Hi everyone,
I know I owe you lots of stories, and you will get them, but it won't be immediately, I'm sorry. Internet was hard to come by for many reasons for the second half of the trip (enough internet to sit down and write a blog post). Koki and I made it safely to Costa Rica and our good friend Tracy is now here visiting. We will be busy hanging out with her and our family and friends here until the new year, but I promise I will write about the rest of the trip as soon as I have a day to sit down at the computer. The rest of the trip was amazing and I look forward to sharing it with you all. Spoiler alert: Koki and I both got jobs! I'll tell you more later...
Thanks for the feedback I've gotten from some of you. Hope everyone is well!
Fern
16 December 2010
10 October 2010
Oaxaca, Chiapas, Quintana Roo (Yucatàn peninsula)
Hola from the sunny Yucatàn peninsula! Time to get caught up on our last two weeks in Mexico before we head to Belize tomorrow.
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
Oaxaca is an awesome city, words I do not speak very often. We arrived in Oaxaca last Monday afternoon. The trip from Puebla was beautiful, very different from anything I had seen in Mexico or anywhere else. Although I`m getting tired of bus rides, it is awesome to be able to watch the flora change outside the window as you travel. The cacti were especially interesting (Pachycereus sp.?). We had to take an alternate route through the city to the bus station because of a landslide on the normal route, which goes above the city. Early the morning after we arrived in the city of Oaxaca there was a much larger landslide in Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, a small village in another part of the state of Oaxaca. The heavy rains that fell in southern Mexico as a result of Karl and Matthew, combined with deforestation and overgrazing, caused many landlides, from small slides that might result in a rock or two on the highway to huge landlsides that wash away hundreds of homes and leave already impoverished people on the street, or where it used to be. In the city of Oaxaca there were collection stations everywhere accepting aid for the affected fellow Oaxaqueños. Luckily the death toll was not as great as was initially thought and it seemed impressive to me the outpouring of support from the community. I think the short-term aid of beans, rice, soap, bottled water, and money needs to be accompanied by long-term solutions, such as reforestation, more durable housing, and improved evaluation of road construction before landslides occur.
Oaxaca is a small, walkable city. We stayed at Paulina Hostel in the historic downtown. It was pretty nice; at least initially it was the polar opposite of some of the critter-infested hostels we`ve stayed at, as they had fumigated right before we arrived and we couldn`t check in until that evening. Not ideal, I try not to sleep on freshly fumigated mattresses as a general rule, and not all that effective at keeping the place pest-free, either, as they had standing water in several places and a very healthy (although very hungry) mosquito population. Although the place seemed clean enough, I realized that was just a facade. They closed the bathroom for cleaning on one occasion, but didn`t clean it. There was no toilet paper in the womens room for a day (apparently the supply truck didn`t bring it and going to the store half a block away to buy more wasn`t an option for some reason), not a problem for me, I`m used to carrying my own in this part of the world, but it meant that some other ladies used paper towels and threw it in the toilet. Surprise surprise, this clogged the toilet, which then overflowed all over the bathroom floor into the shower stalls. One of the employees managed to tear himself away from the soap opera on TV long enough to look at it and go back to the TV. So the toilet water just sat there until it dried up. I´m glad I always wear flip-flops in public showers! I recommend you all do the same, just because something looks clean doesn`t mean it is. On a brighter note the hostel had a very cool coy pond, a huge terrace on the roof (it would be way cooler if they made it a living roof!), and a very hearty breakfast (good thing, since there was no communal kitchen).
In Oaxaca we visited many shops that are like museums; the handcrafts and textiles of the region are absolutely amazing! So many colors everywhere. We saw many more indigenous faces than we had previously; although sadly many of the indigenous people, whose culture is responsible for many of the beautiful colors of the city, sell gum, cigarettes, etc. or beg on the street. I don`t even know how to start analyzing or solving the marginalization of the oldest existing population of the area. We visited one store specializing in wool rugs. I bought some yarn, handspun and dyed with natural dyes (cochineal, a type of scale on prickly pear cactus, is crushed and used for varying shades of red, for example). Someday when I win the lottery and retire I want to return to Oaxaca and learn to spin, dye, and weave. We also visited several museums, the highlight being the Museo de Pintores Oaxqueños (Oaxacan Painters Museum). The beautiful paintings are housed in one of the many colonial buildings with big, white columns, large rooms with large windows and balconies, and a central courtyard. We went to the textiles museum (aside from the history presented in the museum I think the textiles in the shops nearby are more impressive than the museum), several contemporary art galleries, and a photo exhibit (about half of which focused on documenting the violence related to drug trafficking in Mexico, very graphic and very depressing). We took a tour of the Jardìn Etnobotànico (Ethnobotanical Gardens) which houses many native plants from Oaxaca, a state that is home to seven of the eight life zones found in Mexico. The gardens were beautiful and very impressive, especially considering the short amount of time the space has been dedicated to this purpose (since 1998) and the very small budget available. Last but not least, we found a nice little bar down the street from the botanical gardens called Etnobotanas, cheap beer and a great Guatemalan bartender (better service there than some of the fancier places I`ve eaten).
From Oaxaca to San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, our next stop, is normally an 11-hour bus ride. We decided we were going to splurge a little and take the more expensive luxury bus to be more comfortable for our overnight journey. Unfortunately we learned (after paying for another night at the hostel in Oaxaca because we thought the luxury bus was sold out) that the luxury buses were not making the trip to Chiapas due to the poor road conditions (remember all those landslides?), so we ended up going on a bus like the others we`ve used in Mexico (which was just fine). Although it was dark out while we traveled, I managed to see some of the road, as well as some places where the road used to be before it got washed down the mountain. A little disconcerting.
San Cristòbal de las Casas &; Palenque, Chiapas
We arrived in San Cristòbal de las Casas (Sàncris) early in the morning Friday before last. We checked in at Posada 5, where we were received by Yolanda, a very kind Guatemalan woman who is the soul of the hostel. We met some wonderful people at the hostel, both the owners (young Mexican men) are really cool, as were the other guests. This hostel had a kitchen, which was the heart of the place, as is the case in so many houses. We ended up sharing several meals and good conversation with the folks at the hostel in the kitchen, and just hanging out, playing music (snapping my fingers counts, right?), and drinking coffee, tequila, whatever. We did our shopping at the market, very close to the hostel, affordable, and with a huge diversity of foods. After not having a kitchen in Oaxaca (not to mention the one place that we did not feel completely safe in Oaxaca was at the market near the hostel), it was great to be back in our routine of shopping and cooking for ourselves. We walked around the town of San Cristòbal and visited El Cerrito, a small hill that actually has trees growing on it (although I don`t know if it does much in terms of providing any kind of habitat). There is a church on top of the hill, which shouldn`t come as a surprise, because there are churches everywhere, on top of almost every hill, Mayan pyramid, in front of every park. We went out dancing with some of our new friends from the hostel, live salsa, it was great! There are many other cool things to do around Sàncris but we couldn`t afford to do any of them, we`ll just have to go back one day. One thing we intentionally did not do was visit one of the many surrounding indigenous villages; I don`t like the idea of going to look at people living their lives as if they are some sort of exhibit, especially after I`ve seen so many indigenous folks who have not benefited from the introduction of western culture. If we want to preserve cultural diversity I don`t think introducing tourism to every isolated indigenous village is the way to do it.
After two nights in Sàncris we traveled to Palenque, also in the state of Chiapas but very different. Sàncris is in the Chiapan Highlands at 2100 m above sea level, chilly at night, thin air, while Palenque is in the humid lowlands, 600 m above sea level. The trip to Palenque was also disconcerting; it was light out so we could actually see the hundreds of landslides along the way and some rocks even fell on the roof of the bus at one point. It started raining just before we arrived which made us nervous, the land didn`t seem like it could take more water, but we arrived safely. The fact that bus drivers here seem to think they`re competing in the Indy 500 and not driving on pothole-filled, landslide-ridden, narrow, winding, unmarked Mexican roads doesn`t help much in these situations, either. It seems so obvious to me that the landslides are, in most cases, a direct result of deforestation, even the president acknowledged this in a speech after the Oaxaca landslide. We passed some areas where more trees were being cut and you could already see the miniature landslides and erosion taking place. Although it feels like it to me, maybe recognizing that cutting down trees and removing all the vegetation whose roots hold the soil together isn`t common sense. Education is crucial! I also saw a trashslide; what had been a dump on a hill slid down to the road below, like a landslide, but all plastic trash instead of soil. Who is to blame for that? The people who put the trash there? Yes. The companies that produce, advertise, and sell cheap plastic crap? Definitely. The government for building a road and no retaining wall? Of course.
In Palenque we stayed in La Cañada, the ecotourism zone of the town. It is mostly made up fancy, expensive hotels, but we stayed at Hostel Yaxkin, a cute place with friendly staff that we could afford. Thank goodness we stayed in La Cañada, where there are still trees at least, because the rest of town is all concrete, hot, and generally icky. La Cañada was pretty dead as it is the low season, which was fine with us. We didn`t do much in Palenque, we only spent one night and we are running out of money, so we hung out at the hostel and I started teaching Koki how to knit with some of the beautiful yarn we bought in Oaxaca. He is a fast learner! The next time we`re in Chiapas I definitely want to go to the Palenque ruins, I regret that we didn`t go but we felt we couldn`t swing it financially at the time and we would have been somewhat rushed.
