End of the Ruta Maya this time!

From the hotel in Mexico City! I had planned a couple of days in Mexico City to finish up, visit Teotihuacan, reprise some Frida and Diego, walk on Reforma, but Toronto calls me back! A family member had a car accident. Luckily just a few serious injuries to recover from. Mexicana charged me for the flight change! I thought that was scandalous! Back to Toronto!

I will post some more backgrounders on some of the Mayan sites after I get back and will post some of the scans of the roll film I shot when it gets developed. Some reflections after gestation and curing in the Toronto snow and cold!

Wonderful trip! I’m sure we can add the tag: “To be continued”. Thanks for reading along! Check out the link to the trip map google maps link on the menu bar!

Rainer

PS:  Deja vu Museo Nacional de Antropologia!

Before I went to the airport I spent an hour or so at the Museo Nacional de Antropolgia in Chapultepec Park. Amazing the amount of art here in Mexico City! The beauty of this museo amazes me even more the second time. The staged entrance from below with a two storey fountain, just like some of the perspectives in the Mayan central plazas, the framing.  Same awe inspiring entry concepts at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, reflecting the intimidating power of Babylonian art and architecture. Same for Imperial Bejing. Architecture in the service of the elite, intended to awe, intended to minimize the individual and magnify the ruler and the elite. Tremble and obey, my humble servant of no account! A Nazi concept as well! Speer’s inspiration? Same with Fort Book here in Toronto! The architecture at the museum though was not totalitarian. I thought of Bauhaus, Le Corbusier, Brasilia, Niedermeyer. I wonder what Barragan thought of this place. I was totally enthralled, again. Noticed this time a plaque to the architect, a credit that wasn’t so clear in the original glossy on the museum. Pedro Ramirez Vasquez! I read somewhere that all this happened in 1964 in record time, like 10 months or so, using a team of professionals with lots of political support. Anyway: incredible work from many perspectives. A truly world class place, echoing the artistic brilliance being illustrated and commemorated. Wondered a little about the nationalistic imperatives ruling in the creation of this museum. Mayan output is contexted in a show of more than 6 other cultures/peoples. That is probably correct for a national Mexican museum. From an outside perspective, it may be that the Mayan and Teotihuacan cultures class as great American cultures togther with Inca culture. Is it nasty to think that Mayan culture is shared with Guatemala(and Copan in Honduras and some stuff in Belize) and if it was totally Mexican, maybe it would get more profile than it gets here? Puede ser!

Of course tears almost welled up in my eyes unexpectedly as part of this homecoming to this museum where this adventure all began almost 3 months ago! Some of it is a blur. I don’t know if I am seeing originals here or where I went or are the real items in London or Boston? Doesn’t matter at some level. They are beautiful things or copies of beautiful things. Only a nationalist or a semanticist will care. Do need to think about Yaxchilan, Tonina, Bonampak, Quirigua, Kalakmul and the other places I could have gone to and didn’t. They had key exposures here at the museum. Yaxchilan especially for its lintels and Bonampak for the coloured murals, the best example of Mayan mural painting to date. (Through a quirk they were covered with lime deposits early and became protected from the effect of time on organic paints and plaster). But, I hit the major spots and some that were close to rank 1 and in some ways, better travel experiences. Uxmal and Kohunlich were great places and don’t get near the traffic of the big spots! Maybe I will do the others I missed as part of another trip? 

The museum store was closed till the end of January! Lucky I guess: I was loaded with desire to pick up some of the hefty volumes I saw on display here and maybe some of the reproductions! Mayan stuff is a major academic industry offshoot here, as well and not just for the Ivy Leaugue and border US Universities! Stephens and Catherwood again! Next time!

Crucero o Cabeza de Maya

Palenque! Missed it first time round in November and now I am happy I saved it for the last. Best wine at the end! It was fairly easy to get at, a colectivo hailed me as I hit the crucero from my hotel strip They call it the “Mayan Head” instead of crossroads locally. Don’t know the provenance of the sculpture, but does seem tacky in conjunction with the others around Art or marketing? I am reminded of the use of Mayan ruins site names for the breaklfast menu at Na Bolom. I always chose the Bonampak, which I think was Huevos Rancheros and not the Tonina, which was cornflakes. Anyway: lots of tacky echoes of Mayan culture and art being used to decorate hotel entrances and landspcaes Loved the Best Western Hotel Maya! Hunted one figure down at a hotel undergoing some renovations You can see that there has been massive investment here over the years, but also, there have been some losers from the look of the empty hotel sites . One fountain had a Maya statue that had its rebar coming off and so was tied up – to a tree I think as if a prisoner or being tortured! Not really, just supporting the bad rebar in his leg! All sorts of copies of Stelas and big name plaster Friezes (Bas Reliefs) almost as if they were wallpaper, not famous art objects! My hotel is called the Xibalba, which is the name of the Mayan underworld. I suppose the hotel approximates that on busy weeks, with little soundproofing between units. In the lobby, there is a copy of a stucco panel of the tree of  life as well as several copies I think of lintel panels from Yaxchilan hanging in London! Amazing the proliferation of classic Mayan images for commercial uses! Am waiting for a Mayan crapper add – not Moen, but Mayan plumbing! I saw the interchange between a group of French tourists and their guide when it came time to showcase the men’s washroom in the palace I think there were 4 or more in the place, male and female. Not bad for 800 or so CE, don’t you think? Romans had them, but I am sure most of our Northern European ancestors were still lifting their furs in the woods! Anyway, one of the male French tourists was the guinea pig and got to sit on the crapper for al to cheer. There was an extended dialogue in French about whether he needed a magazine, etc, which was tendered. Shortly after, I saw a young American or Canadian position his digital camera on an opposite wall on timer and quickly sit on the crapper making straining faces while he photo-ed himself! Funny the length people go to get in front of something old and famous! Saw several single guys – nerds I guessed – who took some trouble to postion their cameras on timers, then run to get in the shot, posing oh so self-consciously! Almost took their photos myself!  Amazed at some of the couples as well – the amazingly ugly couples who took turns shooting each other in front of an architectural masterpiece or had someone do it for them while they had a little unctuous smooch before and after the photo! Reminds me of the Dickensian’ endearment: “Come hear my little oily-mouth!” Also loved the cultural variations. The American posing like Patton of John Wayne, the Pole just missing his mahorka cigarette held inside, posing like General Jaruszelski or a French film director, faux finesse!

Sounds: falling water, howler monkeys shouting, rakes scratching rocks while raking yesterday’s leaves, merchandise hawkers unrolling their wares, site staff joking on their walkie-talkies or flirting in a quiet area. Locals spitting whenever a gringo approaches! Must be a lot of lung disease here! Someone cracking “Santa Claus” as I pass. Speeches and chatter in Russian, Polish, German, French, Italian, Spanish and English. Sound of herd animals in tour groups loughing for their guide and not moving to make room for this solo stalwart but not stupid tourist who doesn’t want to step off the dry path to the wet and muddy grass in his sandals! Exotic birds squawking. Heard one guide tell his Argentinian group in Spanish that gringos were not interested culture, but only in the beach. I took umbrage, then he adjusted his patter to say “some gringos”. Loved the views of the buildings in Palenque. Realized I had been waiting more than a year to see some of them. Ticked off that I could not get the 3 most important bulidings – Jaguar, Inscriptions and the Palace into one shot! Still trouble getting them all in even with the 15mm I borrowed! Will have to stitch the shot together or come back with a very wide medium format!

Summing it up….

Palenque. Probably the best of the sites I visited on my Ruta Maya. The architecture is eye-popping! Most of the pyramids you can climb up It has a passionate story about the discovery of Pacal’s tomb deep inside a pyramid by a Mexican national – good pride booster – and the plaster reliefs of the captives in the palace are heart rending – as good or better than Rodin’s Burghers of Calais! Very little is roped off, in contrast to Chichen Itza! Also, there aren’t 20 tourist buses idling in the parking lot!

Palenque town is a tourism creation, but its not overly tacky. It seems realitively well-off I found it great that locals were eating next to me at the restaurant in Can~ada, filling it. Can~ada, the hotel resort just at the outskirts of town is tacky, but the food is good and its only 9km away from the ruins! The ruins site had the same great integration of big, beautiful sentinel trees and magnificent architecture, so the two elements complemented each other! The site had fewer tourists than Chichen Itza! Maybe I am here at a bad season, unusual time to compare? It certainly seems slow in town, so I assume that normally it is much busier. But then, it may have been slow the entire Ruta Maya. Tourism was off. Maybe Chichen Itza is even busier noramlly! Can that be? Palenque has incredible ruins, in a reasonably compact massing. It also has a small waterfalls stepped path and around some waterfalls and pools surrounded by residential ruins as you step down toward the exit stairways! Exciting step work and views! A real estate designer masterpiece! Temples, wooded lot, cascading water, heritage trees, multi-level lot – hummingbirds and howler monkeys! As good as Frank Lloyd Wright’s scene for Fallingwater! The museum is excellent. Not so much stuff as other places, but excellent, well chosen, well displayed pieces! Doesn’t seem that all the good pieces are in Boston, Washington or London – like Copan! Really good and cheap transportation (colectivo – $10 pesos). The fittings, walkways, etc, are well done and not cheaply done The walkways could use a bit more crushed stone, like the Mayan sacbes they echo. If it rains, there is probably too much puddling! I imagine it rains a lot and it is too hot and too many mosquitoes. I was lucky, it rained briefly, although the grass and underlying mud almost caused me to spill head over heels 2 x on day 1. When I went it was dry and unseasonably cool – no humidity, not bugs, no heat! Probably could use another washroom between the gate and the one there is! But, my quibbles are minor! Very few merchandise hawkers, although they put their wares fairly close to the architecture – but that is not dissimilar to Tikal or Chichen Itza. All in all Palenque is an absolutely astounding site! Well done! The tourism market must recognize that from the wealth of the town. The only thing that might boost traffic is a Tikal-scale airport, so tourists could fly easily from Mexico City or Cozumel or Tikal. But, that probably impacts San Cristobal and Ocosingo, cities that may end up with fewer tourists as a result, but maybe worth a try! Tikal has the big name worldwide and is a much bigger site, but its spread out and a lot of it is undeveloped wilderness zone My vote is for Palenque! It should not be missed! I would rank it among the big 4 if not the best:

Palenque

Tikal

Copan

Chichen Itza

Will talk about the Cautivos (Captives) in some other context. Really took off on them! Such life-like pain and bewilderment showing on the friezes! Gobernantes first, cautivos last:

Pacal

Thanks,

Rainer

Art in the Garden

Mayan Crosses in the adobe hut in the garden.

Wonderful place to stay in San Cristobal de las Casas! Means house of the Jaguar in the local Mayan language, not an elision of the name of Franz Blom, the Danish anthropologist and archeologist who lived here with his wife, Gertrudis Duby an excellent Swiss photographer. It was founded i 1951 and Blom died in 1963. After her death in 1993, 30 years after his, the place became a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the Chiapan environment and to supporting the Lacondon Mayan people.  There are offshoots in Denmark and in New York. The Danish Queen and other VIPs have been to visit and lend support. The Bloms were especially supportive of the Lacondon Maya. The estate has rooms for rent, a dining room and library as well as several small museums of Blom’s archeological finds, Mayan cultural objects, photos and personal objects of the Bloms. People come to stay over longperiods of time to volunteer there knowledge and skills for Mayan causes.The photos are incredible. Both of them were quite remarkable, he dashing and she a fetching grand dame, presiding over her tertulias and hauskonzerte. A movie is being made of their lives by Danes coming back in March. Interesting people and a great cause!

There are rooms in the main houses and 2 and 3-plexes in a huge garden. I stayed in the garden this time. The garden has a wide range of trees and plants as well as a herbarium, of medicinal herbs and herbs used in the kitchen. Trees are identified in Spanish and Latin. At night, there is discrete path lighting and towards the end of the garden, there is a thatched, adobe Mayan chapel with 3 miniature Mayan Crosses and some corn hanging off the eaves. What a coincidence the first night went I went back to my room, to see the hut all lit up inside showing 3 Mayan crosses, just like the ones I saw in the ruined church in Chamula and was looking for in Romerillo. Almost on top of me the very image that has been guiding part of this trip! I was told a Mayan shaman was at the inauguration of the chapel and that yearly there is a service there.

I stayed in the Chamula this time. It was cold when I was here in November and positively frigid now. The garden seemed deserted! There are fireplaces, so while it was quite chilly, a warm fire the second night fit nicely before bed. First night I was too tired from the 6 or 7-hour trip from Xela to bother and crawled into a comfortable bed with many blankets fairly early. About 3 am I sat bolt upright in bed to find the door wide open and the wind blowing in! No one there! Of course, I wasn’t connecting the Mayan shrine 30 feet away with this incident, not having a Prechtel dream experience, I was just careless in not double locking the door bolt!

Food in the dining room was good and so much easier than walking into town or taking a taxi and often, there are interesting table mates to interact with. There is internet at the dining room. Lots of people huddling around the diningroom fireplace these days! The cold spell is expected to last till March, they say! I would like to find out more about the work of Na Bolom. Fascinating experience!

Rainer

Romerillo was one of my grail spots! The graveyard was in the movie, El Norte! Now, El Norte had a lot wrong with it. To begin with they used Mexican meztisos to portray Guatemalteco indigenas and also they got the indigena women to put on outfits from another town on top of their own, not recognizing at all how importantly outfits and identity were related. So there was a mish mash of textiles that would stand out a mile to a real Guatemalteco indigenous person. Of course, they couldn’t shoot on location during the civil war in Guatemala, etc..but many faults like this stained the movie’s authenticity. Nevertheless it got an Academy Award Best Foreign movie nomination.  Anyway, what really got to me was the beautiful Mayan crosses on top of the cemetery in Romerillo. Huge Mayan wooden crosses, blue and green, with evergreen branches intertwined, like the tree of life. Also, there were wooden boards or doors on top of the graves, so that relatives could remove the doors to the side of the grave and talk to the deceased when they came to visit. The movie also had dozens, hundreds of huge calla lilies draped and strewn over the fresh grave mound as part of the funeral of the father. It was moody like it was when I visited, both times. The power of the 14 or 20 crosses on the horizon of the cemetery hill, blue and green at slightly different heights, interlaced with browning pine branches, some encased in concrete, some pegged with branches has stayed with me for a long time! And will remain.

In November, 2009, while my hands were still shaking from the anticipation of finally shooting here, I got a hard time from a local. He came up the hill just after I had started to shoot and told me that no photos were allowed. His English was pretty good and he looked pretty tough and wiry and was certainly threatening. He said that I would have to pay a lot of money to the community to take shots and that I better stop shooting. People would take my equipment, etc..He could see how many shots I already took, and I should be warned. Asked him how I would go about paying the community. Was there a mayor; was there a municipio? He said it would be $150 pesos if not more. My guide didn’t know what to do or say, neither did the taxi driver with me. Eventually he said if I gave him $50 it would be fine! He would give it to the community. A shakedown! He went off with a warning to his buddy in a waiting car! In the meantime an American came up with a taxi and just kept shooting. I told him what was happening and he jumped back into his cab, I suppose to the next stop. The crook came back in car with his buddy. Time to leave! Who knows what was in the car and for all I knew this guy was deported for criminality from the US. Went back into the taxi, gave the driver $50 pesos to give to the crook and drove to the next spot, Tenejapa. A spoiled grail moment to say the least! Went back an hour later and my guide talked to the owner of the general store at the foot of the cemetery. She assumed the crook was just looking for drinking money, but photos had been an issue for the community, that there was a mayor, Miguel, but he was hardly available. But tour buses stop often, disgorge their tourists and thy shoot their shots and go on. I imagine it must have been hell for a while after the movie became famous, but that was 20 years ago!

This time I was lucky. No hassle. Went back with the same guide and checked at the same store. No problem taking photos, etc.. Still felt some trepidation. There was a big celebration going on a couple of houses away, lots of Mayan mayors around in their traditional outfits. It was rainy and no one was around. Shot all I wanted for the best part of an hour, until my guide said she noticed a drunk taking interest in us and that it was best we left. Didn’t see any drunk. Maybe she was trying to shut down the tour by inserting a drunk? Anyway, I got my shots!

Other places around San Cristobal de las Casas, I went to in November were Chamula, Zinacantan and Tenejapa. You can get colectivos to these places next to the market in San Cristobal, which are white cabs marked with the name of a town, that can take several fares at once or you can charter it like a cab. There are rules governing who is licensed to do what. To get to Tenejepa, you ned to take a Tenejapa colectivo and it can take you back, but it can’t pick up fares in San Cristobal. All the cabs look pretty new, so I imagine there may be some state financing of cabs here, but the fares are so low, I don’t know how drivers live. With us when we went to Romerillo this time was a old man who was going to buy “poch”, corn liquor moonshine, for natural medicine, with herbs, supposedly!  He wasn’t just a moonshine dealer! Anyway, he got a couple of huge jugs of the stuff, while we waited and presumably went back with the driver when he dropped us off at Romerillo.

Religion is a big issue here as well as some of the places I visited in Guatemala. Fundamentalist religions are making big headway in Mexico and in Central America generally. Losing are the Catholics, although the Maristas and others are struggling back. The chit chat in the colectivo today was that Catholics in Tenejapa had burned down the local Protestant church after some tension. The interesting wrinkle to me is the tension between Catholics and Catolico Traditional(Traditional or Mayan Catholic). The town of Chamula, for example, is exclusively Catolico Traditional. No one with any other religion can live in the community. If you convert to Protestantantism, they throw you out of town literally. The cemetery is segregated. They also don’t allow a priest into the church! Tenejapa, in contrast is mixed Catholic, Traditional Catholic and Protestant. The priest says mass some days in church, other days its for Mayan (Catolico Traditional) service solely. The cemetery is mixed

Chamula Crosses

.

You notice quickly you are back in Mexico. Richer, better organized, better facilities, more tourists. Huge, sophisticated bus system. It’s still pretty high up and it’s so cold here! Those poor Chiapas women selling textiles again with their kids who should be asleep or going to school, coughing and sniffling in the cold! Street kids worse than in any Dickens novel about the miseries of industrialization. Met a Danish family at dinner where I am staying, Casa Na Bolom, with two pre-teen girls who are on their way to Huehuetenango to meet up with the girl they have been supporting for many years through an aid program. No problem getting good coffee here, computer goods, phone cards or bus tickets: all the things that seemed to be slightly more difficult in Guatemala. The tourism industry looks positively rich! There are lots of poor people here in San Cristobal, but the tourism sector looks very healthy. That’s not to say that the industry isn’t in a funk right now along with everything else because of the world financial downturn. Someone told me in Xela that tourism is way down very much there and in Mexico, but as important is the composition of the tourism volumes there are: the people still coming are the backpackers who don’t spend much and don’t spend at the high end. They use camping, cheap hostels, cheap transport, few tourist goods. So its even more of a problem than simple volume stats would suggest. I certainly have had no trouble getting hotel rooms without reservatipons! First time I was in San Cristobal I almost threw up in shock at the commercial/cultural impact of the high level of tourists. Coffee bars, restaurants, tourist goods – might as well be back in Yorkville in Toronto, although its not that high end yet! Maybe soon, but not as bad yet as St. Jacobs, Niagara-on-the-Lake or Niagara Falls.

Bartolomeo de las Casas, the priest that championed humane and separate legal treatment of the indios during the time just after the conquest spent some time here as a bishop and there is a statue of him here. I liked him, tough and not Quixotic, but doomed none the less! Some very colorful churches here, especially the cathedral. The main tourist street Guadalupe is closed to traffic permanently and has many interesting shops. Zapatistas are close. Someone told me that in the restaurant Tierra Adentro, the craft shops were Zapatista Cooperatives! Funny how really good art seems like an everday occurrence, like the church of San Francisco. Nonbody seems to be taking particular care of it but the doors are outstandingly beautiful! We take some good things for granted and only tourists see them? Didn’t get to the famous  – always tempted to spell this with an “e”, like mousse -  mirador tower! Maybe I will come back one day. Important for me was the discovery of Casa Na Bolom! Need to find out more about them and the Bloms, the founders!

