Today may have been our best day in Mexico and a great way to end our trip.  Andrew and his new girlfriend Elizabeth arrived late last night for a two week vacation together.  When I was last in Mexico City many years ago I stayed with a Mexican family that are friends of my parents.  They took me to Xochimilco, a weekend tradition for Mexico City dwellers.  I thought it would be fun to go back with the 4 of us.  Basically,  originally this whole area was a huge lake and the Aztecs created a huge system of canals and raised areas between them where they grew crops.  The lake and most of the canals have disappeared due to the existence of Mexico City but the bit that remains, now a Unesco Heritage site,  is in Xochimilco south of the city.  Mexicans go there on the weekend and rent these brightly colored long boats that are propelled much like gondolas to float on the canals and party.  You get a big bucket of beers and soda,  most of these boats are filled with huge families, roasting food on little barbecues and some have hired full mariachi or norteno bands for the voyage.  Either way, the whole time you are travelling, among hundreds of other long boats,  boats approach you to sell crafts or food, or boats full of musicians come up against your boat to ask if you want a serenade for a price.  You may have a boat with a marimba band, another with a norteno band, or a mariachi band etc.  We drifted for several hours, past houses,  areas where they are growing the majority of the city's flowers, saw one of the endangered prehispanic dogs on the banks of the river (a hairless black dog that is very beautiful and looks Egyptian some how) and passed hilarious families, some doing crazy dances.  We also had a couple bands serenade us of course.  A song called Volver Volver and another Las Mujeres Divinas (the divine women,  dedicated to Lucie and Elizabeth).  Afterwards we went to the center of Xochimilco, visited the church and looked for restaurant which was difficult on a Sunday.  Eventually we found one and waited in line to get in.  It ended up being great.  Lucie´had her best mole sauce of the entire trip.  Andrew had a chile relleno stuffed with Huitlacoche, a delicious fungus that grows on corn,  and covered in a squash flower sauce.  After lunch we headed to a museum in Xochimilco called Museo Dolores Olmedo that houses a huge collection of Diego Rivera and some of Kahlo´s most compelling paintings.  I had barely heard of it but it is now perhaps my favorite Mexican museum.  The grounds were once the estate of Dolores Olmedo, one of Rivera´s favorite models.  The grounds were stunningly beautiful, gigantic and full of scores and scores of peacocks.  The rooms housing both paintings and a huge collection of prehispanic artefacts would be worth visiting even if the art was horrible.  But the art was great.  And there was a Day of the Dead temporary exhibit which was wonderful too.  After making our way back to Coyoacan we decided to splurge on a fancy meal at an upscale restaurant  that also makes and distributes a line of mezcal.  Our waiter was super amused at our questions and surprise about the ingredients in the food so he was always bringing out stuff for us to try, like salted crickets which were actually delicious.  Lucie particularly liked these.  We had a great salad, the greens grown on the raised areas, organically, between the canals we had just visited.  Then I had tuna with a pistachio crust, and an Aztec anis-flavored sauce.  Lucie had octopus, crab, clam, shrimp rice stew.  Andrew and Elizabeth had tuna with a habanero sauce.  Lastly we splurged on mezcal cocktails.  I had one called the Heart of Maguey.  Maguey is the cactus that mezcal comes from.  It was cucumber, lime and mezcal that makes this intensely green drink.  The rim is lined with a bright red salt, made from worms that live on this cactus, chili, lime and salt.  Beautiful presentation.  The drink is very cooling and mellow, the salt very spicy and intense.  Lucie had a mezcal that had shaved coconut and cinammon which was almost like a dessert.  Fantastic day all and all.

