San Cristóbal: World's most beautiful B&B

Roof views

Ah, back in my favorite city in Mexico, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas.

Patti and I arrived early Wednesday morning after a 12 hour overnight bus ride from Oaxaca. The first half of the bus trip was through mountains with many curves and probably bus-plunge-drop-offs, which thankfully we couldn't see, even with the almost full moon illuminating the landscape. But trying to sleep was a whole other story.

The bus stops at 3:00am in Júchitan, about 20 miles north of the Pacific coast. It was steamy hot. A dozen dogs were sacked out in the dirt all around the little bus stop where they were serving a buffet dinner for the bus drivers and whatever passengers could rouse themselves from slumber. Stepping out of the cold air-conditioned bus into swamp-like humidity made me sneeze.

We had smooth sailing after Juchitan. I had the best possible sleep, head pillowed up against the window, stretched out across two seats. I awoke long enough at the stop in Tuxtla to wonder where we were, and fell back asleep until the sparkling lights of San Cristóbal appeared in the dark foggy valley as we came over the pass.

June is the rainy season. It's usually not too bad, with a few days of heavy rains or just some thunderstorms in the afternoons. But this year has been exceptionally wet and cold. It's hard to believe we were in the tropics hunting all over town for fleece jackets and sweaters.

B&B common living area with art from all
over Mexico

The sun came out full force on Saturday and we happened to be wandering around looking for a bookstore when I remembered that I had wanted to photograph Nancy and David Orr's Bed and Breakfast on some sunny day. I met Nancy for the first time in January, though we had corresponded a lot prior to that.

Last summer, in Los Alamos, I had organized a mole dinner to raise money for the Casa de las Flores school for street children. I sent the money to Nancy, who organized the remodeling of the defunct bathroom at the school. You can see the photos of the wonderful new bathroom at this link: CasaFloresBathroom

Nancy and David are the movers and shakers behind Amigos de San Cristóbal, a group of people, both expats and locals, who raise and donate money to worthy non-profit groups. They are very selective about who gets money, and none of the money is used for advertising or salaries. The group is what might be called an integrious United Way. For more information on the Amigos program, go to AmigosDeSanCristobal.

They also own one of the most popular B&Bs in San Cristobal, Casa Felipe Flores.

So Patty and I went over to meet Nancy. She graciously gave us free rein to walk through the property, climb up all the staircases, and photograph any room that was open. You can see from the photos why it's top rated. You might even want to come to San Cristóbal just to stay here!

Fairly typical bedroom at the B&B

One room is on the roof, this
is it's view!

Fully tiled bathrooms

Owner's outdoor living space

In the entrance patio

Wall of the entrance patio

Patio area for guests

Another beautiful guest room

Art everywhere

Kitchen and the chefs

Dining room

Oaxaca, Mexican Gem

Patty and I left Mexico city on a six-hour bus ride that stretched to eight hours because the bus went to the airport before leaving the city right at the "La Comida" hour when most people go home for lunch and a rest, ie rush-hour traffic.

I stayed in Oaxaca for a few days last year and had a great time in the city but a terrible tour of Monte Alban. (Click the link for that one!) Patty was getting sick the day of the bus ride and went downhill from there. She is a naturally thin person who doesn't eat when she feels bad (go figure!)  so she wasn't up for doing much exploring. After a couple of days though, she had energy and we took a tourista bus, not a tour, up to the ruins.

We were lucky with the weather which was was cool, breezy with clouds that came and went. We spent a full three hours in the ruins and more time in the small museum. We hired a young man with reasonably good English, after I grilled him thoroughly. Clemente had a degree in tour guiding. In Mexico, licensed guides have to know history, culture, languages, and a lot of psychology to make it as a tour guide and he turned out to be excellent.

Clemente gave us his version of the standing stelas which depict human beings in odd (and painful poses) as the Toltec version of a medical manual. Some had hunchbacks, deformed limbs, and mutilated genitals. One shows a woman giving birth to a breach baby. The bad guide said it was a woman giving birth to a God, but this man's version is that the stela was part of the group of medical anomalies, a Toltec Grey's Anatomy. Another theory is that the posers were all dead, or in the process of being tortured. From the expressions on the faces, I would think the latter. Since there are some existing icons of a written language that are not fully understood, I'm sure more information will emerge as studies progress.

