Hacienda de Santa Mónica

When I was in Mexico City last November, Alejandro and I visited a colonial mansion known as "La Casa de Bola".  In the twentieth century the house had been acquired by a wealthy and eccentric fellow by the name of Antonio Hagenbeck.  Hagenbeck restored the house and filled it with his huge collection of antiques.  Prior to his death, he had set up a foundation to administer the house as a private museum.

Hagenbeck owned two other historic properties which today are also museums operated by the Hagenbeck Foundation.  On Sunday we visited one of them, the former Hacienda de Santa Mónica.  The hacienda is located in Tlalnepantla, a city of over 600,000 people which is today a part of metropolitan Mexico City.  (It's a bit hard to imagine a city of 600,000 as a suburb, but in this megalopolis of over 20 million people, one municipality runs into another.)

The hacienda was founded in 1573, in an era in which this was a largely rural, agricultural area.  The estate was for a portion of its history owned by the Augustinian order of monks, and it was named Santa Mónica in honor of the mother of St. Augustine.  It was one of the largest and most important haciendas in the region, and it produced much of the wheat used by Mexico City.  Attached to the main house, there was a mill which used the water power of the river flowing next to it.  By the nineteenth century, the hacienda had fallen into decline.  In the 1940s, Hagenbeck bought the decaying hacienda house which was now surrounded by the growing city of Tlalnepantla.  He restored the house, filled it with yet more antiques, and made it one of his residences.

It would seem that Hagenbeck lived in the wrong century.  He surrounded himself with furnishings from earlier eras, and his political inclinations seem unbelievable for a person of the twentieth century.  He firmly believed that monarchy was the best form of government.  He sympathized with the ill fated monarchs Louis XVi and Marie Antoinette of France, and Maximilian and Carlota of Mexico.  Their portraits hang in his houses. 

Although he was an eccentric who lived in a fantasy world, we can thank Señor Hagenbeck for saving some historic properties from likely destruction.

 The exterior of the hacienda house

The large courtyard of the house

(Unfortunately, photography is not permitted in the rooms of the house.)

 Behind the house are gardens which were laid out by Hagenbeck in the "romantic style".  Today they are rather sad and overgrown.

 

 

Getting Out of the Apartment

Since I arrived in Mexico City last Tuesday, I have been under the weather with a cold, and I have not been venturing out of the apartment much.  Although my cold is still lingering, I feel much better now.  Yesterday, Saturday, I finally broke my self-imposed confinement.  Alejandro took me to his parents' house for a visit with his family.  

On the way, we stopped for breakfast at a chain restaurant... a chain whose name I shall not mention lest I be chastised by a couple of my regular readers.  Ha! Ha!.  In our defense, it was convenient, and I had a couple of coupons from a previous visit.  We actually had a very good breakfast.  I ordered a new item on the menu, "enchiladas yucatecas".  I'm not sure that there was anything authentically Yucatecan about the enchiladas, but they had a very nice sauce that was a combination of sweet and sour and "picante"

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The Christmas decorations are still up at Alejandro's parents' house.  It is not unusual for Mexican families to leave the "nacimiento" (Nativity scene) up until the 2nd of February for the religious feast of "Candelaria".  That is the official end of the Christmas season in Mexico.

I had a nice day with Alejandro's family.  They always make me feel very welcome and like a part of the family.  We had a simple but tasty afternoon dinner of roast chicken.

While we were there, Alejandro took me to a little, hole-in-the-wall jewelry shop not far from the house.  The band on my watch was broken, and the fellow at the shop quickly repaired it for the equivalent of 75 cents!

In the evening Alejandro had an invitation to attend the birthday party of a friend and former colleague of his... and I tagged along.  (In Mexico, no one minds if an extra guest shows up.)  The "birthday girl" recently moved into a new apartment complex far off on the southwestern side of Mexico City, and Alejandro would have never found the place without his GPS.  The event was held in the building's party room.  There was a  karaoke machine, and Alejandro sang a number of songs.  

