Photos: We Visit Latin America’s Largest University, UNAM

The soccer stadium (go Pumas!) is also the '68 Olympic stadium.

Jesica, one of my good friends here in Mexico City, happens to be a tour guide with a degree in art history. Meaning, when you hang out with her, you not only have fun, you get smarter. A few days ago, I  mentioned that we hadn’t yet visited UNAM, Mexico City’s enormous university (the biggest in Latin America, and perhaps the world). The campus is in the south of the city, and itself is the size of a small city. So, she said, vaminos. And we did so today, turning it into a little mini-road trip in her convertible Tracker.

We attended the Orquestra Sinfonica de Mineria (the symphony — and I loved it. Does this mean I’m getting old?) at Sala Nezahualcóyotl, had lunch at the famed Azul y Oro (named after the colors of UNAM, blue and gold), then walked around a sculpture garden that contained — to my glee — lots of nature, and well, sculptures by Sebastian.

Jesica and Brendan hike down to the big blue M.

I was actually entertained during the entire symphony. It's really quite amazing.

It was one of those typically perfect days. 365 days a year, it rocks.

A bee doing what she does best.

"I'm a fat lizard sunbathing."

A poblano pepper stuffed with spicy pork and fruit, covered in a walnut cream sauce, and doused with pomegranate seeds. It's a rough life.

A Mondrian-style home sits behind a pesero.

Dream Fulfilled: Swimming with Whale Sharks

A whale shark fishing for plankton, near the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

You know how some kids plaster their bedroom walls with images of dinosaurs? Or cartoon characters? Or boy bands?

Me, it was whale and shark posters — I even owned a bumper sticker that said “I Love Whales” long before I could drive. I devoured every issue of Ranger Rick from front to back. I knew who Eugenie Clark was. I spent 5 years volunteering for the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

But as I got older, I got a little lost on my life path and switched college degrees from marine biology to nursing to journalism. Part of my problem was math — I made a D in pre-calculus my freshman year and couldn’t imagine sweating through calculus class (a requirement for biology majors, something I think is atrocious and really unnecessary) nor some of the more advanced chemistry classes. So I let myself be persuaded by comments I’d get on essay papers, such as “A+, please consider joining student publications.”

All told, I’ve so far had a great career, first as a journalist, now as an online editor and consultant. And while my career is not always so thrilling (countless hours in front of a computer is not as adrenaline inducing as scouting the Pacific Northwest for pods of killer whales) it does pay the bills pretty nicely (probably a lot better than a marine biology degree would have) and so, in some ways, it’s letting me fulfill those dreams I had as a kid.

Case in point: This weekend, when I swam with a whale shark in the Caribbean Sea, north of the Yucatan Peninsula.

The whale shark species is at least 60 million years old, and the world’s largest fish (and of course, the world’s largest shark). It grows as long as a school bus. It’s endangered, as many sharks increasingly are because of the ridiculous demand for shark fin soup. Unlike most of its brethren, the whale shark is docile and harmless to humans. It’s got a big, gaping mouth that it uses to suck in plankton, and it moves slowly and gracefully, unconcerned with everything around it, a luxury for most animals, but not the whale shark. Beyond that, not much is known, because no one started researching the whale shark intensely until the 1990s.

As with any blow-your-mind experience, it’s hard to describe what Saturday was like. First we went out in a group of boats with certified whale shark guides, rounding up and over the Yucatan Peninsula’s eastern corner, to a wide shallow area where whale sharks congregate each summer.

The guide then stands on the top of the boat, searching for the tell-tale brown shadow and scurry of smaller fish who hitch rides around the shark (their momentum could power a wind farm…). As the plankton rises to the surface around mid-day, so do the whale sharks…..you can spot them from the surface, their 6-foot-wide mouths gaping open:

How they look from the surface when they are eating. A snorkeler is on its right side.

Sue and I gearing up to “dive in.”

It all happens very fast. It’s suddenly your turn to go, and boom, you slide into the water, and start paddling hard.  Once you reach the shark, you’re captivated, if not hypnotized. Time stops, sounds go away, and there you are, moving slowly with a whale shark (he does all the work, you just go along for the ride).

When you swim next to them (or often, above them, since they like to swim downward after eating), their big gills puff in and out.

