Mexico

[This is the final post for this blog and will wrap up my trip home.  For those of you who have followed more or less regularly, I hope that I was able to touch on at least some topics in each post that were interesting and that you were able to learn something as well.  For those near Platteville, I have LOTS of pictures that were not posted, so there is still stuff I can talk about!]

I finished my trip by stopping in 2 southern Mexican cities:  San Cristóbal de las Casas in the state of Chiapas and Oaxaca in the state of Oaxaca.  The original plan was to have about 1.5 days in San Cristóbal and almost 3 days in Oaxaca, but the delay of the trip from Guatemala due to the protest reduced my time in San Cristóbal to a single day.  Arrival in Mexico, at least in major cities, is almost like returning home:  although the language is still Spanish, the roads, the advertisements, the products/brands available, the traffic, the amenities, etc., are not that much different than the US.  From watching US media, one might be hesitant to travel to Mexico due to perceived physical dangers, but I never felt threatened at any time in Mexico or anyplace else in Central America, and in fact generally felt safer than I might in some neighborhoods in Chicago or Milwaukee.

An example of how advanced Mexico is in comparison with the other Central American countries (and I’ve not even been aware of this in the US, but perhaps we have something equivalent) is a text message system for noteworthy buildings and locations.  One simple puts in the number of the monument, and they will receive a text with a description of the significance of the particular location.

Chiapas is the southern-most state in Mexico, bordering on Guatemala as well as the Mexican states of Tabasco, Veracruz and Oaxaca.  It has the second-largest indigenous population of any Mexican state and has been the site of sometimes-violent struggles as the native people tried to remedy the historical mistreatment that they suffered.  The only evidence I saw of this unrest was a peaceful encampment in front of the cathedral with protest banners surrounding the camp.  

Shots of the protest encampment in front of the cathedral.  Some signs are simple party propaganda and other enumerate very specific grievances and demands.

San Cristóbal itself was founded in 1528 and has undergone numerous name changes over the years.  It has had its current name continuously only since 1943 (the “de las Casas” was added in 1848 in honor of an early Spanish defender of indigenous rights, Bartolomé de las Casas, who was the first bishop and arrived in San Cristóbal in 1545) and was the capital of Chiapas until 1892 (when it was moved to the current site of Tuxtla Gutierrez).  San Cristóbal also has the distinction of being the site of the first normal school in the Americas.  It is situated in a beautiful mountain valley (about 2200 m above sea level so the climate is very pleasant) and has about 150,000 residents, but the historical part of the city is quite compact and walkable.  As it typical, there is a central park or plaza (most frequently called the Zócalo both in San Critóbal and Oaxaca, a term that is often used for central squares in Mexico) with a cathedral on one side and current/former government buildings on one or more of the other sides.  There are also pedestrian-only streets in the vicinity of the Zócalo.

The Zócalo or central park in San Cristóbal.  The kiosk in the middle was added in the early 20th century and is a café with seating on the top.  In the evenings, bands also play from the top with dancing both above and down on the ground.

An exterior and interior view of the cathedral in San Cristóbal.

A view down one of the pedestrian streets in San Cristóbal.

On the east and west sides of the central area are small hills with churches perched atop:  Cerro de Guadalupe on the east and Cerro de San Cristóbal on the west.  Between these overlooks are the typical variety of colonial churches, plazas and markets as well as several very interesting museums.  My two favorite museums were the Museum of Mayan Medicine and the Museum of Amber.  The medicine museum not only had depictions of healing practices and rituals, but also a small garden with native plants and a description of their medicinal uses.  Chiapas is famous for its amber with jewelry widely available (although much on the street is actually fake) and the museum not only had examples of amber from around the world, but also described the mining and finishing processes.

Iglesia de Guadalupe on the hill to the east of city.  It was the first church where I saw neon lights surrounding a picture of Jesus on the altar.

The long stairway up to the Iglesia de San Cristóbal just west of the city.  After the climb, I discovered that the church is currently closed for restoration, so I had to settle for the view.

View generally to the west from Cerro de Guadalupe (above) and generally to the east from Cerro de San Cristóbal (below).  On the lower picture, Templo de San Francisco can be seen on the left.

