Unfortunate encounters of the medical kind

It is nearly Christmas, and the fact is unavoidable, here as at home. We don't celebrate Xmas ourselves (but are glad to accept invitations!). However, I went out to Polanco a few weeks ago with my cousin Elias and bought a small menorah so we could light the candles here for the eight days of Chanukah. But our celebrations have been somewhat overshadowed by various medical encounters, so I have not been keeping up with travelblog entries, though there is a draft of our trip to Zacatecas waiting my attention. As recent events have impacted on my return to Australia, I thought I might depart from my usual theme and sequence to tell you about what has been going on.

As any of you who have visited Mexico City know, the pavements here are a disgrace. A combination of geological factors (e.g. Mexico City used to be a lake and is fundamentally unstable and prone to subsidence, as it is to earthquakes); totally unsuitable street trees whose roots destroy pavements; lack of maintenance budgets for repair or street lighting; allowing vehicular access to the narrowest lane ways leaving virtually no footpath; loads of construction and development ( apparently you are responsible for providing your own driveway across whatever footpath was there, so there are steps, tiles, bricks, spoon drains, deep fissures, huge cracks, smooth or sudden changes in level) - you get the picture. And this is without considering the need to dodge the abundant dog poo, the cars, trucks and motorbikes stopped or parked on the pavement, the street vendors of food and other merchandise while negotiating your way through the streets. Unfortunately for Barry, nearly 2 weeks ago on Saturday evening we were walking in the dark on our way to the movies from a friend's house when a particularly vicious piece of pavement disrepair got him. He tripped and fell heavily, and while trying to break his fall with his right arm, fractured his right humerus near the shoulder.

He said he couldn't move his arm, got a severe cramp in one leg, and was just lying there in the filthy dust-covered street while I tried to get him back on his feet. Several passers-by obviously thought he was a drunk and avoided us. But three people stopped and helped me get him upright. I called to alert Margarita, as we were still only a couple of blocks from their house, and we managed to walk back there. She and Enrique helped get the worst of the gravel out of his cut hand, gave him a brandy as he was deathly pale and obviously in shock, then, after checking by phone with our medical insurer, Margarita drove us to the emergency department of a nearby large private hospital she has used in the past and trusts. I have since come across 3 different friend who have had surgery on arms or legs right there in the past two years, and our experience has confirmed that it was a good choice.

Saturday nights in emergency are similar the world over, except in private hospitals I guess there are fewer drunks and victims of violence. It certainly was interesting in the waiting room! Poor Barry was pretty much out of it, and Margarita and her family were due to go to Acapulco the next day, so by about 11PM when he had been X-rayed and we were waiting for an orthopaedic specialist to arrive to prescribe the treatment, I suggested she go home and stayed around to handle the admission procedures myself. A bit of a challenge under stress and after midnight, when my Spanish seems to deteriorate, but by asking people to go slower and reading the fine print, I coped.

The orthopaedist who came in to review the X-Rays insisted that the only treatment for a patient over 60 with a humerus fractured in three pieces was surgery, and when he pointed out the damage on the X-Ray, we didn't think we needed a second opinion. Once we had agreed to the surgery, there were tests and other procedures needed till Barry eventually got into his room (where I had taken his things and had been napping for about an hour) by about 2AM. I then got a taxi home with his filthy clothes, and returned in the morning before he went into surgery, with the usual gear one needs in hospital. Being totally unaware of the Mexican hospital system, I did not realize that I could have got an extra bed for myself and stayed there, and I believe our medical insurance would even have covered it! But even after this first night, I still didn't realize this would have been a good idea so went home again the next night.

The surgery took place as scheduled at noon on Sunday, and the surgeon professed himself delighted by his handiwork. I am going to try to photograph the "after" X-Ray and post it here:

Barry's arm looks like a violin ( puts a different slant on the old "but doctor, will I be able to play the violin" joke). Herzonia came in to sit with me while Barry was in surgery and recovery, and we went out to lunch and read newspapers and novels and even napped a little till he returned. Maggui also came in to visit - Barry was very groggy and depressed after surgery so once I had fed him a little supper and lots of fluids, and checked he was functioning OK, we left him to sleep and went out for dinner (chicken soup and tacos) before going home.

To my surprise, Barry called early Monday morning to say he would be discharged that day, so in I went again (by pesero and Metrobus) with clean clothes and the documentation I needed to reclaim all but about $20 of the very large deposit I had paid, as the insurers had come good and picked up virtually the whole bill. We were hanging about for a while till we got release forms signed and the doctor's assistant came by with the prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers, and when we were finally discharged, Maggui came by to pick us up and drove us home.

Barry was pretty down, and quite uncomfortable, so bed seemed a good idea. After sleeping for about 4 hours in the afternoon and a light supper, he went off to bed again, but not before dictating a few emails to me changing his plans. For example, he has withdrawn from a conference in Chicago in January where he was on a panel, and we had to cancel our planned beach holiday in Playa del Carmen on the Caribbean coast. Also I had to start contemplating changing my own plans - I was due to return to Melbourne in early January, but given Barry's need for assistance over the next few weeks at least, eventually (on doctor's advice) I have decided to stay on in Mexico till January 20th with Barry, and then accompany him for his 3-week fellowship in Philadelphia. Bye-bye Melbourne summer, hello winter in the North Eastern United States, not my favourite time of year to be there.

As you can see from the opening photo, Barry is up and about now (the shot was taken at The Museum of Interventions, situated in the ex-convent of Churubusco in Coyoacán about 20 minutes' walk from here, a week after his fall. It is a very interesting museum and the ex-convent has been restored in parts and is also interesting. We contemplated returning in the evening for a concert but thought better of it. ) He has started physiotherapy with the recommended therapist (Kandy from Condesa - sounds a lot racier than she is). I went along to his second session - she is off on holidays for 2 weeks, so I am helping him with some of the exercises in her absence, though of course I can't do any of the laser, Tens machine or ultrasound treatments she started and probably will continue when they resume in January. We are hoping Barry will have 70% of his functioning back in the right arm by the time we go to Philly, but putting carry-ons into the overhead bin will probably still be out of his range of movement.

