Richard's Travel Blog

It was a real pleasure to stay in San Cristobal for a week and a half. It’s the first place I’ve been to in Mexico where I could plunk down. If I wasn’t likely to return on my way back down toward Central America, I might just stay here longer. It has just about all I’m looking for. At over 2000 meters elevation, it’s much cooler than anywhere else I’ve been, no more than about 30 degrees C. There’s a cool breeze much of the time, no mosquitoes at all, it’s big enough to have everything but without the big city feel, it has a large and alluring historical center which is especially good if you are a foodie, and the people seem nice though the indigenous people all around are stand-offish.

As far as “things to do” goes, one could say it’s a four day town. Unless you are talking about a place like Mexico City, where the is so much going on you cannot run out of urban things to do, you could say that about anywhere I’ve been so far in Mexico. So, living here would be a regular life, for the most part.

There are the usual pastel colored buildings, stone streets including three nice pedestrian only streets, great places to eat (cheap or expensive, as you like), churches of course, new age stuff if that’s your thing, lefty political vibe if that’s your thing (the Zapatista movement started here), colorful indigenous people around the city and dominant in some of the outlying towns and villages, some caves, and a beautiful gorge with 1000 meter walls about 40 km away near Tuxtla Gutierrez. It’s good. No wonder it’s so popular as a tourist destination.

Time for some pictures. Here are a few of the walking streets. Check out the Tzotzil women carrying their woven goods to sell mostly to tourists and the guy in the San Francisco Giants hat, my kind of guy.

These streets are definitely touristy, but it is not oppressive. Oppressive is when you are badgered by the shopkeepers, street vendors or restaurants to buy their stuff. Oppressive is t-shirt shop after t-shirt shop or some such thing. I can’t stand the hard sell or being taken for a mark. San Cristobal has some class. Speaking of class, I sat at a balcony seat in a restaurant (from where this picture on the left was taken) and treated myself to a truly perfect pizza, a salad with bleu cheese, walnuts and raisins, and nice wine. First pizza since I came to Mexico and I am not making excuses. It was gooood.

I stayed in a hostel that was really a pension. Basically, you stay with a family. There are four bedrooms upstairs where the guests stay, and the family lives downstairs. The woman makes a real breakfast like you are a guest, but the area is really theirs. You can use the kitchen, but it’s best to avoid the area when family is around. The treated me like family during my stay. If they don’t like you, well, you are out of there. For no reason, they kicked out a perfectly lovely American couple. The owner woman got an irrational fear, and that was that. That felt bad. The good was the first batch of tourists there when I first got there. We were a jovial group. The owners are opening a new place, and we had a big housewarming party. Very good vibes then. I made that gimongous guacamole dip in the middle. Avocadoes are perfect and cheap here.

As for things to do in San Cristobal, there are some entertainment options, places with all kinds of dinner music, art studios, clubs if you are into that. The most popular tourist destinations are some caves which I didn’t go to and a long thin lake which used to be a rushing river till it was formed by a hydroelectric dam. This Sumidero Canyon has walls up to a thousand meters high. It’s popular to take a launch with about 25 people and go for a couple of hour ride down this waterway. It’s no 8th wonder of the natural world, but it’s nice, with interesting shapes, lots of trees, animals and birds.

I have no idea why pelicans are there.

There are many towns and villages around San Cristobal populated by indigenous people. They absolutely HATE their picture taken and don’t even offer to have their pictures taken for money. Even at a distance, if they see you taking a picture in their direction, they turn their heads or cover their faces, especially the women who wear the colorful clothes you’d want to take pictures of. I went to one nearby town, Chamula, where mostly Tsotzils live. Here are some pictures I took there.

There are no photos allowed inside this church, but it would have been interesting for you to see. Many of the indigenous people practice a hybrid of Christian and traditional religion. Inside were groups of people who set up rows of candles, at least a hundred, and when they finished lighting them all, sacrificed chickens. It was halfway humane, I guess, putting them in plastic bags then squashing them between there knees and chest. I guess that broke their necks. Then while the chickens were dying for about five minutes, they prayed over the twitching bodies. Then they picked up their candles, their dead bird and their stuff, and left. That’s about the only happening thing in Chamula, though I heard there’s a Sunday market that attracts a lot of people and is fun to go to.

