Travelogue

Our goal, while here, is to do some exploring of this country in between our “real life” responsibilities. I’ve listed these outings in chronological order by date.

Starship MACCH 5; Travel Log 1; Earth Date: December 28, 2015

We decided to use some of the holiday break before school and work began, to explore Mexico City a bit. We visited the Hilton concierge and looked at a big binder of available tours around the city to book that come with a guide. I went on a tour through the hotel when I was visiting with Aaron on our exploratory visit in August – he was working so I got on a bus and headed to the pyramids for a day (the Pyramide de la Luna is in the background of my selfie at the top of the Pyramide del Sol!) Also saw weaving looms where they make those beautiful vibrant cloths (out of cotton and agave fiber blended threads) and learned about Tequila production.

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Of course the kids had seen my pictures and wanted to go to the pyramids themselves and climb to the top! Because there are five of us, this time we were able to book a private tour with a guide that found us tootling around Mexico City in a big black Suburban! If you can imagine how crowded it is here and how close they keep to each other when they drive, it is amazing to me that these monster vehicles can maneouver at all – like the the day I watched a REAL Hummer arrive at the school parking lot to pick up – Wow! It takes up at least two spots… I guess the bigger you are on the road, the faster everyone gets out of your way!

Our guide, Eduardo, was quite a storyteller – I don’t mean that he was making stuff up, although that is always a very strong possibility here and I’ve learned to expect it and then try to drill down to get the facts, but that’s another story! He was a very skilled, entertaining storyteller as he wove tales of Mexico’s history. He was very knowledgeable and as we drove by places of historical significance he would tell us the tale of how it came to be important to the Mexican narrative. He started at the very beginning…

(Some) MEXICAN HISTORY 101, (very)ABBREVIATED

THE GREAT CONQUEST:

Did you know that Mexico City began in the middle of a lake? Of course, today, and for a few thousand years there has not been a lake (in fact, not too many lakes at all in the interior of this country), but it is a flat, silty lake bed that most of the city has been constructed on. We learned, and observed, that many of the very old buildings, churches or castles mainly, are actually slowly sinking into this soft foundation. Many engineers are being sought to raise and level these historic sites. This little church on the Guadalupe Basilica site is an example of a structure that is currently being saved from sinking! (look closely you can see the scaffolding on the right side and fencing on the left – the structure is actually tipping forward and to the right

According to Eduardo, historians believe that between the years 1111-1519 the Aztec empire ruled this area; warriors who conquered all and grew to enjoy a massive, wealthy empire. It all began with a quest to find a place to settle and grow their empire. They were told by the gods to look for a sign that would mark the spot where they should settle. This “sign” to indicate where to build their city would be an eagle with a snake in it’s beak sitting on top of a cactus. And for 200 years they searched and finally one day, they spotted it, sitting on a cactus in the middle of a lake. I took this photo of the statue you see below at the site in Chapultapec (Cha-pool-tah-peck) where the Azteca saw the sign; this is also the image on the Mexican Flag).

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This warrior race was strong and inventive and began to build an “island” in the middle of the lake to fulfill the prophecy and develop their empire that they called Azland. Considered a warrior race, they worshipped a warrior god who told them that a white skinned man would appear to them and would be of help to them. Of course all of those years of ingenuity and success caught the attention of the Spaniards when they began exploration of the New World, arriving in Mexico in 1519 and discovering this Aztec Empire. The Aztec thought the arrival of these white skinned people was the prophecy coming true so they showered the Spaniards with gifts and hospitality – food, lodging, gifts and worst of all, showed them their secrets. Big mistake. The Spaniards intentions were not honourable, as they were plotting to conquer this new place and call it their own. It’s considered one of the greatest conquests in all of human history as it took the Spaniards just two months to topple this warrior nation. In 1521, Azland became Mexico and owned by Spain. A few other nations wanted a piece of the pie and would squabble over ownership for a few hundred years after that, but that’s another story.

