Ajijic - Pre-Columbian Memories

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Happy New Year!

We decided to witness the dawning of the New Year 

over Mexico with an early hike to the chapel in the hills 
overlooking the lake. A great way to say good morning 

to the new decade!

Wishing everyone a joyous New Year!

Ajijic is getting Too Crowded!

Postales del Paraiso

Everyone talks about the multitude of new arrivals that continue to flood into Ajijic and how fast the neighborhood is growing. Everywhere we go it keeps getting more and more crowded.

Just this week we’ve got three new additions to the neighborhood!

If this keeps up we’ll soon be running out of room!

Abuelinda's Cooking School

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Abuelinda's Cooking School

It’s a Mexican history lesson, it’s a cultural emersion course, it’s a health seminar, an international economics tutorial, an anthropology lesson, a culinary shopping experience, and it’s a cooking class!

Linda has been cooking in Latin America and the Caribbean for 35 years, and the classes that she offers are an astonishing mix of everything she’s encountered during that time. Every Wednesday she offers a “Tianguis to Table” class which starts in the local open air street market called the tianguis (tay-yán-gays) learning about and selecting local fruit, vegetables, Mexican foods, and then returning to Abuelinda’s kitchen and preparing a meal. She also offers classes from the culinary worlds of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla, all unique, all fascinating.

We started early one morning at the local tianquis  where blue plastic tarps tethered haphazardly to trees and each other arc low over the jostling crowds. The  rows of tables that line the cobblestone streets feature beautifully crafted corn-husk dolls, excruciatingly detailed beadwork by the local Huichol Indians, magnificent woolen shawls and clothing from the highlands outside of Chiapas, homeopathic remedies, and an astonishing array of fruits, vegetable, meats, fish, cheeses.  Queso fresco and panela cheeses, spiny nopal cactus, plump blueberries, roasted garbanzo beans, natural pig skin pickled in vinegar (cueritos), or fried (chicharrón), candied quince, fresh fish, chickens, flowers, The variety is endless!

We bought ingredients for our afternoon menu of Chiles en Nogada, deep green poblano chilies, a pork shoulder, plump raisins, dried mango, candied bisnaga cactus, pears, apples, peaches, plantains, Mexican canela, pomegranates, Queso de cabra, walnuts, rice, the list goes on.

But it was in Abuelindas kitchen that the real magic happened. We were each guided through an assigned a task, charring the poblanos over an open flame, dicing the pork, mixing and grinding spices in a molcajete (volcanic rock mortar & pestle), chopping fruits, seeding pomegranates, all accompanied by a running commentary and explanation of our many unfamiliar ingredients, and delightful stories about the cultures and cuisines of Mexico.

And then the best part. We got to enjoy the fruits of our labors. The roasted, smoky, earthy flavor of the poblano chile is the essence of Mexico, and when stuffed with the warm picadillo filling of diced pork, fruits, nuts, herbs, and spices, covered in a cool, creamy walnut sauce, and sprinkled with tangy, tart, pomegranate seeds, the result is simply heaven! I could eat this every day of my life!

Rising Waters

The lake is still rising. The shoreline along the malecón has disappeared, the shorebirds that used to strut on stilted legs along the water’s edge are now nesting in the trees, and the playground, once many yards from the gently lapping waves, is now a water-park for the fish as they dart between the submerged swings and teeter-totters. The rains began early this year and they continue.

In a typical year the rain begins in mid June and tapers off beginning in mid October, but it’s now December and it rained again a few days ago.  This is Mexico’s largest lake, about 7.5 miles wide and 50 miles long. The Lerma River starts its journey about 435 miles away near the city of Toluca and  eventually empties into Lake Chapala, so the total watershed is a massive area of about 20,000 square miles, and the lake level will continue to rise over the next few weeks. It’s astonishing to think about how much water is required to raise the level of water by even an inch!

Water laps ever higher against the short wall that protects the line of restaurants along the waterfront, and pelicans paddle between the trees now seemingly standing a-tip-toe in the neck-high water. The boardwalk has disappeared into the marshes, the picnic tables and stone benches sit like remnants of Atlantis at the bottom of a goldfish bowl. 

But the kayaks that required a struggle across yards of pebbled shoreline to launch into the lapping tide can now be slid directly from the rack into knee-deep water, and the long journey from the town pier down the flight of stone stairs to the tour boats is now only a step or two. 