Oaxaca is famous for its cuisine. Mole was invented by nuns who wanted to prepare something special for a visiting pope. Mole is a complex and sometimes day-long process of toasting seeds and spices, grinding, mashing, and frying various foods together to create a delicate and flavorful sauce. Many versions of mole exist. Now days there are mole stands in every market where you can buy a large glop of brown, red, or black mole paste, take it home, add water or tomato sauce, and violá, MOLE!

It is also an artistic community, something of interest to Patty who is an elementary art teacher. Weavers and stitchers are everywhere. Colorful rugs and embroidery fill the shops, along with carved wooden animals, blown glass, and pottery. Mexicans treat their whole world as an artistic canvas. The simplest plant in a pot can be an artistic achievement.

Inside the golden Santo Domingo Church

Agave

Cathedral, at the Zócalo

Santo Domingo Church

Ex-convento, next to the Santo Domingo Church,
now a cultural museum. The building is worth seeing,
and it houses all the gold jewelry found at Monte Alban.

More information:  Our guide, Clemente Perez can be contacted by email: clemerope@yahoo.com.mx
The tourist bus company is at 501 Mina. Or ask at the tourist information kiosk in the Zocalo, across from the Cathedral for a map and more information. Not all tours are terrible, but they all take you around to workshops and gift shops where I'm sure the company gets a kick-back. For more photos of this gorgeous city, see my previous post:  http://sherryhardagetravel.blogspot.mx/2012/04/big-mexico-oaxaca.html

Mexico: Teotihuacán

Pyramid of the Sun from the west side

In the previous post Teotihuacan was usurped by the more interesting religious icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe, but that's not to say that Teotihuacan isn't also fascinating.

It was started in approximately 100 years before Christ and according to our guide, the Pyramid of the Sun was completed in only 80 years. There was no written language to provide historical stories or dates like in most of the Mayan sites. For a long time it was attributed to the Toltecs,  but apparently that has now been tossed out. If you want to read more about it, there is a lot of good information at Teotihuacán

We explored the temple dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, a god who figured prominently in the Spanish Conquest. Since Teotihuacán means (in Nahuatl) the birthplace of the Gods, the Aztecs believed a story that Quetzalcoatl, a plumed and bearded serpent god, had gone off to the east and would return one day. Imagine their surprise (fear and trepidation) to be visited by an actual GOD when the Spaniards showed up with beards, in a boat with  wings, riding strange beasts, and coming from the east, the direction of Quetzalcoatl. It gave the Spaniards an edge they didn't even know they had.

Then we climbed the Pyramid of the Sun; not the tallest, or the biggest in Mexico, but certainly the most famous. It sits in an enormous plaza surrounded by smaller buildings and pyramids, as part of a large religious and commercial complex. It faces south and has an exact angle so that during the summer solstice, at noon, there are no shadows.

A portion of the city where people lived.

Then we walked the Avenue of the dead, where we saw the very few preserved murals. At one time every square inch of the complex was covered in deep red plaster, including the ground. Pieces of that thick plaster are visible everywhere, and in places, even the red color (and other colors) remain. It's been abandoned since the 8th century, and was eventually covered up with dirt and vegetation, though it never was lost to the jungle like most Mayan cities.

Patty climbed up the shorter staircase of the Pyramid of the Moon, at the far end of the Avenue of the Dead. But my knees were too shot to do it
. At that end, many buildings have been reconstructed, including an "office complex" where the business of the city was administrated. Most of the pyramids once had a structure on top that housed a god. Since those were usually wooden with a wood or palapa roof, they've long since disappeared.

What you rarely see in photos, due to the lack of drama, are the thousands of individual family homes. The city once had a population of 175,000 people. In the museum are models showing the extent of the city. Now, of course, other towns have been built on top. Like in Rome, just a few feet down, from the floor of any home, there is evidence of the previous occupants.

So here are a few photos of Teotihuacán, some you'll recognize, and some will be a surprise.

