White Star

by Fernando Villa (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Mexico

Citlaltépetl means “white star,” referring to the snowy peak of the mountain in Orizaba which I could now see outside the truck window. I lied to my mountain guide when I said I was healthy enough to climb; the day before I took my leather boots out on the city to break them in but ended up straining something in my leg. I quietly hoped for stability on the way up. Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl form a natural barrier between Mexico City and Puebla. Side by side, draped in forest and peppered with snow. Every so often Popocatepetl fires a plume of ash into the air. The Aztecs believed ‘Popo’ was the body of an ancient warrior, exploding in passion for his deceased wife-to-be who lay asleep beside him- the dormant volcano Iztaccihuatl, also called the ‘sleeping woman.’ But the White Star looms more than 200 kilometers away in topographic isolation, shunned by the enduring love between Popo and Izta. The mountain’s jealousy mingled with our hope for a safe summit as we began our approach in the middle of the night. Mountains are not dead, dormant things. They are moving, eroding, collapsing, draining, or being drained. The glacier on Citlaltépetl is the last of the glaciers which once painted the volcano white and gave it its name and place in Aztec myth. For the inhabitants of Veracruz, the peak is a beacon home. As for the rest of the country, it is an unconquerable mystery in a land plagued by the savagery of conquerors. My leg is holding up pretty well, but I climb cautiously up the slopes as I kick my crampons into the ice. If I stand up straight on the glacier I will be close to perpendicular to the face and topple the long way down. In fact, several people fell in the weeks prior to my arrival. One tired soul lost balance and slipped, tugging at the rope that connected him to the party and sentencing them to an irreversible slide. Many bodies dragging the ice to their ends. I heard the rocks falling on my way up. The icy water melting underneath the glacier thinning the silt roots of boulders on the ancient lava field and breaking them free. I remembered seeing the flaking of the Aztec codices at the National Anthropology Museum in the capital. The same way the painted lime fell to the museum floor, so too the mountain crumbled. The White Star and the ancient codices- Gods and prophecies of an entire culture, now in ruins. We zigzagged slowly up the north face and every step became a negotiation with the ice. I pulled my eyes away from the faint, narrow path before me to look at the sun coming up beside the nearly vertical line of the glacier. I choked on my breath seeing the steepness and lost balance, but pushed myself forward onto the snow. One assumes the form of a bow when climbing up, as one bows before entering a temple. It is really the only way to approach nature, bowing. I became aware of the softness of my limbs and how a fall could easily shred them, becoming minerals and food for the mountain flora, to be decayed and consolidated and filtered through the porous maze of the strata beneath the snow. Flowing again through the ancient steam canals left behind from molten lava. Perhaps that is the purest way to go- feeding what killed you. An orange orb hovered above the horizon, my glistening snot trailing down my face and onto my gloves and ice axe. There was nothing higher to reach, not for many, many miles. Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl huddled in the distance over a sea of clouds and contamination. There is no culture on a mountain, only fear and grace. What was Mexico from up here if not the space between these mountains? On the ground we worry about safeguarding the traditions and identity of a civilization, but from up here there are only falling mountains and thinning ice, and a thicker cloud of pollution blanketing the valley. Vanishing forests, and water. No identity but that of animals on a changing Earth.