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February 9th, 2005: Oaxaca

Coastal Oaxaca outside of the tourist centers is wild, arid, and absolutely charming.



In one lagoon, we find what we were looking for: Olive green flat water shining against the red mountains and tons of warm, sideshore wind! Excited fishers come to applaude the first kiters the lagoon has seen and volunteer to launch the kites. We have a lot of fun until the sun sets.



When the fisher boats come back from the sea, the fishers say it is impossible to buy fish. They insist that it is offered! We end up with two delicious pieces..

On the fourth day, the wind turns crazy and we cannot use even the smallest kite with short lines..

We drive on and admire the farmers' mastership of oxen..



Mountains dotted with cactus pillars and maguey agave fields take us to the Oaxacan highlands.





The first thing we notice is the subtle sweet aroma in the air: The mezcal factories. Oaxaca produces the best mezcal of Mexico, and consequently, the best mezcal of the world. With a bit of marketing, mezcal would have the potential to become a serious competitor to tequila. The regulations allow for 49 per cent of tequila to be composed of other substances than the distilled agave juice. Mezcal is hundred per cent distilled agave juice, although some artisans add chili, bugs, and other aromas (;((

We visit a mezcal factory called Fandango in which about 800 liters of purest mezcal are produced every day. The hearts of eight years old maguey agaves are first cooked in steam, then fermented for 24 to 36 hours. Following the fermentation, the juice is distilled twice. Young mezcal is aged in white oak barrique for one year.





We buy some for 'medicinal' purposes. After a while, the magic potion starts to evaporate (;)

The drive from Mitla to Oaxaca city takes us through authentic Zapotec villages where the indigenous have been devoting their lives to handicrafts for centuries. Quality wool carpets and embroidered garments are created in Teotitlan, smoke black ceramics in San Bartolo de Coyotepec, original hammocs in Mitla.



People are real friendly, eat Nopal cactus leaves for breakfast, chapulines in the evening, drink chocolate at lunch, and dry the maiz on the roofs..





On the Teotitlan market, I spot a nice white blouse that would be a pleasent screen against the baking sun. I really like the fine embroideries but the blouse is just too large. No problem, the young artisan takes us to the home factory to have the garment adjusted.. We learn that the girl is only twelve years old! She proudly says that, with her mother's help, it took her about a month to finish the embroideries on the blouse after school.. On the way to the factory, the girl tells us legends from the village, like the one where a kid walked around a tree and disappeared. But, she says, I do not really believe in that stuff, you know..





While she is working, we play with the Zapotec kids. They barely speak Spanish yet, so we only understand when the boy says "Vampire!!!", and jumps under the table..



In the neighbouring room, the mother of the kids is weaving a carpet with a complicated design. She only has a hand made picture on a scrap of paper to help the execution..

We visit a couple of Dominican churches richly decorated in Puebla style.







In Tula stands the biggest tree of the planet. Larger than tall, this 42 meters high Ahuehuete tree overgrows the church from the 17th century. The giant has seen the construction of the church, the Spanish arrival, and the Pre-colombian cultures. Its age is estimated to be at least 2000 years.





The city of Oaxaca meets us with special light and atmosphere. The well kept colonial streets beg for a walk. The choice of stylish bars, cafes, and restaurants is large.



The galleries and street expositions display interesting pieces of modern Mexican art. There is a fair number of large churches in the city. Some of them clearly show the influence of the Arabs on Spanish architects.



The cathedral of Santo Domingo is a magnificent synthesis of indigenous and Spanish work. While the Spanish Dominicans designed the church, the artist from Puebla and other parts of Mexico worked stone, wood, tiles, and gold. The works started in 1570 and took close to a century to complete. Consequently, particularly the facade shows elements of both baroque and renaissance.



The lavishly decorated interior is a prime example of Puebla style.





In the altar and elsewhere, Zapotec masters integrated Salomon pillars. Zapotecs believe in thirteen lives and Salomon pillars represent the passing from one life to the following one.



Most statues of the saints show mestizo traits. There is even a black representation of Santo Domingo de Guzman, the founder of the Dominican order.



We spend about two hours in the church, listening to the explanations of a well educated guide.

The night fiesta in the city never ends. As the sunrise colors the Oaxacan mountains violet, we hear the first street sellers shouting. When do these people sleep?

February 17th, 2005: Puebla

The spectacular highway between Oaxaca and Puebla crosses canyons, impressive bridges, and cactus forests.