Chiapas textile women cold tonight in front of the catedral. Lots of sniffles fropm the kids. Great colour combos. Still strange for me that people relate to a white European Jesus, not a semitic or black or indigenous Jesus, and those great looking European old men, bishops, priests and saints! All looking like John Berger in robes!

Gave my ill-fitting boots to the security guy at Na Bolom. Maybe I will live to regret that in the wet jungle trails of Palenque, where I am going next, in my Birkenstock sandals!

Thanks,

Rainer

Xela (Quetzaltenango)

In 1520 something Alvarado and his Mexican allies along with T’zutujil and K’aqchikel Mayan allies defeated the Quiche Mayan nation near Quetzaltenango, which continues to be known by its Quiche Mayan name, Xelaju or Xela for short.  Pronounced “Chez-la”. Alvarado successfully used Cortes’ divide and conquer strategy with the Aztecs and applied it to the Mayans. The Quiche king, Tecun Uman, was killed at the battle and Alvarado and his allies subsequently went on to destroy the Quiche capital at K’umarcaaj(suburbs of Santa Cruz de Quiche, just north of Chichicastenango) and burned the rest of the Quiche leadership alive.

Xela, says the tourist agency guide that drives me in from Quatros Caminos where my shuttle left me to continue its’ 6 hour drive to San Cristobal in Chiapas, Mexico, has a population of about 1 million with 80% indigenous, 15% Ladino and 5% foreigners. Wiki says 300,000, and 65%-32%-3%. The difference may be explained by looking at the population and composition of the geater Xela, which is predominantly more indigenous and poorer than Xela and would probably bump the total population number to 1 million or more. It’s the 2^nd largest city in Guatemala, after Guatemala City. The guide’s name was William, not Guillermo. He said many Xela people left and worked in the US (I assume due to the Civil War) and came back to start families and named their kids William and Ken and Kevin and the equivalent for girls. There are still a lot of foreign remittances. Xela is changing from servicing a coffee and agriculture based economy to more factories and assembly plants.

What a contrast from Antigua! Antigua and its 1-storey, thickly built, squat colonial houses built to the edge of the street, “earthquake baroque”, as someone called it, to the Xela centro with its style of 19^th Century European Belle Epoque in the major buildings. A little tatty, but 19^th Century Spaniards, Frenchmen and Germans would not have felt out of place here! There is even a colonnaded Museum of Natural History in some sort of Darwinian death throes. I dared not go in to see a moth-eaten stuffed tapir or two, although I love dioramas! What the Belle Epoque style means practically to a traveler is that the place has good coffee, and dependably good coffee – not hit and miss like Antigua or other places I have been in Guatemala! The city is also known for language schools, Spanish and Mayan languages. It feels very modern unlike charming but ossified in its colonial style, Antigua. Difference is, I think that more indigenous people run things, which is very interesting. My hypothesis is that a majority Mayan city is actually run by Mayans. There has been an indigenous Mayor here since 1986. Maybe since Evo Morales became the first indigenous president of Bolivia, a few years ago, indigenous fortunes have been looking up. (Someone compared Obama’s electoral win in the US with Morales’ win in South America for me, in Honduras). Don’t have enough info to check this out. There has been a Mayan cultural resurgence centered on Xela, which again, I need to check out further. I am not going to have time to check out much of anything while I am here. Tomorrow morning its off to Mexico for the return leg of the grand pilgrimage. My hotel room also has some photocopies of material on the peace process that ended the civil war in 1994 and I ill scan that later. Of course, I had to pick up a couple of slim history volumes as well at the local bookstore, supporting the local cultural economy.

Solola on the way to Xela

Liked the graveyard in Xela, it was huge. Almost as big as the cemetery in Havana. But, saw nothing terribly interesting except I didn’t get to the really poor part, the indigenous part, where a burial was going on. I was too self-conscious about intruding. There were two sets of plots set up by the local German benevolent society in the early part of the last century, with stately trees, 2 sets of  8 on two plots, east and west part of the cemetery, not the future division. Interesting that two of the German names were still teenagers identified as having been murdered on the same day in 1917. There was the usual Egyptian erotic statuary – don’t know how Greek, Roman and Egyptian themes grab some people. I suppose the reach for the classical literature on death for metaphors at the time of grieving draws out classical or biblical examples of representation. Off into the shades she went! Into the land of chiaroscuro! Intereting how side graphics illustrated what I assume where the jobs and vocations of the rich men succeeding one another on one family crypt. One a soldier, one a farmer, one a builder or engineer. And of course, the sheer power of a wall of bone boxes, all smeared colour and dying and plastic flowers and various levels of literate script! Condo towers after death….

Todos Santos de Cuchumatan

Yesterday I took a private car to Todos Santos in the Cuchumatanes, about 4 hours drive north into the mountains. Huehuetenango was the half-way point. I remember its Pradero – the new modern mall – with a Pollo Campero (Guate KFC) and a MacDonald’s in it! Xela is already high up at 2,333 meters, but we went much higher and through the clouds. Left Xela at 6:30 am., back at 5:30 just as the last rays were leaving the street. I have been interested in Todos Santos since reading about a book written by an amateur, Maud Oaks, called Two Crosses for Todos Santos, while she stayed in a cabin up from the town. Nice description mule-packing it up to the place. Include some photos by Namuth, the photographer that became famous for his collaboration with Jackson Pollock back in the 1950s or early 60s. Wonderfully eloquent and pompously written account of Mayan religion based on her observations and sources in the local population, along with  overly-lengthy apology/sanction by a professional anthropologist defending her lay approach and point of view. Was equally amused to see a photo of one of the riders in the Todos Santos horse race on the cover of the Lonely Planet Guatemala guidebook, just before starting.

View of Todos Santos in the distance.

The ride after Huehue was white knuckle time, lots of switchbacks, broken asphalt, fallen rocks, parked trucks, people and animals on the road, etc…and very tight turns. Finally, at the top the big pines disappeared and almost all the plateau was scrub, mountain grasses, yew and agave.

Todos Santos itself presented small market activity, lots of men hanging around the municipal building with its 2-storey mirador. The men in their red-striped pants: all very cocky, prancing about. Many people turned their backs when they saw the camera. Asked permission from one man and he signaled “no”. I have become ever so conscious of intruding with my camera, even ore than when I started and so, there were very few straight ahead people shots. The chicken bus with Todos Santos on it was great. Some signage and weathered storefronts and cracking paint that I so love. Same guy was in the market as in Xela Parque Central selling his quack medicines made of herbs and vegetables that cure hernia and diabetes and cancer, especially cervical cancer. It seems that he is doing my Ruta Maya too! Kind of looks and sounds like that guy on TV selling German-engineered absorbent cloths or brooms or vegetable choppers or whatever it was, for $19.95!

Went to the cemetery. Sad, sad sight! Am I biased towards Ladino, middle-class orderliness? This was a jumble, very crowded at spots, corrugated metal roofs no friends of tall people. All of this may be reflecting the sloped use of scarce land, but it was certainly oppressive! Interesting that several of the graves had US flag graphics to reflect that the deceased died abroad.

Found a wonderful grouping of rock outcrops, yews and agaves at Chabal on the way top Todos Santos. The agave had been planted as fencing and when it matured it fit tight against its neighbor so it almost became an impenetrable hedge. No sheep getting through that! The materials and colours were a great combination!

Finished with the plateau at the mirador overlooking the Cuchumantanes. Finally, a shot of the little grouping of shrines and crosses at the turn below the mirador where a bus lost its brakes and went over the cliff! Going down was even scarier. Because of little traffic going with us, the traffic on the other side was taking chances they wouldn’t in normal traffic. Our brakes held!

Just as the light was disappearing, we hit San Andres Xecul, a town so close to Xela that I think its considered part of the

San Andres Xecul

greater Xela area, even though it’s part of the next department or province. There is a wildly decorated church there. Inside it looked pretty normal from the door – I didn’t venture in. But, outside it was a popular art joy to behold – yellow walls, blue and red and white saints and angels, nicely distorted figures looking like ragamuffins! Like the colourful ossuary wall in the Xela cemetery. No masking tape edge, no plaster fill-in here – paint filled in the gulf and such wonderfully strong colours. Imagine La Merced in Antigua next to this! Its revolutionary! Wonderful!

Thanks,

Rainer

Additional Economic Info on Guatemala:

• 1 in 10 kids enter high school, leading only Nicaragua and Haiti in this hemisphere.
• Guatemala has the fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world and the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
• Approximately 75% of Guatemalans live below the poverty level, which is defined as an income that is not sufficient to purchase a basic basket of goods and basic services.
• Approximately 58% of the population have incomes below the extreme poverty line, which is defined as the amount needed to purchase a basic basket of food.
• Approximately 50% of Guatemalan children under the age of 5 now suffer from chronic undernutrition.
• In the nation’s highlands, where many indigenous people live, 70% of children under age 5 are malnourished.

Yesterday’s War. I hadn’t heard the famous stories about the Correo here, but learned first hand! I could subtitle this piece “destino seguro” (Destination assured), the brand tagline for the Guatemala Postal Service, as in “Correo, destino seguro”. Done! Dramatis personae are several clerks, a manager and me!

The Maleta

My gray suitcase is heavy and bulky, I have been parking it in storage at my hotel in Antigua and making side trips without it, but I am about to head back now on a shuttle or bus and I have to do something with the suitcase(maleta). It won’t work for shuttle travel and it was too heavy even before the new weight rules on flights, internal or external. I will have to pay excess baggage or ship it freight at the airport. Decision: send it home with as much stuff as possible!

Went to DHL in Antigua – quoted a price of $500US for 50 Kilos. They suggested Post Office for something longer but cheaper.

Not knowing how infamous the Guate Post Office has been in the past, I went and a helpful guy at the package pick-up said I have to put the maleta in a cardboard box and the maximum it can weigh is 20 kilos. Straightforward.

The Caja

No boxes at the market Papeleria across from the Correo! Find a box at the curb in front of the dollar store – guy wants $10Q for something he is throwing out – what a dealer! Says I can’t have the one I want – maybe it has garbage in it that makes it useless? I find another one that will do the trick. Pay the money, walk off with it in front, mochila behind.

Go to the other Papeleria down the street from the hotel, buy two legal size manila envelopes, a yard of plastic film and a pair of scissors. All adds up to less than$10Q. I am feeling personally effective. I go back to the hotel room, empty out the suitcase, segregating the books, which will be the big problem weight!

First order of business is to get the suitcase’s total weight down. I figure I can make it with 3 sets of shirts and underwear, the way I have been side tripping. The balance goes in the suitcase. Second priority is to chuck volume because the goal is to end up with a much lighter but also much smaller second bag/suitcase, with my very heavy carry-on and my man-bag and my dolly! Some books I can’t chuck because they are loaned and have sentimental value. I make a pile of blessed books and a pile for the damned. All the electronics related stuff I haven’t been needing, goes into the suitcase, all the stationery type items, the plastic lined bags of spare medicines, bandaids, polysporin, the water purifying kit, the plastic bowls. The surplus soap, sunblock and alcohol-based hand cleaner are on the damnned side. Ditto shoe polish kit, thermal blanket, rain cover, etc…Will buy and chuck again anything like this that I need. I manage somehow to get the suitcase down to what I think is 20 Kilos….

I print the address on the manila envelopes in blue permanent marker in my best cursive grass script and use my stapler to attach the cut-out plastic film to the printed envelopes, then center and tape the envelopes on to the box with scotch tape, further reinforcing the sides and corners with grey duct tape and finally taping the edge of the envelopes with duct tape as well. Looking pretty presentable, RutaMayaRainer!

Off to the Correo, with time to spare. They close at 5:00 and it’s just before 4:00! Just stick the string bag in my pocket on the way out in case I need to remove more stuff from the suitcase. Suitcase is about 18×30x12deep. The box fits nicely with about 6 inches to spare in height

Round One: Return to the Correo

A female clerk is at the desk now and a young guy. Say I was here in the morning, have brought the caja and the maleta and want to check the bag for weight. She says it can’t be larger than a meter and says it’s too big. But, gets out her measuring tape, tries a few times and caramba, it fits! Do they have a floor scale? No, I have to find that they say, they don’t have one! Then I say, why not use the counter top model behind the counter that they use to weigh and charge people. So I  lift the whole suitcase clear into the air and onto the weigh scale, almost knocking the top of the counter off  its base. It’s not secured. I am getting attention! They say it’s reading 18.5 kilos, “they say” because I can’t see read the scale with my eyes from where I am, which sounds good. Then we put on the caja, and it brings the weight to 22 kilos. We weigh the caja separately and it weighs 3.5 kilos. Can’t be that heavy!

But, I make the case that the  caja is their rule and they should not subject me to a limit that includes their weight of the caja – it’s their system – to no avail! The younger clerk has sympathetic body language, which encourages me, but probably he is just a drone instrument.

The bell rings and I go back to my corner! I go to take the books out of the suitcase to reduce the weight 3-4 kilos. I stick the books in my string bag on the outer counter of the waiting room away from the locus of the drama. Not much effect at all when I weigh. I pull more stuff out of the suitcase and put it into the string bag, eventually leaving only my 5 shirts and a few lightweight items. Still not much budge from the scale pointer. Each time, more stuff into the string bag, less stuff in the suitcase. Eventually I empty the suitcase in frustration right on the counter over the string bag, just to show that even empty the weight is going to show something about the same!  Their weigh scale is way off or there is something really nuts happening to our communication. I  can’t figure it out. I can’t think anymore, I am so pissed off. I am looking for non-verbal messges. At one time the interchange between the young man clerk and the older manager suggested that maybe one was reading the pounds scale and the other one the kilo scale. It certainly didn’t feel like 20 kilos I was lifting straight up in the air! They are either stonewalling me hoping I will go away, their scale is out of whack at 20 kilos or maybe, to be charitable, they are assuming that I wanted to limit my exposure somehow at 10 Kilos and are trying to help me keep the cost down. The measurement wasn’t making any sense because my bag kept weighing the same 18 kilos even when it was empty. They must have been trying to keep me from following through with sending the maleta altogether!

Eventually, I left out the books in the string bag and put everything else back in. At one point, the manager said: OK, 18 kilos, that will be $1,051 Quetzals. I suspect he was deliberately inflating the charge to get me to stop the process. But, I said OK, which I think flabbergasted him. (It’s about $125US).

Round Two: Money

I am $100Q short when I count my money. They won’t accept US dollars. Off to the bank with my chin forward, carrying my string bag with the books. The bank is at the other end of the block. As I try to get in, the man with the gun at the door says, no I should go the other bank to change money. Probably I look like a security risk. I ask where that is; he says, next block. I walk up the next block, and then some , past another guy with a shotgun and get in line for the wickets. No problem this time.

Round Three: Papel!

Back to the Correo. When they see me quite determined and back with the cash, the manager actually starts to help me with sealing the box with their cello tape. Then the woman clerk who takes the cash says you have to put paper over the box, handing me sheets of 18×18 flimsy, must be ½ ply kraft paper, just like the ½ ply toilet paper they use here at the hotel. I can’t believe I worked all afternoon doing the labeling and now she wants me to cover the whole caja with paper and put the address on again! The manager mediates the request and says I only have to cover the butt end parts with the “Taiwan” printing on it from when it was used to package motorcycle helmets AND the top and bottom!. Too much! But, I point out that is all crossed out and I have “Toronto, Canada” all over it. I didn’t say what I wanted to which was “Nobody in their right mind is going to send this back to Taiwan.” Anyway: he actually helps me cover up the 3 sides up to my printed material. We are both engaged in a task of serious mindlessness! He decides on his own that the 4^th side is OK without paper. As we work, one of us has to balance the load on the counter. There is no other workspace. We are getting quite intimate, even joking. We have put a flimsy paper frame around my printed address envelopes taped with cello tape!

Round Four: Estampas (Stamps)!

Then my enemy, the female clerk gives me a 12×16 in. sheet and a half  of stamps and a little sponge with a handle and glue/water well and tells me I have to put the105, $10Q stamps, on the paper end I just taped on with the manager.  Lick that! Lick them yourself, I almost said. Time for the bell! I wondered whether I should just lick the whole sheet and a half and die of poisoning right there in front of the counter! How would they explain that to their bosses? No balaza in the head or heart and there he is, dead in the Correo floor! Some of the watered/glued stamps stick, others don’t. She helps stick some of them down. She says its fine! Still looks slapdash to me. Anyway, my package goes on the other counter at the back wall with the smaller one addressed to Australia, one whole butt-end covered in $1051Q worth of stamps! We needed the paper on the butt end to hold the stamps, maybe? Always trying to see the logic!

Now, I have to fill out and sign the declarations. She gets pretty forceful saying: sign!  I say no, what am I signing? I proceed to fill in as much of the form as I can make out, including adding the weight and the cost, which I think was inflated! She is getting muy enojada conmigo! I ask how long I will take, days or weeks?  She says, two, no: at least 3 weeks! I ask for insurance. She ignores me. She gets really upset and gives me a copy of only 1 of the forms I signed back and says, en espan~ol: “Thank you sir,. That’s it. At your service!” They are closing.

TKO

I was so upset, I was going to follow through on the process no matter what. My bag probably went no further than their post office yard. Probably didn’t even make it to a truck. They probably cracked open some beers and burned it in effigy of me after taking off their precious stamps! “Destino seguro”: en la basura! And it cost me $125US to pursue this! AARRGGGHH!

Bag problem dealt with! Scratch that off the to-do list!

Went to the market, picked up a colourful tote bag for $15US and gave a bunch of books to the guy on nights at the hotel! Multi-tasking!

Time for a beer! Somehow hope they live up to the real meaning of their tagline and not my twisted take on it!

Rainer

and Grace Jones!

The Mayan James Brown.

Writing this on  Saturday, January 2, 2010: moody, rainy, muddy cobble streets, no power most of the day, no water(water pressure) most of the day. Buckets of water by the doors outside each hotel room!

New Year’s Eve

At the ruins till 2:30 or so. So happy to be back busy with the passion of ruins! No bad days in Copan, the ruins site! Such stately trees! Such an erotic ceiba tree on top of the hill! Must have banged out a couple of rolls of film on one Stela, “D” of 18 Rabbit (Conej0 18), such a groove I was in! Back to the “mindless” man – love the missing section of his head – a lateral lobotomy and then some! Or, an inverted or reverse Mohawk! Mohawk with a ice cream sccop? I wonder if the sculptor of the brass/copper pieces of heads, pieces that fit each other at the brain at the TD Centre in Toronto, got the idea from here?

No food at the ViaVia – everybody cooking, cleaning and setting up for the evening party! Staff/guests partied from about 8:30 pm till morning. $280 Lempiras a seat. My beer bill was a function of that. I had non-Buddhist “no mind” in the eye-in-the-storm hotel room.  No opinion either. Certainly no-consciousness on this night. Previous night our people stopped at midnight, but the pub next door must have gone on till 2:00 am with Spanish language Karaoke! I was quite happy to sleep off the many bottles I had of Belgian Leffe Dark beer. Party broke up just after 7:00 am next day with some staff getting no sleep what with clean up and getting ready for Jan 1 breakfast service. Gerardo, the cook, reported that on his way in, there were a few dead revellers lying on the sidewalks after daybreak.

