Statue of Timidity

We get to Patzcuaro, a cool little colonial town with roughly 27 churches per resident, and for the first time in awhile my laziness/impatience pays off. We grab basically the first hotel we find in “Plaza Chica” (the town has two main squares, the Big Square and the Little Square; how original), and the place is very nice. We bummed around that night, hitting places like the House with 11 Patios (very sweet), some cool churches, and a pretty swank restaurant where we were the only patrons. The big event was the next day: a trip out to the island of Janitzio. It’s about a thirty minute boat ride out to the island, where roughly every square millimeter is absolutely COVERED with buildings. It’s kind of crazy how steep the island is, and people decided “Hmm, pretty small island out in the middle of a big lake, steep as hell, hard to build… LET’S LIVE THERE!!!”

Rock on.

The highlight is the Statue of Morelos, a TOTAL rip-off of the Statue of Liberty. It’s on top of the island, with the right hand overhead holding a torch, the left crooked holding some kind of book or tablet. Yeah, REAL original people.

We go in and pay our two bucks (equivalent) to climb up the thing. Walking inside and looking up, my knees already start to shake. It’s made out of concrete and steel and other substantial-looking building materials, but for some reason gave me the impression it was ready to come down like a house of cards. It just seemed inherently unsafe. I don’t think that the architect actually thought it important the structure shouldn’t collapse on top of all the visitors. I think he secretly hated tourists and wanted to take us all out. The inside was basically 4-5 levels of murals with steep, narrow stairs going up to each one. There was BARELY a waist-high guard rail around each circular level, and the stairs were steep, slippery, barely wide enough for two people side by side, and had a hand rail on only one side.

This was a CAKE WALK compared to climbing up the torch though. It consisted of a spiral stair that wasn’t wide enough for ONE WAY traffic, but you had people going up and down. No hand rail of course, just a metal pole running from top to bottom with just enough room for you to take a one-way trip down the Fireman’s Pole of Death; Tarzan would have been afraid of this stairwell. After a ridiculously steep climb, wondering if you were going to die every time someone passed you, you get up to this small round chamber. You climb basically through a big hole in the floor of this room, with barely enough room to stand before you fall through the hole where the stairs start, getting a super wedgie from the Fireman’s Pole of Death on your way down. You have to carefully nudge your way around the forty people (and their unsupervised five year old kids) in a space big enough for two. Oh yeah, and the architect must have thought Napoleon was a giant; I damn near concussed myself on the very solid concrete ceiling. Then you can climb up on a knee-high ledge and stick your head and shoulders out of an opening to catch the view. The view was almost cool enough to make up for the three years of my life I lost from the terror of the experience. Amazingly, no one died while we were there, although I had to change my shorts after the climb back down… Maybe this is why they don’t let you take pictures inside: even in Mexico this would lead to law suits galore.

Until next time,
A Chicago Gringo in Mexico