On the journey....
We caught a bus out to Matehaula and the scenery slowly shifted... from grassland to semidesert. A giant arch marked the gate to the town... something like a McDonalds long split in half... either side of it... the highway stretched to oblivion.
We had a wait for our connection to Real. We read for a while, wrote some, drank a coffee, a few bottles of pop. Occasionally I'd wander outside for a smoke... I'd stand by the road and watch the trucks... I'd take in the mountains... the Sierra Madre Orientall... we were somewhere in there on a flat expanse. To the east and the west, in the hot afternoon sun, peaks reached up darkly...
When the bus finally came, we filed on and took seats near the front. En route through the town, many more passengers boarded... on the highway too... we picked them u p till the thing was jam packed. After some time on a northerly bearing, we suddenly turned west onto a bumpy dark track. The road was straight... extending 25 km... the mountains ahead, an eerie expanse around us... chimney sweep cacti like giant mushrooms... they dotted the brooding plateau left and right.
We drew up to the mountains as the sun began to set... everything soaked up in orange. We wound our way about amber slopes... entered into a crumbling little village... packed on a few more, then exited onto the bumpy road. It was twilight when we reached the Ogarrio tunnel... an old mining shaft running two and half kilometres through the mountain. We all had to file out then and board a shuttle... everyone struggled with packages and supplies. The tunnel was barely large enough for the bus... it seemed to occupy the space... from ceiling to floor, the sides as well. We hurtled through the darkness some time... no end to the interior... the exit was abrupt... we were ejected into Real de Catorce... twilight thick, rapidly darkening to blackness. The mountains were around us... the town nestled between... we headed for a path and people came... offered us horses, hotel, peyote. I managed to bewilder them with some incompetent Spanish phrases. We broke away in the confusion... headed to the town's main plaza.
OF THE TOWN...
The street was narrow, insanely cobbled, flanked by tents selling confectionary and kitsch religious icons... namely St.Francis... the town's patron saint... set into rings, plate, deep frames with red and green bulbs.
We made it to the plaza... shuffling past horses, jeeps, piles of manure. We took a narrow passage and turned into the San Fransisco hotel. You could really take in the town from our door... from rocking chairs on the walkway... crumbling walls... like a dilapidated sand castle... stretches had just fallen away... others leaned precariously, eroded, angular rocks lay strewn. Everything was set with slates and cement... worn and weathered... or stacked with no cement at all. Not too far away stood the church... with zig zag bell tower, crosses, statues and domes. As night descended, noises echoed about the mountains... music, dogs barking, donkeys crying, roosters. Flashes burst from somewhere... illuminating shapes.
During the night there was a thunder storm. It brought out the colours on the mountains. They cascaded down... from yellow to purple to green. We set out early that morning... having been awakened by the town alarm clock... the church had rung its bells with some fury... at regular intervals from 5 am. We took a stroll around. People were hunging up bunting... setting up stalls... eating tortillas at plastic tables. We stocked up on bread and water... hiked to the north side of town.
We encountered a cemetary along the way. Stones and crosses were densely set... they ascended a slope haphazzardly. They had a little church there... an interior of worn fresco murals... light blue, soft pínk, gold... pillars and curtains... opening onto heaven and hell, the scene of the crucifiction.
Swaythes of white cloth hung before the altar, shiney bunting of red and green swept down from the ceiling dome. There was a guilded frame icon... Our Lady of Guadalupe... beneath steps adorned with red plastic roses in colourful plastic pots. Above her head a disco star... flowing tinsel... fairly lights. Everything twinkled, flickered on and off... moved with flashes and blinks.
ON DATURA STRAMONIUM
Ascending a steep street, crossing over a ruined wall, we arrived at an overlook heavily sodden with trash and horseshit. It was then we spotted the legendary hallucinogen... Datura Stramonium, Devil's weed. Just as the homeopath had told me, the plant preferred conditions of desolation. Now the trumpet like blooms, wide spikey leaves, stem and roots are all capable of producing a condition of delirium. It is the fruit though, encases within the pods... round with long, sharp spines... that are the most potent. Four to five eaten raw should provoke an altered state lasting ten to twelve hours... hallucinations of religious and demonic content... as revealed by the masters Hieronymous Bosch and Edgar Allen Poe. It is a plant closely related to Belladonna, one traditionally used by witches to promote the feat of flying (As cited by Castaneda in Teachings of Don Juan). Another closely related species is Solandra. This one features heavily in Huichol cosmogyny and is referred to by them as 'KIERI' or drunken wind. Strictly speaking, Kieri is not a plant but the spirit of an evil sorceror capable of manifesting in the form of a plant. There are numerous stories of people falling asleep under the Kieri tree, disappearing for days and returning ragged with no memory of theirtravels. It is possible to make pacts with Kieri although these traditionally end with tragedy, insanity and death. Datura Stromonium is no less harsh in its dealings. A small dosage can permanently derrange the mind and overdose results almost certainly in death. Given that, and my own extensive experience with the hideous daemons of alcoholic delirium... I am leaving the plant alone. Curiously though, since spotting the first... many others have become apparent... almost everywhere... through cracks in the ground, sprouting by walls, on the roadside... It is as if something accursed is following me.