Still on the medical theme, I had an attack of shingles (called herpes zoster here) which started while we were on a short trip to Acapulco. Fortunately the worst of it was over before Barry's accident, because when I was at the most painful stage of this, I also was useful for nothing except sleeping. I figured out what the rash was likely to be when we got back to the city (wonderful thing, the Internet) and as I was still studying, I was able to use the UNAM medical service's Emergency Department (free - I was registered with the service as I had previously needed to get a full medical check to be allowed to use the UNAM pool) to confirm my diagnosis when I was in a fairly early, but already very uncomfortable, stage of the disease. I got the anti-viral treatment that stopped its spread and shortened its duration, and hopefully will avoid the longer term enduring pain that often follows.

For some other tests I needed I used the local branch of a clinic, at which the health insurance we have through Barry's work offered a 30% discount. (Don't worry, I am not posting the ultrasound of my bladder!) From the size of my bills, it seems to me that Mexico has a first-world health-care system at least in parts, but I don't know who can afford it. Only very few people have private medical insurance, and the costs seem comparable to US (in pharmaceuticals and hospital care costs) and Australia (in doctor's appointments - only there is no Medicare rebate). I now really appreciate Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - my shingles antiviral pills, 9 days' worth, and a small anti-viral spray cost close to $90 Australian. , at a purportedly discount pharmacy. Also I now appreciate that "major medical" means cover as a result of an acute or sudden incident, like an accident, rather than an alarming symptom that requires investigation. Before our next trip I will think harder about whether to get Australian travel insurance for medical events, or to use local cover, which is expensive. In Barry's case he has had his money's worth - in my case I might have done better with Australian cover.

In any case, it is never nice to have to go to hospital and undergo surgical interventions, and paying through the nose is the paradigm case of adding insult to injury. It has certainly been less fun than a beach holiday and the other activities that we have not got around to, but Barry ended up not missing any classes. He actually thought it would be easier to go in to his session where students were presenting, rather than try and contact people very late to try and cancel or reschedule, and thanks to Herzonia's offer to drive him in to the first class the day after he came home, and the use of his sling, he managed. He still can't use public transport because of the risk of getting his arm bumped - but as we don't drive here anyway, his inability to drive is no added burden. So in all he is doing very well, and we are a bit wiser for the experience.

Dancing in the Streets, Zacatecas style

We went to Zacatecas for a long weekend , 3 of the 4 day's break for Day of the Dead (1st and 2nd November) here. It is a beautifully restored colonial city, very hilly, with lots of building facades in pink stone and many hidden plazas and charming tiny streets to explore. Its rapid development and richness in its heyday was due to the discovery of silver, as Melbourne's was to gold. Among the other tourist delights there is a tour available to a former silver mine. There is also a discotheque/ nightclub in this mine - given our aversion to very loud noise and smoking, we decided to give it a miss. The tour is interesting but I struggled a bit to make out the Spanish of our guide against the noise of other groups, not helped by wearing the obligatory hard hat. (There are currently major works going on in our neighbourhood as they replace all the major drains, digging up the cobbled streets. There are a few machines and a lot of manual labourers, but I have barely seen one in a hard hat, let alone a pair of Blunnies or other decent protective foot gear, ear muffs, safety harnesses when climbing poles or descending into pits, any kind of appliance to stop the ingestion of the vast amounts of dust and worse, etc. I am sure their work is more dangerous than our mine tour was, but I guess the local government is not worried that a hurt worker might sue!)

There are quite a lot of Huichol people in the region, and one of the most enjoyable museums has a large display of the ethnography of these not very easily colonised people, who still follow the traditional lifestyle, including a kind of pilgrimage to search for peyote, which is used in their rituals. The photo below does not do justice to the huge beaded work that hangs in the entrance hall, which contains many million beads and tells some important stories.
Their artesanias are particularly colourful and beautiful. Beading in very tiny glass beads and spectacular yarn pictures are traditional, and the techniques are now used by many Huichol people to supply the market with gorgeous beaded earrings, bracelets, necklaces, bags and belts. There are also wonderful animals, real, totemic, or fantastic, beaded all over. I know we have too much stuff, and I try not to buy anything these days unless I can get rid of something I already have to make space for it. This gets to be a problem as I am quite attached to all the Mexican artifacts we already have! I was unable to resist buying a very small beaded bowl, made from a gourd, in the museum shop, however.

There is a large collection of ethnographic research, including a collection of photos by European and US anthropologists from the early 20th Century who revisited many years later, and some of their original informants. Obviously funded by some US foundation, the information about the people and their customs has been well translated into English, and I found it very informative and totally fascinating. There is also a large collection of embroidery showing all the traditional themes, some of it from the late 19th Century . The work is not quite symmetric, there seems often to be an unfinished area or a piece or corner which looks very different from the rest, clearly not accidental. One of these days I might look up some of this stuff and find out what part of their belief system leads to this style of work.

There is another museum we visited which is especially renowned for its collection of masks. This is located in a partially ruined, partially restored ex-convent, whose original building materials have been looted over time to construct housing or streets or whatever they were needed for at the time. The parts being used as galleries have been restored, and the displays were very well curated. As well as the enormous collection of masks, pottery, etc, there was also an interesting collection of puppets and costumes from traditional street theatre companies from the 18th through early 20th Century which I found tremendously evocative, and a collection of some of Diego Rivera's collection of pre-columbian artefacts, donated by his daughter. I think the founder of the museum , an artist or sculptor himself, was also Rivera's son-in-law.
As in most museums, no flash photography is allowed (though this is largely ignored by the Mexican public). As I am not much of a photographer and don't know how to take photos other than point and click, I don't know how to suppress the automatic flash so usually only even try to take a photo where there is lots of natural light. So apologies for the lack of good photos!

One of the magic things about beautiful Zacatecas is the Callejoneada: literally, dancing in the laneways. I did not know what to expect at all, but when we came back to the hotel after sightseeing on our first day there, I saw some very colourful local dancers performing in the square near the hotel (see photo), and wondered if this was it.
It certainly wasn't! I have video but I can't upload it with the software I have available, so one of these days will post it on a website and you can look at it there!

I saved a bit of a draft about Zacatecas ages ago to start this entry, and was quite sure I had written about the callejoneada, but when I finally got around to work on the draft, there was nothing there about it at all. But then I remembered, I had actually written it up as my Spanish homework one day, as part of an exercise to write a letter home. So just to show you I can, I am going to post the Spanish version right now for the Spanish speakers on my distribution list (with apologies for the deficiencies in my Spanish prose), and then will roughly rewrite and expand on it in English.

