transversing the country

We made it to Oaxaca!

After spending a couple of nights in Acayucan, Veracruz (where I think the room had fleas or bed bugs), we took a bus from one side of Mexico to the other, and now we are in Salina Cruz.
We`ve spent the time in our "stop-over"cities to do research, request hosts, eat eat, and just wander the town plazas. One of my top favorite things about going to all different places and sleeping somewhere new so often is tasting all the food! Not only does every region or state have its specialties, pueblos have foods that are totally unique to the town. In Morelia we loved corrundas, fatty cheese + chili stuffed tamales, and gorditas de nata, tiny little pancake things they sell on the street. In Xalapa we discovered salsa de chili seco, a waay spicier and smokier tasting salsa they don`t serve anywhere else, and Veracruz has memelas, like a pizza sized tortilla with beans and cheese and such, and empanadas, a version of a quesadilla. Of course, the coastal states super specialty is seafood, but I only taste it through Ian`s descriptions.
I`ve been searching for a torta to rival an amazing place in Jalapa where I can get 3 kinds of cheese with pineapple, beans and chile. Now that we`re in Oaxaca we`ll be able to taste the mole everyone has been raving about. And another thing: CHEESE! Queso fresco is amazing, but queso oaxaca is my faaaaaaavorite! It`s a delicious salty stringy cheese, like mozarella but Mexican (there`s a less salty version called queso de hebra). And when we`re in a town with a market and place with a fridge we taste + stock up on all of the super super fresh cheeses.
So... we probably haven`t eaten pizza since D.F. It`s expensive. French fries- pretty often.
Street food is impossibly cheap, especially the farther south we get. The only downside - when we find someplace we like, we move on to the next stop.

hmm, thanksgiving?

We got the inside tour of a cigar factory just outside of San Andres Tuxtla - actually on the highway halfway between Catemaco and San Andres, where we walked 2 kilometers along the road into town after our tour (a bit stressful when huge trucks fly by, no shoulder).
But we hopped off the bus as soon as we saw a building with the word tabaquería , and we ended up in the factory of Te Amo cigars, a 120 year old company, something of an establishment in Mexican cigars. As soon the as Cuban embargo happened, Mexico rejoiced with the new possibilities of cigar importing to the U.S.

Our guide took us into each step of the process. We started in the humid warehouse where they store hundreds of gigantic bricks of tobacco leaves, wrapped in cloth to keep in moisture. The more aged, the better the flavor, like wine. Our guide told us that they age their tobacco leaves for at least 7 years, but there are often anniversary blends of 10 + years.
Next we went into the room where they roll the cigars, every step of the process done by hand (all the way up to the packing and varnishing of the boxes). There were at least 50 people, working in pairs to roll all the different shapes and colors. Many were smoking them as they rolled them, our guide told us that this is encouraged, but only in the rolling room. I expected to see a bunch of crusty old men with cigars hanging out of their mouth, anyway. He also took us into the packing room where women wrapped the little paper things around the cigars and packed them into all kinds of pretty boxes.
After our tour we were obviously enclined to buy a few, mostly to compare their flavor to others we´ve tried (most notoriously the Cubans). Tasty, sure, not nothing compares to a Cuban.

After our walk along the highway, we made it into San Andres Tuxlta, a slightly bigger town than Catemaco, where every building and sidewalk is under construction (who knows why they do it in the rain). We ended up in the only bar in town, way in the back of a building, patroned by the old drunk men of the town who have been there all day, and probably every day. Ian smoked a cigar, and this seemed to encourage them to pull out their cigars. They passed around an unmarked puro, almost a foot long, and everyone smelled it intently and murmured about how delicious it would be. Then one of the men came over and gifted it to us, say "así es como somos en Mexico, un regalo," This is how we are in Mexico, a gift.

