Fires beneath Teotihuacan
No one knows to this day why Teotihuacan fell. However, even the brightest flame eventually burns out. And perhaps it is the fate of great things to end suddenly.
A man returns to where it felt good.
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“If anyone gets dizzy, please yell. It will burn a little. If you can’t breathe, put your head between your knees to create a kind of pocket. But try to hold on as long as possible. When you think you can’t take it anymore, hold on a little longer.”
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Life unfolds in spirals. Many times we find ourselves in spots we’ve been before. Only this time, we’re different. Suddenly, we see these places from a different perspective, as if from the other side. And we choke up. Usually, we also get emotional. Or we ask ourselves if we’ve lost our minds.
The fires are burning
Fires beneath Teotihuacan
They tell stories
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It felt like getting ready for a funeral. Nervousness, sadness, grief. And a little bit of excitement about the unknown. It was dark all around, and I didn’t feel like talking.
We passed the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The one that hides the cloth on which the Virgin Mary once appeared to a poor peasant in this place, and thus Christianity began under Popocatépetl. Over hundreds of years, the cloth has not faded, it survived a fire, and even the most qualified scientists from around the world have been unable to figure out what it is made of. Today, millions of faithful from all over Mexico make the pilgrimage there every year to pray for their lives.
I mentioned that I had actually never been there. Sara was surprised.
At least now, for the last time, I said, trying not to worry about it as the round building disappeared from view. Everything is always the last time. Nothing repeats .
Actually, it was a bit like a funeral. I had about 72 hours left in Mexico before I had to say goodbye. After many years. It was the most precious gift and curse for me.
Darkness was falling, and we went to pay our respects to the place where it all began. Teotihuacan, or what remains of what was once the largest human settlement on this side of the planet – long before the Mexicas, whom we now call the Aztecs, arrived, and before the Spanish took everything from them, and before Mexico was founded with the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe as its modern patron saint.
The pyramids there still guard the secrets of what happened long ago along the Road of the Dead in the desert between the mountains.
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The first participant gave up before the ritual had even begun. She started to choke on the heavy air, panicked, and shouted the password: “Puerta!”
Door! That was the agreed signal to remove the curtain from the entrance to the temazcal.
“Hang in there a little longer,” begged the shaman, but he was only begging himself. The older woman paid no attention, she was already outside, and her husband, like a true gentleman, followed her.
At least I was able to be a little more comfortable, because until then, about twenty people had been packed into the dark igloo-shaped hut.
+++
It was Friday evening. Normally, at this time I would have been in a bar or a someone’s bed. But I was in a car on my way through the backstreets of Ciudad de México, which are so remote that they seem gloomy and lonely. Or maybe it was me who suddenly felt gloomy and lonely.
I was thinking about all the things I would miss. And I couldn’t help but remember all those moments.
Yes, it was.
It was
like
going to an execution.
Sara and her friend were chatting away. Her friend wanted to know what the difference was between life in Mexico and in the Czech Republic. I tried not to dive too deep into it. We could have talked about it for hours.
I wanted to delve into my thoughts and remember everything I had experienced here.
How is it possible that it went by so quickly? It must have been yesterday when I first arrived here. At that time, I never dreamed that I would ever come back. And then again. And then, when I was here for the third time, it was Día de Muertos, and I began exploring on my own for the first time.
I still recall vividly how I took the subway from the airport and went to the Valle Gómez station, not far from the Tlatelolco housing estate. Today, I can’t understand what led me there at the time. But I didn’t even know where else it should have led me. So I followed the basic human instinct of today: to find the cheapest place to sleep.
When I checked in and went to look around, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a cheap clothing store with an entrance sheet bearing a large sign reading Gambrinus and featuring the bearded man from our Czech advertisement for beer from Plzeň. To this day, I haven’t solved the mystery of how and why this thing ended up there.
But I’m sure I didn’t dream it.
+++
In the temazcal, we all introduce ourselves, as it is a collective experience. We are strangers with different stories, but the fact that we have all come HERE in search of answers unites us. Moreover, in the temazcal, which the Aztecs considered to be a phone booth to other worlds, the connection between everything around us is even more palpable.
