i heart julie rigg

Is it a bad sign when one's only consistent source of home current and cultural affairs is courtesy of the bolshy commentary of the ABC? I feel strangely and subliminially compelled to change my degree to arts ...


Phillip 'The Irritant' Adams. I definitely need to cast a wider podcast subscription net.


Julie 'Faux Sensual' Rigg. Ah, where would i be without hearing you fawn all over film directors?

(DIY Intellectual Kit : 1 x black turtle neck sweater; 1 x conservative, yet stylish sliver bob wig; 1 x pair of sensible, yet sophisticated frames; 1 x tube of colourless lip gloss)

Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe

The second day in Mexico City, I went to visit the Basílica de Guadalupe, the world's second most significant Catholic site after the Vatican.

It's the hill where in 1531, a Mexican farmer supposedly saw several visions of Our Lady of Guadalupe (aka Virgin Mary). Millions of people come to this place every year and you can see the extremely devoted walk through the great plaza, towards the Basillica crawling on their knees.

The area is teeming with chapels, churches and cathedrals all perched on the Tepeyac hill where the vision took place.

This is the artificial waterfall containing statues depicting the scene with Guadalupe and the indigenous converts. I also saw a long-tailed sheep wandering precariously on the edge of the grassy slope, just munching grass which perfectly completed the idyllic afternoon. Holy sheep!




This is the 'new' basillica built in the 70s and designed by an architect who also built Mexico's big sports stadium 'Estadio Azteca'. It seats 40 000 devotees and designed so the maximum number of people can see the icon of Guadalupe. There's also several slow-moving travellators behind the altar, beneath the icon, so one can get a good look and a nice snap. Intelligent design.

Perhaps you cannot see from this next picture, but this is the Old Basilica which is sinking into the ground and on a severe lean. The fact that it was bombed in the 20s didn't help the situation either. Inside it's all scaffolded for structural support and because the damage is still being repaired.

Teotihuacán (teh-oh-tee-hoo-ah-caan)

Teotihuacán was built about 200BCE. A lot of speculation exists about who constructed the big city and even more about why the inhabitants mysteriously up and left in the 5th Century. (Enter alien and conspiracy theorists).


The planning and building construction is highly advanced, with plumbing and water etc. Most facinating is the acoustic trick of one particular pyramid. Standing before it, when one claps ones hands, the echo mimics exactly the call of the sacred Quetzal bird! It's so excellent. Modern day sound analysis has revealed it to be a near-perfect reproduction of the bird's cry. I mean, how is it possible to build the walls of a pyramid so as to create such a specific sound!?! Especially in 200BCE! The mind reels ...

I could go on and on about the alignment of the city and the amazing things these people achieved, but you can google it if you want. I won't bore you.



All the structures were rendered shiny white or reflective using limestone and calcium. And though only a couple faded murals remain, colour and painting also made up a significant part of the facades. Interiors of both public and private residences were painted with frescos. The state controlled just about everything, including the propaganda images you were required to paint inside your home.


The great tourist pilgrimage ... these are my fellow internationals. They're a friendly lot, and together we took some sufficiently cheesy photos atop the pyramids.

Acting foolish ...

Bustin' a move, ancient Mexico-style ...

Take heed. It's good advice.

La ciudad de Mexico

Mexico City. Second Largest city in the world.
Home to 20million people.
Within the valley lives Carlos Slim, a man whose wealth is second only to Bill Gates.

The surrounding mountains are encrusted with the heart-achingly drab infrastructure of concrete slums, conveniently inoffensive in being obscured by the thick soup of smog that hangs in the air.


The indigenous inhabitants of Mexico City were the Aztecs. It was a sort of Venice-like city of islands in the middle of a huge lake. Volcanic mountains insulated the valley.

So, Cortez arrived in 1519 and King Montezuma believed he was the prophesised bearded, white skinned God Quetzalcoatl. Perhaps it's because of the King's beliefs, that the great empire fell so swiftly to those few European conquerers.

