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

                                                                                                      

                                                  

Temescalcingo and Corpus Cristi

     We left at 6:30AM for Temescalcingo in the corner of the State of Mexico where the Rio Lerma, which has cut a small gorge, winds its way into and through the city. There is a waterfall just before one enters the town limits of brown water and spume then a cute little park for picnics, the Lerma alongside spotted with islands of suds like a fleet of men'o'war floating by. 
     We arrived at about 8:30AM for the fiestas of Corpus Cristi having begun the day before. Corpus Cristi is a moveable feast.The Feast of Corpus Christi is normally celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which falls one week after Pentecost Sunday. Since the date of Pentecost Sunday depends on the date of Easter, which changes every year, Trinity Sunday (and thus Corpus Christi) falls on a different date each year as well.
The gas station near the entrance to the town was filled with happy masked men and women,, but these are no ordinary masks. Many were hand made by the wearer out of the piña of maguey and were originally plastered with cow dung and some sort of glue. Some of these masks now are carved in more detail and highly polished by master mask makers.
     Hundreds of masked men and women were dancing and congregating in groups all along the main thoroughfare. They resembled animals more than people,, stiff fibers of maguey extending out from their masks, vests, and pants all fashioned from the cactus. If this had been a dry savannah I could have imagined I was in Africa. Some had walked two hours from surrounding villages to reach Temescalcingo fortified by flaggons of pulque and beer. The festivities actually started the day before in their respective towns and would continue throughout the day in Temescalcingo then they would trek back to their pueblos again as the night and moon accompanied them. 


                                                    

     How did this come about? That became the mission. I found a group of inebriated fellows who had taken off their masks in the shade of a tree near the atrium of the church. It was necessary to insinuate myself with humility into their bristly tribe. As soon as they realised my inquiry was real we became instant friends. I'm a blanco who had become interested in them and Mexicans for the most part are friendly people. They warm up to you quickly if you show some respect. Still it took a while to penetrate the veils of alchohol and extract their interpretation of this event. They had been drinking most of the day yesterday and had just completed a walk of two and a half hours that early morning from their town to Temescalcingo. In the late afternoon they would return home on foot for more festivities. As we schmoozed they pulled a large base drum in front of their companion to hide his parts as he began to piss like a horse. I had to adjust my position in order to avoid the advancing runnel. These guys claimed that somewhere around 1912 or 1913 there was an earthquake and a plague that hit Temescalcingo,,, the eartquake centered in nearby Acambay which does have a very active fault. Perhaps the plague followed the quake, they were not sure. The church tower fell to the ground and many people lost their houses and began living in a tent community behind the church. This disruption to life caused the population to search for a reason. Many thought it was a punishment from God for sins committed. The solution was to don masks made of maguey (which by the way chafes terribly) walk,,and dance in order to do penance and please their angry creator. The outsized masks were to disguise their identities from the deity. 
     I left my intoxicated friends deciding to interview others while thinking that spring is host to so many of these events that require displacement, distance, sacrifice, and revelry. With the first turn of the weather there is a call like a church bell that beckons life to promenade once again. Others claimed this was a rain dance and was precolumbian in origin. That made more sense to me than an earthquake in 1912 although the earthquake and plague may have revived or co-opted for the church an already existing indigenous rite of spring. That day there seemed to be too many drunks and not enough hard information.