The ruins of Xochicalco and winding down in Cuernavaca

After walking about 1.5 miles from the bus drop-off point towards the Xochicalco pyramids (an hour bus-ride outside of Cuernavaca, we weren't getting noticeably closer and decided to go for the local transportation.

An unsupervised horse in the middle of the road. Why not?

Xochilcalco was an important city state between 700 and 900 A.D., after the decline of Teotihuacan, which are the much more well-known ruins north of Mexico City.

Memo examining some of the displays in the extensive museum.

The great pyramid.

One of three ball-playing fields that were used. The teams were usually good versus evil, earth versus water, and other significant contrasts and the games were used to make predictions.

The most stunning pyramid on the site, with 8 serpents visible in bas-relief.

Inside one of the ball-playing fields.

The saumerio plant, which was burned as incense for ceremonies. I am guessing its a cedar relative from the smell of a broken branch.

I though taking one of the local transports back to Cuernavaca would be an adventure, but really it was just hot and twice as long as the regular bus. It stop about every 100 yards and for anyone who steps out into the street or nods their head in the right way.

The driver's seat of our local transport. Note the stereo basically being held-up by duct-tape.

We were dropped off in Cuernavaca at the mercado, and ducked in to get to the other side rather than walking around. Mistake. You can't imagine how narrow the passages are and how crowded they are with people and merchandise. They are truly labyrinths.
Now we are in the dried chile section of the market. You can see Memo ahead of me.
Yes, those are parakeets strapped to this young lads back. I snapped the picture while a large group of kids were being entertained by some sort of street magician / prognosticator.

At the entrance to the Jardin De La Borda. Jose de la Borda was a crazy wealthy silver magnate who made his fortunes in Taxco in the 1700s. This house and extensive, Versailles-like gardens was built by his son in the late 1700s/early 1800s. This super-sized pinata at the entrance caught my eye.
A pavilion at the lake of the de la Borda house with decorated skeletons left over from the day of the dead and created by local school groups. (Dia de los Muertos)
Decorated with corn husks and seeds.


I was intercepted at the lake and interviewed and videoed by two local girls for a school project. This chica's English was superb. The facade of Cuernavaca's cathedral, the Templo de la Asuncion de Maria, has a scull and crossbones over the doorway. This is a symbol of the Franciscan order that was active in this area in the 17th- and 18th- centuries.
The belfry of the Cuernavaca cathedral.
Inside the cathedral, with frescoes rediscovered in the early 20th century.
Strange fruit hanging from a tree in the cathedral compound. The compound itself, as in other cities, is a local meeting place, with dozens of pairs and groups of people sitting on the benches and low walls and enjoying the peace. This compound had three other churches within it.

An elderly lady heading to the Zocalo to peddle her wares. We followed her to the Zocalo in order to see the Coca-Cola Christmas tree lit up.

What we actually found in the Zocalo was a bit more bizarre. In front of the Christmas tree was a group of dancers wearing indigenous-inspired clothing and dancing to two drummers in the middle of a large circle. Memo asked what was going on, and was told that this happens every 20 days, but we still aren't sure what the group is.
Sneaking a photo with artificial flowers peddled by a street-vendor in the Zocalo.
Memo's persistence was able to get over 10% knocked off of some jeans and a shirt in a local trendy boutique. Thanks babe!
We wandered up to one of the 4 bus stations in the city (each operated by a different private bus-line) in order to get information for our trip to Taxco the next day. On our way back to our hotel, we encountered some amazing karaoke in the park dedicated to mothers. The group pictured here featured one woman belting out a melody to a cumbia rhythm and two women beside her doing their own interpretive dancing. We got into the spirit, got up and danced as well. I have posted video of the last performer below. He rocked the Rachero style.
THE DANCERS IN THE ZOCALO


KARAOKE IN THE PARK

The pyramid and a funeral in Tepoztlan

A map of Tepoztlan surrounded by indigenous symbols, found over the exit stairs of our hotel.

The breakfast pizza was for Memo. The "chapulines" (an in-season local favorite of crickets fried in lime juice and chili powder) were for us to share. Tepozteco

The real attraction at the top of the centuries-old pyramid.

The final ascent up to Tepozteco pyramid.

The description of the site was presented in Spanish, English, and Nahuatl. I found the Nahuatl to be the most interesting.

The view of our breakfast table.

Found at the museum. I have no idea how tradition these are.

Pottery found at the museum. I wish I could tell you more about what I saw, but not surprisingly, it was in Spanish.

Street musicians in the Zocalo (city square). What you can't see in the photo is the 50-something pixie of a woman dressed in white flowing clothes with some sort of shamanic shawl over her shoulders "performing" with the music.

Bad Chris - good ice cream.

Zaragoza is anything but an unusual name here. The name is originally from Spain, and apparently the original conquer was either very famous, or very fertile.

A funeral procession that ended up being our afternoon's activity, on its way into the central cathedral for Mass.

Inside the cathedral. Note the balloons on the right.

The cathedral facade.

What can't be appreciated in this photo is the line of at least twenty cars that were stuck behind this slow-moving group for a minimum of thirty minutes.

