Tour of Mexico City and Ruins
10 April 2009
Shawn
John and I usually aren't big fans of tours for many reasons: They typically involve spending a week on an overcrowded bus with at least a few people who make shoving sharp sticks in your ears sound like a reasonable course of action; They don't visit the places you want to visit, or do so only briefly; They are too structured to allow you to relax; and they are more expensive than planning the same trip yourself, meaning you end up paying extra for the privilege of doing things you aren't interested in, like spending hours at cheesy tourist markets while others in your group excitedly browse the stalls for the most obnoxious t-shirt or the ugliest sombrero or the most stereotypically offensive image of a drowsy Mexican holding an empty bottle of tequila.
In the end, despite our reservations, John and I decided to book a tour. After six months of non-stop traveling on our own, we were thrilled at the idea of letting someone else sweat the details for a week. Following hours of internet research, we chose the Caravan Tour of Ancient and Colonial Cities, because it was the best value, it was all-inclusive and it had the itinerary that most closely matched the one we would have created ourselves. We're happy to report that the tour vastly exceeded our expectations and we had a great time.
Our tour began in Mexico City. We were greeted at the airport by someone from Caravan who walked us to our cab, giving us explicit instructions not to pay the driver anything, as he had already been paid by Caravan. He also made us aware of a couple scams the cab drivers typically run, like driving to the wrong Sheraton hotel and then demanding more money to go to the right hotel. Despite the many warnings, our trip from the airport was uneventful. Our hotel, the Sheraton Centro Historico, was a pleasant, modern steel and glass structure located in the middle of Mexico's historical district, across the street from the oldest park in the Americas. The hotel's excellent location was further enhanced by the Starbucks next door.
Mexico City is a sprawling metropolis and has the 2nd largest population of any city in the world, trailing only Tokyo. Despite the many nightmare stories of Mexico City's brutal traffic, and the fact that we were arriving at the beginning of Semana Santa (Holy Week) when the entire country of Mexico goes on holiday, we found the traffic to be less than a typical weekday in the Bay Area. While the traffic was better than we anticipated, the air pollution was as bad as advertised.
After checking in to our hotel, John and I walked to the Palace of Fine Arts at the suggestion of our Caravan tour guide Pedro who was nice enough to provide his cell phone number to everyone on the tour. The Palace of Fine arts is the premier opera house/performing arts center in Mexico. The marble/art deco interior has expansive murals by Rivera and Tomayo. Unfortunately, we were too late for the daily tour of the theater that features a stained glass Tiffany curtain.
Later that evening, we had one of the many large buffet meals included in the tour. Our stay in Mexico City featured all you can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets, an extraordinarily ridiculous amount and variety of delicious food. I'm not one to turn down a free (or a pre-paid) meal, so I ate at every opportunity, consuming so much in such a short period of time that I didn't actually feel hungry for three or four days. But I did keep eating.
On the second day of our tour, we were accompanied by a wonderful local guide, Joaquin, for our trip to the ruins at Teotihuacan and our tour of Mexico City. At Teotihuacan, Joaquin, who proudly proclaimed to the group that he was a spry 77, provided a detailed history of the site that was inhabited for years by the Aztecs after it had been abandoned by its original builders. Archaeologists and historians have yet to reach a consensus on which indigenous group may have originally built the city. During our tour, we were shown many 1000+ year old murals, still vibrantly colored despite their advanced age, featuring Aztec gods depicted as snakes, jaguars and parrots. A local vendor selling postcards provided a demonstration of how the murals were colored. He ground up cochineal insects found on a prickly pear cactus to make red paint. I later learned that cochineal is the most light and heat stable and most oxidation resistant of all natural colorants, which explains why so many of the murals were still so vibrant after hundreds of years.
Teotihuacan features two pyramids that are among the few which you are permitted to climb in Mexico, and I did not pass up the opportunity. John joined me in climbing the smaller Temple of the Moon, but he declined when I invited him to tackle the much higher Temple of the Sun, choosing instead to leisurely stroll the Avenue of the Dead as dozens of vendors aggressively hawked obsidian turtles, silver jewelry and strange, supposedly traditional noisemakers that mimicked a monkey's howl or a jaguar's roar. During my pyramid climbing I was amazed at how short of breath I became until I remembered that we were at an elevation of nearly 8000 feet.
