Category: Mexico March 2019

Back to Mesoamerica!

We’re very much looking forward to our return to Mexico. Four days on our own in Mexico City and four in in Oaxaca with our good friends Patti and David B!

We were at the airport by 5:30 AM for our 6:45 flight. I had imagined that Terminal C would be empty, but far from it: it was a madhouse from door to gate. Imagining, dummies that we are, that United would give us some semblance of a breakfast, we made do with a lousy cup of coffee in the terminal. The flight had one thing going for it: it was short. Otherwise, it was the usual treatment by United: tiny seats, barely civil flight attendants, and, of course, no food.

Things improved quickly once we got off the plane. We were soon in a cab for the short ride into the center. I had booked us a place in Roma, hoping that someone might decide to make a movie about us (so far that hasn’t happened). Casa Goliana is a bright, beautifully decorated little inn (eight rooms) in an old colonial house. The staff–including the 24-hour security guard at the door–couldn’t be nicer or more helpful.

We were starved, and although it was very early for lunch by Mexico City standards, we followed a tip from the young woman at the hotel desk and went to Broka, a restaurant in a courtyard a few minutes from the inn.

We had a wonderful lunch, a perfect reintroduction to the wonderful food in Mexico City. A corn and shrimp soup with condiments of lime, cheese, and habanero mayonnaise and Cochinita Pibil (a slow-roasted pork dish from Yucatan) for me, beet carpaccio (you read that right) with an arugula salad and rabbit carnitas for Sue. I also had a terrific mezcal afterwards, just to get the trip off to the right kind of start.

We then made a good, and uncharacteristic decision: we walked into the Condesa neighborhood to get onto a hop-on, hop-off tourist bus. Mexico City is so vast that it seemed the best way to get an overview. And it was a terrific choice. We saw lots of areas that we would never target for walks, and especially the Paseo de la Reforma, the monumental avenue built to connect the historic center with the richer neighborhoods to the west. We got off at the Zocalo, the city’s central square, and were immediately immersed in the unique hubbub that is Mexico City: (fake) Aztecs dancing to throbbing drums, hawkers, organ grinders, street food stands with every conceivable foodstuff made from corn, and strolling musicians.

And above all crowds of Mexicans. Just viewing the Mexican physiognomy is worth the trip: every facial type from Madrid to Central Asia (from whence the indigenous people came many thousands of years ago), with every intermediate step in between.

For reasons we don’t remember, neither of us had visited the ruins of the Templo Mayor, the ceremonial center of Tenochtitlan, the center of the Mexica (Aztec) empire. Remarkably enough, the site of the temple was fully excavated only starting in 1978, when workers from the electric company struck a huge Mesoamerican disk. After demolishing a number of buildings, the full extent of the temple was laid bare. Built in seven stages starting in the fourteenth century, only the third and fourth stages of the temple are now visible.

Archaeologists discovered some remarkable stuff. A good part of the outer edges of the temple survived through the centuries, buried beneath rubble. This undulating serpent is a good example.

A few of the adjacent buildings are also well preserved, including this small structure with walls adorned with stone versions of human skulls.

Back on the bus, we passed by a number of monuments to Mexican history. The monument to the Mexican revolution–which is still mythologized even more prominently than our own–was particularly notable.

We put our feet up at the hotel after a long afternoon, and went out around 7 in search of a bite. This proved to be a challenge, since virtually every restaurant in Roma seems to be closed on Sunday evening. After walking in circles for almost an hour–finding restaurants that were supposed to be open either closed or moved–we ended up at a perfectly decent place for tacos and enchiladas.

The staff at Casa Goliana made my day: tamales for breakfast! We shared one green corn and one red mole tamale, and I was transported to the days of my youth, when our neighbors would bring us green corn tamales and menudo for Christmas. My mother used to send care packages of the tamales, the stuff of my dreams. The menudo…well, that was another story. We discreetly fed that to the cats.

We had seen the “sights” on our last trip, and we decided to stay local and explore the two neighborhoods near us, Roma Norte and Condesa. Roma was built in the nineteenth century, and the northernmost section along and north of Avenida Obregón is full of remarkable colonial architecture. We started at a gorgeous small square, Place Rio de Janeiro, ringed with beautiful buildings.

