Christmas in Malinalco

Christmas eve day agenda: We visited the ancient Mexica tribe’s El Cuacalli, the Fortress of the Ocelot and Eagle Warriors, carved into the top of a mountain in Malinalco, Estado de Mexico. It was pristine. You could still see the eagle carvings on the wall of the war room. After this, we went to the outdoor market and I bought cactus, mandarins, and pan borrachero (drunk bread) for Christmas lunch tomorrow. I drank a lima-lime smoothie in an Indian-Mexican cafe while I shuffled through a deck of tarot cards. Our waiter wore a robe and may have possibly been the person responsible for the excellent feng shui we enjoyed in the tea room.


I am currently sleeping in this beautiful town named after the Aztec Goddess of magic (it is indeed magic!) and the house is beautiful and the weather is gorgeous. It is known for having great trucha, trout, and there is a whole section of town that is nothing but restaurants serving up fresh trucha al gusto next to the stream. I could be happy living here if I had a longer attention span. We rented a 3 bedroom house in town. This is the view from my room (the rest of the house is equally beautiful):



I am reading a book I found in this house which is supposedly the verbal translation of demon possessions (in demon code) of an ex-Spanish conquistador, Juan Antonio Llorente. It is Called Los Demonos de la Lengua and it is taking me forever to read because it is in Spanish with all this new religious and colonial vocabulary and there is a lot of background story I had to wiki in order to appreciate its spookiness(The Black Legend of Spain and the introduction of Catholicism to the native peoples of Mexico). It is really good for expanding my grasp of the language, but it also took me 6 hours to read 35 pages. I have been reading it while soaking in the bathtub the last two evenings, and I have enjoyed it despite all the work.

Yesterday, while I was in the tub, I heard a horse whinny and gallop by. That and the roosters crowing at all hours of the day is so great. We need to get MC to a cock fight some time soon.

Right now, the people of Malinalco are setting of very loud firecrackers every 10 minutes which are amplified by the huge mountains surrounding us from every side. This happened last night until I went to sleep around 1 am. Mexicans love to party and they love to celebrate their baby Jesus. I love Mexicans. And their fireworks.

We had an excellent Noche Bueno dinner of rare prime rib, potato wedges, zalbutes, tacos del conchonito (Yucatan cuisine I have been told), lemon mousse, Spanish wine and mandarin margaritas at Hotel Ámel. If I ever come back here and I can't rent the place I am currently staying in, I will certainly stay there. Swanky. My normally sober parents and us normally drunk hermanas killed two bottles of wine in addition to our Christmas margaritas over dinner. Mary Claire started driving off with my mom halfway in the car, halfway in the street. She could have been seriously injured but she wasn't and we were drunk, so we just thought it was really funny. I am chuckling (or as my spanish dictionary defines it, sonreirse tontamente) right now thinking about it.

Tomorrow we are going to Chalma, near Malinalco, to see this pilgrimage of people coming to see the cave in which a black Christ idol miraculously appeared over night. This is the second most popular Mexican pilgrimage spot after the Basilica de Guadalupe in D.F. according to wikipedia. Originally, the caves that house Black Jesus belonged to the Nahualt Goddess of trash and filth (Tlazatcotl) and God of human destiny and night (Oxtoteot). Wow. Talk about the Christmas Spirit. This year my secular ass is going ALL OUT!

Teotihuacan

What Mexican adventure isn't complete without a trip to the "Birthplace of the Gods"? My family and I went to Teotihuacan, which is located just outside of D.F.. I got my exercise in for the day fo sho.



This city was founded by at least as early as 200 B.C. and was at one time the largest urban area in Central America. Evidence also suggests that it was a multi-ethnic city made up of Mayans, Zapotecas, Mixtecas, and Nahuatl. It was abandoned at one point for unknown reasons, but it was later occupied by the Aztecs. There are three pyramids; of the Moon, the Sun, and the most bad-assed of them all (though the smallest), the Pyramid of Quetzaquoatl. The latter pyramid was dedicated to their feathered serpent God. It was the most elaborately decorated pyramid with snake heads and such, though I was told at one point all of the pyramids were elaborately painted back in the day. Human sacrifices were found all OVER the place too. The museum on site indicated that the Teotihuacanos considered life on this earth to be just one of many phases, so fuggiddaboudit, no biggie if the priest says he needs some more human blood to repaint Quetz's house, there were plenty of people hanging around to help.

