BEST ROADS TRAVELED: Mexico’s Las Pozas – Jungle Fantasy
Outside the town of Xilitla in northern Mexico’s Sierra Gorda, a little known surrealistic architectural masterpiece rises out of the jungle.
Las Pozas Sculptures
For centuries this has been a seldom-visited region, semi-tropical and teaming with wildlife. It is also the unexpected site of Las Pozas (the pools), built by Edward James, an eccentric English poet, artist, and patron of the surrealist movement. Originally an 80-acre coffee plantation, it came to rival the subject matter of a Max Ernst painting. Over a twenty year period more than 36 fantastical concrete structures were built here—staircases to nowhere, arches, enormous fluted columns depicting botanicals, waterfalls and turquoise pools, stone images of pre-Columbian gods, and more.
Edward James with one of his parrots.
Born into a wealthy family in 1907, Edward James abandoned his high society urban life in London, Paris, New York, and Hollywood in the late 1940s to live here in the jungles of Mexico where he was visited by an eclectic group of the era’s most famous artists, writers, photographers and travelers. According to his biographer, Margaret Hooks, “artists he knew and befriended in Mexico visited him at Las Pozas regularly . . . among them Gunther Gerzso, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and Pedro Friedeberg (have google translate his website), who designed the pair of hands that Edward turned into sculpture near the entrance to Las Pozas.”
Long an avid art collector, James had already been buying works by Picasso, when he met Salvador Dali and contracted to buy all his work for a year and to subsidize his “Dream of Venice” exhibit for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. By the time James moved to Las Pozas he was also supporting the work of René Magritte, the poet Dylan Thomas, and the composer Igor Stravinsky. (Some sources say that James was the model for three of Magritte’s paintings, including La reproduction interdite [1937]). James was an active advocate for the surrealist movement, befriending and bankrolling dozens of artists who became famous in the years to follow.
James was a true eccentric according to all who knew him, turning his back on the confining attitudes and social constructs of Edwardian England, immersing himself in his desire to live creatively and surround himself with like-minded people. His first ten years at Las Pozas, James focused on growing orchids and providing a home for exotic animals, including a host of parrots, at least one of which was always a constant companion. In 1962 a frost destroyed many of the orchids and he began building his remarkable, futuristic sculpture garden. For the next two decades he spent millions to bring his vision to life, employing hundreds of masons, artisans, and local craftsmen. He died in 1984 at the age of 77.
In the mid-1990s, after visiting the unique and remote Junípero Serra missions in the Sierra Gorda (built before the California missions) with friends from San Miguel de Allende, I left the group to travel on my own by local bus to Xilitla. I had heard rumors of James’s magical garden and hoped to see it for myself. Xilitla was only a village then with only one small hotel and I had no reservations and no change of clothes or luggage. I was just winging it on a whim. Packs of dogs followed me wherever I went—I think I sat in something vile on the bus and the smell was attracting admirers!
I can’t recall the name of the little hotel, but when I walked into its small, dark foyer, knowing it was my only option since the bus wouldn’t be back through until the next day, I was confronted with a sight that gave me second thoughts. Leaning against one wall was a bare mattress with what appeared to be a “burn” hole the size of a man’s head at one end, and a large bloody stain! No one I knew had any idea where I was and it dawned on me that I might be an idiot.
Had the one available room recently held that mattress? My vivid imagination was on full alert. My room had a thatched roof (that rustled with critters during the night), a tile floor, a bed covered with only a threadbare tablecloth, and no lock on the door. Outside the one window, which had a wooden shutter, with no glass or screen, I could hear shouts from children playing ball nearby and birds jabbering in the trees; there were verdant green hills in the distance and the smell of roasted corn on the air. I spent a long night with little sleep, all too aware of the unlocked door as people came and went outside my room and shouts, laughter, and music filled the hours.
The next day it was a 20-minute walk on a dusty road out to Las Pozas. There was an air of abandonment about it, an eerie sense of mystery. The bright original colors on many sculptures and structures had faded like memories to pale abstractions, and algae, moss, and thick vines of the surrounding jungle were beginning to reclaim the site.
But it was still magical; I was mesmerized. It was cool along the shady, overgrown paths and birds chattered overhead. As I wandered (there was no one else around), I kept feeling that Dali himself might pop his head out from behind a column, twisting his flamboyant mustache with elegant fingers, followed by the rotund figure of Edward James, a rainbow-hued parrot riding his shoulder.
As I traveled back to San Miguel de Allende on the local bus that afternoon, I felt like Alice—I had fallen down a rabbit hole into a surrealistic world, an adventure I would always remember.
In 2007 Las Pozas was sold to two Mexican billionaires (Banamex’s Roberto Hernandez Ramirez and Cemex’s Lorenzo Zambrano Trevino) as well as the state of San Luis Potosí. A nonprofit charity foundation—Fondo Xilitla—took charge of conserving the site’s unique sculptures and protecting and restoring the surrounding land and gardens. As can be seen in the photos I have posted here, many of its structures have been restored to reflect James’s original vision.
Unfortunately Las Pozas is now visited by an estimated tens of thousands of people each year and throngs come on holidays. Visiting early mornings and on other days it’s not so crowded, but although I’m told it is still wonderful to visit, it’s much more organized as a tourist site. When I visited I saw no one else and I was free to walk and climb anywhere I wished—but not everyone would want the rustic conditions I dealt with and there are many more accommodations (hopefully minus the bloody mattress) and, according to an updated post on the Lonely Planet website, the little town of Xilitla has many shops and a Leonora Carrington museum .
NOTE: For more on Edward James and Las Pozas, see: Margaret Hooks, Surreal Eden: Edward James and Las Pozas (2007). There is also an hour-long BBC documentary The Secret Life of Edward James (1975) and a DVD titled Builder of Dreams (1995) about Edward James and Las Pozas by Avery Danziger, available for viewing on Vimeo and a few other sites. I visited with Danziger and his family when I was there and he had some interesting stories to tell.