Antojitos

Street food and it’s various uses of corn tortillas are keeping us very occupied. Corn, super food from the indigeno of mexico to the world continues to be the core of many everyday foods.

Tacos – small round corn tortillas, grilled and then piled with all manor of fillngs – Roasted meats, kebab, seafood or cheese. The stall is then covered in a seemingly endless set of toppings like salsa, chopped onions, coriander and radish chunks. Some of our favourites were from a stall near San Pedro market in DF were the guys were serving up “Al Pasteur” (spiced donar kebab) and goat head varieties. - and that was in the morning not after a big night on the town!

Quesadillias deep or pan fried versions are a tortilla folded in half around a filling (my favourite so far cheese and squash flowers). This photo is of ones we made ourselves at our great cooking class in Oaxaca

Flautas – To be honest I can’t tell the difference between these and Tacos dorados, tacos rolled around a filling to make a tube that is then deep fried and topped with lettace cheese and salsa (and cream if you are Mexican).

Pozole – a soup of hominy (big white dried corn) and pork with mild chilli flavouring. To be honest it’s like a liquidy version of Locro – the great salteñan stew. We did like having all the extra toppings and chilli flakes in a squeeze bottle like for tomato sauce to adjust the flavours as you wish. Expect to see one on the table at home soon!

Tostadas – Crisp fried tortillas that are then covered in a topping such as cerviche or a saucy salad.

The Tjayudas across the road from our B&B in Oaxaca are monster size tortillas - spectacular. Cooked after 9pm for everyone; from school girls to “the boys” in their modded cars. They are filled with black bean sauce, cheese and salsa and served with option extra meat cooked directly on the coals.

Murals

From the frescos of archiological ruins to hoarding around repairs of the Palacio de Bella Artes mural painting is everywhere in Mexico City.

The most vibrant mural scene was in the post revolution period of the 1920-30s centred around Rivera, Siquueiros and Orozco who were commissioned to decorate the new public buildings.

Themes included national identity and social reform.

big stuff

Yesterday we went to Teotihuacan the ancient pyramids of the pre-aztec era. The site was a huge metropolis of several 10s of thousands of people at its peak. There remains the huge stepped pyramids and some of the surrounding complexes with spectacular murals of mythical beasts and people


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Today we went out to the leafy suburb of Coyoacan and the Casa Azul (House of Frida Kahlo). It was very intersting and had some great photos and paintings by Frida, and Diego Rivera. They had a cool day of the dead commemoration of the two.



We then took the subway even further into the suburbs to the University grounds where a famous chef/ food historian has set up a restaurant. After a bit of a hike and detour through the faculty of science we had a delicious meal.
On the way back we came across the most insanely sized cakes we have ever seen. If you ever meet a bridezilla after a 110kg wedding cake Pasticeria Ideal is the place! (Tom beside it for scale)

The big trip continues!

The last couple of years have been devoted to me passing my physician's exams and no blog worthy stuff has happened except for us getting married. Now we are on holidays in Mexico. After 20 hours in transit and a sleep we have been enjoying the sunshine of Mexico city and wandering the Sunday street life of the Districto Federal.

Setting off through the Historic centre we saw grand villas that have been mainly turned in to museums that have carved volcanic rock frescos. The gilded interior of the central post office and even a couple of tellers are open on Sunday!

Next we took a walk through the Alameda central park full of stalls selling all manner of plastic toys, food and cumbia music. There was a guy making a political speech to “the people” appropriately at the memorial to Benito Huarez (post independence president).

Sadly he was distracting people from the cool installation called Exodus that explores the emotions surrounding displaced peoples around the world. Suitably directly infront of the courts and department of the exterior.

It appears people with Drums and fancy costumes known as Concheros for the shells around their ankles are following us. They were in the Zocalo main square last night and today they were doing their pre Columbian nutbush at the Plaza de la Republica today. Very funky. It is reportedly a movement of people trying to reconnect with their pre colonial roots.

The Monument in the middle of the plaza is under reconstruction although the top figures are still visable.

We then strolled through more stalls and artworks set up in the Jardin de Artes and saw all the big statues and the giant Christmas tree on Av Reforma.

We tried tasty tacos with everything from zucchini flowers and cheese to chicken with mole at the Calle Oro Markets. Note – Chicharron (pork fat) is not so nice in salsa verde it’s like sloppy greasy tofu!

Our excursion then continued west to the Chapulteque park full of people out for a Sunday in the park to the Museo de Archeologia National which had fantastic exhibits on the ancient cultures of the region to prepare us for our trip to the ruins tomorrow.

PS sadly blogger photo uploading is too slow so the remainder of the photos will have to wait!