Playa del Carmen &; Tulum, Quintana Roo
We took another all night bus ride from Palenque to Playa del Carmen (Playa) in the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatàn peninsula. Wow, what a change. Even though we are still technically in Mexico, this is not a Mexican town. Ten years ago this was a sweet little beach town and the beach is still beautiful, but now it’s a huge city. Everything is super expensive (good thing we were frugal in Palenque, I guess), there isn`t even a market; instead there`s Mega, owned by Wal-Mart. This is the overflow of rich, arrogant, obnoxious tourists that don`t fit in Cancùn anymore. It is kind of like Miami Beach (from what I hear), but with fewer Latinos. I don`t even want to imagine what it would be like in the high season. I don`t understand why people feel the need to leave their home country if they just want to go somewhere that has all the same crappy restaurants and plastic crap made in China; use the money you`d spend on this trip to build an artificial beach and stay home! It is a challenge for me to be in places like this; I`m definitely not a native (there can`t be very many since this was only a tiny village until very recently), I`m not Latina, I`m white, I speak Spanish, I`m not rich, I`m actually interested in what this place was like before it became a tourist destination, in the local flora and fauna. I don`t really fit in with any demographic and I get frustrated when everyone tries to sell me crap, in English. The Gringos get blamed often for making this place what it is, but the blaming is often done by people who are benefiting from the tourism industry and perpetuating it. There is construction absolutely everywhere and the city just keeps spreading in every direction possible (it can`t spread into the ocean, but Cozumel and all of its tourist development can be seen from the beach). Recently in Tenacatita, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, the army came in with bulldozers and plowed down the palapas on the beach, palapas set up by people who make a living by selling food, etc. to people who came to visit the beach. The rumor is that some Donald Trump-type developer who owns a lot of property around this beautiful beach decided it is time to develop and wanted all those people out of the way. Most of the people who made their living on the beach at Tenacatita were not property owners, but apparently some of the property owners in the area and suing. I wonder if the development boom in Playa started.
One day we went to Tulum, towards Belize from Playa on the peninsula. It is not as developed as Playa but it seems to be heading the same direction. We visited the ruins, along with what seemed like the entire population of Florida, half of Germany, and about two thirds of Spain. The ruins are unique in that they are right on the beach; the inhabitants could see who was coming by sea. The structures were impressive, but getting to them required navigating through something that reminded me of Disney World. We got to see voladores which was cool, although the car alarms, noisy little train that takes people to the ruins, and people trying to sell you crap kind of distracted from what should be a ritual. We later went to the Tulum beach. Everything was super expensive and it felt like 90210 or something, we actually saw people leave the beach to go to their fancy hotels then come back out with different bathing suits on. The ocean was absolutely delicious, though, and the sand was almost as white as my belly. On the way to the beach Koki`s friend and our host here took us to a piece of property he owns in the mangrove, where we saw our first cenote. Most cenotes are pools in the forest or in the mangroves, holes of varying depths filled with freshwater and all connected by a system of underground rivers and caves. Yesterday we went to a couple cenotes where we swam and snorkeled (we really regretted not getting in the cenote on Koki`s friend`s property, but it was our first time and apparently a crocodile lives there and we chickened out). The first we snorkeled in was in the forest and had great areas for snorkeling, awesome fish and lots of dragonflies and birds. The water was cool and so refreshing; the closest thing I have experienced are the coldwater springs in northern Florida (which are also technically cenotes). The second cenote was partially in a cave, you could either walk through next to the water or snorkel, we did both. The fish did not seem bothered by the fact that we were standing, swimming, snorkeling, whatever right there next to them, they actually come up and nibble on your legs if you just stand in the water. I`m surprised no one has opened a cenote spa and marketed this as bioexfoliation or something. Words and photos cannot do the cenotes justice, they are truly amazing. It is really sad to hear that there used to be cenotes where Playa is now, they have been filled in and now having buildings on top of them, probably with swimming pools that aren`t nearly as cool as cenotes… they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot (and a Wal-Mart, and a five-star hotel, and a McDonald`s)…
We want to head to the beach one last time this afternoon and maybe to the international arts festival going on in Playa (something free!). Tomorrow we head to Belize. Mexico is a very interesting place, such a huge country in every sense. The Yucatàn feels like a different country than General Cepeda, and both are so different from Sàncris. I have had a wonderful experience in this country and I definitely plan to return!
Check out Koki`s blog, too!
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
Oaxaca is an awesome city, words I do not speak very often. We arrived in Oaxaca last Monday afternoon. The trip from Puebla was beautiful, very different from anything I had seen in Mexico or anywhere else. Although I`m getting tired of bus rides, it is awesome to be able to watch the flora change outside the window as you travel. The cacti were especially interesting (Pachycereus sp.?). We had to take an alternate route through the city to the bus station because of a landslide on the normal route, which goes above the city. Early the morning after we arrived in the city of Oaxaca there was a much larger landslide in Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, a small village in another part of the state of Oaxaca. The heavy rains that fell in southern Mexico as a result of Karl and Matthew, combined with deforestation and overgrazing, caused many landlides, from small slides that might result in a rock or two on the highway to huge landlsides that wash away hundreds of homes and leave already impoverished people on the street, or where it used to be. In the city of Oaxaca there were collection stations everywhere accepting aid for the affected fellow Oaxaqueños. Luckily the death toll was not as great as was initially thought and it seemed impressive to me the outpouring of support from the community. I think the short-term aid of beans, rice, soap, bottled water, and money needs to be accompanied by long-term solutions, such as reforestation, more durable housing, and improved evaluation of road construction before landslides occur.
Oaxaca is a small, walkable city. We stayed at Paulina Hostel in the historic downtown. It was pretty nice; at least initially it was the polar opposite of some of the critter-infested hostels we`ve stayed at, as they had fumigated right before we arrived and we couldn`t check in until that evening. Not ideal, I try not to sleep on freshly fumigated mattresses as a general rule, and not all that effective at keeping the place pest-free, either, as they had standing water in several places and a very healthy (although very hungry) mosquito population. Although the place seemed clean enough, I realized that was just a facade. They closed the bathroom for cleaning on one occasion, but didn`t clean it. There was no toilet paper in the womens room for a day (apparently the supply truck didn`t bring it and going to the store half a block away to buy more wasn`t an option for some reason), not a problem for me, I`m used to carrying my own in this part of the world, but it meant that some other ladies used paper towels and threw it in the toilet. Surprise surprise, this clogged the toilet, which then overflowed all over the bathroom floor into the shower stalls. One of the employees managed to tear himself away from the soap opera on TV long enough to look at it and go back to the TV. So the toilet water just sat there until it dried up. I´m glad I always wear flip-flops in public showers! I recommend you all do the same, just because something looks clean doesn`t mean it is. On a brighter note the hostel had a very cool coy pond, a huge terrace on the roof (it would be way cooler if they made it a living roof!), and a very hearty breakfast (good thing, since there was no communal kitchen).
In Oaxaca we visited many shops that are like museums; the handcrafts and textiles of the region are absolutely amazing! So many colors everywhere. We saw many more indigenous faces than we had previously; although sadly many of the indigenous people, whose culture is responsible for many of the beautiful colors of the city, sell gum, cigarettes, etc. or beg on the street. I don`t even know how to start analyzing or solving the marginalization of the oldest existing population of the area. We visited one store specializing in wool rugs. I bought some yarn, handspun and dyed with natural dyes (cochineal, a type of scale on prickly pear cactus, is crushed and used for varying shades of red, for example). Someday when I win the lottery and retire I want to return to Oaxaca and learn to spin, dye, and weave. We also visited several museums, the highlight being the Museo de Pintores Oaxqueños (Oaxacan Painters Museum). The beautiful paintings are housed in one of the many colonial buildings with big, white columns, large rooms with large windows and balconies, and a central courtyard. We went to the textiles museum (aside from the history presented in the museum I think the textiles in the shops nearby are more impressive than the museum), several contemporary art galleries, and a photo exhibit (about half of which focused on documenting the violence related to drug trafficking in Mexico, very graphic and very depressing). We took a tour of the Jardìn Etnobotànico (Ethnobotanical Gardens) which houses many native plants from Oaxaca, a state that is home to seven of the eight life zones found in Mexico. The gardens were beautiful and very impressive, especially considering the short amount of time the space has been dedicated to this purpose (since 1998) and the very small budget available. Last but not least, we found a nice little bar down the street from the botanical gardens called Etnobotanas, cheap beer and a great Guatemalan bartender (better service there than some of the fancier places I`ve eaten).
From Oaxaca to San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, our next stop, is normally an 11-hour bus ride. We decided we were going to splurge a little and take the more expensive luxury bus to be more comfortable for our overnight journey. Unfortunately we learned (after paying for another night at the hostel in Oaxaca because we thought the luxury bus was sold out) that the luxury buses were not making the trip to Chiapas due to the poor road conditions (remember all those landslides?), so we ended up going on a bus like the others we`ve used in Mexico (which was just fine). Although it was dark out while we traveled, I managed to see some of the road, as well as some places where the road used to be before it got washed down the mountain. A little disconcerting.