Today we took a taxi to San Angel, the neighboring neighborhood, because every saturday the ´plazas are filled with art and because they have several good brunch options.  We both prefer San Angel to Coyoacan. It seems to have more tiny cobblestone streets, more flowering plants, old trees, and interesting very old houses.  We had a great brunch.  Mexicans love juices for brunch.  Lucie had some sort of tropical fruit blend and I had something called a revitalizer that had apple, spinach, celery and berries.  It was amazing.  Then we walked through several craft bazaars and by the San Angel Inn, the place where Pancho Villa and Zapata agreed who would control which part of Mexico during the revolution.  Ended up at Diego Rivera's studio which is connected by a 2nd story walkway to the adjoining building which is Frida Kahlos studio.  After we returned to Coyoacan, we walked down to Trotskys house and garden which was both of our favorite of the three museums (though all three are really interesting).  This is the house where he was murdered by ice pick, after a failed attempt by the muralist and Stalinist, Siqueiros.  The place is riddled with bullets from that first attempt.  The best part is looking through his bookcases, at his old dictophone that recorded his words on wax cylinders, and all the photographs.

Our time in Tepoztlan was definitely the most laid back and tranquilo of our trip.  We head back today to D.F. We decided to spend our last 3 nights in Coyoacan, the southern neighborhood of Mexico City that used to be its own town, where Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky all lived.  After settling in,  we walked over the Kahlos house, now a museum and then down to the main plazas to stroll around and eat ice cream.   

Today was our day to hike up to the pyramid.  Fortunately Lucie is feeling mostly recuperated because looking at the pyramid from town makes it seem impossible that you can walk to it.  First we ate at a cool restaurant surrounded by jungle on the path towards the pyramid.  Then we did a 1 hour gorgeous and grueling and steep hike up.  The pyramid, dedicated to the god of fertility and pulque (the creamy fermented extract of cactus that was drunk by the nobles), was quite damaged by the Spanish but the views were amazing with lots of hawks circling near the cliffsides and 25-30 coatimundi running around at the top.  I had only seen one or two before when I lived in Costa Rica.  I had no idea there were wild ones in Mexico.  Upon our descent we went to a little hole in the wall place and tried pulque, first straight and then mixed with pineapple juice.  That night, and every night until Christmas, the church handed out sweets to the children. So hundreds of adults and children would line up around the church, around the edges of the churches courtyard, and fill the interior waiting for the delivery of the sweets.

We checked out the large food and crafts market today.  Lots of people selling squares of moss growing on sod,  or the type of moss that hangs from tree branches, that people use to make home Nativity scenes.  Lucie found a spa where she had cacao-therapy, where they scrubbed her body with some sort of cacao-based abrasive and then used some sort of cacao-based cream for a massage and a facial.  she smelled pretty delicious all day.  Had the best sopes and chile rellenos of the trip here and some great quesadillas at a street vendor too.  The wall and archway to the main church has a large seed mural on it.  Basically, every year in September seeds are gathered and they make a huge mural using various ones, always with a pre-hispanic indigenous theme.  Im impressed with how little antagonism there is between Mexicans Christian and indigenous native heritages.  The Aztec seed mural and the church coexist, much as when we exited the church in Guanajuato during the Virgen of Guadalupe festival, there was a prominent performance of Aztec style dancers with full feathered regalia and shells around their ankles. 

Unlike the ride to Guanajuato, the ride to Tepoztlan is very scenic, with lush hills and cliffsides all around.  The town has a well preserved historic center, surrounded by beautiful verdant cliffs.  It is known for its great crafts market, delicious restaurants and for an impressively located Aztec pyramid.  It also is retaining its indigenous traditions better than most places.  It couldnt be more different than Mexico City or Guanajuato.  By far, we stayed in our nicest hotel here, with the best room and an amazing balcony patio with an unobstructed view of the cliffsides and the pyramid, perched way up there at the top.  The hotel has a dog, a duck,  some tropical birds, and from our balcony we can see many more dogs perched on various roofs nearby.  At night we hear an occasional rooster,  the banter of goats, and the moaning of cats in heat.  The town is famous for its ice creams though they are more like ices than creams.  very interesting flavors.  i had one that had three types of chocolate, rose petals and gardenia, and another with mezcal and fig.  The town attracts Mexican hippies because of the Aztec history and the pyramid.  Thus there are places to have your aura photographed or to eat an ayurvedic buffet.  but more or less, it feels like a typical Mexican pueblo in an atypically beautiful location.  The tourists are more conspicuous here because the place is smaller but there arent a ton of them, probably partly because we are here midweek.

