Rainy weekend in Xalapa, Coatepec, and Xico

Early Saturday morning I got on a bus and went to Xalapa, the capital of the neighboring state of Veracruz. I’ve been to Xalapa numerous for work, but never had a chance to see most of the sites. After dropping my stuff at the hostel, I first headed to the botanic garden. Xalapa is at a lower elevation than Puebla and has a much more tropical climate.

I’ve never seen anything like this before and I’m not sure that it shows up in the picture, but all the thin, black things are spider legs. There was a huge mass of spiders on this tree, more than I have ever seen together at any one time in my life.

After the garden, I went to a town called Xico that is famous for its mole and its July running of the bulls. Before heading into town, I decided to walk out to a nearby waterfall (Cascada de Texolo). The 2ish km walk was on a cute cobble stone road that meandered through banana trees and coffee plants.

Coffee

Cascada Texolo

I got stuck in a full on down pour walking back from the waterfall and ended up having to hide out under a small roof for an hour until it passed. Then it was into the town of Xico to buy some mole before heading to Coatepec.

Coatepec is another small town (and a Pueblo Magico) that is known for its coffee. The whole town pretty much smells like coffee and there is a roaster or a coffee store on every block.

I spent a cold Sunday morning wandering around Xalapa and visiting the anthropology museum that features sculptures, jewelry, and skulls from the various ruins throughout Veracruz.

Casa Ecologíca

As a side project for one of the regional land use planning projects we are working on, we are looking to develop a sustainable community project that involves the use of eco-technologies. On Tuesday, we went to visit IMTA (Instituto Mexicano de Tecnología del Agua = Mexican Institute of Water Technology) in Jiutepec, Morelos to see their ecological house and talk to them about the huge community based eco-technology project that are currently promoting in Patzcuaro. The website for their model house can be found here…..
http://www.imta.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=447&Itemid=55.

This is a general diagram of the system (if you can make it out)

Obviously in communities, the project focuses on retrofitting existing houses, but for the model at IMTA, they built a brand new house out of adobe. So the house features solar panels for electricity and for heating water, rainwater capture, an ecological bathroom, and ecological sink and place to wash clothes, a mini-wetland treatment system, and finally a family orchard that receives the treated grey water from the house. The treated water is pumped into the orchard through an irrigation system powered by a bicycle.

Water heater

Treatment for the water from the sink and from washing clothes
Me on the bicycle pump (bicibomba)
The "orchard". They had just finished harvesting so it looks a little bare (and flooded from the storm the night before)
Solar disinfector for drinking water

Director of Mexico's National Park Service visits Puebla

On Wenesday, Ernesto Enkerlin the director of CONANP (Mexico’s National Park Service) came to visit a natural protected area in the northern part of the state of Puebla (it also extends into the neighboring state of Hidalgo). The parks’ full name is Área de Protección de Recursos Naturales: Cuenca Hidrográica del Río Necaxa (Area for the Protection of Natural Resources: Watershed of the river Nexaca). We have been fairly involved in this area of the state through our work on the Ordenamiento (regional land use plan) for the watershed of the rivers Necaxa and Laxaxalpan. We also have 13 municipal ordenamientos currently underway in the region as well. The first stop on the trip was to visit a community mushroom growing project. The couple running the project actually received their check from the director that day.

Sterilization is one of the key concerns when trying to start a mushroom project. The mushrooms eventually grow out of hay placed in plastic bags that have been inoculated with mushroom spores, but the hay must be boiled and disinfected first. People working with the mushrooms usually wear plastic bags over their shoes and face masks.

As a complementary project, the same group has also started a small ornamental plant nursery.

We then made a quick stop to see a reforestation project funded by PEMEX.

The last stop, before finishing the day at a restaurant for some mushroom soup and grilled meat, was at a reservoir called Tejocotal that is actually in the state of Hidalgo. This is one of the reservoirs used by the electric company Luz y Fuerza del Centro (LFC) (it’s an entity of the federal government) to provide hydroelectric power to the region. The Necaxa Natural Protected Area was basically created to protect the production of hydroelectricity. The idea is that if you protect the watershed, you will ensure that water is still arriving at the reservoirs and if the land remains forested, the reservoirs will have a longer life time before they fill with sediments. LFC has worked on a lot of environmental projects in the area, including reforestations, the declaration of several of their reservoirs as RAMSAR sites, and trash clean-up. Unfortunately, the future of LFC is a little up in the air…. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/11/mexico.utility.company.raid/index.html. The Puebla offices mentioned in this article are where we have had most of our meetings related to the Regional Ordenamiento. All in all a good day and a chance to see a little bit more of the natural protected area.

An Early Morning Trip to Cuetzalan: Feria de Cafe y Huipil

After spending Friday driving around the area of study for our Valsequillo project with one of the Peace Corps staff, I spent Saturday stuffing my face with tacos al pastor at Adriana’s borther’s birthday party. He hired one of the tacos vendor to set up in his house, which can definitely lead to consuming more tacos than really necessary. Bright and early at 5am on Sunday morning, Adriana, her daughter and I, as well as another pc vol and his girlfriend, headed out on a tour to Cuetzalan. The 4^th of October (Sunday) is the saint’s day for San Francisco de Assisi, the patron saint of Cuetzalan. In honor of this, they host the Feria de Café y Huipil (Fair of coffee). The problem with going to the fair for the whole weekend is that the hotels sell out and double and triple their prices, which is how we settled on a tour. The first stop was the town of Zaxapoaxtla, in the Sierra Norte of Puebla. The town is famous for 2 things, tlayoyos (which we ate for breakfast) and it’s participation in the battle of 5 de mayo. Adriana’s grandfather is supposedly buried in the town’s cemetery, but our brief search didn’t turn up his grave.

Tlayoyos!

Mushroom season is beginning, but I’ve been warned on numerous occasions to only buy mushrooms that you can identify since evidently they end up selling poisonous mushrooms in the market.

After that we have a quick stop at a waterfall called Cascada de Olla. Probably better to have headed right to Cuetzalan, but oh well. (the tour was actually cheaper than paying roundtrip bus fare)

We finally arrived in Cuetzalan for the fair. We headed directly to the church on the town plaza. Cuetzalan is a highly indigenous municipality and on Sundays, one of the masses is given in the local indigenous language. People pour into town from the surrounding villages for mass and for the Sunday market. We entered the church without problems and found that the archbishop was there to do a year’s worth of confirmations. So as you can imagine the church was packed. In addition, all the dancers that would be dancing throughout the day were in the church….dancing in front of various saints and virgins. Getting turned out be a quite a challenge as there were other people trying to enter for the next mass and in true Mexican fashion, no one wanted to wait in either direction. I almost ended up falling down on a little tiny old woman, and felt bad about it until she clothes lined me with her forearm trying to get into the church. After that it was really everyone for themselves.

Outside the church there was a complete mixing of cultures. Catholic images from San Francisco were mixed with indigenous symbols and as the voladores flew overhead, other dancers were performing at the base of the pole.

We ate a ridiculously large comida…the regional plate that had enchiladas, tlayoyos, cecina, local mushrooms, and beans.

View from the bus on the way home.

We got back at about 9:30 on Sunday night and then on Monday, Adriana and I had a 5pm meeting in Mexico City. Arriving and the meeting went well, but our boss got a little turned around on the way home and we ended up in a semi-sketchy area. We figured asking a taxi driver would be the best idea, too bad we ended up stopping the drunkest taxi driver in Mexico City that night. We finally made it home, but it was almost midnight by the time we arrived.