My friend Sue-Lyn and I each got to swim three times.  I was lucky enough to be on the last team to go out, and because the other boats in the area had left, it was even more peaceful. The shark did a looooong swim in one single direction, and I was sucked into his vortex, swimming along his right side, until the guide grabbed my flipper, signaled it was time to go back to the boat, and forced me to end my incredibly awesome day. (But then we went snorkeling at a nearby reef, so the awesomeness soon started all over again…)

Mexico, as far as I could tell, does an excellent job strictly regulating the tours — rules were enforced, and the shark spent most of his time with us eating plankton (he seemed a little oblivious of us, really) something a stressed shark won’t bother with. Our shark was tagged #827 as part of the research program.

To see the full fabulous slideshow (including coral reef photos), see Swimming With Whale Sharks on flickr.

What So Much of Mexico Really Looks Like

For all its natural beauty and amazing culture, Mexico is still a deeply impoverished country. People do the best they can, scraping together what work they can find. But there is no “American Dream” here — for a variety of complicated reasons, it is quite difficult to become a self-made man or woman in this country. If you’re born rich or poor, you’ll likely die that way — unless you immigrate to countries where people are given more freedoms to fight their way out of poverty.

When you leave Mexico City (or any of Mexico’s major cities) you quickly see a different reality. The countryside — once gorgeous — has been burned to clear land for crops, and many people live in simple cinderblock hovels, some with electricity and water, some without. The infrastructure has not been maintained, the roads are littered with deep potholes. People are standing on the side of the road, selling what they can.

My father-in-law — always an observant photographer — took these photos from our minivan as we left one giant oasis, Mexico City, for the small oasis of Malinalco. The two hour drive between the two locales is less idyllic, but beautiful in its own difficult way.

Churches are always the nicest buildings in the poor towns:

Many people still make their living off the earth:

Nuevo Ano en Mi Casa: Viaje Mucho, Yo Quiero

As I was watching the Mexico City fireworks from our 5th-floor balcony, our neighbors from across the street ran out of their house, Mom, Dad and 8-year-oldish daughter. They were pulling luggage behind them, wearing coats, as if headed for the airport.

I looked for whatever taxi they were headed to, but they suddenly started doing circles around a tree, still pulling their luggage. They took turns shouting “Feliz Ano Nuevo” followed by….the names of places….

“Espana!”
“Madrid!”
“Inglaterra!”
“Orlando!”
“Nueva York!”
“Los Angeles!”
“California!”

…one of the many New Year’s traditions here includes doing exactly this, in hopes of many good travels in 2009.

To all of you, lo mismo: ….que tengan un MUY FELIZ 2009!!!!

Bright ‘n Shiny: Christmas Pinatas in Mexico

This house is in the Coyoacan burb of Mexico City.

This cute storefront is La Tarta, one of the best bakeries in Mexico City.

Pinatas come in all colors and sizes. But for Christmas, they're always shaped like a star.

Companions to None: Film Explores Street Dogs in Mexico

Flickr Photo by Pedro Rueda

If there are two things I love, it’s film documentaries and dogs. But dog documentary Companions to None is one of those films I probably shouldn’t watch because I’ll just cry the entire time.

It’s about the overwhelming street dog population in Mexico (I highly recommend Amores Perros – or Love’s a Bitch in English, for a fictionalized-but-apt examination of Mexico’s bizarre relationship with dogs.)

My neighborhood, as I’ve explained before, is an odd microcosm of this societal ill. There’s people like me, walking our fancy, neutered, well-loved dogs in beautiful Parque Mexico. Never far away, though, are street dogs. Sad street dogs with open wounds, limps and desperately sweet souls. And because there is no consistent sterilization program for street dogs, these dogs keep reproducing, in the shadows, ignored by most. Thankfully, a few kind people in the neighborhood do try to take care of these dogs, such as putting out mats for them, feeding them, and taking them to the vet/groomer’s if they need help. More than once a street dog has followed me home, hoping for a hand-out. Of course I oblige when this happens.

Go to more rural parts of Mexico and profound poverty and cultural norms exacerbate the problem. People barely have enough money to feed themselves (and their large families — contraception for humans is not a wildly popular idea, either), so taking proper care of street dogs is low on the list of priorities.

Flickr Photo by patotenere

As well, a persistent belief that neutering male dogs will make them “gay” keeps sterilization programs from taking hold. One woman in the film trailer credits the Catholic Church with propagating this belief, and I’m not surprised. Homophobia knows no bounds, not even when it comes to pets.

As the LA Times explains, the film may not be widely seen. (I want to give a shout-out right now to the Times for having excellent coverage of Latin America at a time when most news divisions are cutting staff.)

