Through the Looking Glass

Masiosare

The neighborhood had been quieter since last Thursday, since school was out to bridge the long  weekend between Mother's Day on the 10th and Teacher's Day, yesterday, on the 15th. Today sounded more like a Monday than a Wednesday, with snare drums rattling in accompaniment to discordant bugle blasts, not too long after eight in the morning from the Margarita Maza de Juárez elementary school across the street.

The first day of the school week always begins with a woman's voice over a loudspeaker directing a patio full of uniformed children. To those of us on the other side of the high walls--that line of cinder block around the complex of two-story green and white buildings, emblazoned with the unintentionally-rendered but nevertheless menacing face of President Benito Juárez's wife--the muffled, monotonous, and yet undeniably commanding voice drapes itself over our homes. I sometimes liken it to the sound of a muezzin's call to morning prayer, only that this voice is calling the kids to begin their rendition of the Mexican national anthem.

It's always an earnest, endearing and slightly comic performance, with the loudspeakered voice all but drowning out those of the children, and the haphazard sounds of drums and bugles played by the few remaining students doing their best to approximate the anthem's official rhythm and notes. A tune that couldn't possibly be more classic in its embodiment of the march tradition, it sounds both weary and hopeful coming from the school's little ritual of ceremony and practice.

We hear it at midnight, too, on those nights driving home after a late movie, the radio tuned to Horizonte or Reactor. Every television or radio station must play it at the beginning and end of their broadcasts, turning the minutes and the airwaves after twelve into a choral interlude. Click here to hear it, and go ahead: imagine being in the car with us on those windy roads home. And if you like, you can read along to the lyrics here, too.

I think you'll agree that it's not the type of anthem (or as it's actually called here, a hymn) that would easily prompt soccer stadiums to invite musical superstars in for a Beyoncé-style, roof-raising, lax-tempoed, improvised-vocal-flourished rendition. And so, the pregame performance usually goes like this. It might be more rigid, but it's certainly still regal. The salute even seems more formal, the right hand placed not with the palm flat over the heart, but rather with the palm facing the floor and the thumb-side to the chest.

Almost any song collectively known and sung, especially about one's country and its autonomy in particular, tends to rally up emotions in just about any citizen. Mexico's anthem is not exception. And yet still it gives pause to think about the nature of the lyrics: imagery of war, cannon-fire, soldiers and blood that become a necessary means to certain ends: the ideas of victory, glory, honor, union--and liberty. It's all nothing if not sobering. Violence and peace are virtually, paradoxically inseparable.

But not many of us think about that in too much depth when it comes right down to the singing. In fact, it's no secret that many children and even adults--those who have likely never seen the lyrics in writing, who haven't worked out the full meaning of the sometimes archaic wording--can misunderstand what they've learned to sing. Perhaps it's an urban legend, but plenty of people have heard of birth certificates boasting the name 'Masiosare.' It sounds pleasant enough, doesn't it? But it comes from the middle of the anthem's first verse: "Mas si osare..." is the phrase, meaning "But if [someone] should dare...". I can understand hearing that and then thinking it might name a certain 'Masiosare,' but I'm doubtful of the claim that anyone would name their child after the [someone] in that line, who in the second half is revealed to be an "enemy outlander."

And yet, who knows? All things are possible. A popular sushi chain here even serves up a delicious Masiosare Roll...If anything, it's proof that the national anthem holds a firm place in the national consciousness--something also confirmed almost every week of the academic year, right across the street from our house.

Attuned to Tlatelolco

I mean, really. If walls could talk. And if I had the chance to listen to those surrounding just one place here in Mexico, I now know where it would be. I see it as Patricio and I drive home from the historic Centro, I see it misspelled occasionally on posters, I see its photographs on the covers of historical books--I see it in one of the very dearest movies in recent years. And I saw it up close recently, something I think few people in Mexico City do, whether they're here for a weekend or here the better portion of their lives.

The place is Tlatelolco, easily missed if traffic is flowing nicely up Eje Central, and easily one of the places that impressed the Spanish conquistadores the most. Once a sister city to the Mexica (Aztec) capital of Tenochtitlan, it later fell under the Tenoch rule--becoming the city's crown jewel of commerce and, ultimately, the place of its empire's defeat. It is now also known as the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, or Square of the Three Cultures, for the juxtaposition of walls in what remains of that ancient, island city. The archaeological site of Tlatelolco's ceremonial center sits in front of the church of Santiago Tlatelolco, built of stones taken from the pyramids themselves. Rising above and surrounding the two is an expanse of a 1960's housing complex, also flanked on one side by what used to be the foreign ministry building.