The streets around the square are full of old mansions, many of them turned into apartment buildings. As you walk the side streets, beautifully restored houses alternate with decaying structures, giving the quarter a somewhat raffish charm.

Back on Avenida Obregón, we went into the Casa Lamm, an early 20th century mansion that has been turned into a cultural center.

The center contains several galleries, and we saw a beautiful show by the contemporary Mexican artist Virginia Chevez.

After a restorative cup of coffee, we strolled down through Roma to a newish enterprise, Mercado Roma. This is a kind of downmarket Eataly, a mishmash of food stands from all over Mexico. We had been longing for a churro, the crispy deep fried Mexican doughnut (far superior to anything we get at home!). We were in luck, since the most famous Churraria in town has an outpost here, and we indulged.

Next stop was the really lovely neighborhood La Condesa. Built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it is full of interesting Art Deco houses. We have been continually struck by how leafy the entire city is, and Condesa is probably the greenest we have seen. The Colonia is organized around a large oval park at its center, the Parque de Mexico, which means that the streets run in circles around the park.

The main residential street, Avenida Amsterdam, is boulevard like, with a green island and walkway in the center.

The park itself is one of the loveliest we have seen: the mixture of tropical and subtropical vegetation gives it a deep, enticing greenness. And, like so much of the capital, it is full of life.

It is also a favorite spot for the coming out parties that Mexican girls have when they turn 15.

We finished our walk with lunch at Enrique Olvera’s tortilleria, Molina el Pujol, where we had sublime quesadillas and wonderful tacos. A very simple place, with a standup counter inside and two tables outside. But heaven!

After a bit of a siesta, we took a car to Polanco, the richest and dullest neighborhood in the city (think Upper East Side— sorry Jack!).

I had made reservations at a fancy place, Amaya in Polanco, which we regretted immediately. It was very international, we could as well have been in Hamburg. Not that it was bad, just uninteresting.

We started our day at one of our favorite places: the great Anthropology Museum with its astonishing collection of mesoamerican artifacts.

The organization of the museum was much clearer to us this time: it is highly political, with the Mexica (Aztecs) as the telos of all development in Latin America. The display of Mexica art and culture is thus disproportionately large compared to the actual years of their dominance. There is no way to see the entire collection in a morning, or even a day, so we concentrated on the sections devoted to the Zapotec civilization, which we would be visiting in Oaxaca.

Heads full of mesoamerican images, we jumped in a cab for a trip to a working class part of town, Claveria, where the remarkable restaurant Nico’s is to be found. The large room isn’t particularly prepossessing, but everything else contributes to a memorable experience.

The tone of the restaurant manages a perfect balance between formality and friendliness, and the food, absolutely traditional Mexican, is fabulous. We started, like just about every table, with guacamole prepared at a cart tableside. The picture shows me with my libations: a terrific Mezcal and a wonderful Mexican craft beer, which was a revelation to me. The first course is a selection of goodies that are cooking on the large comal as you come in, corn and wheat tortillas cradling all manner of good things. I then had chicken with a great mole, Sue a traditional dish that she can’t remember. We finished with a café de olla, for which Nicos if famous. It was a terrific meal, well worth the journey!

Insofar as we could still waddle we spent the afternoon reacquainting ourselves with the Centro Historico. We started on the Zocalo and realized that we had never toured the cathedral.

We then popped into the hotel where we had stayed on our first visit, the Gran Ciudad de Mexico, to see the Tiffany ceiling again.

We then wandered through the streets to the Palacio de Belles Artes, where we had another look at the murals by Rivera, Orosco, and Sequerios.

This is Diego Rivera’s “Man at the Crossroads.” It has a fascinating history: commissioned for Rockefeller Center, the prominent position accorded Vladimir Lenin led to the project’s rejection. Rivera recreated it here in Mexico City…and New York is the poorer for it.

Before hitting the hay, we had a light bite near the inn…all we could manage after our lunch!

March 20, 2019

We had our first experience of the Mexican bus system. A pretty long cab ride took us to the enormous, labyrinthine bus station northeast of the center, where we managed to find our way to the buses for Puebla. The bus itself was incredibly comfortable: the buses are divided into a number of categories, and we had chosen one down from the top. Terrific seats, great AC.,,if only we could have understood the movie.!

