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Saturday, November 23, 2024

A Unique Church

 As I was leaving the ex-convent of Culhuacán I saw the nearby towers of another church.  I had read about when I was researching Culhuacán, and I decided to walk a block along a narrow street to see it.  It is called the Santuario del Señor del Calvario (Sanctuary of the Lord of Calvary).  It is highly venerated place for the people of Culhuacán.


The story goes that in the 1530s, just a decade after the Spanish conquest, a group of indigenous stone cutters heard a baby crying in a nearby cave.  (Another version says that they saw a bright light emanating from the cave.)  They cleared away the brush and stones at the entrance to the cave, and inside they found a recumbent statue of Jesus. In the late 1800s a church was built over the cave, which is considered by local residents to be a holy site.

A colorful gateway was at the entrance.  I suspect it was there for some holy day.  The Spanish says, "Thank you, Lord.  Shed blessings and health."


  

The interior of the church is very pretty and perfectly maintained.  I do not know where the image of Christ is.  I did not go right up to the altar to investigate.


Notice the man working on the pilaster to the right.  He was applying gold paint to the decorations.  It appeared that he was completing his work because everywhere the church gleamed with freshly applied gilt.





Even the ceiling is beautifully decorated.



A painting on one of the side walls portrays the story of the discovery of the statue.




Another spot with an interesting history in a neighborhood unknown to tourists








Friday, November 22, 2024

A Hidden Colonial Gem

Yesterday I went to yet another one of Mexico City's many museums.  And unlike the radio museum I wrote about a couple days ago, this one was definitely worth visiting.

Looking at Google Maps for new places to visit, I came upon the ex-convent of Culhuacán, which is now a museum.  Culhaucán is a neighborhood with ancient, pre-Hispanic roots.  It is located in the borough of Iztapalapa.  Iztapalapa is not the safest part of the city, but there is a Metro stop just a couple blocks away from the convent along a major avenue, so I figured I would be OK.  I walked from my apartment about a half hour down Insurgentes Avenue to the subway stop on Line 12.  That line took me right to Culhuacán station.

Culhuacán may be a gritty, unattractive neighborhood, but it is very historic.  For centuries it was a separate town sitting on the shore of Lake Texcoco, the lake which once covered much of the valley where Mexico City stands today.

This painting shows what the Valley of Mexico looked like in Aztec times.  The arrow points to Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztecs, which today is Mexico City's historic center.



On the lake shores there were many other cities, with names that are familiar to anyone who knows Mexico City.  Chapultepec, Coyoacán, and Xochimilco were once separate towns that are now part of sprawling Mexico City.  The arrow points to the location of Culhuacán.





This sign says that Culhuacán, the place of the Culhua tribe, is one of the oldest cities in the Mexico Basin.



However, this plaque, just a few steps away, was placed in 2010 to commemorate the 1340th anniversary of Culhuacán's founding in A.D. 670.  It says that Culhaucán is THE oldest city in Anáhuac (the Aztec name for the Valley of Mexico).

After the Spanish conquest, Culhuacán remained an important town, and Augustinian friars chose this place as the center for their evangelization of the natives.  In 1560 they established the monastery of St. John the Evangelist.  It is one of the very few remaining buildings in Mexico City from the 16th century.  The monastery included the Seminary of Indigenous Languages where the monks learned the native languages, and the natives, in turn, were taught Spanish.









 The museum contains several rooms where pre-Hispanic and colonial artifacts are on display.

Large quantities of pottery from Teotihuacan have been found by archaeologists at Culhuacán, suggesting that the later was linked to that great metropolis that flourished more than one thousand years ago.


After the decline and eventual abandonment of Teotihuacan, Culhuacán became an autonomous jurisdiction.  From around A.D. 800 it was ruled by a dynasty of chiefs who extended the city's control over the southern part of the valley.  However, by the early 1400s, Culhuacán was conquered by the Aztecs.


An Aztec sculpture of the corn goddess found at Culhuacán



The remains of an Aztec urn in the form of the rain god Tlaloc


One room contains Spanish colonial era objects from the monastery.




A baptismal registry from the 1700s


What was most fascinating about the former monastery is that its walls are covered with fragments of mural paintings that were done by native painters and Augustinian friars in the 16th through 18th centuries.  In addition to decorative designs, these paintings depict Biblical scenes, saints, and members of the Augustinian order.