In such a relatively small space, the press of historic juggernaut reveals a chronology's glimpse--three culture's represented by their walls: those of the pre-Columbian, the Viceregal, and the modern independent Mexico that still often holds on to vestiges of the former two. This is where Cuauhtémoc, the last of the Aztec tlatoani, or rulers, was taken captive. It happened after tens of thousands of unsurrendering Aztecs died, here in the last holdout against Cortés and his troops. This is also where a number (likely far greater than the government has chosen to maintain) of political protesters were killed in 1968, shot by military and police forces ten days before the Olympic games began. And then in 1985, many of the housing buildings were severely damaged or destroyed, when that morning earthquake rocked the city and left Tlatelolco's walls to witness huge loss one more time.

And so much of what was documented--or could have been--no longer exists. A few buildings are left. The details are gone. And walking through the plaza on a sunny Friday, with traffic running north and school groups milling in the church, makes it difficult to imagine a market close by that rivaled anything in Europe at the time of the Spanish arrival. Or the fear of being under attack, or under the rubble of what once was a ceiling. The church--one of the oldest in the country--remains bare of its altar since the years of often bloody struggle between religion and the state. Its starkly beautiful chancel of high-reaching volcanic stones speaks not only of the most religious of mysteries, but historical mysteries as well; tragedy has been an irreversible part of Tlatelolco's past, but so have an infinity of the smaller miracles of every day life. Juan Diego's baptismal font rests in a corner of the church as well, a symbol of the area's continual rebirth, the continual resurrection of both archaeological treasures and the residents' quotidian dreams. 

Tlatelolco is, I'd argue, one of Mexico City's most interesting treasures. Come see for yourself, with ears--or at least the eyes--attuned to the walls.

Raise it High

Don't we just love symbols? Something easily identified, standing in for a different entity, one that is larger and unwieldy when put into words. They can sum up the familiar, and with them, we can construct a world of reflected identity. They can remind us of who we are, and they may inform others about us, too.

It might be a logo. Maybe a cross. A letter, perhaps. Often, too, it is a flag, and this past Saturday, Mexico celebrated its own. That green, white and red banner with the country's coat of arms in the center, the flag we know today is one of the most recognizable symbols of Mexico. Some might say that the Virgin of Guadalupe finds herself as a deeper, more visceral symbol of the country, and she herself even found herself on early Mexican flags--a symbol of those who fought for independence from Spain.

But for me, the flag seen these days over landmarks and city plazas--reaching dimensions of monumental size--and sometimes found in miniature, suction-cupped to windshields, carries a symbol that holds meaning even for me; someone not born to pledge allegiance to what it means.

It's that eagle in the center, wings outspread, the serpent in its teeth and talons, atop the cactus in a small, lacustrine island. It is a symbol not only of Mexico, or of the Mexica (Aztec) people, who upon seeing it as a completion of prophecy, knew where they were to call home. It can also mean something for so many; a symbol of destiny connected with a sense of place.

Other symbols of Mexico were present on Saturday for us, even if Patricio and I don't have a Mexican flag to our name. The morning was spent preparing for a slow afternoon of paella, shrimp stew, opened bottles and sunshine, and the welcoming into our home of the most indisputable of Mexican symbols that I know--the cherished togetherness of family.

Flag day held its own meaning for me on Saturday, having nothing to do with military marches or a particular affinity with red, white or green. Now part of a family, I'm a part of Mexico, too. And that eagle in the coat of arms sure does speak to me of an identity somehow Mexican, of a destiny all my own, connected with a sense of place.

Circus, Circus

There's always a circus in town here. Maintaining a level of popularity that doesn't appear to wane, circus troupes can be found all over the metropolitan area on any given day. A Texas-flag themed Circo Americano has its tent poking into the horizon by my in-laws' house, and at least three or four a year set up on the Corona grounds near our own place. The enormous Corona distribution center, or as everyone calls it, "La Corona," hosts a parade of functions on its small fair grounds next to the main street in Nicolás Romero, from politician's swearing-in parties to leather shoe extravaganzas from the city of León, in Guanajuato. But the most widely advertised and attended events are those nightly performances at the circus.   