I think that’s about all I have to say about San Cristobal. After there, I went to the capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, about an hour away. That’s where I am now. I will be spending my second and last night here. It’s a fairly pleasant place. Nothing much going on, despite it’s size. The thing to do here is to go to the nightly marimba music in El Jardin (garden) de Marimbas. I was going to go tonight, but I heard they weren’t going to play tonight because tonight is the Mexico championship football game. There are a bunch of people here watching it right now. The other thing would be going on the river canyon ride I told you about. That’s only 10 km from here in Chiapa de Corzo. Today I went back there to see the ruins there. I went to more ruins because these are especially old and I like especially old things. These buildings were built 2700-1900 years ago. There’s not much to see now, but it was free.

Tomorrow I’m going to Oaxaca. I’m only going halfway, as five hours in a bus is all I’m up for. From that waystation, I’ve decided to hit the beaches the next day. After that, I’ll probably go up to Oaxaca City. Then I don’t know what.

Be well, all of you.

Calakmul didn’t happen. I got to Xpujil around noon but soon found out it was highly unlikely I would find other tourists to share the expense of getting to Calakmul. The guy at the tourist kiosk at the bus station said there were maybe no tourists in town right now. The woman at the nearest hotel to the station, one which would be the choice of some of the tourists, said she had no guests at all. I decided to simply catch the next bus to a transportation hub halfway to Palenque, sleep there (where I was the only guest), and head for Palenque.

Most backpacker types stay a few kilometers outside Palenque at El Panchan, which is between the city and the ruins. This part of Chiapas is jungle, or was jungle before development. El Panchan is in a patch that is reforested. In there are about 10 places with rooms, cottages, camping sites and even a tree house. It’s hardly the deep forest, but you can get a feel for the jungle by staying there. I stayed at where the internet indicated was the most tranquil. I stay away from the party crowd these days if I can. Margarita and Ed’s was just fine that way. Margarita said they don’t take “hippies”. What a sweet gal she is! Here’s their cheapest cottage, where I stayed.

There are a few rooms in their hotel-style building.

There are a couple of palm-thatched dive bar/restaurant establishments, but almost everybody goes to the really quite nice Don Mucho’s. It’s got an extensive, fair priced menu, candle lit tables at night and nightly live music. Here it is through the trees and at night, with the candle lit tables and the music on the left. Check out the little lamps along the path so you don’t step in the muck at night while you roll your wheelie suitcase to your place. Wheelie suitcases and muck to not go well together, and muck there was, as there were a couple of ferocious thunderstorms while I was there. The rainy season is about to start.

The other places to stay are back in the trees up this path.

Some hardened travelers scoff at these kinds of places, but I think it had something for everyone. It wasn’t in the city at least, with the trees, colorful and noisy birds, cicadas and howler monkeys. It had nice stuff for the people on two week vacations from the office. The cottages would be great for couples who might prefer not to share a common wall. The food was good at Don Mucho’s, though I ate mostly cold food from town to save money.

I stayed there for three nights. One day I went on a waterfall/river/swimming hole tour. It was a steamy 104 degrees F (40 C), so that was nice, as well as it being quite pretty.

I didn’t go swimming at this place, just walked behind the falls to the other side. Most of the others swam there while I chilled out at the opening to a grotto on the other side and under the falls. It was nice and cool there. Besides, the tour only stopped there for about a half hour. A schedule is the disadvantage to going with a tour.

Then we went to this other place which was even nicer. We stayed there about three hours. I thought it might be a stretch to want to stay so long, but you walk up the river to view the views and swim as you like in many swimming holes. Beautiful series of falls, beautiful river, not too many people, cool water on a hot afternoon. Very nice. Our group got along well, also.

The second full day I was there, I went to the ruins when they opened at 8. Considering the heat and the number of tourists, I was surprised so few people go there early. It’s nice there, as you will see. The ruins are surrounded by lots of trees, though the main part of the site is well-groomed. There’s a very nice little museum there, too, which you shouldn’t miss if you ever go there. As usual, I’ll dispense with the history. All this archaeological history makes me dizzy. Suffice it to say, most of this is about 1500 years old, built during the Mayan heyday.

I managed to linger around there for about four hours. There are many paths off to obscure areas where one can hang out in peace.

The rest of that day was nothing. There’s ultraslow wifi internet at Don Mucho’s and a couple of the hostel/cabana places, but not at Margarita and Ed’s. Don Mucho’s charges 25 pesos per hour, but it’s so slow I only bothered with it one hour. You can’t even voice only Skype on it. So I read and studied Spanish on the books and Spanish course I have downloaded. That’s about it. The next day I went to San Cristobal de las Casas, where I am right now.