I was willing to give it a try, but I really don't know many current Mexican pop songs.  Looking through the list of songs, we finally found a few traditional melodies, and Alejandro and I sang "Cielito Lindo" (Ay... ay... ay ay) together.

Today we have some sightseeing planned.  In spite of my frequent trips, there are still places in the Mexico City area which I have not seen!  

Under the Weather

Before I left for Mexico, I had read that this year's flu shots were not very effective.  I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn't get the flu right before my departure.  Fortunately, I didn't get sick, and I was fine throughout our stay in Oaxaca.  

Then on our last night in Oaxaca, I had a sore throat.  The next day, on the bus to Mexico City, the sore throat had diminished but I was coughing.  By my first full day in Mexico City, the sore throat was gone, but I was coughing, sneezing and sniffling.  I have no fever and I don't feel too terrible, so I don't think I have the flu... just a common cold.  

I have not been doing much.  I went to the laundry to drop off a bag of dirty clothes, and to the nearby Sumesa Supermarket for bottled water and orange juice.  In the evening, when Alejandro is done with work, we go out somewhere for supper.  But for the most part, I have just been hanging out in the apartment.  

Winter is the cold and flu season in Mexico too.  Alejandro's mother, sister, and his four year old nephew all have "la gripa".  ("Gripa" literally translates as the flu, but it is used for any cold-like, flu-like illness.)  So if Alejandro gets sick, it won't necessarily be my fault!

 

The Sounds of the City

Obviously in Mexico City, a city of twenty million people, there is going to be a lot of noise... police and ambulance sirens, dogs barking, the constant hum of traffic, and incessant car horns at rush hour.  (It seems as if Mexicans think that blasting their horns will somehow make the traffic move faster.)

There are, however, many sounds in Mexican cities which are unique, and which almost add a touch of poetry to the cacophony.  If you hear a man coming down your street ringing a bell, he isn't telling you to go to church or to school, nor is he the town crier.  He is telling you that the garbage man is coming.  In Mexico City garbage cans are placed out by the street, and in the apartment buildings, the staff take care of putting the garbage out.  However in Oaxaca, the residents come out and throw their bags of garbage into the truck themselves.  On the street where we stayed the garbage man came three days a week usually around 6:30 AM.  On those days I would be awakened by the clanging bell, and I would throw on some clothes, and go out with the other neighbors with a bag of garbage.

In Mexico City there are trucks which drive through the neighborhoods with a loud-speaker recording of a woman droning, "Colchones, refrigeradores, estufas..."   If you have any old mattresses, kitchen appliances or other household items that you want to get rid of, they will buy them from you and load them on their truck.

Men making household deliveries of large jugs of purified water will cry out, "Aguaaaaa".  Almost every day there will be a vendor with a cart going down the street selling "Tamales oaxaqueños!"  In Oaxaca, however, they just yell, "Tamales!", since it's assumed that their tamales will be Oaxacan tamales.

Usually after dark there will be a vendor selling "camotes", a kind of sweet potato candy.  His cart has a steam whistle.  The whistle gives a haunting, even eerie tone to the night. Once you have heard the "camote" vendor, you will never forget that sound.  In Mérida, there was a young fellow on a bicycle selling bread every night.  He would ring his little bicycle bell as he passed down the street. 

In Oaxaca there are two gas companies that sell tanks of propane to their residential customers.  If you are a customer of Gas Milenio, you will know that the truck is coming because it has a chain with metal rings at the back.  As the chain scrapes across the street, it almost sounds like jingle bells.  Most hilarious is Gas de Oaxaca.  Their trucks have a loud-speaker recording of a cow mooing.  Is their gas 100% pure cow farts?! 

Oaxaca Postscript - Fine Dining and the Battle of the "Moles"

On Monday, our last night in Oaxaca, Jane and I had one of our best dining experiences of the trip... and we brought to a close our battle of the "moles".