The first part of Puebla is heavily industrialized and polluted with smog clouds and smoke twisters. We leave the principal axe and take smaller roads to the rural areas where the air is clear. We drive offroad for a bit and get an almost Mongolian view of the arid steppes of the highlands. We sleep in the middle of nowhere at a chilly altitude of over 2000 meters. In the morning, we greet an old man with his donkeys.



In Cholula, in the IVth century, the masters of Teotihuacan built the world's biggest pyramid. The collosal pyramid of Tepanapa with a base of 450 meters and a height of 65 meters has more volume than the Kheops pyramid in Egypt. On clear days, the volcano of Popocatepetl shows behind Tepanapa like the father of all pyramids. Unfortunately, Tepanapa today hides under the grass and is topped by a church ordered by the conquistador Cortes in person.



Cortes is said to have ordered in Cholula the construction of one church for every day of the year. Eventually, thirty-nine churches were constructed in the town. Near Cholula, we find the best examples of so called Indian Baroque, such as the church of Tonantzintla.







A scenic road winds between the second and the third highest summits of Mexico: The active volcano Popocatepetl, 5452 meters, and his sleeping "white wife", Iztaccihuatl, 5286 meters. The Popo, as the locals familiarly call him, had only 14 eruptive periods since the arrival of the Spanish in 1519, and these only claimed four known victim. However, the sixteen surrounding villages have to be evacuated from time to time. In 1994, the volcano puked some 5000 tons of hot gases loaded with ash and rocks. In 2001, the eruptions spread ash clouds as high as eight kilometers.

As we arrive, the Popo is smoking in all tranquility.





We spend the night at the volcano's feet, hearing detonations from time to time. On the following morning, the mountain falls asleep.



We talk to the locals and take an unlikely cobbled road up to the villages living in the intimate neighborghood of the volcano. In places, the road is covered with twenty centimeters of finest ashes. It feels like driving in champain powder snow. A couple of times, the old road falls over the cliff and a new road replaces it. The first villages are built in an extremely steep terrain. A lot of houses have been abandoned.

The village of Santa Cruz is preparing a procession. The streets compete for the nicest bunches of flowers on the ground. The locals invite us to their home: Mi casa es tu casa...

February 21st, 2005: Santa Fe and Mexico City

We relax for ten days in the lovely vacation house of Yves' family in Santa Fe Golf Club near Cuernavaca. We have a fantastic stay. It is a pity that Yves and Anna could not join us due to busy jobs in Switzerland and France. Many thanks again, Yves and family, we are looking forward to see you back in Europe!

From Santa Fe, it takes us about an hour drive to Mexico City. We drop from 3'000 meters mountains to the urban jungle built at 2'250 meters altitude. Twenty million people, three million cars, a huge amount of restaurants and taquerias, too many churches to be visited in a lifetime.



Hypermodern business centers, the old city marked by a deadly earthquake, large parks, museums, a busy music scene. Driving in Mexico C.D. proves to be easier than expeced, at least in parts we drive in, namely Coyacan and Chapultepec. In Chapultepec, we visit the the famous Anthropology Museum. The museum's inner court is half covered by a huge sloping aluminum roof supported by a single massive stone pillar that is at the same time a fountain. As the museum is very big, we concentrate on the lower floor covering the precolumbian period.

The consensus today is that the first inhabitants of the American continent came from Siberia. Between 60 000 and 8 000 BC, successive waves of immigrants crossed to America through then passable Bering Strait. The first traces of humans in Mexico date back to 20 000 BC. By 6 500 BC, the hunters-gatherers started to settle down in todays state of Puebla, planting pumpkins, spices, and later maiz and beens. By 1 200 BC, in the Gulf of Mexico, the first culture of Central America is born, that of the Olmecs. The Olmecs built cities and canals and lived in a hierarchical society. The Olmec artists left us stelae, altars, ceramics, paintings, and gigantic stone heads with surprising negroid features. The smallest of these heads weights eight kilos, the biggest one is three meters tall! One of the colossal Olmecs heads exposed in the Anthropology Museum weights some ten tons.. It strikes me that the faces of smaller statues and ceramics often laugh, in strong contrast their Maya or Aztec countreparts. The influence of the Olmec culture was felt as far as Salvador and in all posterior cultures on the Mexican mainland. For reasons not clear, this culture suddenly disappeared around 300 BC.

