Taxco

Here are some images from Taxco, where I went about half a year ago. Taxco, like Guanajuato, was a silver boomtown of the 17th century. A French immigrant of the 18th century made a fortune and had the Baroque Santa Prisca built for the town, one of the most impressively gaudy examples of ecclesiastical architecture I've seen in this country.

Brown, Red, & Green roof:

The town is nestled into a hillside and gives many places in Europe a good run for their money, especially since you don't need nearly as much of that in Mexico. This is the central plaza in front of the cathedral, and near the summit of the hill you can see a statue of Jesus that while not as big as that in Rio de Janiero keeps the same vigilant watch nonetheless.

After the silver was all gone, Taxco fell into decline. William Spratling, an American, did a lot to make it known and part of the modern tourist circuit. He's pretty well liked in the town, and their is a museum in his honor to go along with this bust.

Reminds me of Italy, the high and the low. This bend in the street can only be made by backing up to make a 90 degree turn half way up the slope.

Just some church, also like Italy...

and another....

And here's a rather rustic palacio (read palazzo). It seems the finesse of renaissance architecture I saw in Italy never made it's way to Mexico (perhaps because it never fully blossomed in Spain). By the time neo-classical architecture really came into it's own in the time of Porfirio Diaz, it was already spent (there are some exceptions, notably the Palacio de la Mineria). Nevertheless, I feel the rusticity and in your face functionalism of the Mexican hacienda or urban vernacular speaks better of this rough new world than would some pleasure villa.

Raw architecture:

Urban appreciation from the Casa de Humboldt, where the German stayed for one whole night while traveling through Mexico.

In Mexico, death is always on the mind, and in the street

Again like Guanajuato, their is immense and inexplicable veneration of Cervantes.

Containers of plastic....

clay....

and glass.

Once again the city spilling down the hillside.

And the Jesus. It is further than it appears, and I'd recommend a taxi ride to get there. The taxi drivers of Taxco, all in old white VW bugs, must be among the best drivers in the world. They daily wend their way through tiny streets at sloping at 45 degree+ angles while weaving amongst children, pedestrians of all ages (no sidewalks here), dogs, other cars (all streets move both ways). And all cars here are manual transmission.

Jesus' watchful view of the town reveals just how incredible this site really is, and how made for silver people must be.

And nearby is another impressive hill, this one of plastic bottles.

One can take a gondola to make easy work of scaling the summit of another nearby hill.


It offers another view of the town. As the town recedes and the hills draw near, one can discern just how sprwaled out the city has become.

At the summit of this hill is the local fancy-pants hotel and restaurant (maybe 80 or 90 bucks a night), complete with a putt-putt that's size is belied by it's advertising.

The other half lives in the gullies, where they must walk quite a way to reach their cars (the world is divided into many halves).

We went to nearby Cacajuamilpa to see its famous caverns. It is reached by a beautiful if uncomfortable combi ride which takes you through villages at the extreme of modernity, just an hour and half away from the world's richest man. I paid the extra 50 pesos to arrive at the mouth of the cave in style on a zipline over the forest below.

Local fauna waiting for a generous or careless tourist to drop something good to eat, I assume. They seem pretty unfazed otherwise.


La boca.

The cavern is one immense hall extending about a mile into the ground. In some places, its roof is about 60 meters high. It's full of awesome formations that are incredible enough to make you overlook the bad lighting and the guides who only point out what cartoon characters the formations look like.

Un año aqui

Monday was exactly one year to the day I first arrived in Mexico. A year is enough time to get to know a place fairly well, although I'd say I'm still scarcely more than a tourist here. The language barrier makes a big difference. Not understanding cultural nuances, barely scratching the surface of understanding, leaves one to float around in a dream of personal interpretation of expereince. Nevertheless, I've come to accept that I'll only every be an obvious outsider (although I did rather want to be a spy at one time). This does not make me feel dejected, as some may think; no, to the contrary, outsiders have many advantages which locals cannot really understand until they themselves plunge headlong into being an outsider elsewhere. The entire time I was in New York I was most certainly not 'at home', but that is a city of outsiders, so one does not feel so foriegn. Mexico on the otherhand is a nation of homebodies, with many people living at home unitl their late 20's. Here I am most certainly out of place, but that allows me to observe somewhat objectively the peculiarities of my temporary home.

Queretaro+

I spent a weekend in Queretaro, a quiet little city about 2 hours north of the DF. It's laden with history in Mexico, as this is where Miguel Hidalgo and his cohorts initiated the Mexican war of Independence.It is a city with a marked preference for dull reds, yellows, oranges, and browns.
And it is not without a touch of Modernism either.
The church of San Francisco (I think?) ties Queretaros three central plazas together.

