Come With Me to Patzcuaro, Michoacan

So, I’ve got a new favorite place in Mexico: Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacan. It’s about a 4 to 5 hour drive west of Mexico City, located just south of Morelia, the capital of Michoacan (which is supposed to be lovely, too, but we didn’t have time to visit).

Normally, I’m a beach girl and most of my favorite Mexican places involve the ocean and the creatures that inhabit within. But Patzcuaro takes the cake for:

1. Best little Mexican town, for architecture

I’ve been to a lot of “colonial era” cities in Mexico, meaning they were built soon after the conquest and still have a lot of traditional and very old Spanish architecture. They’re adorable, by and large, but after you’ve visited a few, they do start to look all the same (what’s that? Another Italian Coffee Company in a historic hacienda building? Great). Not with Patzcuaro, with its supremely maintained architecture. It’s also relatively flat, so it’s not a killer city to walk around, like equally cute but incredibly steep Taxco. We stayed at squee-worthy La Casa Encantada, which, btw, has half-off their room rates through July, so get it while it’s cheap.

Every street in Patzcuaro looks like this.

Our room at La Casa Encantada (included a kitchen).

2. Best little Mexican town, for arts and crafts

Patzcuaro and its nearby small towns operate under a unique system set up by a Spanish priest hundreds of years ago. He taught the local indigenous communities to individually specialize in specific trades, a practice that exists today. Many of these crafts are for sale in the stores that line Patzcuaro’s main plaza, but it’s also fun to get out and explore the actual towns where the products are made.

In Santa Clara del Cobre, as just one example, you can find copper galore:

At the National Copper Museum

More shopping:

Pottery for sale in Tzintzuntzan -- which means 'place of the hummingbirds' in Purepecha.

3. Best climate, ever?

Simply driving around the countryside is gorgeous. It’s hilly, green, and because of the elevation, not too hot, and not too cold. I’ve heard Michoacan contains many areas considered “most hospitable to human life” and you really feel it when you’re there, because you don’t want to leave.

Blue skies, green trees, the open road...

4. Fantastic bodies of water nearby!

Rare for Mexico, this is a lake-filled region. The most popular is Lago de Patzcuaro, which contains several islands, all swarmed by visitors come Day of the Dead, especially Isla Janitzio. Instead of visting it, we took an off-the-beaten-path tour of two other islands, Pacanda and Yunuen, where the indigenous Purepecha people live.

After spotting a sign for "eco-turistico" stuff, we turned left and headed to shore.

Gregorio talked us into a boat tour, and we visited two islands. We were the only people out.

It was so quiet here we almost heard our brains thinking.

(If you’re interested in a very unique lodging experience on Pacanda, contact Gregorio Campos who operates tours of the island and has new cabanas on the island, too, at 43-4104-2511. He’s already booked for Day of the Dead but the rest of the year he’s less busy.)

Besides Patzcuaro, there are several other lakes that are supposed to be better for swimming — deeper, cleaner, etc.

All this, gleaned in just TWO DAYS I spent there! Suffice it to say, I’ll be back.

Mexico: A Country Obsessed with Walls and Fences

My favorite walls in Mexico are those that have flowers spilling over them.

In Mexico, most properties — especially houses — are hidden behind huge fences.

While I wish so much of Mexico wasn’t hidden, I understand this fence-me-in obsession on a homeowner level, perhaps because I grew up Texan? We like our personal property, and we like it private — unlike my in-laws’ neighborhood in Minnesota, where there are no backyard fences, which stunned me at first.

In Texas, though, most homeowners wouldn’t dream of fencing in their front yards. Yet in Mexico, the entire property is often ringed by a high wall, making homes of even modest means fortresses of stone and concrete.  The need to give in and build a wall is complicated, especially for American homeowners here who try to live here, sans walls.

For a country obsessed with walls, then, it follows that the walls are not merely practical forms of keeping the world out. They also become perfect space for art and advertising, easily erased and re-painted when the need strikes.

Street art in Mexico usually surfaces first on walls.

An ad for a music group's performance - "Alacranes" means scorpions.

Another music group's announcement.

Comex, a chain of paint stores, is as common as Starbucks is in Manhattan, for obvious reasons. Muted tones are not their specialty. Our apartment, for example, is painted in “Oaxaca Red,” “Gouda,” and “Tulum,”  courtesy of Comex. The bright colors help cover up the reality below — drab concrete (furnished by a similarly-named business in Mexico, Cemex.)