Yesterday was a beach day. The warm waters of the gulf were amazing! And we swam and swam and swam. Getting there was pretty annoying, in the back of a truck converted into a pirata, a type of rural colectivo they put seats in, an hour through rural towns and awfully unpaved roads, but we made it and the sea beckoned to us. The quiet little town that consists of a cul-de-sac is named Montepio, and the piratas are the only form of transportation I spotted the whole day. The beach was nearly empty, with the palapas that are probaly bustling during the summer and holidays, all but one abandoned. I had an authentically fresh piña colada, which took so long to make because they had to go hunt down a coconut for me.
The ride back ended up being 2 hours long, during which it got dark and super cold, both of us wet in the back of a truck.

But we were greated with an unusual Thanksgiving dinner (only by coincidence). We have neighbors now on our piece of grass behind the restaurant, an RV toting a British women, her German husband, and their Mexican dog. We ate supper with them and talked about the US and Europe and Mexico and smoked a couple cigars. There was no turkey.

Catemaco

Laguna Catemaco is a a gorgeous lake, and a quiet place to walk the malecón during the down season. We´re camping next to a restuarant right on the water, where we´re woken up by the screams of herons and other birds, as well as the smell of huevos in the morning. Camping on the restaurant´s property is cheap and especially convenient for wandering out to a view of the lake - where there are tons of guys asking us if we want a boat ride every ten seconds. It´s November and I think we´re the only tourists in town.

Today we took a lancha out on the lake, after finding a good deal among the many men offering tours, and it was a beautifully warm overcast day to ride on the water. Before we boarded, our boat guide walked us to the back of a restaurant on the malecón where he had his boat parked, and showed us the caged crocodile and turtles that he "trains". He said "you will see many cocodrilos."

Among the places of interest in the lake that you can only reach by boat - Islita de las Garzas, little island of herons, the aquatic garden (which, from what I could tell, was just a bunch of lilly pads), and the Isla de Changos, monkey island! Our boat pulled up super close to a tree hanging over the water where there were at least five hanging out. He tried calling them over for us, then another boat pulled up and threw crackers at them and they came in really close. Obese fuzzy ugly red-faced monkeys, the first I´ve seen outside of a zoo! Apparently they were put there on that island, monkeys from Thailand, for the purpose of giving some guys a job to do by taking tourists out to see them... a type of ecological experiment.

We got off the boat at the Parque Nacional Nanciyaga, a rainforest reserve with a hokey little tour we had to pay for. We also got mineral mud masks of the lake sediment, and drank the mineral water that occurs naturally there, out of banana leaf cups. Here there are smaller brown monkeys that are natural to the jungle, but we could only see one waaaay up high in the trees.

puerto

Here we are at the Port of Verarcruz, after sipping an americano at the oldest cafe in the state (maybe in the country?) La Gran Cafe de la Parroquia, over 200 years old. A fun tidbit. We got in last night after spending a few drizzly days in Xalapa. We enjoyed the change from the stiffling concrete jungle of D.F. to the fog and sprinkles.
On a sunnier day we ventured to la cascada de Texolo, a big beautiful waterfall in a town called Xico. Upon hiking allllll the way to the top we were greeted with an oddly solitary restaurant overlooking the waterfall. Good food, good prices, considering. I took pictures of all of this but I don´t have the means to upload any now.
That day we went into Coatepec, a good place to taste and buy Veracruzana coffee. We did both and enjoyed the little town plaza - apparently recovering from a party because the streets were covered in confetti.

I think this might be the first place we´ve come to where I can say that I´m unimpressed. Veracruz is a port town, so as we look longingly into the Gulf of Mexico (the farthest east I´ve ever been and the first time I´ve seen a part of the Atlantic), and feel the hot breeze that comes off the warm water, we can´t swim in it or enjoy a beach. It is really nice though, to not need a jacket at night, but even during the day when it´s completely cloudy and there are gray skies, there is a thin layer of sweat on my upper lip.

