Los Ahuehuetes (again)

So in case you haven't memorized EVERY WORD of my blog, you can refer back to my first visit to Los Ahuehuetes here.

You will notice that I predicted my return to this magical spot, and last Tuesday that prediction was fulfilled! And this time I brought the camera, so I can share with you what may very well be my favorite place in the world.

Myself, Dofus, Andrea, and my new friend Cristina all piled in to Cristina's old VW bug (called bochos) and made our way to the most special of places. Along the way we stocked up on vittles, chatted, and generally got really silly!

We arrived to the relatively crowded park (nice weather brings everybody out, even on a Tuesday before lunch), set up camp in a sunny spot, broke out the chelas, and sat talking until the heat got the better of us and we all went for a swim!

Important realizations of the day:
• a single piece of trident gum can be stretched to the width of the backseat of a VW bug
• wasp stings hurt
• potato chips a la diabla are the best food EVER
• the city harms your soul
• sometimes things are so beautiful you get teary
• and sometimes they're so beautiful that you have to sob like a baby, indecently and conspicuously, until you can do nothing but laugh (I believe there's a line from the Regina Spektor song On the Radio that pretty much sums up this realization: "You laugh until you cry/ You cry until you laugh/ And everyone must breathe/ Until their dying breath")
• my friends are my life, los quiero un chingo

Guanajuato

Last weekend was filled with a program-sponsored trip to Guanajuato, a small city some 230 miles north of Mexico City. It is famous for its picturesque streets, extensive subterranean tunnel system, a large collection of mummies, silver mines, an obsession with Don Quixote, for the home of Diego Rivera, and for being the cradle of Independence. It is also the home to the University of Guanajuato, which was recently featured in a film called El Estudiante, and also appears on the 1000 peso banknote.

Our trip basically consisted of a very long bus ride on Thursday afternoon, checking in to a very gaudy (and very expensive) hotel, and then the cool kids and I went out to explore the town and have a quiet drink somewhere. What we found was La Diabla, a small dark tavern with beer at 90 pesos the pitcher and a very personable staff (of two chilangos) who kept the fun going until well into the wee hours. That Thursday night was probably the most fun I've ever had on a group excursion!


Jackie and her new sunglasses (she is VERY proud of them) at La Diabla.


The next day we awoke early but still satisfied from the previous night's adventures and went on a forced tour of the city's attractions. The truth is actually that it was a pretty cool tour which included mummies (AWESOME), a silver mine (a real one this time, unlike in Taxco), a museum of the Inquisition's methods (I couldn't handle it; I had to go outside), and several smallish monuments. Then there we had free time to eat and explore, so the cool kids and I went for a fabulously inexpensive lunch, wandered around at such places as the Don Quixote museum, took naps, and finished our day with bagels and another night of fun which began at La Diabla, meandered through Bar Fly, and ended at Los Lobos. Guanajuato is a city with a very young, hip population so the nightlife is one of its main attractions (because seriously, how many monuments can you look at?).


A case of mummies at the museum in Guanajuato. They are all apparently the result of natural mummification which is observed in the bodies disinterred between 1865 and 1958. They range from elderly people to fetuses, from criminals to campesinos, and include at least one stabbing victim, one pregnant woman, and one person who was buried alive.


BABYMUMMY


Inquisition dummy!! He's probably busy sanctioning the torture and murder of countless people just because they're DIFFERENT. (but he does have a pretty sweet Hamlet skull on his desk, so we can cut him a little slack)



One of many, many representations of Don Quixote in the city of Guanajuato. Dashing as ever.



Erika with Diego Rivera's statue. It was love at first sight!

Saturday dawned early once again, and after yet another merely par omelet from the hotel restaurant, we set off as a group to visit two small towns: to Dolores Hidalgo where we visited the home of Miguel Hidalgo and ate overpriced (and delicious) sorbet, and to San Miguel de Allende where we only had time for lunch. My favorite group of hedonists and I, in search of cheap gourmet, stumbled upon Bruno's restaurant, a small place run by a very chatty Italian man who has been living there for several decades. He has not lost either his ability to make amazing pesto or to chat up a group of young ladies. He introduced us to the wonders of "chocolate salami" (a cold dessert which makes your heart melt), the merits of oldies music, the subtleties of espresso with sambuca, the origins of square dance, and the time-honored tradition of looooooong conversations over a meal (okay, so we already knew that one, but it's always good to reinforce concepts, right?). Upon our return to Guanajuato there was shopping and galavanting, followed by our traditional Foodie-Night at a local fusion restaurant. There are a select few of us who take every opportunity to use the money the program gives us for meals on program excursions, eat as cheaply as possible for the whole trip (think lots of tacos de canasta), and use the money we've saved for an extravagant meal. This particular trip brought grilled salmon in a chili sauce, Asian tuna steak, garlic shrimp pizza, a bottle of wine, and a slice of chocolate cake. We soooo know how to live! We spent the rest of our food comas in a calm evening of GloZell's translations and a relatively early bedtime.

