Huey Atlixcayotl

Atlixco is a small city about 40 min outside of Puebla, and every Septermber (the 4 Sundays) they host a dance festival called Huey Atlixcayotl, that features traditional dances from the 11 regions of Puebla, and one invited state. All this takes place in an open-air apmitheater that is perched on top of a hill overlooking town. So here are some pictures of the dances and the costumes from Sunday.






These are the voladores that are known in part of the Sierra Norte of Puebla and partes of Veracruz (areas where the Totonaca indiginous group is). I already posted picts from the Papantla, Veracruz trip, but this time I had the big lense so here are a couple more picts, but closer up.

Saturday in Chignahuapan

So after moving our office on Friday, Saturday, Mindy (one of the other Puebla vols) and I headed up to Chignahuapan, a town in the Sierra Norte to visit some “friends” that Mindy had made. The story is that about a month and a half ago, Mindy made a solo journey up to the same town looking for some cabins that she was planning on spending the night in. However, upon arriving in Chignahuapan, she was a bit lost and ended up asking two sisters for direction on what combi to take. They ending up insisting on taking her in the combi to the cabins to make sure she got there alright and then told her to call any time she was back in the area. We were originally planning on going back to those same cabins, but with the recent heavy rains, road conditions have been really bad (in the city too) and so the cabins were inaccessible. So long story short, we arrived in Chignahuapan on Saturday morning and meet up with the two sister’s.

One of the sister's daughter

Random baby in a bucket

After hanging around their house in the morning, we headed outside of town to the Salto de Quetzalpan, a waterfall. So the two sister’s, one of their kids, a boyfriend, and the two gringas piled into a combi and then walked about 3km and a very red dirt road to get to the waterfall and then down and up about 300+ steps. With all the recent rains, the falls were roaring and the river was pretty high.

The whole group on the road

Upper falls

After the waterfalls we headed back to town for a comida of tlacoyas (triangular thing made out of blue corn masa and filled with a type of bean). On this occasion, they were put in a bowl, drowned with green salsa, and then topped off with lettuce, onions, cheese, and cecina. And as the fog rolled in (literally by the time we left you could barely see 10 feet in front of you), we spent the rest of the afternoon stuffed and chatting before returning to Puebla.

Tlacoyas

Baby with tlacoyas

Revisiting the baby doctor and Tecali

Janet made the trek to Puebla again this weekend (thank you!) and so Sunday we ended up back in Tepeaca (home of the baby doctor) and Tecali (home of a roofless ex convent). Luckily unlike the last visit to Tecali, the weather was georgous and sunny. So here are a few picts from the weekend.

¡Viva Mexico!

The 16th of September is Independence Day in Mexico. This day celebrates Mexico’s Independence from Spain that began with the grito (cry or yell) of independence given by Miguel hidalgo in Dolores, Guanjuato (now called Dolores de Hidalgo) that lead to the start of the war of Independence.
For weeks now the streets of Puebla have been decorated with flags, banners, and everyone red, white, and green. Vendors with push carts have been selling flags, hats, jewelry, jalepeno pepper ornaments with bottles of tequila, noise makers, and all sorts of other stuff on every street corner. Here is me with some of the decorations.

The big night for the celebration is the night of the 15th. The official grito is in Mexico City at midnight, but all the individual gritos in the states must be finished before the one in Mexico City (side note here, because Calderon won the presidency, but lost the popular vote, the candidate that won the popular vote also did his own grito). So the grito in Puebla took place at 10:30pm in the zocalo that night. There were some other vols in town so we all met up for a little Independence Day party and then headed over to the zocalo to squeeze into a good viewing location to see the governor. Basically the governor appears from one of the windows of the municipal palace and gives the grito which ends with “Viva Puebla (obviously this varies depending on the state you live in) and Viva Mexico”. Then the zocalo breaks out in a snowstorm of shaving cream and confetti (a combination that is not so forgiving on white clothes). And of course, because what would a celebration in Mexico be without fireworks, there was a huge firework display over the cathedral choreographed to music from the orchestra.

Crowd in the zocalo.

The flag ceremony inside the municipal palace.

The governor and mayor giving the Grito.

Cuetzalan, Puebla

To kick off an Independence Day puente (long weekend), Kurt and I took a trip to Cuetzalan in the Sierra Norte (mountainous northern region of Puebla). After about a 2 hour drive through flat semi-desert, the rest of the trip was in the mountains and had some spectacular views of canyons and waterfalls in the tropical (almost cloud forestish) region. The Sierra Norte (also where some of my work is based) is known for its natural features like waterfalls and caves, as well as coffee and its large indigenous population (Nahua).
We camped at a hotel just on the edge of the city and wandered around town on Saturday afternoon, thinking we’d save some nearby ruins and waterfalls for the next day. Unfortunately, there was a huge rain storm practically the whole morning on Sunday. Luckily, with the good coffee selection from the area, spending some time in cafes sampling coffee was good, but it made for a very damp trip to the ruins of Yohualichan.

The streets during the rain.

About a 30 min combi ride outside of Cuetzalan, are the ruins of Yohualichan. These ruins are very similar in construction to those at El Tajin near Papantla, Veracruz, and are believed to have been build by the same Totonacas. One theory is that they first built the ruins in Puebla, and then moved east to Veracruz to construct El Tajin. Despite the constant rain, the trip to the ruins was fun and even a little more picturesque with the fog and clouds in the background. On the way back, we decided to walk most of the way out to the main road, getting soaked in the process, but finding some more amazing views of the foggy trees and some flowers (like the clumps of ginger lining the road). Then it was back to Puebla with a bunch of soaking wet camping gear to begin the Independence Day festivities.

Road to the ruins

Weekend in San Luis Potosi

After the conference, I continued my trend of hitching rides with other offices, and this time returned with the delegation in San Luis Potosi to the city of San Luis Potosi (about 2.5 hours north of Queretaro, and an 8 hour drive from Cd. Guzman).

Route: Puebla to Metztitlan to Ciudad Guzman to San Luis Potosi to Puebla......

The road up to SLP had been flooded the whole week and there were still some portions under a significant amount of water as well as a bunch of over turned trucks. At some point too, we got sandwiched in the middle of a long line of about 25 pick-up trucks, each one with about 5 men all carrying large guns. We’re gonna just hope that they were police officers out of uniform, but it was a tense 20 min until they had all passed us.

SLP is a cute colonial city that has a bunch of nice plazas, parks, churches, and museums. So Saturday was the normal wander around and see the city, the train station, candy store…. followed by a sushi dinner with some fellow vols (1st time for sushi in a very very long time….).

Sunday morning, there were old cars on display outside the regional museum. As we were looking at all of them, we started chatting with the owner of one of the cars and a few minutes later were seated in a 1929 Ford and leaving on a small parade through the downtown area. Turns out the guy we talked to was the president of the antique car association in SLP and the organizer of the event. According to him there are only 3 things that really matter in life: women, old cars, and beautiful buildings (can you guess what his profession is??). I have never really been that into old cars, but riding in the front seat of one, definitely gives you a different view of the hobby and the cars.

View of the main plaza from inside the car.

Inside of the car.

This was the oldest (and most expensive $300,000 USD) car in the parade.

Sunday afternoon I headed back to Puebla (about 7ish hours) and this time instead of a hot dog truck, a candy truck had fallen off a cliff on the highway, but before it went all the way to the ravine, part of its cargo of candy had been deposited and so of course most of the traffic jam was caused by traffic stopped to collect boxes of candy.