“Problems securing a wide distribution for the film may obstruct the diffusion of what is an important message. Buchanan said American networks such as Animal Planet, Discovery and HBO passed on broadcasting the documentary and that a deal with TV Azteca –- one of Mexico’s two main commercial broadcasters –- fell through.”

I do hope the film gains momentum, or at least the important message it carries. Sterilizing dogs is far more humane than letting them over-populate, starve on the street, and create more starving puppies. And the more your sterilize, the smaller the problem gets with every passing generation.

Here’s the Winter Home of Millions of Butterflies

After a one-hour cab ride, a three-hour car ride, a one-hour horseback ride and a long steep walk down the side of a mountain, we finally convened yesterday with the Monarch butterflies, who fly by the bazillions every winter to a small patch of forest in the Mexican state of Michoacan. This is one of the world’s greatest (and most mysterious) migrations. And it’s only four hours from where I live.

Stunning. HOWEVER, this was probably the biggest photographic challenge I ever faced. There were butterflies everywhere, yet, they don’t really show up in the photos too well…

Those trees are literally dripping with large bunches of butterflies, who are crammed in all together. When the sun would come out, they’d fly out en masse. When a cloud appeared, back they’d go to the trees.

We were around 10,000 feet elevation. It was cold and windy, even when the sun would come out. This particular migration area is accessible only by horseback.

According to Monarch Watch, this is how it works:

“The sites the Monarchs use during the winter have particular characteristics that enable their survival. These characteristics are important because they provide the Monarch with the right overwintering conditions. Trees on which to cluster are one of the most important elements of the sites. The climate and the whole surrounding area are also important. Nearby trees, streams, underbrush, and fog or clouds all form an intricate natural ecosystem that is the monarchs’ winter habitat. These conditions are found in oyamel fir forests, which occur in a very small area of mountain tops in central Mexico. Overwintering sites are about 3000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) above sea level, and are on steep, southwest-facing slopes.

In particular, the butterflies need a cool place. When they are cool, they don’t metabolize, or use up, their energy reserves as fast. They also need to be protected from snow and winds. The surrounding trees serve as a buffer to the winds and snow. Because they also need water for moisture, the fog and clouds in this mountainous region provide another important element for their survival.

The butterflies choose spots that are close to but not quite freezing. They cluster together, covering whole tree trunks and branches, and cling to fir and pine needles. The forest floor in the overwintering sites is covered with young trees, shrubs, lichens and moss. When Monarchs fall out of the trees and are too cold to fly back up, they can sometimes crawl to the lower bushes to avoid predators. The tall trees make a thick canopy over their heads. Protective trees and bushes soften the wind and shield the butterflies from the occasional snow, rain, or hail. Fog and clouds settle on the Monarch groves. On sunny days, they often warm up enough to fly to nearby water where they will drink. They must fly back to the roost before getting too cold, and one can sometimes see them take off in flight, heading back to the roosts as soon as a cloud passes over.

Each of the above elements is important to the butterflies, and makes up the Monarch habitat – trees in which to roost, other trees and shrubs to protect them, the cool air, and the presence of water.”

It’s So True: Sin Agua, No Hay Vida

Last night we finally got around to watching the first two episodes of Planet Earth, the mind-blowingly well-done series of nature films by the BBC, all filmed in high definition and with the most incredibly complex camerawork I have ever seen. (The snow leopard scenes brought tears to my eyes, and once it started snowing, I was a mess.)

We watched it en espanol, which turned out to be a great idea: It has slow, simple narration in verb tenses we know pretty well (present and simple past), so we never felt miserably lost as we do when we watch most TV in Spanish. And many animals have very similar names in both idiomas: caribou, impala, leopardo,…

A few key vocabulary words that I really enjoyed learning (or re-remembering, as is so often the case for me) while watching La Planeta Tierra:

Arctic stuff:
las focas — seals
los polos — the poles (as in north pole and south pole)
las hojas — leaves
baja tierra — underground
cachorros — pups, for many species
reservas de grasa — fat reserves

Forest stuff:
las girasoles – daisies
las ardillas — squirrels
rayos del sol — sunlight, rays of sunshine
la energia del sol — sun’s energy
los monos — monkeys
los insectos — insects

Watery stuff:
los tiburones — sharks
grande blanco tiburones — great white sharks
las nubladas — clouds