Between 200 and 1000 AD, four big civilizations developped on the Mexican soil: Teotihuacan, Monte Alban, El Tajin, and the splendid Maya civilization. It is believed that the founders of the teocratic city-state of Teotihuacan about 40 kilometers from todays Mexico City came from the Gulf of Mexico. With a population of 200 thousand people, the city of Teotihuacan was huge in the context of America of that time. Colossal monuments were built in the city. The Pyramid of the Sun, with a base of 220 meters and a height of 70 meters, is the third largest in the world after that of Cholula more in the south and the Kheops Pyramid in Egypt. The art of the fresque seem to have been invented in Teotihuacan. The Mexico C.D. Anthropology Museum reproduced the Tepantila fresques and reconstructed the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in original colors in one of the exhibition rooms. The influence of Teotihuacan extended all the way to Guatemala. For climatic reasons and attaques from the north, the Teotihuacan civilization started to decline and extinguished by 900 AD when the city was abandoned. Two centuries later, the ruins of Teotihuacan were disovered by the Aztecs.

In the meantime, the Maya civilization developped in the warm lands of South Eastern Mexico. The elaborate writing consisting of about 500 hieroglyphic signs was only decyphered in the 1980s to shed more light on the Maya achievements. The Mayas believed in destiny that they tried to predict with the help of astronomy. They could predict such phenomena as the eclipse of the sun or the movement of the moon and Venus. The Maya used an elaborate calendar. They used the zero in mathematics. They built many monumental cities and produced great artists. All that was removable from the Maya archeological sites was moved to the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City to form a highly remarkable collection. Without doubt the most impressive piece of the Maya Exposition is the mummy of the king Pakal from Palenque laying on bright red poisonous powder in a huge stone sarcophagus full of inscriptions. The jade mask the mummy wears is a vivid representation of the cruel face of Pakal, with a beak nose starting in the middle of the front, and the head deformed to the shape of a grain of maiz. The heyday of the Maya civilization came to an end at around 900 AD.

According to a legend, the Aztecs, or Mexica, came from the North-North East Mexico called by the god of the sun, Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs believed to live in the fifth world which came to be after the sun died in the fourth world. Their mission was to help the sun come back and keep it alive, fed by human sacrifices. Guided by their priests, the Aztecs settled in the Mexico Valley, in todays Mexico City, then covered by swamps. They fought wars to escape slavery and to get prisoners for human sacrifices. In the fourteenth century, the Mexica founded their capital on an island near todays Zocalo (Main Square) and gave it the name of Tenochtitlan. To sanctify the Major Temple, they sacrificed 20 thousand prisoners in one go. The Aztecs formed a triple alliance with the Texcoco and Tlacopan people and thus extended their influence to 38 provinces from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific with altogether five million inhabitants. They built hundreds of temples and their cruel culture flourished when the Spanish arrived. The king Montezcuma II believed that the captain Cortes was sent by the Feathered Serpent god and surrendered. The Aztec Exposition in the Anthropology Museum is particularly large and includes such masterpieces as the 24 tons heavy altar originally believed to be a stone calendar, the beautiful feathered mask offered by Montezcuma II to Cortes, and the statue of an ape made of obsidian.

We drive out of Mexico City and head north where chilly pine forests and moore landscapes are inhabited by sheep and indogenous who are not impressed by the neighbouring modernity.

March 4th, 2005: From Mexico C.D. to Baja California

We drive through the states of Michoacan, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Sinaloa towards the port of Topolobampo where we plan to take a ferry to Baja California. We take smaller roads in the mountaneous interior to get to see more of the landscapes and people. The drive will take us about five days.

In the state of Michoacan, around the Lake Patzcuaro, we meet the descendants of the invincible Purepecha Indians whom the Atztecs could never bring under their rule. In the state of Jalisco, we spend a pleasent morning by the biggest sweetwater lake of Mexico and watch fishermen and pelicans competing for breakfast.





In the state of Jalisco, the machismo is said to have been born, this weird behavior trying to impress other men more than women. Modern machismo is characterized by carrying of weapons, aggressive driving, and heavy drinking. We are highly impressed by the machos who double in the curve or before a blind summit with uncontrollable speed. Jalisco is not only heavy consumer, but also the authentic producer of tequila. We pass many agave fields where millions of blue agaves grow to produce millions of gallons of the famous drink. Jalisco also produces good meat. The cattle is tended by the charros, the proud riders who change horses in the gallop and produce incredible tricks with their lasso.





Jalisco has also its sweet romantic side. The mariachis with their jaranda guitars will spend the night under your balcony and never let you sleep.

We cross serious mountains of Sierra Madre Occidental. Somewhere between Guadalajara and Tepic, we cross an old lava river.



We drive on to the port of Topolobambo, nearby Los Mochis, where we take a ferry that takes us overnight to La Paz, Baja California.