Colouring history in Puerto Vallarta

 

One of the not very useful facts that I know from my studies of Mexican history is that in 1582 cochineal was being produced in Chilapa in the mountains of Guerrero, and a few years later in Huamuxtitlán, Olinalá, Tlapa and Ahuacuotzingo. The little insect Dactylopius coccus was used to produce a dye much in demand in the textile workshops of Mexico City.

 

But while I had read about cochineal I had never seen it, and had no idea how the dye was made nor what colours it produced, until Jan and I paid our annual visit to a shop called Casa Oaxaca in Puerto Vallarta. The shop is the retail outlet of a cooperative of Indigenous textile workers in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, a drive of more than 1,300 kilometres so Google informs me.

 

In front of a loom were several baskets each containing different dyeing materials. There was indigo from plants of the Indigofera genus, pods of a shrub called huizache (Vachellia farnesiana) whose seeds produce blacks and greys; a mineral used to break down the lanolin of wool so that dyes can be absorbed.

 

And there was a basket of a shiny material that I took to be small stones, but was in fact the dried bodies of the cochinilla insect. It feeds on the sap of prickly pears, in three months growing to about one centimetre. These are voracious little creatures as our son Chris told me later: they ate the prickly pear in his garden in San Vicente in no time at all. But the textile workers of Teotitlán love them: they infect prickly pears with a male and female and wait for them to multiply and suck the plant dry.

 

The young man who served us gave me a demonstration. He crushed some cochineal in his hand, applied a few drops of lime juice; a red stain appeared on his hand. Then he added a little ground chalk to produce a different shade; next slaked lime for another shade. With judicious application of a variety of alkaloids, a range of reds can be produced. So here the historian who knew about the cultivation of cochineal almost 500 years ago was given a beginners class in how it is used to produce goods for tourists today.

 

These insects little have other uses. They are edible, but apparently have no great flavour. They can be used as a food colouring, and are added to mezcal.

A day at Vallarta Botanic Garden

Arriving for work with Chris

Chris's "office"

 

The orchid lab, where rare orchids are propagated and new varieties created.

A view from the orchid house.

Chris with the fruit of the cuastecomate tree. The fruit apparently has medicinal properties. The outer skin was used in ancient Mexico to make drinking vessels.

 

Orchids in the orchid house. Mexico has 3,000 varieties, of which the garden has 300.

 

The view from the restaurant of the Horcones River valley.

 

A hummingbird visited us for breakfast.

Lots of spiders hanging high up on their webs.

 

 

Lots of butterflies of all colours and caterpillars. We joined a presentation and walk by the local butterfly conservancy. Dulce, who led the presentation and walk, told us that this not very attractive caterpillar has a nasty sting.

A cacao tree. The whiteish pods contain the seeds from which the chocolate is made from and the small white flowers growing up the trunk will produce more pods.

 

 

 

“Gente importante”

 

After we had returned home from dinner with our friends Lupita and Eliseo, our son Chris received a message from Eliseo thanking us for inviting them to dinner, especially since the restaurant is a place where “important people” (gente importante) go.

 

You may recall from a blog item about two years ago that we last met Lupita and Eliseo for dinner with their teenage son Carlitos, who had both legs amputated because of cancer. Alas, Carlitos died of his cancer shortly before our visit to Puerto Vallarta last year. While we were visiting, Chris, his then boss Arturo and Eliseo spent a day at a local hospital offering to give blood to replace some of the blood given to Carlitos.

 

Both Eliseo and Lupita are blind. As they entered the restaurant with Chris “en tren” (“in train”) Lupita with her hand on Chris’s shoulder, Eliseo’s on her waist, they surprised their surviving son Eliseo who is a waiter at Campomar where we ate. Eliseo Jr.’s other given name, we learned is Charbel, after Charbel Makhlouf, a Lebanese saint known for uniting Christians, Muslims and Druze, and known as the Miracle Monk of Lebanon.

 

Some of you may recall that Eliseo has been blind from birth (he has no eyes) and Lupita from a later stage of life. Eliseo continues working as a physiotherapist at Pasitos de Luz, the children’s charity where Chris worked until recently. Lupita teaches braille at a government agency called DIF (Desarrollo Integral de la Familia; Integral Family Development). Lately, she has devoted more of her time to providing social interaction for elderly people who are losing their sight and who lack the skills and confidence to leave their homes. She organizes gatherings to enjoy music and dancing.

 

Both Lupita and Eliseo are involved in a theatrical event, a production about a famous figure in Mexican history, La Malinche. Malinche was an indigenous noblewoman from south-eastern Mexico who had learned Spanish from a shipwrecked Spanish sailor. She played an important role in the Spanish invasion of Mexico as an interpreter who enabled Cortés to negotiate alliances with enemies of the Aztecs. She also became his lover and mother of his son Martín Cortés, and has an ambiguous role in Mexican history as a capable indigenous woman. But many Mexicans consider her a traitor who betrayed their motherland. The play is to be performed entirely by blind actors. The director is a professor who is losing his sight. The audience will wear blindfolds so that, as Eliseo put it, they will experience the sounds and smells of the production.

 

When we meet Lupita and Eliseo we are acutely aware of the importance of their non-visual senses. For example, Lupita commented to Jan that she sensed that the restaurant was very busy, although of course she could not see the customers, nor distinguish between the talk of staff and customers. Then there were the screens showing American football games and their associated commentary, and the clatter of knives and forks on plates. As for smells, the food provided plenty to assail the senses.

 

I reflected on Eliseo’s comment that our fellow diners were important people. In the sense that they had the money to arrive in nice cars, have someone park it for them, and order food that was beyond the means of our guests, they are no doubt important. But in the Bahía de Banderas area there are really only two ways to make money, tourism (hotels, restaurants, and tours/events) and real estate. Success in these businesses can require permits to build perhaps where permission should not be given, or building on a scale that should not be allowed; ignoring ecological damage to flora and fauna (turtle nesting on the beaches, for example, are vulnerable to development); and so on.

 

I think I much prefer the company of Lupita and Eliseo to the “important people” of Campomar.