PINATAS:

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On our way to the pyramids our guide points to a huge church in the middle of a field, quite a distance outside of the city limits, and almost at the pyramids. He tells us that it is a monastery that the Augustine Monks built in the 1600’s. And even cooler, these guys were the inventors of the very popular pinata! Cool! Necessity being the mother of invention, these monks had to think of some way to teach the Azteca about the 7 Deadly Sins and other church doctrine. The original pinata was shaped like a star with 7 points, each point representing one of the sins. The Azteca were blindfolded to teach the concept of having faith, and were encouraged to “beat away their sins” on this star pinata hoisted in the air. Their reward of course for beating their sins were the candies and sweets that fell out of the broken pinata for them to enjoy, and the rest is history. You should see all the shops here dedicated solely to pinatas of all shapes, sizes, characters – amazing. And it’s all about a party now! Wonder how the Monks would have felt about that? 🙂

(photo courtesy of Google Images… still searching for a great opportunity to snap my own pic of these elaborate, colourful creations).

TEOTIHUACAN (tee-oh-tee-hoo-ah-can) PYRAMIDS

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Teotihuacan the archaeological site (there is also a town of the same name right next door!) featuring two pyramids and many altars is referred to as the land of many mysteries as so many things about it’s very existence cannot be explained. Only in the past 120 years have there been gains in excavating the 22km square site. I snapped this picture of the site from the top of the Pyramide de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon). Recently with satellite imaging, 50 new “castles” – basically homes where Aztec families lived – have been discovered and to date, only 5 have been excavated. So this continues to be one of the most important archaeological sites in Mexico. The mystery revolves around the current belief that the Azteca discovered it already built and that there was not a trace of who had come before them; no records or discoveries yet uncovered to determine who the original builders were. However, conspiracy theories abound – extra terrestrial intervention? 🙂 One discovery that has fueled such theories was the discovery of a large amount of micah glass, known to have insulating properties against electromagnetism, inside the Pyramide del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun)… hmmmm…. doo doo doo do, doo doo doo do…so interesting!

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What you see in these pictures is only the foundation of buildings. When we first walked onto the site and felt so dwarfed by these massive structures, our guide asked us to imagine them with stucco on the outside and painted with beautiful murals. There are very few that have stood up over time, but I did spot a few and snapped a few pics. There are only altar bases that remain and line what is called “The Avenue of the Dead” that led to the main altar (there are so few trees in the area as they were used to build structures atop these stone bases ) They believed in sacrifice to help them out with appeasing their gods… I might be more than a little glad to be alive at this time and not that one – the only evidence of human sacrifice that was found inside either pyramid has been female skeletons and infant skulls! Not only are the pyramids a marvel of architecture when you imagine the lack of heavy machinery that construction enjoys today, but there is careful thought and meaning in everything, The placement of the pyramids was a calendar that allowed them to tell of time passing with the sun in a different position daily and throughout the changing seasons. The Moon Pyramid and surrounding altars marks the passing of 260 days which corresponds to the gestation of a baby. The Sun Pyramid marks the passing of 365 days. There is evidence of drainage, early toilets and sanitation inside the one excavated castle (house) that we could walk through on the site. Fascinating!

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The day we climbed these it was VERY hot and dry. These pyramids (above pic: Pyramide de La Luna as viewed from the top of Pyramide del Sol) are a very popular tourist destination, so the path to the top is generally teeming with people, and the climb is pretty slow. Those steps are deep and steep and not-so-even and we were grateful for the hand rail to help haul ourselves up! Having only been in Mexico for 5 days, and being 4000 meters plus above sea level, we were certainly feeling the altitude! But we did it! Here the kids are standing on the top of Pyramide de la Luna, after having just climbed to the top of Pyramide del Sol, pictured in background. Was a tiring day!

