I’ve almost cleared the 1000-kilometre mark, and about 300km of that I did today, driving UP and DOWN and all over the central and northern coast, so that after the eighth cute plaza with a little (or big) old church and pretty painted arcades, I was a little dazed.
To break up the scenic monotony, I first bought some tamales at a tope. A tope is a speed bump, and when they’re not signposted (dangerously often), they’re occasionally marked by some woman selling food, taking advantage of the fact that you have to practically stop at these things to keep from wrecking your car. Anyway, they’re usually selling five pounds of pre-peeled fruit, which I just can’t deal with on my own. But tamales, OK. And now I understand why I once saw some locals in Tulum turn up their noses at ‘tamales colados’–steamed ones. ‘Tamales horneados’–baked ones–sound bad, but they’re the obvious choice for the Mexican on the go. The baking makes a sort of leathery corn shell, so it holds together better when you unwrap the banana leaves and hold it like a candy bar. Inside you get this molten core of corn-and-chile goo, along with some shredded chicken. Like a super-rustic Hot Pocket. The best part is that I could legitimately toss the wrapping out the window of the car when I was done.
Another thing that adds variety to a day of driving with no radio is picking up hitchhikers. This is common on the back roads, where there are very few buses but plenty of people needing to get from middle of nowhere to edge of nowhere. I’m sure everyone is pretty nice, but I generally pick up women of all ages and little old men. Women are very chatty, which is allegedly great for my Spanish, but still a social strain–I can’t deal with enforced chit-chat in English either. But today some woman got in, a little bundle of Maya cheer in her flowery dress and three huge mesh bags full of stuff. She was going to town to bring some food to her son who runs a restaurant (er, I think). I was understanding her pretty well (although it’s very hard to figure out what someone’s saying if you’re not looking at them, and it’s very hard to drive if you’re trying to make eye contact with your passenger), and feeling on the ball, when she said she spoke Maya, and a very little Spanish. So _that’s_ why she spoke so slowly and clearly, and used all the really basic constructions I limp along with too.
But all those details got whisked away when she asked me, “So what kind of meats do you eat in your village?” It was such an odd question for small talk that I made her repeat it–and I’d already told her I was from New York (“Dios mio!”), so her saying “pueblito” was an added bit of strangeness. But indeed, this woman seemed to care about the things I cared about. I listed all the Spanish words on the awning of Astoria Live Poultry (pato, pavo, pollo…), but she quickly interrupted. I see–this was a question _she_ wanted to answer.
Well, in _her_ village, they eat special animals that you only find in the forest, such as…and she rattled off about eight things, four of which I recognized, and two of which I remember: venado (deer) and tepescuintle (paca, a tender little rodent that loves oranges and coconuts, and so is very sweet when you eat him). To explain one of the others, she reached in one of her bags and pulled out the back half of a forest critter’s carcass, splayed out flat (spatchcocked, Brits would say) and all black from roasting. The little feet were still on, with delicate toes and nails. This was an ‘uhum’, I believe–it had (earlier in the day) a long tail and pointy nose. I had a feeling it was this badger/otter/coati thing I’d just been looking at in a book the day before. According to her, it was a great little animal, and they’d been hunted for so long there were hardly any left. And then she encouraged me to sample some of these endangered hindquarters. Which I was happy to do, but difficult while driving. I got a few little shreds, and it was tasty all right, though I think that had to do with the pit-cooking than the innate uhum-ness.
After her, all the other hitchhikers seemed a little boring.