Tepoztlán

Tepoztlán, located between Mexico City and Cuernavaca, is one of Mexico's 32 Pueblos Magicos. We've tried to get there before, but DF keeps sucking us back in, and we can never seem to get onto the Cuernavaca Highway, but find ourselves back at the Zócalo. This time we came prepared with our new GPS unit, and though we drove all over DF before we escaped, it did eventually get us out of town and on our way.

Tepoztlán is famous for being in a lovely location, being the birthplace of the god Quetzalcoatl, and having a temple/pyramid to the god of pulque (some sort of fermented drink). The New Agers have set up shop here, and you can additionally enjoy a lovely spa experience, buy incense, and have your aura photographed.

Saturday is Market Day, so in addition to crystals and the such, on the other side of the square you could do your everyday shopping. The butcher shops were the best. Zorra pointed out a strange blemish on one of the pieces of meat hanging there -- yep, Bessie's eye.

And now time for lunch.

Our main purpose in coming was to visit the pyramid. My map said to follow this road, and we'd walk right up to it. In the above photo, can you see the pyramid?

We walked to the base of the cliffs/mountains, but we were dressed for Mexico City (long sleeves, turtle-neck) and had a sleepy baby, and frankly didn't feel up to literally climbing up the cliff face. So we went back for ice cream.

Popo on the way home.

So Sad Adventures

Wednesday I went with friends to the Sonora Market -- a huge Mexican market that sells an abundance of needful things like Barbi dresses, piñata fillers, Voodoo gear (seriously), and puppies. And kittens. And fish and chickens and chicks and ducks and turtles and quinea fowl. All packed into cages, wallowing in filth, smelling like the worst kind of sewage. The puppies all howl and beg to be loved, their little tails wagging when you make eye-contact. They are cheap (some less than $2US a piece), but they come with sadness and heartbreak. Our friend S. bought two malti-poo puppies here the week before Christmas for a Christmas morning surprise for her daughters. The girls squealed with delight, but the puppies died in a few weeks. S went back and bought two more and those also did not make it. The temptation to rescue as many as possible was incredible, only tempered by the knowledge that we would end up tearfully burying them while these monstrous people keep breeding more.
Above, there are about 15 puppies and 2 kittens piled on top of each other to keep warm. And though I dislike Chihuahuas, these little boys were very tempting.

Finally, we escaped, and took a city bus (which I will only do with a native Capitalino -- which I did) to Tepito. Tepito is a Metro stop and shopping street, and the sidewalk is covered with outdoor shops. Unlike an ourdoor market, these shops are set up each morning with a roof/tarp and racks of goods. And everything is bootleg. Their proud motto is "Stolen but not used." We popped into a large formalwear store with Sunday suits and authentic charro/rodeo clothes and best of all, quinceañera dresses (oh to be 15 again...). They had a strict "No Photos" policy, so I have nothing to show for it, but it was enchanting.

Weather Cursed

Since we made outdoor plans for our 3-day weekend during the dry season, of course it rained buckets. And of course, on our last day of said weekend, when we were desperate to salvage something and get out of the house, the weather broke into blue skies and sunshine -- just long enough to get us over the mountains before the nastiness all returned again.

I originally wanted to visit Cholula, home of the hot sauce and lovely church/pyramids/volcanic views. It is just outside of Puebla, so when the weather made it no longer worth it, we drove on to Puebla.

We followed the signs to the historic center of colonial Puebla, and parked at what looked like the Zócalo (town square). We checked out the directory which informed us that we were in fact at the Zócalo and that a large cathedral would be found on the other side. Instead, there was a Comex (a ubiquitous Mexican paint shop). The actual Zócalo was about 4 blocks further along. What is it about Mexico and signs?

Lovely Paseo Bravo -- not the Zócalo.

