And A Little Child Shall Lead You! Cuetzalan, Puebla

This weekend, as is my wont, I ran away to a place where I could freeze my ass off even more successfully than I do in Mexico City. Reading descriptions of Cuetzalan, it sounded like a muggy place where my clothes would stick to me (in a pleasant way), and I would find the need for one of my new bathing suits. Alas, even in Mexico, at high altitudes muggy turns to bone-chilling dampness in November. And hotel rooms that look bright and cheery in pictures can be rather dank in real life. Nonetheless, I had an absolutely wonderful time. Even better once I invested in a sweatshirt lined with shiny fake fur.

In a day and a half, I hit just about all the sights that Cuetzalan had to offer. I stuck around my hotel room on Saturday morning, attempting to study for finals and hoping the chipis chipis (incessant misting rain) would dry up. Around 11, I realized that the mist was simply a fact of life, and headed up to the caves in Pahpalapan, about a 10 minute ride straight up from the center of town. I picked one of the worst moments to go riding around in the back of a pick up truck—a wet, muddy, mountainous road with hairpin turns on a misty day.

The cave tour consisted of spending about an hour and a half trudging through a wet creek bed in the bottom of the cave, looking at stalagmites and anti-stalagmites. My camera screen quit working, so most of my pictures didn’t turn out very well. Our intrepid guide (who I was afraid might be dying of tuberculosis by the coughs that interrupted his explanations) obviously had a lot more experience than the rest of us at crawling up and down slippery rocks.

He led us to the farthest point that could be reached in the cave in a pair of ancient sandals, the kind most indigenous men wear here, that basically are a large piece of leather bound to the bottom of the foot with a few leather strings. Rather than explaining anything geological in detail (which admittedly, would have been boring), he shined the flashlight on various formations and related his own personal ideas of what they looked like—among others, we saw what the guide was convinced were formations shaped like a Buddha, an Olmec colossal head, a jaguar, a soldier, an old woman, a fat woman, a seated woman, and a young woman, a crocodile, a frog head, and a snarling dog. The only one I found puzzling was the frog head—I think it’s because my own limited imagination makes it difficult for me to picture where the frog’s head cuts off from the rest of the body. Where is the frog neck?


Having escaped from the cave without breaking my neck or cracking my skull open, I decided to head down to the other side of town to see the waterfalls. On the cave tour I met a couple girls from Puebla named Gaby and Lu, and they decided to go to the waterfalls with me. By then, we were all covered in mud and soaking wet, so no more harm could be done. Lu even tried to convince us to swim out to the waterfall, but halfway in, we realized it was actually freezing.

Strangely, though I was the only non-Mexican, I ended up being the person nominated to figure out where we were going. Most instructions in small villages in Mexico end up sounding like incantations. Our combi driver told me, “I will drive you to a corner where trucks will be waiting. Before boarding one of these trucks, you should look down the street where children will be waiting. You should choose one of these children to guide you. I would not recommend going alone—the way is hidden, and the path is steep and slippery.”

So we got dropped off by the pick-up trucks to San Andres Tzicuilan, and started asking around for a guide. (yes, another pickup truck on a mountain road in the rain) A 17-year old appeared out of the woodwork with an old creased brochure picturing the sightes of Cuetzalan, and offered to take us to the falls for 50 pesos a person. Luckily, he was old enough that I didn’t have to sit around having deep thoughts about ethics and child labor, and I could just lean back and listen to the people chatting in Nahuatl to each other in the back of the truck on the way to Tzicuilan. All of my Nahuatl started coming back!! A most exciting experience. The falls were totally worth it, and I emerged victorious again, not having fallen off the mountain or broken a leg on the muddy descent.