Aquí en México, seguimos siendo turistas los fines de semana. Recientemente, fuimos a Zacatecas, una ciudad preciosa con una herencia colonial. Le han renovado bien las calles , las fachadas y muchos de los edificios – ¡que buenas son las vistas! Hay una tradición muy pintoresca en Zacatecas ¡todo el mundo baila en las calles por la noche! Hay orquestas que tocan y los bailadores, ciudadanos y visitantes, se juntan y van detrás de los músicos mientras caminan por las callecitas, bailando. El fenómeno se llama la callejoneada.

Hay muchas placitas coloniales lindas en Zacatecas, y las bandas se paran para tocar un poco en cada una, y donde hay más espacio, los participantes bailan más, y más espectadores y participantes siguen reuniendo con el grupo durante la noche. Estuvimos en una callejoneada con un grupo de turistas y residentes – muchos fueron de una familia que habían venido para una reunión familiar, porque era Día de Muertos.

Por el día, hubo muchas personas en las calles vestido de disfraz, para Halloween o Día de Muertos: unos se juntaron con nosotros, pero hubo orquestas más grandes con mas bailadores que la nuestra en el Zócalo, al lado de la Catedral, donde además hubo un burro con barriles de tequila para atraer las masas. Pero preferí nuestro grupo, con nuestra propia tequila y unas cocas, porque cuando la orquesta terminó a las diez, la familia nos invitó a acompañarla a su hotel, donde Barry y yo también estábamos hospedándonos, para comer tamales y tomar atole, todos hechos en casa, que la familia había preparado para la fiesta.

Por casualidad, encontramos un hombre de la familia cuya esposa (que no estuvo con nosotros debido a una cita con su hijo en una fiesta de su escuela) es Australiana. El es dueño de un hostal en Zacatecas, y una de sus huéspedes también es Australiana, y escribe para la editorial Lonely Planet. Pasamos el día siguiente con ella, pero estas aventuras son para otra carta.

Rough translation and further commentary: we have been going away on weekends, and recently went to Zacatecas, a beautiful city with a strong colonial heritage. They have done a great job on restoring the city centre, many of the facades, streets, and squares, and like many silver towns, it is very hilly and has beautiful views. There is a very colourful tradition called the callejoneada: people join up with a band and follow them, gathering more followers as they dance their way through the streets in the evenings. The many small streets and lanes open up into little squares, often on several levels, where an open plaza is surrounded by beautiful colonial era buildings and where there is more space. The band stops walking and the dancers can let go and fill the space available.

We joined a group just across the road from our hotel, and discovered as the night progressed that many people in the group were from just one extended family living in and around Zacatecas, and had come into town for a family reunion over the holiday weekend. The family included a guy who has lived in the UK and Australia: his Australian wife was at another party with their children. At present he is back in Zacatecas running a back-packers hostel, and one of the other people in the group was one of his guests, Kate, who turned out to be an Australian who writes for Lonely Planet. What are the odds! The photo beside the Spanish text is one taken of our group dancing in one of the small plazas.

Because it was the night of Day of the Dead, which is now a bit mixed up with Halloween (we see syncretism in full swing here, with the traditional skeleton and Catrina costumes very mingled with kids dressed as pumpkins or carrying little pumpkin-shaped containers instead of the traditional skulls) there were many more people out on the streets in fancy dress than one would normally see. Here are some typical folk watching the dancing in the zocalo.

Our band was just one of many. There were many larger bands, including a couple which seemed to be permanently stationed in the zócalo, which had way larger followings than ours. The many onlookers were watching or joining in, and in the zócalo we also enjoyed another traditional feature: a burro bearing large flagons of tequila;

as this was dispensed, the crowds got less bashful and quite a scene developed there beside the Cathedral (a photo of the Cathedral's impressively carved street facade - its less imposing side faces the zócalo - showing some of the sculpture niches, which I took during the day, follows).
But after a while our band moved on and we followed. The hostel owner had bought a small bottle of tequila to share, and we had bought some soft drinks at a local convenience store, so we were well catered for. A group of people joined us from a bar in one of the squares, unfortunately including a very drunk and rather obnoxious fellow who eventually left the group when some police appeared - we were not unhappy to see him go as he kept propositioning the women, none of whom was remotely interested in being propositioned.


The band stopped playing at 10PM. This is a photo of some of the dancers who lasted till then: the drunk is in the front row, left.
I assumed we'd tip them or somehow pay for our entertainment, but they just melted into the night - I still don't know whether the family group had paid for them in advance or they get remunerated some other way. There were then two proposals to continue our evening - a visit to a cantina in the centre of Zacatecas in which the hostel owner has some interest, or a return to our hotel, where many of the family members from out of town were also staying, to eat tamales and drink atole, the traditional foods for Day of the Dead, which the family had waiting and warming in one of their cars. While Barry and Kate wanted to go to the cantina, the family-based low key celebration was all I wanted to do. So we all joined in and had some tamales and atole, and a bit of a chat, then when that party broke up, I went to bed and Barry and Kate went off to the Cantina.

We discovered that one of the women was the mother , and another, the aunt, of a senior official in the local tourism department. These family connections led to us being included in an offer to chauffeur Kate to a couple of destinations within a few hours of Zacatecas on Sunday.
We saw both an archaeological site, La Quemada, whose origins are somewhat mysterious, but it seems more allied to other meso-american sites to the north than to Teotihuacán or Mayan sites I have visited.

After touring this site, we proceeded to another charming town, Jerez, complete with cowboys, where we had lunch and wandered about while Kate did her Lonely Planet research, assisted by a very helpful American woman who lives in Jerez. I took lots of photos of shops full of cowboy boots and hats, but only managed to catch a couple of guys on their horses:

There were some lovely old buildings with wonderful stonework and timber carving, a beautiful church or two, and several lovely squares filled with lots of people making music, meeting their friends, and selling and eating street food. We decided that because it gets quite chilly and is somewhat lacking in cultural activities, Jerez, for all its charm, won't ever be a Mecca for US retirees like San Miguel de Allende.

