15
Oct

Day Trip Bliss – Around Mexico City

Posted on October 15th, 2010 :: Posted in Archaeology Site, Art, Church, City, Mexico, UNESCO Site

As if Mexico City didn’t have enough museums, attractions in and around the Centro, delicious tacos and cool neighborhoods to keep us busy for weeks, the city is also within easy day-trip distance of other fascinating things to do and see. Here are four of our favorite things to do around the city.

The Ruins of the Aztec City of Teotihuacan

The archaeological site, located about 25 miles from Mexico City at what remains of the pre-Columbian Aztec city of Teotihuchan, was first opened to the public 100 years ago and millions of people have toured the massive complex, known as The Place Where the Gods Were Created, since then. Despite the site’s long history of archeological exploration new discoveries are still being made. Just this year a 400 foot long tunnel that’s believed to be nearly 2,000 years old was unearthed at this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Pyramid of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world, after the Great Pyramid of Cholula also in Mexico and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

A visit to Teotihuacan can easily take three hours and be prepared for dusty, hot, shade-free conditions and some steep climbs up the nearly 250 foot high Pyramid of the Sun and only slightly smaller Pyramid of the Moon. Though some Mexican women do it in heels we highly recommend sensible shoes.

It's a long, hot, steep climb up the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan near Mexico City.

The Pyramid of the Moon as seen from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan near Mexico City.

The Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan near Mexico City.

A controversial Resplandor Teotihuacano sound and light show is also put on at Teotihuacan but, thankfully, plans to build a Walmart on a section of the ancient city appear to have been defeated.

Teotihuacan-Temple-Sun+Avenue of Dead-sunset

Looking down the Avenue of the Dead with the Pyramid of the Sun in the background at Teotihuacan near Mexico City..

The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Welcome to the world’s most visited Catholic site–yep, more people come to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a short bus/metro ride from the city center, than any other catholic shrine in the world. It’s estimated that around 20 million people a year visit the Basilica. Even Pope John Paul came here and his Mexican Popemobile is still on display.

The Basilica is impossibly packed during the annual Festival of Our Lady of Guadalupe which happens every year in December. The festival marks the time of year when, in 1531, the dark-skinned Virgin of Guadalupe is said to have first appeared to an Aztec shepherd named Juan Diego, eventually proving her existence and her miraculous powers by imprinting an image of herself onto his clothes.

The weirdly modern looking new Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe (left) next to the old basilica which is literally sinking into the ground under its own weight.

This leads us to the main reason the faithful (and the curious) flock to the Basilica. The actual tilma or apron that Diego was wearing at the time of his encounter with the virgin is said to be exhibited in the weirdly modern new Basilica which was built after it was discovered that the elegant, stately original stone basilica is literally sinking under its own weight. The old basilica was closed for repairs for a while but it’s open now and despite engineer’s best efforts you still walk uphill into the sagging church when you cross the threshold.

This statue on the grounds of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe shows Juan Diego showing the bishop the miracle of the Virgin of Guadalupe's image printed onto his shepherd's clothes.

But we digress. Back to the miracle shroud. What’s said to be Diego’s actual tilma bearing the actual image of the Virgin seared there in 1531 is framed and hung on a wall underneath the altar in the new basilica. A back-and-forth sets of moving sidewalks slowly ferry people from left to right, then right to left in front of the relic. Tears flow, cameras snap, eyebrows raise.

Relic or not, this framed image of the Virgin of Guadalupe underneath the altar in the new Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe near Mexico City attracts millions of the faithful plus a few of the just plain curious.

The Xochimilco Canals

Mexico City is built on a swamp which was originally tamed by the Aztecs using a clever network of canals and bridges. Today, most of the Mexico City valley has been reclaimed as solid ground but 17 miles to the south in Xochimilco you can still experience the original watery ways.

Here, brightly painted hand-propelled boats called trejineras ply the waters taking tourists and locals alike through a network of calm waterways that make up this UNESCO World Heritage Site. Food and beer and trinket vendors sidle up in their own boats as do mariachis eager for a commission. It’s a festive atmosphere best shared with family and friends.

Colorful boats called trajineras ply the tranquil waters of the ancient Xochimilco canals near Mexico City.

Mariachis on a trajinera on the Xochimilco canals give new meaning to the term "roving minstrel."

The UNAM Campus

The full name of this massive campus is the National Autonomous University of Mexico or the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Whatever you call it this is widely considered to be the best university in Latin America.