Those of us found at home during the day always know when another circus has arrived. Cars roll their way slowly along every street, making use of perifoneo--megaphone advertising made of the blaring horns affixed to car roofs--streaming announcements from microphones or taped recordings. We've heard "Hoy, en la Corona!" fill the air around our house via car and plane, and it's foretelling of lions and tigers and bears has become code between Patricio and me for anything big happening soon.

And something big did happen on Sunday, though instead of happening in the Corona, it happened in the Carpa Astros, down south in the Distrito Federal. This something was, indeed, a circus. Or might I say, the circus, since its name is synonymous with the business in Mexico. We were graciously invited to the season's final show of Circo Atayde in the city, the oldest circus in the country, founded the year my great-grandmother was born. It was 1888 that the first Atayde brother, who'd run away from home to join the circus, returned to convince his brothers to form a company of their own. The second generation propelled their gymnastic bar act into the Guinness World Records. And 118 years later, Patricio were sitting with an Atayde descendant along the edge of the show's ring.

It had been years since either of us had gone to see a circus, but it only took seconds to realize why they can't help but enchant. Circo Atayde creates a world of the implausible, a fantastical reality that kept our eyes open wide. Natalia's aerial dance, the brothers of Rialcris Trío's acrobatic balancing act, along with hoop dancing, magic, simpatico clowning, and elephants, tigers and horses (oh my!), all pulled us under their spell. The skill involved is extraordinary, like that of my two favorites--the Marinof couple who perform their own type of trapeze work, a graceful choreography of hanging in the air, often by the strength of Mr. Marinof's own teeth. And without so much as a net underneath. Mexico already lends itself to magical realism, and the circus seems tailor made for the tendency.

The ringleader and his mother, both Atayde folks themselves, were in justifiably high spirits after the show. As the tents' dismantling efficiently began, they talked of moving on to Puebla, saying goodbye to some of the performers and animals as new contracts are fulfilled. The circus is an almost constant current of change, with artists' origins spanning the globe, an international showcase of the amazing.

There may always be a circus in town, and some may even bill themselves as "Atayde," but there's only one real Circo Atayde Hermanos, a true Mexican original.

Double-Edged Shard

Dilemmas have their day in December. Another slice of pie or another size of jeans? A mediocre gift or heart-felt good wishes? Clay pot piñata or rock-hard paper mâché? As if the existential burden of ceaseless basic decision were not enough. It really isn't enough, because this kind of choice can give us more power, more guilt, more gratification, more gastronomic delight. And heightened anxiety, trivial as it may ultimately be, sure does a bang-up job of making us feel more alive. What sums up December more than intensity of life, in awe, criticism, flavor and nascent hopes? Gifts are opened, a year comes to a close. Baby Jesus dolls are lifted out of their February cribs, and salt cod recipes are guarded once again in the kitchen. Looking inward and then trying to live it out.

While my brother was here with us, an unexpected dilemma arose, testing more than just will in the face of Christmas dinner's spread. We went to Tenayuca, the larger if less exquisite of Tlalnepantla's two excavated pyramids, and slowly walked our way around the serpent-lined base, eyes open to the remnants of colored paint and the ragged, map-like traces of stone-smoothing stucco. It was an archaeological Christmas gift of sorts, the unwrapping having already been done.

Yet it was hard to imagine life there, stone steps and altar bases leaving too much space in between sight and understanding. And then we came across a considerable pile of disintegrating sugar bags, the open seams revealing its terra cotta contents: thousands of ceramic shards, numbered by meticulous archaeologist hands, and left in a corner to dilemma us nearly out of our minds. Because when plumed-serpent worship eludes our grasp of the human scope, we still understand dishes, and the fragile handles of an old pot. Their era came to an end, but these small windows into a world had been brought to the surface again, and then discarded, gifts with no place of their own.

It was so tempting to take one, to reach out and pocket the work of a Chichimecan hand. They'd been left to the elements, further crushing each other under their own weight, and the weight of the dilemma bore itself down hard. Wouldn't a little pilfering be doing an actual favor? Is not a pot shard's place of honor on a shelf more noble than a neglected, moldering pile? Wouldn't having a small piece of history at home make our daily lives, somehow, better? If the ground beneath this whole swath of the city is one enormous, unexcavated site, what would really be lost to research if, with a sliver in our pockets, we had a large slice of wonder in personal gain? Wouldn't the possession of past, mysterious life make us feel, as we like, more alive?

