I am a child who went about a world in colour.
Frida Kahlo
Days 48 – 50: Mexico City
It is quite hard to capture first impressions of Mexico City. The busy airport and drive into the downtown area didn’t really prepare us for the enormous scale of the central “zocalo” (plaza) let alone the feeling that all 22 million inhabitants of the city were out for a Sunday stroll through the downtown area.
Our hotel, Hotel Zócalo Central, was right next to the impressively scaled grand plaza and our guide mentioned it was actually a long weekend so perhaps the Sunday crowds were slightly elevated but everywhere we went throughout the three days we had you certainly got the impression this is a very, very busy bustling metropolis. It was almost comical to walk along the pedestrian thoroughfare and look behind and in front and realise you were swept into a sea of humans. The sounds, the songs, the smells and the sights all crashed into one so it was a sensory overload on a scale I have only had in a couple of other similar sized cities like New Delhi and Tokyo.
The other thing you notice is the ubiquitous police presence. They are everywhere and constantly patrolling the streets so there was a strange irony of feeling like you were probably very safe but also being on high alert. Pollution is a serious problem in the city so the two days we were there I had really sore, irritated eyes and constant blocked sinus. The day we left the city the government had actually declared an emergency action by reducing the number of cars and trucks in the roads in order to try to bring pollution levels back down. The old city area has some of the grandest buildings and lots of layers of Pre-Hispanic history that the Spanish also built over the top of. We learnt a lot about the Mexicas and also learnt the very surprising fact that most of Mexico City was originally an enormous lake!
The original Mexicas and then the Spanish slowly built up the lake to create the city on top of it, which means that now everything is slowly sinking which we definitely saw evidence of in the main Cathedral and when visited the Shrine of Guadalupe.
Our two full days in the city were spent touring sites just outside of the city. First stop was the enormous Guadelupe Shrine which is a site where a monk claimed to have been visited 3 times by the Virgin Mary. Now the area is the home to three different cathedrals all from different eras and multiple other sacred shrines and halls for devout pilgrims to worship. Thousands pass by on an escalator to glimpse the monk’s poncho which miraculously had the Virgin’s image appear.
After watching the very devoted Catholic pilgrims for a few hours we headed further north to the ancient ruins of the city of Teotihuacan. No one knows for sure who built this magnificent city around 100 BCE but the Aztecs came across it during its decline in 650AD and gave it the name that exists today. It is believed to have been built by a society ruled by priestly classes as there is multiple temples and archaeological digs continue to make fascinating discoveries of sacrifices and artefacts given in tributes to a number of different gods. The areas of the site itself that are open to viewing are quite walkable with the largest temple the Temple of the Sun connected by a very long Avenue of the Dead to the Temple of the Moon. It takes up over 21 square kilometres in total but there are only four main temples and plazas that the public can visit. It was a bustling and busy site to visit in the hot afternoon but our guide told lots of interesting stories about what the archeologists have found and how the original inhabitants must have lived. The last temple was the most interesting. The Temple of the Feathered Serpent still has lots of original carvings and it is the only one you are allowed to climb. It is also subject to a current dig where a tunnel has been found with thousands of artefacts including human bones and small pottery fragments. It was also amazing to learn that the all the temples would have once been brightly painted and around 100,000 people are believed to have lived in this city at the height of its power.
After our day trip out of the city, the next day was spent within it. We did a walking tour around the downtown area and then got in our mini van for what was supposed to be a short 7 kms drive to the Museum of Anthropology. There was a protest against the re-introduction of bullfighting in the city centre so multiple roads were closed and the 20 minutes took well over an hour as our driver tried every back street possible to avoid the road blocks and crowds of umbrella toting protesters (thank you HK for the idea). Apparently there are protests almost daily so it is a fact of life for most Mexico City residents to put up with gridlocked traffic most days.We only visited around 6 of the 23 rooms in the museum but what we saw was pretty incredible and also took about 3 hours so you would need a couple of days to do the entire place. Virtually every ancient city ruin, pyramid, temples and palaces etc that have been discovered in Mexico have all of the incredible artefacts and valuables kept here, so it really brought what we had seen in Teotihuacan to life for us.
The centrepiece in the museum is the enormous Stone of the Sun which is a sacrificial altar that was discovered under Mexico City´s central plaza in 1790 by the Spanish. It was thought to be an Aztec Calendar originally but further research has revealed it was probably used for gladiatorial battles to the death.
I also found the remains of the ancient ball game, pelota, fascinating. It was a game played with a hard round ball and could only be hit with elbows, hips and knees attempting to get the ball through the stone hoop you can see on the left. Pretty hard I can only imagine . They played it on the night of full moons and the losing side were put to death. So historians think it was more of a gladiatorial battle against captured slaves from other kingdoms rather than for fun!