Two of the churches in San Cristóbal.  On the left is the Templo de Santo Domingo surrounded by a market.  The façade is very ornate but  needs sun and shadows to bring out the intricate design better.  On the right is the Templo de San Francisco, with a much more colorful, but less ornate exterior.

A couple of examples of amber from the Museum of Amber, which is housed in the restored convent of the Iglesia de la Merced.  The bottom photo shows some insects if you look closely.

A couple of photos from the Museum of Mayan Medicine.  The picture on the left illustrates the making of candles.  The color of the candle is significant in terms of its effect on health and well-being.  The right-hand picture is part of a display that is protesting the patenting of plants and remedies in common use by indigenous people by companies and universities without any payments or perhaps even acknowledgement of those who actually made the discovery.

I really liked San Cristóbal as it had a lot for tourists to do, but it was not inundated with tourists and didn’t have the feel of a “tourist town.”  I wish I could have stayed a bit longer, but I actually made the only reservations for my trip for an overnight bus from San Cristóbal to Oaxaca.  It was a nice first-class bus, so quite comfortable, but I can’t really say that I arrived rested and ready for a full day in Oaxaca.  After arrival, the first job was to find lodging so I could drop off my pack, but this turned out to not be very efficient:  I walked all the way to the Zócalo tourist kiosk for information (about 3 km), and ended up staying in a place that was only about 4 blocks from the bus station where I arrived.  The other shock in Oaxaca was the cost of things—I was used to $15 being a pretty decent room with hot shower and Wi-Fi, but I ended up paying about $26 in Oaxaca for a room with shared bath (although it did have the Wi-Fi).  

The bus from San Cristóbal to Oaxaca taking a rest/meal break somewhere in Oaxaca.  Even though I was in the far south of Mexico, the landscape was similar to what can be found in the US southwest.  By the way, this bus actually had a rest room, so the stops were not as necessary, but the roads were so curvy that using the restroom was something of a challenge!

The bus station in Oaxaca.  This is about as far removed from what is called a bus station in Nicaragua as you could get!

Oaxaca, or more formally Oaxaca de Juárez (named after Benito Juárez, a native of the state of Oaxaca), was founded in 1530 and has about 250,000 residents.  Like San Cristobal, it is also located in a mountain valley, but not quite so high at about 1500 m.  I had heard nothing but great things about Oaxaca and had high expectation.  In general, I was not disappointed, but San Cristóbal had a more intimate, a bit less touristy feel to it which I liked.  Like Chiapas, the state of Oaxaca is also heavily indigenous (over 50%) and has many towns and villages that specialize in some particular craft, such as pottery, weaving, etc.  Unfortunately, with my limited time, I did not have time to explore any of these outlying villages.  

Oaxaca is well equipped for tourists and has a lot to do and see plus several major festivals.  The major annual cultural festival is called “Guelaguetza” and takes place in late July, but I happened to be there for the “Guelaguetza Infantil,” a similar, but scaled-down version for kids.  There were lots of little parades and activities geared for children, including a band concert by middle-school-aged students. Much of the official festival takes place in a new auditorium/amphitheater located on Cerro del Fortín at the northwest edge of the central city.

A couple of photos of the parades with kids dancing and youth/adults playing band instruments as accompaniment.  It appeared that volume was much more important than tone quality for the music.  Some of the kids were in "simple" traditional dress and some were in costumes representing animals or characters.

A photo of the auditorium for the Guelaguetza festival.  It seats over 10,000 and from below almost has the appearance of a UFO landing on the hill.

Geographically, the city is laid out in the traditional Spanish grid with a cathedral, government buildings and some businesses surrounding the central square (again called the Zócalo).  Scattered throughout are parks, plazas, churches and convents and a wide variety of museums, theaters and other cultural venues.

The edge of the Zócalo (on the right) with the Palacio de Gobierno (left) which is now a museum with art as well as a lot of natural history geared towards kids.

The band stand in the Zócalo with a a mariachi band setting up.  They have free concerts in the park, just like in Platteville, but these are a bit more formal.  This particular band did their version of the Bluegrass classic "Orange Blossom Special!"

Another park in Oaxaca located just across the street from my hotel.  It’s called Paseo Juárez El Llano and is about 1.5 km north of the Zócalo.  This park was very actively used by locals and included many food stands.  On Saturday I saw a scout troop in uniform having a meeting in the park.