In the afternoon, following a gargantuan lunch that exceeded the gargantuan breakfast, we visited the National Palace. Like many important colonial buildings and churches in Mexico, the National Palace was deliberately built upon on an important Aztec historical site in an attempt to decimate the city's long indigenous history and replace it with a post-Hispanic one. In the palace's main stairwell is a massive Rivera mural that depicts the history of Mexico from the time of Cortes' arrival in 1521 to 1930. It is an amazing work, but the most impressive Rivera murals we saw on our trip were the many smaller murals on the palace's second floor that depict various indigenous cultures from the pre-Hispanic period until Cortes' arrival. The artistry of these pieces is remarkable. They feature many of the signature vivid colors and stark geographic shapes that are found in Rivera's most famous works. But just as impressive is the historical, cultural and political significance of the pieces. They are a celebration of Mexico's rich pre-Hispanic roots and a tragic portrayal of the cultural devastation wrought by the Spanish conquest, depicting, in exacting, accurate detail, both the daily lives, important rituals and religious beliefs of the country's indigenous cultures and their almost total destruction at the hands of the Spanish. Rivera died before finishing all of the planned murals, so many panels on the 2nd floor remain unpainted in an appropriate tribute to Rivera's unique artistry.
From the National Palace we went to the massive National Anthropology Museum of Mexico which houses the country's richest archaeological treasures. During our brief visit we saw a completely intact Aztec Calendar, finely carved columns depicting important gods and historic events, a jaguar statue with a large basin cut out of its back that was used to collect the sacred blood of human sacrifices, and the jade death mask of the Mayan king Paluca who ruled the Mayan city of Palenque for 80 years. It is by far the best anthropological museum John and I have ever visited, and we easily could have spent a week exploring the many exhibits.
That evening, Rafael and Rita, a very friendly young couple from Sacramento who were fluent in Spanish, invited John and I to accompany them to the famous Garibaldi Square�"a large public area where dozens of mariachi and nortena bands gather hoping to be paid for a song or to be hired by one of the passersby to perform at a wedding or a party. Our Caravan guide, Pedro, also joined us. It was Saturday night and the square was overflowing with musicians in brightly colored, ornate costumes and revelers in various states of inebriation. After enjoying a pleasant drink at a very famous cantina next to the square and listening to a mariachi band that had been hired by a family at an adjacent table, we wandered down the street into another cantina, but we quickly left after learning the place had a high cover charge.
As we walked back down the narrow pedestrian-only paseo next to the square, the extremely aggressive proprietors of the various restaurants and cantinas worked hard to try and herd us into their establishments. Pedro spoke to one such wrangler who assured us his place had live music and no cover charge, so we went in and took a table next to the stage in the center of the cantina where a mariachi in a richly embroidered vaquero (cowboy) outfit--complete with giant sombrero, white boots with spurs and a six-shooter in a holster at his hip--belted out a traditional ballad. From their station in the corner, some finely costumed mariachis accompanied him with guitars, trumpets and a guitarron. After a brief set, a more modern band gave the mariachis a break as a short, pudgy singer strutted to the stage in a sequined white suit and white leather boots. He shared Liberace's sense of style and many of his mannerisms, too. Rita explained that the singer was impersonating Juan Gabriel, a famous gay Mexican singer of romantic ballads, and for the next hour he vamped, gyrated his hips and did his best to embarrass me by flirting with me and trying to pull me on stage. Everyone found it quite amusing, and in addition to being quite an unforgettable entertainer, he was also a very good singer.
We were having a great time until we received our bill which came to $50 for 3 beers and 2 cokes. While the cantina didn't have a cover charge, they did have an exorbitant "entertainment fee" that the wrangler outside had said nothing about. Pedro leapt into action and quickly got the manager to reduce the bill. Apparently, when anyone tries to overcharge you in Mexico, all you have to do is ask for "la factura," which is the official bill. A restaurant can get in real trouble if the charges on the factura vary from the money the establishment collects or the prices listed on the menu, as the sales tax the government collects is based on the amount listed on the factura. Any discrepancy shows that the establishment is trying to avoid paying taxes on sales they have made. As soon as Enrique requested the factura, the manager immediately reduced the bill to a far more reasonable but still expensive $20.