As soon as we got to our host´s house last night, we left for a Karaoke-birthday party. It was a bit much. It´s impossible to sing a Spanish song you´ve never heard, and no one knows the American songs we can sing, so... that was that. Ian gave it a couple shots with Hotel California and Get Back Jo Jo, but you know me.
Today ours hosts dutifully took us to Fortaleza San Jose Ulúa, the fort/port established when the first Spaniards landed at Veracruz. It was interesting for picture taking, but our hosts were bored since it was their third time taking couchsurfers on such a tour. We´re not exactly into the touristy thing, so I think none of us really enjoyed it.
Then they dropped us off in the centro historico where we enjoyed some sweet sweet coffee.

Tomorrow we go to Lake Catemaco for camping and monkey watching and witch sightings!

toros

This guy got hit by the bull a couple times, it was pretty sweet, he was getting really close and acting the most macho.

We went to the bull fight, corrida de las toros and it was.. something else. The matadores were obviously wearing their sequinsed outfits, marching around the bulls all macho, yelling at the bulls like ¨come on bull, what are you gonna do?¡¨ The show of it was fun and interesting, but my stomach turned when they killed the bulls. For the first bull he didn´t do it cleanly, so it was lurcing around with blood spilling out of its mouth like a river.

The vibe of going to the corrida was like going to a baseball game. As our Mexican friends tell us, it´s something mostly the yuppies go to, which was obvious. We had a really good time, as the experience goes. We got sombreros and smoked a Cuban cigar (almost everyone was smoking a cigar), and yelled ole! when he tricked the bull good or burro! when a couple of the guys couldn´t kill the bull fast enough (they call him a brute because it makes the bull suffer longer if the sword doesn´t pierce the heart instantly). the last bull wouldn´t die even after he was stabbed twice, so everyone in the crowd threw their seat cushons into the ring a booed the matador.

We visited the ruins of Tlaltelolco near the centro histórico, they call it the Plaza de Tres Culturas because there are the ruins, then a church was build right next to them in the mid 16th century or something, and then next to that is a modern government building of somekind. You can see them in the pictures above. The fountain doesn´t belong to any of those periods.

We hung out in the centro with Sergio, and were cleansed in the Aztec tradition. It consited of some kind of a liquid cleanser on our hands and body, we held the basil and it was rubbed on our face and the back of our neck with pressure, and being covered in the pleasant smoke of whatever was burning in the stone thing. Smelt real nice afterwards.

And, the ruins of Technoctitlan are literally right downtown in the middle of everything. I remember learning about these in middle school, the history says that this was the lakebed where the Mexicas saw the eagle catching the snake on the cactus (like on the flag) that the god Quetzalcoatl told them they would see, and that´s where they should found their city. So the entire downtown Mexico city is built around this spot, and some buildings are tilting and sinking because the earth underneath is soft.

Now we´ve made it out of D.F. and to Xalapa, Veracruz. The weather here is  cloudy foggy and cool - like fall ought to be! It reminds of of San Francisco a lot,  I like it. Luckily it hasn´t rained yet. Besides the weather, I really like Xalapa. It´s more of a low key state capital than Morelia, with it´s own vibe. Now that we´re in Veracruz, from here out we´re in coffee country and it´s deeeeeeeeeeeeliscious!

Today we visiting the Anthropology Museum here, the second most important in the country. The Gulf Coast is where the Olmecs are from, of the giant Olmec heads! So there were a whole bunch of those in the museum, pretty sweet. We´re couchsurfing still, and it´s treating us well!

I´ve been lazy about uploading pictures

Ian met a guy in Patzcuaro who told him he likes to put on a skull mask and ride around on his motorcycle.. one day he crusied by and stopped for pics!

more altar

in the Chapultepec Bosque

guarding the entrance to the Castle of Chapultepec

the indios(Quetzalcoatl)fighting off the Spaniards

Frida´s altar

sweet tag outside the Trotsky house

in the Zona Rosa there were dozens and dozens of huge papier maché dragons lining avenida reforma

That looks really dangerous.

the ruins of Cuicuilco

We have also made it to the other Diego & Frida house, which isn´t as well kept and kind of a weird museum. And we went to the Carillo Gil Contemporary Art Museum, new and also kind of weird, the art there was more random and obscure than at the other one. Now we´re with a new host who´s already tons better than the other one!

que fresa

I just have to mention how unbelievably delicious my homemade spaghetti sauce was!!!

