Day Thirty - Mexico City, D.F. (July 26, 2010)

Our second full day in Mexico City was pretty historically-based, including visits to the Basilica of Guadalupe and the ancient ruins of Teotihuacán.


We started off by driving to the Basilica of Guadalupe, on our way out of the city. Alex gave me a quick 5-minute overview to the history of the site. Here’s what he explained of the legend…in 1531, a local indigenous man named Juan Diego saw an apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe. She instructed him to go back to his people, explain what he saw, and build a church in her honor. He went back, but the people did not believe him. He then saw the Virgin a second time and she placed rose petals in his cloak. When he returned to the people and opened his cloak, an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was impressed in the material. Now believing Juan Diego, the people built a church for her almost immediately.

The Basilica of Guadalupe is the church that the people built. The current site has more than one church, including the Old Basilica, the New Basilica, El Pocito Chapel, and more. Since the Old Basilica was build on weak ground, it started to sink (and is still leaning…very similar to the tower in Pisa) and a new building was constructed. Inside the New Basilica is Juan Diego’s shroud with the impression of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Here’s where the more modern touch comes in…to view the shroud, you stand on short moving sidewalks so that you can see it as often as you’d like and so that everyone keeps moving. I did it once and then headed over to the shop where I bought a candle for Uncle Stash and lit it outside the church. I know he would’ve loved to hear about my visit to the Basilica, so I’m glad I could do something in his memory.

Upon leaving the Basilica, we headed to the ancient Aztec ruins of Teotihuacán. The site was built close to the year 0 and was used by the Aztecs during their reign. The city is HUGE and likely once had more than 200,000 inhabitants. A long “street” called the Avenue of the Dead leads up to a large pyramid known as the Pyramid of the Moon. An even bigger pyramid called the Pyramid of the Sun is nearby. There are many small pyramids and buildings scattered throughout the city, as well as grass-covered hills, which were likely pyramids in their day. I went to the top of the Moon pyramid and had a great view over Teotihuacán, with Mexico City in the distance. This is definitely a place to visit and one I will certainly return to in the future. Hey, I’ve gotta climb the Sun Pyramid one day…

To finish off the day, we ate lunch in an underground cave! How cool!

Day Twenty-Nine - Mexico City, D.F. (July 25, 2010)

This morning was an absolutely AMAZING and traditional Mexican experience! We headed out around 10am to the area known as Xochimilco (a delegación, or borough, of D.F). Xochimilco is known for its series of small canals which are remnants of Lake Xochimilco (dating back to the time of the Aztecs). Here Jacques hired a trajinera (boat) to take us on a small trip along the canals and among the chinampas (“floating gardens”, or artificial islands used to grow crops).

Each of the trajineras are named and colorfully decorated. Our trajinera was named Xochimilco, after the area, but I did find one on our travels named Virginia! Here’s a picture just for you, Auntie!

Our trip on the trajinera felt like sensory overload! Not only were there trajineras carrying people down the canals, but there were also small ones with people selling anything and everything! If you wanted to buy something, you would simply wave and they would paddle over and ride along next to you until the sale was complete! There were some people selling blankets, sombreros, flowers, and even candy apples (this I had to get!) . There were also some trajineras with mariachi bands (who would sing you a song for 30 pesos) and still others with marimbas! This was an experience that can never, ever be replicated…






Our afternoon was spent in honor of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, two very Mexican famous painters from the early-20th century, who were married to each other and had very controversial histories (according to some of my reading, Diego painted a pretty contentious piece for Ford in the 1930s, among others). We first stopped at Dolores Olmedo’s estate which houses many of Diego’s paintings. Although we couldn’t take pictures, I found this copy on the Internet of a work at Olmedo’s estate that I enjoyed, titled “En la fuente de Toledo (At the Fountain of Toledo)”.

