With travel comes the reality of routines not always working. It's nice and always important to research and have plans. It's also important to not panic when those plans fall through.
There's a blind faith that's required for traveling. You have to have blind faith that you can go to foreign country where you don't know the language completely, you don't know the landscape and terrain, and you have no idea what will happen...and everything will be fine. You have to have blind faith that everything will work out in the end and that you will enjoy your vacation.
These were my thoughts on the 4th night of my trip in Mexico.
When I saw that a tour from San Cristobal de Las Casas -- my 2nd home base in my 1 week trip to Mexico -- that was going to Palenque started at 4am and in a round-trip came back at 10pm I thought "Yes, why not?"
When I saw that a tour from San Cristobal de Las Casas -- my 2nd home base in my 1 week trip to Mexico -- that was going to Palenque started at 4am and in a round-trip came back at 10pm I thought "Yes, why not?"
As we take the back roads along Mayan villages on the tour, this blind faith is tested first as we are stopped by villagers with machetes asking for money. The nearly 20 of us in the van thought "what's going on" and "shit" as the driver laughed it off and said "they just want money. It's all fine."
That night we find out the road back is blocked. The drivers find out out. During the drive back all the tourist buses/vans (in a convoy) stop and all the drivers congregate to discuss what's going on and options. Our driver comes back on. We find out that because the road is blocked, we cannot be brought back within the time the drivers were paid for (4am - 10pm). Without missing a beat, they place us into taxis -- 2-3 folks in one car at a time and for the next 3-4 hours I just sit quietly as two drivers' USB playlist plays everything from "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to Daft Punk in a night drive in the Chiapas highlands.
At 11:30pm I'm dropped off in the main square (Zocalo) instead of my lodging in San Cristobal where I was picked up. The driver wasn't sure where to go to drop me off at "Zocalo" so as we officially entered San Cristobal he stopped in the middle of the road to discuss with another driver he had never met before to get directions to Zocalo.
Everything I expected on the tour in terms of scheduling and return was absolutely changed and unexpected. But, how did my night turn out ultimately? Fine. I arrived back at my place thanks to another taxi I took from Zocalo and slept in.
Everything was fine.
Everything was fine.
"Please Don't Go"
Not everyone was on board with my Mexico trip. Mexico has a bad rap in the U.S. and other places. "I'm going to Mexico" is a statement that I found when said aloud to others elicits several responses such as:
"Is it safe?"
"Please don't go." (Dad)
"Please don't go." (Mom)
"Don't eat the chorizo."
"You're going to poop so much."
"Are you going to Cancun?"
"I was mugged at gunpoint."
"Is it too late to cancel?" (Dad)
"Are you going on a mission trip?"
"Don't walk at night."
"Cool."
Many people I knew were worried about me -- my parents most of all. Then again, my parents worried about me going to Canada and Austria.
Reading my story of blind faith, it's easy to think that my experience is typical for Mexico, with villagers armed with machetes and eerie nights driving with strangers. That certainly wasn't my take from the experience. Take from my story that despite my worries (I was worried too) everything went well. The reality is: I had a wonderful time in Mexico.
Make no mistake, blind faith is best complemented with planning and preparation. I made sure I never crossed into neighborhoods in Mexico City that I shouldn't be in. I generally took taxis everywhere.
At the same, Mexico isn't bad. I'm not talking about Cancun/Mayan Riviera which is a fine part of Mexico to travel to. I'm talking about Mexico City and Chiapas, the places I went to. Like Peru and other places in South America I've been to there's some superficial grittiness. I didn't come for that. I came for human experience of Mexico.
Politics and Human Experiences
Rick Steves has a lecture called "Travel as a Political Act" where he describes how travel enables a political action due to human engagement. Travel removes you from the often dehumanizing news one may hear or read of another nation to experience the day-to-day realities of how folks live.
When someone tells you all Mexicans are rapists, for instance, you can tear down that belief because of an interaction with an Uber driver or because the kid of your hostel's cooks played peekaboo with you at the dining room like all kids do, among other interactions.
Politics and showing up Trump wasn't my reason for going to Mexico. But it's important to recognize the politics of travel or political differences because most folks won't go to Mexico because "You'll get kidnapped." That wasn't my reality. That doesn't mean it can't happen. It happens. It happens in Mexico just like it happens in Atlanta and just like it happens in Paris, the city I was closest to being scammed. I certainly had a bit of Montezuma's Revenge but Mexico is too different, too multi-faceted to fit one scenario or experience.
