Mexicans

My amazing homestay family in Guanajuato. Mama's cooking was especially tasty and in copious quantities. Managed to put on about 5 kg in a week thanks to her culinary ways - hundred and one ways of cooking tortillas (flat corn bread), moles (rich dark sauces consisting of ground chocolate, cinnamon, chillies etc over chicken or pork), and tamales (corn dough and condiments wrapped in corn stalks).
The family were always joking with each other and there was a real warmth and love that was always palpable. Family seems much more important to Mexicans than to Australians or Koreans, and these folks always find time for a meal together in the evening or at 3.30 pm (lunch happens late in Mexico).

This Mexican girl was so cute that I couldn't resist snapping a quick candid picture. She is busy admiring some of the Aztec ruins at Teotihuacan and is wearing a blouse with traditional indigenous embroidered motifs. There was an astonishing variety of indigenous groups in Mexico and travelling a few hundred kilometers on a bus was enough to notice a perceptible difference in the appearances of the locals, not surprising in a country where 60% of the population is mestizo or descendents of both Europeans and Indigenous peoples.

Viva la Mexico!

Have spent the last few weeks in Mexico and what a great time it was. Mexico City, the second largest city on earth, slowly but surely sinking into the pre-Hispanic ruins and marshes upon which it was built by the conquistadores, was surprisingly relaxing in the historic center. I had been expecting a lot more chaos, but it had a village feel, and the lack of pollution and absence of criminal elements didn't seem too warrant the bad press this city constantly gets.
Rivera's murals are truly impressive for their scale and dynamism. Interesting that Rivera equates capitalism with social decandence and communism with humanism, and yet his blue house that he shared with Frida Kahlo is an expansive mansion far beyond the means of many Mexicans even today, and so he appears to have been very much part of the establishment rather than an authentically "revolutionary" thinker and activist.