In the end, we couldn't do it. We turned and left the dilemma and the fragments' siren singing behind. The fellow on duty said the shards, after much puzzle-piecing, weren't found to be parts of any recoverable whole, and plans to re-bury them near the pyramid were all he'd been told. They'd be put away again like Christmas recipes, waiting for a different day or circumstance to be brought out at another time. They, like the artifacts found daily across this historically wealthy country, will become someone else's dilemma, well past every December, as long as archaeology exists. I'll be thinking of them, glad to settle back in to much simpler choices, involving things like piñatas and their own brittle pots of clay.

   

Mary, Mary Quite Legendary

"Can you hear the music?" my mother-in-law, Celia, asked me over the phone last night. It was eleven o'clock, and we'd called to see how they were doing. I couldn't hear any music, and told her as much. "But wait," she said, "Let me get closer to the window." And the music then began stream on in from her end of the line. "So are you two coming over for the pachanga, or what?" asked Patricio's dad with a laugh. "I think I'm going to take a sleeping pill," declared Celia, insinuating that she loved Our Lady of Guadalupe just as much as the next person, but she also loved a good night's sleep.

Today, December 12th, is when the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego for the last time in 1531, exhorting him to pick roses on the desert hill of Tepeyac, which he could then carry and display for Bishop Zumárraga as proof of Mary's apparition and full reason to build a church on that hill where she appeared. Letting down the large fold in his apron-like tilma, the unseasonal flowers fell to the floor, revealing Mary's image imprinted on the coarse fabric's weave. It is the same image, we are told, that sits high in its frame on the far wall of the current basilica, often simply called La Villa, perched as requested on Mexico City's Tepeyac hill.

Believed to have said on one occasion to Juan Diego, "Do not be distressed, my littlest son. Am I not here with you, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection?" She then proceeded to heal Juan Diego's dying uncle, ushering in a new age of devotion to Mary that would lead this image to be that of the America's patron saint, protector and intercessor and hope for those who believe, and unequivocal symbol of Mexican identity.

She was the music's inspiration last night, blasting from street-side speakers to usher in her day. The taxi stand across the street from my in-laws' house, like every other stand I've seen throughout the country, bears a shrine in her honor, and come the 12th of December, her figure becomes sparkling clean, cascading with fresh flowers and adorned with electric lights. The taxi drivers, in between their work-night runs, celebrate on into the wee hours of the morning, grateful to the Virgin for another year of safety and thanking her with a joyful noise to keep the neighborhood awake, as well.

Neighborhood shrines to Our Lady are all decorated in their December finest, and the churches, chapels and cathedrals in her name draw special attention, too. But that doesn't stop other churches or families from sending out their own reports of fireworks through the night. Anxious celebrants began blasting them near our house in yesterday morning's heightened spirit, but midnight began to roll with their sound like thunder, and they've continued in dependable pops since then.

School was let out early across the street. The banks are all closed for the day. And thousands of people have arrived in the city on pilgrimage, some of the millions who each year cross miles from home on foot, bike, or when tired, on the back of a truck to arrive at the basilica and pay homage to their most beloved of saints. We live off a mountain route that winds its way to Michoacán, and this season often finds an impressive source of slowed traffic: stretches of road filled with the slow movement of pilgrims, their rest trucks and vanguard banners, t-shirts and bike spokes adorned with the image of their destination. Escorted on the move by a set of state police, they make their way in good weather or bad, stopping to rest on storefront steps, and bathing in large public baths from town to town.

Arriving at that sacred hill of Tepeyac--once a holy place for Juan Diego's ancestors, where the mother goddess Tonantzin was worshiped--the pilgrims at La Villa on December 12th are simply a fraction of those who celebrate devotions across the country. Likely a syncretic combination of two religions, two races and and two names, the Virgin of Guadalupe has exercised an awesome pull over her people for almost five hundred years. Who else could get a street full of taxi drivers to party at their stand through the night like that, singing Las mañanitas with such singular verve?

Sweet, Sweet Morelia

I am my mother's daughter. She who possesses the power to leave a box of french chocolate mints empty over the course of a conversation begot she who has a tooth so sweet that a bag of Oreos will beg for its last rights under her mischievous gaze. I'm a unyielding sucker for sweets. I even love suckers themselves, especially the fittingly-named, strokes of Catalán genius that are Chupa Chups. Sugar is surely one of living's best perks.