San Cristobal is very pleasant and I plan to stay a few days. I’ll write about that when I’m finished here. Until then, be well, all of you.

Tulum is also a popular destination for tourists. It’s close enough to Cancun that you can get there, and back if you can handle about seven hours in a bus coming and going, less if you are with a group tour that doesn’t stop. You can do a poor man’s Maya Riviera thing, like on the Cancun strand, or stay in the nearly regular town itself. The nice hotels are also far away from the regular town, like in Cancun, so you don’t have to mix.

I stayed there for a couple of days. One day, I walked the 10 km or so to the ruins and back along the beach. The ruins site is manicured and just so picture perfect. You can see why it’s popular. The downside is the buildings themselves are cordoned off and you can’t get close to most of them.

Part of the downside is there are no good angles to see the ruins in their lovely oceanside setting.

 My original plan was to take a collectivo there and maybe walk the beach and cliffs back, but I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy doing that in the heat. So, I settled for this picture and walked the road back.

I stayed an extra day in Tulum. The owner said his brother lives in an isolated hamlet on the coast south of Tulum and before Chetumal which is on the Belize border. He thought his brother was coming and, if I wanted to kick back there, I could go with him. I was going to go, but the brother wasn’t coming after all. So I went to Chetumal the day before yesterday with the intent to go west toward Xpujil, back in southern Campeche. From there, I am hoping to get to Calakmul, another Mayan site. We’ll see how that goes, as there is no public transportation. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll gt back on a bus for Chiapas.

I decided to spend a day in Chetumal. Again, a nice hostel was the reason. Also, Chetumal seems to be a pleasant place. I walked around town and along the waterfront with a Chinese woman staying here. That’s about it. No pictures, except for this one of Olga, the owner, Ming, the Chinese woman, and me.

Right after posting this, I’m off to try to get to Calakmul. The town everyone bases themselves for visiting the ruins in the area is Xpujil (Eesh-pu-HEEL). The internet says accommodation is expense or super-basic, and getting around is expensive. Like, taxis. If I can pull it off, with some other people probably, I’ll mosey around there. If it’s a hassle, I’ll just move on to Pelenque, Chiapas.

Until then, be well, all of you.

As for Cancun, I can say I’ve been there. If your thing is Miami Beach or Waikiki, Cancun would be great. Cancun itself is basic big city with many budget options for vacationers. The beach strand is east of a big lagoon. It’s only two or three hundred meters wide in most places, with the beach strand on the east. Along there is about 10 km of upscale hotel after upscale hotel with the beach on the other side. anyone can go to the beach, though you generally have to go through a hotel to get to it. For sure, it’s great beach. Hanging out at the bar or jacuzzi on the deck seemed to me like it’s like taking a cruise ship, only it doesn’t go anywhere.

One afternoon was enough of walking the beach, lounging on the hotel lounges, cruising the shopping centers across the street, and considering eating at Chili’s, Hooters, Hard Rock Cafe, Outback, or some such place.

On the other hand, just a 20 minute ferry ride from town is the rather nice Isla Mujeres. It’s touristy, but not oppressive. There’s no traffic around, and the atmosphere is chill. I hung out a couple of days there, swam at the beach, sat under the palm trees and read, had some decent coffee in the mornings and splurged on a 700 gm ribeye steak and red wine. It was fine.

Under the right conditions, a drink on the beach watching the sunset would be great. Too bad there weren’t any clouds to give the sunsets character.

As  I said, it’s something I can say I did, but I don’t need to go there again anytime soon.

From there, I went to Tulum, about three hours south of Cancun along the east coast of the Yucatan peninsula. A short blog about that is coming up.

Campeche was nice, really. I hung out there for several days. As usual, though, I know when it’s time to go, so on to Merida I went.

Normally, the guesthouses, hotels and hostels I stay at aren’t worth mentioning. I gotta say this hostel, Nomadas, in Merida is about as good as it gets. Except for the flimsy bunks that wobble every time your bunkmate moves, this place is outstanding. It’s 11 USD which is about right here in Mexico, but it’s got a big pool, comfortable hammocks and tables and chairs, a better than average breakfast, wifi and house flat screen computers, a good kitchen, air conditioning in the dorms plus your own fan, free cooking classes (20 pesos if you want to eat the food you made), free yoga, salsa lessons, live soft dinner music, a curfew they enforce, a good location, and it’s clean.