The restaurant was "Catedral".  I had never eaten there before, partly because it is one those upscale, gourmet restaurants that are highly touted. 

I'm headed off on a tangent here, but I tend to avoid restaurants that are billed as "trendy', or "innovative" or are praised to the high heavens as one of the places one "must" eat.  I do not mind an expensive restaurant if the dining experience is excellent, but I have been disappointed numerous times by the so-called "in" places.  And that has happened to me twice in Oaxaca.

Some years ago, a friend and I went to Casa Oaxaca which is supposed to be one of the best (and priciest) restaurants in the city.  Our bill came to over $100 US for the two of us.  (And there was not much of a bar tab... we perhaps had one sangría each.)  Our food was good, but nothing exceptional... nothing that we couldn't have had somewhere else for a more moderate price.  The only thing "exceptional" about the place was that the rooftop terrace was so dark that we had to use a flashlight to eat our supper!  (I will admit that on this latest trip, when we passed Casa Oaxaca, it looked as if they had installed lights on the terrace.)

On this trip, Jane and I went to a new place called "Zicanda".  One of the other students at the cooking class we attended went into raptures about how wonderful this place is, so we thought we would give it a try.  My first clue should have been the description "contemporary Oaxacan cuisine"... in other words, "We're going to tinker with traditional recipes, although it might not turn out as good as the original."  The menu was very limited, and there wasn't a lot that appealed to me.  I had black bean soup as a starter... I've had tastier soup at Sanborns!  Our main courses were not bad, but this is one of those places where the main courses look more like "tapas".  Jane's stuffed chicken breast consisted of three small slices of meat, tightly rolled up, filled with stuffing, set upright on the plate, and surrounded by five green beans and a few roasted potatoes the size of marbles. (Oh, and one of the ingredients in the stuffing was "chapulines"... grasshoppers.  Jane said she couldn't even taste the grasshoppers.  So why put them in the stuffing in the first place?  Oh, that's right, grasshoppers have become trendy.)  I went to TripAdvisor and saw the reviews of Zicanda... most of them are rave reviews.  What am I missing?  Or is it that most people don't want to see the Emperor's New Clothes for what they really are?

Oh well, let's get back to the topic at hand... our final meal in Oaxaca at Restaurante Catedral.  This is what fine dining should be all about.  The ambience in the courtyard of a colonial building was beautiful.  A guitarist / vocalist performed nicely subdued music. 

 

The service was excellent, correct but not pretentious.  I could joke with the waiters and elicit a smile.

For starters Jane had Oaxacan soup, and I had "tamal de elote" (corn tamale) served with cream.  Both were delicious.

(photo taken by Jane)

The menu included all seven of Oaxaca's famous "mole" sauces.  Darn!  We could have checked off the entire list by coming here repeatedly.  We both ordered "manchamanteles" (literally, "tablecloth stainer"), a wonderful sauce served over pork.  The only negative thing that I can say about the entire meal was that the pork was a bit tough... and I probably would not have noticed that it they had set out steak knives.  Everything was delicious!

So this brings us to the final score of the Battle of the "Moles".  Jane, during our two weeks in Oaxaca, tried six of the seven moles. (But remember, at one restaurant she had a "mole" sampler that included four different sauces.)  I only had a paltry four "moles".  Jane is the victor!

(photo by Jane)

 

For dessert we had "espuma de tejate" (a corn beverage called "tejate" whipped into a foam) and served over "mamey" sorbet ("mamey" is a unique tropical fruit).  Wonderful.  This was an innovative creation that really worked.

 

To finish it off, we had "café de olla"... Mexican coffee flavored with cinnamon and brown sugar.  It was the smoothest "café de olla" I have ever had.

Our bill was the highest of our entire trip... 880 pesos.  But at today's very favorable exchange rate, that came to a whopping $30 per person.  You could never have a dining experience like that in the United States for a price like that!

Restaurante Catedral has our recommendation as one of the best places to eat in Oaxaca!