A couple of views of the Cathedral in Oaxaca.  At the top is the exterior at night.  You can tell from all the balloons that this is one of the evenings with children's activities.  For the inside, I'm showing the organ instead of the altar, since this was the first large organ that I'd observed on this trip.  This is located at the read of the church and you need to walk around this area to get to the seating area.

The Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán.  There is a large former convent to the right which has been restored and now houses Centro Cultural Santo Domingo, a large museum with displays about the general history and culture of Oaxaca, and especially of the Zapotecs and Mixtecs.  It also has many artifacts from Monte Albán.

The garden from the former convent is now the Ethno-botanical garden, which contains a large collection of plants from across the state of Oaxaca.  It's a great place to go for anyone with an interest in the local flora.

The Basílica de la Soledad and the ex-convent to the side.  This facade has an extraordinary amount of carvings.  The plaza also has a modern sculpture of a bull and to give an idea of the proximity of churches, I'm almost standing on the steps of the Templo de San José.

The house in which Benito Juárez, the first indigenous president of Mexico, lived for several years in Oaxaca.  It is now a museum with personal items from his life displayed.  Juárez was a native of Oaxaca state, but lived in Oaxaca city for a time as well.

There is really a lot of very beautiful colonial architecture even in more everyday locations.  This is a view inside the public library in Oaxaca.

More examples of how murals are a very popular art form in Mexico and Central America.  At the top is a portion of a mural in the Palacio de Gobierno by Arturo García Bustos, a student of the famous artist Frida Kahlo (whose picture appears on the back of the 500 peso note with her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera, on the front).  This particular part features Benito Juárez and his wife along with representations from Oaxacan history.  The bottom is a popular mural on a street in Oaxaca and has a revolutionary theme.

Oaxaca also has a professional baseball team (the Guerreros) which happened to have a home game at a stadium only a few blocks from my hotel, so I got to see a little live baseball (only about US$3 for a grandstand ticket, and if I’d gone to the bleachers, only US 80₵).

The baseball is very much like US professional ball and I would say is approximately equivalent to AA or AAA minor leagues.  They've got a bird mascot named Tato who clowns around between innings, similar to the San Diego chicken.  One interesting thing to note is that the umpires are sponsored--they are literally bought and paid for!

And if there are Guerreros, there must also be Guerreritas!  These young women would appears between innings to dance, assist with contests like sack races and add a little sex appeal.  Note that Tato also got into costume and joined the dancing.

Oh, and there was also some baseball, for the most part pretty good except for one bone-headed play by the second baseman!  Unfortunately the home team lost to the team from Tabasco that night, but it was still a very enjoyable evening.  The field is artificial turf and the dimensions are actually a bit bigger than a typical major league park in the outfield.  You might also notice the McDonald's sign just past the left field fence.

About 10 km to the west of Oaxaca on a leveled mountaintop are the ruins of the pre-Columbian city of Monte Albán, a Zapotec city that is one of the oldest in Mesoamerica and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Though not Mayan, there are cultural and architectural similarities with the Mayas such as ball courts and the arrangements of temples and shrines around a central plaza.  There has been considerable excavation at the site and this work, as well as reconstruction/stabilization work, continues.  The overall scale was similar to Copán Ruines in Honduras or Mayapan or Ek Balam in Yucatán, but the hill-top location gave it a feeling of added vastness.  Many sculptures showing what appear to be dancing warriors have been found, but the interpretation of these figures is still open for debate. There are also a number residences/tombs of apparently wealthy and/or powerful people near the ruins that have also been excavated.  Like the great Mayan cities, Monte Albán was abandoned before the arrival of the Spanish and the exact cause of its demise remains a mystery.

Views across the central plaza from opposite ends.  The picture at the top (looking generally south) is taken from the highest point in the center background of the lower picture and the lower picture (looking generally north)  is taken from the platform at the left background of the upper picture.

Some examples of the carvings at Monte Albán.  The bottom are glyphs while on the top are the dancing warriors.  There are all actually copies as the originals have been moved to interior locations either in the on-site museum or other museums in Mexico.