Queretaro, San Miguel de Allende and Tequisquiapan

In October, we went away for a weekend in Querétaro with Maggui and her mother Romy, to the holiday house Maggui bought when she retired. It isn't that far from Mexico City but getting out of town on the Friday afternoon was horrendous - it took 2 hours to get to the start of the toll road, then about 2 hours more to get to Querétaro. Our return trip late on Sunday was a bit quicker, but very nerve-wracking especially after dark. Barry and I both feel that we couldn't cope with the volume of traffic and how hard it is to get out of the city by car - not to mention how stressful we would find driving in the intense city traffic, with cars double parked everywhere, no lane discipline whatever, and people disregarding red lights at will if they feel they can get away with it. The traffic and fear of owning a car and driving here would be one of my major arguments against living in Mexico City long term, however much I enjoy it short term.


One of the reasons Maggui chose Querétaro is that she has family living there who can keep an eye on the place when they are not there, in the form of Gerardo, one of her nephews but like a much younger brother. For a few years of his childhood Romy cared for him, so they are very close - in fact when I first met him some 30 years ago, I thought he actually was one of her brothers, and it has taken me years to get the family straight. He commutes into Mexico City usually on Sunday night, where he works for Pemex (the state owned petroleum mega-enterprise), returning Friday night. Latterly he has been going by bus but formerly he drove. Now he is considering looking for work in Querétaro, which seems from appearances to be booming, but there is not really that much opportunity - there are small Pemex offices around the country, but all the major bureaucracy and functions are centralised in Mexico City. His wife Marisela works at the local university, and their 2 sons are finishing high school or in junior college there. But they do not want to return to living in the Mexico City, and enjoy the pace in Querétaro a lot better. Some of the photos show how attractive the downtown colonial areas are.

We had brought food with us from the city, but also went out in the morning for fresh bread and hand squeezed orange juice (brought home from the corner store in 1 litre plastic bags!). Maggui had brought the makings for chilaquiles, and I had a lesson in making this typical Mexican treat. It consists of layers of several alternating layers of fried tortilla strips ( home made in this case, but I guess you could use corn chips in Australia), a fairly mild green salsa - home made again, shredded cheese (most Mexican cheeses are not very strong and melt well. I will look up a recipe to confirm what type of cheese is used), and some cream (Maggui had a low fat version , and didn't use a vast amount). The baking dish is heated in the oven till bubbling, with the cheese melted. I have eaten chilaquiles several times (including breakfast at the wedding I blogged about earlier this year), but these were far and away the best ever. This was teamed with scrambled eggs, home made frijoles and potatoes with rajas (chilli strips), and fresh rolls and/or tortillas to mop up the sauce. Plus we had the juice and heaps of fresh fruit - I had brought huge mangoes and a decent melon, Maggui added bananas and grapefruit. I had brought some strong teabags for us from home - if you want a strong cup of black tea here you need the imported stuff , or else 2 local teabags.

As well as having family there, by now Maggui her mother have formed great relationships with their neighbours - in fact one of the neighbours popped in to thank Maggui for the birthday present she had brought from the city and given to her 8 year old daughter, and, this being Mexico, she stayed to eat a belated breakfast (there was of course a huge quantity) and I had a chance to practice my Spanish. Then an hour later, Gerardo and Marisela arrived and another round of breakfast was served for them - by now it was about 12. Then Maggui left Romy in their care, and took us into the centre of Queretaro to have a look around. We had gone in to have drinks and coffee in a lovely old hotel the night before (the first photo was taken then), and noted how beautifully the colonial city centre had been restored, but everything looks very different during the day. We took in a museum in an ex-Franciscan convent (see photos) and the artesanía market in the very central section, and noted how many different cultural activities were listed for that evening - I noted a choral concert early in the evening and Barry a Cuban Band playing later in the evening, at various of the outdoor plazas. And of course Barry found a book shop where he just had to buy a few books!

We then headed off to Gerardo's house, which is in one of the many recent developments all around Queretaro. In this case all the streets are named after the stars of the Golden Age of the Mexican movies and radio, really evocative names like Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante, Maria Felix, Dolores Del Rio - I have since learned more about lots of them from my Cancionero Mexicano course.

We collected everyone, and spent the rest of the day with the family, now also including Daniel, the younger of her nephew's sons, driving to San Miguel de Allende, which is a fairy tale of a place. Viewed from the lookout point on our way in, it looks like the original on which Walt Disney modelled Fantasy Land.

There is a lot of gorgeous pink stone and the crenellated towers of the Cathedral look exactly like Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland. It is hilly and unbelievably charming, full of colonial buildings and streetscapes , very hilly and therefore full of gorgeous views. Many retired and artsy Americans have retired to San Miguel, so the prices have been pushed up, and there are many stores selling art, pottery, clothing and textiles not strictly along the lines of the usual handicrafts. The night life and music scene looked interesting, but we weren't there in the evening. I know Bev and Judy enjoyed their few days here, as their first port of call in Mexico.


A highlight of our return drive to Queretaro was stopping for dinner at Chilo's, a local seafood place, where Maggui got the band to serenade Barry (she had missed his actual birthday by a couple of weeks, but that wouldn't stop Maggui!). I have video footage of the serenade, but have had the usual problems downloading it. One of these days I will manage to move the video to somewhere you can actually view it, but probably not till we are back in Oz. See the picture I took to show the relative sizes of a normal bottle of white wine, the oversized beer bottles they served to the table, and a fish fillet Gerardo ordered.

The seafood was excellent, fresh and cheap. We met the owner, quite a young guy, who said he trucks in the fresh fish 3 or 4 times a week direct from the coast at Tampico. It is a huge barn of a place, completely unpretentious, and was full of families, who were mostly just leaving as we arrived, as their business is serving Mexican lunch, and they close about 8. Driving back the final half hour or so to Queretaro, there was a beautiful crescent moon illuminating the landscape, the mountains just visible on the horizon by starlight under the absolutely magical deep navy sky. Too gorgeous!

We returned to Gerardo's then just Maggui, Barry and I carried on into the centre to catch the last half hour of the Cuban band. The quality of the amplification was excellent: I've noticed how clear the sound often is at large outdoor events here, not sure how they do it and avoid the distortion I often associate with this kind of concert. The city was absolutely full of people: family groups with lots of small kids, asleep or awake, and young people in couples or packs. Everyone was eating something or other from the street vendors, from packet snacks, corn and ice cream to plates heaped with food. Kids had balloons and were blowing bubbles, or playing with marionettes and other toys bought on the street.

