Camecuaro

It’s our third day in Mexico and we haven’t stopped for longer than it takes to polish off a plate of tacos. I’m excited to be here, in my wife’s country, visiting her family. But I’m out of sorts, tired after dozens of hours travelling by plane and bus and car. I state my case for the putting up of feet – it feels like the earth is shifting beneath them. I need to catch up with myself. And yet here I am, being coaxed into another car ride.

It’s just a short trip from Zamora to Camecuaro, I’m told. Nothing like the eight-hour drive we made from Mexico City the day before, or the twelve-hour flight from Barcelona the day before that. And I am assured by both Judith and my mother-in-law, Irma, that this place could be just what I need.

I’m not convinced, I think what I need is a good lie down. But in my weakened state I’m defenceless against the combined might of the mother and daughter tag-team. I soon yield.

I find Camecuaro to be a small lake of clear waters, encircled by outlandishly shaped trees. Judith tells me these are ahuehuetes, and that their name means ‘old man of the water’ in the indigenous Náhuatl language. And truly, there’s something ancient, even primitive, about them. Their trunks are stout and covered in thick, wrinkled bark, reminiscent of elephant hide. The roots wind around the foot of each tree in a labyrinthine mass, like a nest of serpents fossilized mid-writhe.

Judith and Irma were right. This is a special place. We walk to the lake’s edge, where the roots snake down into the water. A Muscovy duck regards our approach.

Nestled on tangled roots

of old friend ahuehuete  –

crimson-wattled bird.

‘Let’s get in a boat!’ says Judith. Small, wooden and brightly painted – chili-red, turquoise, canary-yellow – they seem to have come out of a children’s picture book. They are barely bobbing in the lake’s docile waters. Each has a lady’s name written on the side: Lupita, Irene, Silvia, Sandra... We plump for Gloria.

Ensconced in our cosy vessel we begin rowing around the lake. It’s a weekday afternoon so we have the place to ourselves. The sun is an electric blanket, the breeze a gentle song, and sleepiness steals over us.

Oars left idle;

limbs stretching, eyelids kiss,

drifting into stillness.

After a while we feel hungry, so we row back to shore and make our way to a café overlooking the lake. We order a plate of fruta con chile: pieces of orange, cucumber, potato and jicama, covered in lime juice and ground chile piquin. This is all washed down with a bottle of Modelo Especial, chilled and served with fresh lemon juice and sea salt laced around the rim.

The ingredients are few and the dishes simply prepared, yet a cavalcade of flavours make merry on my tongue:  sweet, spicy, fiery, briny, bitter, zesty… It’s all too much!

An impromptu snack;

I am grateful for this taste –

a country’s essence.

After we return to the house I read more about ahuehuetes, which have now taken root in my brain. I learn that they have their origin in the Mesozoic period, when giant reptiles stalked or slithered across the land, and that some specimens grow to be thousands of years old. I discover that they were sacred to the indigenous peoples of Mexico – used by the Aztecs as a symbol of government – and that another name for them is the Moctezuma cypress.

And I read of the legend that conquistador, Hernán Cortés, wept beside an ahuehuete after the Spanish were routed by the Aztecs on La Noche Triste.

Beneath your branches

Cortés grieved defeat.

Our time with you was sweeter.

My roots have not had millennia to dig into this land and drink from its water, yet some ahuehuete strength and calm has passed to me today. For the first time since arriving in Mexico I feel the earth firm and friendly beneath my feet.

Primeval cypress!

Proud empires peak and plummet,

and still you stand.