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| Beautiful handcrafts in a Oaxacan market |
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| Rug store where I bought yarn and learned a lot. |
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| Endangered barrel cactus at the Jardìn Etnobotànico (800 years old!). |
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| More cacti at the Jardìn Etnobotànico. |
We arrived in San Cristòbal de las Casas (Sàncris) early in the morning Friday before last. We checked in at Posada 5, where we were received by Yolanda, a very kind Guatemalan woman who is the soul of the hostel. We met some wonderful people at the hostel, both the owners (young Mexican men) are really cool, as were the other guests. This hostel had a kitchen, which was the heart of the place, as is the case in so many houses. We ended up sharing several meals and good conversation with the folks at the hostel in the kitchen, and just hanging out, playing music (snapping my fingers counts, right?), and drinking coffee, tequila, whatever. We did our shopping at the market, very close to the hostel, affordable, and with a huge diversity of foods. After not having a kitchen in Oaxaca (not to mention the one place that we did not feel completely safe in Oaxaca was at the market near the hostel), it was great to be back in our routine of shopping and cooking for ourselves. We walked around the town of San Cristòbal and visited El Cerrito, a small hill that actually has trees growing on it (although I don`t know if it does much in terms of providing any kind of habitat). There is a church on top of the hill, which shouldn`t come as a surprise, because there are churches everywhere, on top of almost every hill, Mayan pyramid, in front of every park. We went out dancing with some of our new friends from the hostel, live salsa, it was great! There are many other cool things to do around Sàncris but we couldn`t afford to do any of them, we`ll just have to go back one day. One thing we intentionally did not do was visit one of the many surrounding indigenous villages; I don`t like the idea of going to look at people living their lives as if they are some sort of exhibit, especially after I`ve seen so many indigenous folks who have not benefited from the introduction of western culture. If we want to preserve cultural diversity I don`t think introducing tourism to every isolated indigenous village is the way to do it.
After two nights in Sàncris we traveled to Palenque, also in the state of Chiapas but very different. Sàncris is in the Chiapan Highlands at 2100 m above sea level, chilly at night, thin air, while Palenque is in the humid lowlands, 600 m above sea level. The trip to Palenque was also disconcerting; it was light out so we could actually see the hundreds of landslides along the way and some rocks even fell on the roof of the bus at one point. It started raining just before we arrived which made us nervous, the land didn`t seem like it could take more water, but we arrived safely. The fact that bus drivers here seem to think they`re competing in the Indy 500 and not driving on pothole-filled, landslide-ridden, narrow, winding, unmarked Mexican roads doesn`t help much in these situations, either. It seems so obvious to me that the landslides are, in most cases, a direct result of deforestation, even the president acknowledged this in a speech after the Oaxaca landslide. We passed some areas where more trees were being cut and you could already see the miniature landslides and erosion taking place. Although it feels like it to me, maybe recognizing that cutting down trees and removing all the vegetation whose roots hold the soil together isn`t common sense. Education is crucial! I also saw a trashslide; what had been a dump on a hill slid down to the road below, like a landslide, but all plastic trash instead of soil. Who is to blame for that? The people who put the trash there? Yes. The companies that produce, advertise, and sell cheap plastic crap? Definitely. The government for building a road and no retaining wall? Of course.
In Palenque we stayed in La Cañada, the ecotourism zone of the town. It is mostly made up fancy, expensive hotels, but we stayed at Hostel Yaxkin, a cute place with friendly staff that we could afford. Thank goodness we stayed in La Cañada, where there are still trees at least, because the rest of town is all concrete, hot, and generally icky. La Cañada was pretty dead as it is the low season, which was fine with us. We didn`t do much in Palenque, we only spent one night and we are running out of money, so we hung out at the hostel and I started teaching Koki how to knit with some of the beautiful yarn we bought in Oaxaca. He is a fast learner! The next time we`re in Chiapas I definitely want to go to the Palenque ruins, I regret that we didn`t go but we felt we couldn`t swing it financially at the time and we would have been somewhat rushed.
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| Posada 5, San Cristòbal de las Casas, Chiapas. |
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| Colorful embroidery in Sàncris. |
We took another all night bus ride from Palenque to Playa del Carmen (Playa) in the state of Quintana Roo on the Yucatàn peninsula. Wow, what a change. Even though we are still technically in Mexico, this is not a Mexican town. Ten years ago this was a sweet little beach town and the beach is still beautiful, but now it’s a huge city. Everything is super expensive (good thing we were frugal in Palenque, I guess), there isn`t even a market; instead there`s Mega, owned by Wal-Mart. This is the overflow of rich, arrogant, obnoxious tourists that don`t fit in Cancùn anymore. It is kind of like Miami Beach (from what I hear), but with fewer Latinos. I don`t even want to imagine what it would be like in the high season. I don`t understand why people feel the need to leave their home country if they just want to go somewhere that has all the same crappy restaurants and plastic crap made in China; use the money you`d spend on this trip to build an artificial beach and stay home! It is a challenge for me to be in places like this; I`m definitely not a native (there can`t be very many since this was only a tiny village until very recently), I`m not Latina, I`m white, I speak Spanish, I`m not rich, I`m actually interested in what this place was like before it became a tourist destination, in the local flora and fauna. I don`t really fit in with any demographic and I get frustrated when everyone tries to sell me crap, in English. The Gringos get blamed often for making this place what it is, but the blaming is often done by people who are benefiting from the tourism industry and perpetuating it. There is construction absolutely everywhere and the city just keeps spreading in every direction possible (it can`t spread into the ocean, but Cozumel and all of its tourist development can be seen from the beach). Recently in Tenacatita, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, the army came in with bulldozers and plowed down the palapas on the beach, palapas set up by people who make a living by selling food, etc. to people who came to visit the beach. The rumor is that some Donald Trump-type developer who owns a lot of property around this beautiful beach decided it is time to develop and wanted all those people out of the way. Most of the people who made their living on the beach at Tenacatita were not property owners, but apparently some of the property owners in the area and suing. I wonder if the development boom in Playa started.
One day we went to Tulum, towards Belize from Playa on the peninsula. It is not as developed as Playa but it seems to be heading the same direction. We visited the ruins, along with what seemed like the entire population of Florida, half of Germany, and about two thirds of Spain. The ruins are unique in that they are right on the beach; the inhabitants could see who was coming by sea. The structures were impressive, but getting to them required navigating through something that reminded me of Disney World. We got to see voladores which was cool, although the car alarms, noisy little train that takes people to the ruins, and people trying to sell you crap kind of distracted from what should be a ritual. We later went to the Tulum beach. Everything was super expensive and it felt like 90210 or something, we actually saw people leave the beach to go to their fancy hotels then come back out with different bathing suits on. The ocean was absolutely delicious, though, and the sand was almost as white as my belly. On the way to the beach Koki`s friend and our host here took us to a piece of property he owns in the mangrove, where we saw our first cenote. Most cenotes are pools in the forest or in the mangroves, holes of varying depths filled with freshwater and all connected by a system of underground rivers and caves. Yesterday we went to a couple cenotes where we swam and snorkeled (we really regretted not getting in the cenote on Koki`s friend`s property, but it was our first time and apparently a crocodile lives there and we chickened out). The first we snorkeled in was in the forest and had great areas for snorkeling, awesome fish and lots of dragonflies and birds. The water was cool and so refreshing; the closest thing I have experienced are the coldwater springs in northern Florida (which are also technically cenotes). The second cenote was partially in a cave, you could either walk through next to the water or snorkel, we did both. The fish did not seem bothered by the fact that we were standing, swimming, snorkeling, whatever right there next to them, they actually come up and nibble on your legs if you just stand in the water. I`m surprised no one has opened a cenote spa and marketed this as bioexfoliation or something. Words and photos cannot do the cenotes justice, they are truly amazing. It is really sad to hear that there used to be cenotes where Playa is now, they have been filled in and now having buildings on top of them, probably with swimming pools that aren`t nearly as cool as cenotes… they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot (and a Wal-Mart, and a five-star hotel, and a McDonald`s)…
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| Tulum ruins. |
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| Tulum ruins from Tulum beach. |
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| Cenote azul. |
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| Cenote azul. |
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| This hole in the roof of the cave opens up to the forest floor. |
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| Fishies that like to nibble on your toes and legs. |
Check out Koki`s blog, too!
28 September 2010
Farm near Erongarìcuaro, Puebla, D.F. (Mexico City)
I hope this blog post finds everyone well... I`ll catch you all up on what we`ve been doing over the past couple of weeks. The celebration of Mexico´s bicentennial continues, there are still decorations up everywhere, and of course advertisers are still pushing the whole thing as a reason to eat tacos, grow out your moustache, drink Coke, etc.
Erongarìcuaro
Wednesday before last we traveled from Pàtzcuaro to Erongarìcuaro. It was definitely an interesting ride; we caught a colectivo, which is like some sort of hybrid between a taxi and a bus. When we got in the colectivo van (about the size and shape of an old toyota van) there was only one other couple, but that soon changed. Of course we had all of our stuff, see pictures in earlier posts if you can`t picture this. The colectivo stops at deisgnated stops and pretty much anywhere else someone flags it down along the way, which seemed like every 50 feet. The driver stopped for everyone, despite the fact that after a while it would have been difficult to fit even a fly into the van, let alone an elderly lady with all her shopping, a couple of high school students, etc. After feeling like I was on the other side of the clown car stunt, it got to the point that even the people waiting along the road thought the driver was crazy for stopping and decided to wait for the next one. The driver seemed quite pleased, in his big seat all by himself, since it is a fixed fare, so the more people he picks up, the more money he makes. I counted 22 people in the van plus the driver at one point, and that was just the people I could see, there might have been another layer of people under them. I would have taken a picture had I been able to move any of my limbs enough to get the camera out. The moral of the story is that colectivos are an affordable way to travel, but if you aren`t comfortable with strangers sitting in your lap, or with sitting in a stranger`s lap, colectivos might not be for you, at least not at the hour that school gets out.