In little more than an hour we were at the bus station in Puebla, and a few minutes later having a coffee on the Zocalo.

The cathedral, set in a rather arid square, is magnificent inside; it was begun in 1557 but consecrated only in 1649.

From the Zocalo we wandered through the really lovely Spanish Colonial center; the place radiates a kind of calm joy, punctuated now and then by something colorful!

Every visitor to Puebla is directed to “Sweet Street,” an entire lane devoted to candy stores. Down this street one also finds something less sweet: one of the first sites of the Mexican revolution. In 1910 three siblings, Carmen, Máximo, and Aquiles Serdán fostered one of the first conspiracies against the Porfirio Diaz government; their house was surrounded by federal troops, and both brothers died in the ensuing gun battle. The house is still pocked with bullet holes.

From Sweet Street our path led us to the Teatro Principal, the oldest standing theater in the Americas, built in 1742.

We then set out in search of the Puebla branch of Talavera de la Reina, which proved a bit hard to find…which was just fine, given the beauty of the streets in Puebla!

We did finally find Talavera de la Reina. We had brought a large vase home on our last trip and wanted to get a couple of small pieces. Puebla is the center of the Mexican production of this kind of majolica, which started in the town of Talavera de la Reina, near Toledo, Spain and was then brought to the colony in the seventeenth century.

We finished out day with a visit to the Biblioteca Palafroxiana, the oldest public library in the Americas. The library is based on an initial donation of 5000 books by Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, the bishop of Puebla, in 1646. A century later, a purpose-built library was opened; the collection grew to 45,000 volumes and includes some gorgeous holdings.

The bus ride back was beautiful; the road to Puebla passes out of the Valley of Mexico through a pass alongside the twinned volcanos that mark the valley’s southern border, Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl; the former is still active–in fact, we missed a spectacular eruption by a matter of days. That’s them in the background!

We spent our last morning revisiting Coyoacan. Sue had visited the Frida Kahlo Museum on our last visit, but I had not and, despite my mild aversion to her work, we joined the throngs waiting for the museum to open.

I had it all wrong: the museum is actually lovely, the exhibits well done.

Sue couldn’t resist having a bit of fun, though…

We love Coyoacan and just wandering through its streets and plazas. A quick bite at a cafe under the arcades of the Jardin Centinario was followed by a stroll through that garden, the Jardin Hidalgo, both adjacent to the town’s main church dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and the church itself.

Before heading back we explored a part of the Colonia that was new to us, a verdant area centered on two large parks, the Plaza de la Conchita and the Parque Frida Kahlo. If you look closely, you’ll see a group of dancers in costume behind Diego and Frida!

The next thing we knew we were in Oaxaca! Our hotel, the Siglo XVII had some extraordinary features…and some extraordinary weirdnesses. It is built around a lovely seventeenth century building with two huge interior courtyards; the front courtyard is paved and used as an open air breakfast area and bar, while the back courtyard is a verdant garden with arcades and rooms on two floors. Our room, on the ground floor, was enormous but furnished rather sparsely, lending the impression of an unfinished, haphazard approach to the completion of the hotel.

We threw our bags down and headed for the Zocalo de Oaxaca, just a few short blocks away. And what a scene met us! The center of town is configured like Coyoacan, with two parks flanking the main church. The Zocalo itself is surrounded by arcaded buildings teeming with life. We chose a cafe from the several on offer and settled in to watch the action: strolling musicians, couples dancing on the sidewalks and in the parks, children playing (it was close to 10 PM), lovers loving, you name it. We had the feeling that it was always Fiesta in Oaxaca!

One of the principle pleasures of this trip to Mexico was the opportunity to share it with our dear friends Patti and David Bradley, veterans of two trips to Burma with us! They arrived late on Thursday night, and had a bit of a rough reception at the hotel: the room was tiny and hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned. It took a couple of days of negotiation to get this ironed out. But we didn’t let that put a damper on our fun!

We got a car and driver through the hotel and our first impulse was to drive straight to Monte Alban, the ruined capital of the magnificent Oaxacan Civilization. The site, which covers only the civic-ceremonial center, is enormous; the excavations have uncovered parts of virtually all the original structures. The site sits on an artificially leveled ridgetop at about 6400 feet above sea level; the ridgetop is clearly visible from the Zocalo in Oaxaca, which lies less than six miles to the east.