The evening's very worthwhile adventure was punctuated by an excited drunk who screamed, "Viva Mexico" at the top of his lungs as we walked back through the square on our way to find a cab. After a day of mysterious Indian ruins, tales of ripping still beating hearts from the chests of very willing human sacrifices, jade death masks, the murals of Diego Rivera, serenading mariachis, flirtatious gay celebrity impersonators, and an attempted price gouging, I could not help but agree. Viva Mexico indeed.
The following day we left Mexico City for the long bus ride to Veracruz that took us past vast agricultural fields and towering volcanoes. Our very conscientious bus driver, Tomas, did his best to make the bus ride as smooth as possible, constantly swerving around the various bumps and potholes in the road. We arrived at our hotel in Veracruz in time for another buffet lunch. Our hotel was located just across from the city's zocalo (main square) and from our hotel room window we could see traditional and modern bands playing into the night as locals danced.
After dinner (all you can eat of course), John and I walked around the zocalo amidst children blowing bubbles, old men idling on park benches and families eating everything from tamales and tacos to Whoppers and Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was Palm Sunday and dozens of vendors lined the square in front of the town's obligatory, centuries-old Catholic cathedral as worshippers streamed in and out. For sale was all manner of religious paraphernelia made from palm�"Crucifixes, Our Lady of Guadalupes, haloed baby Jesuses, etc.
After buying a palm crucifix adorned with bits of purple glitter for a couple dollars to add to our collection of Ganesh decorations, John and I wandered the bustling streets. I noticed many of the locals eating the same kind of ice cream from Styrofoam cups, and despite being overstuffed with rich food, I was determined to sample what was obviously a local favorite. We eventually came to the crowded Guero, Guero Neveria to find an amazing variety of ice cream flavors made with fresh ingredients, some foreign, like jobo (a yellow, plum-like fruit), nanche (a tart cherry-like fruit) and guanabana (a spiny fruit with a creamy texture and a sour citrus flavor), and others more familiar like cacahuate (peanut), coco (coconut) and mango (mango). The unique ice cream is made in giant steel containers and is constantly stirred with large wooden paddles during the freezing process. The result is a flavorful ice cream that is rich and creamy when you start eating it and gets more icy as you go. I was a bit intimidated by the unknown flavors so I had the mango and it did not disappoint. John decided to forego any ice cream, choosing instead to marvel at how I was able to eat more food as he consumed a similar number of calories in the form of a few beers.
The next day, on our way to Palenque, we stopped to see the aptly named Colossal Olmec Heads at La Venta Park in Villa Hermosa. The Olmecs, the predecessors of the Aztecs and Mayans, were the first civilization in Mesoamerica, dating to 1500 BC. Originally discovered at the La Venta archaeological site, the heads were re-located to the La Venta Park years ago. The given reason for this move was because the archaeological site was so remote, but many believe the heads were moved because Pemex�"Mexico's government-run petroleum company�"was exploring for oil in the region of the site.
At La Venta Park, our guide led us through a winding forest trail past various Olmec artifacts. The impressive giant heads and other statues were carved from basalt and are amazingly well-preserved. Many of them feature cross-eyes which leads anthropologists to believe that the Olmecs, like the Mayans, would hang a stick between babies' eyes in the hopes of making them cross-eyed. Crossed eyes were considered beautiful and a sign of wisdom and intelligence, likely because of the crossed eyes of the jaguar, which both cultures deified. While at La Venta, we also many coatimundi, a very curious animal that looks like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater.
After our tour of La Venta, John and I mistakenly ordered raspados tamarindos from a street vendor thinking we would receive a cool, refreshing drink flavored with tamarind seeds that is common in Mexico. What we had forgotten is that a raspado is a Mexican snow cone made with shaved ice and a thick, sweet syrup. The raspado was absolutely delicious, but far more calories than we needed after days of buffets.