The town of Cuetzalan was full of things to look at as well. Indigenous people come into the restaurants selling things, which some people find annoying, but I always enjoy it. Especially with the rather bizarre variety some offered. Most people sold key chains, hand embroidered napkins, woven rebozos, but my favorite was an old blind man who came in and offered me coffee. When I told him I had no need for already ground coffee, he offered me black pepper. Again, I turned him down. Next, he offered me pine nuts. Finally, after I had turned down about 17 varieties of dried goods, I gave him some change and went on eating breakfast. Everyone was dancing in Cuetzalan—at my hotel, La Danza de los Huahuas


And in the church more dancers






And a market on Sunday

Day of the Dead II: La Calavera Tiene Hambre

Halloween caught on quickly in the 19th century in Mexico, and for good reason--it means Day of the Dead festivities can start a few days early. And even better for children, it means trick-or-treating can go on for three days in a row. On the day of Halloween, my mom and I found ourselves in Taxco, where not only did children wander the central park trick or treating on the 31st, the 1st and the 2nd, but they hit all the bakeries in town. Wandering into a bakery in the evening to get my daily requisite pan dulce, I was suddenly surrounded by 15 children chanting this:

La Calavera tiene hambre
no hay un huesito por ahí
no se lo coman todo
déjenos la mitad.

La calavera quiere cenar
Cinco de dulce,
Cinco de sal.

(Loose translation: The skull is hungry, isn't there a little bone there? Don't eat everything, leave us half. The skull wants to have dinner--five sweet ones, five salty ones.)

I thought surely the baker lady would send them all packing with a quick scold for disrupting business. Instead, she pulled out the tongs, and gave each trick-or-treater a nice sized pan de muerto. Most of the costumes I saw warranted pounds of candy. In Taxco, an entire high school class dressed as various dead characters, creating a living ofrenda.



And in Coyoacan (Mexico, D.F.), children dressed as horror movie characters


or aliens


and waited patiently for passers by to take their pictures, and give then some sweets for their trouble.

Day of the Dead I: Ofrendas

I have been remiss in not posting about day of the dead--one of the best reasons to visit Mexico in the beginning of November. Near the end of October, you start seeing offerings everywhere--in museums, hotels, parks, restaurants. And of course, on the big day, in the cemeteries. Ofrendas have all the good things your dead loved ones appreciated: corn and candies, tequila and orange soda. A lot of people also cook some delicious dishes for their friends in the afterlife--which is why some offerings start to stink after sitting around for a while--like this one, done by artesans that sell in the market in Coyoacan.



Lots of offerings depict life-size dead people--skeletons, of course--doing all sorts of things. Like painting, with a dead model, too.



Riding dead horses...



Playing music...



And cooking...



Public offerings are sometimes big and intimate at the same time, like this one, to the artist's parents...


But they are almost always big. Here is one of many offerings around the city I saw to Diego Rivera. This one was at Anahuacalli, the museum he built to house his pre-Columbian art...



And finally, in Coyoacan, one for Mercedes Sosa, who died earlier this year. This was my favorite...



She will not be forgotten...

Dog School

One of my favorite places in the city is the Parque México. It is quiet, and lush, and two blocks from my apartment. I find myself wandering through the park almost every day--jogging (rare) or on my way out to eat (common). The only thing better than people watching on the weekend in the Parque México is dog watching on the weekdays. This is partly because I miss my own dog. But really, I think this quantity of well-behaved dogs all in one place should be counted among the great Mexican marvels. Mexicans are always complaining to me about a lack of discipline they feel exists in their culture, but this is certainly not the case for the dogs at the Condesa dog school.

I can walk by with raw steaks dripping raw steak juice all over the sidewalk, and the dogs remain nonplussed, waiting patiently to be singled out by the diligent trainers for a new trick.



My favorite trick that they teach dogs at the Condesa dog school is the "chest to the ground" trick. When the trainer yells "chest to the ground!" the dog immediately begins to scuttle along, its chest brushing the ground, as if it's completing the last leg (the tunnel, by far the most difficult) of a very important obstacle course for chihuahuas.



Sometimes waiting to be singled out by the trainer is just too overwhelming, and a nap is the only way to calm canine nerves.