Day 51: Cholula and Puebla
We drove northwest around 2 1/2 hours to the small town of Cholula. The roads were very quiet due to the government decree to ban non essential cars and trucks for the day in an effort to reduce pollution. We had one very hairy moment when a large plastic crate flew off the back of a truck carrying loads of chickens in front of us and the driver had to make a very sharp swerve to avoid it. Glenn nearly had a heart attack but the driver kept his cool under pressure so we were happy to have had a near miss.
Cholula is a small pueblo and home to some ancient pyramid temple and city ruins. It claims to have the world´s largest pyramid by volume which would have made it bigger than even the biggest pyramid in Egypt. The Spanish, led by Cortez were responsible for a terrible massacre of Aztecs at Cholula because he got word they were planning to ambush him. As further revenge he ordered the building of 365 churches so of course one was built on on top of the remaining pyramid’s hillside so today you can walk up the “pyramid” in order to see the Baroque-style church at the top. On the day we were visiting there was a special saint´s day celebration so every few minutes fire crackers were being let off around the site and town giving us mini heart attacks.
From there we visited a very unusual church in Cholula which was an example of synergism between Catholicism and ancient indigenous beliefs. All the statues and paintings of saints and key figures were depicted as little people or had features of some of the indigenous gods. They all sort of looked like characters from The Simpsons which I’m sure wasn’t the original intention!
After Cholula, we headed into Puebla which was exactly as I imagined every picturesque Mexican town to look. Lots of brightly painted adobe style houses, cobblestone streets and lots of wonderful street art and artisan’s markets. It was once intended to be the capital of New Spain so has the second biggest cathedral and many grand municipalilty buildings, one of which included the oldest library in Mexico. We stayed in a beautiful colonial style rambling old hotel, Gamma Señorial Central, which had a completely deceptive modern facade so never judge a book by its cover. I was disappointed we only had one night there as it was definitely a place you could settle into for a few days. We ate some great food at Sabor a Puebla so I got to try my first mole which was very rich and dense with a chocolate infused spicy sauce. We also really enjoyed the mezcal bar called Mezcaleria Miel de Agave which had the biggest selection of Mexican mezcals I’ve ever seen – made me a convert when you realise they don’t all have to be smoky and bitter which has been mostly my experience of mezcals in Australia.
Days 52 – 55: Oaxaca
From Puebla we had our first taste of a Mexican long haul coach ride to Oaxaca which was around 5 hours of winding through the Sierra Norte de Puebla mountain range which was quite dramatic landscape. Lots of mezcal farms, and tall cacti stretching as far as they eye could see along with huge canyon drops from our highway view.
I was really looking forward to Oaxaca as I had seen so many travel and cooking TV shows highlighting what a special part of Mexico it is renowned for its cuisine, history and artistic cultures. It is similar to Puebla with its vibrantly coloured houses, all keeping to their heritage and appearance. Cobblestone streets, many plazas and lots of beautiful colonial residences which have been converted into hotels, bars, artisan markets, restaurants and galleries, usually all with a central courtyard that offers lots of shade and pretty potted gardens. We were staying in a quaint hotel called Parador San Miguel for 3 nights and enjoyed unpacking a little! The day started well but that night I got what is known as Montezuma’s Revenge in Mexico: the dreaded food poisoning. It was probably my over enthusiastic desire to try the very local delicacy of fried grasshoppers at dinner the night before. So that ruined our plans to the go out to the ancient ruins of Monte Alban. I stayed in bed all day feeling very sorry for myself and Glenn did a half day city tour in the afternoon so at least he got to see some of the interesting sites. I was thinking how lucky we actually had been up until now with over 50 days of travelling and not getting sick once – had to get one of us eventually!
I managed to get out the next day and caught up on the shopping and markets I was keen to see. We were also very lucky with our timing as the town was in full bloom with absolutely glorious jacarandas, magnolias and blossom trees everywhere you turned.
The other unique feature were these (somewhat creepy) giant dolls everywhere around the town and of course the three incredible markets. One specialises in food, one in handicrafts and the other one in anything you could possibly ever need for home – foods, spices, chillis, mezcal, piñatas, hats, flowers, pets – you name it and they had it. Every row specialised in a particular product so you’d turn from the stinky fresh chicken aisle into the aisle specialising in woven baskets then into the chilli aisle. It was a feast for the senses.