Evidence of colored plaster still in place

Interesting styling of the structures

Emerging serpent head on the pyramid to Quetzalcoatl

Plumed Serpent (Quetalcuatl) as it probably
looked in its day

Jaguar head

Another more stylized Jaguar

Pyramid of the Sun and further away, Pyramid of the Moon

Photo of me on top with the Pyramid
of the Moon in the distance

Pyramid of the Moon and the Avenue of the Dead

Avenue of the Dead

Rare surviving mural of a jaguar

Bucket List Knock-offs: Teotihuacan and Virgin of Guadalupe

It's difficult to visit Mexico and ignore the tremendous effects of religion on the culture and the individual lives of people.

Pyramid of the Sun as seen from the Quetzalcoatl pyramid.

On my bucket list, for many years, has been the Teotihuacan site, northeast of Mexico City, and the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Neither of which would have been built without the tremendous emotional power exerted by religion.

Teotihuacan was thought to have been built by the Aztecs. By the time I was 18 in Mexico for the first time, that theory had been revised and it was thought the Toltecs built it. Certainly the Olmecs, Mexico's "mother culture", were not responsible. But now, according to our quite knowledgeable guide, the archeologists have unearthed enough ceramic evidence that no one knows for sure who actually built it. However, the fact that these enormous pyramids, set at strategic places along an east-west axis avenue dedicated to the dead, were built at all, shows the power of religion.

The place where Don Diego showed the
Bishop the cloak with the Virgin's image.

And the whole story of the Virgin of Guadalupe held a few surprises for me, especially since I thought I already knew it. For one thing, in 1531, when the miracle of the Virgin's appearance happened, there were no roses in Mexico, they were yet to come to the new world from the old. (I thought it was because roses didn't bloom in December!) And the Virgin that appeared to Don Diego had a dark skinned faced, like his own indigenous people. That part I knew, but what I didn't know was that there was a previous dark faced Virgin of Guadalupe, from the Spanish region of Extremadura, and it was a virgin known to the Spaniards in the New World. When Don Diego met the bishop, outside of the town, purely by accident, and told him about the vision he had seen, the Bishop didn't believe him. But when he showed up with the roses, and then the image of the Virgin was miraculously on his cloak, the Bishop recognized the Virgin from the old country and became a believer.

A basilica was built near that spot, just as the Virgin had commanded. It stands today, tilting off to the east as the land beneath has subsided, and earthquakes have taken their tole. It was a bit un-nerving to be inside with the floor sloping dramatically and pillars tilting in several different directions.

A new basilica was built for the tens of thousands of pilgrims who come every year, and it holds about 10,000 people, packed. We went into it and there at the front was a golden frame around the original cloak. Mass is delivered daily, every hour from 9 in the morning till 7 in the evening. There were several thousand people inside the basilica when we arrived, many still crawling in on hands and knees.

The building has been designed to have a tunnel with an opening underneath the hanging madonna. People can go down into the tunnel where there are several moving walkways, like you often see in airports, going in both directions. You stand on the walkway and it slowly moves past the Madonna while you look up. This sacred object looks nothing like a cloak. It's quite squared off, and looks like a painting. I might have actually been more convinced if it had looked like something someone might wear. It does have marks though, where it had been folded for some time, just like the shroud of Turin.

Looking up at Don Diego's cloak,
now framed and venerated

After the basilica, we went into a gift shop across the street where a digitized photo of the original has been reproduced. And the right eye of the madonna has been further blown up so that you can look with a magnifying glass and see the pixelated (and blurry) image of a bearded man that is supposed to be Don Diego. The only problem with that is Don Diego was an Aztec, and not of mixed race. This whole event happened only ten years after the fall of Tenochititlan. Aztecs didn't have beards.

Patti, my companion, was raised Catholic (now lapsed). She brought over an information sheet that showed the Virgin's image deconstructed with all kinds of symbolism pointed out. For instance, the very evenly spaced stars on her cloak had been connected to look like certain constellations. My favorite Orion was one of them, but for the life of me, I could see no connection. It was drawn over the Virgin's image, but looking at the life-size digitized image, I couldn't find any points at all that corresponded to Orion. Ditto for the faintest shadows that supposedly represented King Solomon, and the list went on and on. I think if a person were a true believer, this kind of stuff might be fascinating and deepen the faith, but for a skeptic like me, it was just more proof that there are a lot of con artists out in the world.