La Plaza de 3 Culturas

MC and I went to Tlatelolco Plaza today. It is a very interesting place for many reasons.


First of all, the place is called the Plaza of Three Cultures because it is a city block which contains the excavated ruins of an Aztec religious center, Tlatelolco, plus a Spanish Cathedral built in 1531 by Hernan Cortes' conquistadores after they massacred the very last of the Aztecs here, then the square also houses the Mexican Department of Foreign Affairs. So think about it, there are Aztec ruins in the center of Mexico City, preserved, (have I stressed enough that Mexicans rule yet?) and a couple of days ago, Hilary Clinton was hanging out on this same block doing business.



Ok, going back to that massacre (1521), I read that so many Aztecs died fighting against the Spanish, their bodies clogged the canals. And don't get me started on the human lives sacrificed there to nature gods prior to whitey's arrival... I read today they found remains of 2 fetuses in some kind of kiln that the Aztecs probably also used to cook food in. Delicious.

The reason I wanted to visit there today was because of a more recent massacre. In 1968, just 10 days before the Summer Olympics were held in Distrito Federal, University students held a peaceful rally for Democracy (One political party ruled Mexico from 1910 until 2000 under a Democratic façade) in this very square. The Mexican military opened fire on the crowd toward the end of the rally. The whole thing was covered up by the next day; countless people died, were beaten and arrested, and many went missing. Less than 24 hours later, the square was cleaned of the blood and almost no media organizations covered the incident (Media networks were owned almost exclusively by the Government and its friends, not too far off from today). Tlatelolco October 2, 1968 was not investigated by the Mexican government until 2000, when finally, a new Presidential party under Vincente Fox was elected. If you want to read more about the Massacre check this NPR story. It has photos from the 1968 movement and more details.


What luck, in 1985 some 8,000 people died around this square when 2 large housing project complexes crumbled under the force of a huge earthquake. The government was criticized due to its delayed and insufficient aid response. This criticism helped spark real progress toward actual Democratization in Mexican government.

La Plaza de Tres Culturas has seen its share of political turmoil and gore for sure. I feel like it should be one of the most hallowed places in this city. Go there if you're ever in D.F.

Last night Polka Madre played a show at El Centro Cultural de España. They played with Dolomites- dude looks like a taller, crazier Curtis Grimstead:

Whoah. Dolomites sang the old Lizzie Borden had an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks song, but added that she cooked her mom's tits (he called them amigas!) in garlic and her dad's huevos in paprika. If you ever have the opportunity to see this guy, do it, he puts on quite a show. He used to be in Golgol Bordello and is playing with them in D.F. while I am in Guadalajara. Que lastima!

Check this cartoon I saw on MTV Latino yesterday. Super Mosca Bonzai!


Hermana grande and I are about to head out to the cemetery for the last day of the dead. Then we might check out the Mexican Comic Book Museum in the Zocalo. Is my trip ever gonna not be awesome??

La Santa Muerte

Just got back from Tepito- its the birthday of the Santa Muerte. So amazing! There was this huge block party by her shrine and everyone was carrying around their own Santa figures for people to bless with oils, candy, money, and cigarettes. There was a bunch of people smoking weed and I guess trannies really like Saint Death because we saw a few of them all dolled up. I saw a guy shotgun his cigar in the face of people's Santa statues. The whole thing was amazing. I got a really good air-brushed baseball hat with her on it in a graveyard. It says "Santisima Muerte" on the front and "Madre Mio" on the back. Hot. I'm not sure if its kosher to wear it in Mexico. The "Culto de Santa Muerta" takes her very seriously and a gringa sporting Muerte attire may be offensive or absurd for some Mexicans.