And next July as we bask in the unrelenting heat of the summer sun as it shimmers across this slowly evaporating lake, we’ll look back and marvel at how this could ever have seemed alarming, and boastfully inform our disbelieving visitors just how high the water used to be.

Carnaval 2018

Postales del Paraíso

 Carnaval!

I stepped out the front door and was immediately swept up in the tumultuous roar and excitement of the crowds, then someone grabbed my arm and started to dance me backward down the cobblestone streets and as I’m spun around POOF! I’m hit in the face with a handful of flour! The bright blue sky is swirling with balloons and crepe paper streamers, the sun is blazing, and glittered beads, plastic necklaces, candy kisses and reams of confetti are raining down from every rooftop.

The entire town echoes with Mariachi bands, and firecrackers, and the street rumbles and vibrates with garishly decorated tractors and trucks lurching down the narrow roads and alleyways filled with palm fronds and beauty queens, pink haired revelers and guests of honor. The smiles and laughter are absolutely infectious. 

Mardi Gras, or Carnival (Carnaval in Spanish) is the last big blast before Lent ushers in the more somber 40 days before Easter. Schools are out, business are closed, and everyone in the village is crammed onto the narrow sidewalks craning their necks to be the first to see what ever is coming next. The school kids come running around the corner first, racing at full tilt ahead of the parade, chased by an enormous charging paper mache bull and an army of lanzadores harinas. Everyone is wearing a mask and the lanzadores harinas (flour throwers) come in all guises, and disguises, but a woven sack slung from their shoulder is ample warning. They’ll engage you, and charm you, and sweetly smile as they slyly reach into their sack and before you realize what’s going on POOF! You’re covered from head to toe in flour.

Las Zayacas are everywhere. Traditionally women dressed as old men, and men dressed as women with enormous balloons stuffed under their dresses to “enhance” their butts and bosoms all of them wearing outrageous wigs and masks. They zigzag back and forth across the streets dodging the parade floats, marching bands and costumed dancers as they try to sneak up on the kids, whose challenge of course is to get close enough to a Zayacas to pop one of the their balloons. But the crowd is fickle and alternates between protecting and betraying the giggling kids, but whether a balloon is popped or a kid is instantly transformed into a Pillsbury doughboy, the encounter is always celebrated with a spontaneous roar of approval from the crowd.

There are beauty pageants and chili contests, dance-a-thons and carnival rides, there are art shows and food stalls, milagro vendors and games of chance. There are marching bands and antique cars, circus clowns and animal rides and everything is going on at once, seemingly on top of each other.

Carnival here is not as expensive or as naked as it is in Venice or Rio. Its enormous charm lies in the fact that it’s a family affair (at least the daytime parade is, the evening event is another story). Everything is made by hand, people labor for months, even all year, making the costumes, the masks, and the elaborate headdresses. Moms help dad’s decorate their pickup trucks with enormous crepe paper roses, dads help their kids make fanciful paper mache masks and wondrous carts to pull through the streets, and the kids make every attempt to dress up their dogs and cats like superheroes and fanciful dragons.

The caballeros and horses are always at the end of the parade (for obvious reasons), but what a finale! Enormous sombreros with dingle balls swaying from the brim, silver spurs and embroidered jackets, tasseled leggings and intricately embellished buckles, filigreed bows and studded leather; and that’s just the horses!

But the best part of the whole parade is when the last ballooned and crepe papered float rounds the final corner and the crowd turns to depart; the first of the crowd to arrive are, as always, the last to leave. As the front line of spectators lining the streets turn, almost in unison, it is both startling and hilarious. Perfectly normal from behind they instantly transform into a ghostly apparition of shock and awe. Caked with flour from head to toe so thick they are barely recognizable as people, this is a chorus line of walking ghosts, Pillsbury doughboys, and marshmallow men! It’s at once startling and hysterical!

Lent, which begins tomorrow on Ash Wednesday, must be a very difficult time for some here. The Christmas celebrations began sometime last October and finally came to an end on the Feast of the Three Kings in mid January. The Carnival season begins on that same day, also referred to as Twelfth Night or the Feast of the Epiphany, with the grand finale of Fat Tuesday celebrated today. So its been pretty much non-stop party time around here for the past five months or so. It will seem ghostly quiet here for the next 40 days, until the Easter festivities crank everything back up into high gear. I can’t wait!