Meseta Purepecha

The day after the spectacular incident on the cattle guard, Francisco decided our mountain ride was going to be too much. Good thing. Once I saw some of the cobbled streets in tiny towns that we would have ridden through, I figured the cleats on my bike shoes would have been ground flat. Steep streets! I thought my driveway at home was bad.

Instead of riding, we hopped in the car and used Francisco as our tour guide. Being a local, he knows about the hidden places and artistic gems that aren’t overt. Essentially we did a circle around the Meseta Purepecha. Purepecha’s are indigenous people here in Mexico. Most don’t speak Spanish; rather, they speak Tarasco. Their homes are tiny shanty towns surrounded by jewels of colonial architecture.

On our quick mid-day tour, we wended our way through the forested mountains and valleys. Few of the roads we drove on even existed before three or four years ago. The towns of Ocumicho, Cocucho and Patamban were geographically inaccessible. The landscape harbored indigenous people years before the Spaniards arrived in the 16th Century. The Purepechas relied on – then and now—natural resources and lumbering for their survival. As rural and removed from industrial development as they are, though, the have always practiced lumbering in a way that doesn’t impair the ecological balance. Makes you wonder about the usefulness of the U.S. Forest Service. The Purepecha don’t rely on inches-thick government reports that mandate the how’s, why’s and when’s of cutting timber in order to preserve the land and economy.

When we rolled into Cocucho, we had to pull off the side of the road to allow a goat drive to proceed. I stepped out of the car to take a photograph of the drive. In front of the goats were a few kids around 10 years old. One was on a bicycle. I snapped the photo and he instantly became angry. His gestures, tone of voice and facial expression was full of disgust and anger. I don’t know what he said to me, because he wasn’t speaking Spanish. But the glare and apparent resentment hit me hard. Curiously, the older residents didn’t mind being photographed – if you kindly asked first – but the children were annoyed and uncooperative. Fair enough. Let the outside world come into your rural existence probably feels voyeuristic and exploitative.