We arrived in Erongarìcuaro where we were picked up by the host of the second farm where we volunteered. The farm is not in Erongarìcuaro but the ride to the farm was a little more comfortable than the colectivo considering there were only three of us in the vehicle. We arrived and ate a giant salad and brown rice, which was a dream-come-true after all the meat and cheese and tortillas we`d been eating in the cities on our quest to remain parasite-free. Our friend Luis, who we met just before leaving the US and who returned to Mexico shortly thereafter, met us on the farm.
The environment was very different from El Chuzo; much more rain (although it only falls for six months of the year), mountainous, and different flora as a result of all this and the fact that it is much farther south. The farm was very cool. When our host purchased it there were some trees and a structure there already, all of which have been incorporated into the farm quite nicely. There are hundreds of avocado trees (another dream-come-true for me), many pear trees, peach trees, apple trees, quince trees, orange, lemon, grapefruit trees, herbs, bees, worm compost, some veggies (we planted a lot more!), and some more tropical plants like passionfruit and chile peròn (spicy!!!) in the greenhouse. The larger greenhouse is attached to the main house where the host lives and there is also a smaller greenhouse (a fenced-in area covered in shade cloth) in the orchard. There is a beatiful view of Lake Pàtzcuaro from the farm and, like on our land, you can really see the weather coming.
There are many living spaces on the farm which also serve as examples of sustainable construction methods. The house where the host lives has several rooms to accomodate guests or housemates, a huge room for sleeping, yoga, massage, classes, etc., an awesome kitchen (for example: one rack for dishes to dry and be stored, we are definitely going to implement a similar system in our kitchen one day!), a cozy living room with a fireplace (that we used most nights), windows all along the south-facing wall, a solar hot water heater (to heat the rainwater used for showers and sinks), solar electricity, a bathroom with an Aerolet composting toilet, another adjoining composting toilet (of the more traditional style), and a large covered porch. This house is combination of log cabin and adobe, and an excellent example of how a traditional, existing structure can be retrofitted to have a smaller ecological footprint and be more comfortable and efficient. Luis stayed in the old stable, which has been converted to another living space (it has a kitchen, living space, sleeping space, composting toilet, and shower). Koki and I stayed in the newest structure on the farm - a hexagonal strawbale building with a loft. It has a woodstove and will soon have a kitchen, and it has its own composting toilet and outdoor shower. There is also a wood-burning sauna on the farm with an adjacent outdoor shower attached to an avocado tree (sweating in the sauna and then taking a cold, moonlit shower surrounded by avocados is pretty sweet).
Because it rains fairly heavily for six months of the year and little to none for the other six, water catchment is a priority on the farm. There are many cement ponds of various sizes and a canal system connecting them; these will likely be used to rase tilapia at some point in the future. There is also 100,000 L of storage volume in various ferrocement cisterns that collect water from the rooves of all the buildings. The most recently constructed cistern stores water from the strawbale house that we stayed in. This is a unique cistern in that it is open and in its shape - around 6´ wide x 5´ deep x 25´ long. In accordance with permaculture principles, also practiced elsewhere on the farm, the cistern has multiple functions: not only is it storage for water than can be gravity fed to the orchard below, but it also serves as a lap pool when full! (Kind of like the dish draining and storage rack.) The rainwater is cold and sooooo refreshing on a hot afternoon. This is another idea we plan to implement on our land.
On the farm we worked on reclaiming zone 1, the greenhouse attached to the house and the beds just in front of the house which were in need of some attention. For those of you not familiar with permaculture, zone 1 is the zone closest to the house where things you need the most are planted/located. Common sense, right? That´s what permaculture is all about. So, we weeded and weeded and repaired rockwork and planted lots of fall crops (greens, carrots, onions, beets) in the beds in front and some summer crops (tomatillos, basil) in the greenhouse. We contributed to something that will benefit the farm in the coming winter, when there can be frost and the plants will be watered by rainwater that will be stored before November when things start to dry up.
The host of this farm would like to continue to develop it as an educational facility, so if anyone is interested in its use for biology, sustainable development, appropriate technology, sustainable agriculture, permaculture, yoga, Spanish, etc. etc. classes there, let me know.
Puebla
Last Wednesday we went to Puebla, where we stayed with Koki´s friend Ingrid, who he met at a permaculture course. She and her family were very generous hosts and excellent guides of the city and surrounding areas. We visited Tonantzintla and saw the church with impressive gold leafed carvings, many faces with an indigenous look to them. We went to Cholula and saw what can be seen of the pyramid there that the Spanish covered up with soil and then built a Catholic church. This was after killing most of the indigenous people, some by tying them up and letting dogs rip them apart (I´m not making this up, there are paintings of it in the museum). The pyramid is an impressive structure, as is the church, in a different way. Interesting to see how one culture´s faith completely squashed another´s, literally and figuratively. We also visited Puebla centro, which is very pretty. Ingrid took us to Yaguar Cafè where we finally bought some organic Mexican coffee (grown in Puebla and Chiapas), surprisingly hard to find here (I have been shocked by how many people drink Nescafe instant coffee here!).
Along with the bicentennial decorations in Puebla, these days you also see advertisements for chiles en nogada at almost every restaurant. This is a traditional, seasonal dish in Puebla. Ingrid`s mom very kindly prepared chiles en nogada for us, which is quite a process. The dish consisted of poblano chiles (spicy seeds and veins removed), stuffed with a mixture of pears, peaches, raisins, almonds, and other ingredients that I can`t remember right now, dipped in egg and fried, served in a sauce made of heavy cream and ground nuts of a certain variety (taste similar to walnuts) that are only available this time of year, with pomegranite seeds sprinkled on top. Traditionally something green (e.g. parsley leaves) is also sprinkled on top so that the plate has the colors of the Mexican flag. It was delicious and quite an honor, chiles en nogada are only eaten off of fine china with silver in the dining room in many families; this dinner was a little more laid back but very special.
Mèxico (the state)
Last Saturday we visited Teotihuacàn in the state of Mexico, the remains of an entire city. Wow! It is hard to describe it. The pyramids are huge and there are many other structures (remains of offices, houses, etc.). The teotihuacanos definitely had a good understanding of astronomy and many of the structures correspond to planets and the sun and moon. The ruins are in very good shape (oxymoron?) and have been rebuilt in some places so you can climb pyramids and enter some of the other buildings. It is hard to imagine not only how all of those rocks were brought there and put together, but the radius from which they must have been gathered. It was impressive, but not enough to make me dance around and chant like some of the other hippies I saw there. I wanted, for just a minute, to buy one of the little clay flutes that were being sold when we came in, they sound like birds, but after I heard them non-stop and had them shoved in my face by agressive salesmen for hours on end, I decided I never wanted to see one of them again. Really? Do you think I want to buy something from you when I`ve seen the same crap, probably made in China, for the last two hours from five thousand other vendors? I don´t mean to be rude, I know people are trying to make a living, but really, someone should try to come up with a new marketing scheme (like try to sell something that you actually made and don´t step right in front of me and make me walk around you), I might have considered buying something from them.
On the way back to Puebla we had our first encounter with the infamous Mexican police (these were state police). The car we were in had out-of-state plates, which was the (un)reason they stopped us. We were driving from one federal highway to another, both of which are for use by anyone with plates from any state, in the state of Mexico, where the only license plate restrictions are in and around Mexico city. (In an attempt to reduce traffic and associated air pollution, only certain plate numbers are allowed in the city during certain hours). Ingrid`s father (who is German) was driving and got out of the car to talk to the cops. When he didn´t come back after they´d seen his license, we realized they were trying to extort money from him, and Ingrid`s mom (Mexican) got out of the car and joined the conversation. Ingrid`s mom could be a lawyer! She woulnd´t give them any money unless they gave us a ticket for something (which means there is a record of it and it has to be legitimate). We couln´t hear all of it from the car but we learned that, once they realized they weren´t going to get anything using the first BS infraction, they accused Ingrid`s dad of being a taxi driver (what else would a German be doing with tourists in the car?), and that he was going to have to pay for that. Ingrid`s parents both returned to the car, then they called her dad out again, but her mom went right behind him. Then they came right back to the car and we left. Ingrid thinks that crooked cops aren`t as confident with extorting money from women and that it doesn`t happen nearly as often as it does with men, and that sure seemed to be the case in this incident. We also stopped at the Tembleque acueduct, which was much cooler than the encounter with the police.
