El Tajin and Papantla

The morning dawned a bit wet, and was raining seriously by the time we had our breakfast and Gillian had walked the dogs. It shortly moderated to a drizzle then tapered off to nothing. Being from the West ("wet") Coast, and Yorkshire, a bit of moisture wasn't going to keep us down long so off we went to see the Ruins of El Tajin south east of the city. Interesting and beautiful as they all are, yet each ruin is different from the next.

El Tajin was first occupied about 100 AD, though most of what has been excavated and restored is from 600 to 900 AD and was abandoned about 1200 AD. Not a bad lifespan for an American City--1100 years.

El Tajin is also notable in that the Rich Folk lived on the hill side, overlooking the ball courts! 17 ball courts have been located so far!

A bit too big for Art to scramble about on (10 sq Km!) and several kilometers of walking to see it all, after a short peek in the rain and drizzle and a visit to the museum, he retired to a cafe table to attempt the guide book in Spanish. He had mixed feelings about being told seniors didn't have to pay, but pulled out his drivers license as proof of age, and took the freebie! Outside there were dozens of stalls and cafes, and a display of the "Papantla Fliers" More on that in a minute. We found a restaurant near by for a late lunch/early dinner on our way home...Fish of course, and got back in time for happy hour, with a stop at a hardware store to find replacement brackets for the closet rod.

Next day we visited the town of Papantla, famous for the Voladores (Fliers). This is best described in "Lonely Planet" as "...a sort of slow motion bungee jump..." From the top of a very tall pole, four men sit on the edge of a wooden square and rotate the square to wind ropes around the pole. A fifth man sits, or stands, or dances, on the top the pole playing the chirimia, a small drum with an attached flute. Then the four men fall backwards (being sure they are attached to the ropes!) and as the ropes unwind, the men slowly spiral to the ground, hanging upside down, or horizontally, with their arms spread wide.

We were able to watch this performance several times; once in El Tajin and several more times in Papantla. For the first performance in Papantla we had a great view from a second floor restaurant balcony table overlooking the square while we had lunch. The flyers drop from a pole set up in front of the church behind above the square. We saw several more performances from various vantage points as we wandered about the town.

The square is described in Lonely Planet as being particularly pleasant. From what we could see it looked very nice but unfortunately it was under repair and closed to the public. Along one side was a row of shoe-shine stalls so Art got a good polish on his very dirty shoes! They should be good for several weeks now! Behind the square in front of the church a stage was set up where we watched demonstrations of regional dance. One in particular was very reminiscent of English Clog Dancing. Unfortunately I couldn't up load the video to the Blog. The other picture is the shoe-shine stalls.

On the way back to the Hotel RV Park, since it was early (before 5 PM) we went grocery shopping, trying the Soriana store, hoping to find pasteurised milk rather than the UHT or sterilised milk. Again, not available. Oh well, Gillian will just have to wait for the West Coast.

Art didn't like the Scotch selection at the Soriana, so decided to return to the RV via the Cheudraui store, just a few blocks out of our way. This was huge mistake--it was now almost 6PM, the traffic was so extreme, the traffic cop was only permitting the occasional vehicle into the Cheudraui parking lot. We were directed straight ahead (out of town!) and eventually made a U turn, but were again directed straight past the store entrance. We gave up at that point and carried on straight down the road to the hotel. The traffic eased a bit in half an hour or so and we got home about 7:00 PM having covered a distance of 4 Kilometers in about an hour!