One woman said that her son had been murdered and she needed to say goodbye to him. Another said that her niece had been kidnapped and she would like to know if she was still alive. Another had been diagnosed with cancer.
Then it was my turn. They were already looking at me a little strangely—what was this white guy doing there? Now I started speaking Mexican and said, “It’s been eight years since Mexico became my second home. I love it more than anything. But now it’s time to say goodbye. I have to return to my homeland. And so I would like to end this journey with a ritual in the temazcal. To close the cycle.”
I received applause of appreciation. For some, I became even more interesting because I knew Spanish and hadn’t come just to gawk.
“Are you the one who rides a bike?” one woman ventured.
I hesitated. “A bike? Yeah, I can ride a bike.”
“On that tall bike? I follow you on Instagram.”
“Oh, that’s Josef Zimovčák,” I dampened her enthusiasm, explaining that I was not the 70-year-old Czech record holder in velocipede riding.
+++
“In the Czech Republic I mostly feel like life is happening somewhere else. We’re always rushing around after something, so we don’t even have time to enjoy ourselves,” I began to explain to Sára’s friend what the difference was.
“It’s always about work and money. Nothing else. Responsibilities, worries, career... You’d think we were a rich country like elsewhere in Europe. But we’re mainly a worn-out country. I want to live life, not just survive it. And that’s what I’ve found here in Mexico. Life here is somehow more full, wild, passionate, even if it sucks. We’re a little better off at home, but we’re just slaving away and that’s it.”
+++
The drum resounded through the temazcal and the shaman summoned the Aztec gods.
Tezcatlipoca.
Mictlantecuhtli.
Huitzilopochtli.
And so on.
I already knew them almost by heart. And one was freshly tattooed on my shoulder. Colibrí Zurdo is supposed to represent the god of war and also willpower, the art of achieving the unthinkable and going against the established order.
Like the fact that I’m now sitting somewhere in the desert in Mexico, speaking Spanish to the descendants of the indigenous people, telling them how I ended up here, within sight of the pyramids of ancient Teotihuacan.
And so, while the shaman recited his prayers, I sweated as usual, closed in on myself, pondering life. I remembered everything that had happened since I first arrived alone at the Basilica of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe with that holy cloth, which I had no idea about at the time, near the store with the Gambrinus advertisement, and how far I had come over the years. Now I’m going home.
Well, home?
+++
“Stop! You can’t be serious!” I shouted.
There was no need to stop, because we were already stuck in traffic.
“What’s up?” Sara turned to me and, along with her friend in the passenger seat, looked questioningly at me.
I stared out the window, holding my breath.
“Over there!” I pointed. “See that store and the sign above it?”
“Yeah. So?”
“That’s Gambrinus – Czech beer,” I exclaimed.
“Oh, that’s cool. How did it get here?”
“You don’t understand! When I first came to Mexico, it was right here. I lived around here and used to walk past this place. And then I could never find it again!”
“That magical night,” Sara whispered without a hint of surprise, “is powerful.”
– Life spins in spirals –
We had already left the last remnants of sprawling Ciudad de México behind us. My anxiety was growing.
When we got within sight of Teotihuacán, Sara waved her hand toward the driver’s left window: “The pyramids must be somewhere over there. I can already feel the energy.” Her friend nodded.
I tried to feel something too, but all I felt was nausea after yesterday’s unexpected party, which started in Tlachiquero and ended in Tokyo. But that’s another story.
Meanwhile, we continued to bump along in the dark desert landscape. These are exactly the places you’re told to avoid. Especially at night. But I’m on my way!
+++
The shaman who began the ritual left after about an hour and was replaced by another.
“I am here to tell you that anything is possible. There is no need to be bound by past lives. We all have them in our hands,” he said.
Sighs and occasional moans echoed through the dark temazcal. I covered myself with a scarf and tried to isolate myself from my surroundings.
