Category: travels

Jugo verde is the most refreshing drink I’ve ever had. Pineapple, freshly squeezed orange juice, cactus and parsley. Not too sweet, not too acidic, pleasantly flavorful. Perfect for breakfast. Actually, its soothing taste reminds me of the people of Tilcajete who create delicate wood carvings of fantastical creatures called alebrijes. They speak Spanish in such dulcet tones that it melts in one’s ears. Sounds like gently falling rain.

Today: Monte Albán, Mitla and the 2,000 year old, still v green Tule tree.

Besides being one of the earliest cities of Mesoamerica, Monte Albán’s importance stems also from its role as the pre-eminent Zapotec socio-political and economic center for close to a thousand years. Founded around 500 BCE, in the next 1,000 years Monte Albán had become the capital of a large-scale expansionist polity that dominated much of the Oaxacan highlands and interacted with other Mesoamerican states such as Teotihuacan to the north. The city had lost its political pre-eminence by the end of the Late Classic era and soon thereafter was largely abandoned.

Mitla is the second most important archeological site in the state of Oaxaca. While Monte Albán was most important as a political center, Mitla was the main religious center. It was inhabited perhaps as early as 900 BCE. Mitla is famous for its small, finely cut, polished mosaics and massive stone pieces which have been fitted together without the use of mortar. The high priest’s room is quite impressive. The doorways into his chambers are intentionally low so people would have to bow in order to get in.

Finally, we got to see the giant, 2,000 year old Tule tree – a stunning Montezuma cypress in the town of Santa Maria del Tule.

We visited the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzman in Oaxaca today. It is one of the most lavishly decorated Baroque churches in all of Mexico. Its adjacent convent houses the Museum of the Cultures of Oaxaca and contains the Treasures of Tomb 7 from Monte Alban, a Mixtec burial site discovered in 1932. It includes finely crafted gold and silver but what really blew me away were alabaster bowls so fine, so delicate, that they’re translucent. This is the greatest treasure that has ever been found in Mesoamerica and it’s kinda cool that these remarkable pre-Colombian objects are displayed in a convent built by the Spaniards, conquerors who did everything they could to erase that very same culture.

Stopped over in Puebla City on our way to Oaxaca and had the best lunch ever. So mole was invented here. I’ve had it in the US and in other parts of Mexico (like Puerto Vallarta) but mole poblano is something else -incomparable. My husband tried some toasted grasshoppers while we were roaming around the market, but I preferred to focus on the beautiful Talavera pottery. We visited the Church of Santo Domingo and the Chapel of the Rosario. Not since St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican have I seen so much gold and such overwhelmingly intricate work. So many stunning (and mostly blue and white) tiles are incorporated into the facades of buildings here that it sometimes feels like Tunisia or Morocco. Love how cultures and histories intersect in the most unexpected ways.

Yesterday afternoon we visited the Temple of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon at Teotihuacan. I’m always reminding my kids that “history,” as we know it, is very Eurocentric and therefore to always look for alternative narratives and diverse angles from which to view the human story. What a great lesson we got from Teotihuacan: “Around 300 BCE, people of the central and southeastern area of Mesoamerica began to gather into larger settlements. Teotihuacan was the largest center of Mesoamerica before the Aztecs. The city had already been in ruins for 500 years by the time it was discovered by the Aztecs. It is thought to have been established around 100 BC. At its zenith, perhaps in the first half of the 1st millennium AD, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas, with a population estimated at 125,000 – 250,000, making it one of the largest cities in the world during its epoch.” The city is stunning on account of how beautifully organized it was, the geometrical symmetry and integrity of its architecture, its apartment complexes and elevated temples, the level of astronomy and mathematics that its inhabitants were obviously familiar with, and so much more. Wish we knew more about this fascinating civilization and so many other ancient people – e.g. the Indus River people who built Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (now in Pakistan) around 6000 BCE. There is much in the world apart from Europe 🙂

How Diego Rivera imagined the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan, with volcanoes and snow-capped mountains in the background. The city was a set of islands on Lake Texcoco, hence the canals and waterways, all painted in this gorgeous blue color. Mexico City is built on top of Tenochtitlan and everywhere it’s possible to get a brief glimpse of the civilization that lies underneath. These pictures do not do justice to the mural.

Our hotel is right next to the Zocalo, or the main plaza in Mexico City’s centro historico, so today we walked around the square and explored the Palacio Nacional, the Cathedral Metropolitana and the Templo Mayor archeological site. Modern Mexico City was built by the Spaniards on the ruins of the capital of the Aztec Empire and it is this layering of history (this stratum upon rich stratum of culture and diversity, of architecture and religious beliefs, of violence and beauty, of art and truth telling) which makes Mexico so bewitching. One of the reasons I wanted to visit Mexico City was Diego Rivera’s monumental work: his murals at the Palacio Nacional. They did not disappoint. Imagine Karl Marx as a Moses like figure standing on Mount Sinai with his commandments. It took 22 years for Rivera to complete his masterpiece. It’s astonishing both as an artistic achievement, a detailed historical narrative, a triumph of the human imagination as well as bold politics. He tells it like it is, all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly but also the hopeful. Since the Palacio houses the President’s offices, my son asked pointedly if such art and politics could ever be displayed on the walls of the White House. A very good question.

After being detained at Toronto airport for two hours for further security checks on my husband (traveling while sporting a male Muslim name), waiting to get on a plane for another 4 hours (weather related airline issues) and surviving an excessively bumpy flight (the kid behind us kept asking his dad why we were “dropping” – an apt description), we are finally in downtown Mexico City!