The human experience -- the experience of culture, of art, of general day-to-day life outside of my normal way of living -- is my main reason for loving travel. I can't read people but instead of falling into cynicism or blame over this I have instead found trying to understand people to be a lifelong learning opportunity. I've never not been fascinated by different cultures and art.
Now, let's be real: as much as I wanted to see Frida Kahlo's art or see the ruins of Palenque, my favorite human experience is eating. Why would I choose Mexico? I went for tacos and mole.
Food Tour
My first day after my flight I went on a foodie tour via Sabores, a 4.5 hour walking tour of Centro Historico.
Centro Historico is one of the more walkable districts in Mexico, at least it was for me walking from Palacio de Bellas Artes to Zocalo (Plaza de la Constitution). It's the primary tourist area so police are everywhere monitoring traffic. It was our area for hunting for the more traditional cuisine North Americans and Europeans associate with Mexico.
Four others -- 2 U.S. citizens and 2 Canadians -- joined me. First, we had traditional Mole (!) in an Oaxacan restaurant. Oaxacan cuisine is to Mexican food what Sichuan is to Chinese food: it's the best food region in a great food culture.
But the true delight of the tour was Mercado San Juan, a market where the whole of Mexican cuisine has a place. We had traditional Mexican ham and Oaxacan cheese (which has a Mozzarella texture). We also had grasshoppers covered in lime and salt for flavor (which tastes fine) and frozen ants we had to hold in our palate to warm it up before eating (also fine).
Our last stop was a market stall. Our guide translated a conversation with a lady who ran a produce stand. This woman loved food and loved what she did, going into the nuts and bolts of how Mexican squash grows, sharing tastes (cilantro) and smells (lemongrass) culminating with a flan cheesecake topped with the produce stand's fresh fruit and an edible flower.
Bonita!
What drew me to Mexico was this experience. I grew up in a community that has a substantial Latin American (mostly Mexican American) population. Therefore Mexican-American (Tex-Mex, Southwestern) food was everyone's go-to ethnic food. Even now my go-to restaurant in Atlanta is El Mexicano in East Atlanta Village.
So when I write that I came to Mexico for food, it was important to add onto what community has given me. This means trying a ceviche tostada at a food stand. This means having a caldo -- a traditional soup/stew in Chiapas. This means cafe de olla made with single origin Chiapas coffee beans...in Chiapas!
Schedule Change
Food's role in representing the human experience makes every trip for me worthwhile if not magical. But I wanted to penetrate a Mexican cultural experience deeper than my love of tacos.
Before I go on trips I'll usually read a few books to gear me up for my trip. For instance, I read Lady in Gold before I went to Austria which helped me gain a richer love of Gustav Klimt when I experienced his masterpieces. Before I went to Mexico I read some poetry -- particularly poems by Chiapas native Rosario Castellanos -- but also a book titled Frida Kahlo at Home by Suzanne Barbezat that detailed the influence of Kahlo's homes in her art, from La Casa Azul in Mexico City to Detroit.
Consequently I wanted to dig into the art of Mexico. At first I expected this experience to focus on mainstream Mexican art -- Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Juan O'Gorman, and so forth. A new path emerged, however, due to two reasons and ultimately this path led me to a different but richer artistic discovery: indigenous or pre-Hispanic art.
The first reason: flight change. I had scheduled my flight anticipating an early arrival in Mexico City on a Sunday in order to go to a museum or two before nightfall. Unfortunately my flight was res-scheduled for a later time which would cause me to arrive after most museums were closed. The first leg of my Mexico City stay would only be for Sunday night and Monday, as I would leave Tuesday for a 4 night stay in San Cristobal de Las Casas. So what's the problem? Well, museums are closed on Mondays.
The core part of my 7 day trip would be based in San Cristobal de Las Casas, a place where I had no plans to experience Mexican art. Yet, San Cristobal would be the place I would begin a new and different path of arts discovery, beginning with visiting the ruins of Palenque.
Pre-Hispanic Art in Chiapas
I've already written about the experience of traveling to Palenque. This was the tour that started at 4am and ended at 11:30pm (original end time, 10pm). Included in the tour were stops at enormously gorgeous pieces of scenery: Cascadas Agua Azul, which was lovely in spite of the rows of tourist stands for food and handicrafts, and Cascadas Misol Ha, a place that blew me away in its unreal and cinematic beauty.
But Palenque was the show stopper. I've already been fortunate to have seen Machu Picchu and other older ruins but it's always a breathtaking spectacle to witness a place like Palenque. Witnessing the pyramidal temples blooming out of lush jungle left my tour members and me threadbare with awe.