And living in Mexico can be a sweet-lover's dream; the merengue vendor just passed by our house, his basket balanced on his head as he called out the word like a cello-voiced tropical bird. The variety of sweets savored in this country poses a particularly delicious challenge, since trying them all could be a life-long endeavor. Capitalizing on a remarkable wealth of fruits, nuts, milks, chocolates, grains, chiles, spices and sugars, Mexican confectioners bless taste buds with the likes of ates and alegrías, cajetas and cocadas, palanquetas and pan dulce, and tamarindo and turrones. No list can possibly be exhaustive. Trying to create such a list would be exhausting.

But trying new sweets certainly isn't, which is why Patricio and I made a pilgrimage of sorts to the colonial city of Morelia, known for its architectural eye-candy as well as a tradition of homemade sweets, passed into the community centuries ago by Dominica nuns whose kitchen fires turned a profusion of recipes into fruit-infused delights. Walking the criss-cross of the centro's streets on Saturday night, we stepped into the entryway of an old colonial house, the place where families have set up shop to sell their sweets for so many generations. The soft-spoken, silver-haired woman behind the counter bagged up a half kilo of crystallized figs for us. And then convinced us that the bricks of guava ate, the happy combination of fruits cooked down with sugar, were as fresh as could be and worth every peso we spent.

Her simple shop was one of countless that the city has seen, and we wanted to know more about them. That's why, sitting snugly between stone buildings along what some still call the Calle Real, the Museo del Dulce, or Sweets Museum, was our weekend's principal destination. Entering the small museum means walking through the front building's sweet shop, covered floor to ceiling with--among books and traditional crafts--beautifully-packaged candies and flavored varieties of the egg-based liqueur, ronpope.

The museum itself is a series of rooms surrounding a lovely courtyard, recreating a colonial kitchen and offering models and photographs of Morelia's sweet-making trajectory. Incorporating ingredients used in indigenous recipes, such as native fruits, nuts and honeys, the nuns arriving from Spain brought and expanded upon traditional Spanish recipes. Initially prepared for the reception of dignitaries in the region, the popularity of the sweets grew to proportions that prompted the nuns to develop their business skills, too, selling the sweets through a lazy-susan like torno, allowing the nuns to take and fulfill an order without showing their faces to the outside world.

Bubbling in the kitchen in an earthenware pot was the makings of quince ate (now the term for any fruit paste prepared by cooking it with sugar, it is really a suffix as it is in English, meaning "a derivative of"--think "aluminate"--and was applied to any fruit, hence a quince ate, or ate de membrillo, was once simply called a membrillate). Spooned into small cups for us to try, it became terribly tempting to spirit away one of the ates setting in wax-lined molds on the windowsill.

We left the museum and Morelia on Sunday, with a back seat taken by a healthy mound of sweets and the front seats taken by the two of us, wiser in the ways and stories of our sugary fascinations, and the suspicion that we'd make my mom's mouth water with the news.

Landscapes

Patricio and I made our way to the Centro Histórico this cold afternoon in search of a book with old maps of Mexico, something that would document the known and changing landscape of the country. We parked at the far end of the Alameda, walking along its length to take in a photo exhibition of the Mexican Revolution. On this day in 1910, Francisco I. Madero called the nation to begin its Revolution, marking big changes in the political landscape, and in hopes of a better democracy.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador believes it to be a symbolically perfect day to begin his own fledgling government, purportedly in the name of a better democracy as well. Filling the Zócalo with thousands of people, he would take his oath as president of Mexico, in defiance of the officially recognized Felipe Calderón. We gathered some images in the chilly afternoon; for many, a double celebration of Mexican revolution. We'll see if the political landscape might at all change from here.

Crowds filling the Zócalo

Marching down past the Alameda

Arriving at Bellas Artes

Flags flying high

Metal Matters

It's true, I haven't been punished in a long time. I've suffered consequences, of course, like those suffered after telling the woman with the scissors to "go even shorter," or those that happen after deciding that devouring a third, thick disc of cinnamoned chocolate is, really, a good idea. But I haven't done much to merit castigation--or its Spanish equivalent, castigo--since I parked my car on Spring street in a dubiously-marked no-parking zone. One hundred and five dollars later, I've tried keeping to the general straight and narrow.

But like most of us, even if it doesn't mean hair shirts, flagellum or a cilice--or even a string of rosary beads, for that matter--I've certainly been known to be hard on myself. Like the day two weeks ago when half of our zaguán, or tall metal gate, gave a slump to the center and would no longer close. Patricio flexed his biceps and got to work with the welder to fix it, but dropped the tiny, steel hinge ball in the tangle of green grass. Working his hands through through the blades nearest the ground, like searching for a lone tick on a wily gorilla's forehead, he was lambasting himself for a split-second fault of the hand.

