Tlaxco, Tlaxcala

     We traveled northeast using the route through Mexico City and Texcoco, a town north of the DF. Texcoco was the large lake that once surrounded the Aztec city of Tenochitlan. The lake is now a shadow of its former self reduced by repeated drainings by the Spanish conquistadors to a myriad of stagnant pools speckling this moist flat tundra like zone.  We passed the fresh bones of the now canceled airport of Texcoco. In the distance some cement columns like modern ruins were visible.

 

     This airport was a doomed dream of a group of investors including politicians and Carlos Slim, who for a while was the richest man in the world. The Airport in Texcoco should never have been approved less begun. It was a very serious mistake, whose cancellation prevented a major ecological disaster, also a severe population explosion in the Eastern Zone of the Valley of Mexico, and the overexploitation of scarce resources such as water, the expense of huge public resources along with the creation of huge financial burdens for ensuing generations.

     The transformation of the area where the airport would be installed would have led to the addition of great quantities of wastewater in Lake Nabor Carrillo, an artificial lake that now teems with migrant avian life but which would have become a large rectangular cesspool. The entire zone is an ancient spongey lake bed and would present enormous technical problems in order to support all the structures needed including the runways. It might have been a chilling experience like landing on an enormous water bed.

 

Lake Nabor Carillo

    
     President Manuel Lopez Obrador put it to a people's referendum which was just a show. The populace rejected the project. This went over like a lead chisel to the investors who had been drooling over the pesos they would rake in. In lieu of building a new airport it has been proposed to utilize Santa Lucia, an already existing military base, a bit further north of the proposed fiasco. 

     The State of Tlaxcala averages 2500 meters above sea level. That's where all the good pulque came from,,,, in B.C. "before cerveza" which through a grand advertising campaign replaced pulque as the preferred sudsey beverage. Pulque was sent by train every day to thirsty residents of Mexico City and was responsible for building large haciendas dedicated to this precolumbian dream maker.  

 

     The pot holed roads near Tlaxco are like asphalt patches of eczema. They are encrusted  into a plain terraced in wheat, broken only by hills that rise up gently from the far edges of the fields.In the clear distance there was a bank of clouds. Piercing the billowing celestial galleons were the snow capped peaks of Popocatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl. There was yet a spotty early morning thick and thin fog. Every so often the silhouettes of nopals appeared like heavy necklaces and fields of maguey loomed like musical instruments from a far off pasture in the milkyway, their curled pencas gesturing elegantly like affectations from another century. 

                                       

                                                   Landscape entering Tlaxco

                                       

                                                     Landscape entering Tlaxco

                                                 

                                         

                                              

                                                                      Hacienda pulquera now a boutique hotel

                                               

                                                                   Hacienda pulquera Xochoco

                                              

                                                                      Hacienda pulquera Xochoco

                                              

                                                                       Hacienda pulquera Xochoco

                                             

                                                                                    Old Donkey

                                        

                                                                                    New dead mule

                              

                 

             Capilla de San Augustin Tlaxco

This baroque style chapel was built between the 17th and 18th centuries. Its shape is of Latin cross, its facade is made in pink quarry with some plaster motifs. The construction has a single tower of two bodies facing west, the interior rococco altarpieces, made during the eighteenth century, are carved in wood and laminated in gold.

Below inside Capilla de San Augustin

                 

 

Rococco altar piece San Agustin Tlaxco

 

On the wings of an angel Capilla San Augustin Tlaxco

 

Capilla San Augustin, Tlaxco

 

Capilla de San Calvario Tlaxco

It is considered to have been built upon a pyramid; Constructed at the end of the 19th century its thick 80cm walls are made of stone. The access door is built with a semicircular arch. At the top of the main facade we find a bulrush composed of three semicircular arches with their respective bell in each. Inside the chapel is a statue of the Holy Burial, whose coffin is made of a fine dark wood with ivory inlays.

The coffin, Capilla Calvario Tlaxco

 

Capilla de Santa Virgen de Lourdes Tlaxco

Built at the end of the 19th century, this chapel is tall actually 17 meters high. It is of neoclassical design and the access portal to the atrium is made of a semicircular arch crowned by a triangular pediment. Inside the ceiling is vaulted an upon entering one receives an austere almost protestant surprise moment for it is painted soberly in white.

Below: Pulque, Tlaxco

Maguey and nopal

Pulque, Tlaxco in a leather recipient

Pulque Tlaxco

Pulque Tlaxco

Jicara floating in pulque Tlaxco

                                                                                                      

                                                  

A Ray Of Political Hope, Tulsi Gabbard

   This is not a plea but a suggestion as well as an apology because I just may need to eat my previous acerbic political words. Politics is a nauseating business that promises eden but more often delivers hell. Whether you are a coal miner, carpenter, construction worker, teacher, or retiree feeling duped,,,, one who may suspect or even know they have been used by the political establishment,,,, one who truly senses they have been marginalized, one who has stood by and watched while your government has been given over to the golden vaults of the few,,,  there may be a voice that speaks for you. 
      I have never been interested in any candidate for president since 1972 when George McGovern was running on an anti war platform. In fact in my life I have never witnessed the USA at peace with the world. War has been the ever present backdrop to my years. Neither democrat nor republican, my political apathy has been shaped by conflict not because I  need to encounter the perfect political messiah, but only to experience a reasonable someone in this massive veil of political tears. Lately I have been following,, and a democrat no less, Tulsi Gabbard, and I admit my soul has been been stirred. Tulsi Gabbard’s signature stance on non-interventionism makes her the only principled opponent of the American Empire in the 2020 presidential race. She excites those who have been battered by mainstream politicians who care to know nothing about military adventurism and consciously or unconsciously go along with the lies about bringing democracy to Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Guatemala, Syria, Afghanistan, Granada, Panama, Chile, or Venezuela just to name a few. This non stop militarism is a tired, false, and deadly notion of the United States as the only capable purveyor of democracy. The true aims of these endless wars is to maintain the power of the dollar to circulate out from Washington, then around the globe and back again without impediments, not to mention all those past and present conflicts that hoard coveted resources for billionaires. What these irrational bloody clashes accomplish is the contrary to phony altruism. They foment global hate for the U.S. as they create a incubators for terrorism. Wars destroy cultures. They are responsible for millions of deaths and extensive environmental contamination,,, and the endless consumption of precious money that could be used to improve life in the USA not line the already stuffed pockets of the profiteers. The best way to fight terrorism and improve the lot of much of the world is to not begin foreign wars for bogus reasons in an attempt to overthrow politicians who do not share the U.S. view of what the status quo should be,,,, or to topple dictators in order to replace them with more "corporate friendly despots". Employing this tired politic everyone loses,,, and yet the game continues without question by the political powers. Gabbard makes sense, she has seen war in Afghanistan and the Middle East as a soldier who did two tours of duty,,  and she is not afraid to confront the corporate war machine. She may just be a true patriot.
     I am sure the democratic party will never allow her be the candidate as they will not allow Bernie Sanders as well,, yet nonetheless she deserves recognition and help to stay in the debates and act as counterpoint. The debate "shows" are one act plays on a stage occupied by the great white dope, the designated democratic hitter, Joe Biden. She needs support now more than ever since the ante has been raised. A candidate cannot be in the debates now unless you have 130,000 contributors. At the moment she just barely gets makes the cut. 
     Read about her. It may do you justice.