Inside the new Basilica dedicated to the Virgin of Guadalupe

Down into the tunnel with
the moving walkways.

Science in the Cathedral: Mexico City

I'm back in Mexico. Staying at the moment in Mexico City with my friend Patti. She's a teacher and can't come on one of my scheduled tours during the winter, so she wanted to spend a few weeks going around with me, practicing her high school Spanish, and seeing new parts of Mexico. I could use more Mexico time and some exploration myself, since I want to expand my little tour business.

I haven't been to Mexico City in 42 years, since I spent the summer of 1971 in school, in Cholula, Puebla, a few hours south. I spent a week with my mother's cousin Peggy, who had lived here for 30 years at that time and still spoke Spanish with a thick Texan accent. She had a dozen dogs, mostly schnauzers, though unrecognizable as schnauzers since they were unshaven with floppy ears. And two parrots.

Jocko was an African Gray that had belonged to Peggy's parents and ended up with her because parrots tend to outlive their owners, especially when the owners are already elderly. And Pedro was a green bird from South America. Carmela the maid, only spoke Spanish, so she interacted with Pedro all the time, as he spoke Spanish too. So poor Jocko, who only spoke Texan, sat on his perch in the corner of the kitchen and slept. But every morning, Jocko would say, to the first man to enter the room, "Good Morning Ben". He never said it to a woman, and never said it at any other time than morning.

Pedro, on the other hand, could sing songs, had a mind of his own, was often stubborn, and was the only pet with a job. His job was to get on Peggy's stick in the morning, go with her outside where she put him on a stair railing. He would then climb, beak over feet up the rail, to the door of Carmela's apartment and call her name to get her up. When she was good and ready, she'd let him climb on her arm and she'd carry him back to the kitchen.

When Carmela was gone and Pedro was bored, he would get off his perch and go over to the edge of the kitchen counter. I watched as he leaned over, looked around, saw there were no dogs, and then he barked madly! From all over the house, dogs came running, ready to kill whatever strange dog was in the kitchen. That crazy parrot bobbed up and down like he was laughing. And the dogs were such living-in-the-moment creatures that Pedro could do this many times a day, they always came running.

But alas, Peggy is gone now, as are the parrots, Carmela and the dogs. Mexico City is unrecognizable to me, except for the basic locations of places like the National Archeology Museum, and the Zocalo.

Seismic equipment

Today, Patti and I walked down a long andador, a street closed off to cars. We had intended to see the cathedral, Templo Mayor, the Zocalo, and return to visit the Bellas Artes museum. The cathedral was interesting. A small parroquia, a parish church, was part of the complex, and in fact was much more beautiful, if not as dramatic as the cathedral itself. What struck both of us is how much the cathedral has tilted. The entire right side is canted, with all the pillars slanting right. And throughout the cathedral, metal rods are attached high on the pillars with a plumb line dropping straight down into a seismic reader, housed in a box to prevent anyone from bumping it.

Several readers are strategically placed beneath pillars, and in the very center, where a candelabra has been pulled off to the side, a pendulum hangs from the top of the dome, it's point only a millimeter or two from the floor. On the floor is a white drawing in stone, showing where the pendulum has swung over the centuries. Meanwhile, the pendulum is swaying right, then left, then in an oval shape, moving up to four inches in any direction, and it didn't quit moving. That cathedral is vibrating.

The eternally moving pendulum

Mexico is so prone to earthquakes, and it doesn't help at all that it was once an old lake bed. The cathedral and Templo Mayor (what is left of the once fabulous temple of the Aztecs) were built on what was once an island. Probably a water logged island, but still land above the usual water line. Now days, with drainage systems and deep foundations, water isn't as much an issue as the fact that clay soils tend to slide and wiggle in an earthquake. The entire former lake that is now Mexico City shakes like a big bowl of jello in a bad quake.

It's something I think about all the time I'm here. I wonder what slab of concrete is going to crash down on my head, or give out from under me as I sleep soundly in my hotel bed. I can't wait to get out of the airport as I can see the gray concrete roof and walls, knowing it could all come crashing down in just a few seconds under the wrong circumstances.

Through the door in the listing building. 

