In the Easter holidays of his first year at the Royal College, Jasper went to Mexico on holiday with his girlfriend Luciana. He took these photographs, and Luciana took his picture in Mexico City.
We flew to Los Angeles and stayed there a week in a borrowed house, renting an old Plymouth Fury from a company called Ugly Ducklings. I remember the stay as a series of barbecue pool parties with the same group of mostly English residents. It seemed the only way to get around was by car and the city had no centre (in the European sense). I disliked the fact that walking wasn’t a feature of everyday life and was relieved to get on the greyhound coach to the San Diego border. We walked over to stay a night in Tijuana and next day took a 24-hour bus ride to Guadalajara and from there another bus to Mexico City.
In Mexico City we stayed in a wonderful old hotel on the Plaza del Zócalo which had a roof-top terrace for breakfasts overlooking the square (above). It can’t have been expensive because we had so little money. We visited Frida Kahlo’s and Diego Rivera’s studios, and some other modernist buildings, possibly Luis Barragán’s though he was not so well known at that time. A few days later we rented a VW Beetle and as warned were pulled up round the corner and fined for some non-existent rule-breaking which we managed to argue down to $20 from $100. We visited the monumental Teotihuacan Pyramids and then drove south to Taxco where it seemed the only thing you could buy were silver knick-knacks.
It was a beautiful drive from there to Oaxaca with the constantly changing landscape and flora. One minute desert, then up some hills and it was jungle, down rolling green hills and so on. As we drove we read about military road blocks checking for drugs, and round the next corner we came across one: a platoon of about thirty soldiers were arranged on banks either side of the road leaning against rocks with rifles beside them, with their commander in the middle of the road waving a pistol for us to pull over. It was a nervous moment as we’d hidden our small supply of grass behind a film in an old Rolleiflex camera. They turned out the car a bit half-heartedly and we were happy enough to repack it when they’d given up the search. Kids held up dead iguana’s along the roadside and sold hand-painted mescal bottles on little wooden stands.
In Oaxaca we found a hotel with rooms around a beautiful courtyard. There was a rodeo planned for the weekend and many sombrero-wearing cowboys were in town for the competition. We went along and took our seats in the sun. A horseman approached and invited us to join the dignitary who sat on a shaded tower opposite the stands. Luciana had caught his eye and had to answer many questions while I took photos of the rodeo from the vantage point. The main event of the rodeo consisted of a cow being released from the far end of a wooden-sided run and a horse rider overtaking it, leaning down as he did so, grabbing its tail and spinning it round until it fell over. The quicker it was done the more points were awarded. Next day we had a visit from several of the riders to pay their respects. It was a comical scene as Luciana was in bed and I had just got up, wearing a towel to answer the door to the four or five nervous gauchos who wished they were on their horses doing what they did best.
We left Oaxaca and drove on to the Pacific coast choosing a small fishing village called Puerto Ángel, where we rented a small cottage near the beach. There was a café with limited options but plenty of fish and while we were eating a small boy offered to take us fishing. He had a rowing boat with a breeze block anchor and we set out across the bay at dusk. We fished for a couple of hours and it became dark. Slowly the noise of the sea around us got louder. We noticed the boat moving more and the twinkling lights of bigger fishing boats seemed nearer. The breeze block had dropped off the rope and we’d drifted out of the bay into the open sea. We rowed through choppy waves back to the safety of the bay and were much relieved to reach the beach. I gave the boy our bottle of undrinkable mescal to sell, as a reward.
A day or two later a large yacht arrived in the bay and an American couple appeared in the café. They invited us for a drink the next day and our friendly fishing guide rowed us out to the boat. We sat around a table on deck and they offered us drinks: ‘Wadda’d you like, American beer or some uh the local snake juice?’ With which he waved our painted bottle at us proudly. We took the beer and stayed quiet. Next morning we met them in the café, they were about to go to a nearby town to stock up on provisions. A bit later a squad of police arrived and rowed out to the yacht and confiscated the ship’s radio. It turned out the couple had sailed down from California without informing the coast guards and were going to be arrested or face a hefty fine.
Before leaving Mexico we drove over to Veracruz where the cafés and their menus were big and sophisticated after village life.