Echelons of men earn their living from tips earned by managing the parking - guiding you to spots on their pitch, helping you park in the tight spots by whistling, waving their rags about, thumping on your car, or whatever other means they have invented. In some cases they will wash your car while you are away (this happens a lot in Mexico City), thereby increasing their tip, and the presence of a watchful eye ought to discourage break-ins and car theft, so drivers cheerfully pay the guardians. I often wonder how the various guys in this informal economy claim and retain their particular pitch, and if there is a mafia of sorts which controls them and claims a cut of their takings. (Likewise I wonder about the street vendors - I photographed the Indigenous women below in San Miguel.) Outside the smarter restaurants and hotels there seems to be a bit more formality to the system, which even runs to valet parking, but it is amazing how people create a market and find a niche in the most straitened circumstances. Maggui had negotiated the parking system, having dropped us off near the plaza before she went off to park, and only rejoined us in time for the last song. Walking back to the car, she met some of the inevitable ex-Nestle crowd - she worked there for well over 30 years, in increasingly senior executive assistant roles, and seems always to run into former colleagues wherever we go.

On Sunday morning after breakfast Maggui dropped us off at a lovely park which has a museum and a few large statues of heroes of the Mexican Revolution, so we could have a look around for a bit, then picked us up and we packed up the car and Romy and headed off to Tequisquiapan, an incredibly charming village which used to be famous as a spa, but whose water has largely dried up as a result of lack of attention and poor environmental guardianship. After wandering around the zócalo we chose a place to eat lunch. Paella was on that day, so I had to have it, but I was a bit disappointed: the version cooked by the grandmothers at El Hogar Español in Johnston St in Collingwood at home is very much better!

We then had a wander around the place, taking in the artesanía market and ending up at the retirement home of Maggui's former boss, who was away in Europe . His chef, who is caring for the house and the rather overweight poodle, is a great friend of Maggui's and took us on a guided tour of the lovely house, pool and gardens, and regaled us with tales of Tequisquiapan in the old days. He also gave Maggui a huge bag of avocados from the garden in various stages of maturity: she passed on half a dozen to us which we consumed with relish as they ripened over the next couple of weeks. From there we negotiated our way through the extensive and very dusty roadworks back to the main toll road, and back to Mexico City. Maggui and I had both noticed "Speedy Gonzalez" playing over and over in the very small play list of a local radio station we had been tuned to, which neither of us could really explain! We just changed the station to something classical and a lot more calming for the journey home.

Boycott Manos Magicas in Puebla

Well, with doing my Spanish homework taking up lots of the time I can get at the computer, and our many weekend trips to different parts of the country, I feel like I'll never be able to catch up on all the stuff I'd love to share with you. I have figured out that I can't directly move my photos from iPhoto on Barry's Mac to my Picasa web page because he has an old version of the operating system - in fact he tells me he has the correct version in Australia but has not installed it. Short of buying it myself and trying to install, I am going to be stuck with the painful methods of moving individual photos to the blog and continually failing when I try to post a slide show or short video. When I look at the photos , much of the magic of our adventures comes back to me, fortunately. So I might defer writing in detail (if at all) about 4 or 5 weeks' worth of adventures, and then when I get back to Australia try and work some magic with my PC so I can post my photos on Picasa and let you see them from there.

However, I have one duty to fulfil as a consumer advocate. The weekend after Bev and Judy left, Barry and I went to Puebla for the weekend. It is a beautiful colonial city, renowned for its tiles and ceramics. Most of you who live in Melbourne will have seen the lovely talavera dinner set I bought when we were here two years ago. It is absolutely gorgeous, cost a fortune (including the shipping cost which doubled its price), and has been disastrous! We expected problems with the shipping, and I was ecstatic when it arrived intact, but within days of starting to use it, the mugs, which are not a standard piece but had been made to order in the beautiful traditional pattern of peaches I chose, started to break when I poured hot water into them to make tea. They either developed slow leaks or more often disastrous cracks, and all but one of them fell victim. I would only try to use one on days when I was feeling full of optimism, but inevitably as I preheated them with tap water, drained them, introduced my tea bag and and started gently pouring water from the jug, a feeling of dread descended, and either intensified as the crack sounded or lifted if the mug lived for another day.

At the time I complained to Manos Magicas (literally "magic hands") where I had bought the set, and they graciously agreed to replace them and sent 6 new ones to us in Mexico City. But Barry, who was coming through Mexico City on the way home from another trip to the US, was overburdened with books, so he left the entire box of mugs with Maggui to mind. As part of the set, I had also selected a bowl which is talavera both inside and out, again a special order. When the mugs started failing, I noted with great concern that there was a leaf missing in the interior pattern on one bowl: the glaze had lifted off, it seemed, so I stopped using it, never dared use them in the microwave, and gave the damaged one to Barry to return to Puebla when he went there for a conference during the next year. As this is also not a stock item, they said they would replace that bowl and he could pick it up next time he was in Puebla. On that trip to Manos Magicas, he also bought a couple of new large and small plates to augment the settings.

When he got home from that brief trip, he brought back the replacement mugs, again intact thanks to excellent packing, and also the new pieces he had bought. But once more, within days, the mugs started to crack. What kind of mug will break when you pour boiling water in it, well you may ask. And what kind of plate breaks when you carve a leg off a roast chook and put it on the plate? Got it in one, talavera from Manos Magicas. While not one of the small plates, which we use frequently, has had a problem, more than half of the big plates have cracked either when putting hot food on them, one when it was in a low oven to preheat (to avoid a sudden shock!) or have cracked when I take them out of the dishwasher or the cupboard. Some I have glued together, others just chucked out in disgust.

So while we were in Puebla, Barry reluctantly agreed to go back to Manos Magicas. We were there a long time, speaking but eventually shouting, to the person in charge of the shop, then by phone to the manager, and then to his wife, who came in to handle us personally. Barry was in a rage at their refusal to replace all our broken pieces, and in the end , after a really long battle and threats to complain to the local equivalent of Consumer Affairs, they agreed we could take 6 new cups - a stock item this time, what they call a lechera, a broad cup for milk or cafe au lait. I figured maybe it was the design of the mugs at fault, and that a stock item would be a better bet. They also provided several new plates free, plus the replacement bowl (and we decided, to be fair, to pay them for a couple of extra bowls they had made and set aside for us). Barry insisted we use them here, as he said there is no point schlepping them back to Oz if they are going to break right away. To my horror and grief, 2 of the 3 lecheras I unpacked have already broken. I am feeling quite strong today and am about to unwrap a few plates and start using them to see whether they are any better! But every time I use them I continue to get great aesthetic pleasure from them, so no wonder my heart is breaking along with the china. So my piece of consumer advice to any of you who travel in Mexico is under no circumstance should you ever buy talavera to use (as opposed to displaying it for its beauty) from Manos Magicas in Puebla.

