Once Upon a Time in Mexico

So I’m reading this book about Mexico, supposedly about the non-tourist places of Mexico. But what boggles me is that the author has gone only to places that a tourist would go to: Mexico City, Guanajuato, Oaxaca City, San Miguel Allende (where he has a home). The most alluring place so far (I’m about half way through the book) is a place called Los Pozos, near a town called Xilitla in the Sierra Gorda mountain range. It’s a “surrealist ‘art park’ built by a wealthy English eccentric”. The way the author writes about it reminds me of a place I once visited in Georgia with my friend Ann. It too had been built by an eccentric (Eddie Owens Martin or St. EOM as he called himself) and was quite fabulous to walk around. And of course, for anyone who has lived in the Atlanta region for any amount of time, think of the Reverend Finster and his Paradise Garden where he made “native” art, and it sounds like you’ll have an idea of what this place is like. But with statues instead of paintings.

But I digress. Back to Mexico.

So I’m reading this book and I’m wondering when the guy is going to cover some area of Mexico that doesn’t sound like a tourist spot. I mean, every town he goes to has a café! We don’t have one of those in Tuxpan. We have to drive 12 miles to the next town to get a coffee drink made for us!

I guess I’m just a bit disappointed in the book. I was expecting to hear more about the people and the culture, but he mostly talks to other ex-patriates and goes to places that have some cultural or historical tourist draw to them. I was hoping he would interact with the natives, maybe live in a small town in Mexico to see how the “real” Mexico is.

Guess I’ll have to write that book.