Greetings from Tehuacán

Views from our hotel

February 5th is Constitution Day, but it is observed on Monday to create a three day weekend.  (The Mexicans refer to it as a "puente", a bridge.)  Alejandro and I decided to take advantage of his day off, and go on a road trip.  We decided on Tehuacán, a city about four hours from Mexico City in the state of Puebla near the border with the state of Oaxaca.  I have passed through Tehuacán in the past on bus rides between the capital  and Oaxaca, but I have never visited it.  Although it is a city of around 250,000 inhabitants, it doesn't have that much to recommend it as a tourist destination.  However there a few sights in the vicinity that we wanted to see.  In my next several posts I will write about what there is to see in the area of Tehuacán. 

I Have My Tickets!

I wrote in an earlier post that I wanted to see that acclaimed but elusive movie "Roma".  In spite of its ten Academy Award nominations it is not in general release down here.  However, it is playing in a little neighborhood cinema that is just a few blocks from the boyhood home of the director Alfonso Cuarón located (where else?) in the neighborhood of  Roma.  

Today I set out for Cine Tonalá.  If not for the sign outside you would never suspect that this little hole in the wall is a movie theater.  Inside the entrance is a small café and bar, and the ticket window is beyond that.

"Roma" is only being screened seven times in the month of February.  Three of those showings are after I have already left Mexico City.  Alejandro wants to see it with me, so that means that it has to be on a weekend when we have nothing else planned.  That pretty much left us with one option… Sunday, February 10th at 8:00 PM.  I didn't know if they would sell tickets that far in advance, but I didn't want to risk finding out that they were sold out.

I went up to the ticket window, and there was no problem buying tickets for the 10th.  To give you an idea how small the theater is, I chose seats that are half-way back, and we are only in row D.  And the price when compared to cinemas in the U.S. was a real bargain.  Each ticket cost only 60 pesos... about $3!

Heavy Souvenirs

Tourism as we know it today is a relatively recent phenomenon.  The idea of vacationing abroad started in the 18th century when the British aristocracy began taking a "Grand Tour" of the continent.  A favorite destination was Italy where the travelers marveled at the art of the ancient Romans.  Just as today, the tourists bought souvenirs to take home.  But they didn't purchase little trinkets to pack in their bags; they purchased Roman statuary to ship back to Britain.

The National Anthropology Museum currently has a special exhibit with a quite impressive collection of classical statues collected by British travelers on their tour of the continent.  The pieces on exhibit are primarily Roman from the first and second centuries A.D., and most are on loan from a number of museums and collections in the United Kingdom. 

Here is a sampling of items in the exhibit...

"Lion Attacking a Bull"

carving from a Roman sarcophagus

the mythological god of medicine, Asclepius

Silenus, the god of drunkenness

"The Abduction of Persephone"

Roman busts

"The Punishment of Prometheus"

The exhibit runs until April 28th, and admission is free.

Blossom Time

Early spring is the time when thousands upon thousands of jacaranda trees are in bloom in Mexico City.  It´s only the beginning of February, but I have already seen a couple of the trees in full bloom.

Obviously winter in Mexico City is nothing compared with what people north of the border are enduring.  But in the crisp January mornings when the temperatures were in the 40s Fahrenheit, you would see the children on their way to school bundled up with scarves and gloves and caps as if they were facing an Arctic blast.  Perhaps we are now on our way to springtime.  Not only have some of the jacarandas bloomed prematurely, but the forecast for next week is calling for highs of 80 degrees or above. 

Pre-Dawn

Alejandro sent me this photo which he took from his house today.  The volcanoes "Izta" and "Popo" are clearly silhouetted against the early morning sky.

A Whole Lot of Books

On Tuesday afternoon, after a lot of walking, I took refuge in a large bookstore in the Condesa neighborhood.  The store had a café, so I ordered a chocolate malted, sat down and rested my legs for a while.  The bookstore is part of a chain called "Fondo de Cultura Económica".  It's a large and modern store, and, after I finished my malted, I spent a considerable amount of time looking at books as well as their sizeable collection of movie DVDs and music CDs.  I didn't buy anything, but I had fun browsing.

I later did some research on the "Fondo de Cultura Económica".  It is a non-profit, government subsidized publishing company.  It was founded in 1934 with the purpose of providing books in Spanish for students at the National School of Economics.  They soon expanded into publishing works in the areas of social sciences, humanities, science, literature as well as books for children and young people.  Over their more than 80 years of existence they have published more than 10,000 titles.  They have been the publisher for a number of famous authors of modern Mexican literature, and they have translated many foreign works into Spanish. 

The bookstores they operate are of a fairly scholarly nature.  You don't see displays of the latest "Top 10 Bestsellers" or paperback romance novels.  Not all of the merchandise is published by their own company...  obviously not the DVDs and CDs.  The "Fondo de Cultura Económica" has 17 stores in Mexico City and 20 others throughout the country.

Besides the "Fondo de Cultura Económica" there are three other major bookstore chains in Mexico City... El Péndulo, Porrúa and Gandhi... and numerous smaller shops.  It's nice to see that bookstores are thriving here in Mexico City.

Random Shots in Roma

Here are some photos of odds and ends that caught my eye yesterday when I walked to the neighborhood of Roma Sur...

I took the "Ecoducto", the garden lined pedestrian path that follows the median strip of the Miguel Alemán freeway.

Here's one of the iris which are in bloom along the "Ecoducto".  I thought that my readers in the frozen north might like something to remind them that spring will arrive in a couple months.

I got off of the "Ecoducto" at Medellin Avenue, one of the main streets in Roma Sur.

A taco joint along Medellin had some humorous sayings on its awning...

"A taco a day is the key to happiness."

"My body says gym, my heart... five (tacos) with everything."

This van parked along a side street is from a business that sells foliage, both live and artificial, for green walls and rooftops.  I was compelled to touch the foliage on the van.  It was artificial.

A flowering bush cascading down a wall on a pleasant Roma street.

An interesting painting on the wall of a stationery shop.  (Do stationery shops even exist anymore in the U.S.?)

The painting is called "The Tree of Hope".

"History" is written at its roots, "Equality" along its trunk, and "Justice" and "Health" to either side.

Finally, I have shown you a couple photos of men holding advertising banners in the middle of the street when the light turns red.  A more common sight is to see performers, usually jugglers, in the street.  Before the light turns green, they go to the cars hoping for a few pesos from the motorists.  I gave this older gentleman five pesos before taking a video of him.