In spite of the presence of billions of Canadian tourists, the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico still has lots of live lizards. (Let’s not mention the iguana roadkill I kept spotting last week, nor the several times we had to stop in the middle of the road to let an iguana pass, much to the annoyance of other drivers…)
"Does my butt look big?" This iguana was crawling over the Mayan ruins in Tulum. He could easily eat my dog as an appetizer.
This one has obviously been to Handsome Iguana Modeling School.
This spry little one spent a lot of time trying to scare my sister-in-law. He frequently appeared out of nowhere, claws at the ready.
Another lizard species we spotted often was the gecko. This 6-incher hung around while we drank beers on the patio. Brendan still likes to tell the story of when he first moved to Corpus Christi, Texas. Being a native Minnesotan, he didn't know what these creatures were, and when spotting one in his apartment, smashed it to bits. Since geckos eat mosquites and are otherwise harmless, we South Texans revere our geckos. Although he now admits they are "benevolent creatures," his story is still horrifying.
Fat butt iguana and gecko photos courtesy of Suz Walsh.
El Grafico, a tabloid publication put out by newspaper El Universal, is perhaps better known for its photos of barely-clad women and bloody dead people maimed in traffic accidents (whereas El Universal is more of a thinking man’s paper).
Today, however, they have a jaw-dropping message for Pres. Barack Obama (I know that Mexicans will argue this is not racist, it is normal — and as I’ve reported before, it can be weird just to be a light-skinned person in Mexico. As highlighted by the Olympics, racial sensitivity is QUITE different in Latin American than in the U.S. Still, I can’t get used to this):
One of the cool things about having (and somehow keeping) friends in Mexico City is you get invited to do things you’d ordinarily never do as a tourist or alienated ex-pat. Case in point: Attend Circo Atayde Hermanos, a 120-year old circus in Mexico, with friend Richard, whose family owns the circus.
I suppose this is what an earthquake feels like?
Along with the usual circus acts (animals, namely: elephants, horses, camels and llamas) and trapeze artists/magicians/clowns, Circo Atayde had a nice Latino flair to it, like a guy on stilts dressed in drag as Carmen Miranda, and a slew of macho-yet-hairless Argentinian gaucho performers. A clown also did a dead-on impression of easy-to-mock but utterly fabulous Vicente Fernandez.
This gaucho looked like Star Trek's Captain Picard, and could lasso away a cigarette, meaning, yes: he was my favorite act of the night.
Richard asked us: So when was the last time you went to the circus? For him, it was literally last week — he goes all the time, since he has “circus privileges.” For me, though, I couldn’t recall. Besides daily life in Mexico, the most circus-like event I attended as an adult was probably the Moscow Cats Theater, where yes, cats perform, on stage. (As has been said by others before me: It was “30 minutes of tricks packed into 90 minutes.”)
The circus in Mexico, however, is quite the opposite — blink and you’ll miss something fun.
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….
The first-half of our trip last week in Oaxaca was spent at the eco-resort Bahia de la Luna on Playa La Boquilla, near Puerto Angel, Mexico.
Again, because we like to do it our way, we purposely picked Bahia because of its remoteness and its individual cabana setting. I dislike large hotels, especially many of ‘em all lined up in a row on an otherwise lovely beach. They tend to destroy the ecosystem in many ways (beach erosion, broken reefs from too many people dumbly kicking them, sewage) and plus I am just not a giant people-lover, particularly if I’m trying to relax.
However, remote equals challenging to get to. The last three miles of the drive to Bahia are on a steep, rutted, sandy road. It made the previous stomach-churning 6 hours seem like fluffy cupcakes by comparison. Twice we got stuck in the sand, and Brendan had to perform 4×4 style driving in our compact rental car. Not fun. (Actually, he had a big grin, and I had my hand over my heart and my eyes closed.)
Once we arrived, it was all waves gently crashing, palm trees swaying and geckos squeaking. Yes! We were far from civilization (or, far enough). First day, after the long drive, in spite of the beauty around me, I kept wondering when I would shake off the accumulated stress from the past day and many months (it’s been a long time since we had a long vacation). Second day I could feel it slowly melting away, especially after I put on my snorkel and mask and discovered the beach was utterly spectacular for snorkeling (Puffer fish! Blennies! And this was the first time in my snorkeling adventures that I was surrounded by schools of fish. Large schools — we’re talking hundreds of plate-sized yellow-and-black angelfish who didn’t care about me and just swam all around me, slowly. I spent a fun-but-futile 15 minutes diving down to point out a zebra eel to Brendan, who still maintains he never saw it in its lair.)
