24 November 2008
Off to Tequila country to film a charreria – a popular type of cowboy contest followed by a distillery. Except the state office in Guadalajara turned out to be quite unprepared for our arrival. The Mexican tourist board in London had informed them several weeks earlier that we needed to shoot some horseplay, either an actual event or something staged on a farm. It was Monday and Al couldn’t reach them until we were already on the road. Not that he knew who to speak to as no one wanted to carry the can. By the time we had a contact we had arrived in the second largest city in Mexico, one that makes London look like Trumpton. He knew nothing about us, had done nothing, so there was no shoot and nowhere to stay. It was the Muppet show. We were in the suburbs, passing some towering mustard monolith of modern art by the time he found us a hotel. Instead of informing us by phone, he instructed us to meet in the central plaza by the Cathedral. This sounds more promising, I thought - perhaps he has found us somewhere old and colonial so we can do something on the history of Guadalajara instead. Forty-five minutes later and another fifteen to find him and all he did was shake our hand, smile sheepishly and tell us that our hotel was out by the exhibition centre on the edge of town. How do we find it?” Al asked.
“Oh easy,” he replied. “It’s by the big yellow monument.” Thanks Kermit.
Because the day was a write off, it was important our Milagro Tequila feature went well. Luckily it was organised through the distillery. Our host Daniel was one of those success stories you read about from time to time. The kind of guy who’s driven but modest, down to earth but ridiculously wealthy, and at barely thirty he made me feel old. “How did you start the business?” I asked. “Well my partner and I were at college together and we really liked Tequila…so we thought we’d try and make the world’s best.” Ok, so maybe I lied about the modest bit.
As we filmed the Agaves being gathered in the field there was a shout to Al’s left and a large snake fell writhing at our feet. Fortunately it had no head, as one of the workers had just decapitated it in the line of duty.
Did you know that Agave is not a cactus? It’s actually a type of lily. You harvest the whole plant, chop off the leaves and steam its acidic, white heart for thirty-six hours until the starch, which is over 90%, turns to sugar. After we filmed the distillation process, a lunch was laid on with all the trappings. This preceded a tasting, more margaritas and dinner, and the less said about all that the better.
Next morning we drove to the Costa Alegre to shoot a short series of scenes for the Pacific Coast episode. It was to be a journey into paradise and unbeknownst to me at the time, would take me from Mick Jagger’s holiday hide-away, to Michelle Pfeiffer’s bed.
Alfonso, our new driver was a phlegmatic, but switched-on Mexican who knew everyone and seemed to be able to arrange anything from a burrito to a spaceship in minutes.
We drove all morning through Jalisco state and down towards the sea. The high plains broke up and fell away, the dusty brown horizon turned hazy and green. The transformation was gradual until dozing off I awoke in the tropics. A thick, damp wall of heat hit us as we got out. The owner of the beachside restaurant nodded respectfully as the Fonz tipped him a wink and ushered us in. The balcony was on stilts, it looked out across the great blue horizon. After a mountain of food and the disarming spectacle of someone’s dozy lab attempting to bury itself in the sand, we embarked on the final leg of our journey.
El Tamarindo beach resort appears modest when you see the placard. There’s a gate, the name and a cobbled drive. That’s the first clue. It’s long - twenty minutes gets you no further than some encouraging signs, like, left “clubhouse and spa”, right, “seventh hole and reception”. And it’s all through dense jungle.
“There can’t possibly be a golf course in amongst this,” I thought. Then a tantalising flash of green through dark, tangled vines. By the time we arrived, I was in a state of some excitement. This has to be even posher than originally anticipated. Men in white blazers sashayed out and heaved our luggage into golf carts as we checked in, beneath the cover of an enormous grass hut. There were margaritas waiting. Things were looking up.
“And this is your casita sir”, said Alex, the sales manager and our shadow for the next twenty-four hours. It was the one nearest the restaurant, and as I later discovered, favoured by Miss Pfeiffer. Imagine a thatched hut, with glass walls, your own private pool and Jacuzzi, complete with waterfall, a wet room and a font, festooned with top New York beauty products. The bed was enormous and gazed down through palm trees and an immaculately sprinkled lawn to an empty white beach. The walls were on rollers so they could slide back, leaving you and your 50inch plasma screen completely exposed to the elements. It was perfect; nothing was missing, except Michelle of course. Alas.
Our one night stay was not sufficient to do anything but work. There is something enormously frustrating about being given a jet ski, for the first time, just to do a piece to camera, and then having to hand it straight back. Dinner was on film, cooked by Alberto the chef in one of the private residences attached to the hotel. It had views across the bay and a giant flaming chalice in the middle of the pool. There was even a recording studio in the corner of the living room, enabling regulars like Mick to strum a tune or two while staring across the palm-peppered beach at Keith getting out of his tree.
Over the post-dinner scene dinner – sometimes one is not enough – Al and I were plagued by racoons. The waiters took a fairly brutal approach to their opportunist foraging. Apart from chasing them with futile perseverance, one bloke squirted chilli sauce in a chunk of bread and threw it to a particularly bold customer. The poor creature disappeared triumphantly beneath some decking, only to re-emerge a minute later and make a b-line for the pool, where it started frantically washing its paws and lapping up litres of chlorinated water.
