Published in WEXAS Traveller
May 2023
On five places that influenced the writing of my novel Red Smoking Mirror.
Teotihuacán, Mexico
After months of travelling slowly through Guatemala and Mexico, I was taken in hand by a bunch of mad hippies who drove me to Teotihuacán, the pre-Aztec ceremonial centre outside Mexico City. The Avenue of the Dead, the Pyramid of the Moon and the impossibly vast Pyramid of the Sun – 220 metres high, and the third largest pyramid in the world – had a powerful effect on me. I’d never before seen architecture so alien or terrifying. I’d been awake for 32 hours, so the experience had a hallucinatory, slightly nightmarish edge. Now it feels like something from the realms of fantasy.
Fes, Morocco
In the ancient walled city of Fes I came across a chicken’s foot, bright yellow, lying in the dust. Further on, there was another – and another, and another. I followed them through the streets like a fairytale breadcrumb trail, and eventually I overtook two small boys dragging a kind of sledge piled high with chickens’ feet. Every time it hit a bump, another foot would tumble off. Around me were men in hooded djellabas, women in veils, archways and alleys, donkeys loaded high with goods, and the stench of tanneries. It was the first time I’d experienced true culture shock – and it was wonderful.
Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, Guatemala
For three days I crossed the Guatemalan highlands with a fifteen-year-old boy called Juan, a horse called Chapulín (Grasshopper), and a nameless black dog that decided to join our party. Juan was K’iche’ Maya, and every day he understood less of the languages spoken around us, as we passed through the territories of other Mayan tribes. On the third day, the dog ran off and killed a lamb outside a village, and we were surrounded by an angry, jostling crowd. Juan looked terrified, but I offered to buy the lamb and everything calmed down. People watched in astonishment as the dog then ate the entire lamb, bones and all, even the wool. Our journey continued, and neither of us spoke about the incident again.
Tamil Nadu, India
I’d been to the north of India twice before, but never to the tropical south. Tamil Nadu was like stepping into a totally different country. My memories are kaleidoscopic, a visual assault of incredible colour, verdant trees dripping with roots, huge knobbly fruits stacked by the roads, and painted temples teeming with an extraordinary array of gods. Later I read that Hinduism is considered the world’s last classical religion, a polytheistic pantheon like that of ancient Greece and Rome, or the Aztecs and the Maya, and I was inspired by that idea. Once, we all had many gods, festooned with joyful colours.
Córdoba, Spain
I went to Córdoba with the intention of doing some serious work on my novel, which had hit a tricky patch. Unfortunately I timed my stay with an unprecedented heatwave. It was too hot to think, let alone to write, so I spent my afternoons in a daze and my evenings wandering the streets, which form a winding labyrinth of bright white and dusty yellow. This city was once the heart of Islamic al-Andalus, and Moorish influence is strong, but nowhere more so than in the Mezquita: the great mosque, now a cathedral, where a forest of columns and arches stretches as far as the eye can see, inlaid with jasper, marble and onyx, with golden Catholic shrines dazzling suddenly out of the gloom – an extraordinary example of religions and cultures merging. Apart from the Mezquita, the place I found solace during that insanely hot week was by the banks of the Guadalquivir (which the Moors called al-Wadi I-Kabir), the beautiful green river that runs through Andalusia. Here I sat, cooled by the breeze, decided not to worry about my novel, and watched the white egrets fly.