While in the south of the city, we made it to another set of ruins called Cuicuilco, and I´m not sure but I think they were built by the Aztecs. The site was far less excavated and rebuilt than Tzintzuntzun, with the city of Mexico as an imposing background.
In the center of Coyoacan we found the one bookstore of dozens that sells books in English, so we stocked up on a few novels for when we sadly finish the ones we brought with us. I made a poor choice with The Happy Hooker, but also found Farenheit 451, 1984, and A Brave New World. Right now though, The Omnivore´s Dilemma is blowing my mind, really worth reading.

Yesterday we woke up real early to get to our new hosts´ apartment before he left for work. Then we had to spend 13 hours out in the city, not allowed to come home until well after dark. I could go on to complain about this but it`s not worth it - we had a really good time exploring the Condesa neighborhood at a leisurely pace.
The travel guides describe the neighborhood as "Mexico City`s bohemian neighborhood," and I guess this is true in some aspects because a lot of artists reside here, and the architecture is very art-deco and french nouveau; but as some Mexican artists phrase it, it`s become too ´fresa`, which is basically a word for fancy/yuppie. Since it was the hip spot to live, rent rose and the rich people moved in. This is evident in all of the ridiculously expensive sidewalk cafes and lounges, and men with suits and shiny shoes on every corner. There`s even valet parking at Starbucks!
We found a lunch spot with pool tables, so we were automaticly drawn to it. That took up a good 2 hours of our day (and I won a bunch, haha!).
A lot of our time was spent in Parque España talking with an older man who engaged us in a conversation about karate. He teaches it, and as he put it, is a fanatic. We talked about Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, and he gave us a few tips on pressure points to use against a would-be attacker. He warned us to always look over our shoulders, but in the most subtle way, when walking down the street. we sat with him for a long time and he even gave us his phone number to call him and let him know how we´re doing.

After our long day, we fell asleep pretty much as soon as we sat down on our bed (yes, the only benefit I´ve found at this place so far), and our hosts didn`t say more than hi to us, much less ask how our day was - and this morning we were up and out at 8 again, to spend another twelve hours in the street.

so much to learn

For the first few days I hated the subway, but now that we`ve learned how the monster works and how to use it, we really really like it. Granted, it`s about 20 degrees hotter underground, often a sardine in a car of sweaty patrons. People hop on and off at stops to shout about the candy their selling, or blasting a CD from the speakers in their backpack, only 10 pesos!!! During rush hours in the morning and after a certain time in the evening, the women and children are in seperate cars (by choice, I just stay with Ian). All this urban-mexican fun for only 2 pesos! The metro lines snake from the far reaches of the city, taking you anywhere you want to go more quickly, less confusingly, and cheaper than by bus or taxi.

And the busses, short and small like the rest of Mexico. I can`t count how many times I`ve bumped by head on doorways or wrung my neck on the tarps that hang over the market. On the metro I have at least 2 feet of head space! A miracle!



Yeeeeeeeeesterday, we made it to a gallery in the Polanco neighborhood, called Ginocchio Galeria. I found the place because I thought they had photography up, but they were showing a beautiful exhibit by a single artist, in oil and graphite. Still way worth it.

Then we made our way back into the Bosque Chapultepec, where there are a bunch of museums, to see the Rufino Tomayo Contemporary Art Museum. It was SOOOOOO great. Their current large exhibition was a mix of chicano artists (everyone that I read on was from LA) commenting on the Chincano art movement, but also working in a post-chicano movement. Everything was beautiful and enriching. A lot more fun for us than the History Museum. The image is by Hugo Lugo, one artist that stuck in my mind from the museum.