By the third day, I had no stress, except for all the de-tangling required after I went snorkeling and had to pull my long hair out of the mask’s plastic straps. Ouch. While not swimming or kayaking, we read under a little palm palapa, shaded from the sun, never too hot or too cold. (Sometimes my life feels like an eternal search for temperature happiness).
This was all aided by amazing food. Breakfast and lunch were pretty typical, but dinner was as healthy and tasty as healthy and tasty can be. They serve the catch of the day, freshly prepared, and so we ate octopus, red snapper, shark, and mahi-mahi. With salads like “strawberry and cucumber” or “spinach and orange slices.”
Fourth day? I didn’t expect this, but I was too relaxed?! I found myself doing something highly unusual: Pining for TV. Please, let me explain before you stop being my friend: Our cabana had two beds with mosquito netting, two lamps, a ceiling fan and a basic bathroom — no phone, no TV, no computer, no air conditioning, no cell phone service and no hot water. With no bar down at the beach (there’s alcoholic beverages for sale, but no people to sell them to you after a certain hour) and total darkness by 7 p.m, we spent enormous amounts of time reading under our insect-proof nets.
Even I, avid reader, needed something else to do after ingesting The Poisonwood Bible, People and US Weekly (last two are required beach reading, didn’t you know?)
In spite of my random attack of boredom, we do plan to go back, of course (even beach-hater Brendan had to admit “that was a fun beach vacation!”)
So, paradise: I’ll be back one day, hopefully soon, maybe with friends or relatives (Suzanne? Dana? Dora? Adam? Connie? Victory clan? Near-Frozen Minnesotans? Facebook friends?) We can bring our dominoes set, a deck of cards, maybe even Pictionary, and everyone: Bring your laptop loaded with movies ready for watching, under the netting, in total solitude.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
A few weeks ago, I attended a work conference in Las Vegas. It was my first time there, and with any luck, I’ll never go back. Unlike most of the people who go to Las Vegas, at least I can say I went for my job. But….ugh. I’m just going to cop out right now, and simply list my reasons Why I Hate Las Vegas:
- Giant mega-hotels, stretching for miles. What is the fun in this? PLEASE TELL ME.
- Disneyland prices and “entertainment.” We accidentally caught the “Siren Show” at Treasure Island and I thought my eyes and ears were going to start bleeding. Do people really like this shit?
- Girls all glammed up like they have somewhere important to go. Wait, let’s be more honest, they were slutted out. But they’re in Las Vegas on vacation. Isn’t the point of vacation to not wear clothing that restricts your breathing? To not wear shoes that could send your ankles to the emergency room? Why not be cute and comfy and entirely not silly looking? Even the cocktail waitress at the Mirage pool played the part, wearing next to nothing to try and earn an easy tip from drunks (this doesn’t work so well when you’re waiting on me, and I only order one drink while I wonder to myself what you’re going to do with your life after you lose your looks and no one wants to give you big tips anymore. I hope you have plans, cocktail ladies.)
- It’s not a walkable city. I had to attend a cocktail party at the Planet Hollywood Hotel. I thought this would be a quick walk from the Mirage, because looking at the map, it was four hotels away. But because these hotels must each comprise numerous restaurants, theaters, a casino and possibly some sort of egregious display of man’s triumph over nature (in my hotel’s case, a white tiger display and a dolphin area, as if tigers aren’t enough) these hotels streeeeeeeeeetch for blocks and blocks. So, I showed up late and…
- I was so, so thirsty, I ran to the bar and demanded a club soda. And the rest of the trip, no matter how much water I drank, I felt like I had just eaten hot sand. I don’t mind the desert, I didn’t mind being thirsty, but I did mind my constant obsessive thought that an area so arid was and is not meant to support this ridiculous fake city.
- The “you-are-going-to-have-fun-or-else” attitude. One day when Brendan went and visited an old high school friend who lives in Las Vegas, I decided to spend the day by the giant Mirage pool. Everything started out OK as I sat around with other solo adults, reading a New Yorker and listening to music on my iPod. Then, as the day wore on, the piped-in crappy 80s music got louder, and by the time I decided to take a dip, the pool was full of “Spring Breakers” — waxed, tanned men and women wearing plastic bead necklaces and wading around with drinks. Yuck, I thought, realizing they were all peeing in the pool. I had only one escape: my hotel room. It took 14 (crowded) minutes to get there, since the Mirage hotel rooms are hidden away and I had to walk past an indoor shopping mall before I could find the elevator, as if I might want to stop, shop and ultimately spend $20 on a snowglobe of the Mirage, to remind me of the urine-soaked pool.