At least 7 Mexican Presidents and other assorted political figures have attended UNAM plus big Mexican literary figures and, weirdly, William F. Buckley who attended UNAM in 1943.

UNAM is 100 years old this year and the main campus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, dates back to the 1950s. The campus earned UNESCO status in large part because of the stunning convergence of architecture and art. The campus was designed by Mexican architects Mario Pani and Enrique del Moral but its vaguely revolutionary, certainly progressive look and feel can be credited to a much larger group of creative types who the architects collaborated with including sixty engineers and artists worked like David Alfaro Siquieros, Diego Rivera and Juan O’Gorman.

UNAM is also home to Olympic Stadium which was built in 1956 and which hosted the tumultuous 1968 Summer Olympics.

The Central Library on the UNAM campus in Mexico City is covered in mosaics by Juan O'Gorman.

Torre de Rectoria on the UNAM campus in Mexico City is covered in murals by David Alfaro Siqueiros. This one, "Las fechas de las historia de Mexico" (The dates of Mexico's histsory) includes dates representing key events in Mexican history: 1520 (the Spanish conquest), 1810 (independence from Spain), 1857 (writing of the constitution) and 1910 (the Mexican revolution). The final date simply reads "19??."

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1
Feb

Celebrating the Virgin – Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico

Posted on February 1st, 2010 :: Posted in Camping, Festivals/Celebrations, Hike, Mexico, Mountains, Outdoor

Ajijic–on Lake Chapala, the largest lake in Mexico–is a typical mid-sized Mexican town in many ways. Every Wednesday a tianguis (farmers’ market) takes over one huge street and everyone comes out to buy avacados and fresh-squeezed orange juice and any of the hundreds of other wonderful and affordable goods for sale. The streets are cobbled. The town square is peaceful. The pace is languid. The sun is out pretty much every day of the year. Nobody obeys the traffic signs.

Despite a sizeable (and growing) population of gringos, Ajijic retains a healthy Mexican population and they retain a healthy regard for the Virgin of Guadalupe, especially during the festival held in her name every December 1-12 throughout Mexico. It’s a time for Mexicans to honor their own unique religious icon, also known as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, which was tolerated by the Spanish conquistadors who figured turning a blind eye to a miracle-working Mexican version of the Virgin Mary was a small price to pay for converting an entire country to Catholicism.

It all began on December 12, 1531 when the image of what has come to be accepted as the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared on the cloak of Juan Diego, a peasant who, earlier in the day, had encountered an odd teenage girl who had requested that a church be built in her honor on the hill of Tepeyac. Mexico’s virgin was eventually invoked by revolutionaries and honored by Popes (there’s a shrine to her in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome) and today she is perhaps the most ubiquitous symbol in all of Mexico (left).

December 12 was decreed a feast day for the Virgin of Guadalupe in the early 1800s by Jose Maria Morelos, a priest and rabble-rousing leader of Mexico’s War of Independence against the Spanish. Today, in typical Mexican fashion, the Virgin of Guadalupe celebration has been expanded to encompass the first 12 days of December and her festival is marked with both the profound and the not so profound.

On the one hand you can buy a car freshener with the Virgin’s image on it and hang it from your rear view mirror (we did). On the other hand, millions of devoted pilgrims and followers swarm Mexican shrines and temples devoted to the Virgin every year during the annual festival commemorating her miraculous encounter with Juan Diego. Mexico’s Basilica of Guadalupe, Tepeyac hill near Mexico City, is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage destination in the world. In 2009 more than 6 million pilgrims traveled there over December 11 and 12–many of them walking for biking long distances.

Ajijic’s festivities don’t include millions of people, however, those who do take part make sure they have a good time.

The faithful pitched tents for the 24 hour mountain-top Virgin of Guadalupe fiesta above Ajijic. That's our orange Coleman tent in the lower left hand corner.

We were lucky enough to get invited to one of Ajijic’s celebrations of the Virgin which combined some of our favorite things: a good stiff hike, good friends (new and old) and the chance to take part in Mexican hospitality and ritual. But first we had to get there.

On December 6 At 6:00am we (along with our great friend Tom from Ajijic) met up with Renee at the local Oxo (think 7-11 but without the creepy parking lot lurkers). Renee is a Mexican resident of Ajijic, an avid hiker, a big-hearted guy and an artist and it was thanks to him that we were headed to the top of Mount Chupanya, 6.5 miles and 3,000 feet above us.

