Alamos #6: The Day of the Dead

November 5– The town of Alamos presents like a demure lady with a lot of talent. The car rumbles on roughly-laid cobblestone lanes between sun-drenched walls, passing a quaint park and enters the plaza. Eerily, there is near silence…no radio, no car backfiring, no fireworks to shatter the utter solace of the scene. The church tower rises in the archways of the colonial portals as the morning sun thaws the ironwork of the gazebo in the zocalo garden. The sky is crisp, cobalt, spotless except for a pale Gibbons moon setting beyond the buttes. There is silence. No one in the square but a few old men on benches sunning their eyelids. The setting epitomizes what the Mexican wistfully defines as tranquillo. And it’s damned weird to find it in a town of 5,000 souls.

We arrive at the home of M.H. not a stone’s throw from the church, down a hill to the east and situated at the forested foot of “El Mirador,” the formidable hill to the east of town that you can ascend by car or trail to capture a dawn photo of the Sierra Madre and the town. The house is typical of the great ones that lay throughout Alamos in ruins until a wily entrepreneur from Pennsylvania began acquiring titles and flipping properties in the forties. His first adobe fixer went for $7000. With extensive renovation, wealthy Americans turned the courtyard haciendas into mansions filled with authentic furniture, art, and plants. Hotel owners did the same, and soon a gaggle of socialites and their tony friends from the north were attending daily soirees and generating social legends that are retold and rewritten today. Many lived part of the year here; others stayed on all year and through the heat of the summer months when the temperature can linger at 105 degrees. Due to its elevation at 5,000 feet, however, Alamos fancies near perfect weather most of the year.

Day of the Dead

I had come to Alamos to attend the events associated with Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, on November 1st and 2nd. The first day is dedicated to children who have passed. From the mirador above the house, you could look east toward Chihuahua and Copper Canyon and below see the Cementario filled with colorful flowers, the food vendors setting up, and the cars arriving. You could see how the river runs through the heart of town to flow east and into the green barrancas of the Sonoran desert. The tall limbs of echo{} cacti rise above the green shrubs and low trees and is used as fencing throughout town. I followed a road toward the Cementario and over a new pedestrian bridge over the river, which was flowing, smelly, but not deep. Upstream a pickup truck grinded its geared trying to negotiate the wide muddy riverbed. A year ago, Hurricane Norbert had caused the river to rise 15 feet and tear out whole neighborhoods of homes, killing an unknown number of people. The government figure is 5 but people here all have friends who are missing family members, maids, workers, and kids. Some of the narrow lanes had become raging rivers that carried cars down to gulches, some filled with families who perished. From the mirador I could see a red-painted new colonia of tiny homes built by the government to house some of the displaced.

Alamos #5: Authentic, Complex, and Indeed, Mexican

As is normal during a trip, there is no time to blog in real time because of the near-constant torrent of experience, meetings, photo opps, and drinking sessions (AKA, fieldwork). Here is an account of Alamos in a nutshell, keeping in mind that I just now arrived back in Phoenix after a 12-hour drive. My impressions are fresh but certainly not seasoned with reflection.

You arrive in Navajoa at 5 in the morning by the Tufesa bus, which is excellent and safe, and then find transportation for the 50 kilometer ride to Alamos. I had a car waiting with friends but there is a bus as well. Outside Navajoa the road climbs toward a ridge of butte-like mountain peaks rimmed with red light of the desert dawn. The sloping land of coastal piedmont is carpeted with green grasses and shrubs of a sub-tropical ecosystem, the cactus mixing with trees I swear I have seen in the Yucatan and Chiapas. It’s a botanist’s wetdream. The road rises more toward the blunt peaks, now aflame with backlight. My informant is Jose Luis, an optometrist from Mexico City who settled in Alamos several years ago and lives in the house of an American family I know there. He describes the history of mining here and how the Canadians have reopened one of the two productive mines in the area, employing new miners who live in Alamos. He tell me how the lush rain forest passing by the van is the most northern such ecosystem on the continent. We pass a ceiba tree — the iconic ‘tree of life’ that is sacred to the Maya living 1,000 miles south. Jose says that you can put your ear to its trunk and hear the sound of a tumba, or drum…which is true.

Reaching the pass you begin a descent into a green valley lying in the shadow of the range of buttes, the closest tower named Cuchubatan, my spelling incorrect. Groups of trekkers visit the protected biosphere here to perform rapelling from the peaks; however, no “first ascents” have been made of the 300-foot granite sentinel that stands below the buttes. I thought to assemble a group of climbers that might do so.

You see the mighty arch of Alamos in the distance straddling the highway in a sea of forest. “That’s the governor’s arch,” Jose says. The story goes that the former mayor of Alamos built the stately portal for a cost of 8 million pesos, an obscene amount given that the town lacks a functioning sewer system and the water only runs a couple hours a day during the summer. “An arch like this should cost one million pesos,” Jose says. “The mayor took the money!” Together we tried to recall the Mexican term referring to the tendency of politicians here to abscond with the treasury during the final days of their terms, but we could not.

…more to come shortly…

Alamos #4: Another Perspective…Is Alamos An Un-Mexican Town?