Aside from the ruins themselves, this was where I first became enamored with pre-Hispanic art. The Temple of the Cross occupies a spot in what is labeled "Plaza de la Cruz." First, the structure itself mesmerized me. I stepped up to the top of the pyramid and relished my bird eye's view of the rest of the core Palenque city temples and structures. But as I walked around the structure I began to see something greater: the remains of the art by the indigenous Mayans who ruled in the city.
Throughout Palenque stucco and building sculptures remain. Those are wonderful, but the paintings left on the walls inside the temple-- both geometric and figurative -- left me without words. I was humbled by the fact that art created by an artisan 1,000 years ago -- someone's imprint -- has remained for me to view in 2018.
Despite the long drive back, this imprint remained in my head the next morning when I walked around the town of San Cristobal looking for one of the oldest churches there, Iglesia Santo Domingo. Iglesia Santo Domingo is next to a former convent that houses a municipal museum which very little stuff to note, but upstairs is a textile museum, the Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya. When you read that -- "textile museum" -- it seems stale. I thought it might be but I was wrong. Instead, I was entranced.
The museum was designed and curated to represent the tradition of crafts in Mayan indigenous culture. While the height of Mayan cultural output waned after the "post-classic period," the indigenous people in Chiapas and the surrounding region continue to create absolutely stunning textiles. The museum had fabrics dating as far back as the turn of the century that showcased the recurring geometric patterns, birds, fauna and flora, and people that had been passed on through generations.
Once again, I was humbled by this imprint. The difference was that whereas Palenque had the artistic imprint of one or more artisans, this was an imprint carried by generations of Mayan and indigenous women. This was a cultural imprint that began thousands of years ago and remains vibrant, or at least it was in the tent covered stands outside the church where locals sell their crafts to tourists. It was evident through the collection of fabrics of different periods that these patterns were consistent and similar. It's humbling and astounding.
Museo Frida Kahlo
The textiles I saw in Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya and the art in Palenque was in my head as I flew back from Chiapas to Mexico City for the 2nd leg of my stay in the city. For my last night I planned to stay in Coyoacan, a neighborhood adjacent to the University City and known for art lovers and Bohemians. It was where Frida Kahlo's family settled and where she remained for the bulk of her life.
Museo Frida Kahlo is a busy place. I was warned by a couple in San Cristobal to get my ticket early as the museum sells out fast. The ticket specifies a time when you are allowed in and it also grants you access into Museo Diego Rivera or Anahuacalli Museum. Despite the name and association, the Anahuacalli Museum doesn't really cover Diego Rivera's works -- most of his and Frida Kahlo's works are in other museums around Mexico City among other places. Instead it covers his collection of pre-Hispanic art.
The museum is designed to be a wildlife sanctuary and the building, designed by Juan O'Gorman, replicates a pre-Hispanic temple. Since I had some time from my flight arrival before my ticket time to Museo Frida Kahlo, I took advantage of the 2 for 1 deal. While the museum did include drawings and sketches by Diego Rivera of some of his murals, the museum was full of figures and figurines collected by Rivera that represents the scope of pre-Hispanic art. The sculptures and figures with seemingly deformed faces are weird for a lot of folks but I was quite enamored with the motifs of fertility, of connections to nature and one's terrain, were present.
All this led to the final action I took before leaving Mexico: visiting Museo Frida Kahlo. The line was around the block for those who had not purchased tickets before. It was an international crowd attracted by the allure of Kahlo -- her art, her presence, her life. It's unquestionably the most expensive museum in Mexico City at MX$220.
How did I take it? I loved it. I was transcended as soon as I walked in and saw the courtyard. What can I say? Going into the mind of an artist is never not amazing for me, but when I saw the art in person I definitely geeked out.
The museum's collection was potent to me for other reasons. After the pre-Hispanic art I experienced Kahlo's art spoke to me in a new way. Rather than just the rawness of how personal her art is, I was amazed with the connections I felt between her art and pre-Hispanic art. One painting had a child with a bird on his shoulder which reminded me of the presence of birds on so much pre-Hispanic art the textiles. A special exhibit included her wardrobe and pieces she wore such as her Tehuantepec-inspired folk dresses. My head was swirling with pre-Hispanic folk art and I loved it all.
But Did I Love Mexico?
Mexico doesn't stir me like Chile, Peru, Austria or other places I've been, but I was stirred. I did love my experiences and I was overwhelmed by the glances of humanity I was lucky to witness, whether the pre-Hispanic art and crafts or the warmth of folks I met in taxis or in cafes.
