Rainy Season

Rainy season is here in Tepoztlan...it only takes about a week for the landscape to turn from dusty brown to verdant green...the weather cools...the fiestas continue, unabated, unstoppable,

undampable...the real religion that's going on here. All the buildings downtown have been 

painted fresh by the municipality...in a short  list of rusts, yellows and oranges to give the

downtown (centro) more of a feeling of order or regularity befitting the national designation

of "Pueblo Magico"....the real magic is that the village hasn't changed much in the last 20 years.

There are more people and too many taxis....but no golf course, and if you really want to shop

for something other than the knock-off Mexican trinkets made in China, you have to go to Cuernavaca, where the Home Depot feels and looks just like the one in Fort Collins, USA, 

and where the Mall has designer jeans and whatnot, at prices twice what they are in the States.

Nothing succeeds like failure if you want to maintain a laid back lifestyle, and the people that run the town, the Tepoztecos, make sure that no gringos flourish with their little plans

to have an Irish pub here,  a five star posada there...even if you have a deed to your land, the locals own the land as community property and they can drive you out whenever they want...

they've done it before....which seems fine to me... great that not everyone is duped by the idea

of "progress". The only progress I can see in history was when Buddha taught and showed

the path of liberation from suffering to humanity 2.5 millennia ago....down hill since then,

although there have been a lot of good jokes along the way.

So, I feel very lucky that the choices here are limited and that you either dig the environment

or go somewhere else for greater industrial kicks. You can get anything you want in Mexico City...because it's like any great city....but Tepoztlan is like Woodstock, New York, before the

musicians arrived in the late sixties...or Boulder, Colorado,  before Aspen spilled over. The

teenagers love it because they can wander the mountains and pick magic mushrooms and

camp out for days. In a month or two there will be waterfalls in the mountains. There are

a few narcos with residences here...garish fortified castle compounds in the valley...but

they are low key here...even they need a rest from the work of killing.

Next door is a sheet metal fabrication shop....they also have turkeys, chickens, sheep and

goats. I haven't heard the peacocks lately. The whole crew of them get busy noise making

when the sun is coming up or down....primitive animal inklings of religion? Horses and cows wander the highways, but it's not as if they're lost or got out of their pastures...the boundaries

aren't that solid here...just don't hit one with your car, or you'll meet the owner quick

enough. The only animals on this side of the fence are squirrels and birds and the occasional

cat looking for a good time. 

Rain until October or so...then it quickly tapers off.  That's the best time to be here, when it's still lush and the skies are blue and the temperature is perfect....it really is the best time,

although it's hard to qualify paradise.