In 1944, the National Institute of Archaeology and History began the restoration of the abandoned monastery.  Centuries of grease, soot, dust and bird excrement were painstakingly removed from the walls to reveal the paintings.



















In 1993 the former monastery was opened as a museum.  It is far from the typical tourist areas, and I never knew of its existence.  However, it is a unique historic gem that is worth visiting.








Thursday, November 21, 2024

Signs Along the Way

Here are a few signs that have caught my eye while walking around Mexico City...


The name of this pizzeria is "Death to Fake Pizza".



The name of this café sounds suspiciously like "pinche", a Mexican cuss word.



The name of this repair shop for broken Apple products is "iBroken".



Samy Restaurant is the home of the "Samy Burguer"... with a Hispanicized spelling of burger.


 That actually would be the correct spelling, since it comes from the Spanish word "hamburguesa".




The U.S. chain "Fatburger", however, doesn't care about Spanish phonetics.
Geez, I can feel my arteries hardening just looking at the sign!






 

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

An Insignificant Museum

I have written a number of times here that Mexico City has more museums than any other city in the world except London.  There are at least 150 museums here, and the number keeps growing.  Of course, some of them are not of great interest to me or are inconsequential in their size.  I had heard advertisements... on the radio... about the new radio museum, which opened in one of the subway stations.  So, last week I made a trip via Metro to the "Parque de los Venados" station.  The museum is sitting there in the middle of the station, and admission is free other than the six pesos it costs to ride the Metro.


It is a very small museum.  There is a showcase with antique equipment from the early years of radio such as this AM radio receiver built by Westinghouse in 1921.



Another showcase is filled with radios of more recent vintage.  Among the novelty items were this transistor radio in the shape of a ladybug...


and this children's Mickey Mouse radio.


Along the wall were signs that gave the history of radio in Mexico.  The first commercial radio transmission in Mexico City was in 1923 from a station which a few years later went by the call letters of XEB.  (All AM stations in Mexico begin with the letters XE.)   The station was originally owned by El Buen Tono cigarette company.


XEB is still broadcasting in Mexico City, and it goes by the nickname of "La B Grande", (The Big B).

The tiny museum is worth a look if you are passing through that subway station, but it is certainly not worth going out of your way to see.  That's OK... I can add it to the list of museums that I have seen in Mexico City. 

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Two at Once

Back in August of this year, I wrote that I had begun reading Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize winning novel "Roots".  It's a BIG book, nearly 900 pages long.  When I left on my trip to Europe in September, I did not want to lug that heavy book with me.  So, on that trip and also my trip to Ohio, I took a different book with me, another historical novel, "A Column of Fire" by Ken Follett.


After my trips, I left "A Column of Fire" at the home of Alejandro's family and "Roots" at the apartment.  So, I have been reading two novels at once.  I have only a little more than one hundred pages to go on "Roots", and I am well over half way through the Follett novel.

Ken Follett, a British writer, gained fame for his espionage thrillers. In 1989 he published his first historical novel, "Pillars of the Earth".  It became an international best-seller that surpassed his popular spy novels in sales.  The story was set in a fictional English town called Knightsbridge against the backdrop of the construction of a Gothic cathedral in the 12th century.  Since then, Follet has continued to write in both genres.  His sequel to "Pillars of the Earth", entitled "World Without End", continues the Knightsbridge saga in the 14th century during the Black Death.  A prequel, "The Morning and the Evening", is set in the year 1000 and tells the story of the founding of Knightsbridge.  I have read and thoroughly enjoyed all three of them. 

"A Column of Fire" takes place in the 16th century during the reigns of Mary I and Elizabeth I when England and much of Europe is embroiled in religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants.  The novel again is centered in Knightsbridge, but the storyline takes us beyond the English town to Spain, France, Flanders, and even the Caribbean.  It is another absorbing work by Follett.  Last year he published yet another volume of the Knightsbridge series.  "The Armour of Light" takes the town into the Industrial Revolution.  I will have to go to one of the bookstores here that carries books in English and look for it.

So, I am switching back and forth between the stories of the family of Kunta Kinte as slaves in the South and of Ned Willard, diplomat to Elizabeth I of England.  But please do not suggest that I buy a Kindle.  I like the feel of a book in my hands, and I spend too much time as it is in front of an electronic screen.

