Mexico 2024 – Back to the big city

We were happy to be back in CDMX and settled into our little home away from home. And some very tasty ceviche.

And some crusty street art

We made a friend at Anys, where we live. Genevieve Desjardins is from Montreal and we spent time with her during her short stay.

One of the things she wanted to do while she was here was to see Lucha Libre and it had been on my mind as well never having seen this iconic Mexican spectacle. Introduced in Mexico during the French occupation in 1863, the Lucha libre became an integral part of Latin culture. At that time, the Mexican wrestler Enrique Ugartechea introduced the art of ‘free-style’ to traditional Greco-Roman combat, thus defining the foundations of Lucha Libre.

Lucha Libre has played an important role in Mexican culture since the late 1950s. The sport became famous mainly due to its masked wrestlers, who incorporated their own family traditions, beliefs and fears into the design of their masks, transforming an ordinary person into a fearless character.

I’d never really been tempted to go to Lucha Libre thinking it to be just a cheesy fake show. And, yes, it was cheesy and fake but a lot more as well and I was glad I went. It’s such a spectacle; the wrestlers/performers are thoroughly rehearsed and are actually quite accomplished athletes and gymnasts. Amidst much fanfare and hoopla, they emerge from a high platform wearing their outlandish regalia and descend a staircase in stately manner.

The crowd gets into it whooping and hollering “kill him, kill him”

The winner!

Mexico 2024 – more Xilitla

Continuing the tour of Xilitla and Las Posas

The steep and often slippery streets of Xilitla

These are some of the forms used for the construction of the sculptures built by the skilled, local carpenter, Jose Aguilar. James employed many locals in the construction of the gardens and injected a lot of money into the community. The project cost him $5million dollars and he had to sell his surreal art collection to raise the money.

Yes, it’s a spider

I have endless photos of the gardens but that’s enough for now. We had planned to stay another day but as the weather was turning to rain and there’s not much to do in Xilitla other than the gardens, we decided to cut our visit to Xilitla short and get the bus for Mexico City. It was a long 9hr bus trip, but at lease there was a bathroom on the bus and it was always interesting out the window. And we were happy to arrive back in Mexico City.

Mexico 2024 – Las Posas

When we arrived in Xilitla, it was cloudy and wet from recent rains but for our day in the sculpture park it was perfect. Since my last visit there, they have been trying for UNESCO status so all sorts of rules and regulations have been imposed and, unlike when I was last there, one has to get a ticket in advance and go with a guide at a specific time. I was dismayed by this, having had such a wonderful time exploring the park on my own but I do understand the need for some regulation as people are inclined to do weird things otherwise and I guess they did. So we dutifully bought tickets and went at the appointed time for our tour. It turned out that it was just us and an English speaking guide, a nice you man. He gave us a good tour and I learned some new things about the park and it’s eccentric creator.

This is Sir Edward James, said to be the illegitimate grandson of King Edward VII, a collector and patron of surrealist art.

James and his compatriot Plutarco Gastelum who he originally hired as a guide but became very close to.

The gardens encompass some 80 acres (32 ha) of natural waterfalls and pools interlaced with towering surrealist sculptures in concrete.

I’m including photos that I took several years ago later in the spring than this visit when there were flowers everywhere.

We’ll leave you here for today and finish the tour another day

Mexico 2024 – The road to Xilitla

Our next destination after Queretaro was Xilitla, a small town in the jungle with a surrealist sculpture park created by a Sir Edward James. It was a seven hour bus ride on a second class bus, so no bathroom. There were some stops along the way but not many. No coffee in the morning and limited liquid intake. Though the bus ride is long, its very scenic. I’ve written about Xilitla a couple of times in the past and talked about it a lot to Kathryn so she wanted to see for herself. 

Traveling east from Queretaro the highway goes through flat scrubby landscape with nondescript little towns. 

