expelled from the mouth of the volcano as “firebombs" and had landed in the church and solidified. There were some plants making a valiant attempt to grow in the soil that had been blown unto the stone floor of the church.

We clambered all over and took many photos. For me this was a fulfilment of a wish I had had since I first saw the Movietone clip. Finally we were ready to go back. We mounted our horses and the guide let me lead, followed by Patti, and with him bringing up the rear. The horses knew their way back to their stable. We had them trot or canter or walk depending on the kind of terrain the path was on.

As we got back to the outskirts of the village, I could see that a wedding had just been performed in the small church and the people had been let out and were streaming toward the road we were on leading to the stable. Many of the men appeared inebriated and some were waving bottles of mescal, a cheap potent type of liquor. The bride looked extremely unhappy as did many of the women with her.

As the men headed toward the road, they saw us on horseback and started waving their bottles at me to offer me a drink. Now I knew if I stopped, I would not be able to get away until I had drunk with every man who offered me his bottle. I also knew that to refuse an offered drink from a Mexican was extremely insulting to the one offering the drink.

Thinking quickly, I took my foot out of the stirrup on the side of the horse that was away from the view of the men offering me mescal. I started kicking my horse on the side away from the view of the men offering me mescal. My horse reacted by started to shy and I made a great show of trying unsuccessfully to control him. The horse took off in a gallop and we were soon away from the small crowd of men who would have soon surrounded us.

Patti and the guide were not bothered and were soon reunited back at the stable. The guide pointed at me and made a sign with his forefinger and thumb that what I had done was very smart. He then held his forefinger to his temple and made a circular motion and pointed back at where we had just come from. “Es loco!” He meant the men we had left behind us were crazy.

We made our way back to the inn and that evening we stayed close to the inn not wanting to inadvertently run into any revelers from the wedding. The next day we bused back to Uruapan and then made a connection there for Guadalajara. It had certainly been a most interesting weekend.