Water for Tourists

Of all Mexico City's tourist attractions, canal-laced Xochimilco, "Place of Flowers," is probably the best advertised. In their flatbottomed, flower-decked canoas, Xochimilco's boatmen pole sightseers, picnickers and lovers between the canals' eucalyptus-lined banks. Other canoes with gardenias, carnations and violets draw alongside; or gondolalike chalupas glide up while their mariachis play and sing La Paloma or Cielito Lindo. Some of the big canoas have luncheon tables in their centers at which the tourists can eat mole and tortillas and drink the famed Mexican beer.

Last fortnight, tourists who went out to Xochimilco found the boats untended, their flowers wilted. An old boatman named Cecilio ("Negro") Pacheco explained why. He leaned over the side of his canoa, plunged a muscular arm into the murky water. "Look," he said. His arm caused a sucking sound as it went up to the elbow in thick mud. "Who wants to ride around Xochimilco now?"

For months, truck farmers around Xochimilco had been pulling down the water level by digging artesian wells to feed their cauliflower and carrot patches. The municipality of Mexico City did nothing about it. As the waterline in the canals dipped under the one-foot mark (four feet is normal), the boatmen, led by Pacheco, tackled the problem themselves. Armed with picks & shovels, 1,000 of them with their wives and children started digging in the mucky canals. Thousands more joined them, all seeking new springs to feed Xochimilco.

As the Xochimilquenses began to hit water, the municipality gave them some help. It hustled well-digging machinery and pumps out to the canals. It signed a contract with a nearby factory to use its pump during off-hours. As a result, in a single night 396,262 gallons of water were pumped into the canals. The boatmen, on their own, had accounted for plenty more.

By week's end, Xochimilco's water level had risen to 15 inches. The boats were out again, with fresh flowers spelling out their names, Juanita and Maria, Esmeralda and Flor. Old Pacheco, poling a load of tourists along a canal, waved airily to his son Tomas, who was passing in the canoa Laura. "We're not finished yet, are we?" he shouted.

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