Richard and Brenda’s Mexico trip
We went to Mexico for a month in January and February. We want to share a little of what we experienced. The trip was so interesting and full of delights that we want to go back again and spend more time learning Spanish and exploring.
We flew to Mexico City then took buses and collectivo vans for the rest of the trip (see below). From the city we traveled to Oaxaca (a colonial city with a strong cultural population), Puerto Escondido (a fishing town and modest tourist area on the Pacific coast), and San Cristobal de las Casas, (another colonial city and the strongest Maya culture in Mexico), Tziscao (a small village in the Parque de Lagos de Montebello on the Guatemala border), Ocosingo (a small commercial city near the ruin of Tonina). Palenque (a major Maya ruin), Compeche (a city on the Gulf of Mexico), and finally Merida (the capitol of Yucatan state).
1st and 2nd and 3rd class buses run between every town, regularly and on time. We traveled mostly on 1st class because they have toilets, are comfortable, efficient and cheap. The collectivo vans run out of the towns to the surrounding villages, and will stop anywhere along the road. They are usually crowded, very cheap and really handy.
For the entire trip we hit every connection every time, never waiting more than 45 minutes and usually leaving within minutes. California and the US could learn some things from this system
Where We Stayed – The Travelers Scene
We stayed mostly in hostels and only in hotel rooms a few times. The hostels varied in quality, but they never failed to produce great conversations with travelers from all over the world including China, Japan, Holland, Germany, England, Italy, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Slovakia, South America and the US. We kept running into people that we had seen in the previous town as many people follow the regular routes from town to town. The only negatives were that a few of the hostels had poorly stocked kitchens, and hot water was sometimes in short supply. The most elegant place was in a little village called El Pachan next to Palenque ruins. Margarita & Ed’s place is in the jungle and the room and private bathroom was perfect for only $30 a night. The most fun was found at Nomadas Hostel in Merida where we stayed for the last 6 days, and developed a little traveler’s culture. The two kids, Rich and Jack from England, two young lookers, Leane and Deanne, from Slovakia, and Marie from Texas, became our buddies.
We sometimes cooked for ourselves in hostels, made with food from the mercados, and at restaurants and from street booths. The food was good and inexpensive with one exception, and the best was from a street booth in Mexico City. The little booth served homemade maize tortillas, grilled thinly sliced beef, and killer homemade salsa. Yum.
The astounding Diego Rivera murals in Mexico City are beyond belief. If you ever go, do not miss his work in the art deco masterpiece Belle Arts Theatre. The great one, Man at the Crossroads, anti-capitalist in nature, was first painted for the Rockefeller family in the RCA building in New York. They had is destroyed before it was finished. It is amazing how ideology can trump great art.
We visited 5 ancient ruins, all different and unique: Mount Albon, Mixla, Tonina, Palengue and Chichen Itza. Massive stone temples, ball courts and huge plazas surrounded by building dominate these sites. All have varying degrees of stone sculpture and reliefs in stone and plaster. These places had all been claimed by the jungle so that the painted facades and interior murals were for the most part destroyed. The archeological reconstruction of these sites is remarkable. Palenque is the most dramatic, and Chichen Itza has the biggest temple. The restored parts are for the most part the center of huge cities still covered by vegetation. Many thousands of buildings remain unexplored.
We have never before seen anything like the turquoise blue water of the Rio Tulija and Aqua Azul Cascades created by the mineralized water. The same river has a dramatic waterfall at Misol-Ha, the prettiest we have ever seen.
There are several thousand water filled cenotes (sinkholes) in the limestone plains of the Yucatan Peninsula. We had the privilege of visiting two of them, and to swim in the crystal clear turquoise warm water. These were both cave like with a small opening into a large cavern. It is stunning. Don’t miss it if you get a chance.
Lagos de Montebello
We also visited Lagos de Montebello National Park and walked among the pretty lakes of different shades of blue scattered among the pine clad hills on the Guatemala border. A small stream flowing out of one of the lakes tumbled down a small canyon, through a limestone arch, before ending in a pool, the water flowing into a limestone cave. We went into another cave there and found a Maya family engaged in a ceremony. The Maya have always used caves and cenotes for their nature based spiritual rituals. Later we saw the family at the trailhead having a picnic and they graciously invited us over for a bite to eat, some mezcal and a chat.
Colonial Cites
The Spanish colonized Mexico starting in the early 1500’s and took over locations of strong Aztec, Toltec, Mayan and other cultures. They enslaved the indigenous populations, destroyed many ancient temples and built catholic churches out of the stone and on the sites. The most beautiful of the cities we visited is San Cristobal de las Casas in the Chiapas highlands. The colonial street grid typically has a zocalo (plaza) surrounded by a cathedral and municipal and state administration buildings. The narrow streets are often paved with stone, and the colonial era buildings line the streets leaving narrow sidewalks to negotiate. San Cristobal was especially clean and welcoming of tourists. The zocalo in all the towns were always fun to walk in, full of locals walking and chatting, vendors selling food and trinkets, and often some music.
We got to see one traditional band in Oaxaca, a lovely family of singers, dancers and
instrumentalists. Many of the plazas have music in the evening, se we heard some lively salsa and marimba music.
We also enjoyed walking and shopping in the massive mercados (markets) where you can buy anything from live chickens to hammers to mangos. The narrow isles are lined with small stalls, in some cases more or less by category such as bread, where you might see the same bread from 20 sellers. Many rural farmers come to the markets and spread a blanket from where they sell whatever they picked that day. Many people depend on the Mercado for their living, which is skimpy, maybe $5 a day in the poorer rural regions.
We enjoyed the regional crafts scene. Many villages have a specialty such as weaving, pottery, carved animals and masks, gourd items, paper mache and embroidered clothes. We bought several weaved pieces and a carved mask directly from the makers in their workshop.
Oaxaca is a center of mezcal making. Tequila is mezcal made in the town of that name.
We visited a small distillery where they were making the stuff by hand. We say the burning pit where the heart of the agave plant is cooked, a donkey pulling a stone wheel mashing the agave, and a still with the 180 proof liquor pored slowly into a container. The old guy running the operation offered us a good taste of the uncut mezcal right out of the aging barrel.
By far the most remarkable cultural experience was the visit to the Maya village of Chumala outside San Cristobal de las Casas. We paid for a tour run by two English speakers, Alex and Raul, who arrive at the zocalo every morning and round up a van full of people. They are very credible and knowledgeable, and recommended in the Lonely Planet. Chumala is described as one of the strongest Mayan areas in Mexico, with a strong traditional element, although in recent years the traditional houses of sticks, mud and thatch have been replaced by concrete block houses. We didn’t fully understand the strength of the traditions until we arrived at the catholic cathedral. We were told at the entry that photography was strictly forbidden in the church and that you could be arrested or even attacked for doing it. . We expected the regular setup, with pews and lots of statues of saints, but what we saw was stunning. Instead of pews, the floor was covered with pine boughs from the surrounding highland pine forest. The scene was lit by hundreds of candles, and groups of people were kneeled on the floor, chanting, lighting pine pitch incense, medicine men and women doing cleansing ceremonies, and chickens being sacrificed in front of the patron saint of that church, John the Baptist! We could only stand in awe of this magical scene.
Ah the weather. Warm days and soft nights in the highlands and in the 80’s night and day in the Yucatan, the place to be in the winter.
Maize is the predominate crop, but many subsistence farmers are cropping in the mountains on steep slopes. Agave is big around Oaxaca, and henequen is still grown around Merida for rope making, although synthetic rope is slowly killing what was a huge crop.