The Spanish drained the lake and built on it, enslaving and killing and spreading the word of God as they went. A bit of a problem now as the buildings are now sinking. The undergound aquifer has been tapped into to such a degree that some parts of the city have sunk 10 metres.

In the next photo you can see in the background the cathedral built by the Spanish. It was built symbolically directly on top of Montezuma's Aztec temple. In the foreground lie the only remaining visible ruins of the Aztec pyramids. It was destroyed and the stones used to build the Catholic cathedral.

The whole city is built on top of the Aztec city. As in, buried beneath the city streets are pre-hispanic constructions. It's possible to excavate, but the colonial buildings are culturally significant aswell. And so the debate continues. Which is more worthy of preservation?

Just to compound the multitude of issues facing this place, it lies in an area of frequent seismic activity. Earthquakes happen everyday apparently, but not significant ones. It's scary to think about what will happen if, and probably when the next big disaster occurs. The millions clinging onto the mountains don't stand a chance. Really terrible...

A stab at pop-sociology

Do we have a duty of assistance to societies, lest individuals, less fortunate? I was not born silver spoon in mouth. My money, I've generally earnt as payment for work. But what is money if not the most fickle and transient of possessions? I am obligated to share it, and not certainly not begrudgingly. Do I feel like this because someone has deemed my table-clearing skills worthy of a higher wage than another person’s. For the very same work? Under vastly different conditions.

Perhaps, more than money, the price one pays is that of guilt. Not a searing, debilitating form, but a vague and constant hum, only intensified during encounters with the less well off. Sent to jolt us, shaking a couple of coins from one’s well, or not so well lined, pockets. And then off again.

Of course, there’s absolutely no way I ought to be allowed to sit here at my faux marble table, unapproached… sipping sweet coffee, Lonely Planet open, tentatively planning next jaunt. Exploiting the Mexican affordabilities thanks to its under-performing economy, while those it worst affects wave tourist maps and plastic Aztec masks and bags of boiled peanuts at me. I should shamefully and hurriedly finish my muesli and yogurt.

Morelia (say it as it looks)

I went to Morelia this weekend. It's about 4 hours south west of Guadalajara. For a long time, it was the city of Spanish nobility and to this day remains, visually at least, very spanish. Again, it's UNESCO listed and facades in the historic centre must be maintained in traditonal style.

Ok, so i know i keep harping on about the public transport, but this is worthy of note.

The buses in this city are combi vans! I arrived by coach at the bus station, and looked around for a 'bus' to catch into town. After a while standing on the kerb, scanning the traffic and not seeing anything resembling a bus, a combi (not like the one in this picture. It was white, unmarked) flashes its lights and beeps at me. The door slid open and the faint voice of my fatalistic self alerted me to some tourist kidnapping heist....

As it turns out, after establishing the vehicle was headed to the city, I climbed in and was delighted to see a couple of other people sitting in the back. So, we trundled along, collecting more and more passengers until no more people couple feesibly jam in. And that's the end of the story.



Lots and lots of tacos. All night long.

This aqueduct built in the 17th Century still supplies some water to the city.

Viva Mexico!

It was independence day in Mexico over the weekend, celebrating, obviously, the country's emancipation from Spain. Independent now for about 200 years, much of its ideology is steeped in hispanic tradition.

If you speak to some Mexicans, they will tell you that the country's economic and social issues are a result of Spanish colonialism. Aside from the multitude of problems stemming from the assimilation of indigenous 'indians', environmental ramifications or issue of morality that occurred and continue to affect post-colonial societies, this belief about the lack of prosperity in Mexico is reinforced by the folkloric affluence of that great nation to the north. The US of A.

The contemporary lamenters of past Spanish rule can fall into two categories. Those who believe Mexico would have been better off without European colonisation, and those who believe that if the British had have 'discovered' the southern continent, Latin America would today be included in the developed world.