Here we are making tortillas with some kind of spinach-type chopped veggie I forgot the name of, which we fried up into chips to go with pureed pumpkin seed/tomato/chili dip. We had that with chicken fajitas. We used plastic bags to keep the uncooked tortillas from sticking to the tortilla presses.

I didn’t do the salsa lessons, or yoga. Merida is nice enough, especially for a big city, but I was content to chill out around here much of most days.

As for things to do, you can go to the museums, which are nice enough, look at the typically colorful buildings around the historical district or take in any number of cultural events. I don’t have much to say about that stuff. It was fine. One day I went to the beach in Progresso, maybe 25 km from there. It’s not photo-worthy. The best nearby attraction is the famous Chichen Itza Mayan ruins. They are quite nice, though there were even more vendors than Teotihuacan. Of course, these ruins are so popular because of their location in Yucatan, about equidistant from Merida and Cancun. Since Cancun is such a tourist mecca, zillions of people go there. Here are three pics I uploaded.

I have more, but ruins is where it’s at in this part of Mexico and I’m about ruined out myself. I was thinking of going down to Tikal in Guatemala and looping through there and back to Mexico, but maybe I’ll stay in Mexico. I don’t know.

I did finally go to a ballgame. Turns out Campeche has a team, the Campeche Hairy Pirates, but I didn’t know that then. They played the Yucatan (Merida) Lions. Here’s the big but decidedly minor league ballpark. Behind it is a little arena, about the size of the one in Stockton. The seats aren’t reserved, so I plunked down behind the plate, like you might at a Stockton Ports game, and watched some California League level of baseball. There were a few Americans on both teams.

That’s it for Yucatan. The other part of the Yucatan peninsula is Quintana Roo, where Cancun is. That’s coming up. For now, take care.

Moving along the Gulf Coast toward the Yucatan, I came to Campeche and have liked it enough to stay several days. It’s the first place I’ve actually liked in it’s own right. Puebla I liked because it was less hectic than Mexico City. I liked the music in Veracruz, the cuteness of Tlacotalpan and the people I met in Catemaco. Campeche is just plain agreeable to me. I have been in no hurry to leave, though the time has come, and I am going to merida tomorrow.

Campeche City feels just the right size. It’s the state capital, so it’s the center of things here. It has city features like nice stores and at least one WalMart. The historical Center is big enough and there are interesting forts, museums, etc to occupy you for a while. It’s pretty cheap. There’s usually a breeze off the gulf to mitigate the heat. It’s just fine.

The historical center is about ten blocks by ten blocks, with other stuff a city bus ride away. Like some other places, such as Tlaco, most of the buildings are painted in pastels. Here are three street views. First is the street my hotel is on. The other two are of a walking street. All over town are archways and other remnants of days gone by.

Here are a couple more.

As has been the case, the central plaza, or zocalo, is photo-worthy.

There have been ongoing programs this month for Campeche’s 150th anniversary as a Mexican State (though the city’s origens go back to the 16th century, not counting indigenous people before the Europeans). there are cultural programs all around, mostly at venues around the historical center. The Campeche State folkloric dance troupe was in the plaza the other night. (I don’t know how this came out in italics, but I’m not going back. One take, every time.)

Typically Mexican, one dance number was with trays of alcohol and glasses on their heads.

Here was a folksinging show just near there.

You get the picture.

There are many forts, as Campeche had to defend itself constantly throughout the 17th-early 19th centuries from pirates and Europeans.

The best Mayan ruins near here are in Edzna, about a 40 minute colectivo ride from Campeche. Like the others, it was built over centuries. Edzna’s heyday was in the 10th century AD. I was thinking there would be tourists in there, but there was me, a German guy in my colectivo, and once inside, count ’em, four young Mexican women. Here are the pics.

The entire area covers many square kilometers. with some walking, you can find other areas which have not had the centuries of dirt and foliage removed.

I’ll leave to those of you interested to learn Mayan history. It’s way complicated, but way interesting, too.

That’s about it for now. You’ve seen most of the pictures I have that aren’t even more of the same thing. I have a market picture. Gotta have a market picture, I guess.