Lucie caught a head cold yesterday but we seem to be keeping it at bay with lots of herbs.  Today we headed back to Mexico City for one night.  We decided to stay in a little nicer of a place, Casa Gonzalez on the edge of Zona Rosa, for Lucie to recuperate.  The rooms are nothing special but you are staying a place with a great courtyard and beautiful place to eat breakfast, essentially a large home that has been hosting people for 100 years.  Zona Rosa, at least the little we walked through, seems bland compared to much of what we´ve done so far, though it does seem to have a preponderance of food carts that looked delicious.  We walked to another neighborhood nearby, Roma, to eat at Contremar a seafood place recommended by a friend of Mimi (they went to food school together at NYU) who is from Mexico City.  The seafood was incredible.  I had tuna marinated in a parsley-chili sauce and Lucie had jack-fish with wild mushrooms.  Breakfast at Casa Gonzalez was also delicious and after a lazy morning we headed to the south bus terminal to head to Tepoztlan, the birthplace of Quetzalcoatl.

Today is our 5th wedding anniversary.  Wow time flies!  It is also St. Lucie day so Lucie received many greetings by email today from France.  We started the day at the Diego Rivera museum which was a mixed bag.  It did have several pieces I love,  a cubist piece from his time living in Paris,  a nude of Kahlo, a self-portrait, and tons of the pre-hispanic watercolors that I really enjoy.  Later we went to a part of town where the streets are so narrow that the balconies on either side almost touch.  They have a Romeo and Juliet-like legend concerning the two families who lived on either side.  And the superstition that if you kissed on the third step, just below the tightest space between the balconies, you would get 15 years good luck.  We kissed four times.  One of the things that Guanajuato is famous for is its Mummy museum.  Do to some odd condition of the soil in their cemetery, many of the bodies are mummified.  They started discovering this in the 17th century when they disenterred bodies to make room for more there.  Now they have 130 or so mummies still wearing tattered clothes,  from little newborns, to adults.  Very creepy.  The fact that this mummification happens is fascinating but the museum felt more like a cheap amusement park, with captions that were not very respectful of its subjects.  If you don´t want to end up a mummy in a museum, don´t get buried in Guanajuato. 

That even we ate in a quiet plaza and were serenaded by a troubador, who looked like an eldery pharmacist in a cowboy hat.  Yesterday we were serenaded by one who looked like one of Pancho Villa´s gang,  with the largest bushiest moustache ever, who on request, sang about France and its beautiful women.  Seemed right out of an old western,  Who Shot Liberty Valance or Rio Bravo.  After dinner we went to the French film festival and saw a movie called "LOL@" with Sophie Marceau.  I was reading Spanish subtitles and listening to French but actually managed to follow the movie.

After a Gorditas reprise breakfast we decided to see if the church way up the mountainside, dedicated to the Virgen of Guadalupe, would be full of festivity for this big holiday, even if Guanajuato was not known for being a special location for this holiday.  There is a Guadalupe street that snakes its way, a long way up a hillside to the church.  On most days there is nothing remarkable about the street.  But as we approached its beginning near the steps to the University we knew we were in for something special.  Thousands of people were descending and ascending this tiny street.  Grandmothers, children, swaddled newborns,  little boys dressed in strawhats, their faces with painted on moustaches,  girls in beautiful dresses,  both children and adults carrying offerings for the Virgen,  often a basket full of radishes, eggs, bananas, melons or a large bouquet of flowers.  On either side of you as you climbed the street were food stalls set up for this very pilgrimage,  selling every food imaginable,  and places where kids could get their pictures taken in their costumes, atop fake horses.  Despite how many people were moving through a very small space for a very long time the vibe was peaceful and calm and wonderful.  When we reached the church there was a throng of people amassed on its staircase waiting to slowly move into the church through the gate to its courtyard.  Others surrounded a group of people dancing, one person dressed as a bull, another as a cowboy,  another jumped in dressed as a devil later, all wearing costumes that made them look part human part marionette.  As we made our way through the gates of the church into the courtyard there was a brass band playing in the courtyard, serenading us as we slowly made our way inside the sanctuary (as others way ahead of us left their offerings and exiting near the front).  The place was packed and there was another group of musicians playing from the balcony.  The priest at the front was conducting a ceremony which was interesting since his audience, while always packing the church full, was completely different every 20 minutes or so.  People left their flowers in a huge gorgeous pile at the altar and there was a room where people left their foodstuff offerings.  The whole thing was very moving and I can´t describe it well with words but it brought Lucie to tears.  Much of the rest of the morning we slowly descended the same street,  gettng a dessert gordita on the way down......