I guess there is a valid argument there for a number of reasons. The Spanish monarchy enforced a completely different land-labour relationship than the British method, based on land stewardship rather than assignation of ownership as favoured by England. Speaking very generally, as a result, British subjects worked hard and were rewarded with land and rise in social rank. In Spanish colonies however, there was little incentive to work more than the bare minimum because all profit went to the crown and the threat of loss of title was very real.

And then the treatment of native people and attitudes towards the slave trade also differed.

But, ok, how can comparison possibly be made about former colonial settlements because nowhere is exactly alike. There's variable land conditions, time period, degree of control... it's impossible to speculate about what could have been.

One of the other major influences in incongruity of outcomes between north and south america is the encounters with the indigenous populations. The Spaniards encountered huge, powerful empires with sophisticated language, education and permanent settlement. In North America and in the Carribean, there existed sparse, separate, nomadic tribes, less robust than their southern counterparts. In other words, near genocide was relatively simple!

Also, take for example, African countries and India, a former British colony. These places don't conveniently follow the pattern of prosperity. So it's really just wishful thinking by some sectors of Mexican society.

In the end, honestly, who would wish colonial rule for their people, British or otherwise? I suppose when the economic situation is sort of dire and tenuous, it's a nice, impossible fariytale for some.

Guachimontones

With my classmates yesterday, we went on an excursion to a town called Teuchitlán. It's a pretty unremarkable village except for there being some pre-hispanic ruins just next door at the base of an active volcano.

The construction dates to about 400 BCE and was only recently discovered. As was the case with much of the Mayan ruins in Belize and Guatemala, the 'pyramid' mounds remained completely unknown for so long because of the dense tropical vegetation grows so rapidly and engulfes everything.

Also, the structures were once much taller and larger, but over the years, stones have been purloined to construct various buildings in the town, such as the church and main plaza. I suppose that's good. At least they serve a useful purpose now, and one can still appreciate the grandure of the lost civilisation.

Still more ruins remain uncovered in the thick forests of the surrounding mountains partly due to lack of state funding and partly because ruins are, well, just sort of everywhere in Mexico and aren't always considered worthy of recognition.

Almost always, Mexican civilisations aligned their urban layout to cardinal or astronomical positionings. While strict alignment is not as evident here in Guachimontones, the city is definitely and purposefully planned. The steps of the pyramids reflect months and days of the year illustrating how advanced their calendar system was.

You have to imagine that all of the stonework was stuccoed. So it would have looked much different. And nothing is known about whether the lawn is authentic. As you can see, lots of young trees are growing among the ruins. Either self-seeded or purposefully planted, it obviously is not representative of what originally existed.

Neither ancient or ruinous, these mexican guys were just hanging around.

Guanajuato (wahn-ah-wa-toe)

A beautiful part of the world, Guanajuato is an old colonial mining town that's now a UNESCO heritage site. For a couple of hundred years, it supplied something ridiculous, like, 40% of the world's silver. There's a heap of old money in this town and a thriving tourist industry means the upkeep is pretty successful.


There's an intricate and facinating network of tunnels beneath the city proper. Built obviously for transporting the miners and silver, it now takes the multitude of silver-wearing tourists from one of end of town to the other.

There's a large student contingent living and studying here. That means great cafes and music. Beret-wearing, bearded, boho-hobo students are thick on the ground :)

Apart from its silver, Guanajuato is also famed for its mummy museum. The soil conditions in the area are ideal for corpse preservation. Every so oftern, the local cemetry will exhume the bodies of people whose family haven't kept up payments for maintenance and display the best specimens in the museum. So the 'mummies' behind the glass are sometimes only a couple of decades old !

It's also home to the smallest mummy in the world - a 5 month old fetus. Trust me, it was gruesome.

It's utter desecration but at the same time, terribly pragmatic and purposeful. Mexicans appear to have a very healthy consideration about death.

(I hope to learn more during the upcoming Day of the Dead 'Día de Muertos')

This was the balcony of our hostel. Ludicrously inexpensive, we sat drinking tequila overlooking the shimmering mountains as mariachi music wafted from the streets below. Glorious.