The large ball court (there are other smaller ones on-site as well).  The general layout is similar to the Mayan courts, but the walls appear a bit steeper to me.  Another difference is that the losers here were apparently NOT sacrificed to the gods.

Some of the on-going work to stabilize the ruins.  Note the numbers each stone to identify its correct position.

This is just another indication of the relative wealth of Mexico relative to the rest of Central America.  In an earlier blog I mentioned how difficult it would be to be disabled in Nicaragua, and that would apply fairly universally throughout my travels.  Although Mexico certainly does not meet ADA standards, they are wealthy enough to make some attempt at accessibility.

Finally, on Sunday, April 22, I took off from Oaxaca at about 8 am and after plane changes in Mexico City and Atlanta, arrived in Chicago about 5:30 pm and was home by 10:30 that night.  So far I’ve not felt what I would call culture shock, but I think that instantaneous communication via email and Skype tend to diminish the effects of extended travel.  However, even though I’d been travelling almost exclusively through the mountains and the weather was relatively cool (at least for the sub-tropics), I had to break out the jackets and sweatshirts immediately upon arrival at home (though I understand March was hotter here than in Nicaragua).

Upon arriving home inspired by this life-changing experience, one of my goals for the next year is to develop a travel course and return to Nicaragua in two years with a group of students.  Another major goal is to conscientiously maintain, if not improve, my Spanish so I won’t lose whatever gains I’ve made to this point.

 ¡Adiós!  

Guatemala

From Copán Ruinas I got a mini-bus shuttle directly to Antigua, Guatemala, with no bus changes and no pick-up/drop-off, so the trip was only about 6 hours.  The only mild stress of this trip was the border crossing.  Since I was doubting everything that I’d heard about/from immigration, I thought that they might look back at my Nicaragua date of entry.  Again, they barely looked and gave me 90 days more from that crossing!  We did pass through Guatemala City on the way, but nothing very noteworthy except the congestion.  Guatemala appears to be even more prosperous than Honduras based on billboards, franchises, etc.  The buses are also distinctive in that most all of the old school buses (aka chicken buses) have been painted and “pimped” with a lot of chrome, cowling, etc.  While there was an occasional colorful bus in Nicaragua, it seems to be the rule in Guatemala.

A couple of pictures of Guatemalan chicken buses.  Note the amount of chrome on grills, around headlights, on the sides and even on ladders to the roof.  The bus on the bottom also shows the cowling that was added to give the windows a streamlined appearance, although from the inside, the windows are standard, rectangular school bus windows.

Antigua is more formally called “Antigua Guatemala”, to distinguish it from “Nueva Guatemala,” the current Guatemala City.  It was formerly the capital of Guatemala and was called Santiago de los Caballeros at the time, but after several devastating earthquakes in the 18th century, the capital was moved and the city “abandoned.”  Some, however, stayed and rebuilt, so the city did not die completely.  In addition to earthquakes, Antigua also sits in the shadow of 3 large, active volcanoes.  After the partial abandonment, the population of the city was much smaller, so rebuilding was only partial.  Many of the churches and monasteries were simply left in ruins, while others were reconstructed on a much smaller scale amidst the larger ruins.  There are still many ruins, some stand-alone and some associated with active churches, many of which have been made into park-like areas.  Like Copán Ruinas, Antigua is now designated a UNESCO world heritage site.

Guatemala as a nation is heavily indigenous, much more so that Nicaragua, which had only a small indigenous population.  This is most evident in the clothing you see on the street, which is very colorful, but one can also hear non-Spanish languages spoken quite often.  While most indigenous women wear native traditional clothing, you can also see many men who dress traditionally.  While the population is majority indigenous, the prosperity is not distributed very well, so demonstrations and protests regarding indigenous issues are fairly common (more on this later).  There is also much more hard-selling of crafts than I had seen in Nicaragua or Honduras.  At times it was difficult to get a “no” accepted, especially if you have shown even the slightest interest in an item.

A couple of photos of some indigenous dress.  In the top photo, note that the standard color for mototaxis in Antigua was silver instead of red.  The bottom photo also shows a man in traditional clothes and both pictures show a baby being carried on the back.

Some boys on the street in traditional dress playing music for tips.

