Campeche, Yucatan, MEXICO. January, 2000. From time to time Vicki and I find ourselves stopping someplace just because it's there. The place might exist for sound reasons; then again, those reasons are utterly beyond my grasp. I get the feeling that anthropologists with unlimited funds could study these places for years, and still wonder why anyone lives there.
Campeche, in Mexico's steamy Yucatan jungle, is one of these places. You could find it on a map, but why bother? It's just there, a backwater. So naturally Vicki and I fell for the place, and extended our stay, to enjoy its simple charms.
For one thing, Campeche has a long waterfront, on a bay in the Gulf of Mexico. In late afternoon we watched the tropical, fireball sunset there, while the day's heat dissipated in the salty air. In the old days Mayans worshipped the sun there, praying for its return the next day. Now we know better, we know the sun will return, making it all the more fun to send it on its way.
Some twenty or thirty fishing boats work the bay, setting nets for the catch. Closer to shore there are herons and egrets, pelicans and sea gulls, all living in the shallow water. I saw a pelican, flying low, suddenly crash into the water and come out with a small fish. He was hunting, but looked for all the world like he was showing off. "Hey, Paul, did you see me catch that fish?"
After sunset the boardwalk becomes crowded. It's cool down there. Joggers and bike riders use special, paved paths set aside for them. Lovers holding hands stroll along the main boardwalk, or sit on the sea wall and watch the birds and fishing boats. Small children ride plastic trucks, young people take Grandma for a walk, and venders sell ice cream.
Just behind the waterfront Campeche city has been whacked out of the jungle, a dense, low, green mass of plants and trees. Campeche's jungle hisses, screeches, howls, and sings, like in the movies. But those jungle sounds mix with trucks, motor scooters, and airplanes. Tarzan and General Motors combine here to make a lot of racket--the birds were so loud they woke us up in the morning--but I found it comforting somehow, man and nature sharing the sound system.
Another thing I like: Campeche has a wall around it. I think I sleep better knowing the wall's there. I figure the wall makes it that much harder for my enemies to get to me.
The wall went up in the late 17th century, when Campeche was ravaged by pirate attacks. In those days only men were allowed out, to do the shopping and run errands. For their protection women and girls stayed locked up in houses. Even so, the pirate Lorenzillo brutalized the town in the 1684, carrying off some of the town's fair maidens. Presumably he and his fellow pirates had their way with them. This was too much for the locals, and the Spanish viceroy decided to act. The wall was completed by 1704, thus ending the pirate attacks. Large sections of the wall, including the land gate, still stand.
The colonial city within the wall recently got a facelift, after the local powers decreed that all building facades should be painted. Pastel green, blue, yellow, and white walls make the town a postcard. One mansion on the main square, abandoned in the 1970s, was turned into a "casa cultural," decorated and laid out as it was in the 18th century. The guy there spent an hour with us, showing us around the mansion, telling us who owned it, explaining what each room was used for.
Finally, there are the people of Campeche, friendly, slow-moving, without guile. The guard at the land gate unlocked the door and let us climb up on the wall. He locked the door behind us, then pointed up to the original bell tower. "Just ring the bell when you're done looking around, and I'll let you out."
We saw a young milkman on a motorcycle. He carries the milk in large cans. For each customer along his route, he scoops the milk from large cans into their small cans. During the rainy season at least one old man still delivers rain water. Ancient Mayans were clever engineers, and came up with efficient ways to collect rain water. Today, a thousand years later, some locals still prefer rain water to the alternatives. Some may not have viable alternatives. So this old man makes a living driving his horse-drawn wagon, with its painted blue water barrel, selling rain water.
One of my stock questions, no matter where in the world we are, is, "Have you ever been to (next town over)?" In this case, "Have you ever been to Merida? to Champoton? to Cancun? Often the answer was "no." Campecheans are born there, and live and die there, without going anyplace else. Or if they do go someplace else, they tend to stay someplace else.
That's Campeche: water, sunsets, birds, jungle, walls, fresh paint, old-fashioned people. In the course of your daily lives you may never meet anyone from Campeche. But if it should happen, at a cocktail party, say, you're ready. "Oh, yeah, I've heard of the place. Water, sunsets, birds, jungle, walls, fresh paint, old-fashioned people." Your new friend from Campeche will be impressed.