La Malinche

The peak of the volcano after clearing the forest

This last Sunday, some friends and I headed up to the state of Tlaxcala to go hiking, AND TO CLIMB A VOLCANO. I can't tell you enough just how excited I was to finally climb a volcano. I have been in México for about 6 months now, and the city of Puebla is surrounded by volcanoes. The two that lie off to the West are Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl, whose respective names mean 'mountain that smokes' and 'white woman'. And the other one which lies in the Northeast is La Malinche, or La Malitzin which is the given name by the Spanish who named it in honor of the infamous indigenous Mexican woman that served as an interpreter for Hernán Cortés as he conquered Mexico. It's  pre-Hispanic name was Matlacuéitl, a goddess of vegetation who was believed to be the wife of the Aztec rain god Tláloc. With that said, there's a cool myth about the volcanoes. According to the Aztecs and other Mexica people, the two volcanoes in the West, Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl were a married couple, with La Malinche (Matlacuéitl) being the lover of Popocatépetl. According to Aztec spirituality, the gods live in the volcanoes and mountains, well unluckily for Popo, his volcano happens to be at his wife's side, which means he can only look across the valley at his lover with longing, for all of eternity.

In all 10 of us headed up to the volcano, half of us being foreigners (4 Americans and 1 French) and the other half Mexicans. Driving up to the volcano, which took about an hour and a half, we could see it's dominating presence in the horizon and it's no wonder, because the volcano stands at over 14k feet above sea level! We drove up a little ways up the side of the volcano (which is forest) and then parked out cars before setting out on foot.

After about an hour and a half of hiking, resting, falling and resting some more, we made it through the last thicket of the trees and came to an arid clearing where we could see the peak of the inactive volcano. From our perspective, it didn't look that far, nor that difficult, but boy were we wrong! The sandy soil made the climb that much harder; you would climb maybe 5 steps, and then slide down 3. At one point I was actually climbing with my hands and knees... I guess it was more like crawling, haha. I was even clinging for life to the clumps of dry grass and rocks big enough to hold my weight in order to advance upward.

This is me trying not to freak out

If you know me well, you'll know that ever since I was a child I have been terrified of heights and falling to my death. So, unfortunately I didn't make it ALL the way to the peak, but I did make it to the one below if off to the right. I consider this excursion to be a great accomplishment in my life long struggle with heights. The view from my resting spot was breathtaking, I could see the countryside all around me, and could even see Pico Orizaba (Citlaltépetl) in the neighboring state of Veracruz in the distance, which happens to be the highest peak in all of Mexico.

Citlaltépetl in Veracruz

After the climb back down, and about a dozen falls later, we made it back to the parking area and ate some seriously cheap and delicious food at a rinky-dink restaurant:

It was a really cool experience, and I definitely have another awesome story to tell my future grandchildren when I'm a decrepit old man. :)

PASCUAL // Otra vez

Chillin' like a villain

Hey everyone! This next blog post is once again dedicated to my eight-legged, plush friend Pascual! This octopus amigo came all the way from Las Vegas to join me in my Mexican adventures. I'm going to show you what we've been up to, like visiting ancient pyramids and tropical beaches. So far in our adventures, Pascual has lived a relatively safe and comfortable life... That was until about a month ago when he almost met the Aztec gods (no peyote was involved)! So the short story is that me and my friend (Lily M Gelfars) decided to spend the afternoon in the nearby town of Cholula, which as I have said in the past, has a the world's largest pyramid (only by volume, it actually only looks like a hill with trees growing on it). We explored the base of the pyramid again, which still has ruins from the Cholultecas, though Olmec and Teotihuacan influences are also visible in the archaeological site. Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to take Pascual around and take a few shots. That's when (near) tragedy struck!

Not even five minutes into my journey, I made the grave decision in posing Pascual on a post of the fence that separated the older, more delicate ruins from the public. Just as I was about the snap my shot, a freakish wind storm up and came out of nowhere, whisking Pascual away, down into the ancient ruins, right next the sacrificial altar! I was stunned when it first happened, and didn't know what to do. Had I lost my new friend? What was I going to tell my friends in Vegas? I looked down into the ravine of the ruins, and saw one of his bright green tentacles sticking out of a bush. I decided the only way to save him was to kindly ask park staff to please retrieve. I was lucky in that the person working was actually a kid, probably 15 or 16 years old, and he fortunately had no problem stepping over the gate and climbing down into the ravine to go get him. At last Pascual was back in my hands, and I decided not to pose him on anymore fence posts that led to deep ravines.

Here are the photos of our Cholula experience:

Pascual is very happy that Huitzilopochtli didn't eat his soul

Do you see the resemblance???

 

 So if you follow my blog at all, you will know that I recently traveled to the beautiful beach resort city of Acapulco in the state of Guerrero. I had an awesome time there, and so did Sr. Pascual. My octopus friend had the great pleasure of meeting some delightful, though albeit dead, crab friends while on the beach, and even got to see a few pirate cannons up close and personal. Here are some of my favorites from Acapulco:

I didn't have the heart to tell him that his new friend was actually... Dead.

Acapulco is kinda gorgeous.

Pascual is a playahhh!

UNHAND HIM OF YOUR FIENDISH CLUTCHES!

True Fact: Octopi double as ammunition.

STARBOARD SIDE, CAPTAIN!

