Jalisco

Neat blue lines of agave in the Mexican highlands. The untouched rows of plants under a cool blue sky. Growing slow. And then a field that appears as if torn apart.

A jimador holds a coa. The instrument, hoe like, has a handle as tall as the man who takes it in his grip. The man´s white shirt, open at his chest, sticks, wet, to his back, even under the cool, high sky, as he hacks violently, time and time again, at the ripe agave. The outer leaves of the plant lie scattered around his work - torn and fractured like dismembered limbs. The man´s actions appear desperate. Around him, where the hearts of other plants have been torn from the ground, craters appear, as if small shells have exploded, rupturing the soil. Again he strikes the plant. Flicks head. Flies sweat. Thrusts again. And a new limb tears away. And the harvesting looks like a murder.



The next day I leave Tequila. The road winds once again through the fields of blue succulents, quietly awaiting the jimadors and death. Here, in the mountains, the warm, springlike air feels clean and pleasant to breathe. Butterflies flit, light, in the breeze. Bright white wings against light blue sky, passing of deep green fields, and beneath, along the road, lizards dart and scatter, in sun-fuelled panic. Grasshoppers flick themselves from peril to the long green grass, and sometimes flick themselves from peril to greater peril, further into the road. Occasionally the shiny, greenbluesilver gold-metallic shimmer of a beetle´s back catches the sun, as it attempts a journey, surely doomed to fail. The bodies of grasshoppers; dried, or half-dried-half-gooey-wet, internal organs spilled. And then another huge white butterfly dips in front of my eyes, dancing as if thepetals of a flower have been brought to life.



Perhaps I should pay less attention to these kinds of things, because the next time I look up a truck is reversing towards me, and my face has taken on a strange tingling, numb sensation, and my front wheel is jammed between the vehicle and the ground. Four men get out of the truck and ask if I´m okay.

"Si, si - muy bien," The answer should be sarcastic, but I feel like I´m smiling as I say it, and though I feel like I´ve just been punched in the face with something very big and metal, all I can feel is an overwhelming sense of relief that I´m not dead, and a kind of shock that I managed to head butt a rusty metal truck, without aquiring any injury.

The four men lift the back of the truck and free my bike and help me to the side of the road. That´s when I start shaking, I think.

One of the men says something in Spanish with the word hospital in it.

"No, no. Siento muy bien. No necesito." I say, trying in terrible Spanish to convince them that I feel fine.

"Necesitas." the man says kindly, and slowly, realising I can´t really speak Spanish at all, pointing to my chin.

"Es poquito," I say. "Solo poquito." I touch my chin to further illustrate that it´s really nothing at all, but when my hand comes away covered in blood, I agree that perhaps it is a good idea that we go to a hospital.

They put my bike on the back of their truck. I sit in the front with the man who has by this time introduced himself as José. He offers me elotes, corn on the cob, wrapped still in their leaves and steaming hot. I say no and thank him. I do not know how to say that I have never felt less like eating in all the time I can remember.

José seems pleased with my name, "Samwell!" It is a biblical name. "Cristiano?" he asks, and seeing the icons hanging from the rearview mirror, realising his obvious interest in the subject, and not feeling up to discussing agnosticism, I agree, "Si, Cristiano."

"Católico?"

"No."






We arrive after only a couple of minutes. It was the perfect place apparently to cycle into a truck; right on the edge of a town. I cover my chin with my hands as we enter the waiting room, José explains what happened, and they usher me in to a private room. The doctor or nurse, I´m not sure which, asks me lots of questions I can´t understand, and I realise that it must be hard for them to work out whether I´m showing signs of concussion, or if I just appear stupid and confused because I can hardly understand a word they are saying.

Every so often I recognise a word. ´Cabeza´ - head. "Mi cabeza es bien" I say. ´Dolor´ - pain. "No tengo dolor." "Puedo ver" I can see. "No otro dolor" I say, guessing then at the things they might ask me. This would have been much more difficult a month ago, I think.

The doctor or nurse administers a local anaesthetic to my already numb chin, and holds alcohol under my nose, as I begin to feel myself faint, and my grammatically incorrect chatter attempting to convince them that I´m fine, comes to an abrupt halt. In the same room, standing in the corner, a fat girl of about 20 watches as my chin is stitched back together. When I entered I took her for an assistant perhaps, but, as my face is being mended, it seems that her only role is to make shocked, slightly disgusted faces, occasional sounds portraying queasiness, and to give a general impression that she is finding the whole scene far too much to take.

In less than half an hour I am ready to leave. José pays for the treatment. And a ridiculous and quite unnecessary bandage is wrapped around my head. The effect is apparently so comic that José, the nurse-doctor, and the girl who did nothing useful at all decide that we must all have a photo together. On taking the camera out of my bag, however, I discover that it has been crushed by the accident and no longer works. Still, a broken camera and a cut chin is certainly not the worst I could have come away with, and I happily say goodbyes and thankyous to everyone who helped, and even to some people who didn´t help at all, as I leave toward Guadalajara.