After discovering that the Modern Art Museum is closed for some reason, we walked down the Avenida Reforma to La Zona Rosa - D.F.`s neighborhood that seems to hint at something like the Castro. Several sex shops, `LGBT clothing stores` as the tour guides call the pleather shops, expensive shoe stores and all.
There are a couple yuppy markets (like people selling antiques and used books for ridiculous markups) and a lot of cafes and restaurants, but mostly things like McDs and Burger King, KFC and Dunkin Donuts, etc. A noticable majority are young and often punk, this aspect reminded me of Haight Street. A couple times I had a sort of brain lapse and thought I was in San Francisco.

After our busy days we`re usually wiped, and spend the darktimes in the apartment reading or cooking, drinking coffee. We get internet to get out of the house because it`s inside of our secured complex. In a couple days we`re going to a new host in a new neighborhood, so I hope we`re closer to more fun things to do and I hope that makes it okay to go out at night.

Today was a nice Sunday. We went to the weekend market and got fresh delicious salty cheeses (the cheese at Mega is super bland) and fresh veggies and such for a nice homemade spaghetti sauce for the roommates.

ciao

the biggest city

So we`ve had a couple of days to get more used to this place, and I must admit that it`s mostly just the part of the neighborhood we`re in, and it`s in one of the safer parts of the city. We`re just kind of far from everything, but that´s how it works here - to get from the University stop on the metro to the centro historico, downtown, takes 2 hours - by subway!
Thankfully, our host Javier took us on the subway several times and showed us how it works and how to get everywhere. Yesterday we went to the Boqsue Chapultepec, which is woods of grasshopper hill. It´s the largest park in Latin America, a lot like Golden Gate Park, but with a lot more stuff. We went to the Chapultepec Castle, which used to be the President`s palace and is now the History Museum. Huge. We also did a peddle boat in one of green lakes. We got ice cream from a man on the shore. Javier left us there for work and we found our way by ourselves!

Today we went to the center of Coyoacan, and visited La Casa de Frida Kahlo. La Casa Azul - where they lived in the 40s and 50s, the rooms, studio, kitchen, set up like when they´d lived there. There were also a bunch of their works that I hadn´t seen before (even after the huge Frida exhibit at the MOMA), but more was of their personal collection. There was an ofrenda for Frida in the luxurious garden courtyard.
From there, the Leon Trotsky House was close, which is also a museum as well, set up in the same way. The place is a goddamn fortress, with doors and windows bricked after the first and second attacks on him there in that house. Metal doors, and gun towers, right there in the middle of town.

Then we were able to wander into the centro of Coyoacan, a suuuper hip area, churches and plazas with tons of cafes and bookstores.

And then it was important that we get home before dark. We got on a bus whose driver said he was going to the metro. But it didn`t- so we were lost. Unfortunately, we had to catch a cab off the street, but Javier told us how to spot the ones that are okay to take.
Then we ate pizza!

flaming balls!

Day of the Dead was amazing... Jeremy and Gama took us to Tzintzuntzun, where there were hundreds of people in the road leading to the ruins, lots of people selling things and drinks and food on the side. At the site everyone is mostly just taking pictures of themselves beside them, and on them.. nothing ceremonial. Gama wanted to go there mostly to protect the site, as the lead archaeologist. She politely asked people to get the hell off the ruins.
Then they played an ancient Purhepecha game of pelota - field hockey with a flaming ball. SO AWESOME! The grass was catching on fire and the flaming ball would hit the players in the chest or fly over their head. The game ended when it flew over the edge of the site into the pueblo.
After this we wandered into the panteon, the pueblo`s cemetary where the whole ground glowed in candle light, covered in flowers, modest altars to giant wooden-beamed ofrendas. All the families sat by while the gourds of tourists observed.
We didn`t stay too long because Gama said it would be lot more tranquilo on Pacanda, in the lake. So, everyone in Mexico goes to Lake Patzcuaro for Day of the Dead, and then everyone in Patzcuaro goes to Janitizio, the biggest island in the lake. Picanda is the smallest, so there was hardly anybody there (aside from the families). We took a chilly boat ride from Uca to the quiet island. On the way up to the cemetary they served us ponche, like hot apple cider. The panteon was filled with the families of the dead, but so much more silent and calm.
We ended up getting back about four in the morning, so when we all woke up super late the next day, we had a huge stack of Mexican pancakes.