Staff bunched us up at tables to make the seating work for the New Year’s Eve buffet supper . A skinny-as-a-young-bamboo 51 yr-old male NGO worker from Europe, Peter,  and a couple of women from Belgium or Holland and me, made up the table. A reasonably loud local band, including a Belgian lead from the looks of it, did both slightly and heavily accented Beatles, Doors, Band and CCR, but played really well. Leffe is my witness. A smoke machine underlined a few chords, echoing the firecrackers outside. Got a few shots, but the G11 is not good for this sort of stuff at 3200 ISO – my 1Ds Mark III at 3200 ISO much better with the 135mm, but then: it’s not here with me, arrgghh! Some good conversation. Liked Peter’s stories. Of course some things I couldn’t make out in Flemish or Dutch, but then, I had Leffe Dark. A wonderful Belgian Dark beer and I were meeting for the first time and it was love! Such a classy dark beer – even leaves a mild headache, such a wonderful foam, etc…The ViaVia Buffet was exceptional and we were able get seconds! Good world class food! No calls home. HondurasTel closes its cabinas at 9:00pm…

So envious of my tablemates’ description of Angkor Wat. If I am excited by the tree and ruins integration at Copan, I will be enthralled by Angkor Wat, they all asserted.

New Year’s Day

Streets covered with party junk, very unsightly and in places an inch or more of fireworks leavings, burned paper and shredded cardboard.

Found out contrary to trip information in Antigua that the ruins site is in fact open today! If I had known I would have shortened the trip here by a day, although it’s a great site. Four days are probably enough here even covering the risk of rain, which dampened January 2 a lot….

Trip to Las Sepulturas with Peter on New Year’s Day, a recently excavated section of Copan ruins that includes residential quarters for some elite, but also a scribe or family of scribes and some sculptors and fishermen. Paid too much to Jesus the Tuk-Tuk driver, but it was a good outing. I thought first I was being taken to the local cemetery, but this got adjusted to the sepulchers – the adjunct Copan site named for the graves found there. Luckily we got a bit of a tour from one of the men who claimed to have worked as a labourer on the excavation for 5 years. The headless wall sculpture with the hand holding a bird(dove) at the Scribe’s House ( Casa del Escribando)is a striking piece of art and the celestial bench and censer covers (tapaderas)housed in the town museum are just exceptional!

Then off, up the hill to the Hacienda San Lucas, with a wonderful view of Copan Ruinas town  and many kilometers around. Lots of tomatoes being grown under plastic in the fields, supposedly by Guatemalan companies using “”Pinche” (Guate) workers. The notion is the Pinches are growing tomaoes here in Honduras, creating jobs for Pinches and then sell the tomatoes to Hondurans! Some rivalry here! Had a beer and shot off a couple of shots, beer service all the way to the garden chair! The family coming up the hill on horses we passed on the climb in our. Tuk-Tuk appeared again, the mother a comely 270 degree fit with her saddle. The rooms in the hacienda have a wonderful view, great back-split farmhouse, probably great food, for only $120US  a night. Run by a Spanish woman. A little removed from the ruins and the “action” whatever that means in Copan Ruinas. I am happy with my $12 a night bar flop! Beds are comfortable, music and food and atmosphere are great, great people! A little noisy after 7:00 pm, but?

Mano y pajaro, Casa del Escribando, Las Sepulturas.

January 2

There are 4 or 5 parts to see: the ruins proper, the Sepulturas, the tunnels and the sculpture museum onsite. Then there is a museum of other artifacts in town, off the main square. More shots of the Stelas today and the rubble wall at the back of the Pyramid of Hieroglyphs with the many tunnel openings.   How much it reminds me of Hundertwasser art/architecture without colour…Wonderful Chiaroscuro! This was the part that was undermined by the Copan river – allowable chiaroscuro….?

Hieroglyph PyrNo mind man again!

Repaired rubble walls and tunnel doors, below Hieroglyph Pyramid.

Scarlet Macaws

Amid power outage, young tourists lining up at the ATM – active mythology being developed from the exit polls that Europeans weren’t getting money, Americans were. Other people said power outs and water service  off were common occurrences in Honduran life.

Cemetery in Copan Ruinas seemed too private to visit alone and it was too muddy a day for walking around a cemetery and I was worried about getting mugged. So I looked around outside and went back up the way I came.

Later in the early evening when the power came back on, there was still the same drunk from New Year’s Eve outside the ATM, except now he has a healthier colour, maybe he had some food in the meantime before he got bombed again!

The museum in town was worthwhile, especailly for the censer tops. Wonder where the rest of the stuff here went – Tegucigalpa, Boston, London? Rather liked the town, Copan Ruinas. Although depending on tourism, its not all spoiled. Maybe the residents are underwhelmed, still waiting for the boom they thought would happen. Lots of  trucks and SUVs. Really shocking that there is no sign of indigenous people here like the millions of Indios just 12 kilometers away in Guatemala. Its all Ladino here! They must have moved them all out or wiped them out during the conquest and conversion. Very strange. A few black skinned people around, very few, but no indigenas! Great stories about Paraiso, a local drug “spot”.

Happy New Year!

Rainer

Copan is one of the Holy Grail ruins sites, like Tikal and Chichen Itza and Palenque. Its known in Mayan art and architecture especially for its Stelae, most famous of which is Rabbit 18, which I think is a reign date in the Mayan Calendar – his successor was not Rabbit 19, for example – the Copan ruler who was at the top of his world with an ambitious building and military program only to be captured and sacrificed by a competing king a few years later. More about Copan later. Its one of the best also, one I like better than Chichen Itza or Tikal.

Copan Ruinas is a strange little town, a creation of proximity to the ruins. Interesting mix of people and styles. There are more and tougher looking security guards for the banks and ATM machines here than in Guatemala. Some of the people look like they are genuinely amazed at the modern world, country people. Suspicious hicks. Naïve, gullible and people who don’t quite know what is happening to them. No indio or Mayan outfits here that I can see. Everyone wants to look like a cowboy, like George Bush. Others seem to be making a quite successful adjustment to the tourist trade. The hotel I got is named ViaViaCafe, a Belgian chain, with basic rooms for $12US, but clean and simple, private bath, cold showers, good light, Wi-Fi, good music, good service, good food, happy hours, etc. attracting younger people, backpackers and the international budget set and people like me. They have places in a few other spots in the world, I think Borobodur, Indonesia, maybe Angkor Wat…Quite happy to find them! Didn’t answer my request for reservations, but had a room anyway when I got hear…Funny game the tut-tut drivers play. The normal price is $10 Lempiras or about $5 Quetzals to go a normal distance, but they try to double it at least for tourists, just like they do in Panajachel. So I ask for the normal price and he says its $10 Lempiras if it’s more than one person, then I counter and say its the normal price for 1 person and it’s not a colectivo…and he settles for the normal price but tells his tut-tut driver buddy he made “20″ as he passes by – a little game by tut-tut drivers everywhere! When I turn down $20 Lempiras guys get a long face, but the smart ones climb down to get the fare…

The shuttle started at 4:00 am this morning, rounding up passengers for half an hour then heading out to the highway for the 6-hour ride. 15 passengers and the driver, so it was packed, I was happy to have a single seat. Lots of hilly country, morning mist, crazy driving with our first pee break, ie., hours later at 6:00 am. Most people were nodding off pretty steadily, so there was the constant inconvenience of dealing with the stranger’s wandering foot searching for a hold at yours, while people struggled through fitful sleep. Typically motor oil semi-urban wasteland of truck stops, tire repair places and restaurants in between poor, often scruffy, but often beautiful farm country and aldeas (small villages). Witnessed a crazy scene at the next rest stop, at about 8:00. Another shuttle was disgorging at the same place and I saw a mid-30s white woman passenger have an altercation with her driver. I had no context as to what else led to this, but she was yelling at him to tell her where they were using her map as he was guiding other passengers out of their van and eventually yelled at him that he lied to her about where they were and put her hand on his chest. He was mestizo or Indio. He was ignoring her or trying to, while he got the rest of  the people out. Then their interchange set of the burglar alarm on the van and he started to move around the back to the driver side of the van to reset, she followed and actually pushed him ahead with both hands as he moved off. I was horrified. He went past me with a look of putting up with a crazy lady. She continued to talk about him lieing to her seatmates and phoning some one as well. Amazing that she lost it like that! What I saw would be assault in my part of the world. Here, I suppose his job is at stake with a crazy lady making a complaint. But, she could be put in jail too, with such bad behaviour! Later saw the shuttle van at the border and the crazy white lady was no longer on the shuttle. Maybe I will find out what from one of the other passengers in town for the ruin what happened. Did she exit or did the company exit her? I suppose if the cops had been called, there would not have been any driver either…Very strange behaviour! Do people come here out of whack or does the stress get them here?  More evidence of need for cultural sensitivity passports? Is there a market for a curing service for people going abroad? How to have a nice trip, its not about learning how to overlord and oppress! More idiots using skype on their computer at lunch later. They only buy coffee, use free Wi-Fi and disturb other people without a thought! Mindless! Is this a new style: hang what your neighbor thinks or the locals, carry on as if its just the Telly on in front of you and you really don’t have to be nice or behave very well. Or did computers breed a generation of boors!

None of the anticipated problems at customs/immigration. I was worried that it would be the same bedlam as the Mexico-Belize-Guatemala connection! But no! It was straight-up clean and efficient! I guess everyone makes a special effort to promote the ruins and the local economy. Guatemalan exit at one wicket, $10 Quetzals; Honduran entry and $26 Quetzals at another wicket. No bathrooms because no water supply. Made a special effort to impress upon me I should not go elsewhere in the country, but stay in Copan Ruinas and return through the same checkpoint. No bags checked, thank god. Avoided all that hassle!

Had a quick lunch and off to the ruins, $285 Honduran Lempiras, about $18US, to see the ruins. More for the museum and for the subterranean stuff.  Wonderful. More on that when I digest the majesty of he site. Huge mounds, stately trees! Wonderful!

Day 2 Copan

At the site at 8:15. Truly wonderful space. Went to the space behind the main plaza. This is truly an exceptional place. Amazing how the trees reinscribe the space as if they were lost kings, such stately sentinels. Amazing views from every side and front and back. These architects were also masters of stage craft, vertical and horizontal space, forshortening and long and wide vistas! Amazing. Who did these trees? Is there some gnome hired by archeological societies who arrange and palces these sets? In some ways Copan is much more powerful than Tikal in its theatre spaces! Just awe-inspiringly, gob-smackingly beautiful!

Off to my Bar living space about 2:00 after visiting the museum onsite. Many of the originals are here. I have been photographing replicas! Thinking of replicas and originals leads to other rants about antiquity objects needing to be repatriated. Means also I will have to finish off my circle of Ruta Maya stuff in the archeological Museum in Mexico D.F., where my Mayan passion was whetted/wetted so acutely! Also at the Museum is a full sized plaster replica of the Rosalilla Temple, found inside another temple/pyramid built over it. More detail about that later. Point to remember that the wonderful black and white toned architecture was really all painted bright colours. These people liked colour like Mediterraneans or Caribbeans or the peoiple that used to live on Grace St. and on Clinton before this generation. No chiaroscuro for them! Gobs of colour on their columns, just like Mayan cemeteries! One of the biggest opticals lies is the classical art fiction that Greeks were into black and white with shadows, not just Doric, Ionic and Corinthian stuff! Same is also true of B&W photogtaphy when you consider it.  Taking a shot of something in B&W, ignoring its basic colour is like borrowing a dog’s sight, all for high art. When colour is missing, night, shadows, black and white objects, OK, but otherwise: save me!Another rant! Anyway: lots of B&W on this trip. I am trying again, honouring the masters!

Thanks,

Rainer

Mindless Man

PS: Such a wonderful illusion: the place I am staying in is cheap and takes a first night deposit is also a bar, so it’s wonderful, great food, greta layout, simple, clean rooms, goo service, epiphyte sin the garden and quiet, at least till happy hour at 5:00 WHEN PEOPLE STREM IN FOR CHEAP CUBA LIBRES AND IT GETS PROGRESSIVELY LOUDER JUST THIS SIDE OF DISCO VOLUME UNTIL MIDNIGHT! i.M LIVING IN A BAR!!!!!

I love it! Will figure out to stay happy until midnight the next 4 nights or lose a lot of sleep. If I stay happy, its a quick skip and jump to bed. Nothing like waking up to Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue for breakfast with 12 Swedes at the table next! The travel guides should really make the statement that unless you are deaf, the sleeping can be a problem! Wonder if its the same at the chain’s spot in Borobodur or Angor Wat?

Happy Feet!!

My friends now.

I’m using my Hotel as a place to store my big bag, the contents of which I seem to be needing less and less. Maybe time to ditch it, half the stuff in it or send it home air-freight. It’s about $1.25US a night for storage: very cheap! But everything is cheap here unless you have to travel conquistador deluxe and pay more than $130 a night. But then, you are maintaining the illusion you are rich or borrowing an illusion. Outrageous what the profits must be! Same prices as luxury accommodation back home, but all the costs are a fraction of any back home and there is no red tape, like union agreements and few social conquests to honour! Dream capitalism; AynRandLand! Remember the American I met at Uxmal who said he couldn’t afford to live in the states anymore – wonder how many Americans are living outside of the states for income reasons? Reverse mojados…

Up at 6:30, out at 7:00 to try to get Volcan Agua as a backdrop to some of the buildings, such as the Arco again and San Pedro’s Church among others. Took the telephoto and all the cameras and tripod! Heavy load, Rainer! Half a block down the street and I realized, no Volcanoes today! It’s cool, cloudy and overcast and looks like rain today. Back to the room for other things to do!

Anyway: booked the Copan shuttle for 4:00 am, took some laundry to the Lavanderia for about $5Quetzals a pound, washed, dried, folded and packaged in 4 hours. Breakfast at the Conde’s at the Parque Central. Remotely worried about getting stung by currency exchange dealers when the inevitable exit and re-entry fees are levied at immigration customs in Honduras and back into Guatemala. Going back and forth is covered by the regional agreement for those not needing visas for 90 days, so no problem going back and forth. Its just the little arbitrary fee stuff that happens that’s irritating. From Mexico to Belize it was US currency or local, so I had to change some money using the touts outside the immigration hall. It’s going to be a 6-hour shuttle! Pray for pee stops!

Some shots walking around and at the Parque Central of the Cathedral from the Capitanes General, which is closed for repairs.

Hotel Don Rodrigo entrance.

Muni

Catedral

Reading the American travel writer John L. Stephens’ “Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan” from 1843, his second trip with Catherwood the Brit Architect and Illustrator. Fascinating reading that style of the old eloquence/garrulousness. These books started the Ruta Maya industry, made Stephens and Catherwood comfortable financially and got the Ivy League Schools in the US interested in Central American archeology. Funny to think that these things I am seeing, the ruins, the museums, the masters’ programs, current Mayans and state of things Mayan, the tourist goods stall, the hotels and tour business, state tourist income from Mayan things, people employed in the tourism industy, students going to school to earn a degree in tourism management are all a function of the seminal work of these two and their travel books! Everyone did OK over the years, that is, all except the Mayans! Fascinating how these two started the business about 160 years ago, clearing sites overgrown for 100s of years and known only to local people. The engravings really clinched the impression, very good drawing showing a complex culture with a high aesthetic sensibility. There is a Casa Catherwood in Merida where the engravings are nicely displayed, worth visiting.

Ended up writing this Blog Post at the Restaurante Kafka. Couldn’t resist the Kafka Dog again, free Wi-Fi and the laid back California ambiance! No Kafka. The local kraut that makes the sausage must have had Heimweh or Sensucht and has probably gone home by stowing away on a tramp steamer to Marseille from Tampico like my handsome dead uncle or some other legend story based on a 50s German song by Freddy, therefore no sausage! So, i ordered pulled pork instead, which was mouth watering. The crowd not so OFW today. Could get to be really fond of this place. Takes a half hour to get anything, whether its drink or food. Music and food are good, its airy on the upper deck and its reasonably quiet!

Kafka sitting.

Kafka slaying the dragon?

Kafka sitting before the Palta.

The only shots worth talking

about today are the ones from the Casa de los Ejercicios Spirituales de Santa Brigida(House of Spiritual Exercises of St. Brigid), which is like a convent/church renovated and updated into an art/cultural wares display space with assistance form the Spanish Embassy. Wonderful space! Another excellent use of money – some beautiful, very beautiful spaces and very tasteful updates! Some of the beautiful flowers against old coloured plaster are just lost on the staff or they have become blind to the fact that a tasteless garbage can has been casually set against a priceless display of plants and old walls…I loved the evidence of the restaurant use of the adjoing church, which I think was

a Jesuit space, the stencils of the menu are still visible on the front elevation! Gallina and verduras, por $….

Menu stencilled on the wall!

Rainer

Before going back to the hotel to blog, checked the internet for emails and stopped at the Atlantis Bar cum Biergarten to eat and read some more Martin Prechtel. They had a great Greek Salad with fresh everything and goat feta and competent Gnocchi Bolognese. Good Gallo, of course! Did we know that Gallo won a Belgian competition for best beer in the world in the last few years? Well deserved laurel! I was pleased! Basically a sports bar, but some of the German touches were nice. A sexy poster for the famous Marlon Brando/Vivien Leigh movie, ¨Endstation: Senhnsucht” which I think is Streetcar Named Desire reworked to “Last Stop: Yearning”. Brando being embraced by Leigh’s hands where his shirt was a moment before. Also, a poster for Schultheiss beer, which I didn’t know existed. Across the street is a bar called Casablanca with a strong, colorful, Hundertwasser-inspired, graphic on the second floor and a German Flag echoing some of the colours right next to it and a plaque stating it’s the German Consular Office here! Fine real estate irony! Would Bogey and Clogged Drains have cared? Hundertwasser was, of course, not-German, but Austrian. Or was he not-German, but Swiss? Or, was that before the war?

Otherwise, except for those rants: a decent day today. Back to Santiago Atitlan to see the church again and see the Peace Park and later to San Pedro and a fun stop at the cemetery there. If that can be, the cemetery was much more fun than the one in Santiago. It was a little like the towns here, lots of unpainted concrete and unfinished floors and rebar waiting for expansion and growth. Whoever does the cemetery in San Pedro is definitely forward looking: it just leads to some strange scenes! Interesting use of images, very little statuary – graphics of Christs, Saints, etc..as if tombstones and mortuary surfaces were screens or paper/canvas to draw on! Corrugated metal covered gallery in the middle to protect the big structures – mostly plaster covered ossuaries – from the elements. Amazing how some photos, even poor quality ones, get used. Signs that some of the crosses not far removed from the small individual grave green and blue Mayan style crosses I saw in Chiapas, where successive crosses each year get added to the head of the grave, so it looks like a clutch of crosses, exactly the same size on each grave, the number showing the degree of remembrance.

The peace park lined up vertically to just below the cemetery in Santiago Atitlan, and commemorated 13 people, some of them kids, shot by the army during the civil war. Seems the coffee plantation just below the park site was military property. An altar is set up for yearly masses to commemorate the deceased. I need to learn more about the civil war in Guatemala than what I find in Wikipedia. Seems like the victims of the war were mostly poor, unarmed Mayans. Many died in Santiago Atitlan and one of the reasons Prechtel left was the threats to his life by the rightwing paramilitaries. Some see the war in the context of continuing racial genocide against Mayans.