Forgot to mention that before we left Mexico City we ate breakfast at El Cardenal, the favored spot of politicians and businessmen.  We waited forever squeezed between grey and blue suited very-important-people but had a great time once there.  fresh squeezed mandarin orange juice,  hot chocolate served steaming out of clay pitchers and hot out of the oven pastries preceded our breakfast.  Mine wasnt so memorable but lucie had a mushroom omelette wrapped in squash flowers, topped with Oaxacan cheese and accompanied by a kick ass tamale.  That said,  our best breakfast and perhaps our best meal on the trip was our first (and second) breakfast in Guanajuato,  a Gorditas street vendor.  Gorditas are very thick corn tortillas hot off the griddle, opened on one side and filled with various items.  Lucie had one filled with nopal cactus, cheese, and salsa, another with garbanzo.  I had an egg one and a potato and cheese one.  Amazing.  Kept coming back for more and sitting on the sidewalk in a patch of sun drinking fresh squeezed orange juice and gorging on gorditas among a throng of Mexican students.

Guanajuato is famous as the place where the revolution began (here and Dolores Hidalgo, being the birthplace of Diego Rivera, and as having one of the largest Cervantes festivals in the world.  There are statues of Quixote and his faithful squire, and a museum dedicated solely to depictions of them throughout the ages--unknown artists to famous ones like Dali and Posada (and including household items with a Quixote theme--ash trays, spoons etc.

I don´t know if this town is crazy because of the upcoming Virgen of Guadalupe holiday or Christmas or if it is always like this but the place is crazy, and full of competing and contrasting moods every twenty feet.  Church bells ringing,  fireworks exploding, troubadors singing, mariachi trumpets trumpeting,  loudspeakers blaring a good sale on shoes,  if one sound was off putting you could walk a little further and you would hear something else.  Or you would suddenly find yourself in the most tranquil plaza, full of birds and silence.  The churches seemed to be open all the time,  and we sat in during a wedding and a mass.  We climbed to the statue called La Pipila to get a view,  a harder climb up than the pyramids, can´t imagine the people who live up these streets! 

There is an old tradition here at night, dating back to the Spanish of a group of musicians leading people singing through the streets at night, and on special occasions they bring a donkey carrying sacks of wine.  It felt a little too contrived for us, unlike the rest of the music we hear by chance here, so we didn´t go along.

One of the biggest misconceptions about Mexico I have found is regarding the buses.  People imagine rickety old school buses with chickens running between the seats and with each seat harboring multiple people but they are actually the nicest buses ever.  Lucie even said they were better than the buses in Japan.  They are certainly better than any we have in the U.S.  Tons of leg room, reclining seats,  given snacks and water,  headphones for music and movies and two bathrooms.  Not bad.  The route to Guanajuato was quite boring and unremarkable.  It took us about 5 hours because of a stop in Salamanca on the way.  The town itself, however, is stunning.  Crammed densely into a steep valley, and spilling up both sides of it, it is brimming with festive activity.  About the size of Boulder it is the home to the country´s most famous University for art and music.  At one point this city produced 25% of the world´s silver (for 250 years) and that wealth has left many many gorgeous colonial buildings and plazas.  And there are very few foreign tourists here.  Overwhelmingly, say 90%, of the tourists are Mexican.  The smattering of foreign tourists seem to be either American or French oddly.  And we are here during the ¨France in Mexico¨film festival where they are showing French films preceded by a Mexican short.  Because of the strange geography of the town there are 8 long tunnels that bisect the city from below.  But because the topography is so varied from one place to the next it isn´t always below.  Sometimes you see cars emerging from tunnels from the window of your restaurant or you look down a pedestrain staircase to see cars passing by beneath you.  Our hotel is in the more pedestrian part of the city center (almost all of the city on the hillsides is pedestrian with tiny cobblestone alleyways and quiet plazas)and looks like an old monastery with the 3 stories of rooms circling an interior courtyard or cloister.  We walked from there to the main plaza and the city slowly revealed itself (it is hard when in the city center to get much perspective except by moving).  Walking past several small churches and plazas to arrive at the Teatro Juarez and the main plaza, Jardin de la Union,  the state of Guanajuato state band was playing in the Pavillion in its center.  The plaza itself is magical with trees whose bough hang horizontally at about 7 feet height so that you are walking around the plaza with greenery right above your head.  Mariachi bands and solo troubadours in large cowboy hats smoked on the bench or waited in groups for the brass band to end.  Mexican students hung out on the steps of the theater,  and people were eating at the various outside cafes.  Great welcome to the city.