I have attached a photo of a cup, so you can see how nice the pattern is, but if you look closely you can see is cracked. There is one of the interior which shows the crack clearly, which I sent to them with my last outraged email, but I will spare you the agony. But to show why I am seduced by the beauty of their stuff, I am also attaching a few other shots of the stuff on display in their shop. Don't be fooled - just don't ever buy anything if you intend any use for it other than just looking. And a shot of a typical tiled wall and of the Cathedral, to show we did see a lot more of Puebla than just the inside of Manos Magicas!

Xochimilco and the UNAM murals

On Monday, all the museums in Mexico City are closed. It was a lovely day so it seemed a good idea to visit the floating gardens at Xochimilco, easily accessible by light rail from our place. There is a kind of reed which the indigenous inhabitants discovered could be woven into a structure to hold soil and thus make beds for growing vegetables and flowers (these are called chinampas) way back when Mexico City was still a lake, and the many canals of Xochimilco are the remnants of the far southern tip of that lake. There are several different docks from which decorated boats carry sightseers on trips through the canals. The boats are called trajineras and are propelled by a boatman using a long pole, a bit like a gondolier. There are boats with musicians, whether Mariachis, marimba bands or simple guitar groups like the one who serenaded us, and other boats with food of all kinds, as well as peddlers offering all the usual stuff, rugs, jewellery, pottery, and lots of balloons and children's toys. On Sundays the waterways are choked with large boats with family groups out having as good time, but on this Monday it was very quiet.

Again, I am having no end of trouble posting a video. Here is a photo of the band who serenaded us (La Bamba) as I can't post the video I took .


The waterways are very pretty, with nurseries and houses, churches, small workshops etc. on either side. I saw some cows on a plot of land and this seemed such a rare sight in Mexico City that I took a photo. There are tantalising paths leading off to who knows what. Also we saw lots of school kids being rowed across the canals to get home from school at lunchtime, and our very handsome boatman even gave a lift to a local woman whose husband had left their boat on the other side and needed to get across. Music and and peddlers assailed us constantly. I guess we fell into a couple of classic tourist traps. First, we hadn't figured out the cost of the boat in advance (but we negotiated this before setting off). Then, while on the water, after refusing many offers, we didn't ascertain the price when we ordered what we expected to be a snack of 3 quesadillas. What we got was three entire meals (comida corrida style) , each with 3 quesadillas, rice, frijoles, and tortillas (see photos). I didn't have much trouble polishing off the lot, despite it being a bit heavier on the oil than I prefer, and a lot dearer than such a meal would have been on dry land. But Judy is a lot less fond of Mexican food and didn't eat much, and nor did Bev. Here is a picture of the meal!

Bev bought some silver earrings very similar to ones I bought in Taxco a couple of years ago. I thought the price we negotiated was pretty good, but when I looked up what I had paid in Taxco, mine were much cheaper. But most jewellery I have bought at markets in Mexico ends up a lot dearer than Taxco, and they were still less than half of what they'd cost in Melbourne, and cheaper than a similar pair I have seen recently in a local store. And they look great on her, which is the main thing!

After our couple of hours on the boat, we decided to go to the University (UNAM, where I am currently studying Spanish) to look at the murals on some of the major buildings. The most spectacular is the library, which is a tower building entirely covered with a mosaic mural by Juan O'Gorman. Each piece of coloured stone in the mosaic comes from Mexico, the many colours used coming from different regions, and for me the knowledge of the geology of the country, and the logistic and engineering feats the mural embodies add to the sense of wonder engendered by the stories the mural tells. There are elements representing science and religion, within both indigenous and Hispanic cultures and world views. I am becoming more familiar with figures like Tlaloc (the rain god) and Quetzalcoatl (Cortes's conquest was made easier because he was seen by some of the indigenous peoples as a reincarnation or return of this legendary ruler). On various other buildings there are other murals: I will persist with trying to post my own photos. But in the meantime, I googled "UNAM murals" and found the following link to much better photos on the web than mine. I have not used flickr before but have heard it recommended: I suggest you check it out, I managed to see the photos without being a member.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/planeta/176965415/in/photostream/

The Wikipedia entry on UNAM also has lots of information about the campus and the murals, which have UNESCO World Heritage listing. It is a huge campus and we only toured a very small part of it, following what I remembered from the guided tour I had last time I was here as part of my course. I really wanted Bev and Judy to get some sense of where I would be studying, and didn't even get to show them the wonderful pool!

I am now going to try once again to post a few photos from UNAM, and then I will post this entry, which I have been drafting for weeks, on the blog. One of these days, when I am less busy with my Spanish homework or have more computer access, I will figure out a way to get my videos up on a website somewhere!

Diego Rivera Murals at the National Palace, and Diego and Frida at the Casa Azul

Bev, Judy and I went to the National Palace, which runs along one side of the Zócalo in Mexico City, to see the famous murals by Diego Rivera, which tell the history of Mexico until the late 1930's. As we came in, we were offered a free guided tour by Pedro, an unemployed history graduate of the National University (UNAM), and he turned out to be a very good source of information. Although his English could have been better, he knew his subject well. He told us the history coloured by his own perspective, as someone who identifies with his mother's family as an Indigenous Mexican, and also from a leftist point of view, familiar to me from Barry's influence over the years. Judy and Bev had many questions about the Mexico of today in light of the history portrayed in the murals, and he tackled them all gamely though these answers, less rehearsed than those to our questions about people and events portrayed in the murals, were not quite so informative. Flash photography is not allowed and there were few of the interior walls bright enough for me to take good photos without flash, but I managed to find 2 to post.


Rivera's artistic talent as one of the prime mural painters of the 20th century was manifest, as was his encyclopaedic knowledge of key events in pre-columbian, colonial and modern history. The church, capitalism, the bourgeoisie don't come off too well in his treatment, and nor do the key figures throughout Mexican history whom he saw as having betrayed the common people and the indigenous inhabitants. Still, he was of the generation that saw the potential of science and technology-based development for the future, and there is an optimism about the murals, and also great pride in the nation's history and the success of the Mexican independence struggle and the series of revolutions. Plus tributes to all the food products Mexico has given the world - including maize, tomatoes, avocados, chiles, chocolate, chicle (the stuff all chewing gum used to be made from) - in one panel. Do not miss seeing these murals if you come to Mexico.

