The processions appear at random... crossing the street at a distance... turning a corner... passing by and heading away. The trumpets blare out something pompous... drums rattle... fireworks burst in the sky. There's always a troop of children dragging behind... jabbing the air with stalks of maize... holding aloft a banner or basket of flowers... a papier mache giant at the centre of it all... bobbing and twisting and rocking... grotesque and bright and smiling. They appear without warning... at the zocalo, the supermarket, outside our window at night... always fleeting... the music, the giants, the maize.
OCOTLAN MARKET
The earth was especially orange, the grasses too... all dried up under the winter sun. The city outskirts were dense lots of shanty shacks... precarious structures of wood and concrete and corrugated metal... all tightly spaced...graveyard sarcophygi. The city gave way and low barren hills swept in... broken here and there by turn offs... signs... the road continued 32km south to Ocotlan.
The principle attraction was the famous friday market... prehispanic in origin, the occassion is as established as it is extensive... indoors and out... a sprawling and haphazzard canvas of plastic and cloth...supported by rickety poles... a web of coloured sheets stretching about the plaza and streets... a labyrinth of activity, noise, odours. We made it past an open air display of sombreros... melted into the general mileu... drifted down avenues. On a balcony overlooking the zocalo, a brassband played out a shambolic rehearsal... sounded out trumpets amid chaotic and crashing cymbals. The stalls touted a variety of wares... flowers, fresh vegetables, sliced and dripping fruit... a table with measuring scales... great sacks of herbs before and behind... women seated amid a mountain of garlic... smoke from somewhere nearby... between and around it all... a current of people... a sea of straw hats... women in checkered pinnies, tied plats, thick shawls over the head... bundles on top... they moved through the crowd with live turkeys under their arms. We worked the maze from produce to products, turning here and there... occassionally emerging out... a man tossed animal hides from a barrow into a truck... a great black bull stood tied on the back of a pick up. The scenes would come and go... products... pottery, rugs, sculptured beasts...