 The city itself is a wonderful place to wander with many interesting buildings and ruins to discover.  I say discover because there are so many, that not all appear on the tourist maps, so you end up stumbling across them by accident. There must be at least 2 dozen churches/monasteries/ruins scattered through the city. To the north is Cerro de la Cruz, a nice vantage point to get a panorama of the city and surrounding.  This guide book warned that you should only go here with a police escort, but it was early Sunday morning and I saw joggers heading that way, so decided to go alone.  It turned out that there were police posted halfway up and at the top, so it was probably the safest place in town at the time.  

A view of the city from Cerro de la Cruz with Volcán de Agua (3760 m) in the background.  The other volcanoes are to the right out of view.

Another view of Volcán de Agua with Iglesia San Pedro in the foreground.  This is one of the “minor” churches that was not even labeled on my map.

The city is laid out in a traditional Spanish colonial style with a street grid, a central park, a cathedral facing the park and various parks or plazas scattered throughout.  On one other side of the central park is the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales, the capitol building for Guatemala until 1773 and opposite that is the Palacio del Ayuntamiento, the city hall.  In the park is an interesting fountain originally built in 1738.

A view of the Catedral de San José from the central park.  This was a bit unusual because the main entrance was not at the back, but at the side of the church.  The front is to the right as you see this photo.

A view back towards the central plaza from the cathedral entrance.  The Palacio de los Capitanes Generales is in the background.  Note the clown making balloon animals in the foreground.  Church steps and entries never seemed to be off limits for either selling or begging.

Another view of Volcán de Agua with the central plaza on the left.

The fountain in the center of the plaza.  The close-up on the right shows the interesting design of the fountain—sort of the Central American version of the famous Mannequin Pis in Brussels.  I wonder if anything like this could be placed in a public park today?

A view of the fountain and cathedral at night.

The three most notable churches are the Cathedral de San José on the central plaza, Iglesia y Convento de Nuestra Señora de la Merced and the Iglesia de San Francisco.  All three are built among the ruins of earlier churches and the ruins are also open for tourists.  San Francisco was perhaps the most interesting as it also had a small museum about San Hermano Pedro de San José Betancourt, whose bones are buried there, and who was just recently elevated to the status of a saint (2002).  Brother Pedro was very active in the founding of a hospital, schools and other social-service-type organizations and legend has it that he originated the Christmas eve posadas processions, a custom that later spread to Mexico and other Latin American countries.  The museum was interesting not only for what it contained, but also for its insight into the importance that many people place on the intercession of a saint to obtain a miracle.  Among the more interesting items were San Hermano Pedro’s underwear as well as the paint brushes used to dust his bones the last time they were moved.  One entire room is filled with letters, pictures and no-longer-needed crutches from those who were granted a miracle through the intercession of San Hermano Pedro.  His grave is a shrine is also located in the church.

A view of the ruins connected to the cathedral.  The current church is only a fraction of the size of the church before 1773.

Many churches use the adjacent ruins as a place for storage.  Here are some of the items that were recently used for Lenten processions thought the city.

A couple of views of Iglesia Nuestra Señora de la Merced, perhaps the most beautiful church in Antigua.  At the top is the exterior with the entrance to the convent on the left.  The bottom shows the interior courtyard of the convent, which is only partially restored.  The fountain is supposed to the largest in Central America.  You’ll also note a young couple holding hands in front of the fountain.  It was quite common to see young “novios” hugging/cuddling/kissing in churches, parks and other places.  In fact, several churches specifically had signs stating that such behavior is inappropriate and I once saw a couple asked to leave due to PDAs. 

A view of the current Iglesia San Francisco on the top.  You can get an idea of how the church is pieced together with older ruins and new construction. At the bottom is an overview of the ruins of the old convent.  Note the park-like character of the ruins;  there were even picnic tables in a couple of places.

Another ruin, the Iglesia del Carmen, with a handicraft market in front.  You can get some idea of how colorful the locally made fabric and crafts are.

The Arch of Santa Catalina which spans a pedestrian street in Antigua.  The arch was built so the nuns could pass from one side of the street to the other without having to come into contact with the riffraff in the street.