I go in here every day to eat. The cheap grub is always in the markets, and a big eater can fill up nicely for under 5 USD.

Okay, that’s really it. On to Merida tomorrow. Bye.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what you’re going to do at a place before you get there. There’s all kinds of nature around Catemaco, but it’s difficult to get to without your own car or the willingness to spend a fortune on a taxi or a tour. This was the case with Catemaco. Catemaco felt like a nice town, though there isn’t much to say about it. I walked around for an evening and saw all I needed to see. The second day there, I met up with a couple of Australians who wanted to kick back at the ocean before heading on to their next destination. We went to a spot with a few beach restaurants and kicked back together. They went swimming. I just ate, drank beer and socialized.

If I had wanted to spend the money, there were plenty of boat guys around who wanted to give rides around the mangroves. I’ve seen plenty of mangroves, so I passed. Then we came back. Whoever said bumpy rides in pick-up truck public transportation isn’t fun? I do wish I had a butt.

So, that’s it. The next day I went to Campeche, where I am still. I’ll probably blog about it tomorrow, as I am tentatively planning to go to Merida the day after tomorrow.

Until…..

I didn’t think I would have a chance to write for a little while. The place I was staying in Veracruz supposedly had wifi, but it didn’t work. The computer in the lobby worked for a few minutes at a time. So, I was thinking maybe Mexico isn’t as well wired as I anticipated. But even in the capital of Veracruz state? Seemed impossible, but the only internet cafes I saw were grubby and had about five computers with ancient CRT monitors. I figured, oh well…. Now, here in the little town of Tlacotalpan, the wifi in this place works normally. There’s hope!

Veracruz is a pretty gritty port city, for the most part, on the gulf of Mexico. It seemed to get spooky if you walked more than a few blocks away from the waterfront and zocalo (central plaza), which is what passes for a tourist zone. Even around there didn’t look good after about 11 PM. I got in from Puebla around 4 PM, spent two nights, and headed for Tlaco the morning after that. That about does it for Veracruz unless you want to explore the music and club scene, which is said to be pretty good. If you just put some money in your pocket and leave your wallet and cards in your room, what’s the worse that could happen, at least to a guy?

I was done looking at the sights, such as they are, after that first afternoon. Lonely Planet said there was music and life other than cockroaches and working girls at the zocalo starting after sundown. That first night, and for the next couple of weeks, there is a stage program. the first night’s program was really great. The featured band was electric Caribbean. They were so hot, like an amped Buena Vista Social Club. It was night, so my pictures are awful, but I’m going to post them anyway.

As in the other places like this I’ve been to so far, the were musicians and groups of different kinds wandering among the people eating or drinking at the outside tables.

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I stayed late, drinking beer there until the people left, as if on cue, at around 10:30. It was so lively and fun! If you wanted, you could buy your Cuban cigar from any of the the carts, get a Panama hat, and really play the part. A fair number of people were dancing up in front. I decided it was worth it to hang around all the next day, just to do that again. It was then that I wished for internet access. I took a long nap under the fan in my room. It’s about 37 degrees (almost 100 F) during the day, so that’s the plan for a lot of the people. I went to a museum and looked at the few sites. Nothing is really photo-worthy. Here’s a two hundred year old fort. Whoopie.

Unfortunately, the second night was kind of a bust. City digitaries and their frumpy wives (Think, Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn and the girls in The Music Man) reading Oh Veracruz How I Love Thee poems (of a sort) with variations of Guantanamera as background. I had to bail.

At least I was up and at ’em early this morning, got some sugary bread at the panaderia across the street, coffee at the McDonalds on the corner, and got on the bus for Tlacotalpan.

Tlaco is a World Heritage town about 100km southeast of Veracruz, close by the sea. It’s no Luxor, but it is a charming pastel-colored place. Almost everywhere is prettily painted. The nicest photo-ops are around the zocalo. The bulk upload and addition to posts actually works on the new, improved WordPress, so here are all the pictures I took.

I didn’t tell you, I had the greatest shark a la Veracruzano in Veracruz and seafood paella with octopus, crab, and fish pieces here. Oh, if I could afford to eat like that all the time. Sigh.

So, tomorrow I’m off to Catamaco. it’s in the Tuxlas lake region, near the ocean. I’ll tell you what I see there. Until….

I’m going to Veracruz in the morning, so here is a quicky post from Puebla before I go.