Desert stuff:
huracanes de harina — dust storm (harina is more like flour, but you get the idea)
peligrosos tormentos de polvo — dust storm (polvo is dust and any fine substance)

Stuff that struck me as funny:
unico huevo – one unique egg, as in the penguin’s single egg each year
un banquete por todos los animales – a banquet for all the animals
un epoca de abundancia – an era of adundance
padres dedicados – dedicated dads (about a type of fish)
los monos no le gustan el agua — the monkey’s don’t like the water, said as a group of monkeys hesitantly, if not prissily, waded through water
empieza el ataque — the attack begins, said each time a predator pounced on some prey

Not so funny:
no dura mucho — won’t last long, in reference to ever-shrinking ice caps
el futuro de la especie -- future of the species. In many cases, bleak.

The Afterlife According to Aztecs

So part of the elaborate display in downtown Mexico City devoted to Dia de los Muertos is an exhibit on the afterlife as perceived by the Aztecs and smaller tribes who lived in peace with them or were eventually conquered by them. Last night, I was in the Zocalo with a friend, Jesica, who is a tour guide and Mexican art historian expert. She explained it all to me. It is truly lovely hearing about a different concept of the afterlife — it’s intentional that I don’t use terms like “heaven” and “hell” because many of the traditional groups in Mexico did not perceive life after death as a place where you go either to be punished or revered. It had more to do with how you died and what your social status was, than what sort of moralistic-based “sins” you committed on earth. As an agnostic, I appreciate that.

Here are four layers of afterlife (there are roughly about 13), as followed by the Nahuatl speaking Aztecs (many, if not most, modern-day Mexico City residents are descended from this group; Nahuatl is still spoken here in outlying areas). Mexico City was originally a great Aztec city as late as the 1500s.

This is a depiction of where the majority of people went after they died. It’s crowded and you’re anonymous, but there are gods nearby.

A close-up of what the afterlife was like for most people.

If you died a water-related death, you went to this layer, which was presided over by the god Tlaloc, who you can see there in the back. As you can imagine, water played an important role in the valley of Mexico: Tenochtitlan, the former city, was surrounded by water.

A special layer of the afterlife was reserved for two heroic groups of people: Aztec warriors and women who died in childbirth. She is giving birth here. I especially love how warriors are grouped with women giving birth. Beautiful.

Babies and children also had their own layer.

When the babies died, they were surrounded by fruit trees that had fruit shaped like breasts that they could eat. Maternal figures watched.

Dia de los Muertos for City Commuters

Getting around Mexico City is complicated — there’s subways, buses, taxis, cars and more. The average Chilango spends a lot of time just trying to get somewhere, so it’s no surprise that the transit department sponsored a few altars and exhibitions at this week’s Dia de los Muertos Mexico City festivities. As a resident, it’s fun to see a subway car or bus turned into a makeshift altar/cemetery.

(I think the underground trains make for great symbolism — much of the great ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlan is still remaining to be unburied, and during excavations for subway expansion, more ruins are often found. The Aztecs believed in nine circles of an underworld (not the same as hell — people didn’t go there to suffer after they died) and several layers in the sky too (more on their concepts of “afterworld” in a post later today).)

Also, because this is a big and chaotic city, it’s not unusual for someone to die because of commuting. Bus accidents are common, and I’ve lost count of the taxi accidents I’ve seen.

This guy's had a long day at the road construction site!

Where this subway car stops, nobody knows.

A very patient lady waits for the light to change.

I board the bus to....the afterlife.

Friends Jesica and Erik are not so sure about the bus driver.

A straphanger holds on.

Not your typical bus ride.

Day of the Dead for Olympians

I took a lot of amazing photos last night in Mexico City’s zocalo, or main central square. There’s a huge display of altars from various neighborhoods and community groups (and a few commercial displays). If you’re here, do check it out.

I’ll be posting several photos throughout today. First up, the Olympians:

(A gymnast)

Photos: Into the Valley of Fire, Nevada

Brendan crosses the endless waves of sandstone.

During our brief trip to Las Vegas, we decided to go hiking at the nearby Valley of Fire State Park. The place is gorgeous, in the way that the moon is gorgeous: eerie, sparse, oozing and hostile. I loved it, but even in late October, the heat was a bit like walking into an oven with the broil setting on.

The thing I like best about the Western U.S. is the geology. Millions of years ago, were these fantastic shapes created in only a few days’ time? The globular simplicity of the land against the sky is also disorienting: Some of these photos below are of giant rock structures, but without a human or other recognizable object, it’s hard to assess the scale of them. What looks like a mile may be only a few feet, and vice versa.

