Mexico: Mexico City, Apan Hidalgo, Puebla, and Oaxaca

Ok, yeah, so we took off again. To make a short story shorter, we decided that we can look for the 'next thing' while we check out just a few more countries. Just a few more, we promise. With only February and March to work with, we decided to keep our trip a bit more local this time. So, in the next seven weeks we will do our very best to squeeze the very most out of Central America. As we have already been to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, we will focus our efforts this time on Mexico (south of the capital), Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

We kicked off our little adventure with a short road trip to San Diego, stopping along the way to visit friends, swapping stories for meals and a beer or two. After seven years, I finally got to meet up with my old buddy Troy, who had not yet met Tatyana. We made a long weekend of football and trips to local watering holes... tons of fun. Troy was good enough to watch our car for us so we could cash in some miles and jump a flight to Mexico City. And so we begin.

Food. It will soon be clear to you, from our photos, that food is an overriding theme of this first few weeks. Food. There is a LOT of it, and in so many varieties. I will say I haven't seen a single burrito yet, but we have actually begun keeping a list of the foods that ARE on offer, and it is a long one. Tacos, gorditas, quesadillas, sure, but other amazing street dishes like Tlocoyo, moles, sopas, and everything you can--and can´t--imagine nestled in a tortilla. Taco stalls are open from daybreak, late into the night. 5 pesos (about $.35) will score a meat taco overloaded with picantes, salsas, vegetables, and myriad other miscellaneous toppings, all drenched in the end with half a lime. For under a buck you can get anything from a fat gordita to a whopping quesadilla, and even specialty tacos called "tlocoyos" stuffed with internal layer of beans, mole´, or cheese. ¨Tortas¨are another favorite of ours; basically, any number of things stuffed into a fresh bakery roll. Just yesterday we enjoyed a black mole tamale´torta for about $.50. The day before we ate ¨cemitas torta¨, unique to Puebla, which consists of various pig organs stuffed into a sandwhich and garnished with tomato, avocado, cheese, and many spices. Despite how it sounds, it was actually quite good, and is a solid favorite street dish among the locals. A man in Puebla this week explained that Mexico is now the fattest country in the world. This comes as no surprise to us -food is plentiful, and it seems as though you can smother every dish you please with cheese... and they do. A country after my own (slowly diseasing) heart. We have grown accustomed to sharing a small dish at a time, and eating somewhere above ten meals a day... which allows us to continue trying everything that looks interesting, and some of the things that don´t. We do our best in the fotos to describe what you´re seeing. If you´re curious about something, just ask and I´ll fill you in.

People. The people here, for the most part, are quite helpful. Despite kicking off our trip in major cities, English is not as readily found as we thought it would be. So I have had to reach pretty far back into my bag of tricks to keep us afloat, and am fortunate that everyone

so far is willing to work with me in figuring out what I am trying to say. It´s worth noting that just about everyone we talk to has either lived in the U.S., or has a family member who is there now.... incredible. For instance, in my Aunt's town of Apan, a few hours east of the capital, somebody way back in the day migrated all the way to Indiana. And must have really liked it, because half the population seems to have followed. Around town, one in every ten cars has an Indiana license plate, and when someone pops up to start a convo in English with us, it always develops that they grew up in Indiana, or live there now and are visiting family in Mexico. Like a sister city to the state, I can only imagine that the same relationship holds true for numerous states and corresponding Mexican towns.

The cities were great. Mexico city, which like all cities is a labrynth, is surprisingly navigable, and cheap. For a flat 3 pesos (25 cents) one can catch the subway anywhere in the city. From an economic standpoint, the low revenue-per-rider is easily offset by the volume of traffic on the lines, and it all seems to work quite well for everyone. From a rider's standpoint, even at rush-hour, a packed train is no more oppressive than a packed SF muni bus. Quite agreeable, as long as you mind your gear. Street stalls serving up myriad delicious bites are in abundance, as are vendors hawking juices and ice cream. In Mexico City, we munched on tacos, quesadillas, tlocoyos, and gorditas. In Puebla, we enjoyed cemitas tortas, mole poblano and arabes tacos (the closest thing to a burrito). In Oaxaca, we ate pig face tacos,

mango gelato, barbecued meats, and a wide array of "set" meals. "Comida Corrida" is very common in Mexico, and is a multi-course meal served throughout the day for a few bucks. In Apan, my Aunt and her husband Jose treated us to myriad local dishes, many prepared in the skin of the maguey cactus, which adds a unique flavor. Jose and his family operate a bakery, so we stuffed ourselves with fresh pastries (made of course with the kind of heavenly ingredients they have outlawed in U.S. kitchens in recent years) and sweet breads.

The cathedrals in all the cities are amazing, and worth exploring, as long as you keep your camera flash in check and don't otherwise make a spectacle of yourself. These cathedrals were, of course, made by exploited labor in

the 1500s, but are beautiful despite. The catholic churchhas invested a lot of money in constructing these massive temples... Tatyana often comments that they could have spent a few pesos more in procuring less frightening wigs for the many life-sized statues of the crucified savior. She makes a good point. Visiting churches is free, so I can only imagine what the church must pony up to keep them going...

The art scene is broad and lively, if you've enjoyed the murals in San Francisco's mission district, you'd be well fed in even the smaller avenues of

Mexico's cities. Images of Mayan and Aztec warriors, of past oppressions, and the ubiquitous salute to corn adorn walls of all sorts throughout the cities. This makes for pleasant wanderings from one place of interest to the next. Throughout the day, but especially in the evenings, crowds of couples flock to local parks and plazas to while away the evening eating, playing, enjoying local musicians, and, yes, making out... a lot. People are very affectionate here. Most evenings will find musicians and performers plying their trade throughout the communal areas, offering a safe and pleasant way to enjoy city life after dark.

We made a day trip from the capital to visit Teotihuacan, the first of what will be many Mayan ruins on this trip. Impressive structures, made much more enjoyable by the freedom to climb to their peaks for an expansive view of the local area. These pyramids can be found all over Mexico, but Teotihuacan is one of the more prominent sites in the north, as its inhabitants influenced greatly the design of other sites. We'll be covering a lot of pyramids over the next month and a half, so I'll leave that for now.

Tonight we catch an overnight bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas state, where we begin the more adventurous portion of this trip. We like cities, but prefer the smaller towns and relative peace of the outer regions. After Chiapas we will make our way to Yucatan, and hope to exit Mexico to Belize around the beginning of March... which is when you should see our next posting.

See the link below for pics.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046854&id=1009299883&l=dbaf7bcec4