Mèxico (the city)
On Saturday we met Luis in el D.F, the Distrito Federal, a.k.a. Mexico City. Wow. It was just as insane as I had imagined. The first ridiculous experience was the metro. Wow. Getting to the metro itself is an adventure, when things get really busy they have separate entrances (and cars) for men and women, so on the way back in the afternoon a cop tried to tell me to go on through the entrance and Koki and Luis to keep going, and we asked why, and first he said because women have priority (while he coralled Koki and Luis away with his metal detector wand), but when Koki asked then where the heck were they supposed to get on the metro, the cop realized we weren´t from around there and told us to all go through, that sometimes foreigners get priority too. Interesting system. The next time we ran into that I just went with the guys. So, after getting through the entrance we approached the boarding area, along with approximately one million other people. When the metro arrived, there was a mad push outward as people got off, pushing pushing pushing, little old ladies and all. At some crucial point the tables turn and the people waiting on the platform start start pushing and overtake the people leaving the metro. Then its push push push to get your butt on that metro before the doors close rather violently, which happens quite soon after they open if you ask me. After seeing all the other groups of people get separated by the doors of the first metro to arrive, we made a plan for how to find eachother should the same happen to us, and we got ready to push. We pushed pushed pushed our way onto the metro and all managed to get inside, quite an accomplishment. There is a whole world inside the metro, people selling CDs (part of the strategy being to play really loud music through speakers in their backpacks), toys, gum, toothbrushes, whatever else you can think of, people handing out messages of salvation (which mostly seemed to end up as litter on the ground and thus did not really strike me as a message of salvation), a 2.5´ man, a sad clown talking on a cell phone, etc. etc. There are also musicians who perform in the metro but unfortunately they weren´t on the same train as we were. It wasn´t quite as crowded as the colectivo to Eronga, but it wasn´t a weekday, afterall. We made it out of the tunnel of madness to the zòcalo, where there were only approximately half a million people. Tourists, school groups, indigenous people playing drums and dancing and cleansing people by blowing smoke over them (not quite sure about the details of that one), police, people, people, people. We were going to go into the cathedral but there was mass going on so we couldn`t enter (good thing I`ve already seen around 50 other churches on this trip so far). I became somewhat of a local celebrity with the middle and high school English student demographic. A group of students approached me and one of them asked me if I spoke English (nice for a change, that it isn´t just assumed) and then if he could interview me for his English class. I said sure, karmically and academically I felt obliged, I had to interview a native Spanish speaker for my conversational Spanish class many years ago. He interviewed me while his compañeras videotaped... was this my first time in Mexico, did I like Mexico, where had I been, did I like music, what is the US like - that was a hard one to answer concisely, etc. etc. He spoke English very well and was very polite. After that we made it about three steps farther and another kid asked me if he could interview me for his English class. He had lost his compas so Koki ended up being the camera (phone) man. Did I like Mexican food, how old am I, what are my hobbies... After that we made it almost around the corner of the cathedral when another group asked me the same. Two boys interviewed me while their teacher or mom or something filmed. What was my favorite band, my favorite food, what has been my favorite place in Mexico, where else am going (that was a long answer)... A group of young women gathered around to listen to and watch this interview, one of them interpreting for the rest. I thought they were students, too, but apparently they were just some random people. Finally we made it to the bus stop we were trying to reach and while we were waiting for the TuriBus (which ended up being a total waste of 40 minutes and would have been way more expensive than a taxi), a crackhead gringa asked if I spoke English, and I thought really, this can`t be another student. She had some story about not being able to buy a bus ticket without an ID and waiting on a phone call from her mom and she only needed two hundred pesos to get outta here, all the while in her winter jacket, fidgeting with her burnt hands. Sketchy. I told her no, although I was tempted to tell her if she hung out around the corner maybe she could get some pesos out of some high school students in exchange for an interview. She probably had more interesting answers than I did, too. We went to el Bosque de Chapultepec, a park in the city, becuase that´s how we roll. It was not exactly the island of nature I was hoping for, at least there´s something that resembles a natural environment there, but how sad is it that for a lot of people, that´s the only forest they´ve ever known? We walked around for a bit, saw two squirrels, a few Montezuma cypress (Taxodium mucronatum in case Howie is reading this), a bunch of exotic Casuarina trees, and around five million bipedal mammals. That was pretty much it, we ate some tacos and braved the metro again to get back to the bus station to get back to Puebla. And that was our experience in the Distrito Federal, aside from riding the bus for around an hour before actually getting out of the concrete jungle. It sounds weird, but I was disappointed in the relatively clean air the day we were there after having learned about the infamous Mexico City smog during my years in air pollution research.
We`re now in Oaxaca (in the city of Oaxaca, the major landslide was elsewhere in the state of Oaxaca), but I`ll tell you more about all of that in the next post...
Erongarìcuaro
Wednesday before last we traveled from Pàtzcuaro to Erongarìcuaro. It was definitely an interesting ride; we caught a colectivo, which is like some sort of hybrid between a taxi and a bus. When we got in the colectivo van (about the size and shape of an old toyota van) there was only one other couple, but that soon changed. Of course we had all of our stuff, see pictures in earlier posts if you can`t picture this. The colectivo stops at deisgnated stops and pretty much anywhere else someone flags it down along the way, which seemed like every 50 feet. The driver stopped for everyone, despite the fact that after a while it would have been difficult to fit even a fly into the van, let alone an elderly lady with all her shopping, a couple of high school students, etc. After feeling like I was on the other side of the clown car stunt, it got to the point that even the people waiting along the road thought the driver was crazy for stopping and decided to wait for the next one. The driver seemed quite pleased, in his big seat all by himself, since it is a fixed fare, so the more people he picks up, the more money he makes. I counted 22 people in the van plus the driver at one point, and that was just the people I could see, there might have been another layer of people under them. I would have taken a picture had I been able to move any of my limbs enough to get the camera out. The moral of the story is that colectivos are an affordable way to travel, but if you aren`t comfortable with strangers sitting in your lap, or with sitting in a stranger`s lap, colectivos might not be for you, at least not at the hour that school gets out.
We arrived in Erongarìcuaro where we were picked up by the host of the second farm where we volunteered. The farm is not in Erongarìcuaro but the ride to the farm was a little more comfortable than the colectivo considering there were only three of us in the vehicle. We arrived and ate a giant salad and brown rice, which was a dream-come-true after all the meat and cheese and tortillas we`d been eating in the cities on our quest to remain parasite-free. Our friend Luis, who we met just before leaving the US and who returned to Mexico shortly thereafter, met us on the farm.
The environment was very different from El Chuzo; much more rain (although it only falls for six months of the year), mountainous, and different flora as a result of all this and the fact that it is much farther south. The farm was very cool. When our host purchased it there were some trees and a structure there already, all of which have been incorporated into the farm quite nicely. There are hundreds of avocado trees (another dream-come-true for me), many pear trees, peach trees, apple trees, quince trees, orange, lemon, grapefruit trees, herbs, bees, worm compost, some veggies (we planted a lot more!), and some more tropical plants like passionfruit and chile peròn (spicy!!!) in the greenhouse. The larger greenhouse is attached to the main house where the host lives and there is also a smaller greenhouse (a fenced-in area covered in shade cloth) in the orchard. There is a beatiful view of Lake Pàtzcuaro from the farm and, like on our land, you can really see the weather coming.
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| View of the orchard from the main house |
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| Rainbow and (misty) view from the farm |
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| Sunrise on Lake Pátzcuaro from the strawbale house loft window |
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| Bees |
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| Honey (sold locally) |
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| Left to right: solar panels, greenhouse (attached to main house), sauna |
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| Greenhouse attached to the main house, with solar oven and the top of a cistern in the foreground. |
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| The strawbale house where Koki and I stayed. |
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| Rainwater cistern/lap pool... stacking functions is the way to go... |
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| Orchard and herbs (yes, those are rosemary TREES!) |
Puebla
Last Wednesday we went to Puebla, where we stayed with Koki´s friend Ingrid, who he met at a permaculture course. She and her family were very generous hosts and excellent guides of the city and surrounding areas. We visited Tonantzintla and saw the church with impressive gold leafed carvings, many faces with an indigenous look to them. We went to Cholula and saw what can be seen of the pyramid there that the Spanish covered up with soil and then built a Catholic church. This was after killing most of the indigenous people, some by tying them up and letting dogs rip them apart (I´m not making this up, there are paintings of it in the museum). The pyramid is an impressive structure, as is the church, in a different way. Interesting to see how one culture´s faith completely squashed another´s, literally and figuratively. We also visited Puebla centro, which is very pretty. Ingrid took us to Yaguar Cafè where we finally bought some organic Mexican coffee (grown in Puebla and Chiapas), surprisingly hard to find here (I have been shocked by how many people drink Nescafe instant coffee here!).
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| Church in Tonantzintla |
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| Pyramid with catholic church on top in Cholula |
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| Chile en nogada |
Mèxico (the state)
Last Saturday we visited Teotihuacàn in the state of Mexico, the remains of an entire city. Wow! It is hard to describe it. The pyramids are huge and there are many other structures (remains of offices, houses, etc.). The teotihuacanos definitely had a good understanding of astronomy and many of the structures correspond to planets and the sun and moon. The ruins are in very good shape (oxymoron?) and have been rebuilt in some places so you can climb pyramids and enter some of the other buildings. It is hard to imagine not only how all of those rocks were brought there and put together, but the radius from which they must have been gathered. It was impressive, but not enough to make me dance around and chant like some of the other hippies I saw there. I wanted, for just a minute, to buy one of the little clay flutes that were being sold when we came in, they sound like birds, but after I heard them non-stop and had them shoved in my face by agressive salesmen for hours on end, I decided I never wanted to see one of them again. Really? Do you think I want to buy something from you when I`ve seen the same crap, probably made in China, for the last two hours from five thousand other vendors? I don´t mean to be rude, I know people are trying to make a living, but really, someone should try to come up with a new marketing scheme (like try to sell something that you actually made and don´t step right in front of me and make me walk around you), I might have considered buying something from them.