We began the steep steady climb in the dark and slowly wound our way up the desert scrub hillsides of the Sierra Madre for about three hours before we reached our destination, a saddle in the mountain with a small shrine to the Virgin that’s been hand-chipped out of a huge boulder.

This small Virgin of Guadalupe shrine has been carved out of a huge boulder on Mount Chupinaya above Ajijic.

The trail takes us past a few stations-of-the-cross markers, through someone’s small hand-worked corn field and in and out of many different types of vegetation ultimately passing a cluster of crosses, then the summit shortly thereafter. When we got there around 9:30 we were shocked to discover that we weren’t the first arrivals. Already hard at work was a group of Mexican men and it was a pleasure to watch (and try to help) as these guys, not necessarily even friends on any other day, worked seamlessly and resourcefully together to turn a narrow, lumpy bit of hill into a party pad.

It was amazing what they accomplished with a few tarps, a knife and some fallen logs. And as we watched them build a campfire, create makeshift benches, string up tarps, collect firewood and literally unearthing buried treasure, we thought MacGyver’s got nothing on these guys.

For month these men and others had been hiking up the mountain from Ajijic and neighboring communities with enormous bottles of purified water, huge soup pots and other cooking utensils, bottles of tequila and many other necessities that were the makings of a party which was expected to attract 200 people–not to mention an entire banda band (typically at least eight musicians) which would hike up with their instruments some time in the wee hours when they were done playing at parties down in town.

The early arrivals (including us) warmed up by a never-ending campfire between trips into the woods to dig up party necessities that had been cached in the ground over the previous months.

Two vital ingredients that couldn’t be cached in the ground ahead of time were fireworks and noise makers. Virtually no celebration in Mexico is complete without setting off copious quantities of bombas (extremely loud creations that look like giant bottle rockets) and fireworks or cuteras that come with names like vampiros. During the 12 day Guadalupe Festival even priests set the things off at their churches.

It wasn’t long before other men began arriving up on Chupinaya, huffing up the hill carrying huge baskets full of bombas and cuteras on their backs. All told, about 300 of the things were ultimately amassed at the top. Almost immediately one guy began lovingly sorting, piling and covering them. Then he began lighting them–usually four or five in a row from extremely close range.

By noon it was drizzling and Tom was sorry he hadn’t bothered schlepping his tent up the hill. All said, however, he kept miraculously dry under a crudely strung up bit of plastic even after the drizzle turned to a true rain. We’re just saying.In large part due to the rain, this year’s Chupinaya Virgin fiesta attracted far fewer than 200 people and the banda band arrived late and in reduced numbers. But by dawn they were set up gamely in front of the shrine where they belted out loud, rollicking, slightly-circus-like banda tunes on their drums and cymbals and tubas.

OK, the weather kept the Tuba-man at home, but someone walked up to the top of the mountain carrying a bass drum.

At some point in the soggy night the party crew had begun simmering an enormous pot of menudo (a slow-cooked soup made with tripe) and a equally impressive pot full of cafe olla (a Mexican spiced and simmered cowboy coffee). We’ve had menudo before and have we’ve made peace with the fact that we just don’t care for tripe (cow stomach) but we do like the broth so we breakfasted on a couple of bowls of rich broth (puzzling our fellow revelers by politely refusing the tripe), then we packed up our wet gear for the hike back down.

In the morning the rain stopped just in time to allow Karen to go on an orchid hunt.

In the morning the rain stopped long enough to allow Karen to go on a successful orchid hunt.

As we began our descent the weather cleared and we were treated to this view of Lake Chapala and the village of Ajijic 3,000 feet below.

The sun finally came out when we were about half way down the mountain. Here Karen and Tom push on.

A few days later we found ourselves at another Virgin celebration, this one slightly more urban, in the viollage of San Antonio next to Ajijic. It was December 12, the culmination of the 12 day festival, and San Antonio–like virtually every other city, town and hamlet in the country–was marking the day with a big fireworks display at the entrance to the church. As if to enhance the experience, the power miraculously went out in San Antonio, plunging everything into darkness–the perfect backdrop for the huge castillo or intricately built tower of spinning wheels and fancy shapes which would be brought to life with one flick of a match.

The Virgin of Guadalupe Festival in San Antonio on Lake Chapala culminated, as so many Mexican festivals do, with a castillo (fireworks tower).

: The fireworks finale of the Virgin of Guadalupe Festival in San Antonio on Lake Chapala included this castillo (fireworks tower) and a larger-than-life fireworks Virgin.