Read about the church in Santiago in Prechtel’s book last night. The Christian Cross was also the Mayan Tree of Life cross and the Church of Santiago was built on top of a Mayan temple that stayed holy ground from the time of the conquest. There is/was a hole under the church that was the mouth of the world for Mayans and every once in a while the hole in the church floor would be exposed for Mayan ritual. There was a modus vivendi for hundreds of years, but then in the 70s and 80s things heated up from both left and right for Mayan traditionalists and many institutions that had accommodated Mayan culture were cancelled by the government and the Christians filled up the scared hole with concrete, which the Mayans quickly broke up again, with at least one more iteration until a compromise was reached whereby a concrete cover, like a manhole cover was created that kept the hole out of view until there was a ritual! Great story. Also, the square in front of the church was used by the Mayan hierarchy, the chiefs and community members for community meetings, which consisted of rousing debates of issues. I found it fascinating that the one coloured building in the corner of a colonnaded section of outbuildings squaring the site was a blue painted domed roof building that someone said was a Mayan space, temple or chapel and housed Maximon, a local deity. Was very attracted by this blue chapel and sat in the square for a while remembering the previous night’s readings. I am guessing the stone cross in front of the church, much like the stone cross at La Merced in Antigua and other churches in Guatemala is a derivation of the wooden Mayan cross with the evergreen branch around it, basically the tree of life, the tree growing out of the mouth of the world, like in Romerillo and Chamula, in Chiapas. As stone and concrete crosses they are less suggestive of pre-Christian meanings and therefore less threatening to Christian and Ladino sensibilities. These symbols I find fascinating.

Tomorrow: wrap up in Panajachel and Lake Atitlan. Shuttle back to Antigua at 4:00. Will remember the lake, the volcanoes and the Church in Santiago Atitlan for a long time!

Thanks,

Rainer

PS: Rants!

Friend of mine used to do mobiles of little paper swans, many swans of different colours suspended on thin wires that moved swans ever so elliptically but still in relationship to each other. She was mad for swans. Remembered that as I was sitting in the same café in Santiago Atitlan close to the center of town, as before, watching people while having breakfast. All of a sudden I saw a group of middle aged and older tourists, Hispanics from what I could tell, maybe some Italians in the group, each with a camera, mostly point and shoots, some digital SLRs, come up, be surprised as sniffer dogs noting “quarry located”, assess the situation. Pick-Up disgorging interesting locals with bundles on their heads and others walking from the opposite direction to the market. They moved like a well drilled army squad executing a pacification procedure, some leaning in, some backing up, some going to a 3:00 o’clock position, some on to 11:00, each composing, focusing and shooting, some almost sticking their cameras in peoples faces and then moving on to the next target zone or a mobile of not-so-pretty swans going up the street. Not one: “con permiso?” 40 years later and no longer hippie outfits or Mao jackets, but yuppy North Face uniforms for older bods. Mindless clicking and snapping. Couldn’t believe how the locals could put up with such behavior every day, constantly, with every incoming Lancha and every tour-guided group that comes into town. It was as if the tourists were shooting people in a Video war game sequence only with cameras instead of guns, or gazing at a live Diorama. As if local people were objects, parts of vacation scenes, curiosities, animals in a zoo to be snapped, recorded and memorialized. So obnoxious, so inhuman! Very shocking to see for someone who likes to take shots, like me! The corollary of course is the Mayan textile women chasing me everywhere, coming up trying to sell me goods, triangulating my walk so to intersect me as if I was a buying machine or the kids begging for Quetzals or the old men selling Cashews sticking a spoon of them almost in my mouth when I was at the computer in the Internet Cafe. They must see me as a living, breathing ATM, a cash cow, una maquina de compras, a cyborg from elsewhere, from TVlandia. No wonder from the tourist behaviour I saw! Completely lacking in human grace on both sides. Poverty and ignorance drives one behaviour, mindless affluence and ignorance, the other. As if the two behaviours are complementary. The other day a pretty little girl was sizing up my walk and direction to intercept me with her textile goods and for a moment she lost her concentration on something else, so I veered out of the way and looked back at her as I passed and she said: “Stop that!” How to maintain humanity while travelling is worth pondering more.

Save that analysis. There are totally outlandish first world weirdos here as well, that should not travel anywhere where there are people. Desert islands, OK. Somebody should throw shoes at them! They are Zift! The woman next to me in the Internet Café from Whitby, Ontario, Canada, had to loudly share her news, fears and email contents with her husband waiting outside at attenuated earshot and everyone else in the Café, at full volume, which I gather is her normal. “The old church burned down in Whitby, they think it was arson and they are going to rebuild it”. I need to know that in Panajachel, Guatemala on Christmas Day? I need to know that Sunrise will or won’t cover the operation or that it might cost $8K or $9K. Husband says OK, let’s do it! She doesn’t know I am from Toronto, to her I probably speak Spanish, so I can only hear, not understand every word! Does she care? Maybe she is a stressed traveler. Maybe she is totally self centered and obnoxious at home too. But, what the hell is she doing here? People used to talk about obnoxious Germans and Americans. I guess we can add Canadians or at least Whitby-ers!

Worst was this rodent pink faced Brit guy, maybe an academic, his mate was even embarrassed, with his laptop come to plug into the cable jack to use a VOIP and camera service. So way out loud so that everyone, even unto the street, can hear: he is planning a conference agenda, chatting with friends and showing them the street scene outside the Internet Café, standing up and pushing the screen and computer video camera as far out into the entrance as he could to get the street traffic, the pedestrians and tut-tuts and hawkers, saying that he wished there was better resolution so his friend on the line could see the detail on the huipiles the women were wearing and what they had on their heads and yes, that man passing has a hat on that looks like the old west and can’t hear a thing for the firecrackers going off in the street. Absolutely obnoxious, insensitive, never mind culturally insensitive, bad behaviour! If I saw it on a comedy show I would be rolling in the aisles with laughter as a funny put on. But it’s real! What is this guy doing travelling anywhere? There should be passports proving cultural sensitivity or just plain manners. Passports to let qualified citizens travel, passports for the out direction, so they don’t embarass Canada in any of those “diversity” locations we are so proud to have members of. Here’s for two-way passports! Surprised more tourists don’t have eggs and rotten veggies thrown at them!

Finished with Rants for now!

- Rainer

BEAUTIFUL VOLCANOES!

On the zero day of Christmas my true love gave to me 3 awesome volcanoes and a lake as blue, as blue, can be! We are working on the sewage!

Beautiful volcanoes from my sunny balcony! Con vista! 2 out of 3 anyway, Toliman and Atitlan, I got. Volcan San Pedro used to be there! It’s obscured by a two storey cinderblock addition by another, real cheapo hotel, in front on the restaurant and tourist wares beach strip. Oh for some dynamite! This wouldn’t happen to the Camino Real or at the Porta! Maybe I should ask for 2/3 of the high season rate to make 2/3 of the 3 volcanoes! Silly: I love the fact I am seeing a world class view, but only 2/3rds of it because of what happens to world class places at the hands of greedy operators and poor government planning! Quite a chuckle! Love the humour in it. Part absurd, part sad! The hotel is Playa Linda. There is no Playa and noVista Linda. Like the inherent lie in ¨Buenos Aires¨ Or the irony in Chaucer of “ Amor vincit omnia!” Ironic traveller! Bufo!

Homage to Atitlan shots!

Trip to Panajachel was relatively uneventful. Up and down again on narrow roads, better than those to Chichi, Went right through Paztun and several markets and saw several community laundry vats with women working away. Lovely, majestic volcanoes looming through a split in the trees as we began to crest the last valley/hill combo. In town the volcanoes still look majestic, but the foreground is tourism junk. They call it Gringolandia or Gringotenango! Unbelievable strip of tourist shops and restaurants, must be several kilometers of restaurants, travel agents and tourist stalls – textiles, arts and crafts, bags and leather goods. Stalls right down to the boat docks!

Got here about 11:00 from Antigua. Went to Hotel Playa Linda, told them I had requested a reservation, they said OK, they had a room and I never did get a response. Had lunch at a Uruguayan restaurant open to the street and walked a bit till I got tired in the streets. Popular with the old gringos eating, drinking and reading. Am getting a little anxious. Got to stay away from this! Find the church, take shots in town or stay on the lake! Some downright angry/obnoxious hawkers – maybe mentally ill? – guy kept giving me a hawkeye look, put his spoon of cashew nuts right in front of me while I was at the computer in the Internet Café. Later a couple of women carried on about why wait till tomorrow when I demurred in order ot have something to eat and not bother with them. Maybe my sour mood is projecting to them?

Up early, It’s Christmas Eve today. I’m going out on the boots to at least Santiago Atitlan and maybe a few other places. Love the idea of the ferry ride across the lake! Up at 5:30 or so. Down to the beach at 6:30 or 7:00. Only people up are some restaurant staff getting ready for the day. No coffee, no breakfast for at least a couple of hour! And maybe no ride! . No boats or ferries at the wharves off the beach at all. Eventually get away about 8:15 to Santiago for $25 Quetzals. The 6:00 am boats must have left from the other pier, not the one at the beach!

Santiago Atitlan was an interesting arrival and had a very interesting Church, but was less taken with the town and the cemetery. The statues in the Church, Saint James, the Apostle, and the altars were exceptional. Priests’ names over their offices were Greene and McSherry and an Italian name among others. Still international support here from the church! There was a commemorative plaque to the American priest, Rother who was murdered here on church property by rightists in 1981, during the height of the civil war horrors in Santiago. Found a restaurant with good coffee and a good omelet and a great place to people watch. It’s market day here and I could watch people get off the “Pick-Ups” from the outside patio – a new form of transport for me – pick-up trucks where people stand in the back holding on to a frame and padded by others standing up. Takes some dignity getting on and off with your head gear intact and I suppose you have to study looking imposing or nonchalant, because the bouncing around is intimate! So we have so far:

• 1st class buses, or Pullmans, with their own stations, washrooms, A/C and direct run, driver managed, tickets at the station and in advance;
• 2^nd class buses – varies a little between Mexico and Guatemala – more refined in Mexico, usually means stops to pick up and let often A/C but no WC. Driver managed. Tickers at the station or on the road.
• Chicken buses, like Old West stagecoaches’ – – colourful buses in Guatemala. “Shotgun” assistant runs cash, luggage and directions. On, off, chickens too! Out the backdoor with a jump as well!
• Colectivos. Vans that run a regular route, short distances or long. Pick-up, drop off. Faste,r less hassle and more expensive than chicken buses.
• Shuttles. Like a colectivo, but planned ahead by Tour Agencies. A direct to destination van. Cheap!
• Pick-Ups. SRO colectivos. Lots of them…

Went to the other Lancha dock in Santiago and decided to have a quick look at San Pedro de Laguna. Beautiful collours of water, lake weeds and tree shadows – kayak schools, holistic health centers etc.. but very pretty! Playa Restaurant had an American serving. Got a steak sandwich with lots of mustard on it and a couple of Gallos and watched some OW guys interact in English. A few women breezed out and then breezed back in. Reminded me of old hippy days! Interesting town, very steep streets, thank god for tut-tuts. Awful church! Pedro outside on a rock with the keys to the kingdom and a chicken. Anybody know the chicken idea? Was there a blessd chicken in the bible somewhere and I missed it. Is this a Pollo Campero plot? Nice stone steps entrance to Church Square with municipal signs saying “No urinar, 100 Qetzal fine – signed Muni”. Maybe the protestants are doing better on this front as well. Imposing Baptist place painted green; evangelists are pink, catholics solidly white!

Back to Panajachel on a Lancha whose driver though he was a speedboat racer. Felt like record time, waves splashing and cool music!

Write up the blog, shower, check out the Church in town for their Missa de Gallo and plug the pictures into Flickr and the blog via my USB key drive and eat and think nice thoughts about Midnight Mass, if I can catch it!

I think Alduous Huxley was quoted as saying this was the most beautiful lake in the world! Was he comparing with Cuomo? Certainly feels like I should agree!

Thanks,

Rainer

PS: Went to Missa de Gallo(Midnight Mass) at 11:00 in Panajachel. Beautiful old church. Big tree lit up outside. Altar boys were blowing incense from their censors as if the stuff was copal and they were warding off bad spirits. Amazing how happy everything was inside. A truly welcoming and happy place. Well lit, smiling people, rousing sermon. Choir and accordion very upbeat! Some of the carols sounded like oompah music! Amazing polka beat with christmas carols! What competition from teh protestants will do! Walked home all the way to my place at the playa. Lots of families still out. Lots of firecrackers going off. Amazing what a huge load of firecrackers sounded out Christmas Day at midnight! Loud as New Year´s Eve!

PS: Went back a few days later to take some shots. Amazing how the green ribbons hanging from the rafters look a lot like the green evergreen streamers in the Mayan Catholico churches! Amazing how normal life was around the church and the market! No hawkers, smiling people, clean internet cafes – fast workstations and no fleas on the seats! Panajachel away from the tourist zone is a nice place! I should have spent more time here!

Bar, Posada y Restaurante!

Given my soft spot for kinky places, this was a destined find! Close to the La Merced Church and Square, upstairs is the sunny bar with JW Red on the bar shelf, an antique soccer game table nailed up. Murky pool table room, dark, dark bar sitting area upstairs with a blow-up of Al Pacino as a young Michael shooting, arm fully extended, in the restaurant killing scene in The Godfather. Sunny spots upstairs had OFW Americans with their laptops while reading and chatting. I took photos of neat cubbyholes and sittings. I couldn´t resist and asked one of the guys if the place had a cockroach named ¨Gregor¨, but the guy didn´t catch the joke because he turned to his buddy and asked if there were any cockroaches in the place! This was a california style place to zone out! Wonderful! The one OFW Ameican catching rays had the bartender scheduled so she brought the gin and soda every 20 minutes or so. I couldn´t resist the menu after my first great coffee and ordered the Kafka Dog, which was billed as a pork longanzina gordita made by an authentic local German. So much for Czech claims to Kafka´s fame! He never liked Prague anyway! Neither did Rilke. Anyway the sandwhich came with lots of spicy fried onions and the sausage was only a little oily, probably from how it was cooked and not inherently. Went down smooth with two Gallo beers! Came with fries and coleslaw, either a homage to his Jewishness via such a Deli staple or another Kraut reference! (¨Kraut¨is pickled cabbage, as in Kohl = Cole + ¨slaw¨ ).  Inside the courtyard of these built-to-the-edge-of-the-street Spanish colonial houses are wonderful courtyards that could put you anywhere with sumptuous clouds and sun and blue sky! Like a Greek island, Mykonos with the Pelican at the harbour talking to you, have another drink! Cool music. Three Swedish tourists wafted in and ordered lunch while looking over mags that one of them was in. Only trouble with the place was it took forever to get your order, by the time it came you were drunk or ravenous and it didn´t matter to anyone. I mean, anyone that counted….

I will go back, maybe. Sure was relaxing. You could hole up here and never go out! A complete experience! Sun, booze, sausages, palta trees  and free internet!

Noisy Antigua Santa Claus parade is going on as I write in the Internet Cafe of the lobby in my hotel! AARRGGHH!

Off to Panajachel and Lake Atitlan in the morning!

Thanks,

Rainer

Monday, last day of the Festival of Santo Tomas  in Chichicastenango

Leaving this afternoon to go back to Antigua in a colectivo via Los Encuentros, with someone named Armando who does Tours for the Hotel Santo Tomas here, apparently to make a transfer. Let’s see what I put a deposit on! I wanted a ride where I didn’t have to risk my bag up top. Normally there are Colectivos to Antigua only on market days, Thursday and Sundays. Now its been changed from 14:00 to 16:00 hours, which means art least half of the drive in the dark and a transfer. Not auspicious!

Poor Chcichicastenango! Major festival and it rained for two of the most important days! Wet tourist goods, soggy tourists. Not a happy outcome! You could see the tourists leaving ship yesterday with what looked like extra colectivos/vans piled on. Lots of fireworks, dancing, I was really impressed with the stamina of the Aj Sargentos, musicians and float carriers, doing pretty much the same routine everyday, marching around town, picking up the images form the church, leaving them at the Cofradias, picking them up from the Cofradias, roping the images in, untying them, rituals, maybe night-time stuff I am not aware of as well, maybe prayers or feasting. No obvious feasting or drunken-ness except for what looked like the usual suspects among the onlookers. Like carnival, the outlay for costumes by the dancers must be a significant part of yearly income, although they look like they don’t vary much in style like the carnival ones do in Rio. All in all, a very impressive display and such amazing stamina on the part of the participants. Amazing to carry on as they did in the cold and rain! Tough! Fireworks were memorable. Don’t know how someone didn’t get hurt. The loud bang in the ears, the acrid smell, the blinding smoke! Had to turn around just in case something hit my face! New Cofradia leader elected, what looked like a meeting of the new board in the square, some recognition of the old-timer Aj Sargentos, who walked in at the end. Then dancing and more fireworks and a concert. I left before that started. Can’t get excited about filming folk dances unless I can get more points of view than is normal in a public square….Great effort by the citizens! Only a few surly faces and loud throat clearing by what I assumed to be people who didn’t like the look of me. Lots of tiny farm women. Interesting clothes’ fabrics. Food not bad and cheap at Los Cofrades. Good hotel, room and lots of light and warm blankets for the cold spell. Someone said its hurricane fallout from around Miami….

Thanks,

Rainer

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Thursday market trappings have all been taken down and the city looks recognizable again. 500 – 700 or more tiny Mayan women lined up for the second day in a row close to where I am staying. Very few men. Interesting. Couldn’t find out why yesterday. The landlord told me it was family allowance or mother’s allowance day. The government was handing out money to poor people, just like Lula in Brazil(sic)!

Good day today! Although I missed the Palo Volador and I think one of the dances, but I don’t know which. There are a number of dances, with evidence like with related instruments of some history in pre-Columbian times:

• Baile de Tzijolaj, which refers to the a piccolo sized flute(tzijolaj) and a tun or tambour ;
• Baile de Torito, little bull;
• Baile de Culebra (snake), with live snakes someone said;
• Palo Volador, dancing/twirling from a 30 meter pole;
• Baile de Gracejos(jesters);
• Baile de Venado(deer), where deer conquer a jaguar;
• Baile de la Conquista (Mayans and Spaniards);
• Baile Regionale, showing costumes from around the area.

The origin of the instruments is quite political, there being Mayan, Ladino and African claims for the origin of the marimba. Supposedly the chromatic marimba was a ladino addition, although pre-conquest Mayans used a type of marimba. Also, the chirimia (flute) has a double reed, like the oboe-like instrument still played in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I saw dancers dressed in central or northern  Mexican outfits like people from Monterrey with sombreros and masks, with two of them dressed as bulls, So, I think this was the Baile de Torito. I saw the Baile de Venado outfits in the museum at Chetumal in Mexico, but assumed it was part of secret Mayan ritual. Martin Prechtel  has been very helpful for some of the background on Mayan culture, but I have no sense how much of the culture he describe is Ts’utujil or Santiago de Atitlan specific and what is more generally Mayan.

A word as well about Cofradias, before I get too much more into the Chichicastenango Santo Tomas Festival. Cofradias are “brotherhoods” with patron Saints. Probably like Knights of Columbus or the 16^th century version of P2! Chichi has 14 of them, with Santo Tomas Cofradia  being the most important during the festival, but San Jose and San Sebastian accompany Santo Tomas during the processions of the images back and forth from the Cofradias and the Church. As with anything Catholic in Mayan culture, it is partly Catholic and partly Mayan. Mayan Catholicism was a mixture of Mayan and Catholic rituals and beliefs and the institution of Confradias were initiated and supported by the Spanish as a way of connecting Mayans to Catholicism. Cofradia leaders, called Mayordomos or Aj Sargentos are community leaders and are elected each year as part of the festival. Being a Cofradia leader is very expensive, but is a position of  honour, a sign that your community thinks you’ve made it! Martin Prechtel explains this well in his books. Every Mayan is part of a community and is dependent and indebted literally to that community. If he becomes well off, it is customary to spend all capital in the annual festivities and start again, building capital anew. Like a giant potlatch! Interesting! One of the signs of cultural change by Mayans was capital accumulation, supported by missionaries and ladinos.

San Jose group at the Arco de K'umarcaaj

Waiting to pick-up Santo Tomas at his Cofradia

The day started off late. I didn’t make it for the 3:00 am or 7:00 am events, but got to the main square about 8:30 and waited a while to see what was going to happen and came upon the processions of the image floats without the images down the steps. Hanging around now part of the normal routine, shoe shine kids asking if I want my sandals shined or just asking for a dollar. Only give money to the disabled. Saw the one-legged guy who is usually drunk and passed out on the church stairs open his fly and let out ribbons of piss just as the church festivities got underway. Everyone just ignored him as they passed by!