The grounds were huge and housed various animals, including some peacocks! I decided to be artistic and take some pictures of a peacock through a kaleidoscope…here’s one of them:

We also made a visit to La Casa Azul (The Blue House), which was Frida and Diego's home for many years. According to some reading I’ve done, the house was painted blue by Frida’s father in the early 1900s and is the place where Frida got much of her initial inspiration. When she was 18, Frida was in a terrible accident and spent over a month in a body cast. Since she couldn’t move, her mother hung a mirror from the top of her bed and Frida used it to design various self-portraits. Much of Frida’s pain and suffering was depicted in her paintings. But, here’s a more refreshing painting of hers that I particularly enjoy (also off the Internet):

Oh, and of course I must mention lunch, where I tried…ANT EGGS! Yes, I did it! They looked and tasted a lot like cous cous. Although they appeared appetizing, I couldn’t eat much of them knowing what they really were. Here’s a picture before I tasted them:

Well, that's all for now.  It's a busy next few days in Mexico City, and then I head home to NYC on Friday.  How I'll get back to reality, I have no idea...

Day Twenty-Eight - Tlapanapa (July 24, 2010)

Today we took a bus trip from Puebla to the small town of Tlapanapa. The point of today’s trip was to learn more about the Mexican perspective of migration to the United States. A professor from el Universidad de las Américas, Héctor Peláez, gave us a lecture on site, which was pretty interesting. On our way to the town, we encountered a few cemeteries that were ornately designed and a herd of animals being led down the street...

When we finally arrived to Tlapanapa, we met with a large group of locals and had a two-hour conversation with them. It was interesting to hear of their personal experiences with migration, some of them having spent three days and nights walking through the desert near Tijuana to try and enter the United States. They cooked lunch for us and then explained some of the small projects they do in their community, like recycling soda cans and turning them into purses and other small accessories. Oh, and as it turns out, they have a blue door to enter the house (I found a blue door in Puebla for you, Eliomar, but I don’t know if it was your grandma’s house!). Here’s a picture of me going inside (while wearing my 3-311 t-shirt!)...

After we dropped Professor Peláez back in Puebla, we headed for our final destination...Districto Federal, aka, Mexico City!  On our drive, we watched the movie "Frida" about the famous Mexican painter from the early-20th century and saw Popocatépetl (Popo for short), one of Mexico's active volcanoes!  If you look carefully at the picture, you'll see part of its peak hidden in the clouds.

Popocatépetl has had a number of eruptions, small and big, in recent years. One article I read says that on June 8, 2010, "Popocatépetl volcano had one of its larger explosions during recent years: an ash plume was generated that rose to 8 km (27,600 feet)."  Hopefully there will be no eruptions in the coming days....!

Day Twenty-Seven - Puebla (July 23, 2010)

We started off the day with a visit to the “Talavera de Uriarte” workshop. Talavera is a type of Mexican pottery and the authentic pieces only come from Puebla. Talavera pieces, which usually have a white glaze [and often designs in blue], are hand-crafted on a potter’s wheel and carefully painted by hand.

The particular workshop where we went is known worldwide and is often contracted to complete various “special projects.” They make many pieces, including flower vases, serving platters, dinner sets, and more. Our guide told us that a couple from Chicago recently had the artists at the workshop design an entire Talavera swimming pool for their house...maybe one day I'll be rich enough to do that too!  We took a tour through the workshop and observed the different steps that go into making this pottery, including: mixing the paint, forming the clay, putting on the initial glaze, and the intricacies of painting the final products.  Here are some of the various processes:

Grinding cobalt and mixing it with liquid to make the blue-colored paint:

Sculpting the clay into various shapes and sizes:

Carefully painting the glazed piece with freshly-mixed paints:

Some "special projects" I found while walking around included a small plate with a Coca-Cola design and a HUGE plate for Mexico's upcoming bicentennial (200-year anniversary of independence from Spain). 