Monte Alban occupies a special place among the Mesoamerican civilizations: unlike most of the other civilizations, it developed an advanced state structure seemingly without reference to any previous state. The city arose as the capital of an expanding civilization around 500 BC; it remained the center for more than a thousand years. Our first view of the site was from the edge of ball court looking west. To give you some idea of the size of the site, this view shows about a third of the structures.

The structures along the western side were used as temples and residences for priests. The best preserved, and most famous, is the building called “Los Danzantes” after the stone reliefs that have been preserved on its exterior.

The building takes its name from the impression formed by the earliest archaeologists that these images are of dancers. As the scholarship became better acquainted with the civilization, it became clear that these were actually images of captives–perhaps chieftains of rival sites–who had been tortured and genitally mutilated.

The main plaza is bounded by two huge platforms on the north and south, each one reached by monumental staircases. Here are two monuments on the staircases.

And this is the view of the complex from the South Platform.

In the center is one of the most interesting and enigmatic buildings at Monte Alban, Building J. It takes an arrow-like shape and is oriented differently from the rectilinearity that characterizes the site. Some have speculated that it was an observatory with astronomical functions, but no one has been able to show that the alignment gives it any particular astronomical capacities. It, too, includes numerous carved stones at its base, this time a combination of writing, glyphs, and a series of upside down heads. There is speculation that the writing, as yet undeciphered, together with the heads records a series of conquests by Monte Alban.

The North Platform is a particularly complex construction; it is built around a sunken arena at the top of the platform; the arena is surrounded by pyramids of various sizes.

We’ve now seen the ruins of Teotihuacan, Teotitlan, and Monte Alban, and the Oaxaca site is the most deeply moving, perhaps because it remains so mysterious.

Back in Oaxaca, we wanted to follow our visit to the site with a visit to the Museo Regional de Oaxaca in the ex-convento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán. On the way, we ran into more evidence that it is always fiesta time in Oaxaca: a colorful procession of uncertain purpose or origin!

The museum itself was splendid, centered around a number of the treasures from Monte Alban. And the restoration of the old convent building was a total success; the views out onto the botanical garden were particularly memorable.

But nothing beats old friends….

We ended the day with dinner at Las Danzantes, a restaurant with a spectacular open air setting, and pretty good chow.

Patti had arranged for a their cab driver to take us around to several craft pueblos today; and a driver indeed showed up, just not the one they had hired. But his cousin proved perfectly nice and a very competent driver. We squeezed into his yellow jalopy–the leg room wasn’t made for David and me–and off we went. First stop was Ocotlan de Moreles, a town that takes its second name for its most famous artist. The market was huge and brimming with life…

and chiles…

and death…

And of course no provincial market is complete without someone monetizing Frida.

The arcades of the town hall had been painted with murals by Rodolfo Moreles, the local hero, and one of Mexico’s most talented painters.

Moreles had used the wealth he had earned to improve many aspects of life in the town, including a beautiful restoration of the old Spanish Colonial church.

From the center of town it was just a hop and a skip to Moreles’s home, which has been turned into a foundation. One of his cousins guided us through the place; a lovely, cool house with a gorgeous courtyard garden.

The absolute highlight of Ocotlan, though, was the visit to the house of Josefina Aguilar, an aged, blind artist who has created an entire world of charming painted terra cotta figurines based on Mexican village life.

Although she can no longer see, she still shapes the figures and they are painted by her (adult) children. Her work is in many museum collections; Nelson Rockefeller was for many years her principle patron. We brought back a woman making tortillas, complete with a grinding stone and a comal, and a woman selling fruit with a huge hat spilling over with colorful produce.

Next stop was Santo Tomàs Jalieza, where the entire town rotates around the open air cooperative where the work of dozens of backstop weavers is displayed.

Patti and Sue both chose some placemats…after due consideration, of course!

We stopped for lunch at Azucena Zapoteca, a restaurant at the edge of the carver’s pueblo, San Martin Tecajate; we later learned that the restaurant was opened by Jacobo and Maria Angeles, the most renowned artists in the village. When the first thing you see at a restaurant in Mexico is a wood-fire comal, you know you’re in for something good.

