Like John Denver crooned, “Some days are diamonds and some days are stones.” After all the running around – Mexico City to Taxco to Chilpancingo and back to Taxco, Montezuma seems to have caught up with me.
This guy looks like I feel right now. Perhaps tomorrow will be a diamond.
Barely in Taxco a day and a half, and I boarded another bus, with my friend Vanessa, for Chilpancingo to visit mutual friends from a couple years ago (when I visited her there). It is a long and winding road through the mountains to a lower altitude and about 10 degrees or more increase in temperature. (Mas caliente!!! Or calor, if you are talking about the weather.) Along the way, there was evidence of the severe flood damage this area received from the torrential rains associated with the hurricane that hit Acapulco this fall. Actually Chilpo and the surrounding area suffered more damage than Acapulco (sort of like the Peshtigo, Wisconsin fire that destroyed more property and lives on the same night as the Chicago fire — the big sister got all the attention and sympathy.)
The highway showed evidence of having been washed out by the raging river as we traveled over smooth new asphalt in many areas, with a sharp drop on the edge to the river bed below. There were topless trees that once marked the river’s edge that now stood mid-stream looking like a line of 4-foot fence posts waiting to be strung with barbed wire. The opposing bank showed a water line 20 or more feet above the river bed and parts of the mountains had washed away giving them the appearance of a very large, somewhat haphazardly designed ski hill. Our friends told us that at least one friend had died in the flood and a whole town was washed away.
Chilpancingo itself appears to be returning to normal, though the concrete basin that channels the river through the center of town is broken and rubble strewn. Maintenance crews are still working to repair the hardest hit area which washed away the road and several houses and businesses in the main business district.
As devastating as the flood was, and as quickly as the Mexican authorities responded to help the people affected, our brothers came to the rescue of those in need and within a few weeks, all the friends who were displaced were back “home” either in their own repaired property or relocated, with the necessities to start anew. It was a heart-warming and faith strengthening experience for all. Now people just need to get over the shock of what happened and refocus their lives with some routine.
It was so good to see old friends again, many smiles and hugs all around. They asked when I would be back and begged me to stay and help there; believe me it is tempting (hearing the meeting in my own language instead of totally incomprehensible espanol was sooooo nice) but the location of the city, in a bowl surrounded by mountains, makes the air quality level way too poor for me. (As soon as we turned the bend and Chilpo was in sight I could see the haze settled over the city.) We stayed with a sister a little outside town which was much better than the city itself, but 5 days in the smog of the city was enough.
With Vanessa & Vicki – Chilpancingo
So for this year I guess it is learn Spanish or bust. Though Vanessa, who has lived in Mexico for more than 5 years now and is fluent in Spanish, says it was hard for even her to understand the meeting, so bust it may be. I will continue my search for an affordable location with an English congregation.
I have been given contacts in Cuernavaca, San Miguel de Allende, and Huatulco. One is likely too hot (described as like Gehenna in the mid-day), one is likely to big (700,000), San Miguel may be too Americanized — but all worthy of a visit at least.
Like Goldilocks, I am sure I will find my just right.
Travis, Ana, Tonatje, Mael & Daniel Ashworth
Loli and Nincy
I never quite understood the idea of the 12 days of Christmas until I came to Mexico this year. It seems that the biggest day of the whole Feliz Navidad (Happy Nativity, aka Christmas) season is December 12, when Mexican Catholics commemorate a feast day for Guadalupe (the Mexican virgin and mother of Jesus). They go on to celebrate the season day by day until its culmination on December 24.
Little did I know when I made my travel plans from Mexico City to Taxco that travel would be hampered by roads clogged with shrines on the back of pickup trucks followed by ardent believers called pilgrims on foot and bicycle slowly making their way to the main Cathedral of Guadalupe in downtown Mexico City, and in smaller numbers to other towns with churches dedicated to her, like Taxco. (Sorry I don’t have pictures.) So what are usually 4 lane highways clogged with traffic racing to and from town become one lane slowed to the pace of a burro (walker or bike rider) trying to get out of that lane and into the one next to it so they can race on by the “obstruction” only to get caught up in a similar situation a few miles further along. Not only are the roads clogged with the faithful but school is out for a month and everyone is trying to get “home for the holidays.”
The trip to Taxco which usually takes 2.5 hours, took over 3. But, I arrived safe and sound to Irma’s house where my room and a joyous reunion with her and her grandchildren and later on my English speaking friends commenced. Sleep was a bit disturbed due to the revelers, the bands, and the “airworks” (fireworks without the fire, only the boom) into the wee hours of the morning. I was so exhausted from traveling though that after midnight when most of the noise settled down, I slept soundly.