That evening we arrived at the Mision Palenque hotel located in a tropical forest in the state of Chiapas. As we walked to our room we could hear the guttural howls of howler monkeys in the surrounding trees. To my surprise, they sounded very similar to monkey noisemakers that the vendors were selling at Teotihuacan.
The following morning we took the short bus ride to the ruins of Palenque. Our guide, Salvador, was introduced by Pedro as the only Mayan guide in the world with green eyes. After entering the gate at the site, Salvador led us on a stone path through the thick, lush jungle. Quite suddenly, after rounding a corner, the impressive limestone pyramids of Palenque were sprawled out before us. It was quite dramatic. There are dozens of buildings and temples that have been excavated and restored, but archaeologists believe that 95% of the city remains buried beneath the rich soil and thick jungle vegetation.
The most famous structure at Palenque is the Temple of Inscriptions, an impressive pyramid-like structure where archaeologists discovered an inner stairway which led them to the tomb of Pacal, one of Palenque's most famous rulers. It took archaeologists many years to carefully remove all of the debris from the stairway that led to the tomb. When they finally reached the temple's burial chamber they found a massive sarcophagus with a two ton lid that featured a beautiful inscription depicting Pacal descending into the Mayan underworld. Inside the tomb, Pacal's skeletal remains were found covered in a thick dusting of cinnabar. The Mayan's associated cinnabar with life and death because of its bright red color. Also in the tomb, was a jade death mask of Pacal. A replica of this tomb is on display at the National Anthropology Museum of Mexico in Mexico City. Visitors used to be allowed inside the Temple of the Inscriptions to see Pacal's tomb, but, unfortunately, officials began prohibiting it after they discovered that the sweat from the many visitors was eroding the limestone inside the temple.
Salvador was extremely informative. In addition to explaining Palenque's rich history and the story of its discovery, he also relayed a great deal of information about Mayan architecture and mathematics. At one of the site's many palaces, he showed us a great example of a Mayan arch. To create their arches, the Mayans would layer large stones on the tops of the two walls they were seeking to join with the arch. Each successive layer of stone was offset a little bit closer to the center of the arch. The resulting triangular "arch" is actually called a false arch because the load of the structure is supported at the base rather than at the apex, like in a Roman arch. The center stone in a Mayan arch bears no load at all, so it is merely a flat capstone that finishes the enclosure.
Salvador also gave us a brief lecture on the Mayan counting system which consisted of three symbols--a dot (equivalent to the number 1), a short horizontal line (equivalent to the number 5) and a small oval (equivalent to zero). Unlike our decimal system which uses a base 10 (1, 10, 100...), the Mayan number system employs a base 20 (1, 20, 400...). Mayan numbers were written vertically. At the bottom level (or first level) a dot indicated a quantity of 1 and a horizontal line indicated a quantity of 5. At the second level a dot indicated a quantity of 20 and a horizontal line indicated a quantity of 5 20s, or 100. And at the third level a dot indicated 400 and a horizontal line indicated 5 400s, or 2000. As an example, to write the number 5126 (the number of years in a Mayan calendar), the Mayans would write two dots above two vertical lines at level three (indicating 12 400s, or 4800), one dot above three horizontal lines at level two (indicating 16 20s, or 320) and a dot above a horizontal line at level one (indicating 6), making the number 5126 (4800 + 320 + 6). This vertical counting system led the Mayans to invent the number zero as a placeholder.
After our scheduled three hours at Palenque were up, John and I wanted to see more, so we decided to stay at the site with several others while the rest of our tour returned to the hotel for yet another all you can eat buffet lunch. Before departing, our Caravan guide Pedro arranged an 18 year old local to give us a 90-minute tour of the jungle surrounding Palenque for $10 per person. The tour was quite fun. Like the Mayans, we ate termites (which amazingly taste like wood), munched on leaves from a clove-like plant that was used as an anesthetic by the Mayans (similar to how oil of clove is used to numb an aching tooth), climbed, or attempted to climb, the smooth vertical side of a mahogany tree using an adjacent vine, watched a family of howler monkeys swinging across the tree tops and re-filled our water bottles from an underwater spring. But the most amazing thing about our trek through the jungle is that we were walking on unexcavated ruins the whole time. Everywhere we looked were signs of the ruins surrounding us, bits of elaborately carved stone jutting out of the ground, still intact stone walls and large mounds of dirt and vegetation hiding a pyramid or temple waiting to be rediscovered.
