In which Thor finishes his tale of leading a geology field trip in remote Mexico to the amazing giant-crystal mine of Naica and the village of Mapimi, on the track of selenite and adamite crystals.
(Yes, that is an actual photo, with a man standing on a giant selenite crystal in the Naica cave.)
Like typical philosopher/scientists of the 19th century, Thor and I have a curio cabinet full of specimens, travel mementos, and stories. Next week, I’ll take a turn with treasure from diving on a sunken ship when I worked as a scuba divemaster in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, take it away, Thor!
Continued from the previous post on July 18…
We had just arrived in the village of Mapimi. We parked our trucks in the town square, bought Cokes at a street stand, and waited. After a few minutes, a gray-haired man with a large knife on a rope belt approached us. “Quieres minerales?” (do you want minerals?) he asked. I said, “Si.” He gestured for us to follow him and led us down a street with an unbroken facade of doors and windows.
We entered an unmarked doorway that opened into what appeared to be a living room with an old man standing behind a glass counter filled with minerals.
The room was filled with wall hangings and family photographs, but the glass counter gave the room a kind of professional market air. Most of the students did not know much Spanish, but some of the linguistically adept students and I had coached them on the numbers and important words like “cuantos” (how much), “demasiado” (too much), and “bano” (bathroom). There were a few moments of nervous silence, then one of the students pointed to a mineral and asked, “Cuantos?” The man said “un mil” (meaning one thousand pesos, which would have been about 10 U.S. dollars). “Demasiado, quinientos” (too much, 500) replied the student. “Okay,” said the man, and they both smiled. The student smiled because he had successfully negotiated a price, and the man because he probably was hoping to get about 300 pesos.
Now that the ice was broken, the haggling began in earnest, with students shouting “Cuantos” left and right of me. When we had finally gotten all the minerals we wanted, I turned to leave and saw a line of townsfolk standing in the street outside the doorway, all saying in Spanish “come to my house next.” There were so many that we split up, with one or two students following each person across the square to different homes. There were no longer any nice glass counters, however.
We walked into bedrooms and watched boxes of minerals dragged out from under beds.
We negotiated over tables in courtyards.
Negotiating in the backyard.
People stood in front of their door with minerals for sale.
In one house, there was a very large sand selenite rose much like this one:
It was sitting on a coffee table in the main room, and it was about 2 feet in diameter. When I saw it, I assumed it was their prize specimen and certainly not for sale. An hour later I saw one of the students carrying it back to our truck. I was astonished. He bought it for $5. It was so big, we had to put it in one of the seats in the truck and buckle it in with a seat belt.
All the while, we were a source of curiosity for the townsfolk.
At one point as I stood alone by the church, I saw a man on a small burrow walking down the street. When he got to the church entrance, he turned the burrow towards the church, muttered a prayer, and then continued on his way.
While I stood there alone, a ragged-looking man with one eye stepped off the corner and approached me. He said he had minerals, and would I follow him to his house? He led me around corners and through alleys until I was completely disoriented. I was far from the group, and although I have always felt perfectly safe in small Mexican towns, this odyssey through cramped alleys made me a little nervous. We came around a corner into a small courtyard, and I was startled to see two more men standing there. But before I had a chance to think of any more sinister thoughts, I saw three large folding metal card tables covered with minerals. They were some of the best ones I had seen so far, and that is where I got my selenite sword.
I walked back to the trucks and saw the students returning; both buyers and sellers looked quite happy.
So we packed up and bid Adios to Mapimi. Our favorite mineral destination.
*****
You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s Book View Cafe Greek islands novel is available in print and ebook: The Ariadne Connection. “Technology triggers a deadly new plague. Can a healer find the cure?” The novel has received the Chanticleer Global Thriller Grand Prize and the Cygnus Award for Speculative Fiction. Sara is back at work on the sequel, The Ariadne Disconnect. Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