Who needs a sign when you can write it on the wall? This is probably Comex's Gouda color.

Of course, when you’re pondering cultural trends in Mexico, it doesn’t take long to find ancient references. Walls and wall art feature prominently among the sites of the Aztecs, Mayans, Olmecs, Toltecs….

A mural excavated from the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan.

And walls — or at least the murals painted upon them — figure heavily in not-so-ancient history, as well.

Famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera took inspiration from the ancient murals and the ancient people of Mexico. (Note: I'm not entirely sure this is one of Rivera's? There are so many good muralists in Mexico that I tend to get them all confused...and assume they're all Rivera.) Aren't her tattoos -- murals for the body -- gorgeous?

I have to wonder: This national obsession with walls is perhaps why there wasn’t a bigger outcry when the U.S. announced the building of the border fence?  Which I await eagerly to be torn down. Eagerly, folks. If only to save the South Texas/Northern Mexico flora and fauna. Obama? You’re in Mexico this week — want to announce you’re tearing down one of the dumbest creations of the 21st century?

_{Photos by Mark Hess and Bob Walsh}

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:

No Me Gusta

As I do every morning, I just went to the home page of The New York Times to see what’s new in the world. Holy crap. My high from the inauguration lasted 48 hours, and just ended with the sound of a balloon releasing air and flying across the room, before landing limply and empty on the floor:

Microsoft Plans to Lay Off 5,000 Workers

Home Construction Ends Worst Year Since 1959

Sony Expects $3 Billion Loss for the Year

Dismal Economic News Drags Oil Prices Down

New Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected to 589K

Study Finds New Evidence of Warming in Antarctica

Falling Pound Raises Fears of Stagnation

Shares Fall on Housing Worries and Microsoft Layoffs

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!!!!

Posing with Virgin Mary: Like Sitting on Santa’s Lap

Along with being one of the most holy days of the year in Mexico, Dec. 12 — Dia de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, also is one of the most adorable.

Families across the country dress up their children as either  indigenous pilgrims or Juan Diego, the Indian man who saw a vision of a dark-skinned Mary in what is now northern Mexico City. Little girls wear elaborate dresses and shawls, have their hair braided, and sometimes even wear make-up. Boys put on baggy hospital-scrub like shirts and pants, ponchos/sarapes, a scarf around their head or a straw hat, sandals and often a drawn-on mustache. Even the tiny babies are dressed up. It’s all you can do not to run off with these adorable children.

Last year we witnessed the adorable kids in Taxco, Mexico. This year in Oaxaca, which has its own church for Guadalupe. The large park in front of the church was taken over by a carnival. Immediately in front of the church were about 20 elaborate photo backdrops where kids could have their picture taken — much like posing with Santa. A photographer snaps your photo for about 30 pesos ($3).

And like the crying jags elicited by Santa, many little kids here too don’t know what to make of the experience:

This is such a great "half-hearted smile" for the camera. But the donkey seems thrilled.

Trick-or-Treating – for Pesos and Peanuts

Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos occur at the same time (by the way: not a random thing — the Spanish forcibly moved the Aztec death celebrations from August to All Saints’ Day as part of their whole conquering bit).

Although Day of the Dead still appears to be the predominant celebration, Halloween has definitely been at least partially adopted by Mexican kids. As in, trick or treating. And not just for one night – but an entire weekend of trick or treating, since Day of the Dead is actually several days long, and why limit trick-or-treating to just one night?

And while we’re at it, why limit it to candy?

DIEZ PESOS!

Last Friday night, Jeremy, Nancy, Brendan and I were having a few beers out on the leafy central plaza in Puebla, Mexico. Being that it was Day of the Dead weekend, there were many elaborate altars set up in the plaza, and hundreds of families milling about.

It didn’t take but a few seconds before we heard “calaverita???” We turned around to see a small child, dressed in a costume, holding up an orange plastic pumpkin.

Calavera means skull in Spanish, and sugar skull candy is one of the main decorations that adorns altars. But a calaverita (little skull) means something entirely different. In some instances, it can mean a little poem about death. And, more important to this story, it’s what kids here say instead of “trick-or-treat.”

AND, well, once you’ve been asked to give a calaverita, don’t expect to hand out candies in return. Kids here want money. Pesos. Thank god we’ve been in Mexico long enough to be aware of this “cultural difference” or else it could have gotten really awkward really fast.

