rantastic

The “Hippie” Takeover of Chiapas

by Ekua on September 24, 2011 · 10 comments in rantastic

In my not so raving reviews of a certain foreigner scene I encountered in Chiapas, Mexico, I think it’s important to note that before I set foot in the state, I was already wary about some of the travelers and expats I might encounter there.

The first tip off came on my very first visit to Mexico City in June of 2010. I was sitting at a hostel computer chatting with a fellow hosteler from Switzerland. He was dressed in a manner that would lead people to believe that he figured himself to be a hippie.

That night, I was preparing to leave for Cuba in the wee hours of the following morning. I knew I’d be disconnected in Cuba, so I was making sleeping arrangements for when I returned to Mexico and went straight down to Oaxaca.

The guy from Switzerland kept looking over my shoulder at my computer. “Why are you going to Oaxaca?” he quizzed me.

“Well, I heard Oaxaca is a beautiful city,” I replied, thinking that was a reasonable enough response.

But it didn’t appease him. “Don’t go to Oaxaca! Oaxaca is ugly. Go to Chiapas!”

WTF?

He was unique and extreme in his pushiness, but I wondered what his projected persona combined with his love for Chiapas might say about the scene there.

When I made it to the wonderful and complete opposite of ugly state of Oaxaca, I linked up with an extraordinary writer who was based in Oaxaca city at the time. We met up several times and had great conversations about Oaxaca state and beyond. After I returned from a visit to Mazunte, a beach town on the Oaxaca coast, we found that we had similar views about the hippie expats there in that we were both perplexed by their arrogance. She had recently visited San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas and said that she’d found a similar scene there. I was equally repelled and curious about seeing it for myself.

Flash forward a year. There had been a lot of space between the formation of the previous year’s prejudgements and my actual arrival Chiapas. And then I encountered the El Panchan scene and it all came rushing back. I’d just had a sleepless night in a jungle in Southern Mexico thanks to 12 hours of techno music. I might as well have slept next to a warehouse rave in any concrete jungle in the world.

But despite a severe lack of sleep, I’d had an amazing day of sights — Palenque, Misol-Ha, and Agua Azul. At the end of the day, I was sitting in a restaurant with open walls at Agua Azul to escape the rain and take in the beauty of the stormy day.

I’d finished my torta and moved on to reading a book when a trio of hippie garb-clad 20-something guys from Europe occupied a table between me and a Mexican family. They immediately took out an iPod, hooked it up to some mini loudspeakers and began to play techno music as loud as the volume would go.

I didn’t understand this. Why would you override the soccer game the family who ran the restaurant was watching, the conversations, the peace, the thunder and rain and thundering waterfalls with your techno music? I knew that they sure as hell wouldn’t have the audacity to do that a restaurant or cafe in New York, Paris, San Francisco, Berlin — even the most casual one. Why was it okay to do that there? Because we’re in Chiapas? I asked them to turn it off.

The following day I moved onto San Cristobal de las Casas. I could immediately see why people compared it to Oaxaca. They’re both cities surrounded by mountains with lots of rows of short and colorful colonial buildings. The indigenous populations have a large impact on both cities. Both are associated with popular uprisings.

But the atmosphere in each city is very different. While Oaxaca has its touristy restaurants and shops, the city’s focus seems to lie in promoting all things Oaxaca. In San Cristobal there are certainly aspects of Mayan culture present, but it felt like the bulk of the shops and restaurants were more focused on appealing to “hippie” tourists.

I know some people want that kind of familiarity when they go abroad, but for me, travel is largely about the opposite, especially in a place that has such a strong culture. There are places in the world that naturally have that bohemian feel, but in San Cristobal, it lacked genuineness. It felt put on by monetary desires — a “this what people who come here want, so this is what we’re going to give them” mentality. Although it is dressed up differently, the ideas behind the tourist set up of San Cristobal are not all that different from the ones that create coastal resorts, places the hippie tourists in San Cristobal would likely sneer at.

On my last day in San Cristobal, I stopped by a craft market to buy some Chiapaneco gifts and souvenirs that I wouldn’t be able to find elsewhere in Mexico. This market was full of Mayan women and a few men selling lovely woven handicrafts, amber jewelry, and more. But interspersed were a few non-local hippies, some of them selling trinkets decorated with images of marijuana leaves.

And can you guess who had more customers than almost every other stall at the market? Tourists in their flowy skirts and gauzy shirts and contrived pale dreadlocks flocked to these vendors.

Technically, these salespeople had as much of a right to be there as the indigenous women. They probably went through the same process and payment to set up a stand in the market. But to me, it’s disrespectful, arrogant, and straight up thievery to take away customers from the indigenous women at the market with crocheted weed paraphernalia.

I hope you don’t think I am a hippie hater. I do live in San Francisco after all, a city that played a key role in creating the genre as we know it today. There are people I know here who I respect immensely and if I had to label them, I’d call them hippies. They are people who not only believe bettering the world, but have committed both their work and personal lives to doing so, despite the difficulties and effort it requires.