I am thankful I got to meet Mexico. And we'll meet again in my life.
Now, let's be real: as much as I wanted to see Frida Kahlo's art or see the ruins of Palenque, my favorite human experience is eating. Why would I choose Mexico? I went for tacos and mole.
Food Tour
My first day after my flight I went on a foodie tour via Sabores, a 4.5 hour walking tour of Centro Historico.
Centro Historico is one of the more walkable districts in Mexico, at least it was for me walking from Palacio de Bellas Artes to Zocalo (Plaza de la Constitution). It's the primary tourist area so police are everywhere monitoring traffic. It was our area for hunting for the more traditional cuisine North Americans and Europeans associate with Mexico.
Four others -- 2 U.S. citizens and 2 Canadians -- joined me. First, we had traditional Mole (!) in an Oaxacan restaurant. Oaxacan cuisine is to Mexican food what Sichuan is to Chinese food: it's the best food region in a great food culture.
But the true delight of the tour was Mercado San Juan, a market where the whole of Mexican cuisine has a place. We had traditional Mexican ham and Oaxacan cheese (which has a Mozzarella texture). We also had grasshoppers covered in lime and salt for flavor (which tastes fine) and frozen ants we had to hold in our palate to warm it up before eating (also fine).
Our last stop was a market stall. Our guide translated a conversation with a lady who ran a produce stand. This woman loved food and loved what she did, going into the nuts and bolts of how Mexican squash grows, sharing tastes (cilantro) and smells (lemongrass) culminating with a flan cheesecake topped with the produce stand's fresh fruit and an edible flower.
Bonita!
What drew me to Mexico was this experience. I grew up in a community that has a substantial Latin American (mostly Mexican American) population. Therefore Mexican-American (Tex-Mex, Southwestern) food was everyone's go-to ethnic food. Even now my go-to restaurant in Atlanta is El Mexicano in East Atlanta Village.
So when I write that I came to Mexico for food, it was important to add onto what community has given me. This means trying a ceviche tostada at a food stand. This means having a caldo -- a traditional soup/stew in Chiapas. This means cafe de olla made with single origin Chiapas coffee beans...in Chiapas!
Schedule Change
Food's role in representing the human experience makes every trip for me worthwhile if not magical. But I wanted to penetrate a Mexican cultural experience deeper than my love of tacos.
Before I go on trips I'll usually read a few books to gear me up for my trip. For instance, I read Lady in Gold before I went to Austria which helped me gain a richer love of Gustav Klimt when I experienced his masterpieces. Before I went to Mexico I read some poetry -- particularly poems by Chiapas native Rosario Castellanos -- but also a book titled Frida Kahlo at Home by Suzanne Barbezat that detailed the influence of Kahlo's homes in her art, from La Casa Azul in Mexico City to Detroit.
Consequently I wanted to dig into the art of Mexico. At first I expected this experience to focus on mainstream Mexican art -- Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Juan O'Gorman, and so forth. A new path emerged, however, due to two reasons and ultimately this path led me to a different but richer artistic discovery: indigenous or pre-Hispanic art.
The first reason: flight change. I had scheduled my flight anticipating an early arrival in Mexico City on a Sunday in order to go to a museum or two before nightfall. Unfortunately my flight was res-scheduled for a later time which would cause me to arrive after most museums were closed. The first leg of my Mexico City stay would only be for Sunday night and Monday, as I would leave Tuesday for a 4 night stay in San Cristobal de Las Casas. So what's the problem? Well, museums are closed on Mondays.
The core part of my 7 day trip would be based in San Cristobal de Las Casas, a place where I had no plans to experience Mexican art. Yet, San Cristobal would be the place I would begin a new and different path of arts discovery, beginning with visiting the ruins of Palenque.
Pre-Hispanic Art in Chiapas
I've already written about the experience of traveling to Palenque. This was the tour that started at 4am and ended at 11:30pm (original end time, 10pm). Included in the tour were stops at enormously gorgeous pieces of scenery: Cascadas Agua Azul, which was lovely in spite of the rows of tourist stands for food and handicrafts, and Cascadas Misol Ha, a place that blew me away in its unreal and cinematic beauty.
But Palenque was the show stopper. I've already been fortunate to have seen Machu Picchu and other older ruins but it's always a breathtaking spectacle to witness a place like Palenque. Witnessing the pyramidal temples blooming out of lush jungle left my tour members and me threadbare with awe.