We completed our extra time at Palenque and reached the site's museum just before a heavy rain began to fall. Inside the museum are many interesting Mayan artifacts including busts of famous rulers and gods, stone columns with elaborate inscriptions and another replica of Pacal's tomb, similar to the one we saw in Mexico City. After our time at the museum, we caught a ride in one of the many small vans that shuttle people back and forth from the archaeological site and the town of Palenque. As we drove down the rain soaked streets, I noticed a big gap between the floor and the bottom of the van's sliding door. Every time we drove through a puddle, I would get sprayed with muddy water that flew up through the gap. Luckily, it was not a very long ride back to our hotel.
We departed Palenque the next morning for our two night stay in Merida, stopping en route for a delicious shrimp lunch (not all you can eat, thankfully) overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and to visit the Mayan ruins of Uxmal, where we saw the impressive Pyramid of the Magicians and the Governor's Palace that features 20,000 stones intricately carved in a lattice-like pattern. While in one of the small dark rooms of the Governor's Palace, I heard a high-pitched squeaking coming from one of the corners of the room. As my eyes adjusted to the light I recognized the shape of a bat hanging from the ceiling. Suddenly, the volume and frequency of the squeaking increased, and I realized there was not one bat hanging form the small room's ceiling but many. It was at that point that I decided I'd seen enough of the Governor's Palace and went outside to look at the arid landscape and marvel at how a Stone Age settlement with an estimated population of 25,000 people could have flourished in a place that has no fresh water sources for miles in any direction. Rainwater collection was obviously extremely important, especially during the long dry season when the current average rainfall is only about one inch per month.
We arrived in the bustling colonial city of Merida in the late afternoon. That evening after dinner, John and I walked to a nearby convenient store, Oxxo, for beer and sodas. Oxxo is the Mexican equivalent of 7-11. As John pulled a six pack of bottled beer from its refrigerated case, the glue on the bottom of the cardboard container failed, sending all the beers crashing to the floor and breaking four of them. Since the bottle breakage was not in any way John's fault, we were surprised when the store clerks insisted that we pay. After adamantly refusing to pay, we left our intended purchases at the counter and exited the store. Two of the clerks chased after us and hailed a policeman who was standing on a nearby street corner. The unarmed officer was a member of the policia turistica (tourist police), and he was really more of a traffic director than a police officer.
As the clerk from Oxxo explained the situation in very rapid Spanish, it became obvious that the officer had no idea what to do to resolve the situation. So he called over two other officers, who called over two more. Soon, we were surrounded by six perplexed officers and two store clerks firing away in Spanish as John and I tried to make our case using a mixture of elementary Spanish, creative hand gestures and sound effects. Our attempted communications in Gringoese served only to confuse the officers further. Luckily, our Spanish-speaking friends from the tour, Rita and Rafael, walked by just as things began to escalate. Rita quickly surveyed the situation and began making our case to the officers. The clerk argued with her fervently, explaining that if we did not pay for the broken bottles, his boss would make him pay. After a couple minutes of Rita pleading our case, it became clear that the officers were not particularly interested in resolving the conflict, and the clerk was not backing down. John and I decided that we did not want to waste anymore of Rita and Rafael's time, nor did we wish to deprive the citizens of Merida of the attention of six such passionate, dedicated public servants, so we paid the $5 for the six pack of beer and went back to our hotel empty-handed. In our haste, we forgot to ask the clerks for the two bottles of beer from the pack that had not broken. Despite this experience, our overall impressions of Merida, a culturally-rich city with a vibrant colonial history, were quite positive.