Another thing we noticed in Oaxaca was the very strong police presence. There were regular drive bys of young policemen mounted on the back of pick up trucks with semi automatic weapons aimed and ready. It was pretty disconcerting but when we chatted to our guide he explained that it is about the drugs war and the cartels which are infiltrating Oaxaca state. Many young men simply ´disappear¨ because they are lured into the cartels and then find themselves in terrible cycles of violence; the drug cartels in Mexico have stronger influence in the states with ports but it does seem like no state is immune to the fear and destruction they bring. Watching the morning news one day at breakfast in hotel was horrifying given the amount of dead reported overnight from shootings, bodies found, etc It is a serious issue that brings a layer of wariness to our travels. It is what makes travelling through Mexico a constant experience of contradictions – there is such darkness in the beauty and colour.
Days 55 – 57: San Cristobal Las Casas
We had another early 4am pick up from our hotel in Oaxaca to get to the airport for a 6.30am flight back to Mexico City and then a connection to Tuxtla Gutiérrrez in Chiapas State. No one is their best self on transit day let alone the ones that start at 4am. Which is what made the experience even weirder when we eventual landed in Tuxtla airport to be taken by our driver straight to one of the biggest canyons in Mexico, Sumidero Canyon (formed 35 million years ago at the same time as the Grand Canyon in the US) and found ourselves on a boat going upstream at 1pm. We thought we would be just doing a drive by to see the canyon on our way to San Cristóbal but no we were on a high speed plastic boat for the next 2 hours!
The first sight we saw was an enormous crocodile a little bit too close for comfort sunning itself on the riverbank.
Next we saw spider monkeys swinging happily from the trees.
Then we went around a bend and saw the Lord of the Rings-style towering cliff faces of the canyon’s walls. The highest point is 1000 metres at its highest point and the river turns 90 degrees along its 13kms passage. I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen such tall canyon walls before – it was all a bit surreal and added to the contrasts in our day so far.
A few more kilometres upstream we came to a Cave of Colours which had a Guadalupe Shrine and the headless body of Jesus Christ magically appearing in the rock´s strange formations. Around another corner was The Christmas Tree which is a natural waterfall whose moss has taken on said appearance. We eventually arrived at the river’s end which is where a dam was built in the early 1900s and it now responsible for providing up to a third of Mexico’s electricity. Then back we sped and enjoyed seeing the vast, looming cliffs all over again before we disembarked and continued on to San Cristóbal.
We arrived mid afternoon in San Cristóbal and were staying at an old converted convent for our hotel, Mansion del Valle. It seemed to have endless rooms, corridors and lots of knick knacks to give it a very quaint flavour. It was also very quiet (except when they had Celine Dion on a loop) and back from the street so that was a bonus. We went for our orientation walk and instead ended up eating an early dinner at the very un-Mexican Korean restaurant called Teddy’s which had delicious bibambap an pretty darned good antidote to the endless corn, beans and tortillas we have been eating. After dinner we went for a proper look around. There was a night market being set up in the main plaza and a great buzzing bar and restaurant street called Real de Guadalupe which is clearly where everyone hangs out at the end of days of sightseeing. We had an early night (given we had started our day at 4am and had about 4 days in 1!) so we were ready and raring for our tour the next day.
The next day we had a walking tour around the town and then drove out to a couple of the local indigenous villages nearby. Our guide had many things to tell us and also a very stressful habit of asking rhetorical questions about historical and geographical facts of Mexico that I felt obliged to know the answer to but clearly didn’t. The indigenous communities in Chiapas live very independently and differently to the rest of the population. They don’t allow any police services of any kind to enter their villages, girls are often married off as soon as they get their periods, they have a lot of very fancy houses (which our guide attributed to a healthy marijuana cultivation and trade which the police have no power to stop) all with reflective glass windows to keep out evil spirits. We also learnt that Chiapas state was the largest consumer of CocaCola in the world as it is cheaper and more readily available than fresh, clean drinking water. There is also a serious drinking problem among the men of these communities as they brew something called Pox from sugar cane and drink it all day long.
The women in each village have distinctive cultural dress. The women of San Juan Chamula have fluffy wooden skirts made from sheepskin, as sheep are a prized animal in the village and are only used for wool. The fluffier the skirt the wealthier you are seen to be.