“I led a very bad life,” the shaman continued, “I was close to death, I hung out with bad people. I lost an eye, and it’s a miracle that I’m here with you. But that’s the point of it. The power that is inside each of us. The power to change things.”
+++
We had finally arrived. We were supposed to recognize the building by its spray-painted metal gate. That alone probably would not bode well.
But the one we found was spray-painted with some kind of astral scene, not street gangs mottos, so we knew we were in the right place. The gate to other worlds.
A blond young man came to open the gate for us.
He was the shaman who would lead the first part of the ritual. The other one was heating stones in front of the low domed temazcal building, which would soon make the room unbearably hot.
Outside, it was starting to get really chilly. I understood why they had urged us to bring duvets and tents. I had none of that. I’m from the Sumava Mountains, the real cold!
Gradually, other groups of people arrived. We timidly began to cooperate together as we went to change and then gathered in front of the temazcal.
As always, we first had to undergo a ritual cleansing, which consisted of being smoked with a bouquet of burning sage. Then we had to enter on our knees into the hut, which the Aztecs considered a channel of communication with the universe.
Ometeo!
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The ritual was over, but I remained in the temazcal. I couldn’t get enough of the heat. Only the shaman was there, and we talked. Only now did I notice the empty expression in his left eye, which was looking who knows where. His face was scarred. We talked about willpower, about fate, about the ability to change things and the ability to let them flow.
Until the temazcal cooled down.
I bowed and went to take a shower.
The others were already gathering outside.
One woman came up to me with a box of matches. Would I take care of lighting the fire? I don’t know why she came to me.
“Now show us what you’ve got, mountain man,” Sara joked.
“One match,” I assured her. I’m from Šumava, after all!
Everyone was already sitting around the fire, and I was determined to succeed as I had promised. One of the Mexicans insisted on throwing a plastic tray into the fire. He said that was the only way it would catch. Even so, the job was done, and soon stable flames were blazing.
We all wrapped ourselves in blankets. The woman who handed me the matches started talking about passing various afflictions from generation to generation. I knew that these issues were to be discussed that night, but I wasn’t interested in them, so I didn’t pay much attention. All I wanted was to be close to Teotihuacan, to perform a cleansing ritual here in this blessed place under the full moon, and thus symbolically end my journey.
The participants were now supposed to confess their family troubles, and I knew that this was not for me, so I let myself be lulled by fatigue, wrapped myself in a blanket, and dozed by the fire.
The cold was starting to get really unpleasant. I was wrapped up in a blanket, which stopped me from moving. I knew that one wrong move would mean the chill would creep in. So I chose to ignore the pain that was shooting through my left shoulder, on which I was lying.
In my half-sleep, I heard people’s stories about violence and injustice from their loved ones, about the difficulties in their lives, and then the solutions given to them by the two women who were guiding this event. The next thing I noticed was card reading. I was already fast asleep, but from time to time I still caught something.
I never really understood the principle behind it all, how someone could predict what awaited someone on the other side by drawing a card from a distance. So I kept quiet.
But as I fell asleep, more and more questions from the participants crept into my mind, along with the more or less clear answers from the two women. An unpleasant, almost suffocating doubt began to awaken in me: Should I also ask one?
I tried to push it out of my mind and continue pretending to be asleep. I even convinced myself of this. Also, I remembered what Sara had told me earlier: Cards should not be read after midnight. You will learn things you don’t want to hear.
But I also thought that if I was ever going to ask about IT, it had to be now. And never again. And that weighed on me more and more.
“Vac!” one of the women called out to me, as if sensing my dilemma. I lifted my head from my bed. “Don’t you want to ask something too?”
The others fell silent for a moment. I had about a second to make up my mind. I didn’t even have time to wonder how she had seen through me like that. And maybe I took it as a sign that I should.
“All right,” I said, “I’d like to ask if I’ll stay living in my country for ever.”
It came out of me as if it wasn’t even me who said it. Then I waited anxiously as the tinkling sound of the cards turning reached me, as if they were metal plates clanging together.
“Yes,” said the woman, as coldly as if she didn’t realize what was at stake here. “But you won’t be happy there.”