A key difference between them and the so-called hippies I encountered in San Cristobal is action. Where the hippiedom I respect continues on with a to-do list left over from the 60s and adjusts to the problems and needs of modern times, hippiedom in Chiapas is often just about the look. It’s arrogant and standoffish towards fellow foreigners whose style doesn’t fit in. It romanticizes about the hedonistic aspects of the 1960s counterculture but offers none of the sacrifice that went with those times. It feels entitled to El Panchan and San Cristobal.

Perhaps a key difference in the way Oaxaca and San Cristobal have evolved is that Oaxaca has a mestizo population with weight in the city whereas San Cristobal is largely indigenous and white. A large poor indigenous community that keeps to itself makes San Cristobal ripe for takeover by even those with the best of intentions.

I understand why people love Chiapas. It’s a fascinating part of the country and it’s not a Mexico that you expect. My life has been blessed with abundant opportunities to view beautiful scenery, and I would say that Chiapas holds some of the greatest. The perseverance of the Mayans in Chiapas is enticing and inspiring. I would go back to Chiapas and I’d highly recommend it to others.

So go explore Chiapas. Claim your love for it. Just don’t claim it.

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Oh, the People You’ll Meet in Mazunte

by Ekua on November 3, 2010 · 4 comments in Mexico,rantastic

Mazunte is rife with expats who can most aptly be described as “trustafarians”. People who have escaped from the man, man. During my interactions with these people, I was split between an understanding of their desire to escape the trappings of western ways, amusement at their frivolity, and annoyance with their arrogance.

I spent parts of my afternoons in Mazunte in the closest thing the town had to a square. This courtyard was where all of these hippie expats gathered when they were not on the beach. There, they would make and sell macrame jewelery.

I met one of the expats through the German woman who’d been on my boat tour. The expat was in her early 30s. She’d previously worked as a fashion designer in New York City, but after a period of being unemployed, she began to travel which led to her making Mazunte a home base for awhile. Her red designer glasses, her too polished “I-just-threw-this-hippie-garb-on” attire, and her underlying edginess belied her calm, carefree hippie facade. Part of me thought she was trying too hard. Part of me admired the courage it took for her to move her life to Mazunte.

She introduced me to the rest of the expats in the square, and the one who was the most present was an Austrian guy in his mid-twenties. We were discussing travel and got to the subject of American relations with Cuba which prompted him to erupt into some incomprehensible angry political babble. There may have been some truth in his or the other Mazunte hippies’ self-righteous diatribes, but it was hard to look past their daily activities of taking up space in a fishing village and selling macrame necklaces and bracelets.

And then there was the guy who owned the hotel I was staying at, who as I eventually learned, figured himself to be a revolutionary. On my first night, he came by my room to ask me what I wanted to eat. I hadn’t seen a menu, so I asked what he had available. He responded, “I make you vegetarian food. Fresh pasta with vegetables and shrimp!” I wanted to say that shrimp makes it non-vegetarian, but I just nodded because it sounded like what I wanted to eat.

I went over to the outdoor dining room to wait with the French-Canadian couple and read a book. It was a wonderful evening; the moon was full and luminous and the ocean was glowing.

The Canadians took over the two hammocks by the dining area, and I wanted to go back to my room and use mine and absorb the night while I waited for dinner. I asked the hostel owner what time he thought dinner would be ready. He immediately assumed I wanted my food ASAP. “This is slow food,” he responded with a haughty tone. When I explained that I was flexible about dinner and just wanted to go back to my hammock for a bit, he replied, “Stay here. You need to eat the food immediately after it’s ready.” Thankfully, the food was damn good and and I temporarily overlooked his increasingly grating personality.

The next night, the Canadian couple was preparing to leave on the night bus and I was the only one at dinner. I had my book to read, but the hotel owner obviously felt required to entertain me while he cooked. For a couple hours, he rambled about  revolutions and Mexico as he prepared dinner and I waited.

At one point, he suddenly looked around suspiciously and leaned forward. He pointed towards the ground and emphatically whispered, “I make revolution with this hotel!” I looked at the bushes to see if there was a guerrilla ally or two ready to pop out, or maybe someone from the government who was spying and trying to take him and his revolutionary cabins down.

But no one came out from hiding. Instead, he gave me detailed explanations of such revolutionary activities as refusal to buy products for the hotel that are made by corporations. My gaze wandered beyond him to focus on a bottle of Ciel water, a brand owned by Coca-Cola.

I know everyone needs clean drinking water and major brands aren’t always avoidable. Sure, I agree with supporting local producers and avoiding corporate brands whenever possible. And I fully support the different ways he and his wife tried to make the hotel more eco-friendly (even if it also made the hotel more wallet friendly for them). But still, it was a lot of self-horn tooting without much sacrifice for the cause. Is his lifestyle awesome? Yes. Is his way of life revolutionary? No. I was so excited when my food came out; chewing helped me avoid having to respond to him.