Afterwards, we headed to the Biblioteca Palafoxiana and a local museum, Museo Amparo. The Biblioteca (library) was established in 1646 and contains over 42,000 books and manuscripts which date between 1473 and 1910. The library was beautifully decorated and reminded me of The Morgan Library in Manhattan and the Bodleian Library in Oxford….ahhhh, memories…

As for the museum, it contains many pieces of work from the Zapotec, Huasteca, Maya, Olmec, and Aztec cultures (aka, the stuff is pretty old!). In this area of Puebla, I think my favorite building is the Cathedral of Puebla (which is pictured on the 500 peso bill). Lit up at night, it looked like something out of an old European city.

At night, a few of us went to see “Shrek – El Capítulo Final” in the movies. Again, the movie was completely dubbed over in Spanish (but done much better than Eclipse) and I understood most of it! Hooray for knowing that my Spanish skills have improved immensely on this trip!!!! Here are some of the fun posters from the movie theater's lobby:
   
                     

Day Twenty-Six - Puebla (July 22, 2010)

Today we arrived in the city of Puebla, one of the largest cities in Mexico. Its main industry is car manufacturing, and according to Jacques, it has the largest Volkswagen plant, with over 15,000 employees. On our drive to the pyramids today, I saw a site for almost every car company imaginable – Ford, Toyota, Nissan, Fiat, etc., etc., etc.

We entered Puebla with a visit to the Cinco de Mayo battle site. Jacques explained that 5 de Mayo is more of an American holiday than a Mexican one. The day is important in that 5 de Mayo 1862 was the only time that the Mexican army won a battle against a foreign army (the French). But, the Mexican independence day (16 de Septiembre) is definitely viewed as more important in the country’s history.

Jacques found a local restaurant to eat lunch, not far from our hotel. I ordered a chicken noodle soup, which was a little salty, but pretty good. I also ordered tostadas, with what I thought would be shredded beef (tinga). Butttt, apparently I ordered pata de res, or cow’s feet. UGH!!!!! I was curious when I realized that my tostadas didn’t have any shredded beef. But when I saw something resembling head cheese scattered all over my plate, my stomach turned upside down.

I attempted a taste, but was pretty turned off (Sorry Gramps!). Since my lunch experience wasn’t so great, I made a mad dash towards Americanized food for dinner. Yup, that’s right…I did it…I caved…I went to…McDONALDS! But, mmmm, mmm, mmmm, was it good! Yummy chicken nuggets and fries surely hit the spot!

In between lunch and dinner, we made a trip to the area of Cholula, which houses the biggest pyramid in the world…it is actually bigger than the pyramid of Giza, but you can’t tell because part of it is buried under a hill. It is not taller than the one in Giza, but wider.

The pyramid in Cholula usually has a tunnel open to visitors, which cuts through the inside of the structure.  But, as our Fulbright luck would have it, there was a recent cave-in throughout the tunnel and it was closed for renovations. Oh well. Here's the tunnel anyway:

We had a short lecture in the museum and then walked around the pyramid’s base. Of course it started to rain, but we didn’t melt.

To add to my fun in visiting a new country, Veronica and I headed up the block from our hotel to get a taste of local teen culture…watching Eclipse at the movie theater!  The tickets were only 28 pesos (only about $2.50), and the theater wasn’t too crowded (and it looked just like a U.S. theater). As for the film, it was only in Spanish. But, I understood almost all of the conversations and enjoyed it a lot! I think tomorrow we might go see Shrek 4…if so, there’ll be an update on that too!

I finished the evening by grabbing a café latte at The Italian Coffee Company (which is on every block at least once in all of the major cities…it’s bigger than Starbucks is in the U.S.!). The coffee was good, but even better was the Cinderella book I bought from a street vendor…for only 50 pesos (less than $5), it came with finger puppets…HOW COOL!