Layers of shades of orange.

It is easy to anthropomorphize the rock. Do you see a side view of a skull in here? I do.

It's similar to the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, but with far less vegetation and a lot more grilling heat.

Strange dual-vertical lines crisscross with the more typical horizontal lines in the sandstone.

While hot, standing out in the desert is cooler than standing out in a parking lot in Las Vegas, where the asphalt radiates heat. Note the small state park road in the middle of this photo.

Do You Like My Sugar Skulls?

Sugar skulls for sale in Toluca, Mexico.

For the second year in a row, I visited the fantabulous Alfenique (sugar skull market) in Toluca, Mexico. This weekend I had the pleasure of going with a great group of friends — all of whom we’ve met only in the past year! Because of my extensive *cough* experience with Alfenique (I went for four hours last year), I played Tour Guide to Toluca. It’s a job I could get into, especially this time of year.

Enough about us, though, the market is the true star. Candy vendors from all over Central Mexico set up booths for Dia de los Muertos goodies, from ornate sugar skulls to chocolate lollipops. You can get high blood sugar just by walking the aisles of the mercado. I, of course, heard the call of the sweet tooth and started snacking while shopping.  It was all over when my friend Dyana convinced me to try a coffee-cup-sized marshmallow dipped in milk chocolate and nuts: Death never seemed so tasty.

Ah, Mexico. Never fails to make for a good set of photographs. Let’s take a look!

Joy Interviews Self on One Year in Mexico!

Joy in Taxco, Mexico.

Joy and her husband Brendan moved to Mexico City exactly one year ago today. In an exclusive interview with El Blog de Joy, she shares some of the things she’s learned over the past year…and what she’s looking forward to as she continues her Mexican misadventures…(to read previous interviews on Joy’s life in Mexico, go here and here.)

Q: So, a year already in Mexico City. How does it feel?
A: It went by really damn fast, actually. But, looking back, it has been an incredible year. I know so much that I didn’t know one year ago.

Q: Like…Spanish?
A: Well, sort of. After spending my first six months aggressively trying to learn espanol, I sort of got lazy and gave up. The huzzband and I reached a certain level of competency — like ordering food in restaurants and bossing taxi drivers around — and lost interest. I should point out: I quickly lose interest in things I’m not naturally good at, and I’m definitely not a natural at learning new languages in my early 30s.

Q: Que triste! You’re such an American, you mean?
A: Exactly. Almost all of my new friends here in Mexico City speak at least two languages. Many speak four or five — a talent I can’t fathom. How do they remember all those words? How do they keep it all straight in their heads? Amazing. I’ll never be like that, because I grew up a monolingual American.

That said, though, I do have to keep in mind that I work in English all day — editing in English, no less — and so there’s no real impetus for me to learn advanced Spanish. If I had no job, and no internet, I’d be learning a lot more.  We’ve created a little English cocoon for ourselves, and it’s quite warm and lovely and hard to leave.

Charlie enjoys the benches in Parque Mexico, Condesa.

Q: Well, beyond remedial Spanish, what else have you learned?
A: The exhilaration and exasperation of living in a foreign country. New York City was a bit like living abroad, and then I moved to Mexico City and learned what it’s really like. I’m proud of myself for being willing to do it — to chuck most of my former life out the window — and proud of myself for choosing to live in an urban neighborhood without a car, where I live a very fun life not unlike NYC, but far more Mexican. I have met too many Americans here who shelter themselves out in the ‘burbs, behind walled compounds, driving giant SUVs. I’m glad we were bold enough to live in a really cool area.

A kid dressed up for Dia de Guadalupe.

Q: What’s been the hardest thing to deal with?
A: Besides not learning Spanish as easily as I would have liked, the lack of traveling. We spend most of our time like most Americans — working hard, surviving the daily grind. We just happen to be doing it in Mexico City. I had envisioned a very romantic version of life here, one that involved metric tons of sunscreen and margaritas.

…and, well, food poisoning sucks, too. Salmonella truly feels like your stomach is being eaten alive by a rapidly multiplying, pissed off organism — and all you can do is vomit, or worse. And my dog, Charlie, has even been sick. I really wish Mexico could make safe water a national priority. These are the things you learn living abroad — clean tap water is not a God-given right for most people in the world.