We had a quick look at the Cathedral on another side of the zócalo, then wandered through the nicely restored streets of the historic centre to eat lunch at the Casa de los Azulejos, (House of Tiles) , a beautiful building now housing a Sanborn's restaurant. This brought us very close to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the wonderful white marble palace where we booked Bev and Judy's tickets to see the Ballet Folklórico on Sunday night before heading on through the Alameda (Central Park). This runs along Avenida Juárez, and there is an outdoor photo exhibition which featured very evocative photos taken from postcards and posters celebrating Mexican artists of stage, screen and radio from the early 20th Century, including some information about major artists and forms of folk ballads that engaged Bev's interest. We posed for photos there: see these!



I was looking for a silver store where we bought a menorah many years ago to show Bev and Judy their collection of Judaica in silver. Last time I was here they had moved to a new spot along Juárez Avenue (after their original store was damaged in the earthquake of 1985), but they are now gone from this main street (must check them out on the web), so it was a bit of a disappointment. But we ended up across the road from one of the finest state-sponsored artesanía shops, so we popped in to browse through a range of craft from some of the best artisans in the country, then visited the museum which was erected to house Rivera's famous mural "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda", which was originally housed in the Alameda Hotel on Avenida Juárez , which also collapsed in the earthquake. They rescued the mural and reconstructed it as the major exhibit here, with a legend showing all the important historic personages, fortunately in English as well as Spanish, and after the morning's exposure it was an opportunity to consolidate some of the history and remind ourselves of the key real and mythic figures who feature in his work.

The trip home via Metro and pesero was as interesting as usual, and another CD was purchased for 10 pesos. We stopped to pick up some sweetish rolls resembling Challah at a very large panaderia opposite our Metro station. I wanted to show Bev and Judy another of these amazing institutions with their large range of sweet rolls, cakes and biscuits as well as the standard rolls sold for a controlled price (which has just risen by about 10%), all of which are made fresh all through the day and seem to have no preservatives, as they are quite stale a day later. We decided they were a bit too cakey, but the other bread we bought was a great success with our Shabbat dinner.

We spent the rest of the evening talking, listening to music, and tentatively planning activities for the rest of the week in Mexico City. Then we had a quiet Saturday, walking locally to take in the activities on the streets and in the central squares in Coyoacán, then wandering through the produce market. Just a couple of blocks further on we proceeded to the Casa Azul (Blue House) , which was the Kahlo family home where Frida grew up, and later was the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. There is a permanent collection of many of their artefacts and recreated living spaces - living rooms, bedrooms and the kitchen are very interesting, as is the collection of Frida's outfits, which are familiar from her most famous self-portraits. Recently there has been an exhibition of documents. sketches and early works of both of the artists, which were stored in trunks in the bathroom with instructions not to open while Dolores Olmeda (whose former home, now a museum, houses the largest collection of Frida's paintings) was alive. She died just a few years ago, hence the new material on display. Barry and I had seen the huge Frida exhibition at Bellas Artes, and felt that the social, historic and political context in which she worked was barely mentioned there, to the detriment of the otherwise excellent collection. A lot of the documents now on display in the Casa Azul remedy this lack. Absolutely fascinating stuff, correspondence from all kinds of internationally known artists and revolutionaries, interesting publications from the 30's and 40's in particular, lots of photos of famous friends, political figures, artists, actors, singers, playwrights and musicians, taken around the lunch table or in the garden, and it is impossible not to speculate on the extra layers of meaning in the correspondence, wondering who was whose lover when? Plus lots of facsimiles of early pre-columbian codices and books of art from colonial times, all of which influences you can find in Diego's murals, and to a lesser extent in the animals and artefacts in Frida's work.

It had been very hot walking to the Casa Azul, so we were taken by surprise by the downpour which followed and confined us to the coffee shop. It was accompanied, as it is often, by a series of power cuts, so we couldn't get a cappuccino, but managed a cup of tea while we waited for the storm to abate just a little so we could go home. Judy was not feeling well, so she stayed home and went to bed while Bev, Barry and I headed to a local restaurant for lunch. It was pretty close to 5 PM by the time we ate, not atypical for a weekend family lunch in Mexico, and all around there were large multiple generations of families loudly enjoying their comida. We picked up a few odds and ends at the supermarket before returning home, but Judy wasn't tempted by any of the goodies we had chosen, and stayed wrapped up in her quilt on the sofa for the rest of the evening, and for most of the next day too.

Museum of Anthropology and the joys of public transport on my birthday

My old school friends, sisters Bev and Judy, came in by bus on September 26th. They had flown from LAX to the airport at Leon, which got them within a reasonable bus ride of the very pretty town of San Miguel de Allende, where they spent 3 nights having a great time
before heading to stay with us in Mexico City. We had lots of talking time to catch up on news, and consultations with Barry, our Tourism Guru, to plan out activities for about a week here. As Barry is at work in the archives or at the Colegio most of the time on weekdays, I was their tourist guide most of the time. I'd saved going to some of my favourite museums and tourist destinations till their visit, and though there is so much to be done and so little time to do it, we gave it our best shot.

Our first day's destination was the National Museum of Anthropology, located along Paseo de la Reforma in Chapultepec Park. It was my birthday, so I was delighted to spend the day having fun with friends from home and from here. I love accompanying newcomers to Mexico City on their first trips on peseros (the collective mini-buses that run shuttle services between undocumented locations) and the Metro. The peseros are crowded, often very run-down vehicles with uncomfortable seats (if you can get one - standing is more usual). There are always people sleeping and always women applying their make up, which is hazardous due to the stop/start nature of the ride. A favourite activity is curling your eyelashes with a teaspoon - I attempted this at home once after studying how it was done on many peseros and Metros: all I can say is I was lucky not to put my eye out totally - don't try this at home!