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OUR LADY GUADALUPE BASILICA:

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Our guide told us that this site is one of the most important churches for those followers of Catholic faith in Latin America (90% of Mexicans are Catholic). It must be important – Pope Jean Paul II visited twice and Pope Francisco is due to visit in March 2016. Many, many people make the pilgrimage to this church everyday, with Christmas break and Santa Semana (Easter) being very popular times, of course! They mark their coming with fireworks that are noisy but not so showy, (which drives our poor dog crazy as we hear “booms” intermittently at all hours of all days here!) and bring elaborate floral arrangements as offering. We even saw the Mexican pro-wrestling team on pilgrimage and just before entering the church, they stopped to pose for pictures so we popped Aaron and the kids in with them and snapped a photo! That was funny and very unexpected!

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The atmosphere in the square is busy and loud and crowded; the feeling inside the basilica is decidedly more sombre and uncharacteristically quiet (it’s a loud-ish culture!). It is also the site of what is considered one of the most important miracles in the Catholic church. An Aztec peasant saw the Mother Mary (Guadalupe) appear to him on the top of the hill and told him to build a chapel there many times and each time he told the clergy they did not believe him, until finally one time he went to tell of Mary and when he opened his cloak, roses spilled out and the Mother Mary appeared on his cloak. Then everyone believed him!

That first little church on the top of the hill was built in the 1530’s.

Then a larger one in the 1800’s at the bottom of the hill.

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Because Mexico is built on a lake bed, that church has slowly been sinking over time (you can visibly notice it tipping forward and to the left) and was unsafe to hold large masses in, so the newest church (below) was designed and completed in 1976.

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The original painting of that miracle hangs in this newest basilica.

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The architect deliberately created a space that mimics the events and players of that miracle. The shape of the entire building is meant to represent the cloak of the peasant, and the lighting inside the building is representative of the roses that spilled out of the cloak.

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The sheer size of the building is impressive, with the capacity to seat 5000 people! Only Bishops can deliver Mass here, running from 8 a.m.to 8 pm, on the hour, all day, everyday. We were very interested to learn that the pipe organ in the basilica was built by legendary Quebec organ makers Casavant Freres.

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Here we are at the Guadalupe site – Eduardo took a family shot for us! Note the pointsettias behind us – there were pointsettias everywhere in Mexico City for the Christmas season. We first noticed them when driving to our hotel from the airport upon arrival. They are planted into all the boulevards, beautifying the streets, and in large pots and arrangements inside and out of every building.

Starship MACCH5; Travel Log 2; Earth Date:March 26-April 2, 2016

_DSC0383 Happy to say that Mexico indeed does have little pockets of paradise dotting the landscape of what feels like perpetual chaos and confusion. We found one during Semana Santa (Easter) break!! Aaron was away for work and had arrived back from France on Saturday morning at 5 a.m.; he stayed in the airport and we met him there at 10 a.m. to board a flight to Cancun for a week long Spring Break family vacation. We were so excited to be getting a break from the insanity of getting our lives going here!

Our first time trying out a domestic airline here…the terminal even was just a little different from the international departures area…who am I kidding? It was hot and crowded and loud and confusing. No posh duty-free stores on this side of security!! And no English translations! We managed to get on our flight and an hour and 40 minutes later we were touching down at the Cancun airport. Earlier Hudson had wondered if we would be exiting the plane using stairs, as he recently saw a picture of the Trudeau family disembarking from a plane and walking down stairs to the tarmac and an awaiting shuttle. Naw, I said, likely they will put one of those tunnels up against the plane for us to walk through to arrivals. He was so excited when BOTH front and back doors opened, a rush of humid air rolled over us and there at our feet were stairs placed to walk down onto and across the runway tarmac to the terminal. Cool!!! “Like in a movie!” he says.

Quite a well oiled tourist machine Cancun is, from the moment you arrive to the moment you step back on the plane to go home. We prearranged our taxi to the hotel and it was waiting for us, a crew of people efficiently moving the most recent wave of tourists through, another crew along the route constantly trying to sell something: a timeshare, a day trip to the pyramids, their first born (kidding!!). Up selling is the name of the game! Our driver was amazing, immediately setting the vacation tone with his radio blaring “Surfin’ in the USA” adding his own enthusiastic “whoops!!” and “yabba dabba doo’s!!” (No joke!) we couldn’t help but feel in the party and vacation spirit which was perfect cover for his insane driving!! The boulevards on this kilometers-long tourist strip were so clean and lush and anywhere that could possibly have tourist eyes on it was SO well maintained…struck us as in such contrast to the environments we observe daily in Mexico City. Another dichotomy in this land of so many!

