By Alexis Okeowo
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, June 28, 2009
You have to really want to go to Chacahua. The island is nestled along Mexico's Costa Chica, a 200-mile-long strip that straddles the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero on the Pacific Ocean; the nearest hub is Puerto Escondido, a developed beach in Oaxaca.
After your flight from Mexico City or Cancun, the easy part of the trip is over. From Puerto Escondido, you need to reach El Zapotalito, a tiny spot on the coast. The land journey can be done by private taxi or, for the braver, by public transportation. From El Zapotalito you can take a boat to Chacahua.
Luckily, I did want to go. I was on the hunt not only for an idyllic beach getaway, but also for a hidden group of people who call themselves Mexicanos negros (black Mexicans). The end of slavery after Mexico's independence from Spain left black Mexicans throughout the country, but today black towns remain only in remote areas. The African part of Mexican history was neglected by the new Mexican leadership, leaving slave descendants to wonder about their origins.
Yet with the rise of tourism to Costa Chica in recent years, modernity has slowly come to the fishing villages that rest on a sultry, stunning stretch of the Pacific coast. In Chacahua, virgin beaches, glittering lagoons and fresh-seafood-only menus have created an alluring destination that is still little known -- much like its inhabitants.
In Puerto Escondido I squeezed into a colectivo (public van) headed for Rio Grande, not far from El Zapotalito. As the hour-long ride went by, the crowded beaches gave way to lush, neon-green grass; the sun seemed to get brighter and hotter, the waters bluer, the people browner with kinkier hair.
In Rio Grande, I made my way to a taxi stand to cram into another shared car that would take me to the boats. As I walked with the driver to his cab, he smiled down at me. "Hermanas. You two could be sisters," he said, pointing back at the taxi stand. There, a black Mexican woman who was staffing the stall watched me with curiosity.
Chacahua is divided in half by a series of lagoons filled with exotic birds. The surroundings make for a gorgeous ride whether you hire a private boat or take a public ferry to the island. The boat can take you straight to town or you can disembark, as I did the first time, on the island's edge.
I then hopped onto a pickup truck, along with other Chacahuans, for a half-hour's ride on rocky sand past scraggly bushes and cactuses into the village. Once we maneuvered around rams and cows that had decided to congregate in the middle of the road, I had finally reached my destination -- three exhilarating hours after leaving Puerto Escondido. My escapade had begun.
"They say a boat full of slaves, with dark skin like me, was headed for South America," Omar Corcuera told me over lunch the next day at Restaurant Punto de Quiebra. The young surfer, with deep-brown skin and a shock of naturally blond-brown hair, was recounting the far-fetched tale of a wrecked ship whose survivors populated the shore; I would hear it more than once.
What historians know is that the black Mexicans on the Pacific coast hail from the African slaves who were brought by the Spanish to work on cattle ranches during the 16th and 17th centuries. (On the Gulf coast, slaves were mainly deployed on sugar plantations.) Overall, the Spanish brought more than 200,000 Africans to Mexico for slave labor. The residents of Chacahua say they do not know much about their history, and different tales have gotten jumbled together over time.
The community of black, white and mestizo Mexicans (those of mixed Spanish and indigenous heritage) on this island numbers about 700 and has been around for some two centuries.
Nevertheless, Omar said, "I feel that I am African and Mexican."
Nearby, Paulina Marcial, scooping up her curly-haired daughter from an impromptu card game, added: "I just think of myself as Mexican. I don't know anyone anywhere else." Patting her Afro, the petite cook then walked off with a wave.
At least 10 sand-floor, door-less restaurants are on the beach, each with multicolored hammocks swinging in the breeze. At Restaurant Punto de Quiebra, fresh seafood meals fetched $5.50 or less, and breakfasts were all under $3, notably a plate of huge enchiladas with shredded cheese, green tomatoes, chili and cilantro for $2.30. A couple of yards down is Restaurant Siete Mares, where the bungalows are the beach's best, with airy, colorful cabanas.
At least seven of the restaurants have bungalows for rent. On my first night at Punto de Quiebra, the feisty housekeeper, Modesta, led me to my room, demanding to know where I was from and marveling over our shared skin color. I tell her that my parents are from West Africa, but that I was born and raised in the United States. Each day after, I would wave to her as I caught her on a hammock, lazily smoking a cigarette.
At Siete Mares I had a tall tumbler of freshly squeezed orange juice with the owner, Luis Carlos Gutierrez, and Rey Ramirez Gopar, the owner of Cabanas Los Almendros, which is near the lagoons. Various people stopped by our table as the day wore on, first American and European tourists, and then a talkative black Mexican teacher named Angel Saguilan, who offered to buy me a beer.
"They call this Little Africa," Angel said, gesturing to the pale sand, illuminated by a pink setting sun. Children in a dazzling rainbow of colors shrieked as they played volleyball nearby.
"I feel Afro-American more than I feel Mexican," Angel went on to say.
He explained that because his dark skin makes him stand out in Mexico, other Mexicans often joke that he is really from Brazil or Cuba. Angel tells me that he knows he is different from non-black Mexicans, but he is just not sure exactly how.
I later walked down the path into the village, passing by Rey's Cabanas Los Almendros. The gruffly amusing Rey could usually be found drinking a beer at one thatch-roofed structure or the other on the beach, but he and his wife, Eva, built Los Almendros out of love for Chacahua, and the devotion is clear in the massive dark-wood, blue-painted bungalows with glassless windows facing the lagoons. Serene artwork decorates the walls of the rooms.
As I continued into town, I came across two men named Juan.
"Prima!" called out Juan Ortiz. I was having a conversation with another Chacahuan named Juan, but as soon as Ortiz saw me across a construction yard, he dropped his wheelbarrow, yelled the Spanish word for "cousin" and rushed over.
Before I could react, the stout fisherman with burnished brown skin had scooped my face in his hands, kissed me on the cheek and was leading me to his boat for a ride on the lagoons. "Everyone is family in Chacahua," he said.
Chacahua Lagoons National Park is one of Mexico's hidden gems. The lagoons allow for not only a breathtaking ride, but also prime bird-watching. The calm, soothing waters are a welcome contrast to the beach's buoyant waves, which attract surfers from Mexico and abroad. At the helm of his speedboat, Ortiz paused at a dock to take a family to the other side of the lagoons, and then told me what he knew about his community's identity.
"We are Mexicans, but black Mexicans," Ortiz said. "We still have traditions of the Africans, in costumes, in dances." He added that relations between black Mexicans and white and mestizo Mexicans are pleasant. Black Mexicans, he said, often advocate intermarriage in the hope their children will better integrate into society. But as for Mexico's politicians, "The government has forgotten about us." The Afro-Mexican communities are some of the poorest and most rural in the country.
As we docked and the family paid him, Juan pulled the father in for a warm handshake. "Now you know my name is Juan Ortiz, not just 'El Moreno' [the Brown-Skinned Man]," he told them with a laugh.
I decided to head back to my favorite hammock with my book, already planning what kind of empanadas I would order from the pink-frocked Morena who wanders on the beach.
Alexis Okeowo is a freelance writer based in Mexico City.
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