Mexico City, Day 2, Part 1

The second day in Mexico (because in this country, when people say they're going to Mexico, they mean to the capital city), we first went to the Basilica. Here I got to see the Patron Saint of the country, the Virgen de Gaudalupe. The entire area in front of here was composed of moving sidewalks to allow as many people as possible to see her. I felt a strange dicotomy of the observers-the extremely religious, and the curious. There were two sections to the church, traditional and contemporary, and a service was in process when we walked through the enormous sanctuary, fashioned with lights imitating bee hives. The significance of the decor comes from the connation of bees always working, making for a somewhat wearisome religion! Outside, we hiked up a garden trail which led up to an overlook of the city, "guarded" by two stone angels. As you can imagine from the pic, they were pretty big.

From the Basilica, we drove about an hour to Teotihuacan. First we stopped at a museum, where a man showed us how tequila is extracted from the famous Maguey cactus. The tequila comes from a liquid in the heart of the plant, where sybiotically lives the gusano, or worm. Being quite the useful plant, the Maguey also provides a paper, which just peals off the leaves, ready to use, a lotion, from the moist fleshy part of the leaves, and fabric, from the fibrous hairs in the center of the leaves. Then a woman brought of all tastes of tequila, pulque, and agua miel-all alcoholic beverages made from the Maguey. Pulque is a white, medicinal tasting drink which I'll be satisfied never to taste again. Agua miel, literally, "honey water," is sweet, as it sounds, as reminded me of amaretto. Tequila doesn't taste that good, unless my host father makes it into "paloma," a mixture of a grapefruit drink, lime, and salt. Then we saw demonstrations of how the obsidian stones are carved and made into masks and various animal forms. Obsidian is a black, but sometimes with shimmers of either gold, red, or white, produced naturally from a nearby volcano.

We had a pleasant meal at the tequila/obsidian store, and then left for the piramids. Although the sun shone down hard on us, we eagerly listened to the wealth of knowledge our guide Monica had to share over the next 3-4 hours. How amazing it was to see the paintings and remains of water systems of the Mexica (pronounced ma-shee-kah) and Aztec peoples. We hiked up the piramids of the sun and moon, and tried not to make eye contact with all the men selling fake silver and obsidian, who would call in poor English, "Hi, you have boyfriend. Buy thees for heem. You pretty" or, "One dolla, only one dolla for you. Special for you." (What they meant, I found out, was that they'll take one dollar off the price...ugh!) Even though it was quite a hike, the view from the tops of the pyramids was gorgeous!