It’s brilliant, really. Why mess with Smarties or Snickers when you can collect cold, hard cash?

Many of the kids that night who approached us were dressed in costumes, polite and accompanied by their parents. Perhaps because we were obviously tourists (no kids with us, and one of us is a 6’4” white guy) we got approached more than other diners around us.

As you can imagine in a country that is struggling so much with poverty, and in a situation where money is literally being handed out, street kids also make grand efforts for calaveritas, regardless of whether they have a costume. We had one such young boy approach us.

You’d assume that when faced with a street kid, you’d immediately feel a melting sensation your heart and feel compelled to give, right?

Wrong. He was a tough, old street kid, not interested in making any effort to elicit sympathy. You could tell he had dispensed with that long ago and replaced it with straight-up aggression.

He was maybe five years old, and clad in dirty clothes. He ran up to our table demanding “DIEZ PESOS! DIEZ PESOS” (10 pesos, which is similar in value and size to a dollar coin). Because of how brazen he was, we all laughed — “what a great opening line,” “this kid’s funny,” we thought.

We normally gave even the most polite children a peso (about a dime’s worth), and so, we did the same for him. Each time one of us plunked a peso into his pumpkin, he’d hold the pumpkin up to his face, peer deeply inside, and then look up at us with a pissed-off face. He kept demanding more, and so we gave him a few more pesos but had to eventually cut him off.

Finally, seething at us for not forking over sums of money he considered adequate, he (without asking) grabbed at a plate of peanuts on the table, took a huge handful, and started eating them, in front of us. After one big swallow, he did it again.

Again, you’d think this would immediately cause us to have a heart attack of guilt – he’s so hungry!!! — but this kid was 4 going on 45. He was arrogant about it, laughing defiantly and checking closely to see if it would piss us off more — a goal you could tell he was clamoring to achieve. His attitude was basically: We should be grateful he was eating our peanuts. Jeremy finally shooed him off (gently) and we resumed drinking our beers, a bit floored by the whole event, but not having much time to really think about what it meant to be this kid, and act that way, since after he left, it didn’t take long before more kids approached, Halloween pumpkins in hand.

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.

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.

How Hurricane Ike Ended Up REALLY Pissing Me Off

Actually, I can’t totally blame Hurricane Ike for this — we, us humans, are guilty, too. We built too many houses in too many vulnerable areas, and then Ike showed up and blasted it all to hell. What do you get? A big g-darned mess up and down the Texas coast. Including the world’s longest undeveloped barrier island, Padre Island.

I understand the need to live reallllly close to the beach. I aspire to live on the water, too. But it’s not exactly smart or environmentally sound.

Normally, I can ignore these news stories, which just end up pissing me off.

But this happens to be the ONE WEEK I am HOME to experience it:

Hurricane Ike Dumps a Mess on Padre Island Beaches

Damnit.

Boozy Times: Drinking Pulque with Tepoztecatl

A mural showing how pulque is made, at a museum in Tlaxcala.

Mexico has at least four major alcoholic beverages to its credit:

• Tequila
• Mezcal
• Sotol
• Pulque

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.

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.

The Worst Seasickness EVER?

When I first heard this news on the radio this morning, I immediately felt queasy:

Coast Guard Launches Search for Freighter Stranded in Ike’s Path

“The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army launched a rescue mission this morning to save the 22 crew members on a Cypriot freighter loaded with petroleum coke that was wallowing helplessly some 90 miles southeast of Galveston as Hurricane Ike continues its approach, the Coast Guard said.

‘It’s very similar to being on a continuous roller coaster,” said David Weathers, an executive board member for American Maritime Officers. “It’s very, very hard to move – very, very hard to do anything.”“

When I was 18, and a volunteer with the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, I went out to sea with a group of marine biologists who were releasing, Xeno, a dolphin. In the previous months, we had nursed him back to health from near death. (I basically spent my senior year of high school next to his tank recording his respirations or stuffing medicines into frozen fish.)

On the day of Xeno’s release, we went out on a large UT research boat into 20-foot seas. Within minutes, my stomach and head were spinning and churning as if I was, well, on 20-foot seas. There is NOTHING that makes the dizziness go away, since the horizon looks like the long, hellish end of a see-saw. I foolishly took Dramamine and all that did was keep me from vomiting, I was still incredibly sick.

So, these poor souls stuck on this freighter in what meteorologists are saying may produce the worst storm surge in Texas in 100 years? I just simply can’t imagine the hell.