It feels like home – Mexican style.
Time to leave Mexico City. Traveling – will catch you up in a few days.
Esther and Sebastion, took me to see “the pyramids” at Teotihuacan, north of Mexico City. Along the way I had a good view of the two snow covered volcanoes nearby. Popolcatepetl (Smoking Mountain) is active; his appropriately named companion, Iztaccihuatl (The Sleeping Woman), is not. It is an interesting legend, sort of the Mexican Romeo and Juliet, that you can read about here.
Teotihaucan is a huge archeological site, that the Mexican government has been excavating for 100 years, and they are nowhere near done yet. Dated to 10 BC or before, the city grew to 85,000 people and some 20+ square km at its zenith. Two giant, slant slope pyramids give evidence that the natives here worshiped the sun and the moon and since the main entrance to the city is called de la Avenida de los Muertos, practiced human sacrifice. Climbing to the top is steep; but what a commanding view of the valley and the mountains around. After the Teotihaucan people died off, perhaps due to the practice of the warriors wearing the skin of the people they killed in battle and thus being exposed to their diseases (especially the Europeans), the Aztecs and other native peoples respected the city as a Teotihuacan sacred site (and apparently the Spanish never went there), thus it remains for us to see and wonder about today.
It never ceases to amaze me to see not only the building skills and the understanding of the movement of the sun, moon, and stars, that they could build such structures (without power tools, no less) and align them with perfect precision.
I wonder how the natives, who evidently were shorter than us, managed to run up and down the knee-high steps. The museum is filled with artifacts, murals, sculptures from the temples, and a scale model of the city.
This is a trip well worth making; buses leave regularly from the north terminal. I hear the crowds can be huge so go on a weekday though; not very many people on a winter Tuesday in December. In fact I think the vendors may have outnumbered the visitors this day.
That’s one thing that detracts from the experience, not only here but anywhere in Mexico. Anyone can sell anything almost anywhere, without a permit or any regulation. Vendors try to sell you things, wash your windows, or dust off your car at intersections. People sell any matter of things in the park. Kids beg you to buy gum on the Zocolo (plaza at the town center). You get used to it, don’t make eye contact, and wag your finger a lot.
I really hate the commercialization of the archeological sites though; having someone approach you to try and sell you something every 5 minutes is annoying and interrupts both your conversation and your experience of the ancient site that you are in. I, of course, so obviously a gringo, would not only be approached, but when I shook my finger and said, “No,” emphatically, and kept walking, they would follow me and say, “Almost free.” Pretty funny, the first time.
I went with my friends to an Arabic class today. They are learning enough Arabic (and a little Russian too) to round out their language skills (which include very good English and some sign language.) It was interesting seeing and hearing, the very foreign to us, flowing letters and sounds. (reminded me of when Rachel was learning Persian – very pretty script.)
For now I think I will stick to Spanish; one language at a time. My hosts say I know many words. I am not conversational by a long shot but I can make myself understood and even amazed myself asking for things at dinner in espanol. I just might, as they say, know more that I think I do.
The temperatures are cool at night but by 10 am it is sleeveless shirt warm (especially for a gringo escaping a Midwest winter). With good public, transportation and much in the way of culture, I would enjoy living in some areas if it were not for the air pollution. As I feel about most large cities, “it is a nice place to visit but I would not want to live here.”
After the class, we were invited to a fiesta — a party to welcome my friends to a new congregation. There was pozole – a traditional Mexican soup made with maize (think corn nuts) boiled in broth which in this case some pork and a whole lot of pig skin and chunks of fat (not my favorite concoction.) You add oregano, chili, and onion to taste, and top with chunks of avocado. It is a dish for special occasions since it takes a long while to cook — a good thing too since it is so full of fat that a few bites has me full to the brim even with plenty of limes to cut the grease. Afterward we “danced it off;” a little merengue is a good thing and fun too especially with people who grew up dancing this way.
It is the end of the day and I am being serenaded by my host’s son, singing an aria in the shower. The sound, amplified by the shower stall, flows out into the courtyard and drifts to my ears below. A lovely way to end the day.
Mexico City is almost beyond comprehension to this humble Mid-westerner. The sheer enormity of a city boasting 28 million people is evident in the constant traffic — lanes and lanes and unofficial lanes wide, horns honking, and people scurrying everywhere. Metro (subway) cars packed like sardines; doors close on shoulders and fannies that didn’t quite squeeze in fast or far enough.