Pascual is a lady killer, literally.

At the bay by the zócalo.

Pascual is SO cool that he eats his fried plantains with shades.

Sunset at Cuesta de Pie

Hope you liked the pictures. More to come soon as we take the country by storm together!!!

Acapulco: Part Deux

On top of Palma Sola - The bay of Acapulco in the background.

So I last time I left you all, we were at Palma Sola, with their crazy smiley faces. But that was only the first half of the day, our second half of the day included a visit to to Old Acapulco, and the clavadistas de la quebrada, which are the world-famous divers that climb, and then jump from a sheer cliff into a narrow patch of water. Before going to Acapulco, I asked my home-stay family and co-workers at the hospital where I'm doing my internship at what they would recommend to me, and almost unanimously I was told to go see the divers at la quebrada, which in Spanish means gully. After Palma Sola, and before la quebrada, my friend and I headed over to downtown Acapulco and visited the main town plaza (zocalo) and then from there, headed over to the beach in Old Acapulco.

As I said last time, we had heard that Acapulco was really dangerous, though we didn't really know what to expect. One thing that me and my friend Lily both heard was to stay away from the zocalo. But after two days of relative security and not dying, we decided to test our odds and head on over to the presumed killing grounds, or so we were led to believe. We took a bus down from the archaeological site of Palma Sola to the zocalo. Just the bus ride itself was an experience, riding this HUGE vehicle as it delicately weaved its way past cars, children and puppies down the mountain into the main city. When we arrived at the zocalo, we found that the zocalo was not in fact actually strewn with dead corpses and bullet shells (we didn't think we would). The zocalo was actually really pretty, and spoke a little to its colonial, though albeit tropical history. Giant palm trees and ferns dotted the zocalo, which led way to colorful colonial-era church:

Pascual chillin' in the zoc.

Colonial-era church 1

Colonial-era church 2

Adentro de la iglesia

Downtown Acapulco

Cortes y La Malinche

Viva la revolucion!

After the zoc, we headed over to the  packed beach, where we found people with platters on their heads selling fresh oysters, fried platanos, and other deliciously unhealthy goods as cumbia and salsa music blasted from a stage from behind:

We stayed there until night, and then walked our way back to La Quebrada to watch the divers do their thing. I was surprised by how many people were there, I didn't know that it was THAT popular. We got our tickets and headed down the steps to the best viewing spot. Before the divers took to the cliff, a video was projected onto the cliff (it was really neat) detailing the history of La Quebrada and Acapulco in general. The history of La Quebrada goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, and was a long tradition of the indigenous Yope people of present-day Acapulco. The divers are chosen as children and train rigorously all year long to stay in shape. One of the traditions of the divers is that they would pray to Tonantzin, who was a major female deity in the Aztec religion and pre-Hispanic society at large. Today her image has been replaced by the Virgen Mary of Guadalupe, who is basically a Christian reincarnation of Tonantzin. I could write at least a who blog post just on syncretism of the Catholic and Mexican indigenous religions. Anyway, after the video, the divers descended into the water, and then climbed up the sheer cliff, just to jump off of it. To top it off, all of the divers were young, from 12 to 20-something. A lot of people in the crowd gasped in horror as these young men and even children climbed the cliff. People straight up screamed when then dived into the water. I'm happy to say that all of them survived, and the experience was really cool. Here are the pikchas (and video):

 

The day after was pretty chill. We visited a little port town just outside of Acapulco called 'Puerto Marqués', which is a popular destination for Mexican tourists. Me and Lily were the only 'lighter-skinned' people there. Haha. It had a lot of boats in the harbor, but the water was so crisp, clear and beautiful. It was packed with people, but didn't have the tourist feel to it. Pictures proceed:

The rest of the day was comprised of chillaxing more on the beach, watching the Super Bowl at a restaurant/bar that shot off confetti and played Queen's 'Will We Rock You' every time a team got a touchdown, and out night ended with my friend almost getting a public urination citation after relieving herself behind a rock (but in front of the police, yikes!). We did the Mexican thing, and just paid them what we had in our pockets, which wasn't that much. Haha. The next entailed even more sloth and skin cancer bathing, and then finally to Pie de la Cuesta, supposedly one of the most beautiful places to observe the sunset in Acapulco. To get there is about a half hour bus ride from the downtown area to chiller, more relaxed part of Acapulco. The sunset was gorgeous, amazing, beautiful and wonderful. Definitely worth the trip. The only thing was the waves were death machines that day. The beach on Pie de la Cuesta isn't really bay, so there's no protection from Mother Nature's fury. I like playing in waves, but I quickly stopped after I was tussled a few times in the water, getting a lung's-full of delicious sea water. Here are the pictures!:

 

Overall, Acapulco is one of my favorite places in Mexico. It has beaches, culture, a city vibe and remnants of their indigenous cultures in tact. The people are friendly and the food is delicious. It's a pity that there is so much violence going on there. The tourism industry has visible been hit hard by the negative press; there were less than 10 guests in our two-story hostel. I didn't see as many foreigners as I had anticipated. To me, the city was safe, and well protected by both police and army soldiers. I felt safe, and didn't see any bloodshed whatsoever. So if you're feeling like having a truly amazing Mexican adventure and have the balls, go to Acapulco. You won't regret it. :)

- Bryce