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| Teotihuacàn |
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| Teotihuacàn (pyramid of the sun on the right, pyramid of the moon on the left). |
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| Tembleque aqueduct |
Mèxico (the city)
On Saturday we met Luis in el D.F, the Distrito Federal, a.k.a. Mexico City. Wow. It was just as insane as I had imagined. The first ridiculous experience was the metro. Wow. Getting to the metro itself is an adventure, when things get really busy they have separate entrances (and cars) for men and women, so on the way back in the afternoon a cop tried to tell me to go on through the entrance and Koki and Luis to keep going, and we asked why, and first he said because women have priority (while he coralled Koki and Luis away with his metal detector wand), but when Koki asked then where the heck were they supposed to get on the metro, the cop realized we weren´t from around there and told us to all go through, that sometimes foreigners get priority too. Interesting system. The next time we ran into that I just went with the guys. So, after getting through the entrance we approached the boarding area, along with approximately one million other people. When the metro arrived, there was a mad push outward as people got off, pushing pushing pushing, little old ladies and all. At some crucial point the tables turn and the people waiting on the platform start start pushing and overtake the people leaving the metro. Then its push push push to get your butt on that metro before the doors close rather violently, which happens quite soon after they open if you ask me. After seeing all the other groups of people get separated by the doors of the first metro to arrive, we made a plan for how to find eachother should the same happen to us, and we got ready to push. We pushed pushed pushed our way onto the metro and all managed to get inside, quite an accomplishment. There is a whole world inside the metro, people selling CDs (part of the strategy being to play really loud music through speakers in their backpacks), toys, gum, toothbrushes, whatever else you can think of, people handing out messages of salvation (which mostly seemed to end up as litter on the ground and thus did not really strike me as a message of salvation), a 2.5´ man, a sad clown talking on a cell phone, etc. etc. There are also musicians who perform in the metro but unfortunately they weren´t on the same train as we were. It wasn´t quite as crowded as the colectivo to Eronga, but it wasn´t a weekday, afterall. We made it out of the tunnel of madness to the zòcalo, where there were only approximately half a million people. Tourists, school groups, indigenous people playing drums and dancing and cleansing people by blowing smoke over them (not quite sure about the details of that one), police, people, people, people. We were going to go into the cathedral but there was mass going on so we couldn`t enter (good thing I`ve already seen around 50 other churches on this trip so far). I became somewhat of a local celebrity with the middle and high school English student demographic. A group of students approached me and one of them asked me if I spoke English (nice for a change, that it isn´t just assumed) and then if he could interview me for his English class. I said sure, karmically and academically I felt obliged, I had to interview a native Spanish speaker for my conversational Spanish class many years ago. He interviewed me while his compañeras videotaped... was this my first time in Mexico, did I like Mexico, where had I been, did I like music, what is the US like - that was a hard one to answer concisely, etc. etc. He spoke English very well and was very polite. After that we made it about three steps farther and another kid asked me if he could interview me for his English class. He had lost his compas so Koki ended up being the camera (phone) man. Did I like Mexican food, how old am I, what are my hobbies... After that we made it almost around the corner of the cathedral when another group asked me the same. Two boys interviewed me while their teacher or mom or something filmed. What was my favorite band, my favorite food, what has been my favorite place in Mexico, where else am going (that was a long answer)... A group of young women gathered around to listen to and watch this interview, one of them interpreting for the rest. I thought they were students, too, but apparently they were just some random people. Finally we made it to the bus stop we were trying to reach and while we were waiting for the TuriBus (which ended up being a total waste of 40 minutes and would have been way more expensive than a taxi), a crackhead gringa asked if I spoke English, and I thought really, this can`t be another student. She had some story about not being able to buy a bus ticket without an ID and waiting on a phone call from her mom and she only needed two hundred pesos to get outta here, all the while in her winter jacket, fidgeting with her burnt hands. Sketchy. I told her no, although I was tempted to tell her if she hung out around the corner maybe she could get some pesos out of some high school students in exchange for an interview. She probably had more interesting answers than I did, too. We went to el Bosque de Chapultepec, a park in the city, becuase that´s how we roll. It was not exactly the island of nature I was hoping for, at least there´s something that resembles a natural environment there, but how sad is it that for a lot of people, that´s the only forest they´ve ever known? We walked around for a bit, saw two squirrels, a few Montezuma cypress (Taxodium mucronatum in case Howie is reading this), a bunch of exotic Casuarina trees, and around five million bipedal mammals. That was pretty much it, we ate some tacos and braved the metro again to get back to the bus station to get back to Puebla. And that was our experience in the Distrito Federal, aside from riding the bus for around an hour before actually getting out of the concrete jungle. It sounds weird, but I was disappointed in the relatively clean air the day we were there after having learned about the infamous Mexico City smog during my years in air pollution research.
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| El Zòcalo in Mexico City |
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| My 15 minutes of fame. |
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| Cool collection idea for plastic bottles. |
14 September 2010
Zacatecas, Guadalajara, and Pàtzcuaro
Hola amigos, an update of our time between farms...
Last Wednesday we traveled from General Cepeda to Zacatecas for two nights. The first afternoon we saw a parade right by the hostel, some combination of indigenous dance and the Catholic church, interesting:
There was a lot going on, as there is everywhere we`ve been, due to the upcoming bicentennial. The hostel in Zacatecas, Hostal Villa Colonial, was in a cool old building and the people who worked there were cool, but other than that it was unimpressive (i.e. the bathroom in our room had not been cleaned since the last guest, the toilet barely worked, etc.). The fact that the bus ride to Zacatecas totally sucked did not help the experience overall (again, serious bathroom issues, like they really shouldn´t even pretend they have one on the bus!). On Wednesday night we went to the fiestas, going on from 2-19 September for the bicentennial. It was kind of like a patriotic state fair, not really my cup of tea but it was fun. We heard many local mariachi bands and other singers which was great. While we were enjoying the music and a Corona Familiar (yes, apparently there is such a thing as family-sized beer), a guy from a local newspaper took our picture (we never did get the actual paper, oops) - here it is:
On Thursday, after getting our picture taken at breakfast by someone from another newspaper (didn`t get that one either), we rode the telefèrico (gondola/cable car, built by the Swiss) over the city to the park Cerro de la Bufa. Our time there was definitely the highlight of our Zacatecas experience, it is a beautiful place, full of nature and history. We did some birdwatching and waited out a big storm. The cable car was cool, except for the obnoxious `driver` (really `door opener/closer) who, as soon as I responded that I was from the US, proceeded to ìnform` me that in Mexico there are United States, too, and that Mexico is part of North America, too. Yep, I know all of that, which is why I hadn`t said anything to the contrary. It made me realize that its not just other gringos that perpetuate the US-centric stereotype, there is definitely some prejudice that forces the stereotype on some of us. Anyways, Zacatecas is an interesting city, lots of square, colorful buildings in between the hills, and of course lots of churches (interesting architecturally, but not something that entertains me all day).
On Friday morning we traveled from Zacatecas to Guadalajara, another crappy (literally) bus ride. The taxi we got to the hostel had some Soda Stereo and other rock (in Spanish) cranked, a really wonderful change from banda and norteña, which are fine in small doses, but that`s all we`ve been hearing lately. Oh, speaking of music we hear all the time, there`s some sort of marching band with what sounds like 500 cornetas going by at the moment. We checked in at Bed`n`Travel Hostel, southwest of the center of Guadalajara. The staff members were awesome and the place was clean, but there were a few weird things: people steal stuff, so there were no lighters for the gas stove in the kitchen (which is on the roof - cool), no toilet paper unless you ask for it, etc. The clientelle they have received so far apparently don`t understand the hostel etiquette, too bad. On Friday night we went to Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara, and heard some live mariachi music and saw a ballet folclòrico. On the way there a bus driver slammed the door in my face and almost ran us over, but after that people were very helpful in guiding us to the three buses it took to get there. On Saturday we went to downtown, saw La Catedral and Mercado San Juan de Dios and walked around, then hiked what felt like a million blocks to Parque Agua Azul. It was pretty lame, we were hoping to do some birdwatching but the only birds to be found were in cages or grackles in the various exotic trees. After that we walked what felt like two million blocks to get back downtown (wrong turn, got to see the auto parts zone of Guadalajara, though, woohoo) and hear some mariachi music at the Plaza de Los Mariachis.
On Sunday we went to the nearby town of Tequila and toured the Las Alboradas distillery (on Facebook). This is a small distillery which uses a more traditional process than the larger distilleries like Cuervo and Sauza. They use organic agave but it sounds like there are some things they could do to be more sustainable, at least its a step in the right direction. We wanted to visit their agave fields but weren`t able to. We learned at the tequila museum that one of the problems associated with the way almost all the distilleries do things is that they don`t allow the agave to flower, because once it flowers it is no longer good for making tequila. This means that there is very limited sexual reproduction and that the bats and hummingbirds that depend on the plant for food have much less to eat than they could if more agaves were allowed to flower. The plant produces clones which are used to plant the next crop. The blue agave only flowers every 7-9 years, so it takes planning ahead to have a crop ready for tequila production. We ended up buying El Gran Jubileo Reposado. We learned on the tour that the lime and salt tradition started to actually hide the taste of crappy tequila and that much more appropriate companions are orange (for tequila blanco, the youngest), strawberry (for reposado), and chocolate (for añejo, the oldest). We tried their tequilas with oranges and chocolate and it was definitely a million times better than Cuervo with lime and salt! They also make cookies with some of the agave sugar and fiber. The distillery has won prizes over all the big distilleries, not surprising. We also visited a very old distillery, their tequila wasn`t as good but they had some interesting, impressive equipment. I wish I could have brought my chemistry students on a field trip to a distillery when they learned about distillation!
Yesterday we traveled to Pàtzcuaro, a small town in the state of Michoacàn. It is a very picturesque place with lots of interesting, pre-columbian and hispanic history. We might come back here after our time at the next farm, which is about 30 km from here. Last night we stayed at Hotel Valmen, a very sweet (and clean!) little hotel in the historic downtown. At noon today we`re going to the bus station to meet Luis, a new friend we met just before we left NC through one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jess. Luis returned to Mexico about the same time we began our journey after living in the US for half his life. He and his family are about to begin an agricultural undertaking they have been planning and working towards for some time now. The three of us will work on the farm near Erongarìcuaro together for the next week or so.
Last Wednesday we traveled from General Cepeda to Zacatecas for two nights. The first afternoon we saw a parade right by the hostel, some combination of indigenous dance and the Catholic church, interesting:
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| Dancers in a parade in Zacatecas |
| Feria Nacional, Zacatecas |
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| Appreciating art outside the cathedral in Zacatecas |
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| The Telefèrico and part of Zacatecas, with Cerro de la Bufa in the distance |
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| At the meteorological station on Cerro de la Bufa, overlooking Zacatecas |
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| La famosa Catedral de Guadalajara |
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| Mercado San Juan de Dios, Guadalajara |
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| Yummy food from a taquerìa in Guadalajara (cheaper and better than the fancy restaurants) |
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| Tequila! |
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| Blue agave |
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| Hotel Valmen, Pàtzcuaro |
05 September 2010
Rancho El Chuzo, General Cepeda, Coahuila, México
Hola mi gente, I hope everyone is doing well. A summary of the past week...
We arrived at Rancho El Chuzo last Sunday afternoon, just after the other WWOOFer had arrived. I´ll get the negative part out of the way now: the other WWOOFer sucks, total lack of conciousness and work ethic, if you ask me (or Koki). It has been part of the learning experience, though, as it has prompted us to discuss what we would do if we received such a WWOOFer on our future farm. Okay, onto the good stuff... The family who lives and works on the farm is made up of Bernardo (father), Anne (mother, French), Numa (son, 3 1/2 years old), Limaya (daughter, 9 months old), and José Luis (Bernardo´s father). Bernardo and Anne are the same ages as Koki and me; we are at very different points on very similar journeys. Anne came to the farm as a volunteer; she calls herself a permanent volunteer. They are a wonderful, welcoming family and we have become friends.
Rancho El Chuzo is located behind the General Cepeda town cemetery, about a five minute walk to town. On the farm there are cows, pigs, chickens, there was a burro until yesterday (someone bought it who could use it more, if they don´t work they can be a pain in the ass, pun intended), two Scotty dogs, a windmill that was for the well but has been replaced with a solar pump since there often wasn´t enough wind, solar panels for electricity, a graywater system (under construction), a blackwater system, a composting toilet (more like a latrine), impressive gardens (especially for such an arid region), reforested areas, lots of magueys (a type of agave, a crop older than corn with many uses), and an orchard (mostly peaches). The house is technically José Luis´, Bernardo and Anne have the foundation in place for their house but haven´t been able to continue with construction for some time. The house is very cool, adobe, carrizo roof, nice and cool in the day and cozy warm at night, they have a dorm-type room for WWOOFers where we slept the first night but since then we´ve been sleeping in the tent, the breeze and the stars and the giant orange moon were too enticing. They are off the grid, I mentioned the water and electricity, they cook and refrigerate (dorm fridge) with gas. We´ve adapted well to using little water and electricity and to living with intermitent use of these luxuries when there isn´t enough sun, which has been the case the past couple of days. Its kind of like going back in time in many ways. We all eat lunch together in the main part of the house, cooking and sharing meals has been a fun part of getting to know the family and the farm.
We have been working hard on several projects... We have been cleaning (mowing? weeding? I think I´m losing some English) the orchard with hand tools: machete, sling blade, and the rosadera (small toothed hand sickle, awesome tool!) to clean carefully around the bases of the trees. The other really hard physical labor we´ve been doing is working on the new graywater system (the old one didn´t work out, we´ve already learned some things to do and some things to not do when it comes to graywater). The new system will take graywater (from sinks and showers) to a small canal behind the house. The canal will lead to five trees that will be planted in holes we dug surrounded by a canal which will be filled with organic material. The water will thus be used to water the trees and the mulch will help anything besides water be composted and turned into soil. Digging the holes was a tough job, lots of rock, but we´re ready to plant trees now. These two jobs (orchard and digging holes) have been our morning jobs, before it gets too hot.
In the afternoons we´ve been cleaning cascavel chile peppers that are used to make the chorizo that they sell. This inolves cutting the stem off of dried chile peppers, cutting it open, removing the seeds and veins, and tearing the pepper in half. Its not so bad as long as I have gloves (which I didn´t the first day we did it, ouch!). Unfortunately they won´t be making chorizo while we´re here so we won´t actually get to participate in the rest of the process, but we do have the recipe! We have learned how to make lots of other yummy things and almost have quite a collection of recipes after just a week... granola, yogurt, several different cheeses, nopales (prickly pear cactus pads), Irish cream, all of these from José Luis. One day we made bread with Anne, starting by washing, separating, and drying the winter wheat they grew on the farm, then grinding it, making the dough, starting the fire in the adobe oven, and finally baking the bread there. We made several flavors, all with ingredients from the farm: granola, garlic and oregano, rosemary, fennel. In the end it was kind of dry (we forgot to put cups of water in the oven with the bread) and is definitely WHOLE wheat bread (the first batch of flour that we ground was extremely coarse).
We have been eating almost entirely from the farm, we love it! They grow wonderful tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, herbs, greens (arugula grows wild here!), peaches, pomegranites, cucumbers, corn... plus the dairy products, chorizo, and a few eggs. Peaches, apples, and pecans are all grown locally; we´re definitely still in North America! It rained on Friday night and yesterday, not a typical desert downpour, but a nice gentle rain most of the night and day, just what the gardens need. They plan to build a rainwater catchment system at Rancho El Chuzo using the tank that was part of the old graywater system to take full advantage of the sparse rains. Things definitely look much more alive today and lots of plants are flowering.
Last night we were all invited to a lamb roast at Rancho La Gloria, owned by the same family (Sofía and Emilio and their children) that owns the restaurant Los Portales that I mentioned in the last post. It was a wonderful evening! The lamb was delicious, raised and butchered on the farm, cooked over maguey leaves in a metal box with the fire built on top for about 4 hours. We also had tequila drinks with fresh quince fruit juice and cajeta de membrillo for dessert, all very typical. We were going to go to a baile (dance) before heading back to El Chuzo but we ended up staying at La Gloria until late and we were tired. There was a wedding yesterday evening and the baile was the reception. The tradition here is that everyone in town is invited to the party after a wedding. It would have been nice to go to the party and learn some new dances, but at least we got to hear the music from where we were (right up the hill from the baile). The party was at el castillo (the castle), a house (really, it is more like a castle) that was in the family many years ago, then sold, then bought by the family again. We´re planning to go back to La Gloria on Tuesday to really see the farm, including a machine they have to treat milk with pressure instead of pasteurizing it with heat to prolong shelf life in order to market it outside of General Cepeda (where many folks have their own cows) without destroying its delicious flavor. It sounds like Bernardo and Anne will sell their milk this way, with the milk from La Gloria, which will save them the time they currently spend selling the raw milk door-to-door in town.
We have become friends with the family, it will be sad to leave on Wednesday. My birthday was last Tuesday and the family (and Koki) sang me the traditional Mexican birthday song, Las Mañanitas. I felt very much at home and will definitely never forget my 29th birthday. Sweet little Limaya has gotten very comfortable with Koki and me, fun but also useful as we are able to take care of her sometimes if Bernardo and Anne need to do something with both hands. Numa is a wild child, but so intelligent, I really can´t believe he isn´t even four years old. After kindergarten he goes to La Casa de Jugar (the Playhouse), run by Bernardo´s mother Tobi, where there are several rooms with different activities that the kids take part in as they please. This is not only important for the development of the children who go there, but for their mothers, who otherwise are homebound in the afternoon. Anne pointed out that in France, school lasts all day, giving women much more freedom, compared to Mexico where short school days and many other things basically prevent women from having much freedom. They have talked about moving to France, life seems like it would be easier in some ways (more like-minded people, less corruption, etc.) but they have invested so much here that it would be very hard to leave just now, too. Bernardo and Anne have both traveled and WWOOFed in many countries and are very knowledgeable, creative, hardworking people. We really hope they´ll be able to come visit us in Costa Rica one day and we definitely hope to come back to General Cepeda.
José Luis is a national treasure, a curator of the living museum that is northern Mexico. We have had many wonderful discussion with him on a wide variety of subjects and we have learned a lot about life in Mexico, a completely different reality than that of the USA or Costa Rica. He used to publish a newspaper as a way to educate people about the history of this country... true stories were taken from the national archive and published in a newspaper, just like present day but with the historical information and dates, including classified advertisements for selling slaves and such. José Luis is a trained and passionate historian, most interested in stories of everyday life and not of heroes. He worked in political campaigns for some time as well and shared with us some of his views on the political environment in Mexico. One party, PRI, was in control of Mexico for around 80 years (not the party he worked with). In those days there was one cartel that had a relationship with the government, was basically paid to do the government´s dirty work, and as a result dominated the other cartels. When things changed and PRI was no longer in control, this relationship changed, supposedly an end to the corruption, but in the end it just meant that the smaller cartels gained power and there is still tons of corruption in the government at many levels, and look where we are in terms of the narcos. To me, as an ecologist, it somewhat resembles the removal of a top-level predator from a system, the balance that existed, even though it might not have been ideal for everyone, was upset. Even this small town doesn´t escape the tight grasp of corruption. On September 15 Mexico will celebrate 200 years of independence, 100 years ago the Mexican revolution began, and in 2010 Mexico is again at a crucial point in its history.