Eventually, he found it, but not before my own personal reproof could put me in a figurative corner. "With a magnet, we could find that thing in a matter of seconds," Patricio said, and my mental Rolodex flipped back twelve months ago to the days I packed his belongings and we moved into our own little house. Clinging fast to his old wallet chain, curled around a collection of keys in the back of a dressing table niche, was a pair of huge magnets, perfect for finding steel balls in the grass.

I marched inside the house and took the key/chain box down from the closet, sure I'd find those thick, metal discs and sure to relieve Patricio of his grass-combing. But they weren't there. I even checked twice. And I realized that those magnets had probably gone into the black, plastic bags that went out to the curb. I walked back out into the yard, dragging my feet with and with a face full of compunction.

"I think I threw them away," I said.

"Oh, I doubt that," he said, "I know you'd never throw anything of mine away without asking."

Um, right. Of course I didn't inherit the habit of throwing things out from my dad. I remembered the day we returned from a Wyoming vacation to find that he'd had enough of our five cats and had taken them all to the pound. (We got four back). I'm not sure it made it any easier for me to see that Patricio chose gracious denial in the face of what was likely the case: that I'd thrown his good magnets out, and who knows what else that he might ask about someday. Contrition was certainly the word for the afternoon, though it did end happily with the zaguán returned to working order.

I managed to punish myself mentally over some metal, and soon discovered that metal can also by punished. In the world of penitence through prayed rosaries, bells rise up to a quasi-human status, names, potential for punishment, and all.

The Catedral Metropolitana that presides over the north end of Mexico City's Zócalo boast 30 different bells. Symbols of God's voice, the oldest, Doña María, left the foundry in 1578. The largest, Santa María de Guadalupe--a youngster at 215 years--weighs in at 13 tons. Not all the bells are rung every day, marking the hours of services or calls to prayer. And some, the punished, might not ring for years.

One of the bells, an esquila that rings with the centrifugal force of its turning, pushed on by human hands, is known as la castigada. She was punished with silence for fifty years after knocking her pusher in the head and sending his soul heavenward. It wasn't until the next jubilee year that she was allowed to ring again, though always with her scarlet cross. Perhaps being la castigada made her really seem more human, but she was certainly the bell that evoked the most tenderness from me. The tour of the cathedral's belfries is well worth it--to see the city from a bell's eye view and hear the angelus rung midday. But it was the penitent bell that made the trip unforgettable, to see that the voice of God had suffered in silence, too.

(More silence from this blog, as well, until next week. We'll be in the mountains of New Mexico, and thankful. A happy Thanksgiving to you, too!)

Jumping Back into the Past

"Well, they sure do taste like protein, don't they?" said Trini, as she crunched a few more times for good measure. She balanced a fifteen-peso bag of dark red morsels in one hand, the other making slight gestures in the air that meant, "I am eating something my son might consider good material for Fear Factor."

After emerging from the tunnels excavated through the great Tonacalli pyramid complex at Cholula, the last thing my sister-in-law and I had on our minds was a snack. Instead, our cravings leaned more toward knowledge, our appetites whetted by the labyrinth of passages that revealed layers of ancient steps, a matryoshka doll of pyramids that were constructed one on top of the other. Most of it still lies beneath the earth's surface, making a sizable hill upon which sits the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. Fittingly, it is also known in Náhuatl as Machihualtepec, or "hill made by hand." It both fueled our imaginations and piqued our curiosity, raising uncountable questions about this largest pyramid in the world.

But snacks were soon to be had, since as with most places in Mexico often frequented by the public, a patient and parasol-shaded woman sat on nearby steps to offer something tempting and toothsome to the visitors who passed on to other excavated areas. Trini and I stopped to see what might finally convince us, and the woman held out a pepita to try. But our attention was soon focused on something we can't come by up North. The bag was an irresistible invitation into a little entomophagy, a crunchy bulk of chapulines, ready to crackle in all it's flavor-fried, protein-of-grasshopper glory.

Patricio, arriving the next day in Puebla for our weekend of travel and adventure, popped a few back to satisfy a mid-morning appetite. Chewing carefully, he avoided the nuisance of getting a leg or two stuck in between a molar. And we were reminded that though more questions than answers will always surround those ancient people who built their beautiful pyramids, we can taste tiny bits of their world once in awhile. Grasshoppers have been eaten in Mexico for at least three thousand years. We were happy to be part of what we hope to be the next three thousand more.