Sunday consisted of sleeping in, tamales and horchata for breakfast, checking out the local food market, packing our bags, and the very long trip back to Puebla. All in all, a great success!

Tulancinging in the rain

This weekend was spent in Tulancingo, Hidalgo with my friend Gibran and his family. Friday we arrived at their house just in time for dinner (squash casserole, rice, tortillas, and avocados) then went on a slightly rainy tour of this smallish city.
Mode of transportation: red four-wheeler (with matching helmets).
Level of excitement: high.
Probability that a girl from upstate New York would drive a four-wheeler for the first time in urban Mexico: low, but obviously not impossible.
Final touch: guajolotes for dinner (a typical food of Tulancingo, a sandwich consisting of a fried bun stuffed with fried tortillas, salsa, refried beans, meat, onions, and cheese -> like a heart attack, but tastier).

Saturday was spent making pozole and wandering around the center of the city. Pozole is officially my favorite Mexican food, a stew consisting of very large kernels of corn and pieces of meat in a spicy broth. It is then topped with chopped radish, lettuce, lemon juice, and chile, and traditionally eaten with fried tortillas. According to wikipedia, it was made in prehispanic times using human flesh, but except in the sketchiest establishments, that particular foodstuff has been replaced with chicken and pork.

After a very late start (Saturday night consisted of a get-together with a group of very fun people), Sunday we visited a waterfall which flows over a series of large mineral prismatic formations known as basalt columns, which result from the very slow cooling of lava.** You can check it out here. Then on to Real del Monte, a town which is known for its silver mines, the influence of the English, and a delicious little potato, meat, and bean hotpocket known as a paste.


Los prismas

** The information here has been made more accurate thanks to Amie, who has kindly forced me to learn one more thing related to geology.

una epifanía no entendida

I returned to Mexico from my trip to Nicaragua last Friday night (well, very early Saturday morning), but it has taken me until now to write about it here, in this relatively public forum. And even now, I find it hard to put into words what went on, but something very powerful happened to me while on this incredible, perspective-expanding, blew-me-out-of-the-water adventure. I have this nagging suspicion that I discovered something very fundamental about myself, the world, or both. What that epiphany might be, however, I still haven't figured out. Surely, the real import will become clear to me only later in life. Until then, I present you with the facts, mostly in photograph form.




Where did we go?
Ciara picked me up from the Managua airport (1) and we went in taxi to a bus station where we caught a rapi-bus to Chinandega (2), where we caught a local bus to our groovy little hostel, Rancho Esperanza, in Jiquilillo (3). Here I would like to note that Managua is where more than a quarter of the country's population lives (in real life), Chinandega is the hottest place in the world (in my very accurate opinion), buses in Nicaragua are generally used school buses from the USA, repainted with fangs, flags, and religious figures. Jiquilillo is a secluded beach area which is home exclusively to fishermen and English-speaking tourists. From Jiquilillo we took about a million different forms of land transport over the course of an entire day (which sounds awful, but which was very cool, complaining cuñados aside) to arrive in San Ramon (4), the small town where Dylan and Ciara are living. There I stayed with them and their host family, Doña Aracely, Don Agustin, and their god-daughter Rosa. At the end of my stay, I made the journey back to Managua for my flight back to Mexico.





The view from the main "lodge" at our hostel in Jiquilillo. Guests stay in the cabins, which feature sand floors, bamboo walls, thatched roofs, and plenty of beach-kitsch.




This is my room in San Ramon, simply equipped with the essential: a bare lightbulb, a table, a mosquito net, and the most comfortable bed I've slept in for years. I had always imagined sleeping under a mosquito net to be confining and unpleasant, but quite the opposite is true; it feels very safe and comforting.




The view of the house in San Ramon from the street. We spent countless hours seated here chatting, playing games, reading, and saying Adio' to anyone who happened to walk by. (The other gringos and I also spent hours getting stared at relentlessly by all passers-by.)



The house, from the Doña's very impressive garden.




Rosita, my Nicaraguan sister. I promised her that I would come back to San Ramon, a promise I fully intend to fulfill.




The Nicaraguan version of a tamal, called nacatamales. They consist of corn masa, rice, tomato, potato, meat, and some sort of mildly spicy sauce, all wrapped up in banana leaves (and tin foil), then boiled.




Doña Aracely, Dylan, and Ciara with makeshift mustaches! I haven't laughed so hard in a very, very long time (and I'm not sure if the Doña has EVER laughed so hard. This was the only photo, out of at least a dozen, where she has contained her laughter enough to keep her mustache in place.)




A sampling of beautiful woven fabrics




One of the women who weaves said fabrics. She is part of the El Chile women's weaving cooperative, which is empowering women, reviving a traditional indigenous art, and creating a whole host of geniously constructed bags, wallets, cases, purses, and scarves.