Also check out Koki´s blog
We arrived at Rancho El Chuzo last Sunday afternoon, just after the other WWOOFer had arrived. I´ll get the negative part out of the way now: the other WWOOFer sucks, total lack of conciousness and work ethic, if you ask me (or Koki). It has been part of the learning experience, though, as it has prompted us to discuss what we would do if we received such a WWOOFer on our future farm. Okay, onto the good stuff... The family who lives and works on the farm is made up of Bernardo (father), Anne (mother, French), Numa (son, 3 1/2 years old), Limaya (daughter, 9 months old), and José Luis (Bernardo´s father). Bernardo and Anne are the same ages as Koki and me; we are at very different points on very similar journeys. Anne came to the farm as a volunteer; she calls herself a permanent volunteer. They are a wonderful, welcoming family and we have become friends.
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| The house at Rancho El Chuzo |
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| Anne, Bernardo, and Limaya in the garden |
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| Aragon (a.k.a Numa in a costume made by Anne) |
Rancho El Chuzo is located behind the General Cepeda town cemetery, about a five minute walk to town. On the farm there are cows, pigs, chickens, there was a burro until yesterday (someone bought it who could use it more, if they don´t work they can be a pain in the ass, pun intended), two Scotty dogs, a windmill that was for the well but has been replaced with a solar pump since there often wasn´t enough wind, solar panels for electricity, a graywater system (under construction), a blackwater system, a composting toilet (more like a latrine), impressive gardens (especially for such an arid region), reforested areas, lots of magueys (a type of agave, a crop older than corn with many uses), and an orchard (mostly peaches). The house is technically José Luis´, Bernardo and Anne have the foundation in place for their house but haven´t been able to continue with construction for some time. The house is very cool, adobe, carrizo roof, nice and cool in the day and cozy warm at night, they have a dorm-type room for WWOOFers where we slept the first night but since then we´ve been sleeping in the tent, the breeze and the stars and the giant orange moon were too enticing. They are off the grid, I mentioned the water and electricity, they cook and refrigerate (dorm fridge) with gas. We´ve adapted well to using little water and electricity and to living with intermitent use of these luxuries when there isn´t enough sun, which has been the case the past couple of days. Its kind of like going back in time in many ways. We all eat lunch together in the main part of the house, cooking and sharing meals has been a fun part of getting to know the family and the farm.
 |
| Piggies |
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| Milk, yogurt, and cheese thanks to this baby´s mama |
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| Burro |
We have been working hard on several projects... We have been cleaning (mowing? weeding? I think I´m losing some English) the orchard with hand tools: machete, sling blade, and the rosadera (small toothed hand sickle, awesome tool!) to clean carefully around the bases of the trees. The other really hard physical labor we´ve been doing is working on the new graywater system (the old one didn´t work out, we´ve already learned some things to do and some things to not do when it comes to graywater). The new system will take graywater (from sinks and showers) to a small canal behind the house. The canal will lead to five trees that will be planted in holes we dug surrounded by a canal which will be filled with organic material. The water will thus be used to water the trees and the mulch will help anything besides water be composted and turned into soil. Digging the holes was a tough job, lots of rock, but we´re ready to plant trees now. These two jobs (orchard and digging holes) have been our morning jobs, before it gets too hot.
 |
| Working in the orchard |
In the afternoons we´ve been cleaning cascavel chile peppers that are used to make the chorizo that they sell. This inolves cutting the stem off of dried chile peppers, cutting it open, removing the seeds and veins, and tearing the pepper in half. Its not so bad as long as I have gloves (which I didn´t the first day we did it, ouch!). Unfortunately they won´t be making chorizo while we´re here so we won´t actually get to participate in the rest of the process, but we do have the recipe! We have learned how to make lots of other yummy things and almost have quite a collection of recipes after just a week... granola, yogurt, several different cheeses, nopales (prickly pear cactus pads), Irish cream, all of these from José Luis. One day we made bread with Anne, starting by washing, separating, and drying the winter wheat they grew on the farm, then grinding it, making the dough, starting the fire in the adobe oven, and finally baking the bread there. We made several flavors, all with ingredients from the farm: granola, garlic and oregano, rosemary, fennel. In the end it was kind of dry (we forgot to put cups of water in the oven with the bread) and is definitely WHOLE wheat bread (the first batch of flour that we ground was extremely coarse).
 |
| Cascavel chile peppers for chorizo |
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| Bread, ready to go in the adobe oven |
We have been eating almost entirely from the farm, we love it! They grow wonderful tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, herbs, greens (arugula grows wild here!), peaches, pomegranites, cucumbers, corn... plus the dairy products, chorizo, and a few eggs. Peaches, apples, and pecans are all grown locally; we´re definitely still in North America! It rained on Friday night and yesterday, not a typical desert downpour, but a nice gentle rain most of the night and day, just what the gardens need. They plan to build a rainwater catchment system at Rancho El Chuzo using the tank that was part of the old graywater system to take full advantage of the sparse rains. Things definitely look much more alive today and lots of plants are flowering.
 |
| Yummmmmmmm |
Last night we were all invited to a lamb roast at Rancho La Gloria, owned by the same family (Sofía and Emilio and their children) that owns the restaurant Los Portales that I mentioned in the last post. It was a wonderful evening! The lamb was delicious, raised and butchered on the farm, cooked over maguey leaves in a metal box with the fire built on top for about 4 hours. We also had tequila drinks with fresh quince fruit juice and cajeta de membrillo for dessert, all very typical. We were going to go to a baile (dance) before heading back to El Chuzo but we ended up staying at La Gloria until late and we were tired. There was a wedding yesterday evening and the baile was the reception. The tradition here is that everyone in town is invited to the party after a wedding. It would have been nice to go to the party and learn some new dances, but at least we got to hear the music from where we were (right up the hill from the baile). The party was at el castillo (the castle), a house (really, it is more like a castle) that was in the family many years ago, then sold, then bought by the family again. We´re planning to go back to La Gloria on Tuesday to really see the farm, including a machine they have to treat milk with pressure instead of pasteurizing it with heat to prolong shelf life in order to market it outside of General Cepeda (where many folks have their own cows) without destroying its delicious flavor. It sounds like Bernardo and Anne will sell their milk this way, with the milk from La Gloria, which will save them the time they currently spend selling the raw milk door-to-door in town.
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| Lamb and Rito, the cook |
We have become friends with the family, it will be sad to leave on Wednesday. My birthday was last Tuesday and the family (and Koki) sang me the traditional Mexican birthday song, Las Mañanitas. I felt very much at home and will definitely never forget my 29th birthday. Sweet little Limaya has gotten very comfortable with Koki and me, fun but also useful as we are able to take care of her sometimes if Bernardo and Anne need to do something with both hands. Numa is a wild child, but so intelligent, I really can´t believe he isn´t even four years old. After kindergarten he goes to La Casa de Jugar (the Playhouse), run by Bernardo´s mother Tobi, where there are several rooms with different activities that the kids take part in as they please. This is not only important for the development of the children who go there, but for their mothers, who otherwise are homebound in the afternoon. Anne pointed out that in France, school lasts all day, giving women much more freedom, compared to Mexico where short school days and many other things basically prevent women from having much freedom. They have talked about moving to France, life seems like it would be easier in some ways (more like-minded people, less corruption, etc.) but they have invested so much here that it would be very hard to leave just now, too. Bernardo and Anne have both traveled and WWOOFed in many countries and are very knowledgeable, creative, hardworking people. We really hope they´ll be able to come visit us in Costa Rica one day and we definitely hope to come back to General Cepeda.
 |
| Koki learning to make queso chiuhuahua from José Luis |
José Luis is a national treasure, a curator of the living museum that is northern Mexico. We have had many wonderful discussion with him on a wide variety of subjects and we have learned a lot about life in Mexico, a completely different reality than that of the USA or Costa Rica. He used to publish a newspaper as a way to educate people about the history of this country... true stories were taken from the national archive and published in a newspaper, just like present day but with the historical information and dates, including classified advertisements for selling slaves and such. José Luis is a trained and passionate historian, most interested in stories of everyday life and not of heroes. He worked in political campaigns for some time as well and shared with us some of his views on the political environment in Mexico. One party, PRI, was in control of Mexico for around 80 years (not the party he worked with). In those days there was one cartel that had a relationship with the government, was basically paid to do the government´s dirty work, and as a result dominated the other cartels. When things changed and PRI was no longer in control, this relationship changed, supposedly an end to the corruption, but in the end it just meant that the smaller cartels gained power and there is still tons of corruption in the government at many levels, and look where we are in terms of the narcos. To me, as an ecologist, it somewhat resembles the removal of a top-level predator from a system, the balance that existed, even though it might not have been ideal for everyone, was upset. Even this small town doesn´t escape the tight grasp of corruption. On September 15 Mexico will celebrate 200 years of independence, 100 years ago the Mexican revolution began, and in 2010 Mexico is again at a crucial point in its history.
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| Buenas noches... |
Also check out Koki´s blog
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