A flavor of the religious architecture of this town.
The ex-Convento of San Francisco hosts a fascinating little pre-Colombian and colonial museum. Facades from five colonial missionary churches in the northeastern part of Queretaro state are reproduced there. As there was and still is a strong Otomi presence in that part of Queretaro, there was certainly a high demand for layers and layers of cake.
A statue flanking the church celebrates the persistent indigenous heritage in the midst of Western colonial manifestations. Note the fake crenallations on the building behind.
There are a number of fountains in the center with semi-nude men playing instruments patially made of water. This one didn't seem to be working.
But these were. If you look past the glaringly Gringo tourist, you can see the strings of his cello are made of water.
And the liquid strings of this harp seem to have brought the player to a state of ecstasy.
Here's a fountain with dogs. I could think of another, more Belgian kind of fountain incorporating dogs.
A sample of the local art scene. Works by R. Maya.

Another ex-Convento (not really ex, as there are still some monks living here) one the edge of the historic center. Santa Cruz is more sober than it's central cousin San Francisco and it's museum only highlights it's own history (a home of short lived Austrian born Mexican emporeor Maximillian, for one).
More homage to the Otomi.
Santa Cruz is most famous for it's famous bushes (I assume from whence it gets it's name). They grow wild mutant thorns that form the shape of a cross. Apparently, this was bio-engineered and there are only a handful of such bushes anywhere in the world.
Stone architecture has such depth, such mystery, and takes plaster so damn well. The portal into the kitchen, which had an 18th century refrigerator made possible with thick stone walls, lots of shadows, and big clay jugs of water.

Water collection/architecture on the roof. All architecture was sustainable until about 100 years ago.
Even the modern touches seem to have a profound respect for nature, if certainly lacking finesse. This canopy protects scores of wooden crosses.
Queretaro is also well known for it's aqueduct, which looks transplanted from the outskirts of Rome. The image above and the video below show how the once lonely aqueduct continues to dominant the now well developed valley.
Near the mirador is the panteon of notable Queretaro denizens.
Morbid vernacular cemetary architecture is pretty typical of Mexican colonial towns.

By chance, I caught a glimpse of a race in the center on Sunday morning.
The Teatro de la Republica (Teatro Juarez) is the site where Maximillian was tried and condemned to death after his capture by Republican forces in 1867. It's also where the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) was founded in 1929, beginning it's 71 year dominance of the Mexican presidency and politics.
These very anal trees are pretty common to the plazas of the city. It's amazing how much cooler it can be in the grove.
Interesting brickwork.
This, the Casa de la Marquesa, takes it's name from the place where Hidalgo and others initialled gathered to discuss the idea of independence. Whether this is the original or not, I am not sure. It is now a hotel and restaurant that seems to be affordable for only the rich and ostentatious. You can see why.
The latent Islamic presence in Spainish culture was translated to Mexico as well.

The ever present Virgin.
Another church, another fountain. I suppose all the fountains are an escapist fantasy for this otherwise dry and barren landscape.
Baroque architecture and it's gold.
Another church.
Baroque gargoyle. Mannerism has always thrived in Mexico, where two radically different cultures sturggle to coexist.
More gold.

Life size statues of Jesus and all his apostoles in the oratory.

Som more churches.

Unlike more places I've seen in Mexico, there is a notable presence of the Mexican national rail system in Queretaro. Although passenger service was discontinued long ago, the decidely English train station remains as a museum.
Also containing a scale version of itself.
About 45 minutes from Queretaro is the Peña de Bernal, a HUGE rock. This giant pimple of the earth is the third largest in the world.
Bernal, the Magic Village (this is a real designation bestoyed by Mexico's cultural authority) at it's base, is a colonial gem that, although a bit too touristy for my tastes, is not such a bad place to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon with a Michelada.
The Peña is everpresent just on the horizon of the city, here peaking out from behind the principal church on it's odd shaped plaza.
Like Guanajuato, Bernal is popular for it's idiosyncratic festivals and spectacles.
It also attracts more modern fanatics. Biker culture is pretty popular in Mexico.
The mask museum.
Near to Bernal is Freixenet Winery. The landscape here is strikingly similar to some parts of California, so it's only natural they would try to make wine as well.
The tour of the deep cellars where they age the wine is fascinating. Part of the process involves keeping the bottles at various inclinations, made possible by these concrete racks. They are also rotated every day, which explains the dab of white paint on the bottom of the bottle.

Like the US, the best wine in Mexico comes from the west coast (Baja California). But the other wine producing regions are not without some merit. I certainly enjoyed my 20 peso sample.