Mexico City: Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso

I'll be honest: the reason I went here is that it is free on Tuesdays. But sometimes being cheap pays off. El Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso was founded in the 16th century by the Jesuits and has had a long and complicated history. After the Jesuits (along with all other religious orders) were expelled from Mexico in 1767, it housed various governmental offices, secular educational institutions and even, briefly, American troops.

Now, all that matters is that it is beautiful.

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: I love these courtyards. The bustling city streets fade to insignificance in the space of a 10 yard walk, leaving only... this.


The same courtyard, from above. Birds twitter, the wind rustles the leaves, all you can see above is blue sky. So lovely.


And they make for some great hallways.


Oh, man, there has got to be something cool behind a door that awesome.


Sure enough, it is the Cardinals College (or something like that). The basic idea is that when this place was run by the Jesuits, the bigwigs would periodically get together for some chit chat.


And so, of course, they needed insanely beautifully carven chairs on which to rest their religious rumps. Look back at the previous picture. Every single seat in the entire room looks like this. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a better shot of the seats or the other great pieces in this room because I was yelled at for taking pictures. Apparently you have to buy their photos of the really nice stuff.


And at the top of the stairs, a stained glass window. Sure, why not? Let's take a closer look.


Hey, that's quite nice.


The main draw of the Antiguo Colegio is its revolutionary-themed murals by Rivera, Siqueiros, Orozco and others. To be honest, I found most of them underwhelming (a future post will focus on some far better murals), though I did like the intensity of this fellow's expression. The odd perspective is a result of this being the ceiling above a stairwell.


This mural is also pretty great. Note how the fat cat capitalists gleefully debauch themselves while laughing and pointing as the poor fight amongst themselves. This scene was the first of a narrative extending 30 or more yards to the right. Suffice it to say that things went rapidly downhill for the fat cats.


The clear highlight, though, was this fellow. Look closely: it is a man on hands and knees leaning forward to touch his head (on the left) to the ground.


The form of the figure is clearer from above.

There was a video playing on loop about how the artist demanded that the Colegio to move the entire piece from the other courtyard (with the trees and plants; first two pictures) to this adjacent courtyard. Apparently, college officials changed the location at the last minute because this courtyard is where they throw cocktail parties. But, the artist insisted and, one very large crane later, his sculpture came to rest as you see here.

Now, normally I am pretty skeptical of hand-wavy artist types talking about space and dialogue with the surroundings and whatnot. But here, the artist was spot on. The other courtyard already had a wonderful balance between the repeating, regular form of the arches and the natural, random greenery in the center. Introducing the harsh angles and random straight lines of this sculpture was thoroughly discordant. Here, though, the balance becomes one of classical form meeting modern lines. However, unlike a shining glass skyscraper towering over an ancient church, in this case the courtyard embraces and surrounds a kneeling figure.

Christ, now I sound like of those hand-wavy types. For whatever reason, it was pretty incredible.

Reflected light lluminating the ceilings of the hallways surrounding the courtyard.

La Corrida del Toro

While in Guadalajara, I attended a Corrida del Toro (literally, running of the bull). It is such an ingrained aspect of Mexican culture that I couldn't not go.

The event was scheduled to begin at 4:30, but as with most scheduled events in Mexico, that was an estimate. A rough estimate. Really, it means it certainly won't start before 4:30 and will most likely start within an hour thereafter. Probably.

Ah, here we go.

Fun tidbit: seats are priced by how close to the field they are (of course) but also by whether they are sol (sun) or sombra (shade). My general admission, asiento del sol cost 100 pesos, or about $8. And, after the third bull, all seating is up for grabs and you can move down to the best seat you can find.

The general format is to let the bull into the ring fighting mad and energetic, tire him out by jabbing barbed lances into his shoulders and then do the red cape routine before finishing him off with a sword. Sometimes the various assistant matadors take turns inserting the barbs on foot, sometimes one of the main matadors handles this duty himself. By far the most impressive style, however, is to do it all from horseback.

At times he would lean completely over backward, at a gallop, controlling his mount with his heels (I presume). The sheer horsemanship is pretty stunning.

And now, for the full effect: video. Be forewarned: this is the real deal. If you don't want to see the bull die, don't watch the third video all the way through.

Tiring out the bull from horseback.



The red cape routine. These matadors just have to be the most machismo, self absorbed alpha males on the planet. Check out the hip waggling, head tosses and the way he turns his back and struts away from the bull. You can almost hear Chris Kattan on SNL as Antonio Banderas on "The.. how do you say? ah, yes.. Show".



And the inevitable end. When the initial stroke down through the shoulders is well executed, the bull keels over within seconds, blood gushing. Here we see the second method. After pulling out the first sword the matador aims for the base of the skull, severing the brainstem and killing the bull almost instantly.

Overall, I'm glad I went but feel no need to go again. The atmosphere is really great: there were two bands playing rousing Mariachi music, the crowd gets into and actually yells ¡Olé! (yes, on the video you can hear me joining in at times) and it's always fun drinking a beer or two sitting in the stands, any stands.

But the violence. Oi vey, the violence. I didn't get any of the really bad stuff on tape, but a couple of times the blood ran as though from a firehose and even one of the matadors got a bit gored (in true machismo fashion, he had a tourniquet tied about his leg and finished off the bull with a single, masterfully placed stroke). Beyond the sheer bloodiness, the violence is numbingly repetitive: nine bulls over the course of three or four hours. After a while the novelty and excitement fades, leaving only the sad spectacle of an animal worked to bloody exhaustion and then killed simply for entertainment.

