Oaxaca -- At Hotel Francia, Hot On The Trail Of D.H. Lawrence

OAXACA, Mexico - The 36-room Hotel Francia, near the main plaza, is clean, neat and freshly painted. Yet it's not on the tourist beat. Most guide books don't even list it. Rooms are only $17.50 a night.

But on a Sunday morning I went there on a quest. I wanted to see the room where famed British author D.H. Lawrence stayed while in Oaxaca.

The author of "Sons and Lovers," "The Rainbow," "Lady Chatterly's Lover" and a score of other literary classics and his German wife, Frieda, arrived in Oaxaca on Nov. 9, 1924, after a brief stay in Mexico City. They came by train, traveling from the Oaxaca train station to the hotel on a trolley pulled by two mules.

Lawrence had come to North America at the behest of heiress Mabel Dodge Luhan who lived in Taos, N.M. The Lawrences stayed in Taos about 22 months over a three-year period between 1922 and 1925. Because of bad health, Lawrence, who was on the verge of consumption, spent winters in Mexico because of its better weather.

On his first trip, he stayed at Lake Chapala on the outskirts of Guadalajara, where he wrote the first draft of "The Plumed Serpent," a novel set in Mexico.

On his second trip, he decided to go to Oaxaca because, as he wrote to a friend, "Lake Chapala has not really the spirit of Mexico, it is too tamed, too touristy."

Had Lawrence lived to see Lake Chapala today (he died at age 44 in a sanitorium in Italy in 1938), he would have been mortified. The lake is a major water source for rapidly expanding Guadalajara. So much water has been drained from the lake that nature can no longer replenish it.

Lake Chapala, with the largest population of American expatriates in Mexico, now has less than one-third the water it held in 1923 when Lawrence described it as a great "expanse of water, like a sea, trembling, trembling, trembling to a far distance." Its average depth is 9 feet.

The lakeside yacht club is now so far away from the water's edge that boat owners have to take a taxi to get there.

Lawrence, si

Traveling to Oaxaca with Lawrence and Frieda (six years his senior and daughter of Baron Friedrich von Richthofen) was their friend and frequent travel companion, Lady Dorothy Brett, then 41, daughter of Viscount Esher.

Surely little of the trio's celebrated status was apparent when they arrived at the Hotel Francia at 7 that night by mule-drawn trolley.

In 1924, the Hotel Francia, named after its original French owner, was the place to be. Built as a single story hotel in the 1890s. it was so popular that a two-story annex was later added. The room rate when the Lawrences arrived was 4 pesos a night (about $2).

When I arrived, the young woman at the reception desk, who also handled the hotel switchboard, was having a spirited phone conversation with a friend. She stopped talking for a moment to see what I wanted. I told her I was interested in D.H. Lawrence, and she immediately summoned an aging bellman and instructed him to take me to room 140. Then she went back to the phone.

The room where Lawrence and Frieda stayed is on the second floor overlooking the lobby (in 1924, an open patio). The room, once described as "spacious," was rather small. It hadn't been made up yet; its twin beds were a tangle of sheets. The floor was tiled. There was a mirror and a desk. The toilet seat in the bathroom was white plastic. (Odd, what stays in your mind.)

The Lawrences later rented a house from the Rev. Edward A. Rickers, a local priest, but returned often to the hotel where Lady Brett kept a room. The rented house was at Avenida Pino Suarez 43 (now No. 600). When it was rattled by a minor earthquake, the Lawrences were quick to move back to the hotel. (The house on one of the city's main north-south boulevards has been remodeled into apartments; no apparent trace remains of Lawrence's brief stay.)

During his nearly six months in Oaxaca, Lawrence rewrote "The Plumed Serpent" (originally titled "Quetzalcoatl"), and major sections of "Mornings in Mexico." (While the collection of essays deals with a number of Oaxaca experiences - Market Day, a visit to Huayapa - its main focus is on Indian ceremonials in and around Taos, N.M.)

The past remains

Then as now, the city of Oaxaca boasts the largest Indian population of any Mexican city (indigenous people make up 90 percent of the population.) The new visitors must have surely stood out.

The slightly stooped, red-bearded British author was irascible and withdrawn. He was invariably accompanied by his doting, full-bodied German wife who had stringy blonde hair that no doubt suffered in the Oaxaca humidity. Lady Brett was all but deaf and carried an ear trumpet and an electric hearing aid as large as a briefcase at all times.

Lady Brett was one of the first of the liberated women. She was a talented artist as well as a gifted photographer and writer. It is largely through her efforts that Lawrence's 22 months in Taos and his trips to Mexico have been so meticulously chronicled. However, her attentions to Lawrence, or vice versa, began to get on Frieda's nerves, and after a terrible row Lady Brett returned to Taos.

Oaxaca has grown sixfold since the time of Lawrence's visit. Yet, in that quality unique to Mexico, much of the past remains in place. The huge central market that Lawrence writes about so eloquently in "Mornings in Mexico" is only a block from the Hotel Francia. The cathedral, the zocalo, the Mixtec ruins of Mitla with its large open-air crafts market that the Lawrences visited are all unchanged. ----------------------------------------------------------------- IF YOU GO Planning a trip to Oaxaca

The city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name, is 250 miles south of Mexico City. Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines fly there frequently from the capital.

Where to stay:

-- Camino Real (Cinco de Mayo 300; tel. 9516-0611) is a beautiful former convent near the zocalo and the main market. It has 91 rooms. Rates: $150 - $210 per double.

-- Victoria (Lomas del Fortin #1; tel. 9515-2633) is a two-story hotel on a hill overlooking the city, It has 151 rooms. Rates: $95 - $180.

-- Mision de los Angeles (Caalzado Portirio Diaz 102; tel. 9515-1500) is about 10 short blocks from the zocalo. Its 155 rooms are situated in a series of bungalows. Rates: $85 - $150.

Shopping:

With its large Indian population, Oaxaca offers a rich variety of handicrafts displayed at street-corner stalls and in sprawling markets throughout the city. But the savvy shopper will find the best prices and the best selections by visiting the villages on the outskirts of Oaxaca where the crafts are made. Here are some of the highlights:

-- San Bartolo Coyotepec. This is the village where Oaxaca's stunning black pottery is made. On Route 175, the village is well marked and served by local buses. The black pottery has a satiny sheen, often with a silver luster, obtained by burnishing the clay with a piece of quartz before firing. Shaped into tiny pots, animal figurines and beads as well as large bowls, candelabra, jars, jugs and platters, the black pottery is perhaps the most distinctive of all of Oaxaca's handicrafts.

-- Arrazola and San Martin Tilcaiete. These are the villages where alebrijes are made, animals carved from copal wood and painted with surrealistic designs in vivid colors. Shoppers go from house to house visiting each carver's show room to pick out their prizes, some of which seem thrust from their creator's worst nightmares. Highly prized and expensive when purchased outside of Oaxaca, the point-of-sale prices here seem like giveaways.

-- Santo Tomas Jalieza. This is where fine cotton textiles, colored with natural dyes, are made. Women work on small looms in the center of town, weaving elaborate belts, table runners and wall hangings. The brightly woven belts, called fajas, are sold in bundles throughout the state. The distinctive pink color comes from the tiny black cochineal bug found in the white, spongy web-like substance that clings to nopal cactus (a species of prickly pear). In a process used by the early Aztecs, the bugs are boiled down, dried and then put in water from which the color emerges. Ron Butler is a freelance writer who lives in Tucscon, Ariz.