The following morning before the Fonz was due to take us to our next location, we did a quick scene on the golf course. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the world. It became evident very quickly that this was no hollow boast. The fairways were immaculate and the views extraordinary. The ninth hole particularly – you have to drive down the side of a hill across a rocky Pacific inlet and onto the green on the other side in one. I know this may all sound a bit like a sales brochure but I really don’t know what else to say. As I drew a wedge and pitched onto the eighteenth green, I thought, I’m just glad my golf mad Australian brother will never get to see the show – he’d be spitting with envy.
Not so our next location! En route to Careyes, we stopped amongst the mangroves to feed the local wildlife. I assumed there was some sort of containment area where you could stand at a safe distance and watch Steve Irwin types do their stuff. Whatever I expected it wasn’t this: A rutted track, a stall selling stinky fish and a dilapidated fence with holes under it, bordering on a swamp. The Fonz bought a big bag of fish. He threw one over the fence. The water surged as a pair of primeval eyes erupted skywards like two depilated gooseberries perched on the top of the biggest set of jaws I have ever seen at such intimate quarters.
Al filmed, as I got ready to throw the next bite. There were now four crocodiles patrolling around the fence, not one less than fifteen feet long. As I reached into the bag, a particularly impressive specimen succeeded in snaring the wire at the bottom of the fence on a lower incisor and yanking it back. A crocodile sized hole was created underneath, through which it attempted to clamber. This was, I might add, about a foot away from my leg…as it were. With a reluctant grunt, Fonz kicked the hapless croc in the chops and it slunk back into the slime. “They’re like dogs.” He confided. Yes but not entirely Alfonso! I mean, with the possible exception of Pit Bulls, dogs tend not to eat people. Apparently, there are over 300 crocodiles in this patch of mangroves. Sometimes they crawl out onto the road to sunbath and locals have to walk around them. Carefully. 
The scene worked well, and I even got a couple of good snaps (Sorry) before we checked in at Careyes, another ritzy resort but very different from Tamarindo. On arrival we were obliged to sit and watch a DVD made several years ago about the Italian founder Don John Franco, an aspiring colonist who had bought vast hectares of coastline in the sixties and now sat on some of the most valuable real estate in Mexico. In a nutshell the film was keen to emphasise a number of points – that this multi-million dollar development was in no way commercial, that Careyes contained some latent energy field, and that John Franco was not only a consummate idealist, but also rather fond of the ladies. He was there as we arrived at our private beach huts, sitting in the restaurant with a fiery eyed Brazilian beauty at his side who quickly introduced herself as the one who had directed and produced the DVD. Clunk!
Careyes was very beautiful, but in a different way from Tamarindo. Its design is retro and a bit Austin Powers, but with great charm. Brightly coloured cliff top houses, some private, others for hire, cling to the rocks overlooking the ocean, brazenly baring their roof decks, infinity pools and thatched domes. A rope bridge links a rocky island with the mainland, leading to a secret hut and wooden decking, for meditation and watching the sunset.
We filmed a fishing sequence, during which I hooked an ugly critter called a Jack and a large Mackerel that flapped about in the holding box for a painfully long time. Its will to live was so commendably relentless I nearly threw it back. As it was, we conveyed it to the restaurant and instructed the chef to do something interesting to it. He pointed out that both types of fish are not generally eaten in Mexico but would do his best. Half an hour later I was surrounded by plates – including Ceviche with Chilli sauce and a big fillet that looked and tasted like tuna.
Running cameras around smart hotels is fine, but it doesn’t make a story. Releasing baby turtles, on the other hand, does. Careyes has a resident biologist and a whole programme for turtle preservation. Since its inception the numbers that return here to breed have doubled and redoubled, which is fortunate considering only one in every thousand survives long enough to reproduce. The turtle hatchery was cocooned in netting. Sections of beach harbouring batches of eggs were marked with plastic buckets. As the sun set the sand began to seethe with tiny flippers as hundreds of baby turtles wriggled and paddled blindly to the surface, only to be dumped unceremoniously into one of the buckets. When Paulo the biologist and I had retrieved them all, we carried the buckets down the beach and emptied them twenty yards from the waters edge. “Wouldn’t it be safer to wait until dark and chuck them straight in the sea”, I asked.
“No, they need to take their bearings so they can return to breed,” he replied.
The idea that these tiny, vulnerable creatures were smart enough to make a mental snapshot of the beach and then remember after several years how to find their way back is one of life’s larger miracles.
From Careyes it was farewell to the Fonz and home to Mexico City in preparation for a day filming the capital. Oscar’s glamorous friend Maria Fernanda was to be our guide. We met to discuss the programme in Jaso, a top restaurant in Polanco owned by a sweet couple – Jared and Sonia who laid on a banquet.