I regretted asking. My throat tightened. I probably already suspected then that this decision might not be the happiest one. And now I was sure of it.
I thanked her, wrapped myself up again, and returned to my hiding place under the blanket. But I couldn’t fall asleep. From that moment on, I thought about how I would have to return to my old life, driven by the inertia between buying and selling. That after all these years of adventure, I would once again be a wheel in the machine of our consumer society.
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The darkness began to fade. The fires beneath Teotihuacan were dying out. But this morning brought no resolution. Rather, it brought another confusion. The closer the new day came, the more its weight pressed down on me. In just a few hours, I would wake up from this dream when I got off at the airport, and all of this would be gone. The burning moments would turn into memories. Here, it would continue, but without me.
“Does anyone else have any questions?”
Finally, there was silence. I was fed up with people asking questions like, “Should I sell my car below market value, or should I wait?” and so on.
“That’s it for today.”
Dawn was breaking. The fire was barely burning, and the light blue sky in the east was turning gold. It was really cold.
A strange roaring sound had been coming from afar for some time. It had been with us for so long that I had learned to ignore it. And then Sara said, “It must be flying balloons, globos!”
How did I not think of that? Hundreds, maybe thousands of people came to Teotihuacan every day, paying for a hot air balloon ride to see the great Teotihuacan, the majestic ruins of a fallen city, from above at dawn.
To this day, no one has figured out what caused its doom. Everything seemed perfect. And then suddenly, it was over. All that remained was the pyramid of the Sun and Moon, two inseparable brothers along the Road of the Dead, perfectly positioned relative to the Sun and Moon, watching day after day as they traveled across the sky, like a journey from the world of the living to the underworld. It was believed that every day was reborn, and therefore every day was a new beginning.
“Over there!” someone pointed, and the rest of us turned and saw a colorful balloon with a basket and people inside it emerge from the fog above the horizon. And behind it, another and another. They flew high, yet close enough that we could see the faces of the people waving at us from the ground. What did they think we were? Some bunch of loonies wrapped in blankets camping in the middle of the desert? But they smiled friendly and called out to us, and we called back.
Shy rays began to warm the landscape. It was turning into a beautiful day, the sun was about to peek out, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, cacti surrounded us, and suddenly a tear fell from one of my eyes, then another, and another, and I couldn’t stop it. Sara didn’t even have to look at me to sense what was happening. She took my head and pressed it against her shoulder, and I didn’t resist. One’s personal end of the world.
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By the extinguished fire, two women were performing a ritual cleansing of those participants who were interested. They rubbed people’s bodies with eggs and whispered prayers, because in these parts it is believed that such a raw egg will absorb all the ailments of the person concerned.
When I too came to the circle around the fire – now I had nothing to lose – one of them looked me over. “Doesn’t this shoulder hurt?” she pointed to my left arm, and I realized the burning pain that had accompanied me all night until now. “Actually, yes,” I agreed, rubbing my shoulder with my other hand. Then I don’t remember much else.
When we got home, I started packing my things. Suddenly, I noticed a red stain on my jeans pocket. I couldn’t figure out where it came from. And then I saw my bleeding wrist. The lettering “Vagabond,” which I had tattooed when I took my first trip to Mexico years ago, had a two-centimeter wound running through it, and blood was flowing from it. I don’t remember what I cut myself on or when.
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Two days later, I was sitting on a plane to Madrid. It was still freezing in Šumava, but spring was already making its presence felt and everything seemed to be as usual.
I just couldn’t forget what the cards had told me that night in the desert by the pyramids. And I still had a scab on my wrist from that blow.
Someone explained to me that cards respond to a person according to their current state of mind. In fact, they tend to tell us aloud what we already suspect. They reveal what we carry inside us and may be afraid to say out loud.
Which is good news. Because it means that some stupid cards don’t decide what you do and how you will do. Everyone has the power to change things just as they feel. And so I too have chosen my new path. And it leads back to old Great Tenochtitlán, there under Popocatépetl and by the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