It was very sweet how the deceased teammates walked with the coffin and wore their soccer uniform.

Lovely house and garden that we passed during the funeral procession.

Video of the funeral procession.

The balloon release in the middle of the soccer field. I got choked up.

Our dinner locale, where we waited out the torrential rainfall that seems to happen every night.

We are back on a bus, this time to Cuernavaca, where I have sworn to Memo that we are on vacation and are going to get a nice hotel this time. While the location of our Hotel Los Chinelos in Tepoztlan was great, the actually bedding left much to be desired. Paying less than fifty dollars a night, we got flimsy sheets that didn’t actually fit on the beds, so by the morning we were sleeping on the mattress, and we could feel the coils in backs as we slept. I can say that the rooms weren’t hot at all, since I don’t think it got above 65 in the city while we were there.
The first order of business on Sunday morning was making the wet (it poured rain last night) 45 minute ascent up to the Pyramido Tepozteco, which is perched on top of one of the cliffs overlooking the city. To get there, we passed dozens upon dozens of food and souveneir stalls targeting the hoards of tourists that descend upon this “Pueblo Magico” every weekend. The difference between the city on Sunday morning and this morning was night and day. All of the stalls were closed up tight with tarps and ropes (and rocks) and the streets were largely empty.
With its cool climate and short distance from Mexico City, it’s a very popular weekend destination for people looking to get out of the big city. Also of interest is the fact that many people think that the temple above the city gives it powers of favorable energy, so there are a lot of new-agers wandering around the city in white harem pants and dred-locked hair. I was tempted by a bellydance hip scarf in a shop featuring goods from India, but the $40 price tag and the fact that our bags are stuffed as is kept the scarf on the mannequin.
The ascent to the pyramid was quite strenuous, and it was fascinating to see the type of footwear that people chose to climb in. Flip flops, heeled boots, dressy slip-ons. Going up was one thing, but it was actually more treacherous going down the mountain, and we got hung up behind women in the flip flops hanging on to husbands and boyfriends and trying to pick their way from rock to rock down the mountain. Between gasps of breath as we climbed, I heard amazing bird calls and occasionally caught a glimpse of what looked like yellow parakeets and black birds with white and red underbellys. At the top, we found the pyramid, and as the guidebooks suggested, the structure itself was not as impressive as the climb. It seems that the most interesting attraction for most tourists is the band of semi-tame badgers that lives up there, and I was no exception. We probably spent 15 minutes with the badgers and 8 minutes climbing to the top of the pyramid and looking down over the valley.
After our descent, we stopped at a lovely vegetarian restaurant for a lunch of wheat gluten, bean burritos, and yogurt lassis. True to our past experiences, the service was incredibly slow even though we were the only customers there. Moorcheeba was setting the ambiance, and I suspect our young waiter (who responded to my question about Moorcheeba that they gave good “energy”) was also the cook.
Our next big activity was going to the Sunday market , which we were told was quite extensive. It was extensive, but extensively made in China and India and targeted towards New Age tourists, so we quickly lost interest. We ducked into the archeological museum underneath the Tepoztlan’s main cathedral, but I pulled Memo out after about 20 minutes to follow the music that was streaming through the window of the museum. It had the sound of a New Orleans Mardi Gras brass ensemble, and I was hoping that we might see some live Chinelos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinelos) dancing in the streets. What we found was actually more interesting and ended up being our afternoon’s activity – it was a funeral procession. A 6-person band was rounding up a procession of at least 100 people that was slowly moving its way through the market place and into the cathedral. At the head of the procession were two men holding up a large funeral wreath. Next were girls between the ages of 7-13 that were holding baskets of daisy petals to strew on the ground ahead of the procession. The small white casket was born by four youngish men and had a cowboy hat perched on top. Among the mourners, many of whom were carried large bouquets of mixed white flowers, was someone holding a large bunch of white balloons and what looked like an entire youth soccer team dressed in their team uniforms.
We followed the procession into the church (adorned with a mixture of Christian and indigenous symbols, indicating the strength of the indigenous culture in this region), but left quickly and wandered up to the middle of the market square to listen to sidewalk musicians and to enjoy some ice cream. When we heard the music again, we hopped up and started to follow. I learned from Memo that this is a common funeral practice in Mexico, but that the music selection can vary. The mourners gather at the house of the bereaved, and walk to the church for the funeral mass accompanied by musicians. In Memo’s father’s case, his father asked for mariachis. After Mass, the procession continues to the cemetery for the graveside service. We walked with the procession for at least half an hour, learning that the coffin contained a 10-year-old boy. The stopped at a soccer-field about a half-mile of out of town and had a lovely ceremony with the kids, in which the team huddled around the coffin and gave their team cheer, and then the white balloons, which had been distributed to individual children at the church, were released and gave the whole experience a very surreal feel. The procession continued on, but we stayed at the soccer field to watch a few minutes of the teen games that had been interrupted by the funeral, and then we headed back to the hotel.
The rest of the afternoon/evening was anticlimactic compared to seeing the funeral, so I won’t bore you with details. It rained, we ate dinner, and we started packing.