I know that Jane, who is back in Ohio now, will be reading this...
Hi, Jane!  I really enjoyed our trip to Oaxaca!  We will have to go back someday!
 
   

On to Mexico City

Yesterday Jane and I left Oaxaca.  Jane flew home to Ohio, and I took a bus to Mexico City where I will spend three more weeks away from the cold north of the border.

I took the ADO-GL bus line from Oaxaca to Mexico.  ADO (the letters stand for "Autobuses del Oriente"... "Buses of the East") is one of Mexico's largest first class bus lines, and their routes cover most major cities to the east and south of Mexico City.  I have been traveling on ADO since the 1970s, and it is a safe, reliable and comfortable bus line.

In the 1990s, ADO began its "GL" service.  I'm not sure what the letters "GL" stand for, but it might be "Gran Lujo" (Great Luxury).  The GL buses go beyond the normal comfort of the ordinary ADO buses.  They are better than riding first class on an airline, and are great for traveling long distances.  (ADO started an even more luxurious line called "Platino" - "Platinum", but I have not yet had the opportunity to ride one of those buses.)  I bought my ticket about a week ahead of time, and there was a special promotion going on.  My ticket cost only 412 pesos (only $28 US!)

(photo taken from the web)

My ADO-GL bus left promptly from Oaxaca's first-class bus station at 10:30 A.M.  The 6.5 hour journey crosses the mountains of the Sierra Madre del Sur.  The scenery at times (especially in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca) was quite spectacular... rugged mountains peaks covered with cactii.  The highway is a relatively new toll road.  Even though it is only a two lane road, it cuts quite a bit of time off of the old, twisting road that went through every town along the way.  I can only imagine what an arduous, interminable journey it must have been in colonial times!

My friend Alejandro met me at the bus station in Mexico City, and drove me to the apartment that I have rented for my stay here.  

So here I am, once again, in one of the world's largest cities.  The sky is a bit smoggy today, but the expected high temperature is 77... a big improvement over the weather right now in Ohio!

 

Our Last Day in Oaxaca

Today is our last day in Oaxaca.  Early tomorrow morning Jane must go to the airport for her flight home, and a little later I will go to the bus station to make the six hour trip to Mexico City.

Our first order of business this morning, even before breakfast, was to ship Jane's surfeit of souvenirs back to Ohio.  We went first to a UPS office several blocks down the avenue from our apartment.  However, unlike our UPS Stores back in the United States, here they do not sell boxes.  As we crossed the street we happened upon a DHL office.  They do shipping and also supply boxes.  Jane had wrapped her pieces of pottery and wood carvings very carefully with newspaper and bubble wrap.  The lady at DHL also lined the box with more bubble wrap.  The box was fully packed with very little room for movement during shipment, so we are hopeful that everything will arrive intact.

After successfully completing our mission, we then continued on for a late breakfast.  We found a nice little place called Café Arabia not far away.  Jane had "molletes" for the first time.  "Molletes" are crusty rolls split open, and covered with "frijoles" and melted cheese.  They are very tasty, and Jane enjoyed them.

After breakfast we did a bit more exploring in the city.  We walked a few blocks to the neighborhood known as Jalatlaco.  In colonial times it was the neighborhood for the indigenous Zapotec people... the Spanish did not want the natives living in the center of the city.  

Like most neighborhoods, it is anchored by the parish church.  The church of San Matías Jalatlaco dates back to the 17th century.

The neighborhood is quite picturesque.  It is a traditional neighborhood with a small town atmosphere, especially on the quiet side streets.  It also seems to be undergoing a bit of gentrification.  Quite a few homes are very nicely maintained, and others are in the process of being "spiffed up".  The are also a number of little cafés and restaurants that look rather nice.

Can you imagine the hue and cry if you painted your house these colors in most neighborhoods in the United States?  But in Mexico it looks perfect!

 
Lots of bougainvillea were in bloom.

Well, that's all from Oaxaca.  My next post will be from Mexico City.

¡Hasta luego!