Portal to What?

Tepoztlan: Portal To Another Dimension 2009

(This is a blog posting I made while wandering around Mexico on a motorcycle in 2009. This one was from Tepoztlan, Mexico and mentions some strangeness I experienced involving a sort of perpetual deja-vu like sensation. The experience still haunts me and am considering a return.)

I was not looking forward to the ride back out of Mexico City. The time had come to suck it up and focus on making the move to Tepoztlan. I was so tense and incredibly nervous as I headed out from Hotel Republica and toward the Zocalo on already crowded streets.

Happily, my apprehension was unfounded and after I made it a few blocks to the othe side of the main Zocalo plaza it was an absolute cake walk! I think it was a little more than 25 minutes before I was completely out of the city and on a beautiful toll road winding through the mountains as my motor purred along with the soft cool wind.

"Emerald City" ~ Tepoztlan, Mexico © 2011 Skip HuntThat ride was so delightful with big sweeping curves and perfect temperature. There was one section where it got slightly chilly, but most of it was very relaxing. My only complaint is that it was too short! It was only a little bit over an hour before I was winding down the mountains into Tepoztlan.

I had been told that I could get a cheaper room in nearby Amatlan. Amatlan, is supposed to be the birthplace of Queztalcoatl and a very mystical place. Mystical birthplaces of alleged mythical gods works for me!

The little town of Amatlan is only about 6k outside of Tepoztlan, but not well marked so it took me getting a little lost in order to find it. The hotel that had been recommended to me didn’t exist or I wrote it down wrong because no one there had heard of it. A dazed Mexican hippy walking along the road hadn’t heard of it either but suggested I ask around at the teepees and pointed me down a winding narrow dirt road toward one of the majestic cliff faces.

Amatlan has a lazy and claustriphobic feel with a dramatic backdrop like some mystic painting… as does all of Tepoztlan. Only, I think the views are somewhat more dramatic from the viewpoint of Tepoztlan.

After winding down the muddy dirt road to nearly it’s end, I parked the bike and looked up toward a small compound with teepees and a kitchen area. There was a tanned smallish man with long gold and silver hair sitting in an open-air kitchen and he asked in English if he could help me. I asked about the hotel that’d been recommended and he said there was no place of that name anywhere in Amatlan. He then said the birthplace of Queztalcoatl was right there in that very location and that there was a portal right behind him on the cliff face. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him correctly so I asked, “Did you say there’s a portal up there?”. He said “Yes. A portal right up there.” I tried not to laugh and asked “A portal to where?” He exclaimed, “A portal to another dimension! Why don’t you come up and have a look for yourself?”

"Portal" ~ Tepoztlan, Mexico © 2011 Skip HuntI thought “Oh boy! This better be good.” The little wiry man introduced himself as Ea Orgo-Maynez and directed me toward the "portal". When I got there, all I saw was an interesting cliff face that went up about 30 meters with a crack that started at the ground and went up in a giant arch forming what could be considered a portal shape I suppose.

Around the compound were large teepees, a temazcal dome (for sweat ceremonies), a few cabanas, hammocks and that common kitchen area decorated with lots of crystals. Indian batiks and various other mystic paraphernalia. Beneath the portal to another dimension where the crack started, there was a shrine in a small cave space full of all sorts of offerings, sticks of incense, Buddha statues and such.

Ea told me to pick out any teepee I wanted, but that the whole place was booked on Saturday so I’d have to leave for a couple days. I didn’t want to do all that moving so I took a room in Tepoztlan instead, but told Ea that I’d like to come back and hang out a bit. He said that I was welcome to come back any time I wanted and use the kitchen if I needed toor use the hammocks. He said “Mi casa es su casa!”

"Superstar" ~ Tepoztlan, Mexico © 2011 Skip HuntSomething was very odd about the whole area for me. Soon after I arrived, I began having Deja vu. I’ve had Deja vu before but this was different. As far as I can recall, I don’t believe I’ve ever been to Tepoztlan or Amatlan. As a photographer, if I’d been there before I certainly would have photos of the place. Yet to the best of my knowledge, I have no photos of the place at all.

This Deja vu went beyond the momentary sense of familiarity. I remembered taking the exact same photos befire that I took this time. I remember the pink, yellow and blue abstract and struggling with how to compose the shot. I remember taking detail photos of the colored seed mosaic, the eerie convent there, etc.

"El Sol" ~ Tepoztlan, Mexico © 2011 Skip HuntThe longer I was there the more familiar everything was as if I were living a previous visit a second time. It was as if my Deja vu was turned up full blast and soon it was so strong that it became somewhat unnerving.

The only way I can describe the feeling is like this, let’s say I me you for coffee one afternoon. A mutual friend joined us and talked about stopping smoking. We had a very nice chat but you were really disaapointed with the quality of your moka latte. Then a lady with a little dog came into the cafe and the dog kept barking so much that she was told dogs weren’t allowed inside and she left in a big huff.

Ok, so we’ve got this memory with details. Now imagine that we meet again a few days later and the exact chain of events happens again, only we know it’s the first time we’re experiencing it because you just arrived from the airport that morning from a month-long trip and have a dated ticket to prove it. So, we both have this vivid memory of a whole afternoon of detailed events but there’s physical proof that it never happened.

This kind of persistent Deja vu is what my entire stay in Tepoztlan and Amatlan felt like.

At first the feeling was interesting, but the more I tried to recall if by chance I’d been to Tepoztlan in the past, I kept coming up with nothing. And then there’s the fact the backdrops of Tepoztlan and Amatlan are simply stunning. So much so there’s no way I would have gone there and not photographed it. Yet, I have such a detailed and vivid memory of everything about the place down to the details I photographed and remembered photographing before. And no, I wasn’t on drugs.