I was lucky to get shots lined up with the Arco de K’umarcaaj, also a bridge, and also to follow the procession to the Cofradia of Santo Tomas, just half a block down from the Arco, where the statue of Santo Tomas was loaded onto its float after having picked up the images of San Jose and San Sebastian. The Arco is loaded with meaning for K’iche Mayans. While I was waiting for what transpired inside the Cofradia, I watched what was happening to the floats resting on mats in the street and those carriers and women followers waiting. Vehicular traffic was re-routed around the block, a big deal for all the chicken buses, because this was the major road to and from the north. The only vehicle not to respect the detour was 2 cops or soldiers, who rode their motorcycle right on by. Must have been a bit irritating for the Aj Sargentos to just assume they could just do that. Some of the carriers of the floats lay down or got something to eat while waiting. There was the customary handing out of corn gruel in small wooden cups. They gave me some and I couldn’t tell if it was fermented or not. Just tasted like lumpy porridge. Technology comment: the use of long wooden poles and front and back polemen to move the overhead wires over the floats! Fireworks not as dangerous as they sound, ecept when you are on the second floor looking over(as I was). The firecrackers are loaded into a heavy metal cylinder that sits on the ground, so it sounds and shoots up like a cannon but harms fewer people than it might! It almost the same as the use of copal resin incense, to drive away bad spirits. The fireworks deafen them and smoke them out. There seems to be a pattern of explosions at intersections and after the image floats have rested on the pavement. Eventually making it back to the main church, Santo Tomas, the 3 images went up the steps with their copntingents and briefly all 3 floats were spread out at the top of the steps. Couldn’t hear the music for the noise of the band sound-checking for the concert at 20:00 hours, though. Somebody needs to organize this better! After all that traipsing around town all day only to get drowned out at the top of the church steps by something as banal as a sound-check! The traditional forms need some respect. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why the sound check couldn’t be delayed, speakers turned down. I asked twice for some respect, but nothing. It seemed the Aj Sargentos seemed a little ticked off as well at the top of the church steps. Aarrgghhh!!! Maybe it was a Mayan/Ladino or Christian/Mayan thing or just a modern/traditional cleavage? It’s not the Western style bikini clad dancers, amplified rock or dance music that came at 20:00 that makes this place interesting to tourists. Someone in tourism needs to check priorities in a hurry! Met a man from Utah shooting with an HD Videocam on an often hand held tripod. Said he was here in 1975 with his Super 8 camera filming similar stuff and that there were more tourists here then. Still surprised at the show Guatemalans put on for tourists! To add insult to injury before ending the music and going into the church, while the noisy sound-check was still going on, a farmer decided to get his new purchase of a bull or cow off to his truck while the Aj Sargentos were still up on the top steps of the church only to be stuck with a truck coming the other way. Minor traffic jam to boot! Embarrassing for him!

Thanks,

Rainer

Took a colectivo just down from the Arco de K’umarcaaj in Chichi to Santa Cruz del Quiche, or Quiche for short, the capital of Quiche Department, to have a look at the ruins of the old K’iche kingdom capital city,  K’umarcaaj. The ride there was $6 Quetzals, less than a dollar, for about 15 km up and down hills for 30 minutes. Still haven’t tried the big colorful chicken buses! Just love shooting those: they are so fast, noisy and stinky with a fat, languid plume of diesel behind them, tooting their horns and shifting gears into my subsconcious, in my sleep.

Dropped off at the main square and looked for a ride to the ruins. It’s a much bigger place than Chichicastenango, lots of vendors in the main square, but Wiki says the opposite. Anyway, it feels more complex and certainly with more people downtown. But, its not as interesting as Chichi, from my brief visit! Got a 3-wheeler tut-tut with a friendly little capiltalist I rather liked. Tut-tuts are made in India. 3rd world – 3rd world trade for a change!

I loved the ruins! Back in time to 1500 or so! Hill top complex that should have been defensible, but wasn’t. None of the mounds has been excavated, so there are green hills with grass outlining the buildings and structures underneath. No mistaking the Ball Court. So, a highland park without any scrub and huge beautiful trees! Book says it represents the end of the K’iche kingdom.  Alvarado and the K’aqchikels took captive the K’iche leaders after a plot of theirs against Alvarado failed and burned all of them alive in the main square of this city and proceeded to destroy the city. The place is still sacred to K’iche Mayans and there are signs of ceremonial fires, ashes and candle wax in several places, but also indigenous families picnicking and young people singing and dancing. The decisive battle with Alvarado and his Mayan allies was at Quetzaltenango February 12, 1524, in which the K’iche king, Tecun Uman was killed.

Ritual fire pit on the Ball Court

Coloured wax drippings in the crevices.

There are caves underneath that supposedly hid their women to protect them from enemies and the caves are still used by Mayans for religious purposes. The whole place had a sacred feeling to it. Very holy place! Absolutely majestic trees! Sentinels. Important touchpoint for K’iche culture and history and Mayan nationalism…

Back to the central square, found a Colectivo back to Chichi, but squeezed in like sardines this time, 18 people plus 3 kids, a driver and an assistant to market, take cash and handle baggage on top. Me at the rear right, sharing the backbench with 3 skinny guys, trying to keep my legs from falling asleep and then trying to wake them up before a required graceful exit in Chichi.  Young skinny guy beside me was so toasty he went to sleep altogether. Nothing else for him to do. He had to stand up to reach into his pocket! Same crazy driving. Inside the van there was a road-runner cartoon character and the saying, “I run but I don’t fly.” It’s being up on adrenalin and testosterone, weaving through traffic, up hill, down hill, faster when it says “dangerous curves” , race to the single-lane bridge but slow over potholes! Life is a video game rush!

Thanks,

Rainer

Interesting day today. The local cemetery and preparations for the Palo Volador, the wild Santo Tomas festival custom where men twirl suspended from a huge pole embedded in the main square.

My friendly landlord came with me to the cemetery. The guidebooks warn it isn’t safe. You can see it from the Mayan Inn, down a steep hill. At the bottom is the area for the livestock market and a few cows and horses were being sold. From the Mayan Inn on the hill it looked at first glance like a stacked townhouse complex made up of beach change cabins of different, crazy colours. The shots I have seen of the cemetery in books and on Flickr tend to be compressed telephoto shots that emphasize the verticality of the pattern. A few people were burning incense and reciting prayers. I stayed clear of interrupting anyone’s ritual. Some kids with runny noses came up and asked for quetzals, Some workmen were updating the paint or repairing the plaster on some crypts. Some wild forms, not just colours to be seen: Halloween graphics – bats on one and a mayan pyramid on the other. One was making a classical chiaroscuro statement with an unpainted top quarter of a Parthenon-style column and roof tombstone. The one Chinese one had a red tiled roof. Most graves were just earth covered, not levelled and with simple crosses. My conclusion is that the owners of the coloured architecture were better off than the majority of the inhabitants. The form of the mounding of hard earth was very powerful. Can’t be that much rain here or the forms wouldn’t hold. Very little use of ossuaries or bone boxes here.

This week there is the festival of Santo Tomas, patron of the town, here and it think it wraps up the day after I am supposed to be back in Antigua, the 21^st. Today I watched the men put in place this 80-100 foot pole, a 12 in diameter tree they dragged up the street with a dump truck to the Parque Central and planted into a hole in the cobbles, about 6-8 feet down. They planted it using teams of men and ropes to steady the pole while the truck piston raised the pole into place. Lots of iterations before they got it centered. Funny that one team had the rope under telephone wires and around market stall kitchens, with vats of fat cooking and shoes for sale when they started. Things were moved and interrupted to make way. Anything could have happened, so I was careful to steer clear while taking shots. I heard later that last year one of the pole planters died after they were smashed by the pole when it skidded off course. I liked the men sitting on the church steps watching and that this was a real community event. It wasn’t farmed out to the analogue of concert productions or tour promotions. Some of the old men must have been community leaders. Still so strong, they held their own with the young ones and it was real grunt work they were doing, digging, shovelling, not ceremonial stuff. I am appreciating respect for elders. Palo Volador happens several times during the festivities. Men hang upside down off the pole and twirl around, risking a broken crown. There are streamers and colourful outfits! No idea about music, accompaniment or dress! I will be surprised! Will get those shots as well to complete the process, now that I have the planting part. The iterations, getting the pole and hole lined up right, the truck sometimes overshooting the mark. The old man on the church steps was guiding the angle of the pole with a hand held plumb line!

Thanks,

Rainer

The travel book says it means: “Place of the Nettles”. The ride from Antigua to Chichi took about 2.5 hours in a Colectivo, a Ford van filled with a driver and 14 tourists, all paying $10US. No seat belts, shocks a little worn and  the windshield cracked in at least 3 places and showing up 45 minutes later than the arranged 7:00 am. at the hotel.  No matter, didn’t get much sleep anyway the night before: there was at least 5 knocks on the hotel door to be let in, starting about 2:30 am. The last knocker had high heels on! Lucky I didn’t have to put my bag up top! The driver wasn’t fstening till his last pick-up. Not a confidence builder! Seat mates were two women masseuses, a Swede and a Brit, who being short, just fit over the hump, leaving me with clear room for bag and feet. No conversation at all, which was fine with me. He may have been late, but boy did he hustle on the road! The ride was thrilling to say the least, marked “dangerous” hairpin turns, overtaking, being overtaken, steep ascents, motor heating descents – avoiding buses letting people on or off by the side of the road, people out on the side of the highway, indigenous kids waving. Beautiful mountain vistas, mountains crowned by wisps of clouds, dappled, steeply terraced fields of everything, corn husks, large gourds for sale on the side of the road(Calabasas?). All the while my near-senior bladder is aching – no pit stops and no end of pitching too and fro on the turns. The last few miles I was amazed to see a marathon underway with runners widely spaced. Up hill, downhill – panting a little, but in stride: amazing! What condition these runners were in. Saw 1 woman running full speed downhill Two lane highway with double line as if it mattered to the bus drivers! Bicycle racers on the other side, other direction, with gymnastic bus moves by buses going the other way zig-zagging past cyclists to pass them in the face of oncoming traffic. Finally saw the bienvenido! sign and when we stopped, me, my suitcases and my bladder walked straight into a hotel garden and marched all the way to the bathroom at the rear of the tables, bumping the odd planter! Wasn’t even my hotel, just the one the Colectivo stopped at.

Off to my hotel: more like a B&B, 3 stories up. My body remembered this is still 1500 metres. Huff and puff! Good light and a desk and Wi-Fi! I am in heaven! Room to work and think without interruption and in good light!

Went with the landlord downtown 2 blocks to get something to eat at Cofrades Restaurant, which is on the 2^nd floor above the market fray. Good, cheap food! Good view of the activity below. There are stalls made up especially for the day. People without stalls plop themselves in the middle of streets/aisles. Then the inspector comes by to force them to move and they act naïve, move off and then move back to where they were when the inspector has gone. The game has a rhythym.

The usual wares aren’t interesting to me: it’s just a multiple fold increase in the density of all the women selling textiles since Oaxaca all in one place. The good ones shine their gold tooth at me and call me a liar when I say I have no family, no mother, no girlfriend and that I am just a simple solitary guy. One said with a smile: “Then buy one for your enemy!” in English. What’s interesting is the families – not just indigenous salespeople selling crafts, but families into town for the day, all squeezed into the back of a lumpy Toyota truck. Wonderful kids and old people. What is interesting is not the tourist exchanges but the non-tourist ones. The inside of the vegetable market is truly amazing! Seems to be a female buying and selling thing in vegetables. All those vegetables and all the women in there. Verdurous!

Also the two Chuches: El Calvario and Santo Tomas. Got into the latter. Lots of warnings about “no photos”! A catholic service was going on as well as an old woman tending rows of candles in the middle of the main aisle. Mixed Traditional Catholic (Mayan) and Catholic church. Beautiful old wooden etageres and altars, old carved figures, very old. The church is 400+ years old. Outside the whitewashed plaster is dazzling white in the mountain light. People burning incense, buying offerings or just sitting on the steps. Beautiful! Another  holy grail moment! The actual Popul Vuh manuscript was found next to this church in the monastery. The Mayan origin story book! Genesis, Nihongi! Continue reading →

Back to La Merced Church  to see if the festivities were continuing. Lots of food, ice cream, juice, pop, candy-floss and textile vendors outside of the church, but what was interesting was the backdrops created by more than a dozen event photographers. Probably 12 or so backdrops, some looking like ofertas were set up in the main parking lot of the church. Some photographers had new Polaroid type cameras, some had old Canon or Nikon equipment. Some of the backdrops were painted mountain scenes with a couple of borg ponies kids could sit on while their photos were taken. Some of the kids were in ethnic dress or in what looked like cowboy or pirate outfits. While all this was happening, other kids rode a gentle old horse around the parking lot led by an equally gentle young man,  for $5 Quetsals a round. Mothers and other relatives coaxed their kids to smile for the camera with major face manoeuvers as anywhere. A typical automated operation was a digital prosumer camera with a portable printer on a battery or plugged into a little generator or extension cord. The photo on the SD card was just popped into the portable behind the backrop and out came a 2×3 print which was slipped into a preprinted event frame and on to the parent for the agreed price! Amazing how digital processes are almost as instant as Polaroid processes! I never did figure out the event, what the feast day was or if it was just a clebration of the community or La Merced church. Some of the backdrops were tableaux vivants with live chickens, roosters and rabbits. Shots of the kids in more bucolic settings than the present…The life of an event/portrait photographer! Modern equipment, but similar processes and managing memories, still making a living on the dreams of mothers for their kids/families – many without a lot to pay. Professional event/portrait photographers still tricksters, charlatans, naturally part of fairs, major events and circuses.

There was a wedding that took place as well in the morning, with the couple sounding like they were from the US, but returning to their roots for the wedding. Took some shots on film only. Loads more photographers with up-to-date equipment. The petite, brassy bride was heard to say in perfect English: “I can do it myself. I’m not just a dumb broad you know.” Ojala!

Went to McDonalds for coffee and a Western Omelette and to check email free. Bad habits! But it’s a good standard, just like Holiday Inn, when you need it? Right? Chicken soup brands! My travel agent changed my ticket all right, but made a mistake on the month! Arrgghh! Somebody died of lung cancer at work. I have to redo my resume because I forgot to keep an electronic copy. They shot the anti-drug czar in Honduras. My sombrero did not turn up at the DHL. Back to the hotel and checked and edited the RutaMayaRainer blog. My sister thinks I can write! My brother is happy I didn’t talk about a bikini something during my haircut piece. Everybody is snowed-in in Toronto, Canada. Like 40 inches! Its moderate here and that’s just fine!

Finally got to the market today. Not very exciting or active, maybe because it’s a weekday morning. Many stalls not open or late opening. Rising with the tourists? Did have fun with the multi-coloured Guate buses! Wonderful!

Had a personal size Domino Pizza and a coke. Felt fraudulent, but happy! Casa Popenoe and the Museo del Arte Colonial were closed for renovations, thank you very much, so I ambled south to find the Santa Cruz Hermitage, which I never did find, traversing many paths and cobbles. Did find the El Calvario Church in an area were the road and walkways are being renovated for tourism, probably helping the hotel next door. Beautiful little church with a statue of Brother Pedro outside. He was huge if the proportions are real and not mythic. Got a shot of an unsigned masterpiece of Christ being flogged before somebody sibilanted me to say “no cameras”. Back into town on what turned out to be a somewhat dangerous 2-way cobblestone road with some pendejos passing just before a speed bump! Nuts! River looked like a sewage sluice. Missed my target goal altogether. Suspect it is in the suburb of Santa Cruz, like the suburb of Sta. Ana, where the buses stop. Maybe that is where the real people live? In town, there are people connected to tourism, ladinos, workers, street people and the rich. The working class and poor must live outside! Will I have a look?

Getting tired of ruined convents and churches where the guy at the entrada really doesn’t want to give you a receipt and falls asleep again immediately as you pass and there is one interesting fountain and oh! too many embarrassed lovers, some even middle aged, fiddling on the stairs or in some former convent rooms recomposing themselves for my awkward entrance and quick exit. It’s not a lot of money for the entrada, but the embarrassments I am causing is a pain! It was so much in your face and easier to deal with in Merida or Oaxaca were the young kids just monopolized the park with their groping and grape squeezings. Uvo per mosto!

There was a “Remax Colonial” sign in the rich area around Avenida 1, Calle 1. Boutique hotels, etc. Does Remax have the same sub-brand in other countries. Do they have “Remax Plantation” in the southern US, for example?

Thinking about Baron Hausmann and the bulldozing of Paris under Napoleon the 3^rd . Lots of criticism about his moves. Gone the quaint Paris cul-de-sacs, in with broad boulevards that you can maneuver troops in and out-maneuver citizen barricades. (Napoleon 1^st moved cemeteries from their proximity to markets). Anyway, the point is you can’t be a boulevardier or a Flaneur like Baudelaire, Proust or that German guy that wrote The Colonnades when you are jumping up 2 foot sidewalks and twisting your feet on cobblestones avoiding the dog shit, the blind and handless asking for alms, or looking at the leg amputee in the wheelchair with his pecker out whizzing in the middle of the cobbblestone street. No quetzals for him just now. Can’t find a hand. The handless little girl with her sister seems to be following me around or my road is just a normal progression. How can she even take money with her stumps? Later I am sitting in a very dark bar/café called Frida’s and she sees me and implores. The backlighting is just enough to see some sparkle in her eyes. It’s a stage, a montage with set pieces moving across it. I am sitting in this strange place called Frida’s celebrating a cult heroine with some really odd brand furniture having my beer served by waiters uniformed with a “Frida” T-shirt and looking at the entrance just up from the famous Arco de Catalina. On the steps sit Chiapas textile ladies, so I can see one of their backs where I am sitting and telescoping now in front of all is the handless girl and behind all is a multi-coloured {Yellow Tail} Australian – parenthesis or is it diuresis – Wine truck. Like a kaleidoscope – me, Frida-and-Diego-Brand environment, mindless, anchorless, bar chatter, handless girl imploring, Chiapas textile women, Australian parenthesis wine panel truck. Odd! Talk about {parenthesis} and nesting of life images, meanings. All-in-one telephoto view/moment. What is the verbal, experiential, analogue to the revaluation re-inscription that happens in a telephoto shot/visual compression? This was a momento! Not a Flaneur, yet!

The Frida Bar/Cafe was cute. Frida spelled Frieda on one picture. There is also a Kafka Bar/Cafe equivalent, qhich I have yet to sample.

Great bookstore south of La Merced. So I couldn’t resist some essay they had bound for $30 Quetsals each with great titles like:

“Las Izquierdas, Rigoberta Menchú, la Historia”

“Mitos y realidades sobre la criminalidad en América Latina”

“Genocidio:¿La máxima expresión del racismo en Guatemala?

From Cuadernos del presente imperfecto. How could a bibliophile or a collecdtomaniac like me resist? Why can´t English books be so engaging? Also Miguel Asturias’ Hombres de Mais for which I think he got the Nobel Prize and a book whose title grabbed me, Sopa de Caracol(Snail Soup), by Arturo Arias. Better read my other books ad ditch some weight before I have to weigh my luggage anywhere! Also need some good light to read by and a desk or little table in my room. Pain in the ass reading on a bed! If I can find such a room in Chichi, I may stay a while! I have dictionaries and can plough through these and Pedro Paramo that I brought with me thanks to my friend Daina. I feel fulfilled, at least for a day or so!