Puebla, about 100 Km southeast of Mexico City, is peaceful compared to Mexico City even though it has a population of almost 6 million. The atmosphere is much more mellow and doesn’t feel like it’s so big. The main thing to come here for is to look at the 18th and 19th century architecture which is at least as good as Mexico City’s. At least it seems so, probably because of the relative tranquility. I can’t say it’s been exciting. I think I’ll be seeing this over and over again. I took a few pictures, and here they are. As usual, most of the photo-worthy shot are around the historical center.

The first two are inside the cathedral. Yes, I know, there are going to be a lot of church pictures. They really are beautiful. I just have to not get too jaded. The pipe organ in the second one is lovely.

There’s usually a main plaza next to the cathedrals. They usually look like this. Here’s the arched covered restaurant row. Notice the other building. Puebla is full of this.

Here’s looking back along the other side of the plaza, with the side of the cathedral.

The cathedral and the plaza are about two blocks from where I’m staying. Just on the corner is this church, like, one block from the cathedral.

A block in the other direction is a very classy museum. I didn’t take pictures inside, but what is worth doing is gong to the coffee bar at the top and enjoying the view from there.

I spent four days here, walking around, looking at and inside the buildings. There’s not much to say about that. It was fairly chill, again, compared to Mexico City. There’s a long pedestrian street.

Down at the end of that is another church. There was a wedding gong on, and I watched that for a while. Nice place to get hitched.

That’s all I have to say about Puebla. The other thing you’re supposed to do when you are here is go to Cholula, which iws a suburb about 20 km from city center. There is a pyramid there which is of interest to archaeologists, though to the amateur it’s kind of boring. It’s still covered with 1800 years of dirt. The fun thing for archaeologists is the tunnel system underneath, which tourists can’t go in. The Spanish built a church on top.

For what it’s worth, here’s Cholula from that church.

That’s it, short and sweet. Tomorrow is Veracruz. I booked a room for three nights. From Lonely Planet, it looks like that may do it for Veracruz, though you never know what might be an attraction that keeps me there.

Be well, all of you.

Well, after three weeks here in Mexico City, I’m moving on to Puebla tomorrow. I’ve gotten to the point where about a half day of doing stuff is all I want to do without risking the burnout I anticipate having eventually before petering out and seriously looking to locate somewhere again. With hours on my hands to kick back, this blog may turn more into a diary than the usual semi-regular posts I’ve done in the past.

The highlights of the past few days since I wrote are visiting Frida Kahlo’s Blue House which is now a museum, Xochimilco, Guadalupe and the Templo Mayor.

As you can see, Kahlo’s and Diego Rivera’s house is indeed blue. Inside, you can see how she lived, some of his and her art, though none of her most famous pictures are there. It was more interesting just to have been there and seen her stuff and how she lived. I already forgot if they allow photos inside, but I didn’t take any, anyway. I did take pictures of their garden area. Here is from her bedroom window toward the back of the house.

Here’s back up in that direction

And here’s just panning to the left toward the back of the front of the house.

I have been looking at their art here and there since I got here. One of the best collections of Kahlo’s works belonged to woman, Delores Olmeida Patino. (I don’t have a Spanish keyboard, so that “n” doesn’t have a tilda.) When she died, her home and grounds in Xochimilco were turned into a museum. What a lovely place she had.

The biggest steel grey dog there is a statue, bronze I think. The other’s are real and look just like the statue. A couple of peacocks were strutting around.

Unfortunately, most of Kahlos’s painting from there are currently on world tour. Oh well. Rivera and Kahlo were prolific, so there has been and will be plenty to see.

Xochimlco is in the  south of Mexico City, and is most famous for it’s canals. In olden times, most of Mexico city was canals, marsh and lakes. The watery ways give you a hint of what it was like before Mexico City was built over it all. It’s quite touristy, now, though. You go down to the embarcaderos and there are maybe hundreds of boats to take tourists along the main canal.

When I got there at 10 AM, it was dead as a doornail, so when I started on my little 1 1/2 hour ride, I think I may have been nearly the only one there. The guy poled me along alone, maybe feeling lucky he had at least one customer.

Here’s what it looked like around noon, when some others got some business and the sun was behind me so the pictures turned out.

Obviously, at times not during the week and during tourist season, the canal is crammed with boats. I must be a completely different vibe than the bucolic one I had. Restaurants like this along the banks…

… must do a good business, as would the many barquitos that come along-side to hawk stuff. You could get your mariachi fix from a floating band. I imagine when business is hopping, it might be a mariachi cacophony.

