What I did one Saturday, part three

I have thus far measured El Tule in superlatives. Here are the numbers: more than 2,000 years old (before ol’ J.C.), 42 meters tall (more than a football field), 58 meters in circumference (nearly one and a half football fields), 14 meters in diameter (why is that we always compare things to football fields?) and more than 636 meters tons of weight (eight busloads of the fattest person you know—yea, I made that one up).

Behind this behemoth stands a church whose name I did not record, but which likely involves Santa Maria and El Tule. It has a pleasant and modestly adorned facade, but a walk inside reveals that, like many others in Mexico, this church has swallowed liters of gold. Multiple glittering altars and encrusted crosses back the pulpit and line the walls of the church’s narrow interior. And if you close your eyes you will notice, though you couldn’t have really missed it before, the church’s other abundance: fresh flowers. At least on the Saturday I visited, the church was so packed with newly cut blooms that their scents wafted straight out the door for want of more air to infect. It seemed many gardens had been decimated to fill the vases.

The courtyard offered a different smell. Opposite El Tule, on the far side of the church’s front courtyard, a simple wheel had been mounted on two posts in the lawn. Every ten or twenty minutes, an apparent employee of the church would load the wheel, then light it. Then, with an audible sizzle, the cachuetes, or fireworks, would speed to their loud conclusion: BANG! A second later, the slightly sulfuric traces would have wafted across the lawn.

To be continued...