Wine guy south of La Merced said the Marques de Cáceres was in Antigua a few years ago and gave a lecture and stopped at the shop to sign some bottles of the 2004 Reserva and the Jeroboam in the window. The story goes that he really was a Marquis but affected no particular ownership of his brand. Said he sold his name to some wine company!!! Wine guy said he didn’t carry much of the label anymore. I guess that reflects my own experience with the taste as well. There was nothing to beat the taste of the 1994 and 1996! I remember having a bottle or two in Havana, even. Now it just tastes rich and musty! Tucked a 2004 into the mochila!

The local School band was up on stage in front of the cathedral in the Parque Central and so I took some shots with the G11, trying to frame the band in front of the cathedral. No one else was taking shots, so I went up close to the band a few times. Kids were mostly in white shirts and black pants, so they came up real nice in the strong afternoon sun. They were sounding and moving real well with a concert Director and two other men of importance, maybe a home room teacher and the principal. Family, school people and Mayan textile ladies were in the audience, but no one shooting. Some local movie star/music celebrity stole a lot of the band’s thunder by going up on the cathedral proscenium next to their wooden stage and mugging for the cameras and autographing. Then the truck to carry the instruments parked right in front of the kid’s stage and opened up its tail gate. End of the concert, unmistakably!. Someone didn’t organize this well. Kids should have gotten more profile/respect. Anyway, despite the confusion, it looked like the kids were having fun.

Back to the room for wine, cheese, downloads and blog copy!

Out later for Japanese food and great fish and seaweed soup! Tummy was happy!

Thanks,

Rainer

PS: Missed Cafe Kafka this time. Imagine the cockroach in the dining room. Maybe the waiter’s name is Gregor?

Wonderful place! 5 star hotel that is also a church and convent ruins site! Maybe the best hotel in the country, maybe the region. Not my usual lonely planet digs. The book says the price starts at $120US a night. Excellent food and service. Incredible what they have done around partly restored ecclesiastical ruins. Very creative, very exciting what they have done. The grounds, the pieces from the monastery or similar pieces are staged around the place or in a number of museums on site. There is a huge tent canopy set up over a larger ruins area for rain and sun protection that closes off but heightens the ruins space and creates airiness,definition and beauty so that the space becomes an outdoor meeting or entertainment or mass space. 3 or 4 people were cleaning the canopy with water, standing above on its surface, from ladders. Wonderful shadows of men and water and water hoses! Lots of alcoves to discover. Noisy, colourful parrots in the outdoor sitting area. Didn’t ask to see any hotel rooms. Had a great lunch in the main dining room.

Good, attentive young male indigenous waiters. Woman maitre in a monk´s outfit was a little pretentious, but OK as it goes; security present, but inconspicuous. Had a steak medium rare with guacamole and refried beans after turkey soup. No fear of rare meat in this place! Soup came deconstructed with steamed corn flour dough on the side, the firm pieces in the bowl and then the broth poured over piping hot from a lidded pitcher. Wonderfully tasty!

Excellent ruins, great re-inscription and revaluation of the original architecture into beautiful public space with the tent canopy cover, great ambience, good museum displays and good food. A for profit venture that is helping preserve the past. And they have done it so well! Can’t think of better use of ritzy hotels. This place has real class and creativity. World class!

Catholics: this is the best place to sin in! Museum tour $40 Quetzals for visitors. Good value!

I looked up more background when I got back to my room. The church was excavated in 1995, when it was cleared of a 16 ft. layer of rubble. The Dominicans arrived in 1529. 80 monks lived there at one time and a school there became the University of San Carlos. Dr. Edwin Shook, an archaeologist. bought the place in 1970, cleaned it up and excavated, finding pre-hispanic treasures. In 1989 it was sold to a private company that created a hotel and restaurant, buying adjoining properties and building more wings but protecting the heritage. Construction was by the Castañeda family in Guatemala. No idea who the architects are…

San Miguel

Carvaggio copies for sale as well.

A soul in Purgatory.

Algo Santo de Montpelier

Museo colonial

Crypt. Original guest.

Thanks,

Did the lazy man’s trip to Antigua today by taxi for $35 US. Just wasn’t up to hauling my stuff to the airport and catching a shuttle from there for half the price or so. Made it door to door in under an hour. Staying at a hotel a few blocks from Parque Central then its off to Chichicastenango for a week to catch the St. Thomas festivities and the famous market bustle. This means I will be backtracking a bit since I still want to go to Copan in Honduras and to Lake Atitlan before cutting back into Mexico for Chiapas and Palenque on the way back through Mexico City. Part of what I am doing here then is reconnoitring a place for a longer stay here with day trips to other places or at least, to leave most of my gear here when I go to Honduras. I also need an address for the courier to get my film camera to me.

First impressions are that it’s pretty, very touristy with lots of gringos and Europeans as well as Guatemalan nationals.

Nun walk

Many churches and convents but also many unrepaired churches from multiple earthquakes that determined the move to a new and higher capital, Guatemala City. The steep descent just before coming into Antigua is striking. There must be building codes to keep the look of the place. McDonalds, Yogen Fruz, Burger King, Continental Airlines and Citybank all reside behind original colonial style fronts. There are many used bookstores with English titles, many cafes and small restaurants. There is a supermarket right next to me in several original buildings and there is a Korean Restaurant a block away that I will sample later. The cemetery is not far and I checked that out for a photo trip in the morning. The market is close by, promising the makings of a Greek salad! I picked up a book in English on the history of Antigua that I will gobble up tonight, but first I have Internet chores. There is no wireless in the room, but an Internet café just at the entrance open 9:00 to 20:00 hours. On the way back from the peep at the cemetery I shot some typical Guatemalan buses at the bus stop area at the edge of the market. Found duct tape to repair my luggage handle and another bicycle lock to lock my luggage to something. There is no luck on film cameras at all, even used is not a possibility. A different era, a bygone era! My era!

I have my doubts about Antigua as a base. It’s not really urban like the capital city and its real touristy. Maybe I will know better after Chichi?

Interesting to find Saint Benito, a black saint. Not too many of them in the old days. Here he looks like he is blessing a man with a striped suit. Is that a prisoner or ball player? What is the broom all about? Time for some research. Loved finding out about St. Pedido in Chiapas. It wasn’t just an elision of the act of petitioning into a name of a Saint, the one you ask for favours – like the “Service” Department – also inferring the rest “pass the buck”. There actually was a Saint Juan Pedido connected with the Virgin of Guadelupe. Custom dropped the “Juan” from the title, so he became Saint Pedido. Prior to that, discovered St. Porro in Mexico. They even had a plaster statue of him in the kitchen of my crazy hotel in Merida.

There are more than 75 schools for Spanish studies registered, which suggests, one book says, that it may not be a such good place for studies, but a great place for students to meet. Apt!

Thanks,

Rainer

San Lazaro Cemetery, the main cemetery, started as a leper colony with its own church and institutions. Although the guidebook talked about getting the Tourist Police to go with you if you felt unsafe, I found the place was quite safe, lots of workmen and an office occupied. Open 7:00 to 18:00. Free admission. Morgue and forensics lab staffed on-site. Undertakers and funeral services- stones, flowers, etc.. outside the gates,

Had misapprehensions of the place shortly after getting there. Its as if there was a catastrophic thinning of the ranks in your family and everyone with wit or taste or spunk was gone, leaving your least favorite aunt, sentimental, straight and given to religious fancies in charge of the family cemetery plot. Empty volumes.Volumes of stone covered in plaster and topped by a cross. Hardly any sculpture or statuary, not even insipid cupids or seraphim. Uninspired inscriptions, plastic flowers, rectilinear, non-descript. These people gave no care to making posterity statements, no artistic bent, no need to maintain a role or set things straight, no passionate loves, no bitterness, no fury. Just the end of life! Not really sad; not really dead and gone, just resting after a laborious life! Placid, middle-class, rectilinear. Not like Havana or Port of Spain at all. Boring! Boring! I was just about to pack it in when I realized the one thing that inspired this place was the absolutely mad topiary! The insidious mad topiary artist with his snippers, not content to just pleach, turned bushes into birds, angels, people, saints – gave form to the notion that heaven and earth wept for the bastard at the time of his death! Bird/angel shapes doubled and tripled in the morning mountain sun to become a vertable heavenly host celebrating the dear departed. Some forms became very odd over time – birds turned into bicycle seats, evergreen wreaths into wooden branched doughnuts, bald headed abbots, toothless abbesses – some lost any green whatsoever. One double-stemmer turned into Jesus on the cross himself or maybe a bush trinity, waiting to ignite! Bonzai-ed topiary really made the place interesting, artistic, surprising at every turn! Strange little political touch at the entrance: a grave in memory of all the aborted that didn’t make it to the cemetery! They missed out on the topiary!

Thanks,

Rainer

Para los abortados

A slow starting day full of diligencias, laundry, buying phone cards and catching up with emails.

On the list was a haircut as a priority today. I was really feeling like an OF shaggyand conspicuous WG in the sea of Zona 1 indigenous faces yesterday.  I was like an unkempt version of the Santa Claus everyone was Christmas jingling about. Went to have my cut at the Westin Camino Real down the street! What a luxury spot. Security on walkie talkies guiding me from one virtual security zone to another on the way to the Peluqueria, which turned into the Barberia, after a long walk on an interminable internal colonnade – seems a few hotels are linked physically as well as fiscally – the Biltmore as well as the Camino Real. Real posh, posh-posh and me so happy I am not living there! The Barberia had a man and woman worker in it. She asked me if I wanted a manicure and pedicure while my hair was being cut. I declined. He was a ladino, about my age but better preserved and wiry. He was a real artist. Didn’t grunt, mutter, sing, gossip or even talk, except asking for directions, like some of the Italian barbers in my life. He understood that restraint and privacy went hand in hand with the intimacy his attentions required. A kind of sensual stoicism so enjoyed by the rich all those years! Certainly I have never had such a thorough and sensuous hair/skin massage in my life along with a trim! Only being totally depilated and anointed and smeared with unguents after a couple of hours of being pummelled in a Hamam could have been better! No cheating by spritzing water on the hair to see the lie of the hair for him! No soaking or shampoo first. Made me recline to do my beard effortlessly, hairs exactly the same length all around. Put in, pulled out the headrest. Did my ear hairs, my nose hairs as if skirting the edge of a precipice and trimmed my eyebrows. Shaved my neck hairs as if he was edging turf. Half covered my eyes with a towel while he trimmed my bigote hasta mis labios! Pulled out all sorts of different sized bristle brushes from a cabinet out of view almost furtively to caress the hair and skin at several junctures. Dropped one brush and it bounced hollow several times off the marble floor. Animal hair brushes applied with slight, deft pressure and flicks of the wrist created torsion that felt slightly cold, with a hint of moisture and perfume on the backmotion as if the brush was breathing. Only a faint hint of scent, powder and pomade. Skin ever so delicately caressed to stroke an offending hairbit out of the way! Then he actually combed and brushed my beard! No signs of effort on him, just practised craftsmanship. Parted my hair so I looked 10 years younger (and a lot like my father)! I was in heaven. I thought of important men coming here in the 50s, party bosses, hacienda owners and military men to have their hair done by this man’s ancestor. They probably with a fat, stinky and delicious Montecristo number 4 cigar in hand and a glass of wine in the other. All for $130 Quetzals! I tipped him and told him he was an artist! On my way out, the female security person I had seen going in even said with a tilt of her head and her eyes it looked good! Wonderful briefly to feel rich and pampered! Every inch a work of art! Could not have withstood the pleasure of a pedicure and manicure at the same time! All my head surfaces were tingling. I actually had to restrain a giggle when the scissors tickled my facial skin! Aglow, thoroughly titillated: a daydream? No!

Sushi and Japanese beer for lunch was just the right sensual complement.

Back to art, architecture and the Ruta Maya:

Ixchel and Popol Vuh Museums

http://www.museoixchel.org/

http://www.popolvuh.ufm.edu/

Both museums are privately funded and associated with the University Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala City. They are side by each in beautiful modern buildings. The Popol Vuh also has a Michael Coe, the noted scholar, connection. Each museum is worthwhile. The Popol Vuh allows photos sin flash and the Ixchel, no photos at all. In the Ixchel you are offered a look at 3 videos, all good – in English or Spanish – for the history and context of Mayan textiles, before you get into the displays, also funded by the “Friends of Ixchel”. I found the video on the Cofradia, Mayan-Christian village societies built on the veneration of a particular saint, the most interesting, I suppose because of the social, ritual and textile content. Wonderful that all that formerly secret stuff got recorded and was now showing!

The funerary urns in the Popol Vuh were new to me and exciting and some of the figurines notable, such as the goddess of chocolate. Good display organization, outline of timelines, etc. And of course, the textiles displays were awesome in the Ixchel! A little too much glare and reflecion from the lights, though, on the display cases. The designer could have been more considerate of photographers! The two WEB sites are very good and the Ixchel has things for sale! Shared a cab at closing time as it was getting dark and the parking lot was emptying.

Thanks,

Rainer

Spending a couple of days here on my way to a planned base at Antigua, mostly to check out repairs possibilities for the Canon EOS D5 here in the capital. Its high up, as high as Oaxaca, at 1500 metres, so the altitude is noticeable when you are hoofing it up the stairs in the airport on arrival with a set of escalators out of commission. Airport convenient to the Zona Viva(Zona 10) hotel strip. Finding the talk about crime in Guatemala City a little oppressive – but, there are armed guards in front of many stores and lots of police presence everywhere. Looks like minibuses from the airport  is the way to get to Antigua or cab.

Checked out a couple of camera sale/repair places and adjusted my expectations that I could get help here in the capital. The places I went to considered the D5 pro equipment and beyond their reach. One place was able to get a diagnosis for $50 Us and a 2 week wait for results. I wonder if they DHL to Miami? Anyway, it would probably be as much or even more time to get it fixed in Toronto by Canon. Strike the idea of getting the D5 back in service for this trip! Another option is to buy a used or new Canon Elan 7 or similar, but enquiries say no such stores are known to the dealers or they don’t exist. Digital cameras seems to mean point-and-shoot models here. and in Chetumal. There were some Fuji and Sony models in Chetumal, but nothing like the pro-service of the shop that cleaned the D5 for me in Merida before the D5 fried at Kohunlich. So, next thing is to get one of my old Canon film cameras sent down from Toronto via DHL. That way I can still get good quality shots with my Canon lenses. The Elan 7 was reliable and extremely light, so that will be the choice. Can’t imagine the DHL courier cost of a heavy EOS-1 or digital EOS plus charger and spare batteries! There may be some limitations re: pro-film, but and I need to check that out as well. Saw a young man in Parque Central among the Polaroid film photographers with an album of his photos and what looked like a good condition Canon AE-1 over his shoulder. My heart went out to him – should have asked him where I could buy used cameras but I didn’t have the nerve. Anyone making a living with a 40 year old camera deserves respect!

The highlight of yesterday was the Museo de Arquelogia and Etnologia, with a huge set of Mayan ruins material and samples of current clothing, textiles and popular culture. The stelas and pottery were absolutely amazing, including much material from Tikal. The highlight was probably the throne from Piedras Negras with the sculptured back rest. Incredible! Surprisingly the museum’s brochure was a badly printed, out of focus effort that didn’t do justice to the the display and holdings. Loved the anthropomorphs and the fertility figurines – “Rainer’s girls” – Willendorfers! The whole show underlined the very high cultural level of the art objects found in the famous ruins sites. Looking at just architecture and massive ruins, I had disconnected a little both from other forms of art and other types of artists than builders and the life of the non-elite. So, the museum both grounded my consciousness and expanded it a little. Wonderful outing!

While waiting for the museum to open for the afternoon session I slipped down to the Mercado de Artesania a block or so from the museum. Nice set of shops selling mostly textile and leather goods. Interesting was the sale of Christmas trees, just like home at this time of year and the increasingly obnoxious Christmas music emanating from everywhere – even when its marimba music! Same questions and concerns, fullness of the trees – will the branches settle out into a nice form, cost and age of the tree, etc…Very lively market in trees with stock moving quickly to cars in the parking lot. Some indigenous sales women, but mostly ladinos. Still amazed at how strong some of the slight looking indigenous men are here – picking up my very heavy suitcase without a great deal of effort! Echoed for me all that back-breaking work and lower life expectancy among Atitlan Maya that Martin Prechtel talks about – calluses on young strong, backs needing to be removed!

Today I took most of the Lonely Planet book recommended walking tour for Gautemala City starting at the Parque Concordia and heading north to the Paqrque Central. High contrast, high altitude Sunday! Students in red gowns graduation or being confirmed at Iglesia San Francisco, next to the Police Headquarters. Vendors stall all the way Avenida 6a. Saw a young indigenous man posing with his little son and Santa Claus in front of a small shopping complex. Great smiles and emotional fulfillment – but strange to think about Santa and cultural/mercantile imperialism – white Santas with grey hair so unusual here! I felt so conspicous among the crowds of mostly short – even tiny – indigenous families: OFW guy with white hair and a beard – Santa himself, and big and blue-eyed and with a camera! Lots of vendors in Parque Central, clothing, food and used-book stalls flanked by the old Cathedral Metropolitana and the Palacio National and the National Library. People lounging, listening to corners orators, music, speeches. Labour union placards and graffitti close to the Palacio National – nice that protests and camp-ins can happen here and in Mexico without anybody getting too excited, as if it was a natural part of the political process – not like the politicians in Toronto getting all worked up and calling in the OPP at the hint of a march or sit-in at Queen’s Park. More tolerance for political protest ion Latin America?

Great light streaming into the nave at the Cathedral! Two interesting old hand-carried floats. Lots of videographers and plasma screens to cover services. The cathedral has its own TV channel it seems! Young girls in what looked like communion outfits also coming out – busy church. Statues of the archangels around the aisles – Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Barachel of the ones I saw names for.

Palacio de Correos was very pretty and with a sign saying: “Caution Artists Crossing”, echoing for me the Jaguar and Deer Crossong signs at Tikal! Outside a streamer for a youth concert on December 12.

Reforma was partly blocked off for Sunday family and pedestrian activity, just like in Mexico City. Still need to get a shot of motorcyclists wearing their license plate numbers on the back of their vests or on the back of their helmets – I assume an interesting response to motorcycle based crime to have the driver identified with the vehicle….

Thanks,

Rainer

December 3, 2009. Tikal is a huge park with approximately 150 sq. km total are and 12 sq. km.of central area sites. It was rediscovered in 1848, but may have been used in the meantime by local Mayans. The site is amazing, something to take your breath away, because of all the huge structures but also its extent and the fact it is largely under thinned out, but still jungle canopy of huge, beautiful trees and wildlife. Ceiba, Chicle, Cedar, and other huge trees taken over by epiphytes, bromeliads, orchids and ferns. Plus occasional sightings of howler and spider monkeys, tapirs and wild, very colourful turkeys. It is amazingly humid under the canopy, but on a good day there is wind and lots of protection from the sun’s rays! Great exercise, huffing and puffing up hills even before the climbs up the pyramids one can still go up. Great wooden stairs and scaffolding on those still available for climbing. Several pyramids were closed off after 2 tourists died from falls off the steep steps. Lots of Guatemalan nationals on-site for visits as well, at 1/5 the price of foreigners. Lots of good-looking Mayans visiting when I went.

The ride from the entrance is timed for the vehicle to not exceed 45km per hour. Neat that there are signs for Tapir, Deer and Jaguar crossings on the way to the entrance to the ruins site! Some litter, wrappers, plastic bottles and Dixie cups in evidence!

It’s a world heritage site since 1979. Archeologists are working the site actively. A group is excavating one of the giant temple pyramids. American, German, Spanish,. Chinese and Japanese financial support has been strong over the years. There were lots of tourists but not as many as I saw in Chichen Itza. Signage is good, there were lots of bathrooms on-site and there is lots of staff in evidence. But, its still low season until mid-month. It certainly felt safe! Tourist books warn about wandering to less travelled areas. On-site museums could be improved and photos allowed, but then again a lot of the originals are in the museum in Guatemala City that I will see later!