The drivers clearly spend more on their sound systems than they do on vehicle maintenance - this way they can drown out the roar of the engine, the squeal of the brakes and the grinding of the gears with their choice of super-loud Mexican or imported music s they weave in and out of the traffic and ignore the traffic lights and stop signs. One does see a cross-section of Mexico: Indigenous people who seem to have come straight off some of the carvings we were to see later at the museum; slim young men in exquisitely laundered and ironed silk shirts and pants; men and women in business suits; students; lots of muffin tops hanging out of jeans; many little kids who have been to cute school; tired looking medical workers in their white or green uniforms; shoppers with huge bundles of every kind of stuff; young couples with babies in their arms, looking little more than adolescents themselves.

We took a pesero to the nearest Metro, a 6 or 7-minute ride, then headed for Chapultepec. The Metro here is less than 50 years old, quite spacious and very graffiti-free by world standards. The passageways, open spaces and platforms are made of local polished marble; there are always people sweeping and keeping the place clean, and however frequent the trains, there are always lots more people waiting on the platform by the time the next one arrives. Not only passengers get on: there are numerous people selling something. Most noticeable (certainly most audible!) are the mostly young vendors with a super-amplified CD player in a back pack selling pirated CDs in regular or these days MP3 format: they blast a selection of their music at you while crying out a spiel about what's on it, and the standard price is 10 pesos ($1US). Sometimes you get a musician or two, playing their music for tips and often also selling a CD of it: we had a young guy playing guitar and quena (Andean Pan pipes) and after giving him a few pesos for the entertainment, Bev also bought the CD. Sometimes they have a DVD for sale, mostly kids' music, or CDs or DVDs of English language courses. Also I have seen every kind of lolly, commercial or home-made, every kind of pen, flashlights, batteries, sink strainers, gimmicky key rings, combs, toiletries, make up, hair ornaments, and small tools. Plus there are blind, deaf or just plain religious folk begging or selling religious tracts of various kinds. Plus magicians, musicians, joke tellers, mimes. We saw one of the most desperate performances ever: a filthy man, looking like a very dirty Indian Fakir from a 1960's cartoon, unwrapped a bundle of broken glass from a putrid rag, spread it out on the floor and lay down on it, on his scarred front and back, flexing his muscles till we heard the glass break further: then he got up, swept the glass splinters back into the rag, and requested money for the exhibition, while oozing blood from his cuts (Bev says he was bleeding - I couldn't bear to watch).


From the Chapultepec Metro we walked to the Museum, through some of the park, past the Monument to the Niños Heroes ( a group of young military cadets who valiantly defended their college to the death from the invading troops.) This is unkindly referred to by some, but not patriotic Mexicans, as Los Asparragos (the Asparagus) which the columns closely resemble. We came out on Paseo de la Reforma and wandered along this beautiful boulevard past several other museums till we came to the Museum of Anthropology. Apart from being a very impressive building indeed, this is a magnificent museum. Downstairs it covers all the major archaeological regions and periods of Mexican History, while upstairs is the ethnography/ anthropology display, which goes through the same regions geographically and historically in their continuity to today. Upstairs is a wonderful place to get oriented to this fascinating country, and to see the many indigenous people, and their origins, their religions, agriculture, food, tools and music, and some of their handicrafts, all placed in the context of Mexico's geography, history and the Mexico of today. Downstairs you can see some of the treasures from the key archaeological sites and eras of pre-columbian Mexico, which is a fabulous orientation to get before heading off to some of the key sites. When I first visited the museum, 30 years ago, there was hardly a word in English, but now there are many bilingual captions, plus displays and videos in English or with subtitles. I am only good for about 2 hours at a stretch, so then I get a coffee and/or a snack in the cafeteria and go back for a second stretch of about an hour, but I can't absorb any more than this, so I always spend several days at this museum if I am in Mexico longer than a couple of weeks.

No photos are permitted at the Museum and I don't think I took any at the Market, but here are a few shots of typical artesanias I found in Barry's library: a Tree of Life; some colourful table napery; a tin Virgen de Guadalupe; some clay figures of a demon and a skeleton.



As it was my birthday, our good friend Maggui decided to come and meet us at the museum and chauffeur us to our next stop, the Ciudadela craft market (Mercado de Artesanias). We were bit hungry by then so after a very quick preliminary wander, we had a quick snacky lunch of quesadillas (tortillas folded around a mixture of cheese and a variety of fillings, I think we had mushrooms, potato, maybe flor de clabaza (zuchinni flowers), cooked on the comal , a large flat metal plate over a heat source), and a drink. Then we all ended up buying some jewellery for ourselves or for gifts, and Bev and Judy bought small shoulder bags with typical embroidery panels to fit the minimal travellers' requisites, but we spent very little time going through the market as it was getting late. I have been known to spend 4 hours at this market roaming around without buying anything at all, so a stay of barely an hour didn't scratch the surface of its many delights. But as Bev and Judy are going on to Oaxaca and Yucatán, they will have many more market opportunities, and I guess so will I!

We had my birthday dinner booked at a very lovely restaurant very near home in Coyoacán, but first Maggui took us home to her apartment where we picked up Romy, her 90+ year old mother, drank a tequila toast, and I got presented with a beautiful bunch of coral roses. Then we raced back to our apartment to change into something a bit warmer, collected Barry, and headed off to Los Danzantes, where Herzonia was waiting as she was on time and we, typically were just a bit late. Later, an old friend of Barry and Maggui's from 1968, Hilda, who now lives in New Orleans but was visiting, joined us also. We had more tequila and mezcal, wine, and a wonderful dinner - this restaurant does modern Mexican food with a twist, maybe it is the Mod Mex equivalent of Mod Oz food. It was really hard to choose what to eat as so many dishes appealed, and we all tried each other's just to be sure. Barry had kid, Bev, Judy and I each had a different fish dish, several people had ravioli of cuitlacoche (this is a fungus which grows on corn under the right circumstances - Herzonia thinks it'd sound better described as corn truffles, and it certainly has that wonderful earthy mushroom flavour). Herzonia had manchamanteles, a kind of spare rib cooked in a wonderful richly coloured and flavoured sauce which literally means "tablecloth stainer". We shared some salads and the restaurant gave me an explosive small chocolate souffle bearing a birthday candle - it was so rich none of us could manage much more than a spoonful of it, though we all tried! As we were sitting in an outdoor area right at the front of the restaurant, which faces the Plaza Centenario, on of the two central squares of Coyoacán, we were serenaded, and asked for money, by every itinerant musician who came by . I have never had so many renditions of Happy Birthday and Las Mañanitas and suspect I never will again!