My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

of his. We left early in the morning in Montes de Oca~s car, with
Dr. Velasco driving. We followed the Puebla Railway, the view of
Popocatepetl and Ixtacihuatl, the sleeping woman, as the Indians
call her, always before our eyes. Her strong stony face, her long
hair hanging in the back, her breasts, her legs, all covered with
snow, made a spectacular sight.
We stopped first in a small village to look at an old church with
an interesting open chapel-open because the Indians are frightened
of closed churches. The church was big, but very poor. It was
almost bare, with a few wooden benches inside. There were various
figures of the Virgin Mary, clad in old silk dresses. (They have
special dressmakers in Mexico, mostly old spinsters, who sew
nothing but dresses for the saints.) The walls of the church were
originally covered with frescos, a language in colors that the Indians
understand better than Spanish. Later these frescos were
painted over, but now they are trying to restore them.
We drove on, and the road changed drastically. We left the paved
highway and got on a very dusty side road, which led up to the
mountains. On both sides of the road were Indian huts, made of
pieces of raw wood. They had no windows and were poorly roofed
with thatched straw. The road was so dirty that clouds of gray dust
immediately penetrated the closed car, covering our faces and
hands with a layer of dust and dirt. I shall never understand how
the Indians could live in these huts under these conditions. And
their faces were always gay and friendly. One of the villages was
even called "Place of the Happiest."
Gradually the road became steeper, and soon we had passed the
last village. Only once in a while a single lumber workers~ hut
glimpsed through the trees. Then there was nothing but trees and
mountain bushes. On the roadside, huge bushes of yellow plantslike
the European broombushes-were glowing in the sun. We
were now up to 3600 meters on the Paso de Cortes (the road on
which Cortez travelled from Vera Cruz to Mexico), which leads up
to Ixtacihuatl. We drove up to 4000 meters. Many cars were parked
here, because from this point people start to climb up the mountain.
How different from European mountains this wast In Europe
in February, everything would be covered with snow starting at
1300 meters; trees would s'top at 1800 meters. In Mexico we had
eternal sun, and the snow started at about 5000 meters.
We stopped at the house of a friend of Montes de Dca, a Sefior
Morinos, for lunch. He was a former colonel who had served under
Pancho Villa. Later he became Mexico~spostmaster general, and in
1940 he retired to live for his hobby: the cultivation of flowers. He
had fields full of carnations and of the most beautiful roses, some
as black as velvet, others looking like green thistles. His house was
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