Monday, November 18, 2024

Christmas Shopping

Last Friday I wrote that this three-day holiday weekend is the start of the Christmas shopping season.  Retailers in Mexico have imitated "Black Friday" in the U.S., and promote this as the "Buen Fin" (Good Weekend) with bargains galore.

Yesterday afternoon, Alejandro and I went to Parque Tepeyac, the new shopping mall that opened a couple of years ago.  It's just down the road from where Alejandro's family lives.  We could easily walk there, or it is just two Metrobus stops away.  However, since we were planning on shopping, we took the car.  We had driven by Parque Tepeyac the night before, and we saw how horrendous the traffic was.  So we took a longer, round-about route to arrive at the rear of the mall.  The parking lot consists of three underground levels, but we were very lucky to quickly snatch a parking space as someone was pulling out.

The mall was already decorated for the holidays and was dominated by a three-story high Christmas tree (artificial of course).


Although the photo does not really reflect it, the mall was very busy and the stores (there are around 250 of them) were filled with shoppers.  There were, however, no mobs of people pushing and trampling each other in their pursuit of bargains.  The atmosphere was one of joviality, not aggressiveness, and as "White Christmas" played over the loudspeakers, I was in the Christmas spirit.

As I mentioned earlier, I needed to buy a new TV, and I figured this would be the best time to buy one.  We first went to the Liverpool Department Store which anchors one end of the mall.  I saw an LG model which I liked, and it had a 35% discount.  Delivery would be sometime in December.  

However, before buying I wanted to check what they had at Sears, at the other end of the mall.  Sears of Mexico, unlike the defunct Sears in the U.S., is considered an upscale store, so we were somewhat surprised to see that the discounts there were even bigger.  They had a more expensive LG television, but with a 50% discount, it only cost a little more than the one at Liverpool.  Furthermore, they had it in stock, and we could take it home with us.  I wanted to do some Christmas shopping while I was there, so I asked the salesman if I could pay for the TV now and then pick it up when we were done with our shopping.  "Not a problem," he said.

We walked all the way back to Liverpool where we bought a couple of items, and then hit several other stores as we made our way back to Sears.  My Christmas shopping for Alejandro's sister and nephew is complete.  

I still have to buy something for Alejandro's father.  Alejandro said that he could use some new belts.  The belts that we saw at the mall were made in China... a disgrace since Mexico produces high quality leather goods.  I figure sometime before Christmas I will head downtown.  There is a store in the Historic Center that has been around for more than a century.  They originally sold saddles and other riding gear.  They have leather goods that are made in Mexico.

As for Alejandro, I still have to figure out what I am going to buy for him.  We were in one clothing store called "Lefties", and I saw turtleneck shirts.  I used to wear turtlenecks a lot, and I said to Alejandro, "Are those back in style again?"  Alejandro does not need more clothes any more than I do, but I asked him if he would like one, and he said "yes".  So he has one small present.  I now need to think of something else.

When we returned to Sears, the TV department was much busier than before.  We waited in line a while to pick up the television.  We finally got it, and an employee put it on a cart and took it all the way down to the car in the basement parking lot.

So, we had a very successful shopping day.  "Buen Fin" is busy, but not nearly as frantic as "Black Friday", and I got some good bargains.  Looking at my credit card statement this morning, between the discounts and the strong exchange rate, none of my purchases (except for the TV) cost more than 20 dollars.

   

Sunday, November 17, 2024

In the Fourth Section

As I mentioned in my last post, a fourth section is being added to Chapultepec Park.  Last weekend when Alejandro and I rode on the new line of the "cablebus", we got off at the end of the line and took a walk through the fourth section.

It is still very much under construction, a work in progress.  The "cablebus" is overhead.








We passed under the elevated tracks of the still unfinished passenger train from Mexico City to Toluca that I mentioned in the last post.



The one attraction that is open to the public is the "Cineteca Nacional", an institution dedicated to the restoration, conservation and exhibition of motion pictures from Mexico and the rest of the world.  Even though it is open and movies are being shown, the building is not finished.  It is so typical of the administration to open projects before they are really completed so that they can boast of their achievements.





The poster listed movies that were being presented that weekend.  There were films from France, the United States, and the UK, among others.



A short walk away, there was an outdoor theater where they were showing short films produced at a children's workshop at the "cineteca".



Someday, the fourth section of Chapultepec Park might be worth visiting, but as of now, don't waste your time.