The Eagle's Head

While el Ciudad de Mexico is a compelling, if sprawling, metropolis of as yet undiscovered delights, after four nights I've had enough of the coughing and the cars and I allow myself to be escorted northwards on the Bus of Unmatchable Luxury.

It leaves from the north bus station but it is still an hour before the buildings recede. When they do the change is severe. The sky turns from white to deep blue and I'm encouraged on by sentinel hills clothed in dark green and sun-dried brown.

I rest my forehead against the window and feel my body go slack as my mind eases into the journey.

I pass an evening at the family home of my only Mexican friend, an Aztec from Queretaro, three hours north of el DF. I am reluctant to pass responsibility for my journey to the hands of another so early on, but more coincidences have pointed me this way and I know better now than to ignore them.

I am the star of the show for Israel's wise parents and five serenely beautiful siblings. They ask continuous questions in incomprehensible Spanish. After four hours I am frustrated to the point of tears, the response 'no entiendo' (I don't understand) becoming more and more frequent as I lose belief in my abilities. Despite attempts to bury myself in my frijoles y nopales (black beans and cactus salad) misunderstanding breeds, much to their amusement. I mistake Israel's invitation to go to the shop as time for us to leave, picking up all my bags and saying goodbye to everyone one by one. Red-facedly I place them back down on the floor and when I return from the shop I pretend it never happened.

I breathe a deep sigh of relief as we get on Bus of Unmatchable Luxury #2. I can't help groaning at how comfortable my fully reclining armchair of a seat is.

Several changes later and I wake in Real de Catorce.

I have been in some strange places in my time but this one has to be near top of the list. Hundreds of years ago it was the biggest city in Mexico, fuelled by its silver-rich hills and the greed of the conquistadors. Now, all that remains of this is a valley literally littered with shells of ancient dwellings, split by great scars of old mines in the dusty brown hills.

I realise I have unknowingly surrounded myself with grutas.

This is both mountain range and desert country, the only green being cactus after cactus after cactus. It is freezing cold at night - such that in my windowless room I wear all of my clothes and am still cold - but in the day the sun burns.

They call it La Puebla Phantasma (the ghost town). I sense the energy here is very, very old.

I sleep for 24 hours. Israel's Belgian Shepherd puppy takes a liking to me and spends most of the time between my legs, whining contentedly. When I wake I am still coughing, gulping at the thin air.

Israel talks in Spanish. Theoretically this is good, but as such I am only able to voice a tiny fraction of what is going on in my head. In this strange place, locked in my thoughts, it is hard to picture a more isolating situation.

He is gesticulating animatedly, pointing to the highest of all the mountains. I realise he means us to go now. I look at my watch. Look at the sun. Shrug.

We start walking.

Ten minutes in and I can barely breathe. Pride keeps me quiet and I focus instead on the unending, barren terrain. I've never seen so many types of cactus. We stop only to pour water down our throats and pick spines out of the puppy's feet.

Now he is saying something about an eagle, and about offerings. He gives me a feather and tells me to hold it as we walk. He draws in the sand with a stick. I suddenly understand.

The peak to which we are headed, Cerro Quemada (Burnt Hill) forms the head of a giant eagle, whose mountainous wings curl around the circle of desert below us. The Tropic of Cancer lies exactly over the head. This is a sacred place for many tribes across Mexico but particularly the Huichol indians, who collectively take an annual pilgrimage across the country to meditate and collect the elusive Peyote, which forms a central part of their spiritual rituals.

For anyone else choosing to take the so called 'path to enlightenment' contained within this psychadelic cactus, the correct thing to do before and after is to climb to this place to say thank you. It does not feel quite the right time for me to indulge in psychedelia. Even so, the further I walk, the more I can feel the place itself calling me.

The final steps are exhausting but what little breath I have left is taken away by the view. Behind me the gentle hulks of the mountains comfort; far below rolls the vast desert, shimmering, as if not entirely real. Directly in front of me is a stone circle full of colourful offerings - remnants of the last Huichol ceremony.

I am pulled cross-legged to the ground and there I stay, eyes closed, breathing in as deep as I can. I am my biggest critic and certainly now to some I sound like a deluded hippy, but I cannot deny that there was something extremely special there, much, much more ancient and powerful than me.

My eyes are opened by the sound of feather on dreadlocks and I turn to find Israel brushing himself with his 'offering'. With no shred of embarrassment he indicates I should do the same - mentally cleansing myself with every stroke. Then we sit next to the stone circle and thread the feather onto twine. He gives me a bag of beads and coloured seeds and tells me to choose the ones I want, always holding in mind what I am asking through my offering.

I choose two shiny red seeds, for protection, one brown and veined that reminds me of the world and the strange coincidental connections that have been plaguing me, and two jaffa orange beads for what I hope for in the future. Finally I pick up the smooth cross section of a shell, cut to form a spiral. A representation of the universe in so many indigenous cultures, and the shape of two curled hands linked together.

I crunch alone up to the very top of the mountain and tie my colourful string to the spiny leaves of a cactus tree. As I do so the calm is broken by a freezing cold blast of wind and I feel it cleansing me.

The return takes half the time of the journey there and on our way back a sharp cry of a bird causes us to stop and look up.

An eagle wheels slowly around our heads.

By the time we get back to the ghost town darkness has fallen. I have eaten only once today but have no desire for food. I return to the banging door of my concrete room and sleep for sixteen hours, and when I awake I feel whole.