We departed our hotel early the next morning for the two hour drive to Chichen Itza hoping to beat the worst of the day's 95 degree heat and the tourist hordes. It was the last day of our tour, which also happened to be John's birthday, a fact I shared with our Caravan guide Pedro with explicit instructions that John be adequately embarrassed throughout the day. Pedro did not disappoint, as we sung John Las Mananitas, the traditional birthday song of Mexico, on the bus ride to Chichen Itza.
Chichen Itza's proximity to the gringo and cruise ship Mecca of Cancun makes it the most visited archaeological site in the Mayan world, with an average of 14,000 visitors daily. We later learned that there is a tour operator in Cancun that does nothing but shuttle people to and from Chichen Itza. He has a fleet of 50 buses. Each bus makes the daily trip to Chichen Itza carrying 50 passengers at a cost of $50 dollars each. You don't have to be a Mayan mathematician to realize just how lucrative a business this is.
Unfortunately, the guide we had in Chichen Itza was lousy, the only bad guide we had during our trip. Prior to beginning his presentation, the guide said he didn't care if there were 4 or 40 people that stayed with him through the duration of our three hour tour of Chichen Itza. This attitude must have saved him a great deal of heartache, as only a few from our tour were able to endure his dispassionate blathering for more than twenty minutes. Upon entering Chichen Itza, we were immediately awed by the Temple of Kulkulkan, easily the most photographed of the Mayan pyramids. Large serpent heads stand at the base of two sides of the pyramid. At the rising and setting of the sun on the spring and autumn equinoxes, the corners of the pyramid cast a serpent-shaped shadow down the side of the pyramid joining the serpent heads at the base. It's impressive display of the Mayan's deep understanding of astronomy.
Chichen Itza also features the largest and most impressive ball court of all the Mayan sites. Experts disagree about nature of the Mesoamerican ballgame played on these courts. Some say it was a game played like volleyball, where players would hit a large ball off of their shoulder, hip and head without letting it touch the ground, all while trying to knock the ball through one of two small round goals located at either end of the ballcourt. The problem with this theory is that experts believe the ball used to play this game weighed close to nine pounds, and the "goals" at the Chichen Itza ball court are approximately 20 feet above the court. Attempting to hit a 9 pound ball 20 feet in the air with your head or your hip does not sound like something you could try more than once. Another theory of the Mesoamerican ballgame posits that it was played using something resembling a field hockey stick or a basket, similar to the cesta used to play jai alai.
Considering that the game was played in a vast geographic region over hundreds of years, it's likely that many versions of the game existed. Regardless of the version played, it was a brutal, often deadly game. Sometimes, the ball game was played as part of a religious ceremony, with the victorious player or team "winning" the honor of being sacrificed to the Gods. Even when not involving human sacrifice, the game could be deadly. The conquistadors reported witnessing a Mayan ballgame featuring a heavy ball that could kill a player if it hit him in the head or the intestines or stomach.
Despite our crappy guide, Chichen Itza was well worth the trip. After leaving the site we had a very nice lunch at a nearby hotel. While we ate, a trio of guitarists entertained us with Mexican folk songs and another rendition of Las Mananitas in honor of John's birthday. John tipped the singer to thank him for the birthday song. The singer asked, "How old are you, 40?" To which John quipped, "I already gave you a tip. I'm not giving you any more." The birthday razzing was not over. At dinner that night, they sung Happy Birthday to John again, the English version this time, and they even had a cake with a candle for him to blow out. With that, our Caravan tour ended. John and I left Merida that night at midnight for a 30 hour bus adventure back to Huatulco that included a 14 hour ride from Merida to Veracruz, a 4 hour layover in Veracruz and a 12 hour bus ride to Huatulco. Thankfully, the ADO GL buses were very comfortable and John and I slept for most of the trip.
The Caravan tour was the highlight of our travels so far. The food was great. The Caravan and site guides were extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable (with the exception of the guide at Chichen Itza). Mexico City and the archaeological sites were absolutely fascinating, and we made some terrific new friends. And the best part of all was that we finished our tour about ten days before the swine flu outbreak. Had we been a couple weeks later, our tour would have more than likely been canceled.
We could not recommend this tour highly enough to those thinking about a trip to Mexico City or the Mayan ruins of Mexico. It would serve as a great introduction to the beauty of Mexico and its people.