Q: Excellent point. Back to the traveling….reading over some of your blog posts, it does seem like you’ve traveled quite a bit?
A: For sure, but it’s never enough. You could say I’m addicted to it. I live in Mexico City, fergodssakes. I can’t get enough. We squeeze in weekend trips whenever we can, and we’ve got a long Mexican trip coming up in December – a road trip through Oaxaca!

Q: What’s been your favorite trip over the past year?
A: I actually appreciate the U.S. more than I ever did before, so the trips back to the places we call home — New York City, Corpus Christi, Texas, Minnesota/Wisconsin — those trips home were really some of my favorites. I drink from water fountains in the U.S. simply because I can.

So far, I am not sad to return to Mexico City as our headquarters. I figure once I am not happy to come back here, then it’s time to go “home” — where ever that is!

A man sells roasted corn in the floating gardens of Xochimilco.

I also want to stress to everyone who hasn’t traveled to the “real” Mexico to do so. Cancun doesn’t count. Neither does the border. Traveling into the interior, away from the tourist resorts and the border — it’s a whole ‘nuther word. The Aztec influence becomes overwhelming here in the “heartland” (popote, totopos, aguacate, jitomate, chocolate, elote, cacahuate, etc) And farther south, the Mayan influence is impressive (huracan, Kukulcan, Oxcutzcab). I can’t wait to visit Oaxaca and learn about the many cultures there, I’ve heard there are at least 60 different languages and related dialects still being spoken there, such as Mixtexa and Zapotec.

Posing in front of yet another beautiful Mayan ruin in the Yucatan, in 2004.

In reality, my favorite part of Mexico is a place I visited before I moved here: the Yucatan. We did a week-long road trip across the peninsula, and I still think about that trip almost every day. The ruins, the turquoise water, the jungles, the underground pools, the Mayan people…it was all like a dream.

Q: Let’s do some stream of consciousness chatting here. Food?
A: Arrachera steak, michelada cervezas, mangos chilados, hot chocolate, pan de elote, crab taquitos, pescado de tlacotlapeno (or something like that). fresh tropical fruit out the wazoo, tacos al pastor (OMG – TACOS AL PASTOR), cochinita pibil, cecina, salchichas, chiles en nogada, tepache, agua de jamaica, paletas de mamey…and exercising more than I ever have to enjoy all these culinary luxuries.

Joy in front of the Aztec Templo Mayor.

Q: Travel?
A: Watching bad dubbed movies on the bus, staring at ‘cactus trees’, dancing in the plaza in Tlaxcala, feeling woozy on a poorly planned booze cruise in Puerto Vallarta, watching telenovelas with our host family in Cuernavaca, eating carnitas at the world’s largest Mexican restaurant in Tlalpan, shopping for sugar skulls in Toluca, touring the anthropology museum with Mom, Dad and Dora, laughing with Bob and Martie as an impromptu parade in Xochimilco blocked our vehicle, getting lost in the rental car only a few miles from our house, drinking pulque and mezcal, listening to fireworks where ever we go, falling in love with NYC all over again.

Q: Mexico City?

A: Amazing! More fun and more international than I expected, full of adventures, beauty and ultimately, chaos. No more polluted than New York City, but far more enormous.

Our self-portrait.

Q: Friends?
A: Gratitude! Dominoes! Well-earned hangovers! (I have to say, the best thing about living here in Mexico City has been making so many new, wonderful friends! And the hardest part is watching them move away. Ah, the ex-pat life.)

Q: Finally, what’s the weather like? We know this is a favorite topic of yours.

A: Today is perfect, like most days. A few of the trees are beginning to lose their leaves, just to remind you that in certain parts of the world, it will be very cold very soon. But not here. It will still be perfect.

Viva Mexico – Feliz Dia de Independencia!

Tomorrow is Mexico’s Independence Day. Tonight is the fiesta grande, with almost every community holding its own special celebration. In every village, a local leader will come out on a balcony and scream el grito –

¡Vivan los heroes que nos dieron patria! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Hidalgo! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Morelos! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Allende! ¡Viva!
¡Vivan Aldama y Matamoros! ¡Viva!
¡Viva nuestra independencia! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!

This has been tradition for almost 200 years.

Tlaxcala was in full party preparation mode this weekend, and tonight we’re headed to Coyoacan for a special dinner (and yep, I’m having chiles en nogada!) and festivities. Across the country flag vendors are out and about…

These vendors are all over Mexico City.

The federal government building in Tlaxcala.