Today is our last day in Mexico City before we head north to Guanajuato.  It is kind of hard to leave but we´ve decided to save some of our explorations here until we return from the highlands.  Today we went to the Basilica of the Virgen of Guadalupe which was quite an experience, especially leading up to her big day on the 12th.  There were pilgrims walking the final 100 yards towards the basilica on their knees, clutching a sick child, or praying for some unknown miracle.  Their were roaming brassbands,  deafening fireworks,  multiple religious ceremonies in various churches and temples,  preachers, nuns on pilgrimige, color coordinated church groups in Virgin t'shirts and matching track suits etc.  I never knew the complex was so large with cascading waterfalls,  multiple holy sites, a museum and a gigantic plaza.  My parents are in Puerto Vallarta to see the same celebration there.

Today was a big museum day.  We took the metro to Chapultepec park and went to the Museum of Modern Art to see the exhibit on Remedios Varos as well as see Kahlo´s most famous painting and walk through the sculpture garden.  We then walked through the botanical garden (mostly cacti, many flowering) and past a Leonara Carrington sculpture of a bronze bell shaped like an evil rabbit (Carrington is one of Lucie´s favorite writers) and went to the Anthropology museum.  We spent perhaps 3 or 4 hours there and probably only tackled a third or half of the museum, focusing mostly on the Mayans, Teotihuacan, and the tribes of the Mexican north.  Afterwards we walked through Polanco, the wealthy neighborhood north of the park, that felt more like La Jolla in California, than Mexico. 

I don´t know if it is because of the time of year,  the swine flu scare of last spring,  the escalating drug war violence in Mexico along the American border or something else but the tourist presence here is infintesitmal.  We love it.  Everywhere we go to eat we are often the only tourists and it seems mostly like Mexican tourists everywhere.  This trip is my first experience with the Mexico City subway system.  With the horrible traffic here it is a great way to get around.  Clean, efficient and easy to use.  We took it today to the north bus station where we took a bus to Teotihuacan, the 2000 year old pyramids north of town that I first visited on my first foreign trip, with my family in the mid-1980s.  The origin of these pyramids is mostly unknown and poorly understood.  There are carvings there from many different peoples, Mayans,  Cuilcuicos, Toltecs,  Zapotecs, all from different parts of the country.  The Aztec rediscovered the place 1000 years later and much of it was destroyed for some unknown reason.  Still, while there are very few carvings left on the pyramids themselves they are quite impressive in size (3rd largest in world). 

Started our day off at Cafe Popular.  Well named it had a line out the front door and quite a wait.  We both had eggs a la mexicana, meaning scrambled with tomato, onion, and pepper.  Comes with papaya, watermelon and canteloupe,  a cup of coffee,  a side of refried beans and a stack of hot tortillas.  Later we went to do Zocalo and visited the cathedral where mass was happening and then the National Palace to see one of Diego Riveras most famous murals (and one of my favorites).  We hired a guide there who spent an hour explaining the huge mural that circles half the courtyard and staircase.  Hernan Cortes built the Palace over Moctezuma´s house and the cathedral was built over the main Aztec temple.  Because the entire city was built over what used to be a lake, it is sinking at an incredible rate, something like 6mm a month.  Thus all the buildings are crooked, with cracking foundations. 