Aside from the ruins themselves, this was where I first became enamored with pre-Hispanic art. The Temple of the Cross occupies a spot in what is labeled "Plaza de la Cruz." First, the structure itself mesmerized me. I stepped up to the top of the pyramid and relished my bird eye's view of the rest of the core Palenque city temples and structures. But as I walked around the structure I began to see something greater: the remains of the art by the indigenous Mayans who ruled in the city.
Throughout Palenque stucco and building sculptures remain. Those are wonderful, but the paintings left on the walls inside the temple-- both geometric and figurative -- left me without words. I was humbled by the fact that art created by an artisan 1,000 years ago -- someone's imprint -- has remained for me to view in 2018.
Despite the long drive back, this imprint remained in my head the next morning when I walked around the town of San Cristobal looking for one of the oldest churches there, Iglesia Santo Domingo. Iglesia Santo Domingo is next to a former convent that houses a municipal museum which very little stuff to note, but upstairs is a textile museum, the Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya. When you read that -- "textile museum" -- it seems stale. I thought it might be but I was wrong. Instead, I was entranced.
The museum was designed and curated to represent the tradition of crafts in Mayan indigenous culture. While the height of Mayan cultural output waned after the "post-classic period," the indigenous people in Chiapas and the surrounding region continue to create absolutely stunning textiles. The museum had fabrics dating as far back as the turn of the century that showcased the recurring geometric patterns, birds, fauna and flora, and people that had been passed on through generations.
Once again, I was humbled by this imprint. The difference was that whereas Palenque had the artistic imprint of one or more artisans, this was an imprint carried by generations of Mayan and indigenous women. This was a cultural imprint that began thousands of years ago and remains vibrant, or at least it was in the tent covered stands outside the church where locals sell their crafts to tourists. It was evident through the collection of fabrics of different periods that these patterns were consistent and similar. It's humbling and astounding.
Museo Frida Kahlo
The textiles I saw in Centro de Textiles del Mundo Maya and the art in Palenque was in my head as I flew back from Chiapas to Mexico City for the 2nd leg of my stay in the city. For my last night I planned to stay in Coyoacan, a neighborhood adjacent to the University City and known for art lovers and Bohemians. It was where Frida Kahlo's family settled and where she remained for the bulk of her life.
Museo Frida Kahlo is a busy place. I was warned by a couple in San Cristobal to get my ticket early as the museum sells out fast. The ticket specifies a time when you are allowed in and it also grants you access into Museo Diego Rivera or Anahuacalli Museum. Despite the name and association, the Anahuacalli Museum doesn't really cover Diego Rivera's works -- most of his and Frida Kahlo's works are in other museums around Mexico City among other places. Instead it covers his collection of pre-Hispanic art.
The museum is designed to be a wildlife sanctuary and the building, designed by Juan O'Gorman, replicates a pre-Hispanic temple. Since I had some time from my flight arrival before my ticket time to Museo Frida Kahlo, I took advantage of the 2 for 1 deal. While the museum did include drawings and sketches by Diego Rivera of some of his murals, the museum was full of figures and figurines collected by Rivera that represents the scope of pre-Hispanic art. The sculptures and figures with seemingly deformed faces are weird for a lot of folks but I was quite enamored with the motifs of fertility, of connections to nature and one's terrain, were present.
All this led to the final action I took before leaving Mexico: visiting Museo Frida Kahlo. The line was around the block for those who had not purchased tickets before. It was an international crowd attracted by the allure of Kahlo -- her art, her presence, her life. It's unquestionably the most expensive museum in Mexico City at MX$220.
How did I take it? I loved it. I was transcended as soon as I walked in and saw the courtyard. What can I say? Going into the mind of an artist is never not amazing for me, but when I saw the art in person I definitely geeked out.
The museum's collection was potent to me for other reasons. After the pre-Hispanic art I experienced Kahlo's art spoke to me in a new way. Rather than just the rawness of how personal her art is, I was amazed with the connections I felt between her art and pre-Hispanic art. One painting had a child with a bird on his shoulder which reminded me of the presence of birds on so much pre-Hispanic art the textiles. A special exhibit included her wardrobe and pieces she wore such as her Tehuantepec-inspired folk dresses. My head was swirling with pre-Hispanic folk art and I loved it all.
But Did I Love Mexico?
Mexico doesn't stir me like Chile, Peru, Austria or other places I've been, but I was stirred. I did love my experiences and I was overwhelmed by the glances of humanity I was lucky to witness, whether the pre-Hispanic art and crafts or the warmth of folks I met in taxis or in cafes.
I am thankful I got to meet Mexico. And we'll meet again in my life.