- The lines of tourists everywhere. Lord, save me, the lines. One morning, in search of breakfast and caffeine, we discovered we were at the mercy of the hotel and all the touristy traps outside on the Strip. First we tried one of the coffee places in the Mirage. The line was at least 50 people deep. No way (and who are these fools who pay to get in a long line for coffee?). So we went across the street to Denny’s – a 20-minute wait (to eat bad food and drink bad coffee!!). No way. So we went to McDonald’s, and yes, waited in line, finally ordered coffee and then went downstairs to Chipotle and ordered burritos for breakfast (I simply do not eat McDonald’s breakfast food, unless there’s a nuclear holocaust, and I’m running for cover, and the closest cover is McDonald’s). This was how the rest of the trip went: waiting in line for bad food and bad service.
- We got home to Mexico City to discover the Mirage charged us $75 for drinks ordered in the high-roller bar. AHEM. Not only did I not step foot in a high-roller area, I sure as hell didn’t order any damn drinks. But if I were to, I’d order more than $75 of alcohol. Dios mio.
THE TINY BITS I DID LIKE
- We rented a car (great idea if you didn’t really want to go to Vegas but have to) and drove very far north on the Strip, where it gets gritty, grimy and even somewhat cultural. We had a delicious cheap Cuban meal (and cafe con leche) at a tiny dive restaurant. And yes, no wait. Then we headed to a gigantic swap meet (even in late October, the heat was killer, so we didn’t last long).
-I got to hang out with my work team, and they’re a great bunch.
-Speaking of, I went with a few of them to the Double Down Saloon (way off strip) which serves ice-cold Shiner Beer, the best damn Texas beer. Finally away from slot machines, I almost lost the ringing in my ears. It was sort of like stepping into a bar in New York City, except it had video poker at the bar. I felt relaxed.
This weekend we attended our first Mexico City wedding, held at a fancy casa/museum in Mexico City. It was definitely a big, fantastic, fabulous, glamorous, riotous party.
But, mysteriously, it also involved:
- Incredible amounts of non-stop dancing, as in most of Mexico. And many of the female dancers were at least 4 decades older than me but in far better shape than me. And wearing much tighter dresses.
- Cigarette fumes. I was wondering, “is something on fire?” when I turned around and spotted a man smoking immediately behind me. Then I noticed two tables away, three very beautiful women (the kind you see on Mexican TV – the weathergirls and the sort) lighting up. They looked incredibly relaxed, I thought, while also wondering what shade of black their lungs had become. Smoking and dancing were two pervasive themes of the night — and they often occurred together. Smoking? Dancing? It’s not mutually exclusive in Mexico.
- Typically head-scratchingly bad wedding music (along with amazing Spanish music). A full band plus several shapely back-up dancers played and gyrated to everything from “Como la flor” by Selena (which is a lovely song, and was requested by our friend Andres) to “YMCA” by The Village People (do people really like this song???). I will never escape bad wedding music, will I?
- No hip-hop. I know that’s good news to some of you, but have you ever experienced the thrill of dancing to The Chronicat a wedding? I didn’t think so.
- Props, which are apparently essential for the crowd at a Mexico City wedding. Along with shit-tons of balloons, there were two giant clowns (one in black face makeup; one in white face makeup) on stilts dancing amid all the balloons. It suddenly felt like New Year’s Eve. With slightly racist looking clowns. Not long after the clowns took a break, the band handed out sombreros and fake mustaches for the Latin music. Then, during the 80s music, plastic visors and weird gel-light thingies (the kind you’d get as a kid at the carnival or the circus and would last maybe 4 hours after your mom finally bought you one).
SORTA THE SAME BUT NOT REALLY
- They do the bouquet-and-garter-toss thing here, too. Except that during the garter hoopla, some of the single men don chefs’ uniforms and hats, and smash into each other, as if in a mosh pit. (I watched this, stupified, from the sidelines, mingling with beautiful Mexican women laughing and of course, smoking.)