A museum that I found very interesting (though its content was rather scattered) was the museum at the former Convento Santo Domingo.  This complex is now part luxury hotel, part  museum and part park-like ruins.  The museum is actually several museums together:  a pharmacy museum, a contemporary art museum, a handcraft museum, a silver museum, an archeology museum, a colonial art museum and what I found most interesting, a pre-colonial art/modern glass museum.  The latter displayed works of pre-Columbian art juxtaposed with modern glass pieces that used the same motif or theme as the pre-Columbian piece.  Unfortunately, photography was not allowed.

The ruins of the Santa Domingo church that are part of the museum/hotel complex.  This area is set up for a wedding, but is also a conference/meeting room for the hotel.

These had to be copied from the internet since photography was not allowed, but these are a couple of examples that show the a pre-Columbian piece paired with a similarly-themed modern piece of glass.  There were others that I personally  found more compelling, but this is what I could find online.

From Antigua, I took what was referred to as a “Pullman” bus (just an old school bus from what I could tell) to the town of Pahajachel (or Pana for short), located on the shores of Lago Atitlán in the Guatemalan highlands.  The lake is noted for its beauty and being nestled among several large volcanoes.  Unfortunately, the weather was very cloudy my entire stay (I was only there a day), so I only caught a brief glimpse of the volcanoes as I was leaving town on the bus and the weather partially cleared.  Pana itself is basically a tourist town, something akin to the Dells in WI or Estes Park in CO, and not particularly pretty or interesting to me, but certainly loaded with hotels/restaurants, which makes it an easy place for tourists to visit.  For me, the more interesting part was the lake, the scenery and the small communities scattered around the lake.

This is a street view of Panajachel.  It is basically a series of hotels, restaurants and souvenir/craft shops.  If you look down the street, there is another mototaxi.

Here are the views of the lake that I had.  The top is how it looked for the day I was there and the bottom, taken from the bus, shows the partial clearing as I was leaving.

Here are a couple of view of Laga Atitlán that I got from the internet so you can see what the lake should look like in good weather.

My plan had been to take a ferry across the lake, but the weather was so cloudy/misty that I decided it wasn’t worth it, so I just did some walking along the lake and around town and did manage to find a few interesting things.

This is a mechanic’s shop that I thought had an interesting motto:  Jesus repairs your soul, and we (repair) your mototaxi.

A reminder of how hard life can be for some in many parts of the world.  Here are people mining sand and gravel by hand from a river bed.  They dig and throw the sand/gravel mix against frames with wire to sort for size, then hand load in pickups.  On the far bank, you can also see some dramatic results of erosion.

In my wanderings along the lake, I walked by many mansions that were separated from the street by walls and gates.  Security seems to be a big concern in Central America, whether it’s simple barbed wire around a campesino’s home, guards with guns at banks and stores or walls and gates around wealthier homes.  Because of the street’s incline, here I was able to peek over the wall a bit.  The lake is to the right and the wall is topped with a combination of razor wire and flowers.  The two together stuck me as an interesting contrast.

I didn’t run in Central America even though my plantar fasciitis seemed to be improved.  Somehow it seemed inappropriate to run recreationally when most of the people around me had to work so hard just to survive.  It seemed like it was almost flaunting the fact that you had enough time and energy to go out and run.  Anyway, in Pana I did see that they are having a Marathon (and half) around the lake.  It should be a beautiful run, but undoubtedly a bit hillier than I would prefer.

 From Pana, I caught another min-bus shuttle directly to San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, in order to save a few hours.  They scared me with the bus as I was instructed to be ready at 5:45 am, but the bus was actually scheduled to leave at 7:00, so I was waiting for almost an hour and thinking that they had missed me.  We were supposed to arrive in San Cristóbal at about 3 pm, but just before the Mexican border, the traffic stopped completely.  It turned out there was a demonstration by an indigenous group that was completely blocking the highway and we would have to wait until they decided to end it.  (Fortunately, unlike my experience in Nicaragua when a demonstration blocked the highway, this bus did not abandon us!)  After about a 2-hour wait in the sun, the demonstration ended and we were able to proceed to the border.  The border crossing went smoothly and we transferred to another mini-bus in Mexico for the final leg of the trip.

On the left is the line of cars/trucks waiting for the demonstration to finish.  You’ll note the lack of available shade!  On the right is the Mexican-Guatemalan border heading of the hill at La Mesilla.