Afterwards we went to a juice bar and had a pineapple, lemon, honey, orange juice and then walked through Alameda park which was full of food vendors, lovers entangled under trees,  fountains,  salsa dancers, etc.  We ended up at the Palace of Fine Arts which looks very much like Opera Garnier in Paris.  We looked at the murals by Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, Tamayo etc.  I´ve taken tons of photos but won´t be uploading them until I get home.  After the Palace we went to a museum that was built over another Diego Rivera mural, where they were having a violin/piano duet, playing in front of the mural.  The day was topped off with some enchiladas with mole sauce and garlic soup and a stop at the local ice cream shop.  It is fun showing Lucie Latin America for the first time.  Her Spanish is coming quickly.  I´m relieved that mine is coming back really well.  When I was first learning French and I went to Spain with Lucie and Jean-Jacques and Christine and Thomas I was completely tongue-tied which made me fear that as I learned French it would canabilize my Spanish, word by word.  But after several days here that dormant part of my brain has reawakened.  Anyways,  Lucie is really enjoying the food, particularly the ice cream which she says is almost as good as that in Italy.  Mango-chili is the most exotic flavor we´ve tried so far.  Hazelnut and Pistachio were also great.

After many trips to Europe, flying to Mexico City seemed super quick.  Especially since we are mostly flying north/south and thus have little jet lag.  We arrived as the sun was setting and took a taxi into town and went to Hotel Rioja, a budget hotel between the Zocalo and the Palace of Fine Arts.  It is the perfect hotel location wise but it is quite nosy at night particularly on the weekend.  After a night of adjusting we´ve slept great since however.  The historical city center is brimming with people night and day.  Im guessing this is mostly related to all the festivities that happen leading up to December 12th, the Day of the Virgen of Guadalupe.  Either way, it is really great.  Lots of musicians and clowns and street performers and bands playing on pedestrian streets with people of all ages dancing around.  The Zocalo, the gigantic plaza in the city center is full of Christmas activities, a huge ice slide,  a snow man making center (they are using plastic molds that they stuff with crushed ice), a big ice rink,  lots of fireworks etc.  All the buildings surrounding the square are lit up with Christmas motifs.  We didn´t do much our first night except go to a restaurant called Cafe de Tacuba which is absolutely gorgeous inside.  Iron wrought staircases,  mexican tile,  high arched ceilings and a roming group of six men singing and playing guitar.  The tamales were the best we´ve had so far.

Laura went with us to the Seattle Art Museum while Ben taught his class.  We went to the Calder and Michelangelo exhibits both of which were great.  Particularly the movie of Calder's "circus" performances in Paris, and a note from Michelangelo to one of the illiterate quarry workers asking for food where he had to sketch out the various food items to make it understandable.  We then wandered through the fish market and then bid Laura and Ben farewell.  They headed back to Portland in order to catch a plane the next day to Brazil, where they will be for a couple months.

Here are some dresses we saw in a store window, made out of candy (red vines,  peppermints etc.)

We stayed at the Moore Hotel downtown and spent most of the weekend eating at places recommended by Adam and Mimi.  An amazing French bistro called Le Pichet,  a delicious pizza place similar to Ken's Artisan Pizza, called Serious Pie and a brunch place of our own discovery called Macrina (which we ate at twice).  Here is Ben the morning after about to devour a very delicious waffle,  just before heading back to the Hugo House to teach a 3 hour class.  I had beet-carrot latkes with eggs over easy and apple chutney. 

We took a road trip to Seattle this weekend to see Ben's literary reading/performance at the Hugo House.  The Hugo House houses a reading series,  has classes,  a cafe,  and a large theater space.  They asked Ben to write something original for the event that also included a singer-songwriter,  a storyteller and a poet.  The talent was top-notch,  the place had a funky, celebratory vibe (serving everything from jello shots to matzoh ball soup) and Ben rocked.  The several hundred people there were captivated.  And how can you complain if you leave with a Ben Parzybok trading card in your possession?

Lucie and Mimi went out for dim sum today.  I've never done dim sum in Portland.  Lucie was impressed with the food so I'm suspecting I will be trying it here soon......