Great visit!

Thanks,

Rainer

Loved Uxmal and really recommend it! Got there, all told, 4 times – twice in combination with the Puuc Route – that included Kaba, Sayil, Xlapak and Labna – and 2 times for dedicated half days, one digital, one with film equipment. A slightly cloudy day was best for interesting shadows and lighting on the buildings. It has well preserved buildings, supposedly because of high quality building and seems to have many fewer tourists than Chichen Itza. Its style is Puuc, which means “hill country” but is used to refer to a style of building and ornamentation as well, as differentiated from Peten or Rio-Bec styles. The Wikipedia article says the elegance of its architecture matches Palenque. Historically its rulers controlled Western Yucatan and with its ally, Chichen Itza, the north as well. With the ascendancy of Mayapan over Chichen Itza, Uxmal too went into decline and here is no new building after 1200 CE.

The Sorcerer’s Pyramid is quite striking in its huge size and elliptical shape. Quite liked the turtle and bird decorations on key buildings. Managed the great pyramid without too much puffing. Very little of the site is roped off, in contrast to Chichen Itza, where almost everything is roped off. At Chichen, you can’t get to the Chac Mool on top of the steps anymore or walk around the columns in the Temple of the Warriors or climb up Kukulcan. Those days are gone! Really connected with the trees and how they changed the ruins. Again, lots of lizards and iguanas. Everybody has to go to Chichen Itza, of course, but a trip to Uxmal shortly before or after is a real tonic for all those crowds of tourists trammelling the spirit at Chichen!

Thanks,

Rainer

Catching up with events in Merida still.

The closest beach to Merida is Progreso, about 30 kilometres away and a comfortable bus leaves for there every 10 minutes for $25 pesos return. With a title like Progreso, you expect the Mexican analogue to monuments of Robber Barons or Ayn Rand statues or at least some Victorian improvability themes: learning, self-improvement, liberal democracy. Or, to look like a seriously polluting capitalist industry money-maker and stinker like Sarnia or the old Gelsenkirchen, the armpit of the old iron and steel industry Germany.

It’s a fun day’s outing, like going to Sunnyside beach when you were a kid, before they ripped down the amusement park. The place is just a little seedy and the beach is nothing to speak of but the seafood kebabs are great! Strange beach vista: a 6.5 kilometre pier about 5-storeys high that handles containers and big cruise ships from Galveston for tours to Uxmal and Dzibilchaltun. Pelicans and tractor-trailers!

Imagine lying on a beach looking at a pier! Progreso definitely saw better days before the death of the sisal rope market. Now you can see motorcycles with boom boxes built into the bike just under the rider’s ass! Music coming from where its pitched! Guayaberas, bad imitation Pacal masks and other odds and sods tourist junk. Hawkers selling hamacas – wedding hammocks -> go in two, come out three! T-shirts with boobs on them! Cuban cigars! The acute nerviosa hombre, twitching like a Road Runner, looking very focussed and asking to refill his meds for a $200 pesos contribution from each table in turn. The same or nearly the same healthy-looking young women from Chiapas in the same sweltering woollen skirts selling belts, huipiles, scarves, etc, from home. Like the same perennial old Sikh airport cleaners, in any airport in the world! Symbols that haunt me.  Sikh cleaners and now Chiapas women. Just one dollar! Found Immodium refills – an important event! Checked out hotels, but decided it wasn’t worth a longer look. Back in Merida at nightfall. Skipped the idea of trying another beach at Celestun, which may have been a better choice – and the bird sanctuary nearby. Imagine the advance party for 20,000 pink flamingos in January!

Beach landscaping may have taken a minor cue from Burle Marx in Rio! But, just couldn’t get over the fact that a pier dominated the sightline! Strange beach! Strange place. Suppose if its home…People get excited about Sunnyside Beach and Bathurst, N.B., too!

Great Time at Kohunlich and the Canon 5D bites the dust!

Unbelievably hot and humid! It is the Caribbean! But, had an absolutely great time at Kohunlich today. At the hotel’s reccomendation, paid a driver, Carlos to drive and wait until I got my shots. Took about an hour to get there, about 60 km NW of Chetumal. Flat countryside full of sugar cane fields and palms until becoming hilly just a few kilometres befor the site. Looks like a fairly recently developed site(93-94?) and therefore maybe not as travelled as others. $51 pesos to get in. What was amazing again was the interplay of trees and ruins, as if there was some special landscaper around ensuring only interesting rock and tree combinations survived, kind of an aesthetic Darwinism. Shooting just ruins without the trees around an in them makes no sense. Looking for interesting tree/ruin combinations actually creates an ordering theme to the exploration of the sites.

The big attraction for me was, of course the Pyramid of the Masks. It’s one of the Holy Grails, like the Mayan Crosses at Romerillo, the Temple of the Descending God at Tulum or the Nunnery at Chichen Itza. Or 18 Rabbit Stela at Copan or the Stelae at Palenque in the Hall of Inscriptions. The Masked Gods also, funny enough, remind me of hippie-age road characters like Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson from Easy Rider, for some strange reason, with deeply grooved, segmented eyeballs like Inuit sun-glasses. Hippie space pilot visitors! Velikovsky/Von Daneken – style space visitor precursors of humans, who uplifted the Mayans with mana-like sustenance, tequila, peyote or psilocybin! Wonderful faces on these guys! Such cool shades/eyes! Worth the trip and then some!

Old guy at the entrance crossroads got so mad at our interchange on what size cold cokes I wanted to buy for me and my driver, almost tossed his record book over the till until his wife intervened and I paid $20 pesos for 2 small cokes. Crazy coot! Funny momento!

The Canon 5D fried today. Don’t exactly know what happened. When I half eased and then turned the 1.4x magnifier coupling, the magnifier kept moving and may have damged the electronic connection with the lens. Or, I may have dripped sweat into a contact – it was a 2 shirt day, so hot and humid! Needed a Dune still suit! Anyway, the camera is dead, dead and I need to get it fixed here in Chetumal or in Guatemala City or Antigua…..

Here’s what Wikipedia had to say on Kohunlich(really good and to the point, as usual):

“Kohunlich (X-làabch’e'en in Modern Maya) is a large archaeological site of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization, located on the Yucatán Peninsula about 25 km east of the Rio Bec region, and about 65 km west of Chetumal on Highway 186, and 9 km south of the road. The Spanish name does not actually derive from Maya but from the English Cohune Ridge.

The site covers about 21 acres, surrounded by dense sub-tropical rainforest, and it contains almost 200 mounds, that remain largely unexcavated. The city was elaborately planned and engineered, with raised platforms and pyramids, citadels, courtyards and plazas surrounded with palace platforms, all laid out to channel drainage into a system of cisterns and an enormous reservoir to collect rainwater.

The site was settled by 200 BC, but most of the structures were built in the Early Classic period from about 250 to 600 AD. Many of them are still covered with thick vegetation and overgrown by trees. The city appears to have functioned as a regional center and stop along the trade routes through the southern Yucatán from Campeche and Rio Bec area to the west, and the cities along the east-coast and to the south, in the el Petén region of Guatemala and neighbouring Belize.

The road approaches the site from the north and leads into an enormous central plaza ringed by pyramids and temple platforms. To the north there is a massive, raised acropolis, or citadel, with a palace complex around a courtyard to the north-west. Further east there is the Pyramid of the Masks, built in honor of the sungod, with 6 gigantic stucco masks flanking its central staircase. And south of the main plaza lies the marvelous, sunken Plaza Mervin, on the west side of the site, and a small ballcourt further to the east.”

Will check out the repairs on the 5D tomorrow in Chetumal, but thank god I got some of the shots I always wanted! Lovel, lovely tree-ruin combinations. So many epiphytes and ferns taking over whole trees!

25 November 2009. First class bus from Merida to Tulum, in Quintana Roo state, 5 hours and $240 pesos and 127km south of Cancun, ie., the edge of the Mayan Riviera.. Got to the first class (CAME) station by taxi ($40 pesos) from the hotel, after leaving tips for the cleaning staff and for the desk staff, with the ticket bought the day before in my hand and 15 minutes to spare. Gave the baggage handler the ticket, the wrong ticket, the ticket for Izamal from a couple of days before and blanked completely about where the right ticket was I had bought before. Panic set in and I went on autopilot! Should I just buy another ticket? No: stripped the big bag and found the ticket eventually inside the big suitcase in a baggie with other bills and documents. They called out the boarding for the bus to Valladolid, Tulum and Cancun, my bus, while I was doing the final rummage. I put my bags back on the weigh scale and waited for the baggage man to weigh my stuff while he chatted with someone . He turned around and told me to hurry, that the bus was leaving without weighing my stuff. My panicky error resulted in me not having to pay excess baggage to Tulum at $3 pesos per kilo!. I was probably 40 kilos over the 25 kilo limit, so I saved probably $120 pesos or half the value of the fare! 40 kilos over, even with all my camera gear in my carry-on and the books in my “manbag”. Sigh of relief and a cool down in the air-conditioned bus!

On arrival, checked a nearby Internet Café to check for responses to my email inquiries the night before at midnight. Two came through and I picked El-Crucero, the cheap one only 500 metres from the archeological site entrance. 10 minute taxi to the hotel with a driver with great english, past a stream of touristy shops and hotels that had seen better days to a less travelled strip just where the highway continued and eventually the hotel.,

Hotel el-Crucero. Talk about a penchant for slightly off-beat places. Cheap copies of Frida Kahlo and Diego hanging on the walls, Frida at her frightening best with a skull on her forehead. Bathroom smelling a little methane-ish. “Put your paper in the bin” septic system – like the old cottage weekends. Basic 1950s style lodge or cabana accommodation, with a dive shop outside and a gift shop with a locked coke cooler next to the reception and a bar/restaurant with good food. 2 beers with a shot of tequila, $60 pesos. Cash for the rooms, no credit cards. A little too basic, with a rattling a/c, but making it up with atmosphere at the bar! Oldish, mostly American beer crowd, mascots and regulars. Copy of a 1915 Mexican recruiting poster looking for Gringo volunteers for Pancho Villa on the inside of the thatched roof. Over the bar a sign saying, “Barmacia”. .The waiter, Grigorio, a nice, short and attentive guy on bandy legs with lots of energy and a welcoming smile and a need for affirmation(read: tips), who was so squared from behind he looked like a walking placard or a live Mayan glyph. Got to love Grigorio over three days: he was soo nice! Drunken, over-middle aged Gringa who took my soup plate away and who I therefore assumed was the hidden proprietor of the place and promptly ordered a second fish soup, it was sooo good.! Lobby later full of people using the dedicated internet workstations or using their laptops to be close to the wireless alambrico. A young German couple trying to practice their English together and just sounding obnoxious, decidedly obnoxious when the guy just absent-mindedly sprayed his can of aerosol bug repellent all over his feet without any consideration for who else in the room he was gassing with that cloud of oily chemicals and another talkative, slightly drunk not-a-plush-toy German who tried to insinuate he was surprised by the small size of my computer only to tell me they were cheaper in Germany, about 25% even! Arrgh: why talk just to show off! Better to be quiet and anonymous and sober! Sopa de Pescado ended up a favourite for me at el-Crucero. Probably spent more on food and beer than accomodation! Got to like the promocion: 2 beers and a shot of white tequila! Good start to any supper or lunch!

Tulum, about 9:30 – bus load after bus load of tourists in the morning. German, French, English, Russian and Polish speaking guides today! Everywhere a crush, but I didn’t mind: the site was so pretty, much smaller scale than Chichen Itza and less crowded. Tiny-perfect place! No one could have designed it better – Las Vegas developers could not have done better. Old Mayan seaport – on the small side as an urban space and probably felt the winds of who was ascendant faster than anyone because of its seaport, trading status -  regional competition between Chichen Itza, Mayapan or Calakmul? Externally: Toltec, Aztec or a Mayan city in ascendancy. Lasted well into the post classic, 15^th or 16^th century, and the Spanish conquest! There is mention of it in 1518 in the Grijalva expedition.Visited by “discoverers” of things Mayan, Stephens and Catherwood in 1842. Occupied by Mayans during the Caste War Mayan uprising(1847-1928). Wonderful ruins, especially with the beach almost next to the Castillo – crowded again, but oh! such lovely aquamarine Caribbean water and palms and surf and coolness. Most famous for the Castillo and Temple of the Descending God. By early afternoon, the crowds had gone – most of them must have been day-trippers from Cancun or Cozumel! The place is really owned only by Iguanas who show their casual stewardship by sitting in the path or on top of the buildings as if they had seen it all! Chicanery: there was one Polish couple that spent most of their time at the beach posing slightly erotic swimsuit shots, taking turns, for whatever mag, but certainly not the church weekly. She was blond and buxom and pear-shapely. He, balding and coming to a noticeable point at the crotch a la Putin or Medvedeev, the new East European style.

Site open 08:00 to 17:00, with admission of $51 pesos. Great bargain! Water and pop a fortune compared to in-town, but such a bargain. Such a bargain all of Mexico! Families, granparents, nationals and tourists  and people in wheelchairs too! Hot day! Can’t wear a shirt more than a few minutes without soaking it! Oddball hotel with good food and oh so close to the site! Good luck again!

Second day was late afternoon light. Wonderful! Tried a shot from the steps at the extreme opposite point of the Castillo only to be whistled at with a shrill whistle and acosted by someone in charge telling me to get off the stairs. I saw no sign and there where no ropes. 2 minutes later he was back with a deputy telling me next time he woulod throw me off the site: aji en su poto for sure! Never mid arguing the area wasn’t signed, his whistle was law! Its really ticking me off that I can’t use a tripod! Don’t they know it can only enhance my experience and theirs? Why not have me sign a copyright de laration that I am shooting for persoanl use only ! Arrghhhh! Add that to 50 kilo limits for international flights bumping into the limit of 25 kilos for local flights, instead of fixing it that tourists get 50 kilo anywhere or clearly telling tourists they will be charged extra baggage for any local flicht they take while travelling in Mexico. Other countries do it to! Crazy!

Great afternoon sun! The ruins site is a Tiny Perfect place, ruins and beach all in one experience! Wonderful! Maybe the fact that it was low season still had something to do about it! Check out Wikipedia for more historical detail!

The hotel strip in town was pretty seedy and deadly – tourist wares, restaurants, goofy cab drivers standing around scratching their parts while making jokes about how stupid the tourists were. One called me “Santa Claus” because of my white beard! I replied: ” otro hombre chistoso!”. Silly attitude of some drivers: its their lifeline but they are so bored they make disparaging remarks about the clients! There was a Mayan church that prohibited any photos. Interesting! Bravo!

At the Crucero(Crossroads) there is a mall, with outsied and inside parts with people painted up and dressed up like old Mayans, playing drums and flutes, welcoming the tourist buses. A group of musician/acrobats in dress hung and wound around from a pole while wonderful flute music ws playing. One musican came up to collect contributions and got a little aggressive when I said I had only been around a minute! I wonder what high season brings!

RIP Canon G11 and hola Chichen Itza!

18 November 2009

Kukulcan Castillo

First time in Chichen Itza started off with a bit of a panic. Took the 06:00 second class bus to Chichen Itza and it took about 3 hours to go 128 kilometres because of all the stops on the way to pick up workers at the stalls and restaurants servicing Chichen Itza or to go to Piste, the town just outside. When I got off the bus I realized I didn’t have my Canon G11 in my pants pocket. Mad search of my mochila. Nothing. Then started running after the Oriente bus on its way to Cancun and fast disappearing from the site entrance. Must have left it on the seat after taking it out to pay 20 cents for an orange from a vendor kid. Ran for a cab – the first cabby was cleaning his mats – stuttered something incoherent but something got through and we were off to the chase. Wrong turn initially until I got through it was the Merida bus going to Cancun. We did a U-turn and sped toward where the bus went – some smart ass kid got in the way, trying to race us and prevent us from overtaking – but 5 miles later we hailed down the bus and I went in to explain to the startled driver, checked my seat, but not under the new occupant, and checked the floor under the seat and NOTHING! RIP G11, the best little point and shoot in the world! Back to the entrance to Chichen Itza. Paid the taxi driver $800 pesos very gratefully for his attempt. I just accomplished a north-south camera technology transfer! Checked with the bus company at Chichen, the inspector from the company and back at the second-class bus station at the end of the day – somebody got up-to-date technology! And only a month old! No photos lost; I had dumped the files as I normally do the night before, but Oh! What pain! The pain of parturition! Did have lots of film and the two film cameras I brought with me. So, no digital shots of the first visit, but lots of good film shots to be verified later.

Hot day. Incredible crowds. There must be 25+ tour buses in the parking lot all the time from 10:30 to 4:30, that’s an average of 1000-1500 viewing at anytime. Most of the buses are day trips from Cancun from the looks of it. They must start at 8:00 and get there about 10:30 and from then its continuous. French, Germans, Italians, English, American, Spanish, Russian, Polish and Chinese speaking guides – also some Danes or Finns – couldn’t make it out. Bizarre amount of tourist junk; bizarre behaviour of tour group members – herd animals free of the beach for half a day, obnoxious, haggling for junk from the locals, many with no sense of Spanish or the denominations of the currency. Both sides in a false, losing situation. Bored, manipulative sales people; obnoxious buyers. Lots of old leathery women who may have been doing these sales most of their lives. Prices double or more what they are in town. T-shirts, wooden painted masks, sombreros, calendars, shirts, blouses, copies of pyramids in wood, in stone, painted, sculpted, Pacal masks, deity masks, lintel friezes in wood – ugly! Fabric print of two buxom Mayan dolls lounging in front of the Castillo pyramid, gazes enticing their conquistadores.. Only 1-dollar! Cheap! And people who have a multiple of the locals’ earning power actually play the negotiating game. Major currency earner, but what a put off! Uxmal, by contrast, doesn’t have quite as much as Chichen does in architectural material and detail, but is also spectacular and so much less tourism! What a delight to walk around Uxmal. At Chichen, accidentally stumbled  into the luxury hotel compound that has a private access to the site and I thought I had crossed to another world – well dressed colonials – again, English, French, Italians, Germans, Russians -  sipping cocktails and other cool drinks from an almost-liveried pretty Mayan waiter in the cool shadows of the tall banyans. Little clusters of seductive plush plaster and wood-log living units with balconies and  clusters named after archeological sites: the Mayapan, the Uxmal, the Kabah, etc…reminded me of the breakfast menu at the Na Bolom Inn at San Cristobal where the “Tonina” choice was cornflakes and something. Marketing turning even the original concepts into brands, copies – glib tokens of past glory, commodified history and culture, reflections of crazed modern living rather than wonder and reverence for a special historical and cultural space? Does Las Vegas have a Chichen Itza copy yet? Not to say the Parthenon and Knossos or Fatepur Sikhri is treated any different.

Ball Court exterior.

Ball court.

20 November 2009

Had a better time the second day I went – 20 November – National celebration of the Mexican Revolution. It was fun going through the towns on the way with all the little school kids all dressed up marching in parade for the national celebration, even pre-schoolers dressed up as Zapatas. Lots of scrubbed, smiling kids in uniform and proud parents. Many of the boys had that familiar hair product wave in front. Buses had to wait or go around through town to the back of town to catch Highway 180 again.

