Tequila..... the agave landscape

Tequila

If there is a word that came along with the name of Mexico, this one would be Tequila, so this time we're going to the state of Jalisco, in the region of the valleys we'll find this township, another magical village know for it's tasteful liquor. I decided not to drive for obvious reasons, so I took the night bus and six hours later I arrived to Guadalajara, the capital city of Jalisco, and then I had to take another bus in the old central bus to Tequila, it takes about and hour and a half to arrive, but at 9:00 A.M I was stepping off the bus.

The first thing to do is take the breakfast, so we're going to the local market where you may try the traditional birria, some kind of soup with chilli and goat's meat

Birria

Now we're ready to take a walk around this town, and it's really a very small town, very quiet and peaceful, with a strange tradition to me, I'm not a catholic person, not even religious, but attract my attention the fact that in the afternoon maybe four or five o'clock,  each person on the street, turns the face to the church to receive the blessing from the priest, of course I know that the people from this region of the country it's very puritan or prude, but I didn't expect that!!

Jimadores

The main attraction of this town it's to visit one of the many plantation of agave to know the process of distillation, you may visit Casa Sauza, Jose Cuervo, Herradura or the one that I choose La Cofradia.

Abandoned Factory

But first the roots, this town was known by the Chichimecas and Otomies as Tequillan, that means place of tributes, this place was taken by Cristobal de Oñate in 1530, the Franciscans arrived the same year to evangelize the tribes, but in 1541 was an insurrection, Fray Juan Calero climbed up the hill to tried to convince them, but he was sacrificed by stones and arrows, he was hanged facing the statues of their gods.

Now the first place to visit is the temple of la Purisima a very simple temple in the main square, over this street you may find dozens of stores that offers different kinds of tequila, liquors and creams made of tequila, the stores extends for 3 or 4 blocks and every owner offers you a shot of tequila, so imagine when you reach the end of the street how you'll be.

Beside the temple is a garden honoring Miguel Hidalgo and Benito Juarez, on the corner is the town hall, inside of it, a mural that represents la Mayahuel, the Mexica goddess of the agave, let me tell you her legend, she was a beautiful young lady that lived with her grandmother, a tzintzimitl (a star that tries to hide the sun) one day Quetzalcoatl convinced her to descend to the earth to love her, both converted in the branches of a forked tree, when her grandmother woke up and discovered that she wasn't there, she called the other tzitzimime to search her, when they were getting closer, the tree was divided in two, when her grandmother found her turned into a branch, she destroyed her and leaved her to be devoured, when they were gone, Quetzalcoatl took the pieces of the young lady and buried them, then it sprouted the agave.

Mayahuel

Now we're heading to La Cofradia a ranch and factory that grown and distilled tequila, the liquor acclaimed by many of my favourite artists, like Sammy Hagar in his song "Mas Tequila" or the Eagles with "Tequila Sunrise" or The Champs. This beautiful ranch is surrounded by the agave landscape, declared cultural heritage by the UNESCO. the guide took us to know every step of the process, in the middle of the tour you may eat the core of the agave, very sweet, and at the end of the tour I had the chance to try the tequila that just came out of it's final process, a tequila of 57 degrees!!!, I have to say that the Mexican regulation does not allowed to sell liquor higher than 40 degrees of alcohol, then we visited the wine cellar, a big one, with trees inside of it to keep it cool.

If you are planning to visit Tequila, another option is the Tequila Express, a train that departs from Guadalajara.

Well that's it, I have to return to the city, but I know that I have to return to this town, theres a few things that I missed, like the Tequila Volcano and to visit a waterfall or maybe ride the bicycle through the agave fields.

Thank you!!