Day Twenty-Five - Xalapa and Xico

Our trip today started with a visit to the Museo de Antropología de Xalapa. We made up for yesterday by getting to the museum at 9am, right when it opened. The museum was full of artifacts from various points in Mexican history, including many items from the Olmec civilization. I think my favorite parts were the huge Olmecan heads (similar to the copies that I found at the University of Texas and at Hacienda Teya). They were labeled in the order that they were found, and the Anthropological Museum had numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9 on display. I saw a place for number 4, but it was empty. There were also various carvings, sculptures, and friezes through the museum.  Here I am with ALL of Xalapa's collosal heads collection:

After our visit to the museum, we made a short ride to the town of Xico. First, we visited Texolo, the waterfalls of Xico, which were small, but pretty.

Then we made our way into the center of town and stumbled upon a parade for Santa Maria Magdalena. As it turns out, this week is special in Xico and they have a week’s worth of celebrations. The parade was really cool, as many families and communities designed small “floats” with Paper Mache bulls to hold atop their heads. One float, instead of a bull, had a tiger! So, of course, I took a picture just for Timothy!

The parade was great, but on our way back from lunch we came upon a group of people on horses. Many of them were older men who looked like cowboys, but the best dressed were the young girls in beautiful dresses! How pretty!

Our last adventure of the day was a trip El café tal – a coffee museum! Here we learned how coffee is produced, from beginning to end. Our guide showed us the plants that the coffee is harvested from, demonstrated the removing of the “pulp” or skin from the coffee beans, explained how the coffee beans are dried and stored for about 6 months, and then discussed the machine that roasts the coffee beans (which takes about 8 minutes). Mmmmm…we also tried some macchiato, homemade cookies, and chocolate-covered coffee beans. Haha, and my money grew wings again, and quickly flew away once we entered the store. :-) But, at least my caffeine craving will be satisfied for a while!  Oh, and another cool thing...there was a quote about coffee on their wall in both Polish and Spanish...basically, lots of talk about how WONDERFUL coffee is!

Tomorrow we head to Puebla. We’re entering the home stretch now….

Day Twenty-Four - Xalapa

The morning started with an hour or so bus drive to the ancient site of Quiahuixtlan. These archaeological ruins date back to more than 1,500 years ago and span over three civilizations – the Totonacs, Toltecs, and Aztecs. The site is characterized by a huge rock formation that reaches high into the sky. We entered the site and immediately came upon miniature temples. Our guide explained that these were actually tombs for the Totonacs and would house the arms, legs, and heads of priests, warriors, government officials, and women who died in childbirth (warriors in their own right).

After exploring a bit, we walked down about 100 steps to reach a few structures from the period of the Aztecs. According to the guide, this was the spot where Hernan Cortes forged his alliance with some of the Tlaxcalans in his quest to dethrone Montezuma. Looking off into the distance we also saw a small island (the tiny one) which is apparently the spot where Cortes tied his ships and then destroyed them so that his comrades would have to continue on and could not return home without him.

Once we were finished touring, some of the members in our group decided to make the climb towards the top of the huge rock formation. I decided against it, as the sun and bugs were my enemies today. It took them two hours to go up about halfway and come back down. They say that it was similar to extreme rock climbing. While I’m sure I would have loved it, my jeans were already stuck to me and my asthma was acting up…probably wouldn’t have been such a good idea.

After they all returned, we made our way to the city of Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz. We tried to go to the Anthropology Museum of Xalapa, but didn’t make it in time. We’re going to head there tomorrow instead.  On our way back, I noticed another Ford showroom.  This one's for you, Uncle Stash:

I also got a taste of “Americanization” in Mexico tonight, as a few of us headed to the local mall for dinner. Honestly, I felt like I had stepped into the Queens Centre Mall. The food court had everything from McDonalds to Subway to Carl’s Jr. (which we rarely even see in NYC). For dinner, we decided on Chili’s and had a taste of home. It was good, but not as good as the Sopa Xochitl (spicy chicken soup) that I’ve been ordering for lunch every day. I’m definitely going to miss that when I get home, but knowing me, I’ll be able to recreate it in no time! Since we didn’t go to the mall to shop, we headed back to the hotel right after dinner. Tomorrow we’re gone by 8:30am and have a busy day ahead of us, so until next time…