Mexico Holiday AAR

[Malthus]

Back from Mexico, a trip AAR by request from BB ...

It was awesome. Truly a great experience, especially for Carl - now that he's 9, he's likely to remember it. 

We did a ton of stuff, travelled around a lot - too much for a single post. Basically, we went to Mexico City, then to Chiapas province (mostly to visit Mayan ruins - some right on the border with Guatemala), and finally ended up with a few expensive days on the "Mayan Riviera" in Playa del Carmen for some beach stuff.

Further posts to follow. 

[Malthus]

Mexico City

We started by flying in to Mexico City, which has truly terrible traffic - even by Toronto standards  .

We only had a couple of days there, so we made the most of it - saw the Anthropology Museum (which is stunning - I could have spent a couple of days there), then saw the Tempalo Mayor - the remains of the Aztec temples that the Spaniards knocked down - worth seeing as well, and the onsite museum is great (those Aztecs truly were a wacky bunch). A must-see was a statue of the Aztec god of death - a grotesque figure with a bloated smiling face and his liver hanging out of his skeletal chest, he's in a pose like he's about to grab passersby in his talons.

Near there is the cathedral, which had a little tour for like 20 pesos that took you up the bell tower - we went on it, thinking nothing much of it - but it was really an amazing experience (though alas the guide spoke no English). Not for the agrophobic! The guide took us up to see the bell tower, which was cool, but then the took us out across the domed roof of the cathedral, hundreds of feet above the ground ... across to the other bell tower. The view was awesome, but terrifying.

The hotel we were staying at was very luxurious and not too expensive, but I noticed something I did not mention to my wife (who made the booking) - it appears most of the other guests there were wealthy Mexican fellows and their "negotiable affection".  Extremely high-class "negotiable affection" I may add. In short, all the dudes were elderly, wealthy men and all the ladies were stunningly beautiful and in their early 20s ...

Anyway, there is tons to see in Mexico City, we barely scratched the surface. After a couple of days, we flew out of Mexico City to Ciapas, directly to a small and very new airport in Palenque itself.

[Barrister]

Pics.

[garbon]

Cool stuff so far.

[Monoriu]

Is Mexico dangerous?

[Admiral Yi]

Is Mexico dangerous?

Much of it is very dangerous.

[Malthus]

Pics.

Pics will come ... have to download the camera first.

[Malthus]

Is Mexico dangerous?

Depends very much on where you are and what you are doing.

The main dangers in Mexico are: (1) the usual criminality you always get in third-world touristy areas - scams, pick-pockets, and the occasional muggings and hijackings; (2) the ongoing drug-gang wars, which you may have read about, which are truly terrible - mass beheadings, burning people alive, etc.; and (3) diseases.

The first problem you can minimize by simply taking the usual precautions - keep valuables well secured and distributed, keep out of lonely places, don't get drunk in public, etc.

The second problem is localized in certain areas - like right up against the US border: so stay out. Also, the drug-gangs don't attack pure tourists very often. If you are buying drugs, or get caught up in criminal stuff with them - well, that's a different story.  Seriously not advisable.

The third problem you deal with by eating and drinking sensibly, ensuring you have your vaccinations up-to-date (particularly hep A and B), and reading health warnings in advance; Chiapas has Malaria, so we took anti-Malarial pills. 

[lustindarkness]

You were gone? Well, glad it was fun. .

[Malthus]

Chiapas

Chiapas is a very different world from Mexico City - might as well be in a different country. For one, the people look different - much more Maya. For another, the countryside looks different - you are now in hardcore jungle: Mexico City looks more like it could be Texas.

One thing you have to get used to, is the Howler Monkies. The term "Howler" does not do them justice - those fuckers sound seriously frightening, more like the bark-roar of something LARGE comming to tear your living guts out. Imagine Bigfoot with his dick caught in a mangle.  It is hard to imagine that level of sound comming from an animal less than 3 feet long. 

Anyway, greeted by this sound, we pushed on to our hotel (once again, a fairly luxurious accomodation - no more backpacking hostels for me! Not with wife and kid in tow). The main Mayan site is also simply called "Palenque" after the nearby town, though obviously this was not its original name - which was something like "Bone".

