November 22, 2008

What a day this has been and by far the most important and amazing thing that I saw today was the Sneak A Peek pictures of my grandson who is due to be born on February 19th. He is a pretty handsome guy already! :) Facebook is an amazing way to keep in touch. What did we do before we had all this technology at our fingertips?!

This has been an amazing day all around. We saw and did almost a weeks worth of "stuff" in a single day!

The drive from Toluca to Mexico City took just over an hour and the highway between the two cities is absolutely gorgeous. It is a toll highway ($50 pesos - $5 CDN) and comes into the best parts of Mexico City. The architecture in that part of Mexico City and the gorgeous buildings were not what I had expected to see at all. We could have been in Vancouver or any other city in the world. It was all super clean and all the cars were in new condition and yes...I know that there are many other parts of the city and the majority of the 30 million who live there are not amongst this rich crowd but.....it was sure a nice way to be introduced to the city. Our introduction to the city became quite colourful as we continued along our way, so I think I'll just jump in and begin to list the things we saw along the roadway. Likely the most suprising was about 50 or 60 almost naked men (wearing just their underwear) and about 1/2 a dozen women wearing even less than that. I guess it's somewhat acceptable for women to be naked in public but not at all acceptable for men. They were protesting the president for something or other and I guess they saw that as an effective means of making a statement!! Other memorable mentions along the road have to be how clean it is, the statues, the fountains and some of the architecture. Buildings were surprisingly modern and beautiful. Glass structures with sections missing (for effect I'm sure), towers of all shapes and sizes. It was easy to see that this area is the pulse of the business world. Headquarters for many international companies from Ford Motors to General Electric and Bank America lined the roadway. Some of the condos we passed along the way in the rich area started at more than $1500 US a month for rent and by Mexican standards that is a huge amount of money. All of the homes we passed along the way could easily have been in Shaughnessy area of Vancouver. So much for the dirty dangerous media picture we've all heard about. Certainly there must be rough areas as there are in any city of 30 million but we didn't see any of them today or tonight and we covered a lot of ground!

Our first stop was the Museum of Anthropology and what an unbelievable experience that is! You could easily spend days in that enormous attraction. It covers everything from pre historic man through all of the subsequent evolutionary periods and every aspect imaginable of Mexican and Latin American cultural history. There were artifacts that I can't begin to describe. Entire walls of structures were moved into the facility to replicate the civilization of that particular period and culture. From Mayan to Aztec - we saw it all. In fact before we even made it into the buildings, we enjoyed a performance of traditional dance where five men (at least I think there were only 5) climbed an immense pole that bent with the breeze and their weight on top of it to then tie themselves onto the top of the pole with a single rope around their ankle or waist only to then fall backwards and upside down while the guy left on the top continued to drum and turn the pole so the falling men would spin around the pole as their ropes got longer and longer until they finally touched the ground with their hands at which time they simply sat up and untied themselves. While they were descending from the top of the pole it was as though they were in a trance. None of them moved from the position they assumed at the start of their descent. It really was something to see!

As we came out of the Museum of Anthropology, we were approached by a small group of high school students who had been tasked with finding someone who was a native english speaker and then filming themselves interviewing said english speaker. Lynda and I fit the profile they needed so both of us will be a part of the Mexican school system next week :) They were nervous to approach us but did a great job and I'm sure they'll earn a passing grade on their assignment.

Immediately after our moment of fame in the school spotlight another performance began with Aztec dancers. We watched their performance and were then invited to come into the circle for a special blessing. You guessed it :) Of course we rose to the occassion and accepted the invitation. We were instructed to each select a polished stone, hold it in our hand while the shaman put scented water on it. Then we had to rub the water and the stone together between our palms before taking the rock and rubbing it on our forehead and the back of our necks. Once we had done that we were instructed to hold hands to complete the energetic circle while a young woman performed a purification ceremony as part of our blessing. She took a smoking smudge pot and kept the smoke plentiful by blowing on whatever is causing the smoke while she surrounded us with the smoke. It was so thick we could hardly take a breath but as weird as this may sound to some of you....when she was finished I know I felt pretty blessed and Lynda agreed that she felt both blessed and cleansed by the experience. Keep in mind that by this point we were part of the performance....there were a lot of people watching and the fact that we had to hold hands gave us some cause to wonder if it was some kind marriage or something so we attempted to explain that we're just friends but the Aztecs didn't even speak spanish - they just smiled and smudged and we smiled and breathed (well we sort of breathed). There were a few moments of panic when the oxygen levels reached even lower than they had atop the volcano the day previous. Our lungs are getting some great work outs since we've been here....well maybe they're not all great but they're certainly working.

