Any solution from a bike shop would have been double. I am well pleased. I shall miss the unfailing friendliness of the Veracruz people – and the food. Veracruz University is my sole disappointment. A history department existed in ancient times. History has been replaced by computer sciences.
Veracruz shuts down for luncheon and siesta. Only the cops stay open. The federal police are equivalent to Spain’s Guardia Civil and the most feared of Mexican police forces. Few people voluntarily visit the Federales. The Veracruz HQ is a modern building at an intersection on the fringes of the city. My arrival is a surprise.
Mexican police in Hollywood movies are invariably criminal types, small, swarthy and scruffy. The duty officer is six foot two and blond. His uniform shirt is starched. He wears riding breeches and his boots gleam.
I have with me Hugh Thomas’ history and a road map. Surely a federal policeman would recognise the ancient place names? The Fed stands and spreads the map on the desk. Only then do I fully realise his height – big and a cop, the very essence of authority I feel reduced to the status of a small schoolboy – a curious feeling for a man in his seventies.
The Fed studies the place names on Cortés’ route and points to their equivalent on the modern map. He examines me with interest. ‘You wish to take this route? On a motorcycle? Tell me, when did you last ride a bike?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘A while ago.’
‘How much of a while ago?’
‘Well, I rode a scooter in Havana. That was in the nineties.’
‘Not a scooter. A bike.’
‘Something like thirty or forty years.’
‘Which?’
‘I’m not certain.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘Well, forty … more or less.’
The Fed is satisfied: ‘Forty. And why do you wish to ride this particular route?’
‘When Cortés reached the top of the pass, he looked down on what is now Mexico City. He went on to conquer Mexico. I thought that if I could reach the top, I could go on to reach Tierra del Fuego.’
‘The south of Argentina?’
‘Yes.’
‘All the way on your small motorcycle?’ The Fed studies my passport. ‘Cortés commenced by marching north. Aged seventy-three, is it sensible to commence such a journey by riding in the opposite direction to your destination?’
The Fed traces the route up the pass on the modern map: ‘Much of this is a dirt track. It is probable that I could find fanatic bikers among the transit police to accompany you at a weekend. In all probability you would fall off – many times. Were you to reach the summit, you would see nothing of the capital. The capital is hidden by pollution.’
The Fed traces an alternative route south along the coast. ‘This is a good straight road with little traffic.’
The following day I should turn inland. I will encounter little traffic in the morning. Only later will I be on a trunk road. On the third day I will climb a pass. I will cross the mountains at the same height as the pass that Cortés crossed. I will do so on a good surface and meet with few trucks or cars. Rather than north, I will be travelling south towards my eventual destination.
‘In the evening you will reach Oaxaca, a beautiful city – a city that is not dangerous.’ The Fed folds the road map, hands it to me and shakes my hand: ‘Please, in Oaxaca telephone that you have arrived.’
I thank the Fed for his counsel and speed back into town. This is my final day in Veracruz: one more dish of devilled prawns at the fish market. In the evening I enjoy the company of two Mexican businessmen and a recent Cuban émigré. One of the Mexicans, small, intense and with a habit of leaning into you when he talks, is determined to discuss the Falklands/Malvinas war. How could I defend Britain’s colonial seizure of Argentine territory on the far side of the world?
I ask how he can defend permitting a bunch of particularly unpleasant fascist generals a military success that would have kept them in power for a further ten years. Would that have been preferable for Argentinians?
The Cuban is vague as to the location of the Malvinas. He dreams of being reborn English or German (a citizen of the United States is third by a distance). The Cuban gives as his reason for wishing to live in England or Germany his desire to live where everyone is white-skinned and has blue eyes and blond hair. Imagine his surprise were he to visit London or Hamburg.
The second Mexican prefers discussing food. So do I. I have no desire to be the spokesman for British foreign policy. The Iraq war is universally unpopular here. Oil is believed to be the reason for the war. Britain is denounced as subservient and obedient to the wishes of the United States (in return, the US helps Britain in big brother/little brother fashion – just think of the Falklands).
Enough of politics. I bid my farewells and sip a final coffee at the chess players’ café.
Veracruz, Tuesday 16 May
I have travelled much of my life. A day or two in any one place and I begin to nest, even in a third-rate room in a third-rate hotel. I set photographs of my family on the bedside table, arrange books and papers beside the laptop, buy flowers. Walking the streets, I imagine how my life would be, which part of town would I prefer, what house or apartment building. Un-nesting is a wrench, particularly today. Veracruz has become familiar. I have my routine: fruit salad for breakfast at the restaurant across from the hotel, late luncheon above the fish market, evening beer in the Plaza de Armas, last coffee at the chess club café. Such habits are comforting. I feel safe. Meanwhile Mexicans have competed with my Dallas friends in warnings of the dangers ahead, of precipices and bandits and insane drivers. My own fears and doubts concern my physical capacity.
I make a bed of rolled chinos and long underwear in the base of the rack box to cushion the laptop. Next comes the leather folder of family photographs and waterproof plastic envelope containing bike documents, health insurance certificate and medication prescriptions – heart, cholesterol, blood pressure, water tablets. My green-cord long-sleeved shirt and a short-sleeved jumper go on top. Map, guidebook, small towel, washbag and rain slicker go in the backpack. Further books and clothes fill the satchels. I present the hotel staff with two small wheelie suitcases, tartan flannel pyjama trousers and the bulky Clancy Brothers jumper.
As a departure gift, I treat myself to an early breakfast at the swish air-con café on the Plaza de Armas frequented by the business elite. A tall man enters: early fifties, perfectly groomed and beaming an all-encompassing smile of good will to all men. He is a pleasure to watch as he circles the tables, a soft squeeze of the shoulders for those he knows, a word here, a word there, each