Palenque was the first highland Classic-era Mayan site I'd ever seen (I'd previously been to the lowland sites in Yucatán, like Chichen Itza and Uxmal), and it is AWESOME. Full descriptions will have to wait until I download picks, but suffice it to say that this site does not dissapoint the visitor.

First, there is the famous "Temple of the Inscriptions", named for a long hierogliphic text detailing the history of Pacal the Great's life and achievements; sadly, you can't climb this one (one of the few ruins you are not alowed to clamber about on). This was the temple in which the tomb of Pacal the Great was found - the "King Tut" find of the Maya - in a fancy inscribed stone coffin of enormous size - you can see it in the site museum, in the only room that has air-conditioning (  ) but most of the rich burial artifacts are in the Museum in Mexico City (like his massive jade mask). Next to it is the Temple of the Red Queen, which also has a burial - probably that of Pacal's wife. You can climb that one and even go into her tomb - though again, the artifacts are in Mexico City.

More later ...

[Caliga]

Did you hang with my boy Subcomandante Marcos while you were there?

[Malthus]

Did you hang with my boy Subcomandante Marcos while you were there?

Was he one of the guys hawking cheap tourist junk made in China? 

[Caliga]

He's some communist dude, so probably.

[Malthus]

Chiapas, Palenque, Con't.

After the "Temple of the Inscriptions", there is the Palace - a very elaborate structure, with (unusually) a fairly high stone tower of unknown purpose built into it. The most beautiful sculptures are found in the "court of the captives", which feature relief sculpures of a very high artistic quality by some Mayan Michaelangelo, allegedly depicting high-ranking captives each with his hand on his shoulder (apparently a gesture of submission). I was really struck by the sheer artistic quality of these images - many of the Mayan works of art are simply very complex (the Mayas just loved depicting elaborate headgear, like Ladies at Ascot gone insane), but these showed a delicacy of expression and gesture that is rare in any art. I attempted a couple of sketches there, but I'm rusty - I don't think I really caught it. 

I did rather better at the "Pyramid of the Skull", which features a bizzare rabbit-skull relief, complete with bunny ears (and earrings). No idea what this was about, but it made for a fine sketching opportunity. As an aside, I highly recommend sketching as an occupation at such sites if you have the time: it doesn't really matter if you have any talent or if the results are any good (though that is a nice bonus), it is a good way to really see these objects: in the bright sun, and with the usual tourist hustling from one place to another, actually taking in the detail of Mayan sculpture (which, as noted, is often very complex) can be extremely hard, otherwise. Also, low relief can be very hard to photograph.

Anyway, after the Palace one crosses a Mayan acqueduct (still working!) and through a short jungley path (ignoring the Howler Monkeys barking up a storm) to the "Temple of the Cross" group. This is a series of very high Mayan pyramid-temples with some very complex relief panels in the small temples on top - as I said to Carl, the reward for climbing all those steps is to see the panels.  The "cross" referred to isn't the Christian cross, but the depiction of the Mayan symbol for the four cardinal directions - which looks very much like it.

The most odd panel lies atop the very highest of these pyramids: it depicts two persons facing each other, the one on the left looking like a typical Mayan lord, the one on the right like an elderly hippie smoking a huge joint. Seriously, it is an elderly chief (or diety) smoking a big cigar of some sort, the fumes streaming around him, a sort of Mayan Marlboro Man. 

There is an interesting story associated with this panel. One of the early non-Mayan explorers of the site was an American named John Lloyd Stephens, who showed up with his artist friend Catherwood. He stayed at Palenque to make a series of explorations and drawings (well worth checking out in his Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán, Vol. 2). When he arrived, the panel had already been dislodged from its place and re-installed in a house in the nearby town, owned by two sisters. He decided he wanted to buy it - only problem, the sisters would not sell, unless he bought the house itself. However, there was a catch: to own land in Mexico at the time, you had to either be Mexican, or be married to a Mexican ... so Stephens apparently considered marrying one of the sisters, which caused some trouble, as there were two sisters ... anyway, the whole mess came to nothing, and the panel is back on the pyramid and not, as Stephens intended, in New York. 

[mongers]

Pics pls. 

I think this thread of yours makes a good 'antidote' to the vandalism going on in Iraq/Syria.