From that mountain of information overload in the museum (and 5 hours on our feet already) we continued down the road and across the street a short way to enter the Zoo. As it turns out...the zoo covers possibly 1000 square miles (or so it seems) and we must have walked at least 999 of them!!! Kidding aside, it was a very long walk that pretty much did me in. But, it was all worth it as neither of us had ever seen a gorilla before and he came out to give us a little showing a couple of times so we both had a first on that front :) No one is allowed to carry their packs into the zoo so everyone has to check them in a small hut at the zoo entrance. We complied with that requirement only to discover that no one is allowed to go out the entrance to the zoo....everyone has to walk the entire way around the zoo to the exit and then back to the entrance (which is at least a kilometre from the exit) to retrieve their bag. By the time I had my bag back in hand, I was ready to get back in the car but alas....before we could do that we had to walk back out from the entrance (the same kilimotre we had just walked from the exit) to get to the road where we could cross, walk down the road to the entrance for the Museum where the car was parked about 1/2 km inside that faciltiy. Lynda offered for Jesus to carry me but the look on his face caused me to decline the offer and for him to heave a sigh of relief. Instead I just limped along focusing on the destination and wishing for the end. Finally, we were into the car and off again.

Next stop would be a tour of the historic part of the city near the Zocalo. I know that some of you who are reading this believe that we're not tourists but travellers and we'd like to keep it that way so I'll just skim over the fact that at this point we simply hung out of the car windows as Jesus drove by all the most important things to see so we could take pictures as they flew past us. Seriously though....thank heavens for Jesus! (I hope you're all reading this as Hayzeus!)He was able to pull right up in front of the cathedral at the Zocalo where there were approximately 500,000 people and more traffic than you can imagine. He sweet talked the police person there and true to the style to which we have rapidly become accustomed to (sorry Mitch) we only had to walk from the cab to the door of the overwhelmingly immpressive Cathedral and knew that our ride would be waiting out front when we returned. Mass was going on as we toured the inside where gold plated statues are plentiful and where we could pay our respects to Jesus (not the one waiting for us outside in the car - no disrespect intended folks). Behind the cathedral we viewed the open archaeological dig that exposes the ancient city that exists beneath the current one. Did you know that Mexico City is sinking? I didn't but it is apparent when you're in the heart of it as some of the buildings have a definite tilt to their rooflines.

Once back in the car, we were off for a quick dinner (hadn't had time to eat all day) and that was an experience in itself that I think I'll pass on the telling of as it basically was crappy for me :(

Final stop before heading back to Toluca was the Mariachi Centre where dozens of groups line the road looking for work. In the heart of this area is a gathering place where there is a stage that is filled with mariachi's performing their heart out while the crowds all obviously enjoy the music and the festive air of the place. We know this as once again, we pulled up to the front gate and were let out of the car like royalty while all the other hundreds (possibly thousands) of "peasants" had to park and walk or bus and hike or cycle and hope to get just a glimpse of the stage that we had front row seats for. Jesus simply waited for us where he had let us out of the car so when we returned we could just climb back into our luxury ride :) Aaahhhhh - we are super lucky travellers!!! And as of today....we're blessed travellers too.....

Tomorrow, we're off to Tlapujuhua (good luck if you can prounounce that one - we had to practice it for 1/2 an hour just to get it right!!) Hopefully we'll remember how to say it in the a.m. when we have to communicate it to the bus driver so we get to the right town. We said good by to Jesus tonight as his time with us is finished. He was a real god send (ha ha ha) and seriously he was the most respectful, helpful, considerate gentleman we could have hoped for. He is the reason we've been able to do more than a weeks worth of sightseeing in just a couple of days. He'll likely remember us too as we were happy to leave him with a little something extra for his time and his kindness.

As I finish this, I must add that upon our return to our hotel tonight we had just enough time to hike over to the shopping centre (somehow being focused on the ultimate reason for our trip there helped me find the strength to make the hike). We secured our purchases and are now back in the room sucking back tequila and squirt highballs. Well, I'm still sucking mine back (I've been busy typing) and I think Lynda (who has been busy drinking) may be passed out behind me. Well, no she is still sort of awake :)

Til next time - happy reading :)
Lorrie & Lynda