I had a sit-down with a rather successful cultural afficianado in Phoenix today in preparation for my trip to Alamos this evening. I will call her Jane, as I eschew naming names (or being named) in ad-libbed blogs. Jane was born in Mexico and grew up in DF and then in the States, and spent time all over the world since her father was a diplomat. She is a seasoned tour leader and has a business taking groups on culture tours to DF, Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, among other places in Mexico. She visited Alamos for the first time a few years back because her father hailed from there originally. Anyhow, she was “disappointed” with her visit there because it was the “most un-Mexican Mexican town” she had ever experienced.
“What do you mean by that?”
“It was so thoroughly manicured and clean.”
“Really?”
“There was none of the boisterous Mexican stuff happening at all. I was so disappointed.”
I got the picture, and had seen it before to a degree in San Miguel de Allende, where it’s hard to find that edgy disheveled country we all love, at least until you venture several blocks away from the zocalo. One finds illegally parked vehicles, grime, mummies and the real Mexico in neighboring Guanajuato and makes sure to get back to San Miguel before dark. Jane continued about Alamos…
“The expats in Alamos have wonderful homes and many are haciendas. They have done an extraordinary job with restoration.”
So am I visiting a syrupy remaking of the real Mexico (I’ve always heard there were “Many Mexicos”) or the la cosa real? I hope to find a bit of the real thing, and I suspect with some help from all my new friends there, I will.

ciao for now

Alamos #3: First Impression: A Town of Good Souls (www.chrisengholm.com)

October 28–My first impression of Alamos — and I haven’t even arrived yet — is that it seems to be populated by incredibly nice people. What gives? In the two days after posting this blog I now have four great contacts in a town I’ve never visited. I’m scheduled to meet a pastor, an art afficianado, the curator of a museum, and a local historian. People are usually forthcoming with my requests for interviews and information, but this is uncharacteristic, especially when working across borders. I thank everyone so far who has expressed an interest in helping. I can only wish that every town I visit in the future rolls out a welcome mat like you do.

Alamos #2: What’s a Cofradia, and Who Cares?

October 27: Another bus company came to my attention today, located in downtown Phoenix. It’s called the Tufesa bus line and seems to be much better than the first one I contacted, where the fellow who answered the phone seemed to be the proverbial pot-smoking couch potato son of an aloof family of bus line owners. Tufesa has a Phoenix-to-Navajoa run that takes 12 hours, for $50 each way. The address (in South downtown Phoenix) and phone are: 1614 N 27th Ave / 602 415 9900.

Today I had some wonderful luck connecting with a long-time resident of Alamos, who read this blog yesterday and hooked me up with some locals who might be able to help me with my research. One of my interest areas is “Cofradias,” the religious brotherhoods set up by the Spanish throughout New Spain, and which still exist today in many areas. I have worked on photographing their special altars and documenting their ceremonial practices for the past two years in Guatemala and Chiapas, and am ready to find out what role they have played as far north as Sonora and Arizona. An email from my ’source’ sounds like I might be onto something:

“… I know that during the time of the “Christeros Wars” in Alamos, many of the religous icons and valuable church items were “distributed” to the homes of the prominent families for “safe keeping”. A very few of these items were recovered a few years ago, when the (then) pastor of the Catholic Church in town (La Puresma Concepcion) befrended the congregatio to the point that I believe they would have laid down their lives for him….. He also cleaned out some of the items hidden in back rooms of the church proper, and placed all his findings into two very tiny rooms in an off-street down near the church — where “La Mandarina” (Catholic book store) and meeting rooms are for religous education and choir practice. I was present the day that this priest opened this ” church museum” to the public. I took notes as he narrated his way around the room. It was small, stuffy, dimly lit, but a fabulous collection of Alamos history that I will never forget! Shortly thereafter, the priest was called away by the bishop to another parish, and the museum has never been re-opened. I believe the collection is still there — maybe the friend I mentioned would know…. Or the current pastor of the church, who lives “kitty-corner” from where this little collection is stored…. I remember the priest saying that there were still many items distributed around town that he could not talk those families into letting go of to put back into his little museum. The families felt that they had become “a part of the history and heritage of their family”, and they would not return them to the church.

Needless to say, I have started to canvass the town’s resident’s with email in hot pursuit of the Lost Holy Artifacts of Alamos…like my best trips, this one is sounding like a genre novel.

Today I also learned that Alamos is a tight-knit community of around 5,000 souls with 250 or so expat households. You can live there, another friend tells me, without feeling you need to speak Spanish. I like Mexican towns, but mainly because of their dearth of Americans, so I hope Alamos’ expat population hasn’t overrun its broadly appreciated charm…such as in towns like San Miguel de Allende and Playa del Carmen. My friend also says Alamos is a great place to find a fixer…and i’ve always had a weakness for a fixer in a foreign clime, especially within a long day’s drive of the States. So I’ve added “Meet a Realtor” to my agenda for next week in Alamos.

Ciao for now, C



A family in Chichicastenango, Guatemala at the Cofradia Saint Tomas. The father is the alcalde (leader) of the association and is responsible for the care and safe keeping of the images of the saints on the altar. Do Cofradias exist in Sonora or Alamos? Did they once exist there?