We passed by an open door on the way to Templo Mayor. The doorway led into a building that was leaning to the east about 10 degrees. Inside, it turned out to be an empty church, now used for artistic exhibitions. The floor tilted so badly, and the walls listed in such a way that it felt like those old 1950s fun-houses that were meant to disorient and terrify you. Looking up at the solid block ceiling, thinking thoughts like this place would have been condemned in the US - not used as an exhibition hall, and feeling myself inexorably pulled downhill on the unlevel floor, all I could think about was earthquakes. Suddenly there was a bang and a loud squeak came shooting out of my mouth. It was just a door closing, but it scared me something awful. Nothing to do but get the hell out of that place, it felt haunted!

The Traveler at Home: The Bond House Museum

Occasionally I go with my friend Rheta to Española, a city downhill from Los Alamos, for her chiropractor appointment. We love to eat at one of the best restaurants in all of New Mexico, El Paragua. The food is good northern New Mexico cuisine, unadulterated with fanciful presentations like slivers of chile draped artfully over a delicately sauced enchilada. (Sauce should never be drizzled over an enchilada, no matter how pretty it might look to a foreigner.)  It is old fashioned down-home cooking. Rich enchilada sauces, perfectly matched cheeses in abundance, tasty and sometimes hot green chile, shredded (not ground) beef inside the rolled tortillas, and sopapillas to write home about.

For those who have no idea, a sopapilla is a triangular bread that has been deep fried fast so it's not too greasy, used to scoop up food, or drenched with honey as dessert. As a kid I was required to eat one taco, then I could have all the sopapillas I wanted. Needless to say, it's one of my "soul-foods".

After sharing a luncheon steak smothered with chopped green chile and avocado, feasting on the best pinto beans and half a sopapilla each, we headed home. Rheta had picked up a brochure for the Bond House museum so we stopped there. Neither of us knew there was a museum in Española. WalMart, Lowes, a gambling casino, yes, but a museum?

What a delightful find.

Franklin Bond and later his brother, arrived in Española from Canada, when it was little more than a dirt railroad yard next to the Rio Grande. Some form of town had existed there for 300 years, but the early 1900s were the boom times. The Bonds became relatively wealthy as merchants. The home that now houses the museum is partly adobe. The original house had a flat roof. As children came along, they put a second story up and expanded ground floors.

The current exhibit in the museum documents the Arriería, the mule packers whose work kept the northern provinces of Mexico in luxury goods. Sheep were the big product in the 1700 and 1800s. Wool was sold in its natural state, but also, much of it was woven by locals artisans into blankets that became the trade goods. The aparejo packing system was a relatively new invention and was widely used in the southwest. The exhibit tells how it worked, and chronicled some scary adventures, including one loaded mule that fell off a cliff, landed in bushes, rolled off and landed on her feet!

The two people volunteering at the museum were Ron and Pat Rundstrom. They have been trying for several years to retire from their mule packing business, but the demand for their service is still high. Many people hire mule packers to haul equipment, food, and tools for long term assignments in remote deserts, forests, or at archaeological ruins. 

Another room in the house featured Española history. It documented the 400 years of off and on civilization in the valley, the economy, politics, and struggles of the Hispanic and indigenous people, and later the influx of Anglos before NM was made a part of the Union. 

The museum belongs to the city of Española and is free to the public. It's not very big, but you can't beat the price. Donations are gratefully accepted, and the volunteer operators were generous and helpful without being intrusive. It was a small oasis of history in the desert, well worth a visit if you're just passing by. 

The Traveler at Home: Wild Rivers

View from Big Arsenic Springs trailhead

In spite of much recent hullaballoo over the creation of the new Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, the old Wild Rivers Recreation Area hasn't bothered to change any signs to the new name, nor was the visitor's center open on Wednesday.

Derek, his white shepherd Sophie, and I drove from Taos up to Questa and turned onto the Wild River's road just a couple miles north. I had never been there before, though I've driven past the turn-off many times on my way to Colorado.

The Wild Rivers name refers to the Rio Grande and the Red River. The recreation area also encompasses some springs that cascade down the volcanic cliffs. The new National Monument contains all of the former Wild Rivers land and extends down the Rio Grande to Pilar and north to the Colorado border.