As you can tell from the photos, I am really getting fond of the tour groups and the trees on the site – I don’t mind people getting into the shot, In fact, its more fun if lots of them get in. I am surprised at the number of people who need to get their faces in front of a pyramid or piece of sculpture, to say “I was there”. To say years later: “I was a real jerk then – I mean look at me in front of the sorcerers pyramid or the nunnery or the caracol? Couples take turns doing it. For a while, in Toronto I thought it was a Chinese cultural thing at Gay Pride to get in front of the action, but no: every nationality does it – maybe it’s a function of education or “tourism personality”. A group of what looked like younger Chinese tourists didn’t do it – but the Spanish, Italians, Germans, Russians all did. Amazing! Years later you look at your scrapbook of travels and you see yourself in front of things, getting older, plumper, balder, but still in front of things, waving, smiling, squinting inanely. Proof of travel; proof of being? Strange! The other thing is the hope, expectation of original beauty and simplicity of the sites – no people in the shot. One couple at Uxmal was actually waving me out of their shot at 100 yards! I felt like tap dancing in their frame for a while! I on the other hand am always polite, non-intrusive – except of course when I really need THAT shot….

A sound at the end. The pyramids squares have distinctive sound properties. You can clap and there will be a sharp echo from the structure. Its as if your speech is amplified in the space. Must have been great for ceremonies, double the din. Got to the point where whole tour groups were clapping for their tour guides all over the square. One wanted to shout!

The trees with so much character of their own and epiphytes growing in their crotches, bring life, framing to many of the architectural pieces. I need to focus on the trees more! Loved the trees and the nunnery!

Warriors Temple

The Nunnery detail.

I’m liking Merida. Its pretty normal here. Today was a rest day. Some reading, some laundry and some planning today.. The Anthropology Museum just north of the hotel and the cemetery in the afternoon. Booked another 5 days at my crazy hotel and put off Chichen Itza till tomorrow. The Museum was OK and had a few nice pieces and a display on head binding of Mayan kids complete with skull samples. Don’t know whether everyone did this or just the elite. Chinese did feet; Mayans did heads! Anyway: the ideal of beauty was the cone shape of corn. The maize god was such an important religious and cultural symbol that mothers helped shape their kids skulls with presses of wood and rope when their skulls  were still soft. Beauty was a “cobhead”. Never mind “coneheads”, there were real live “cobheads” around at the time of the Conquest! Teeth were filed as well, presumably to look like kernels….More Churches: Sta. Ana, Santiago and Mejorada. Trees do well around churches and in graveyards.

The cemetery was actually three separate ones joined at some point – don’t know the origin, but one had the big Mausoleums with middle class and poorer people encroaching a little, while the other two(Pantheon Florido and Jardin de Paz) had poor and middle class burials from the look of it. All 3 were absolutely kaleidoscopic! All bunched up like a horizontal condo tower with ossuary niche walls as well. Lots of totally tasteless art to send people off to the hereafter with! The loudest colours. I loved it. It was like walking down Clinton Street in the old days. Saddest thing was the old dilapidated, unkempt and erased ones that just became rubble – as if there too was a place for old tombstones to die. Lots of “a perpetuidad” on the graves! I was only whistling “lux perpetua” from Mozart’s Funeral Mass, not calling down a “Dies Irae” on this hodgepodge! Promise! What differentiates rich and poor is size of the plot, quality of materials, chiaroscuro and spelling as in life! I imagine the rich have in mind a Greco-Roman space like a temple or the Elysian Fields version of Chorley Park in Rosedale. The poor must just want to be at the beach, judging from the colours! My chase for Mayan Ruins is actually cemetery hunting of Mayan elite representations in art and architecture. So maybe popular ruins, cemeteries, make a good antidote to all that glorification of the pre-Conquest elite.

Some dogs growled at me and I growled back – the end of that! There was a Masonic area for Lodge burials, a union and a municipal workers plot. Thank god there were mutual aid societies for handling the cost of your burial at least. The usual Colonia Chino. Interesting was a plot area for sisal(henequen) workers with a packet hennequin as part of the iconography.

Had a good dinner at Almendros at Mejorada Square, lime sopa and pollo pibil, local Yucatecan dishes. The soup was excellent, a consommé with shredded turkey. Turkey(pavo) is a staple here. Maybe original Mayan food? The pollo pibil was a little overcooked, but very tasty! Some sort of chilli sauce with bitter orange and plantains smeared over the chicken leg. Para chuparse los dedos! Will come back for some more comida tipica here! The beer is good here in Mexico too – Modelo, Montejo, Victoria, Bohemia, Corona and Sol so far!

Nothing like a good meal after visiting a cemetery!

- Rainer

The first few days in Mexico City were spent in visits to the Museum of Anthroplogy and chasing Frida and Diego.  Heady times of the 30s and 40s in Mexico, political and artistic ferment and artists from all over the world. Tina Modotti and Weston, Rivera and Kahlo with their friends and enemies. I suppose Paris, Berlin or Mexico City were the places to be if you were an artist then. Major muralists Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros all represented at the Bellas Artes in Mexico City. Great Art Deco building with a good lunch as well.

Assassinations, protests and artistic triumphs. Tina’s Cuban Communist lover is assassinated in Mexico by Cuban thugs. Frida’s inward landscapes driven by her disability from the bus accident as a youth, the bus railing eviscerating her and damaging her spine for life. Powerful “New Democracy” by Siqueiros at the Bellas Artes. Rivera’s Man at the Crossroads and Mexican Carnaval. Lots of creativity, internationalism, affairs, changing of partners. Frida rationalized Diego’s ways by saying it didn’t matter, it was his creativity that was important. Strange terms of endearment from Hayden Herrera’s biography of Frida: sapo-rano, sapo-ranatita, etc..slimy endearments(little toad-frog)! Frida’s affair withTrotsky; Siqueiros’ attempt to assassinate Trotsky, etc.. Visiting Frida and Diego’s houses was a “some day” promise and it was great to be there. The blue house(Frida’s) was not accessible the day I went, the walkway was there, but Diego’s studio was wonderful – full of munecas, calaveras, plans, etc…..In Frida’s later house there was a red painted pyramid with some pre-Columbian figures, one that looked just like Diego. Great cactus fence, great architectural design – Juan O’Gorman’s house right next door. I’m catching up on the Updates!

The Hotel Trinidad Galeria was owned by an avid art collector, Manolo Rivero Cervera, who died in 2006. It is beyond what the guidebooks kindly call “eclectic” and is verging on the zany and kinky.

The man with the hose is a pilot or a plumber.

The desk

It looks like a former car sales showroom at the entrance, but the staff say its always been a gallery and hotel. Lots of nooks, crannies and elevations – some religious stuff and other wild 60s stuff, all with bits and pieces of furniture from some other setting – definitely an “elsewhere”. Expect Peter O’Toole dancing with Carmen Miranda. It would make a great movie set. In the room, the water struggles to get lukewarm and the drains are rather independent. There is an air conditioner that sounds like a diesel truck in trouble and the rent is about $450 pesos(C$45). But wow, does it have atmosphere. And, there is great bookstore across the street! No meals, just ever available coffee and tea in the kitchen and personal food storage in huge old fridges. I booked for 5 days and will likely stay a few more until I am satisfied with the shots of Uxmal or tired of it and figure out how best to get to Chichen Itza. May sidestep the ruins theme to day trip to Celestun for the wildlife preserve, maybe see lots of flamingos….

Yucatecas are geared to modern times: love seats in the Park.

There isn’t much to Merida, from a tourist perspective – it’s the ruins, dude! There is a small downtown area where the cultural and touristic stuff happens, but outside of that, it’s a regular regional capital. Different style from Oaxaca and San Cristobal, but not nearly as concerned with tourism. Maybe fewer gringos actually live here. Maybe high-season will change things. Maybe Cancun and the Mayan Riviera soaks up all the craziness. Certainly was not put off by the touristy stuff the way I was in San Cristobal, in Chiapas. People seem more balanced about tourism here, like the people in Oaxaca. San Cristobal Zocalo is starting to look like badly done Yorkville. The items touted here by the hawkers are Guayaberas, a shirt very similar to Cuban specialty shirts and hammocks(hamacas) made of sisal supposedly. Sisal was the “gold” of the boom here until nylon killed the demand for sisal rope. Replica archeological goods are a hot item too. Cylindrical red clay vessels are a big hit as are jade work, Pacal masks. Maybe I should combine all three and get a shot in my mask, wearing a Guayabera and lolling in a hammock – a wedding hammock at that! Somebody offered me some Cuban cigars and I had pangs for Havana! No sex offers yet, male or female or relatives. Maybe this place is too clean for that. Very safe here! Municipal Police, Tourist Police and Yucatan State Police. Still lots of Indios begging! Look like the same Indios in Oaxaca and San Cristobal. All Guatemalans? Otherwise, it feels safe and contented here!

Had a look at the old Cathedral, the oldest Church in the New World, St. Ildefonso. Quite impressive stone block cathedral! Built by the conquerors and Montejo’s house is still at the south end of the Zocalo[1]. I was conscious of the fact the stone was re-used from Mayan structures and temples to make the conquering point to the locals. One mural in the church depicted the meeting of East and West. There are grand murals by Pacheco illustrating the Maya experience of the relationship with the Conquerors in the Palacio Municipal – quite powerful and direct.

Sunday, today, had lots of activities in the local parks – streets closed to traffic, lots of families out, food and trinkets for sale. Lots of entertainment and wheeled carts for families to ride. One song was about the two male singers having a “technical” problem, full of dancing and sexual banter. Another park had seniors traditional dancing – lots of dashing couples! In front of the Cathedral was a pop/rock band of Apostolicos and Maristas. No bawdiness in those lyrics – just the joy of belief. Lots of kids with Jesus T-Shirts joining in. The fight with the Protestants goes on! Also a great modern art display next to the cathedral withmany multicoloured jaguars.

Merida Anthropology museum on the list for tomorrow and maybe Catherwood House, where some prints for the book that started the Maya craze are on display, after a second visit to Uxmal – bus at 8:00. All in all, a nice quiet Sunday. Some of you will notice I slept in rather than hitting the ruins a second day in a row. I was knackered!

Have to try the local food too! Fish at a hole in the wall, Blue Marlin, was good yesterday, but it looked like there was a lot of people’s hands in the food….

Rainer

Off this morning to catch the second class bus that does the Ruta Puuc – “Puuc”" means “hill country”, but also refers to a certain style that is quite different from other sites. Its like the Art Deco or Roccoco of Mayan art. Basket or weaving patterns in the stone, more ornate treatment,  stone treated like wood. No breakfast but found some water and not so sweet cookies(galletas cubanas). I am at 51 and 60 and the bus station is at 70 and 71 – so 10 bolocks one way and 5 over. Good little chug and already a little heat up before 8:00. 5 sites for $146 pesos, from 8:00 to 3:00 – 1 hour getting there, about 85 kilometers. Good bus, picking up the odd worker in the spots along the road and a bunch of women already shopped for fruit….

This is my first major soak up of ruins, after whetting my tongue a little on Monte Alban in Oaxaca, at the end of October. A reasonable first look at what is here: but a bit of a race. There were 2 couples, a young Mexican couple who neckd as much as looked at the stuff and a late 30s Belgian couple, and me. When it was getting close to time, the driver would start the bus engine. He would honk at 30 minutes. I managed to be under the wire each time, but it was exhausting! And the day was getting progressively warmer each stop…I had the Canon G11 digital and the Zeiss IIkon 35mm, shooting 100 ISO BW. Not much need of a tripod when its this bright!

9:30 Labnah – 30 minutes – the bus warmed up

10:10 Xlapak – 30 minutes – driver honked

10:50 Sayil – 30 minutes

11:30 Kabah – 30 minutes

12:30 Uxmal – 2 hours

Entry fee at all but one stop, mainly $30 pesos and $110 for Uxmal, the biggest – huge – site. The “X” is pronounce “Sh”, not like Mexico. Mayan history intrigues me: how did it happen that a society developed to such an extent that they supported hundreds of thousands in their biggest cities from a forest or near forest ecology and food economy. Fascinating the use of “chinampas”, raised beds of mud in swamps or rivers….

Was in heaven! Walked back and on the way stopped for a fish meal at the Marlin Azul, which closed up shortly after. Many business close at around 4:30, 5:00 pm.

Died shortly after. Montejo, the conquistador’s house is at the South end of the Zocalo. The oldest church in the New World is here in Merida and it was made from blocks of temples and pyramids much like the ones I saw today. Merida was a Mayan city made over, just like Mexico was Aztec and the conqueros took special measure to root out the original cultural symbols. Not far from Merida is the place where Fray Landa burned all the Mayan books of the time – i believe the extant codic esa are all post conquest…

Certainly can tell from the colours of the houses in Merida that we are in the Caribbean! Merida is the capital of Yucatan State and seems to be thriving. It was a boom town during the days before nylon killed the use of sisal for rope.

Tomorrow its an 8:00 am atart again, with all 5 hours at Uxmal. Time to trot out the rest of the gear!

Rainer

Casa and Estudio Barragan

Deeply moved today(Nov 11) by my visit to Casa Barragan, the home of Luis Barragan – famous Mexican architect, which he occupied in 1948, which happens to be the year I was born, and lived in until his death in 1988. It occupies numbers 12 and 14 of General Francisco Ramirez Street in the working class area of Tacubaya, a stone’s throw from Constituentes Metro station. His output is small, I believe, and consists mostly of private house commissions and a chapel, but he was responsible for the upper class subdivision of Jardines del Pedregal, but did not build his house in a rich area. He went to Europe and was strongly influenced by Le Corbusier. The guides talk about pre-Columbian, Francis of Assisi, North African and Oriental influences. There is a lot of  Catholic art in the place: virgins, icons, Jesuses on the cross, etc..as well as much modern art. No frames – all leaning or fixed without frames – in the living room, with the view of the garden (of which the Museo de Antropolgia echoes) – is a Picasso, an Orozco and an Albers(colour piece). The wood furniture and woodwork is designed by him in consultation with a specialist. The entrance is into a small low ceilinged  confined space, as in a monastery entrance, opening up to larger and high ceilinged  spaces, ribbed with beams as in his native Guadalajera. Materials are simple and limited. Wood, stucco, clay, stone, glass, volcanic flooring. Limited colours – white, black, yellow, pink. Lighting is natural or amber incandescent. Simple, abstract, tactile, overwhelmingly pleasing spaces. There is the workshop and living space separated by a door. His own breakfast room is almost the size of a large  closet and purgatorial catholic images around him – the sinner entering the day….Was he a FLAGELLIST? Wonderful custom made large bookshelves with no architecture in them. So appealing in scale and texture you want to touch them. Small entrance –> larger public spaces – -> private spaces – culminating in the Terrace, which just about took my head off. The guide noted something about the Terrace being something in Le Corbusier’s scheme of architecture that was an important 5^th or culminating space(?). High-walled terrace – walls, stone floors, plant material – colours, walls, stone and sky define the space and it was absolutely wonderful to be in! Had a similar feeling about Frank Lloyd-Wright’s work at Fallingwater. Photos are attached and in Flickr. Only the Terrace was allowed for photos. If you are interested further you will have to do a WEB or library search for more detail on the inside. Picked up a photobook of the house by Yukio Futagawa. It was one of the best sets of photos I have seen. Great architectural photographer! (http://www.modernism101.com/barragan_ga_48.php)

First view of the terace.

Was a bit eccentric/neurotic – only had one head of the table chair for himself to sit in, so there was no comparator. Had mirrored globes in rooms like disco balls to reflect where he was in the space at all times and screens that allowed him to back away from conversations and eavesdrop. Had the strong sense his art was stage crafting; he was always conscious of acting a role in his house and life. Never married, but had lots of women lovers. Exquisitely beautiful as well! Always conscious of being his own protagonist? Some of the spaces in the house are like stages or diving boards. Would like to learn more about him. Was he one of those egos like Octavio Paz and Vargas Llosa that made themselves into cultural authorities/gods that the Latino world used to thrive on so much? Don’t know if I am being windy here. Loved that he loved music and had an old 60s Bang and Olufsen to play his records on!

Airport

The heat and the altitude hit you, especially this OFW guy and after lots of gasps and sputters with people pushing wheelchairs in view, I finally saw a very pleasant airport. Was impressed by the number of people with disabilities having front-line jobs in the immigration line. More than a dozen, male and female, in black uniforms and chairs, streaming passengers to immigration and processing health survey info. Real front-line work!

Seguay Patrol!

Cops

Lots of cops! Singly, in pairs, in groups, in squads with guns and submachine guns. Black helmeted cops with heavy duty guns standing on the back of black painted trucks with welded frames – urban war vehicles. Cops at crosswalks, at subway entrances, at exits, looking down from overpasses, transfer points, on raised steps at subway platforms. Different kinds, too: transit cops with guns! Pairs of cops on seguays patrolling open malls and squares. This is not entertainment at The Distillery! This looks like real life Star Wars and Robocop everyday. Oh the budgets must be huge! Black sculpted armor and helmets, black truncheons and shields piled up at Constituentes Metro station – maybe waiting for a cavalcade to come up the road, or to protect from a protest. – young kids in uniform. They were kind and I was thankful: they let me use their Johnny-On-The-Spot! No sanitarios in this subway! Cops must be a major source of government employment and benefits-spreading for the politicians, not just resources for the state war against the drug lords.

The stereotype of Mexico as dangerous is dead wrong, at least in Mexico City. Its not “drug wars and lawlessness” in D.F. I feel very safe with all those cops nearby, but just a little bit uneasy at what seems like a major militarization of public life.

Museums/Public Art

Rich civic life, public art life. Mondays museums are closed; Sundays are free for Mexicans. Lots of families, kids come out.  Many people taking notes in the Museum of Anthropology. World class place. Read somewhere that it was built in record time and that the architect(s) were kept somewhat anonymous. Amazing creation! Lots of public art, lots of families strolling the boulevards.

Struck by the Glorieta statues and Diana the Huntress (Diana Cazadora).

Diana on Genova Mall on the way to Insurgentes Station

Still struck by how awful Carlos Fuentes’ book on his steamy love affair with Jean Seberg(Diana) was, but it took till visiting Mexico City how pervasive the symbol of Diana is in the City and what he therefore meant by using it. Keep fantasizing that its Jean Seberg in the buff with the bow, saying: “New York Herald Tribune” in that wonderful almost whiney mid West voice.

Lots of beautiful buildings!

Subway/Metro

Large, clean, cheap, fast and well organized system. A little dingy and worn with a patina of much use, cleaner than New York. People polite, but focussed on getting the edge to the line for the escalator. 7 subway lines integrated with other forms of transport, including a direct link to the airport. $2 pesos adult one-way fare. Transport for the masses! How would ridership be in Toronto at that range of prices?

Subways are also cultural spaces. There is lots of public art and art displays.  Also, food and trinket vendors. The air is mostly warm and stale down many storeys.  counted 3 5-storey escalators on one transfer! Many of the poor sell stuff. There are not that many beggars. In the cars, hawkers get on and sell their wares shouting or turning up the volume on a blaster if its music, moving up or down the subway car past standing passengers until reaching one of the 3 exit landings,where their pitch reaches crescendo before leaving. Some aggressive vendors, leaving samples on each lap or bag only to pick them up later – like the blind or deaf beggars in Toronto years ago. Sad were the couples, an old blind man and a young girl, selling things withg the youngster handling the sale mechanics and guiding the adult. Some awful and loud music, but also some old classic crooning as well. Everyone seemed unmoved as if to say: “this was their work”  not a nuisance at all. Sometimes you could see the knapsack blaster all threadbare from years of brushing against backs and shoulders of subway passengers. Saddest was during a stifling 30 minute wait for a line problem, two old blind men holding on to one another, the hindmost with the blaster and the front one holding the mike for singing into – live music time. Doesn’t that want to make you give!

One photo display I checked out was gritty. Interesting lighting:

http://www.fotoda.com.mx/?id=7&autor=13 Daniel Aguilar.

Driving!

Don’t. I thought Cubans took chances. Mexicans are gifted at coming within inches without scratching. Absolutely awe inspiring macho driving skills – a highly developed degree of mind/motor coordination only possible here! Traffic is a real life video game!

More to come! I am only 2 weeks and several posts and places behind!

- Rainer

13 November 2009