I found that first glimpse of the frothy-waved, teal and sapphire Carribbean breathtaking. I’ve never seen such unbelievable blue colour variation before. The air blowing off the ocean was summer-soft and breezy, helping to cut the humidity which seemed much thicker in the massive lobby that was buzzing with people, colours, food smells and music. Wow! Welcome to tourist central! Welcome to Grande Caribe Real Resort!!

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Each night there were vendors who set up to sell their wares to eager suckers, er, tourists… On our first day at the beach, Caleigh had spotted girls and women with their hair done up in those many tight little braids – corn rows – and wondered where they were getting them done. So that evening, when wandering around the lobby, vendor and restaurant central, we noticed a spot out by the pool where we could get corn rows done. I’ve always thought it would be cool to get them done, and Caleigh was really keen to, so we went for it. It made all the difference during our week of playing in the ocean and exploring; kept our hair out of our eyes and our heads much cooler in that wonderful humid tropical heat!

Our days quickly fell into a routine that was pretty hard on us! 😉 Sleep in, eat&drink, play in the waves, eat&drink, shower, eat&drink…sensing a pattern? We decided to invest in boogie boards at the very beginning of the week and so glad we did – we surfed many, many waves…

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…which was SO awesome!! Atlantic-side Caribbean waves were big, but without a strong undertow, so was all the fun without the worry! When you work hard to go out as far as you can to the where the big waves are beginning to break, it is such a rush to catch one just right and ride in on the very top of it…you get such speed and it spits you out hard onto the sand, way up the beach… SO cool!! We boogie-boarded everyday but one, and on that day we went on an excursion to Tulum and then snorkeling at Xel-Ha (shell-ha) in the Mayan Riviera. We discovered that we aren’t really the “lay-on-the-beach-in-the-sun- and-do-nothing” types; we tried that the first day, and despite our attention to frequent sunscreen applications, we still all got a bit crispier than was comfortable. Our mission after that was to get up early and race to the beach to secure a cabana with shade cover to use to rest after playing in waves! Was tough to get up that early, but we were rewarded with beautiful sunrises over the ocean, and we knew we had a shady spot for later when that same sun got blistering hot.

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The kids and I had never been snorkeling before and it was so awesome!!! Saw entire schools of Dory fish!! And Mansell and Aaron were lucky enough to see two massive stingrays – kind of freaked Mansell out given his complicated history with stingrays! (For those of you who don’t know, he was stung by a stingray when he was 7 years old). I didn’t get any of my own pics as we opted into the photo package offered, which gave us the freedom to just enjoy the water activities; they had many spots throughout the park for action photos to allow you to capture memories of the day. Great idea!

Maravilla Natural de Mexico

We floated down the river system to the lagoon where we would snorkel, in inner-tubes through a mangrove tunnel. Was pretty crowded at the start (where this pic was taken) but eventually we spread out a little. We ditched our tubes once the narrow river opened up into the larger lagoon and donned our fins and masks and snorkeled the rest of the way. 13673179

TULUM

Tulum is the site of one of the last Mayan civilizations ever constructed. It was built toward the end of their ancient rule, which was not a good time for them – they were experiencing years and years of drought. This site is absolutely spectacular simply because of it’s location, up on a cliff, overlooking the Caribbean ocean. We had to hike in through a narrow “door” in the wall that the Mayans built to protect the site and past many ruins of houses and temples to reach the “castle”, the pyramid most associated with Tulum, that sits perched on the edge of the cliff.

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It’s very “touristy” here! Tough to find a spot not teeming with people to snap a pic! And it was HOT!!! Thankfully the rest of the day we spent snorkeling in the mayan!

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