This is one such little town whose chief industry is the marble quarry, hence the clouds of dust.

but then starts to ascend steeply on a windy, narrow road through sere high mountains. 

Finally we reached Xilitla on a cloudy, damp afternoon, found our hotel, had dinner and called it a night.

Next day was beautiful so we looked around for a place to get coffee first thing and found a nice cafe in The central plaza in Xilitla, which was suddenly heavily occupied by the army. 

I guess it was a slow day so you could even get them to take your picture. 

Tall, thin buildings on steep hillsides.

And the occasional angel if you’re lucky

In the distance, the iconic peak, El Sellito

The big attraction of Xilitla is the surrealist sculpture park created by a wealthy, eccentric Brit expat, Sir Edward James in the 30s-40s. You can read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Pozas Great story, a unique individual and unique place he created. This is his former home, now a hotel.

Otherwise the town isn’t much of an attraction and for someone whose mobility isn’t great it’s challenging owing to the fact that its very mountainous. 

The sculpture park itself in the next post…….

Mexico 2024 – Queretaro cont.

After passing it by once, we decided to stop and have a look at the MUCAL Museo del Calendario and we were glad we did. There was all the information about calendars you’d ever want, the history, the different kinds of calendars from different cultures and civilizations, and how they all work. As well there are lots of examples of Mexican calendar art that was popular in the early and mid twentieth century. But the real star of the show was the building itself, a remodeled 17th century mansion with beautiful gardens. It is the first museum of it’s type in the world, created under the sponsorship of the Landin Canendar factory.

Landin produced these iconic very Mexican calendars in mid 20th century.

The rooftop terrace

A joyful reunion for Kathryn and her long term zumba buddy, Rosie and her husband, Don who live in Queretaro.

Every day there was this frenetic ringing of the church bells down the street. This day we saw the ringer (he was alive).

This gal needed some consoling (the one on the left ;-))

Her mood was catching

A full moon for us

The next day we were off to Xilitla. Stay tuned

Mexico 2024 – Queretaro

From Guanajuato we traveled south to the city of Queretaro, a city of 1.5 million and capital of the state of the same name. It’s the fastest growing city in Mexico and a business/tech hub with a beautiful UNESCO world heritage centro historico and rated at one time as the cleanest city in Mexico. We just had a couple of full days there and took in some of the most important sites. 

Templo y Exconvento de la Santa Cruz – 15th century church and convent

Views to the east with the famous aqueduct.

At the museum of contemporary art, a remarkable building with incomprehensible displays (and no paper or soap in the loo). 

The Museo de Arte de Queretaro itself is a work of art of the colonial era Queretaro. 

There we saw a remarkable exhibit of the sculpture of renowned Mexican artist, Jorge Marín.

And a Leonora Carrington for good measure

More Queretaro to come

First of Mexico 2024

Here it is, week three of our time in Mexico this year and I’m only now getting started on the first blog of the year. It’s been an eventful time since Kathryn and I got here. Upon arrival we stayed just two days in Mexico City before heading off for Guanajuato where we spent a lovely week. I’ve written a lot about Guanajuato over the years. It was my go to spot for several years until it lost it’s appeal for me and I discovered Mexico City. Nonetheless, I like to visit once in a while and Kathryn wanted to go there again after being smitten by it last year. 

The view from our private rooftop terrrace

Church of San Francisco

Friends Michael and Rosann, who I met in Guanajuato several years ago, were there and we enjoyed time with them. Here enjoying shrimp tacos and ceviche.

At one of the museums in Guanajuato we saw a Leonora Carrington exhibit. Mary Leonora Carrington OBE was a British-born surrealist
painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City
and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist
movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the
women’s liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s. I’m not a huge fan of her paintings but like her sculpture and she is immensely popular in Mexico. 

The little plaza where we stay, Plaza Mexiamora, doubles as a playground for an elementary school. Almost every morning, we are treated to the drum practice.

Who’d a thunk we’d see this in the middle of Mexico.