After our last weekend in Patzcuaro, staying at Gama`s house, we left for Morelia on Monday. There we couchsurfed with Josue, who had given us a ride up to the bosque. He had two couchsurfers already from El Salvador, and a friend of a friend in the bosque. We wandered Morelia with the El Salvadorians and ate pizza. Yesterday we got to meet up with some friends in Morelia and had a really full one day back in the city.

This morning we woke up before dawn to catch a bus to Mexico City. The ride was about 4 and a half hours, but it was executive stlye, so they played movies and gave us a snack. Way nicer than Greyhound! Our host met us at the bus station and we took the metro to his apartment in the Coyoacan neighborhood of D.F. It was confusing and a little disconcerting, I´m not sure how I feel about this place yet. Javier says he may get off work after dark, so he`ll have to stay at a friend`s house on that side of town, becase it`s confusing to take public transportation in the dark, taxis are more expensive at night, and it`s dangerous. Today we decided to stick to the street in front of the apartment complex and found some pizza. We`re thinking about making out way to the Frida museum soon.

Dia de los Muertos

These are the ruins of Tzintzuntzan, of the Purhepechas. Another place I visited in highschool, but didn't know the name of. Jeremy's girlfriend Gama is an archaeologist, and she gave us the inside tour. We arrived early before the site is opened to the public - hence the long shadows - and were free to roam and shoot as we pleased. Then she invited us into the excavation, explaining everything from how the temples were originally shaped and colored, to what they've found so far.

This is a piece of floor they've been working to uncover for six weeks - it's made of obsidian! She also showed us all of the artifacts they've uncovered, including bones, jewelry of all different kinds of precious stones - from necklaces to earrings and lip plugs - tools and pipes, broken jars they reassmble with the original paint.. so many interesting things. They use the stone rubble left at the site to rebuild the rotundas in the original manner, soaking nopales, a type of cactus, for 5 days to use the sticky gluton as a natural adhesive.

That's us!
After exploring the ruins, we went down into the pueblo - tzintzun means hummingbird in Purhepecha, an onomonapeia for the sound it makes! Since it was a couple of days before the Day of the Dead, everyone was small plaza assembling huge altars and blasting music of their favorite dead singer.

On Thursday the markets were packed to the brim with people scrambling to buy flowers and candles to build altars. It inspired us to create our own, in memory of Grace Crumpton, our abuelos, and Stephan's dad.
So we gathered flowers and found trinkets that could remind us of the muertos and built a very modest ofrenda - not bad for having a very vague idea of how to create one.

Here you can't see, but there are candles for each person {we've added more now}, with tiny wooden skulls for each, and a food offering. Today we had to dip out of the house we were staying in {first of the month} so we moved it to the yard. Gama told us that the most important thing to offer, if there's no money for the ofrenda, is a glass of water. We also got some traditional sugar skulls at the market.

This is Gama's altar, for her abuelos and father of David. Clearly she and her family have been doing this since she was a child - a gorgeous ofrenda with bread, marigolds and patterned paper hanging from above, tons of flowers and candles, cigarettes and tequila for the offering, pan de muertos, and a sugar skull for each.

So today there are even more people in Patzcuaro then I've ever seen. We'll go to Janitizio tonight for the traditional festivities.

An another note - Ian is famous in Patzcuaro. We got ice cream in the plaza one day, and while were sitting one of the girls came up to him and asked if he's an artist. Yeah, I'm a photographer. Oh my god it's him! This chica has a poster in her home that she thinks is his - she took a picture with him, and the next day had it printed out with a cute border and all, and had him autograph the back of it. What photographer could look so much like him_creepy coincidence. Now we get ice cream everyday because he likes the attention.