The last night I was in Mazunte, I returned from having dinner in town with some locals I’d met to find that the hostel owner’s family friends were visiting. I was thankful that he’d be fully occupied with family and friends. There was also a new guest at the hotel, another Canadian who had just finished studying abroad for a year. He was traveling around the country before heading home. He was about 22 years old, flamboyant, and had a hearty laugh.

We took a table next to the two families and chatted away over cervezas. He had amusing stories about his time abroad and was refreshing to talk to. I would later bump into him again in Oaxaca. He would join my group for dinner and confide in me that he too had to endure the hotel owner’s ridiculous revolution speeches once he became the only guest at the hotel.

Like the people I’d met in the square, he and his wife were not originally from Mazunte. The expats I met there clearly all had good intentions, but seemed to have integrated into the isolated world of Mazunte Expat Hippieland, a place that’s hard for reality to permeate.

Mazunte is definitely a place I’d recommend to other travelers; it’s fantastic for relaxation and wildlife observation, season permitting. Just be wary about engaging in conversation with that pajama pant-clad macrame maker you might encounter as you head towards the beach or into town.

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An Existential Crisis in Las Vegas

by Ekua on June 3, 2010 · 8 comments in Nevada,rantastic

The first night in Vegas was tolerable enough. We’d had dinner at a fairly reasonably priced Mexican restaurant in the Venetian. Sure, I was thrown off by fake sunny skies indoors at night, but the food wasn’t all that bad and it was washed down nicely with the pitchers of margaritas we’d ordered.

We went to Tao nightclub which I didn’t find to be all that different from some clubs in Downtown San Francisco—if you multiplied the size by ten, let it get really crowded, and allowed smoking inside. We chatted with fellow clubbers who were pleasant and down-to-earth.

But the next afternoon brought on an experience I didn’t know repulsed me—the Vegas pool club party. Upon arrival at Liquid, in a security process that rivaled an airport, we were made to get rid of any outside food or drink. This was no picnic at the beach. Once inside, I had trouble believing that what I saw was really going on.

::Bringing a bit of Jersey Shore to Las Vegas::

Six inch heels at the pool. Jersey Shore-esque hyper-gelled hairdos. Bleached blond weaves and orange tans. Female chests puffed up with silicone and male chests that appeared to be puffed up with the aid of steroids. All dancing in or beside the pool clutching $15 cocktails and $9 Bud Lights. Hit songs pumping through the ample speaker system and vibrating the ground.

Though it was 90-something degrees, there were very few shaded areas. This obviously allows for maximum orange-ization. There were some umbrella covered beds and we spotted an empty one. We asked a guy working there if it was reserved. Annoyed at our naivety, he responded, “If you want to reserve this, you have to pay 1,500 dollars for it.” He sauntered off before giving us a chance to respond.

We found a spot wedged between the beds of two groups of people who were willing to pay that absurd amount. I took out a book and started to read (sooo not cool), but my book couldn’t distract me from the ridiculousness around me. And I wasn’t interested in laying out to get a tan—I obviously don’t need one. So as the group I was with settled into the scene, I slipped away.

A mosquito had bitten me square on the forehead, but that wasn’t the only thing that made me scratch my head. Questions swarmed my brain. A couple examples: Am I crazy for not enjoying this when so many seem to love this? Do I need to move to Europe?

::A themed slot machine::

::Street performer on The Strip::

I wandered through the casinos and onto the strip to see more of Vegas. What I saw was a desperation and depression that was not covered with a thick coat of saccharin like the pool party scene was. Empty stares and repeated button pressing at slot machines. Visitors who undoubtedly think that’s the real effing Eiffel Tower. Dirty sidewalks and poverty-stricken people panhandling or trying to sell whatever they could to make a few bucks in oppressive heat. Tourists stopping to buy a bottle of water from an unlicensed vendor here and there, but seeming to want to hold on to their funds so they can give them away to the Strip’s 6.12 billion dollar gambling industry.

Some places I’ve visited have made me sad, but none as much as the city of Las Vegas. Long drives through Cambodia introduced me to the despair of the fourth world, but I’d encountered many citizens who were charming and funny and anxious to leave a terror-filled past behind as they moved forward. In Bolivia, I’d seen destitute villages in some of the coldest barren deserts, but I’d been impressed with the colorful traditions and tenacity of the people there. Amongst and in spite of sadness, many places offer hope, character, and substance to latch on to.

No matter how obscure it is, I can come up something valuable in about just about anywhere I’ve been. But there on The Strip, I had an inability to find a silver lining in people’s striving for vacant experiences when they have so many opportunities for meaningful ones.

Don’t get me wrong, I love having a chance to let loose, but I am disturbed by the illusion that goes along with the coveted 21-35ish Vegas experience and the city in general. I’d love to say that I’ll never go back to Vegas, but you never know what will come up. I can say that if I do go back, I would be all up on the nature scene I know is nearby, I would check out the food scene I’ve heard so much, and I would explore the artsy scene that I got a glimpse of after my escape from the pool club. More on that in the next post. To be continued…

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