Centro Cultural Poblano -- next to the Not Zócalo Paseo Bravo

The Virgin of Guadalupe Church

So when we did finally arrive at the Zócalo, we popped into the TI (or whatever they call the Tourism office) and asked about things to see while we were here. The gentleman was very helpful, and finally Raul asked on behalf of his small-bladdered women where we might find a bathroom. Here I became ever so grateful to have a husband who both speaks fluent Spanish but is also such a companionable guy, because the TI fellow snuck us into City Hall (it was a holiday so no one was working) and let us use the bathrooms there. Very swanky.
Being a Monday, all of the museums were closed, but being the day before Candlemas, all of the churches were open (we walked in on many people getting their baby Jesus figures blessed in preparation for the Holy Day). One that we happened to stumble upon was the Church of Santo Domingo de Gúzman. It was fairly plain on the outside, and the inside wasn't too much, until we came to the very back and the Chapel of the Rosary. It was exquisite with all of the lovely carved filigree and gilding.

This is the Cathedral at the end of the Zócalo (not a paint store).

They were having Mass when we arrived, but the Cathedral is big enough that 1000 tourists can slip in and explore the other 90% of the building without even being noticed. The building is one city block deep. This is one third of the organ.

Lemon Tree Very Pretty

Lemons (Limones Canarios) are in very short supply here in Mexico City. But each of my neighbors has a lemon tree, so we sent Marcos the Gardener on a quest to find us a lemon tree -- at least 4 years old with fruit. (There was no need to buy a tree that wouldn't produce fruit until after we leave in 2011.) After many weeks of searching, he found one with many flowers getting ready to blossom and one tiny lemon growing. Now the tree is white with sweet-smelling blossoms and the promise of wonderful yellow lemons.

Tropical Snow and Butterfly Cyclones

In the last post, the great Christmas adventure, we went up to Nevado de Toluca looking for some snow (nevado being "snowy" in Spanish). Alas, there was none. The mountains around us all appeared quite bare. Here are the legendary couple Itza (Iztaccíhuatl)and Popo (Popocatépetl) as seen from down the street from me on Christmas Day. Just after that, the weather turned nasty (for Mexico City) and despite it being the dry season, it proceeded to rain off and on for 10 days.
We emerged from the wet and cold to find our dry, brown volcanoes looking like this:

Today we went to the Monarch Butterfly Santuary near Valle de Bravo, and this required that we drive past Nevado de Toluca, who was finally living up to his name.

Though the Mexican state of Michoacán is famous for being the winter haven of the Monarch butterfly, this butterfly sanctuary is located in the state of Mexico, significantly closer to us and by far more secure with fewer drug cartels. A win-win all around. There were horses there to take us up into the sanctuary, and we couldn't pass up the chance to have some other legs climb those steep, muddy trails. We had ridden horses only once before in Iceland, and at that time, they were very strict about safety. I wasn't allowed to bring my camera bag (and especially not allowed to take pictures while riding), we had helmets, a brief lesson on guiding (steering? driving?) the horses, and were all made to learn how to check that our saddles were safely secured. Mexico is certainly not Iceland. We had no helmets of any kind, our horses were led for us, Nevara couldn't even reach her stirrups (causing me riding behind her no end of worry), and then there was Raul's experience. At one steep bit of trail, his horse started sliding back down, and I thought he was falling off of his horse, but actually, his saddle was sliding off, so Raul was squashed between the bank and his horse's rear end. He wasn't hurt, but we did make certain that everything was cinched up very very tightly from that point on.

The trail was littered with the bodies of dead butterflies, and we saw a few flitting about as we rode, but it wasn't too impressive. Then we came to a point in the trail where we all dismounted, and we four followed a guide on foot up another steep trail. There we found the Monarchs.

The trees were loaded with them, the branches bent under their weight.

We were impressed with the quantity of them, truly it was amazing, and then the wind picked up. The butterflies were everywhere, landing on everything, blowing around like astonishing black and orange dust-devils. When we listened we could hear the sound of their wings flapping. It was truly exquisite, something that no camera could capture. We stood in awe for a long time before we headed back. Next month these delightful insects will begin their journey north again, back to the US and Canada.