"bonus" visit to Panama

It may not look like much but this piece of paper is very valuable!
The Cuban Embassy had told us what we read in Lonely Planet;We could get our "tourist entry card" at Havana Airport. This looked more dicey when we got very nervous looks from the LAN staff at Quito, but they were willing to let us try going to Santiago with the hope of getting one there or that people would know more about sending us on without the papers.
Arriving at Santiago boarding pass in hand I was excited. Sadly they decided we couldn't go after all about half an hour before the flight!
For reasons that are unclear Panama Airlines gives you the card at check in while LAN doesn't. So a new ticket bought we now get to hopefully see the Panama Canal from the air as we wing our way to Cuba, only a few hours (and a lump of cash) later.

More on the wonders of Galapagos soon! I'm sure you're willing to wait till I edit the 1000+ Good photos!

Puno, Peru

The Peruvian town of Puno sits on the side of Lake Titicaca. The famous floating islands on Lake Titicaca are in a nearby bay.


The town itself is fairly unremarkable and sadly pollution of the bay has led to a think carpet of green algae which is in stark contrast to the shining waters Titicaca is famous for!


This area has been important for thousands years. The most spectacular of the ruins are several funerary towers, Chullpas, on nearby mountains. They were built by Colla, Lumaca and Incan cultures during their subsequent occupations of the region.



Both sites we went to visit command beautiful outlooks from flat top mountains.



On the side of some at Cutimbo you can see carvings of pumas and monkeys.


The famous sunset at Sillustani didn't disappoint.


We met up with a couple from California at the airport and with Ryan and Monica were able to rent a taxi to visit all the sites instead of going on a tour. And also explored a little of the town too.


The Uros Islands are man made floating islands formed from the Toro-toro reeds that grow around the edge of the lake.


The reeds constitute everything from food to walls and boats. Although it's a bit touristy these days it was still nice to visit for the morning.

Museo de Arte Precolumbiano (MAP) - Cusco

One of my favourite museums in Cusco was the Pre-Columbian Art Museum. Click on the link to see their site. The small "exhibition" section with 5 photos of pieces from each section is the extent of their catalogue but it has some interesting cultural notes.
The collection is extensive. The well preserved collection covers a wide range of archaeological periods from around Peru from preceramic BC through to Inca works. The pieces are displayed for their aesthetic and artistic merit rather than in an anthropological format.

I have tried to label each of the pieces by period in my photo gallery.

They start with stone pieces from the formative period


And wooden pieces


Then Nasca pottery famous for polihcromatic decoration


Mochica pottery was more sculptural


While Huari pottery is more stylized


The Chancay Chimu gallery had some of my favourite pieces with depictions once again of animals and sea birds important to their culture.




The Incas were more famous for their stonework but there were some interesting pieces.


The final galleries are filled with jewelery and metalwork.

Manú

While Ben was over visiting us in Peru, we took the opportunity to head into the Amazon jungle. We went on a safari into Manú National Park, located to the west of Cuzco. This section of Peru is surprisingly well preserved, with only 3000 tourists allowed in each year, only slightly more than the number of people who visit Machu Picchu every day! The park is very remote, with the only real way in via boat - and if it's dry season, this involves a lot of getting out and pushing, as the river gets pretty shallow.

Thankfully this wasn't the case for us, the river was running strong thanks to some recent rains. We went in to the region for 7 days, mainly making our way down river in a big motorized canoe. We all had a great time - this trip was one of the highlights of the year so far. The area was mainly rainforest (think Queensland), but the amount and diversity of wildlife we saw was pretty incredible - eg. we saw seven different types of monkey on the first day! While cliché, seeing the animals in their natural environment is completely different to in a zoo. The only downside was that the animals tend to be most active in the early morning, which meant way too many 4:30am starts....

Jungle Sunrise:


Roughing it in the sticks:


Unusual fruits a plenty:


The bugs are a lot bigger in the jungle:



The bugs are also a lot meaner - for instance, butterflies tend to harass turtles and drink the fluid out of their eyes:


We found one of these fellas in our bathroom one night:


The park is a bird watchers paradise - around 800 different species are found there. The 'Cock of the Rock' is a bit weird looking, but is Peru's national bird:


This guy is even more bizarre:


There where also plenty of Toucans and Macaws:



And of course there were plenty of larger animals. We saw nine different types of monkey all up:



The Capybara is the largest rodent in the world, basically a giant guinea pig:


There where plenty of Caiman around (a relative of the crocodile, but not quite as vicious):


We where also very fortunate in being able to see the Giant Otter - this animal is heavily endangered, but we managed to see three different families. This species is unique among the otters in that it lives in family groups, and can be fairly aggressive when it has young (no swimming!)



As we'd mainly gone downriver, we flew back to Cuzco. This was an experience in itself, we took a 12-seater Cessna with Pisco airlines. As it had been raining a fair bit, the dirt runway actually was more like mud...

The airport:


Our crack safety specialist:


The view from the air:


We took quite a lot of photos during the week, so I've split them up into 4 different galleries - these are:

Animals, Birds, Insects and Plants/People