- There was a full bar…and, as if that wasn’t enough boooze, after the props and silly antics were exhausted, a giant cart was wheeled onto the dance floor, containing, omg: shots of tequila and Red Bull, or for the weak-hearted, Bailey’s Irish Cream (yes, I had the latter).
- The wedding lasted until at least 5 a.m. (breakfast is served around then). We made it until 3 a.m. — as did many of the older members of the crowd, who left around the same time as us.
AFTER A YEAR IN MEXICO, THE WEDDING TAUGHT ME THAT:
- My husband can dance a mighty fine cumbia at weddings (or in plazas in small Mexican towns). As long as he’s got a few drinks in him – he’s amazing!
- I am an aspiring salsa dancer. One day, one day. While I dance, I dream of being in Veracruz, and a la the last scene in Dirty Dancing, amazing everyone within 2 miles of my dancing: “Mira! La gringa puede bailar!”
- Mexicans love to party, and I’m so in agreement with this general attitude.
We saw one of Mexico’s most fantastic musicians last night, Julieta Venegas, who puts on a great show.
I especially enjoyed her duet with special guests, like Juan Son. Sometimes compared to Bjork, he’s quite the creative one (he wore a big shirt that looked like a giant slice of pizza and ran on stage late, fiddling with his microphone.)
She also played with Natalia Lafourcade, who didn’t dress like a duck onstage, but you can see the video regardless:
Like tequila and mezcal, pulque (pool-kay) is made from the fermented juice of the maguey, a type of agave (which is NOT a cactus but a big aloe vera-like plant — and a classic symbol of Mexico. We even own one.) These plants grow into giant monsters, by the way. Sotol is made from a yucca-like desert plant.
Until last weekend, I had not tried pulque. It made me a little nervous. Why? Brendan tried it not long after we moved here, and declared the texture “similar to snot” (think: aloe vera gel). And most traditional pulquerías are kind of dirty and gross — the pulque is ladeled out of big plastic buckets and the conditions are not exactly what you might call sanitary.
Yeah, not selling points for Joy. But to not try pulque is pretty lame for someone who lives in Mexico. So I had slowly been working up my nerve.
ORIGINS
For a long time, this was a drink of the poor. Originally, before the Spanish conquistadors arrived, it was a fancy traditional drink for the Aztecs and other Mexican cultures. Tepoztecatl, in fact, was the god of pulque, drunkenness, and fittingly, fertility. Then, once the indigenous people were treated to hundreds of years of brutality by the Spanish, their favored drink started to disappear and thrived only in a few, shabby pulquerias.
In recent years, pulque has made somewhat of a comeback, as college students here in Mexico make it fashionable to drink pulque. As a result, there are now sanitized pulquerias perfect for leery patrons like me. Pulqueria La Tia Yola in Tlaxcala was upscale, clean, cheery. I ordered a flavored pulque made with pine nuts. Brendan got the pistachio.
I'm drinking my pulque from the traditional green-glass vessel.
How was it?
Fortunately — very fortunately — it was not snot-like. More like sipping a watery yogurt (Brendan, who now considers himself a pulque expert after having tried it exactly one more time than me, branded Tia Yola’s pulque “weak.”) It tasted healthy, which is a strange feeling when you’re in a bar.
BOTTOM LINE
Overall, I’m not exactly eager to try it again, but am glad I worked up the nerve to tie one on with Tepoztecatl.
A saying about pulque -- basically, that pulque drinkers first turn a little red like a turkey, then you're all chatting and animated, like a monkey, then you're an over-aggresive lion..and lastly, a pig.
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…
About two hours east of Mexico City is Tlaxcala, Mexico’s tiniest state, and its capital goes by the same name. We took the bus there (via ATAH bus company, which leaves from the TAPO bus station on the east side of the city) and stayed at the Hotel Alifer, which is pretty basic but has a nice view of the city.
The view inside the Museo de Tlaxcala.
We climb the stairs to a church on a hill (seems like every town in Mexico has a church on a hill).
Brendan enjoys the view from the top.
A traditional dancer's cape at the folk art museum.
I try pulque for the first time (more on that later in the week!)
We danced the cumbia to a Nortena band (Banda Maguey!) in the centro. As you can see, the town is all dressed up -- tomorrow is Independence Day.
This lil' blog is written, edited and maintained by Joy Victory, a native of Corpus Christi, Texas, a former resident of New York City, and a current resident of Mexico City! All images, thoughts, stories and opinions, worthy or not, are hers and hers alone. Enjoy!
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