We visited the Chamula people’s village church. This is a strange fusion of indigenous rituals and Catholic practices. Even before we went inside I found it all a bit disconcerting. Two drunken guys made lewd gestures at me and then two tiny children came up to us begging and trying to sell us necklaces – they both couldn’t have been over five years old and the boy looked about three. It was really confronting. We stepped inside and I instantly felt very uneasy. The church was swathed in candlelight only and in the floor was piles of pine needles. Small groups of families huddled around patches on the floor they had cleared the pine needles away from and were lighting hundreds of skinny tapered candles which were rapidly melting onto the floor. Tiny children were swigging on bottles of Coca-Cola, live chickens were sitting in plastic bags ready for sacrifice and there was a low murmuring as people prayed and rocked on the floor. Around the perimeter there were glass display cases with individual statues of saints – their faces were distorted and ghastly, and they were covered in mirrors to keep the evil spirits at bay. To say the experience was unique is an understatement – I actually couldn’t wait to get out of there as it felt so intrusive and weird. They encourage tourists to visit the church and charge a fee to go in but they certainly didn’t make you feel like you should be there at all. After the church we went into the vibrant market and then went to another village called Zinacantan which is renowned for its flower production – you could smell the manure as you came down the hill into the town – and beautiful textiles. This town had a very different vibe and the people had a more laid back character.
After our morning out we went back to San Cristóbal and spent a bit more time exploring the streets and shops. We went to a traditional Chiapas restaurant and I proceeded to get food poisoning again thanks to god knows what. Glenn claims I was cursed in the weird church!
Days 57 – 59: Palenque
The next day we were on the road by 6am and I felt like death warmed up so the 5 1/2 hour drive to Palenque was going to be torturous. The roads were absolutely awful – it was a major highway but every 100 metres they had these huge speed bumps because we were going through small villages along the way so they are trying to keep,traffic at safer speeds when homes and schools are so close to the road. Yet this meant that every car, motorbike and semi trailer speeds up then slams on their brakes constantly. Add to that the windy roads and our driver deciding he was in the Dakar Rally, all I could do was close my eyes and hope it was over soon. It was not over soon.
We did stop to break the trip up for an hour by visiting the absolutely stunning Agua Azul Waterfalls. The mineral deposits have created these vivid blue pools at the bottom of the falls so it was a sight to behold. Glenn bravely went swimming in a couple of calmer spots but we skipped where you could don a helmet and life vest to float down the bigger drops. It was so peaceful and hardly any visitors so a bit of a different experience to our Iguazú Falls visit.
The next part of the trip took us into lush, dense jungles interspersed with very small villages as we headed further north into Chiapas state and closer to the border with Guatemala. Eventually we made it to Palenque and our beautiful hotel, Hotel Villa Mercedes, which was nestled into the jungle very close to the entrance of the Archaeological Park. We could hear the howler monkeys calling out from the nearby forest and there were hummingbirds and butterflies flitting from flower to flower by the pool so it was a idyllic relief after the day in the car hanging on for dear life.
We got up early the next morning ready for our day of exploring the Mayan ruins. Unfortunately Glenn had now been cursed too by Montezuma’s Revenge so he only lasted an hour before he had to head back to the hotel. The Palenque ancient Mayan city is about 1780 hectares and over 1400 buildings have been discovered but only 10% have been uncovered and restored. The rest of the city lies hidden beneath the all consuming jungle. The site that you can explore is quite compact and was very impressive. There were so few visitors that you feel like you have the whole place to yourself most of the time.
There are four main temples and palaces – The Temple of the Skulls, The Temple of the Red Queen, The Temple of Inscriptions and the Temple of the Sun. They all felt very Indiana Jones-like as you could go inside a couple of them and see the hidden tombs which had been uncovered and a few of the surviving bas-reliefs and Mayan hieroglyphics. They were uncovered in the early 19th Century and you can just imagine the various European explorers battling to the death to be the first to discover and claim these incredible riches.
There was a pelota court so you could see the where the game I had read about in the Museum of Anthropology would have been played. As well there were the homes of nobles and a palace complex to see. While Glenn was being driven back to the hotel, I bravely decided to take the jungle walk to the small museum. I was literally the only person on the trail for nearly a kilometre so did relish this solitude hiking through the dense jungle hearing the howler monkeys in the distance and coming across small waterfalls, hanging bridges and more partially covered ruins, it was quite magical. The museum had the remains of the Red Queen, a highly ornate sarcophagus from one of the Mayan kings and lots of other fascinating artefacts that had been discovered in the various temples. I am pretty sure the really good stuff has been sent to the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City.
Day 59: Mexico City
So now we are back in Mexico City in the airport hotel waiting to catch our 6am flight to Montreal, Canada. Reflecting on our time in Mexico, it has been mixed. So many parts have been colourful and crazy and other times it has been frustrating and sad. It’s a big, wild and diverse country and we know we only saw a little sliver. There is probably only so much corn, beans and cheese one can eat but one can never tire of tequila!