Next day, being Sunday we thought the roads would be quieter. What we didn’t realise is that large tracts of the city are closed off for cyclists and rollerbladers etc. Even less logical than usual one-way systems spring up and no-one has a clue how to get from A to B.
Then of course there are the demonstrations and the marches. After a morning in the car, we reached the Square of Three Cultures only to be told by an intractable “official” that we couldn’t film the Aztec Ruins, except from a sufficient distance to be indistinguishable. He suggested the steel bridge over the freeway. We slogged up there with the kit to find that it vibrated violently every time anyone walked across it. Fernanda had to stand at the entrance holding back the pedestrians while Al filmed my rushed piece to camera, under the watchful eye of several jobsworths who made sure I didn’t stray to near the subject of the piece. It was all highly stressful. The central plaza was a bit easier. Al leaped out of the car in the middle of the road and with colonial confidence started handing the kit to a surprised looking policeman who was busy directing traffic. To my incredulity the guy stood there meekly holding the tripod while Al adjusted the lens. This is not to be recommended. You might possibly try it at home but in Mexico this is non-u behaviour. The cops all carry big guns and look as if they would be delighted to find a reason for using them.
The thing that upsets me the most about Mexico City is that, were it not for the Spanish, it would be the eighth wonder of the world - on a par with ancient China’s Summer Palace. When Cortez first arrived, it was a fabulous collection of temples and waterways, landscaped around a majestic lake. The invaders subjugated the natives, destroyed or built over the temples and later generations drained the lake. Now very little remains of the Aztec culture, bar a few ruins like the ones by the Cathedral – visible through glass panels in the pavement.
By way of contrast, we finished our day’s filming at a Lucha Libre. For those of you who don’t know about this – it’s the Mexican equivalent of WWWF and has achieved almost cult status. The stalls outside the coliseum were festooned with spandex gimp masks, sparkling in the evening light. Inside the sweaty arena things were already at fever pitch. The crowd was howling as six overweight, scantily clad, masked body builders pretended to slap, wedgie and shunt each other into submission while flopping around the ring like walruses in a heavy sea. Oiled muscles gleamed, teeth bared, and the crowd bayed as they hurled their opponents through the ropes or collapsed on the floor feigning chronic injury. From the caged stalls above me (the implications being - “It’s their for your protection…”) an aged granny clutched the rails with bony white knuckles and screamed, “tear his head off.” Small children yelled abuse at their favourite villain. I tried to work out the rules, to no avail. Was there a plot - allegedly a battle between good and evil, or possibly fat and fatter. The surprising thing is that the crowd suspend their disbelief to such a degree they seem to think it’s for real. Grown men beat their chests at the ostensible atmosphere of healthy manliness and testosterone. And yet…there’s something not entirely heterosexual about a bunch of muscle marys in tight lycra hot-pants, dodgy masks and knee high boots rolling around in intimate clinches, flexing and grunting like rutting stags. I’m afraid I got the giggles, badly. When I explained this theory to Fernanda so did she. It was time to leave.
We headed out to the colonial town of San Miguel the next morning, with a chauffeur from the Condessa Hotel called Chel who had a bullet proof BMW. The electric windows were so thick they had elaborate ice crystal deposits between the layers of glass, reminiscent of my naturally air-conditioned cottage on a crisp winter’s morning.
San Miguel is a strange place – at least ten percent of the population seem to be American. It’s one of those chic international retirement hotspots where rich Southerners keep holiday homes and Caucasian men with long grey ponytails cruise past you on quad bikes down narrow cobbled streets. It’s actually rather intriguing. The buildings are beautiful, the architecture impressive, the multiple roof terrace vistas spectacular. San Miguel spills down the side of a hill, founded in the 1542 when dogs belonging to a mission of roving Franciscans sniffed out a viable water source. Our hotel was part of the Orient Express group and had reassuringly British touches like Moulton Brown in the bathrooms and Earl Grey on the menu. Wanting to waste no time fitting in I decided that it would be a good idea to film a quad bike excursion to a stunning monastery a few miles out of town. It took rather longer than we had bargained for, as our guide got lost several times en route. We, by which I mean Al, Erica the hotel manager and Lucy, a frighteningly organised lass from the tourist board reached our destination dusty and exhausted two hours later than planned.
The church of Santa Ana and Santuario Atotonilco is a Mecca for religious masochists. There are whips and crowns of thorns on sale at kiosks in the street. People come here to purge the flesh. Obliging nuns lock them away for up to a week so they can mortify themselves in suitable discomfort. The church was full of statues and paintings depicting a blood soaked, gashed and suppurating Jesus more akin to HP Lovecraft than the gospels. I can’t help thinking that if JC did come again, he would be horrified how his central message of salvation through love has been twisted to absolution through pain and suffering. Frankly the place gave me the creeps. One interesting observation though – the story of Jesus’s life was engraved on the walls in meticulous detail by a local artist who was obviously of indigenous ascendancy. How was this evident? Because the Roman soldiers, portrayed in such brutal light some of them even had demons perched on their shoulders, were all dressed as Spanish Conquistadors.
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Charlie Ottley's "Flavours of" series on DVD