I had to go to Xochimilco. Since I was a little boy in Stockton, I’ve gone to a restaurant by that name there. I didn’t know till this trip what it was. Now I know.

Today, I went to the Cathedral of Guadalupe and the Templo Mayor.
Most readers will know Guadalupe is the site where, in the 16th century, a campesino is said to have seen an apparition of the Virgen Mary. A painting representing this apparition is firmly embedded in the brains of those of us brought up Catholic. Tens, if not hundreds of millions, of Catholics believe in this miracle. I have seen many holy sites, Christian and other, and I always want to see if I sense spirituality there. My spiritual antennae doesn’t rate Guadalupe very high, but then again, that may be a function of how many holy sites I’ve seen. I could be jaded. For sure, for me, the clear winner as a place where spirituality permeated the air and affected me is Medjugorje, Bosnia. Guadalupe is a completely different scene. In Medjugorje, there are masses in several languages and translators everywhere, and a far more diverse tourist/devotee crowd. Besides that, I admit my impression is just my impression.

There is a new church there now, where the famous picture is. There was a mass going on, so I didn’t even consider going up close to the picture which hangs behind the altar area. A couple of us in the back were taking photos, so I took a couple quick ones. If you want to see it close up, the are many copies in the museum at the back of the old basilica, not to mention everywhere postcards are sold.

Here is the outside of the new church.

It’s quite laid back and friendly ouside, or at least it was While I was there. Sundays and holy days must be different. Like, you can walk up and talk to this bishop or whatever he is. He’ll pose for a picture, give a blessing, or just seemed willing to chat. He hung in there, letting the faithful approach him on their knees to kiss his ring or to be chatted up, as you like.

Looking to the right is the old basilica, a couple of other chapels and some auxiliary buildings.

It’s a nice walk up to the convent grounds on the hill above.

From there, there are nice views of the back of the old basilica, the new one to the right, and downtown Mexico city in the distance.

Here’s an old chapel on the grounds.

The other thing I did today was go to the Templo Mayor. As I wrote before, it’s just behind the cathedral at the Zocalo.

 This was the principal temple of the Aztecs. Most of it was built during the last couple of centuries before the Spanish conquest, though those constructions were on top of earlier temples going back to the time of the Teotihuacan.

Pretty much, the max price for going in somewhere in Mexico City is about 4.50 USD. At first, I was wondering if it was worth it, especially after paying that for the wonderful Museum of Anthropology, but was. So many great things were unearthed! Surprisingly, though fairly competent excavations were made at the beginning of the 20th century, many artifacts were discovered after modern archaeological digs started in 1978. slowly, slowly still, they are working their way down, as well as finding more things around downtown. It’s artfully laid out, lighted in subtle and interesting ways and, like the Museum of Archaeology, is an enjoyable experience.

Speaking of laid out in interesting ways, I know that in the past, my blog format has been pedestrian, to say the least. I’m sure WordPress had capabilities I didn’t know how to utilize, but after not blogging for some time while I was in Chongqing, I went to do some blogging and got an advisory to upload updated WordPress. How to do everything was so radically different, I had to relearn everything. The result is that I know how to change the pictures around, make them smaller, edit them there instead of on Windows, and some other stuff. Any suggestions in the comments or to my email would be appreciated. I will try to figure out how to do it.

Mexico City has been fine. I’m so glad I came. My experience is Mexico is so limited. I drove with my then fiancee, Janet, to Guaymas in about 1972, and in 1984 went on a cruise ship that put in in Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatenejo/Ixtapa (which was brand new then had been immediate destroyed in an earthquake) and Acapulco. Like, as if shore trips off the boat is seeing a country. After I’ve been here for a substantial amount of time, I can no longer feel odd, having seen far away places but not America’s neighbor.

My long term strategy remains the same. I figure to do what is doable for me as I age. That is to continue to be halfway adventurous and carry a pack around while I can, then slow things up till I need wheelchair accessibility. The timeline for that remains, of course, up to the gods, fate, or whatever. Settling down for periods is much more in the cards than years ago. This is especially the case if I want Myung to stay with me.

My short term plan is to go to Puebla tomorrow, and figure out what to do the day after tomorrow, after I get there and sniff the air.

Until next time, be well, all of you.