Guadalajara

Guadalajara is Mexico's "second city" and, as such, is chock full of gorgeous churches and ornate colonial buildings. Writing about it now, nearly a month after I left, I find it difficult to remember which pictures are which. But I don't think it really matters to you, does it?

A fountain and the backside of a church or convent or some such. Mexico has a period in the 19th century when all religious orders were expelled and their (extensive) property expropriated by the state. As a result, many religious buildings were heavily remodeled and/or demolished. Like this one. Maybe.


The trees made it all but impossible to get a good shot of the façade. But I guess this works, nonetheless.


I liked this church. I can tell by how many pictures I took.


The ceiling was quite nice, with the plaster and exposed stone structural elements.


And the frescoes were quite nice.


I like how unruly his hair is. As though he's been hard at work for hours and can't be bothered with such trivial things as his appearance.


The Palacio de Gobierno. Or something like that. Probably.


The cathedral.


Inside the cathedral.


Between the cathedral (above) and the theater (following) is a massive square. It seems like it should have always been there, but it was done in the '80's. Living out an urban planner's wet dream (my guidebook's description), two entire blocks of colonial buildings were demolished in order to create these vistas. Worth it? I'm not so sure.


The theater opposite the cathedral.


Pretty nice marbles above the portico. Very classic.


Around the backside of the theater statues of the various heroes of Mexican independence and revolution. They have a lot of them. Heroes, not wars of independence or revolution. But they were long wars, hence lots of heroes.


Inside, they were rehearsing. The dancers had great.. technique. Yeah, that's the ticket.Great technique.


Another random church with a completely ridiculous alter. Yes, Virginia, that's real gold.


Another church façade, totally different from the last one. I swear.

While in Guadalajara I ventured 50km northwest to visit the town of Tequila and Jose Cuervo's distillery, Mundo Cuervo. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so these photos are all cribbed from Flickr.

Agave fields completely surround Tequila. By Mexican law, in order for a drink to be called "Tequila" it must be produced in the state of Jalisco from at least 51% distilled agave. Higher quality varietes are 100% agave. Photo credit: RunMX.com.


After the spiny outer leaves are cut away, only the "heart" of the agave remains. It is these that are mashed and baked to convert their starches into sugars. Photo credit: abest.


Which are then fermented and distilled. Photo credit: abest.


The immediate product, Tequila Blanca (white tequila), is clear, fiery and cheap. If they leave it in charred oak barrels for a couple of months or years, you get Tequila Reposada (literally: rested tequila) or Tequila Añejo (aged tequila). The latter two are quite good and should be sipped and savored. There were a lot of barrels of tequila. Photo credit: abest.


After the educational section of the tour was over, I enjoyed a tasting of the three varieties. It was quite nice. Photo credit: abest.

Mazatlán

I went to Mazatlàn because after freezing my ass off in Creel I needed some beach time. Mazatlàn sees a lot of international tourism, much of it brought by cruise ship, so I decided to stay a couple of kilometers away from all of that nonsense, in the old section of town.

First stop, of course, was the cathedral.

It was pretty unassuming from the outside..


..but absolutely gorgeous on the inside.


There was remarkably detailed stone sculpture adorning practically everything. Around the windows and doors, along the top of the walls..

..all around the shrines. It was everywhere. Let's take a closer look..


This is about chest high, so the width of the sculpted moulding is probably at least 16". Overall, there had to have been thousands of linear feet of this stuff.

Take a close look around those windows. Sculpted moulding everywhere.


Of course, not all of the buildings are so carefully maintained.

I was staying in this little afterthought of a room on the roof of a motel in working class Mazatlàn. It was wonderfully private and allowed me to set up my hammock and I could see the lighthouse from "my" roof. That's it just peaking over the tree in the center.


So obviously I had to go check it out.


Getting closer..


Aw, to hell with it. I'll spare you the details of the grueling, sweaty climb up to the top and skip to the good stuff.


Oldtown Mazatlàn is just inland of the hill on the left. In theory, you can see my hotel. In practice, that's just plain silly. In the foreground you can see the staircase leading down to a vantage point atop a rock outcropping. It was from there that I took the first shot of the lighthouse (excepting the motel roof shot).


The whole sweep of Mazatlàn's beach, all the way to the monstrous resort-hotels, just visible where the land turns and fades into nothingness.


To the other side, the harbor.


Note the mountains in the background. No, not those mountains, the line behind those. Yeah, the line that is barely distinguishable from the clouds. That's "La Espina del Diablo".

After all of that work climbing up to the lighthouse, I decided I deserved to take in the sunset while enjoying an adult beverage.

Look at how you can actually see the rays from the sun against the blue-black sky, like a child's depiction of a sunset.


..then I found a cool looking building.

While in Mazatlàn I enjoyed (but did not photograph; that would be tacky) an incredible shrimp ceviche. Fresh, raw shrimp marinaded in lime juice, salsa picante, onions, etc. and then spooned onto flat crunchy taco shells and washed down with ice cold beer. While I ate, I watched a soccer (ay, pèrdon, fùtbol) match and left stuft to the gills and pleasantly drunk.

¡Fue maravilloso! And it cost about $10.