Worship to her used to be banned by the Catholic church. Apparently she is a favorite among gangsters and other seedy types. I am lucky to be in D.F. right now because the largest group of people who worship her are here. Her shrine is near the Piratereria- the section of town with a huge market selling pirated goods. What a good day!

Tonight I am going to see Polka Madre with my sister and her friends Lorena, Jerry, y Jorge. Hells yea!

First Few Days

My Spanish is coming back quickly. Tequila helps, but I'm trying to slow down on the sauce while I'm here. Last night, Halloween, was an exception. MC and I met these guys who own the Mexico division of Skull Candy (headphones and speakers and such) and they just kept buying us mojitos, supposedly on the company dime (...their company). They were super nice, not creepy. Much of my experiences with Mexican men is that if you pay them just a little bit of attention, they follow you around the rest of the night like puppy dogs and it gets pretty frustrating. These guys were really chill and fun to talk to. One of them, Aurturo, kept dropping the word "huey" which is the same thing as "dude" more or less and I about lost it a few times. This was the first year I didn't dress in costume for Halloween, but las hermanas gringas still got in the spirit! Here are some photos of us.


Yesterday morning I went to my sister's English conversation club to see her in action. She wanted the group to talk about Dia de los Muertos and Halloween and ghosts and purgatory ect. One of her students said she hated Halloween because a few years ago, as she was putting makeup on her son for Halloween, he started throwing up blood. She took him to the emergency room and he ended up staying in the hospital for over 40 days due to some kind of infection. She said the nurses told her it was her fault her son got sick- she made him look like a demon and the spirits made him bleed. Wow. Mexican healthcare workers believe in boogeymen over science. I got a kick out of that.

I saw La Danza de los Muertos yesterday. It was rad. This guy was dancing around in a skull head looking really creepy. The way I interpreted it, he was at first confused about the fact that he was dead, but then he got really into it and seemed happy to be a badass skeleton-man. I wish I could describe it better than that. It was pretty spooky.

I went to el Museo de las Bellas Artes and saw a Goya exhibit and another exhibit by Pedro Friedberg. I never knew it, but Goya was a pretty non-conventional painter for his time. I really liked Friedberg's stuff. He studied to be an architect when he was young and decided against actually going in to the field. Instead, he drew these crazy, highly detailed and non-functional buildings with all sorts of tantric, Aztec, and even Masonic symbolism within them. His stuff kind of reminded me of Monty Python cartoons. He's also that guy who made those chairs shaped like hands so that he could cop a feel while you sit in his art work. This guy rules. Check him out. If you ever win a million dollars and want to buy me a gift, get me one of his drawings.

Enough. My head feels like someone is stabbing me in the temples. Mary Claire made pancakes. Happy Dia de los Muertos! Oh and hey, check this contradiction out real quick. Illegal aliens with green cards? If you're going to be witty, think it through a little. Orale.

Hello Distrito Federal!

Crazy coincidence, Ward and Stephanie saw me off to my connecting flight in Charolette NC this morning! They were on the same RIC one going out to Jacksonville for the FL Fest. Their seat assignment was the row in front of mine. Ward had airplane bottles of Skyy Vodka and we mixed 'em in our smoothies in Charolette. Cocktail hour at 9am with Ward and Stephanie right before a flight should happen to everyone.
So far all I have done today in Mexico City (Distrito Federal/D.F.) is go to Mary Claire's apartment, eat a delicious torta, and have a well needed siesta. We are going to some Dub show tonight. I can't wait for Dia de Los Muertos juey! D.F. is a huge and crazy sprawl! I forgot how insanely big it is. Last time I stuck to the main Zocalo (city center) and the La Zona Rosa (the Pink Zone=gay as a footballbat!) the whole time.
I just found out Polka Madre is playing on Sunday and I am going to see them. Aren't you excited for me Tony? I'll give them a high five (una choca del cinco!) for you and Shelly and Curtis and Ward.