La Junta, the confluence of rivers

We drove out to the overlook and looked down into the deep canyon where the reddish brown Red River joins the Rio Grande. The clear blue waters of the Rio Grande come from melting snows in the Colorado Rockies. They meet in a long V shaped canyon where the Red River permanently colors the Colorado for the rest of its journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

From that plateau, we hiked down the Little Arsenic Springs trail on a series of steep switch-backs, dropping 780 feet in less than a mile. Derek is more than a foot taller than I, with most of his height in long legs. In ten minutes he was down off the cliff and on level ground.

I have an almost debilitating fear of heights which I constantly fight by doing things just like this. With a walking stick for balance, I carefully stepped down the switchbacks at a snail's pace. Sophie kept coming back up to check on me; having her people separated made her very nervous.

The wide Colorado River canyon features a number of flat shelves. Each one is an old river floor created during the last million years or so. As the climate warmed up, there was less ice to melt and therefore less water in the river. It cut down through each floor to reach a new level. Now it is several floors down and still cutting through the hard basalt rock laid down by nearby volcanos. The cones of those volcanos dot the broad plateau on which Taos and Questa sit.

From the trail, about half way down, the stair step plateaus

At the very bottom of the canyon where the river is just a few feet lower than the trail, we walked on sand for about a third of a mile to the Little Arsenic Springs. Pouring out of cracks in the basalt, high up on the cliff, is a gush of fresh water. It cascades over boulders into the Rio Grande. In small pools and level areas, a plant that resembles water cress grows, along with cat tails and Mormon tea.

Derek proposed following the trail over to Big Arsenic Springs. I felt too ill prepared to tackle that hike. I had no jacket and the weather was changing with a strong wind. I hadn't brought my little pack with emergency gear like a space blanket, flashlight, gloves, etc, and I was wearing Teva sandals without socks. He had been over there before but I really had no idea how long the entire hike would take once we got back up to the top. We would still have to walk a long ways to get back to his truck.

Trail at the bottom of the canyon, where tall
Ponderosas grow

So we decided, and I know it's never a good idea to do this, to split up. I would take the keys and easily make it back to the truck before he and Sophie could get to the top. I would drive over to the other trailhead and wait for them.

The best laid plans......

On my way back, I enjoyed the very cool breezes, took many opportunities to look at the few spring flowers and insects, and to take more pictures. Then a voice said HELLO. I almost jumped out of my skin.

Coming down the trail above me was a young man with a pack and fishing pole. We chatted a bit. Mike was on a cross country trip from Chicago. An interesting fellow, he and friends had traveled the world already, and he was trying to figure out what to do next. A long road trip seemed like a good idea, much more interesting than getting a job and putting down roots. But, he lamented the lack of money in such a life, hence he had been camping the whole way.

He asked if the truck up on the mesa was mine and I told him no, I would be driving it over to pick up Derek at the other trail head.

The blue Rio Grande 

Meanwhile, Derek had decided to do a shortcut across a boulder field. With his long legs he could climb over the rocks, but Sophie had trouble. She put her paws up but would not even try to jump onto a boulder that was taller than she was. Derek had to lift her and sometimes carry her. Finally he gave up, recrossed the part of the boulder field they'd come through, and hiked up the trail we'd both come down. They were pretty exhausted when Mike met them. He told Derek that he knew I would be at the other trailhead. Derek nodded. So Mike put his jeep keys into Derek's hand and said, "Take my jeep over to meet her, just put it back in the same spot and leave the keys under the right tire." What a guy!

Back at the Big Arsenic Springs trailhead, Derek and Sophie were nowhere to be seen. I even hiked down the trail for a ways to look over the cliff at the switchbacks. Nobody was down there. I was just getting into the truck to go check out the other trailheads when a little black jeep with a man and a white dog came roaring up.

I followed Derek as he returned the jeep and left a thank-you note with twenty bucks for that generous and incredibly trusting young man. I'm not sure I would have given a complete stranger the keys to my vehicle with all my food, camping gear, and phone!!

A small herd of deer wandered by while I waited. They
sure do melt into the scenery with that buff coloring.

Nice colorful formation on the trail

For a map of the new National Monument, go to this webpage: DelNorte

A 3-D map of  northern New Mexico
 in the patio of the visitor's center

Close-up of the confluence of the two rivers