My hosts, Dr. Claudio and Caro Serrano, took me to the central city to “The Castle,” originally built, in the European style, for the Emperor Maximillian, one of the Hapsburgs, who had been governor of Milan, Vienna, and France (if I read it right) before this post (their family motto was something like “we rule the world.”)
Rising above the city on a steep, rocky hill, thick stone walls accented by grand balconies and watchful turrets kept an eye on the emperor’s empire stretching out below. Much of the grounds now is a forest preserve with an artificial lake, zoo, and several other museums (think Chicago museum campus). They call the area “the lung” of the city for the oxygen the trees provide to try to offset the air pollution.
The building is 1700’s European spectacular filled with mementos of the Emperor and Empress – gold buttons, watches, and jewelry, fine china, crystal, jewels, and opulent rooms decked out in the most fashionable European furnishings of the day — mostly Louis the XV and XVI France (Limoges floor length clock and candlestands stood out as exceptional) as was the ornate Italian made carriage.
Can you imagine what it cost to ship this here?
After the Emperor went back to France, it was a millitary college that fought off a US invasion (of the fames Heroes de Ninos fame), a territorial governor lived here and ruled for 30 years until he was run out (and escaped to France) because of his love for all things French that drained the coffers, and finally the house of the Presidente who rattled around in it for awhile and then gifted it to the people of Mexico for an historical museum but still uses it for official functions for ambassadors and such.
The rooftop garden, surrounding the old observatory tower is impressive, as is the long stained glass lined corridor and the view of the courtyard and from the courtyard overlooking the city.
Cruising over the heartland
Clouds like snow covered mountain peaks all around
Snatches of brown fields
Corn maze shaped like a rocket ship sporting “a star upon thars”
Headed South over middle states — Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana
Blue skies reveal the great river’s serpentine windings
Suddenly nothing but blue dotted with white puffs
Below and above — stretching forever
Land appears — undulating no longer flat
Little villages and towns hug the sides and adorn the peaks
Rugged hills, softened by greenery
Roads zig and zag to the top and wind their way down again
Rivers meander between rocky promontories
Splitting in two
And coming together again
Whole once more
Mexico City
Red tile roofs stretch for miles upon miles
Isolated villages give way to housing tracts
Ordered grids broken by warehouses and plots of tilled land
The air grows hazy
Shrouding the view of houses, schools, a bull ring
The occasional park lined with trees
Briefly breaks the haze
The central city grows tall
Latin colors brighten the view
Brilliant red, blue, yellow, orange, violet, magenta
Wheels on the ground
I am amazed at how easy my flight from Madison to Mexico City went. Starting at the Madison airport where very pleasant Delta employees checked in some very groggy passengers, then I was fast tracked into a “pre-checked” security line where I did not have to wait with 50 other folks, take off my shoes, take out my computer, and all that jazz. I waited behind 3 or 4 people, showed the TSA folks my frozen protein drink, ran the bags and me through the scanner and the whole procedure was done and I was on my way in a matter of just a few minutes. I liked that.
I had a short turn around in Detroit but unlike Chicago where you seem to hussle miles and miles, I deboarded, walked around the corner and rode an escalator to the top of the building where I boarded a tram which silently whisked me away and deposited me in the middle of the terminal just above the gate for my outgoing flight. Quick and easy.
Things went so quickly and smoothly at Mexico City — off the plane, a short walk to customs, and a quick document check (again instead of walking a mile and a half, or so it seems) — that I and my hosts were caught off guard. So I had to wait a little. After being cooped up in a flying tin can, filled to the brim with Mexicans (no habla ingles), it was nice to stretch out, relax a little, and just read awhile — good preparation for traveling across town in Mexico City traffic — a cross between the gran prix and bumper cars (without quite bumping), zigzagging through curb to curb traffic, from break neck speed to dead stop in seconds, all while everyone makes their own lanes (if you can squeeze through the space it must be legal.) As my hosts said, “If you can drive safely in Mexico City, you can drive anywhere.” I believe it.
May the rest of this trip go so well.
Mexico City here I come. I am looking forward to warmer weather and being with good friends in a fabulous place filled with beautiful colonial architecture , history, and culture. I will spend a few days with friends in Mexico City before taking a two hour bus ride to Taxco, The Silver Capital of the World, where I will be based for the next 2.5 months.
I was really pleased when I got to the airport and the $40 domestic baggage charge the computer said would apply was waived by a very pleasant human being. So I take back all the bad things I was saying about airline fees.
It’s time to buckle up!
The Adventures of Blue Bear 