Mexico City and the day of the Dead

The Catrina

A few days ago we celebrated in the country the day of the dead, and I want to show you how we did it in the city, we're going to roam through four of the sixteen districts, beginning at Xochimilco but before, a background about this celebration.

the Aztecs, Mayan, Toltecs, almost all the tribes, they believed in a place named Mictlan or Xilbaba, a place where all the people who died in a natural way had to arrive, according the ancient mythology the spirit of the deads should start a journey through four years and nine places to arrive to the Mictlan. the first place is the Itzuintlan (land of the dogs), this place is populated by Xoloitzcuintles, where the deceased has to cross the Apanohuayan river, quite similar to the Greek mythology, in order to cross the river, the dead man required the help of the dog, the second place was the Tepetl Monamicyan (where the hills collides) the journey through the Mictlan was hard, in this place the deads has to crossed between these two hills without being crushed, the third place was Itztepetl (the hill of obsidian) a place of sharpened stones that tear away the corpses when they have to climb to continue the journey, the fourth place was the Itzehecayan (the place of the obsidian wind) a solitary frozen place, the fifth was the Pancuecuetlacáyan (place where the people fly) the last hill of the Itzehecayan, a desert where the frozen winds ripped out the corpses, the sixth was Temiminaloyan, a place where the deads has to fight to not get stabbed and bleed, the seventh was Telloyocualoyan (where the hearts is devoured), in this place wild beasts open the chest of the deads and eats their hearts, then they was throwed away to the river, where they have to fight against Xochitonal, a giant lizard, the eighth place was Itzmictlan Apochcalocan (Temple of smoke) a place where a gray mist confuse the deads, inducing them to getting lost through nine deep rivers, and finally the ninth place is the Mictlan, the home of Mictlantecuhtli, the lord of the dead, where at the end, they could release their souls.

There are other places for the deads, for instance, those who died in wars, or the women who died giving birth, they rest at Omeyocan, the place of the eternal joy, the people who died drowned or hit by a lightning, they rest at Tlalocan, the dead childrens, rest at the Chichihuacuauhco, there is a tree whose branches drips milk.

the ancient tribes celebrated the ritual of the deads since the middle of July until the end of August, since those days the people made offerings to the deads, they cut a tree, cut away the core, and placed flowers inside of it.
When the Spanish came, they imposed their own beliefs, changing the date of this celebration to the first days of November.

We arrived to Xochimilco after fifty minutes of driving, we're heading to the Dolores Olmedo museum, every year this place receives thousand of visitors just to see the altars of the deads, this year was dedicated to the city of Paris.

there's too many paintings to see in this museum, but I'll talk about it in another post, by now it's getting dark so we're gonna drive for about twenty five minutes and we'll take a little break off this celebration. we arrived to the community of San Agustin Othenco in the district of Milpa Alta, the countryside of the city, this year is the seventeenth contest of Cantolla's ballons, ballons made of paper, in the top of a hill many contestants from Brazil, Mexico and Colombia release their ballons, some of them reaches the seventeen meters!!, we don´t waste the chance to witness this show and see dozens of colorful ballons illuminating the night.

and now, the next stop is San Andres Mixquic, the place for excellence in the city to see how the mexicans still keeps their traditions leaving behind the Halloween that too many people in the city insist to celebrate.

In this town the people decorates their houses with the traditional altars to receive their deads, the 1st of November is to celebrate the spirit of the dead children, and the 2 of November is for the dead adults, let me tell you about these altars.

Most of the altars are made of three levels, that represents, the heaven, the earth and the underworld, to decorate the altars we're gonna need these objects, chopped paper in black, white or orange, this represents the union of the life and death, the favourite beverage of the dead, tequila or mezcal may be used, incense or copal, the corridor of the life and the dead and it also serves to keep away the evil spirits, a dish with salt to purificate the soul, a cross of lime on the floor that represents the four cardinal points, a walk of flowers to the altar to lead the way of the souls to the altar, this walk is made of cempasuchitl flowers (the flower of the four hundred petals), candles, toys for the dead childs, portraits of the deads, and their favourite food like rice, mole, seasonal fruits, a glass of water, bread of dead and little sugar skulls, that represent each dead of the family and a lantern, that serves for the deads to recognize their homes.

in the churchyard of this town the people also decorates the graves, and in the middle of the night of the 2 of November, they illuminate the whole cementery with candles and they join the deceased to take the dinner.

the next day we're heading to Coyoacan to visit another classic place that continuous with this tradition and I mean the house of the Indio Fernandez, for those who does not know this character, he was an important actor and film director in the begining of the twenty century, also the figure of the Oscar prize was taken out of him.

We finished this tour in the gardens of the National University, to see the monumental altar, this year many of the altars were dedicated to the Spanish-Mexican painter Remedios Varo.

So that's it, and once again thank you for your time!