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| The butcher areas of the markets are always the most interesting, even though I don't really like eating meat, and I especially can't handle eating pieces of meat that look like what they were when they were alive. I've always been squeamish that way -- so it's weird that I find the butcher areas so fascinating. They're so busy, and each country has its own characteristic kinds of protein on display. In Southeast Asia, there are usually flies on the meat, and every market rings with the loud whacking of cleavers against wooden boards. |
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| Mole poblano! We were definitely on a quest to bring home mole. It was tempting to get some here, at our first stop, but we didn't want to schlep it all around, and planned instead to buy some at the big market in Mexico City. Still.....always fabulous to see the giant buckets o' mole. |
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| Plenty of pig in Mexican markets, and nearly always including whole pig heads. |
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| Also: PLENTY of tripe. For menudo and other dishes too, I'm sure -- I'm just only familiar with menudo. |
When we returned to El Chiringuito, the man who had served us the night before recognized us -- maybe because I was grinning and trying to catch his eye so I could wave to him. We had a different server the second night, friendly enough, but by then I'd learned how to communicate a little better so I was less ... well, ... begging in my style. I still always started out each effort with, "No habla Espanol, lo siento, un poquito solamente." (If you speak Spanish you might get a sense of my fractured word choices and syntax.) I'd always start that way, with a big smile and opened hands, and inevitably they'd pause a second -- probably slightly confused by my awkwardness -- and then do their best to help me out. But as is true everywhere and to everyone, despite the clear indication that I spoke no Spanish, they'd still just habla habla habla en Espanol, and I'd smile and shrug, and they'd continue on. Still, we made our way. And again we had their delicious tacos al pastor, and again a cubana torta, and again I had an Indio cerveza -- barrio de los muertos!
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| BARRIOS DE LOS MUERTOS. It wasn't my favorite beer in the world, but I was a sucker for the label. |
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| As it would turn out, these would be my favorite tacos I ate in Mexico. We ate more tacos al pastor in Mexico City and they were great (tacos al pastor = great), but each place twists the details. Here, the schmear of a smoky adobe/chipotle sauce underneath the meat added so much. |
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| One thing about having only one data point is not knowing which direction the line will point. We were in Cuernavaca at the tail end of the Day of the Dead celebrations, so I assume this skeleton mannequin, dressed for those celebrations, was a temporary decoration and not always standing at the door greeting people. The name of the restaurant, El Chiringuito, translates to "The Beach Bar," so its probably temporary....unless they'll soon dress it in beach wear. Who knows! |
From Cuernavaca, we took a taxi to Tepoztlan, a ~30-minute drive, so we didn't have any big rush or deadline on our final morning in Cuernavaca. We started our day off with huevos rancheros, after realizing we could just order eggs as we wanted them, instead of having enchiladas again (as great as those were!).
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| huevos rancheros in Austin are usually loaded up with all sorts of stuff, but these were just so light and delicious. Beautifully runny yolks. A light and fresh ranchero sauce. And plenty of that wonderful green sauce dribbled over. I wanted another warm corn tortilla to wipe the plate, but I might just have embarrassed myself. |
We had no destination in mind, so we just set off to ramble. One thing I didn't like about the hotel was that we had to get someone to let us out and let us back in each time we left. Marc reminded me that we were perfectly safe, behind the gigantic locked gate of the hotel compound (which had originally been the home of the woman who runs the place), but I still always disliked that process. It also seemed strange to everyone at the hotel that we just walked wherever we went. Uber is extremely popular in Mexico, and cabs are easy to find, and most people seem to have cars, but we love to walk on vacation so we can have a felt memory and sense of the place. You see more, notice more, when you're on foot.
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| Marc is checking our route on his phone app, just outside the walls of our hotel. |
We were wandering around the neighborhood and passed what looked like a cemetery, although the walls were high and we couldn't be perfectly sure. We found a gate in the tall wall and went in.
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| I saw these dried flower crosses on most of the doors -- maybe associated with Day of the Dead? The flowers are wilted just about that amount. I'll always think of Mexico when I see marigolds, now -- they're everywhere. |
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| The graves are cram-jammed into place, and in no apparent order in terms of rows. Wherever there is enough space, at whatever relation to the surrounding graves, a new one is jammed into place. There were places in the cemetery where it was impossible to pass without walking on a grave. Sometimes there was a path the width of your foot, but sometimes even that was non-existent. |
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| Poinsettias are just a wild, native plant in Mexico. This tremendous bush made me feel like something had gone very, very wrong with a house plant. |
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| The family of this person left plenty of food and drinks. Fruit, sure, and what looks like a soft drink, but also something more fast-foody in that styrofoam container and a can of Modelo to wash it down. |
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| I always have this ridiculous response, when we're traveling, to seeing Pizza Huts and Kentucky Fried Chicken places. Like, what is that doing here? Or when I see a Chinese food restaurant. This is Mexico! (Or Vietnam! Or Cambodia!) What are they doing with that kind of food here? And then of course a microsecond later I remind myself that they just want a nice piece of fried chicken too, or some dumplings. It was a similar thing when I saw Halloween decorations -- wait! They have that lovely Day of the Dead stuff going on, why trick it out with gaudy plastic Halloween crap? But they just like a shiny black and orange bit of decoration too. |
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| This cemetery also gave me the idea that perhaps Mexicans can be more playful about death -- maybe the Day of the Dead as a central annual event means that death is more of a presence in life, or something. This grave had little vignettes with frogs. One frog held a sign that said Bienvenidos! (Welcome!), and these two were having one for the road. |
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| This felt surprising, in such a deeply Catholic country. The abundance of Stars of David on this grave made a loud point. There was one more grave with a smaller Star of David, lower to the ground. |
When we checked out, we asked the people at the hotel to call us a taxi, por favor. (Boy did our lack of Spanish make things hard.....and translation apps can be surprisingly worthless.) As gracious and thoughtful and kind as the hotel staff and owners had been, our leaving was fumbled to that same degree. They seemed to call a taxi, and we waited...and waited...and waited...and meanwhile one taxi after another passed the hotel. We could've just walked out of the hotel and flagged one down and been done with it. Marc kept trying to figure out what was going on, and I kept trying to get my app to provide a decent translation of "WHAT IS GOING ON." Finally we got a cab (still not sure if it had anything to do with the hotel's efforts) and we were off to Tepoztlan. Our driver avoided the toll highway and took us through one tiny town after another, each with backed-up traffic, but that gave me plenty of time to look around so I was happy anyway.
At the end, what I'll remember of Cuernavaca is that it's an exceptionally beautiful city that reminded me in many ways of San Francisco. I'll remember all the Day of the Dead decorations in the area around the zocalo. And I'll remember those fabulous tacos at El Chiringuito, and the waiter the first night who kindly tried to help us reduce our order to a reasonable human proportion. I'll remember Cuernavaca with a smile.
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