And it was better than good: squash blossom quesadillas! Wonderful meal on an open porch in the sunshine.

We walked around the center of San Martin for a while, ducking into several of the many carving workshops that sell alijibres, the fanciful, brightly colored animal figures that one finds on every corner in Oaxaca.

Alijibres originated in Mexico City, where they were made of paper mâché; they were introduced to the Oaxacan pueblos only in the 1980’s, but the form proved a great fit with the local woodcarving traditions as well as the shamanistic aspects of the indigenous religion.

One of the most prominent carving studios in Mexico is run by Jacobo and Maria Angeles in San Martin. Although the most exquisite pieces are produced by these two artists, they also employ dozens of local people in the many rooms of their workshops.

The objects produced here are extraordinary, and I was immediately taken with some of the most unusual objects. I settled on this:

Precious purchase carefully wrapped, we headed back to the hotel, our heads buzzing with the incredible array of impressions from the day.

One more treat awaited us: dinner at Criollo, Enrique Olvera’s restaurant in Oaxaca (the chef was the Executive Chef at Pujol, Olvera’s flagship in Mexico City). We weren’t altogether sure what we were in for: there isn’t a lot of information out there about the place, no menu, no prices, nothing. The exterior is unassuming, but the first step inside is reassuring: a big open kitchen, with chefs bustling around, opens immediately to the right. Then you step out onto a large patio arranged around an open courtyard, with lights twinkling in the trees. Our server asked just one question: any allergies? There is a great mescal list, good beer, and Patti and Sue were happy with their Mexican wine. Then the food started coming out: seven courses, each one a somewhat modern play on the core of Mexican cuisine. The tortillas were amazing, and even better, there were several courses based on masa, with some heavenly tamales on a deep, dark mole. The bill? 45 Bucks a head plus alcohol!

We were so taken with the place, the atmosphere, and the food, that we tried to get a table for the next night, our last in Oaxaca, but they were fully booked.

We strolled home through the darkened streets, eager to walk off our meal and reflect on what had been a remarkable day.

Our driver picked us up bright and early for a long day, more ruins, more folk art! We were heading southeast, first stop Mitla, the second largest archaeological site in Oaxaca.

While Monte Alban was most important as the civilization’s political center, Mitla was the main religious center. The name Mitla is derived from the Nahuatl name Mictlán, which was the place of the dead or underworld. Mitla is unique among Mesoamerican sites because of the elaborate and intricate mosaic fretwork and geometric designs that cover tombs, panels, and even entire walls.

Although the site is huge, only two sections are fully excavated and open to visitors. The first is called the “church group” because of the Catholic Church built on the site taken to be the entrance to the underworld. This group is organized around the main temple, with priest’s residences radiating out from the sanctuary. The intrepid explorers are standing in the center of the temple, which once had a roof.

The second, larger section of the site is organized around a complex called the Palace or Grand Hall of the Columns.

The palace itself is the largest structure at the edge of an enormous patio; the patio contains entrances to numerous tombs, a number of which can be explored–if the explorer is willing to do a good bit of crawling!

Fron Mitla we steered for Tlacolula, which hosts one of the largest and most famous markets in the region. The market was indeed huge and zoo-like, with the aisles packed with locals and visitors. Sue picked out a large woven bedspread before we hustled back to the car in order to continue our journey.

Next stop was Teotitlan Delle Valle, the most famous rug weaving pueblo in Oaxaca. Our driver suggested a particular weaver which seemed at first like a good choice. The weaver was very welcoming and took time to walk us through the entire process, demonstrating the making of the natural dyes that color the rugs.

There were some beautiful things here, but they weren’t cheap and Sue managed to restrain me. Not so the Bradleys, who decided on a lovely medium sized rug.

Back in Oaxaca, we met for drinks at the Quinta Real, a lovely hotel located in a restored convent. The rooms and facilities flow off of a series of arcaded courtyards…the perfect site to end another great day.

Well, OK, we actually ended our day back at Criollo. We had started calling on the hour every hour by mid afternoon and, miraculously, they had a cancellation. The meal again had seven courses, but every course was different than the night before. Another magical evening to end our stay in a place to which we hope to return…often.