We started the day by having breakfast with Martha's family. Huevos (eggs), frijoles (beans), chorizo (Mexican sausage), pan (bread), mermelada (jam), frutas (fruit), café (coffee), and chocolate (chocolate). Mexican hot chocolate is a real treat - it's flavored with vanilla, almond and cinnamon. ¡Delicioso!
After breakfast, Hector and Malena arrived with their friend, Alejandra, who spent the day with us and shared our adventures:
This day's adventures began with a drive north out of the city, through outlying industrial areas (with lots of factories belching smoke - Mexico's air pollution regulations aren't as strict as ours), to the town of Tepotzotlan (w) (teh-poht-zoht-LAHN). (Note: The Wikipedia article says that Tepotzotlan is 115 km northeast of Mexico City. But on my map, it looks more like northwest, and it looks like less than 115 km.) I still didn't have a map, and I still had no clue where I was going, so I was still following Alex.
Tepotzotlan is a small town with an old world feel. It has cobblestone streets (very picturesque, but hard on the car). We drove into the center of town, and parked in front of a Domino's Pizza!
Main Street, Tepotzotlan
Across the street from where we were standing, there was a magnificent old church:
Temple of San Francisco Javier
...which, as it turned out, was exactly where we were going. The church is now the Museo Nacional del Virreinato (National Museum of the Viceroyalty).
Museum Sign
Museum Entrance
An English speaking tour guide met us, and took us on a tour of the church. The interior of the church is incredibly ornate. No surface left undecorated. It's almost overwhelming. There are lots of statues and paintings of the Virgin, and various saints. In some places, the floor is covered with thick sheets of plate glass, to protect the tiles on the floor, but still allow them to be seen.
You can't use flash photography inside the church, so some of my pictures came out better than others. I also learned that digital cameras adjust to less light by holding the shutter open longer. Which makes it REALLY important to hold your hand still. That's why some of these pictures are a little blurry.
(The Wikipedia article has some more good pictures.)
There are many paintings in the corridors, of saints and historical scenes. One in particular caught my eye, titled "Sangre de Cristo" (Blood of Christ). A no doubt reverently meant, but still somewhat unsettling, painting of Christ, with streams of blood pouring out of his hands and side, and sinners below bathing in the blood. Yeah, I know, it's Biblical, but it was still kinda creepy.
This crucifix also caught my eye:
Upstairs, there was an art exhibit, "Artes y Oficios de Nuevo España" - Arts and Crafts of New Spain. Nuevo España, of course, was what Mexico was called while it was still under Spanish rule, from the 1500's to the 1800's.
Two artworks here particularly impressed me. One was a painting titled "San Juan escribiendo el Apocalipsis" - Saint John writing the Apocalypse (i.e., the book of Revelation). The painting shows John, writing in a book (with a quill pen), while an angel points to the book with one hand, showing him where to write, and with the other hand, shows him the vision of the New Jerusalem, the city built foursquare, with twelve gates, coming down out of Heaven, and shining with the glory of God. If you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about (if not, take a look at Chapter 20). It's a very impressive painting.
The other artwork that caught my attention was a sculpture, "Virgen en la Soledad" - Virgin in Solitude. It's a very simple work, but striking in its simplicity. It's a figure of the Virgin, robed in black, so all you can see are her hands and face. But her face has this expression of deep sorrow, and the whole thing is very effective:
Then there was yet another exhibit, "Monjas Coronadas" - Crown Nuns. Apparently, among certain orders of nuns, the tradition is that when a novice nun enters the order - makes her "profession" - as part of the ceremony, she wears an elaborate flowered crown. This exhibit had a number of paintings of nuns wearing their crowns:
...as well as exhibits describing their daily life. This section of the museum also had a number of plaques with Braille descriptions of the exhibits, which Terry appreciated very much.
But I missed a lot of this part. The weather was extremely hot and humid, and the altitude may have been getting to me (Mexico City is over a mile above sea level). I was getting tired, and I went and sat down while everyone else looked at the exhibits.
We then went outside and saw some of the church grounds:
And then we spent some time in the gift shop. Someone was buying a set of 3 CDs of Mexican guitar music, and it sounded so pretty that Terry and I bought the set. We discovered later that each of the three CDs had only a little more than 20 minutes of music - the whole set could have fit on one CD! I guess they just wanted you to think you were getting more than you really were. The music was nice, though.
It was also at this gift shop that I found the Mexico City atlas that became my indispensable companion for the rest of the week.
As we left the museum and headed back to the street, we passed through a mercado, or open air market:
Mercado
Food stand
...and listened to a group of drummers perform:
There was also a guy with a LARGE bull, letting little kids sit on the bull while parents took pictures:
El Toro Grande (a lotta bull)
...and then we drove back to Martha's house. We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out and visiting. I spent some time looking over my new atlas, finding Martha's house and Hector and Malena's house on the map, and getting a feel for the layout.
When we got back to the house, we found more of Martha's family there:
Her other brother, Mauricio...
...and his daughters, Ximena and Sofia
And then we had dinner. And what a dinner it was - tortillas, rajas (roasted chile strips with onions and seasonings), arroz blanco y rojo (white and red rice), frijoles, papas con chorizo (potatoes with sausage), pollo en mole (chicken with mole, a dark, spicy Mexican sauce made with, of all things, chocolate), and various salsas. We used all this stuff to make our own tacos - according to Martha, this is called tacos de guizado. I commented that I would be spoiled for Mexican restaurants at home.
At one point during the evening, I noticed a bottle on the counter, labelled "Salsa tipo Ingles." Now, many people, when they think of salsa, probably think of a red sauce consisting of chopped up tomatoes, onions and chiles. But the word "salsa" just means "sauce," and it can refer to any kind of sauce. The label on the bottle said "English style sauce," and I wondered what that was. I took a closer look, and laughed - it was Worcestershire sauce!
Eventually, we said goodbye to Martha and her family, and I embarked on my first solo driving adventure - driving from Martha's house to Hector and Malena's apartment, dropping off Alejandra on the way.
Hector and Malena don't actually live in Mexico City. They have a house in San Juan Teotihuacan (tay-oh-tee-wah-CAHN), a small town about an hour's drive northeast of the city. The apartment where we stayed actually belongs to Hector's mother. But she's 95 years old, and lives in an assisted living facility. So Hector and Malena use the apartment as a convenient place to stay in the city, and that's where we stayed that night.
Casa Olivera
Their apartment is on the second floor, in the back.
Avenida Doctor José Maria Vertiz
There's a nice park across the street, called Parque Francisco Villa (aka Pancho Villa (w) ), with sculpted hedges:
...and a little kiddie amusement park:
Up the street there's a little corner store:
You see Oxxo stores all over the place in Mexico - it's sort of like 7-11, or AM/PM. Right next to the Oxxo is this fine dining establishment:
We never ate there - as I said, I refuse to eat American food when I'm not in the U.S. - but I was amused by the misplac'd apostrophe.
On the building next door, I saw this sign:
It says "Entrance, no parking" - although I told Terry that I thought it meant "Don't park your arse here."
I'll also throw this picture in here, because it doesn't really fit anywhere else. I was interested to notice that in Mexico, many of the doors have a different style of latch than the typical doorknobs we're used to here:
See that silver bar on the right? You pull that out (to the right) to open the door. A minor point, but just one more small indication that I'd stepped into another world.
Here's a map showing the approximate location of Hector and Malena's apartment, relative to Martha's house:
And here's another map showing the approximate location of Tepotzotlan:
