Mexico City

Although we have been back in the US for more than a week, we can’t proceed to talk about life on the boat without finishing the chronicle of our Mexican adventures. Our last long weekend was spent in Mexico City, which we found to be exciting, sophisticated, crowded, and fascinating.
We did visit museums and archeological sites, but we focused much of our short visit looking at the large scale murals in public buildings. Here’s one detail from a Diego Riviera mural. This is one of thousands of small details, portraits, stories. As intended, the murals act as immensely appealing chronicles of Mexican history.
That was a fitting endpoint for our stay in Mexico. Our eyes and ears have been opened to a new language and an immensely complex country. We have tuned in to music, to political situations, to food, to history that we had never noticed before. We learned so much, but, as students always come to realize, the more you know the more you realize your ignorance. We are eager to return to Mexico and continue the exploration.

Zihuatenejo

We made ourselves at home in sunny, hot Zihuatenejo for a week. Early mornings and late evenings were fantastic, a chance to sit outside and stare up at the stars, the sunset, and the sunrise in perfect balmy comfort. We hardly minded the glaring hot days, since we were almost always on the way to some beach or boat, or sipping some drink in the shade.
Zihuatenejo is still an authentic Mexican town, although the tourist trade infiltrates every corner. The buildings begin just behind the beach, then climb up steep hills. We spent time with cruising sailors from the U.S., talked with them, and now feel as if we can imagine coming back on Indigo.

Sliding Back to the Sea

This past week spent traveling, edging ever closer to the sea. First, a few days in big city Guadalajara, where we scouted out the public murals by Jose Clemente Orozco, who, along with Diego Riviera, developed a strong style for Mexican painting in the mid 20th century. The image of the ship in a storm above is one small panel - and an anomaly in that it isn’t particularly political – from the several large murals in public buildings decorated by Orozco in Guadalajara. Still, this small painting seemed like a reminder that we were too far from the ocean.
Next we spent a few days in the mountains near Guadalajara, hiking in forests of pine and oak and soaking in pools fed by natural hot springs. It wasn’t the ocean, but it was a taste of open space in Mexico, and most welcome.
Finally, we traveled down to Zijuatenejo on the Pacific Coast, where it is hot and sunny, and the ocean is warm. This is by far the most tourist oriented place we have visited in Mexico, and has the best plumbing. Today, we rented a hobie cat, and sailed at great speed around the bay in the very warm water, a real return to the ocean. We are also here to take advantage of a gathering of cruising sailors who gather here each year to share information and raise funds for the Zijuatenejo school children. Tomorrow, we will hitch a ride on a boat from Seattle for a day sail, and will have a chance to learn from our hosts some of what they have experienced in their trip from the Pacific Northwest to Mexico.