At the top of the mountains around Tepoztlan there’s a 13 step piramide and I was told a very steep trek to get to it. I set out on what turned out to be the wrong trail and ended up on a ledge with a stone overhang on the oppposite side of the valley from the one with a piramide. Wasn’t a waste of time though because the view from there was spectacular in it’s own right.

The problem came when I decided to take what I thought might be a short cut back to the bottom. The trail was pretty rough as it was, and the short cut got even tougher until it ended right above a rustic habitat or sorts. I looked down and saw some sleeping dogs and decided to quietly backtrack and try to find the original trail.

A nearby rooster crowed loudly and I looked down toward the sleeping dogs who were now awake and they’d spotted me. "Oh dear!" (that’s not really the words I used exactly) For sone reason Mexican dogs won’t usually attack you if you’re in town. Especially if you don’t look directly at them. If you’re away from the town and the dog’s owner isn’t around, all bets are off.

There were six of them barking, snarling and they all came lunging at me from all sides. I scambled for a rock or stick to fend them off but found nothing handy. While the largest and meanest of them advanced, his fangs were getting inches from my calves and he appeared very determined to want fresh Skip Hunt meat for lunch! I do like dogs, but that affection soon melts away when it looks like I might lose some flesh.

The only weapon I had was my camera bag that I swung at the dogs hard enough that they’d feel it but not hard enough to bust my lens or anything. A tough balance to strike! I hit a couple of them and they scambled back as I slipped down the hillside in the mud.

"Tepozteco" ~ Tepoztlan, Mexico © 2011 Skip HuntI finally found some rocks that got me back on the trail without losing any leg tissue at all! I have been bitten by street dogs in Mexico before so I don’t take their aggressive advances lightly anymore.

Get this… After this episode of getting lost, taking some images from a cliff ledge, and getting attacked by a pack of vicious dogs, I remembered all of that happening before too.

I met a fellow named John who’d been living in Tepoztlan for about three years. He had similar feelings about the place as did others I met. John introduced me to a shaman who called himself Amanahuat who told me that not everyone feels the same memory strangeness there, but certain extra sensitive types do experience very similar things as I had. He speculated and attributed the phenomenon to the fact that the surrounding mountains are chock full of copper, crystals and amethyst and these cause some minds to experience strange and varied interference tuning.

Another older Italian man I met in a coffee shop said it had something to to with the extraterrestrials who frequent the area and that I’d likely already been there in a previous life. I said that didn’t explain why I remember taking the same photos this time.

Met a very colorful fellow who called himself a “Cosmic Doctor” who was trying to sell a net bag full of kittens. He went on and on about how he was an activist in San Francisco and knew Harvey Milk, etc. He was VERY flamboyant, but seemed to be an interesting fellow and definitely entertaining to listen to. I told him about my memory disturbance and he said many have come to that place talking about the same feelings. Most he said don’t ever leave.

I finally managed to find the correct path up to the piramide and oh man was it a tough hike up. Well worth it though for the breathtaking views. Breathtaking because you climb up 1.2 miles  straight up to the top and you can certainly feel it.

At the top you’re greeted by these little creatures that look like a cross between a fox and a racoon with more of a longer snout like an anteater and longer hind legs like a cat. It was funny watching tourists feed them and then watch their faces contort in terror when the creatures would knock a bag of chips loose from some child’s hands and erupt into a giant hissing creature fight over the chips. This gave me a fair amount of joy I’m ashamed to admit. Oh, and yes… the entire hike, the photos, and little creatures were all a continuation of the same persistent Deja vu I’d been experiencing since I’d arrived.

There’s a delicacy the indigenous eat in the area that I became quite fond of called Huitlcoche, a kind of black fungus that grows on corn and tastes like mushrooms. Sounds tasty doent it?They scrape the chunky black stuff off and fill quesadillas with it. At first I wondered if perhaps Huitlcoche had some psychoactive properties that could explain my deja vu, but I’m told it does not.

There was a giant rave party that was held a few kilometers away from Tepoztlan and the whole area looked like it’d been invaded by some ultra-cool hipster tribe from Mexico City. I’d heard about the rave party when I’d arrived and had every intention of attending, but with all the other strangeness going on I somehow lost interest and chose not to go.

"Flores de Chalma" ~ Chalma, Mexico © 2011 Skip HuntI wasn’t originally going to stay in Tepoztlan as long as I did. My original plan was to just spend a night and continue on to a place beneath the volcano known for it’s mushrooms. Given my state of mind though, I hardly thought I needed any more mind altering. Instead, after I met a cool chap named Jake who told me about another place called Malinalco. I looked it up and it supposedly has a history of scorcery and witches, as well as some miracle tree nearby in Chalma that gushes a large spring from beneath that Christians make regular pilgrimages to. Sounded like a more logical destination considering the state of my mind at the time.

Before heading to Malinalco, I went back to Amatlan to have a chat with Ea Orgo-Maynez about the persistent Deja vu I’d been experiencing. We chatted a good while and he said he felt the very same thing 20 years ago before he moved to Amatlan from California. He asked for a few details and my birthday so that he could calculate my Mayan name “Ajmak”. I told him that I thought maybe I was losing my mind. Ea said, “You’re not losing your mind. You know what’s causing this if you concentrate.”

Ea told me that there were three things to remember. First, I must first be “impeccable”. Second, I must have good intention. Third, I must not “think”. He said if you're doing it right you will soon be working from pure “intuition” and your mind will will be moving so fast that it won’t have time to think.

(Recently, I've been wondering if perhaps this sensation is indeed how it feels when you are actually functioning at the proper complete focus and without distraction. What do you think?)

Skip Hunt 
Austin, Texas

"Rosas 10 Docena" ~ Tepoztlan, Mexico © 2011 Skip Hunt