March 2003

For as long as I can remember guidebooks to Mexico have made a point about admission to archaeological sites and museums being free on Sundays.

This all changed on 11th February. The Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Historia abolished the free Sunday pass to enter INAH-run sites and museums.

You now have to pay – unless, that is, you are a Mexican citizen, a non-Mexican who can prove residency in the country, a child under 13, over 60 years of age, etc…

For example, cost of admission to both the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City and Chichén Itzá in Yucatan is 37 pesos – about $3.50 dollars – on Sundays (more Tues-Sat).

Thanks to Maria Diaz in Oaxaca and ‘Adventure Guide to the Yucatan’ author Bruce Conord for getting the ‘official’ line from INAH’s Museums Office.

I should stress here that I have absolutely no quibble with the new charges – only seems the right thing to do – but I hadn’t been able to confirm the change on the INAH website or elsewhere.

Photo: caretaker’s hut, Xlapak

Introducing Lila Downs and Brazilian Caetano Veloso before their performance of Best Music (song) nominee “Burn it Blue” at last night’s Oscars ceremony, boyish Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal criticised the war against Iraq. “If Frida Kahlo was here tonight she would be on our side… against the war”, declared Gael, the lead in El Crimen del Padre Amaro, itself surprisingly overlooked in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film is set for release in the UK in May (view trailer).

Less of a surprise was the failure of Salma Hayek’s Frida to convert many of its six Oscar nominations. Nevertheless, by capturing two minor gongs – for Makeup and Best Original Score – the project has been a personal triumph for Hayek, who has herself received numerous award nominations for her performance as Frida Kahlo, including for the Bafta and Golden Globes as well the nod from the Academy. Hayek had earlier applauded Gael’s remarks.

Finally, Alfonso Cuaron – the Mexican co-writer/director of the third Harry Potter film now in production, has to be content that Y Tu Mama Tambien received an unexpected nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

I rose at 4:15am on the 21st.

Within 15 minutes I was in my car and had joined a convoy of other vehicles heading northeast out of sleeping Merida to witness the Spring Equinox at Dzibilchaltun – one of the most ancient of Mayan settlements.

It didn’t take long to cover the 21km (15 miles) to the site.

A few minutes later, I was treading gingerly in the gloom trying my best not to trip over loose stones – the remnants of a sacbe (ancient road) to get a better view of the Temple of the Seven Dolls (or Temple of the Sun) – a deceptively simple quadrangular structure dating back to around AD 700.

Twice a year, on the Equinox, the rising sun shines through the east-west portal, a stunning example of how the Maya incorporated their advanced understanding of astronomy into their architecture.

On Friday the heavy dew made the going somewhat treacherous underfoot, but I eventually settled on a spot to watch and wait.

I’d estimate that between 2,000-5,000 people (mostly Mexicans), many clothed in all white (“to be ‘clean’ in both body and spirit”) squinted in the direction of the rising sun. It was rising… but then so was the mist – swirling mischieviously to shroud the temple and disappoint me and the rest of the gathered multitude.

It cheekily appeared above the mist – and the temple – as I was leaving. Posters around town – and the photo here show what I hoped to see.

More than 8.3m tourists visited Mexico’s archaeological zones in 2002. A disturbing article in Reforma yesterday suggests some of them (us?) literally leave their mark.

Yesterday at Chichén Itzá (pictured) – the second most visited site in Mexico after Teotihuacán with 975,000 visitors – we witnessed at least one person scale a wooden barrier and climb to the top of the Templo de los Guerreros in order to photo (I assume) the Chac Mool.

To be generous, perhaps there needs to be better signage. However, Reforma quotes a warden as saying “…between 5 and 6 people are thrown out of Chichén Itzá each week due to damage they’ve caused to the buildings.”

One result of this action is for ever more structures to be fenced off to the public (e.g. in recent years ‘El Caracol’ at Chichén Itzá and the Pyramid of the Magician at Uxmal). The bottom line: respect the signs and travel responsibly.

Mérida: Chac got angry and gave everything a good soaking last night and this morning. We headed straight to the small but excellent Museo de Antropología e Historia housed in the distinctly Belle Epoch Palacio Cantón. This masterpiece was found at Chichén Itzá by Franco-American explorer, Augustus Le Plongeon who named it Chac Mool (red claw in the Mayan language). It dates from the Maya-Toltec period – 800-900AD.

I’ve learned that The Royal Academy expects that a staggering 400,000 people would have visited Aztecs in London by the time the doors close on 11th April. This would put it into the ‘top 10′ of their most successful exhibitions ever held.
Pictured: Mask, c. 300-600,Teotihuacan; Greenstone, shell, obsidian and coral – Photo: Michel Zabe/PA Picselect

Tim Weiner, writing in the New York Times, takes up the story of the seizure of an eco-lodge in Chiapas by Zapatista supporters on 28th February. American former Peace Corps volunteers Glen Wersch and Ellen Jones opened their ‘guest-ranch’ in 1995, one year after the Zapatista uprising. The lodge, Rancho Esmeralda is located near Toniná and Laguna Miramar and is listed as one of the 10 best places to stay in Mexico by the Lonely Planet guide. I’ve been following the development of this story on the Mexico Ecotourism Network discussion list and The Daily Glyph.

I’ve added some more downloadable wallpaper.

While in Oaxaca last week I was reminded that tickets are still available to see Lila Downs in London next month. She will perform at the Royal Festival Hall on 11th April as part of a wider European Tour. Downs was a hit at WOMAD last July and is sure to become more widely known in the UK as a result of the Frida Kahlo biopic currently on release, in which she can be both seen and heard. She will perform Oscar-nominated “Burn it Blue” at the Academy Awards ceremony on 23rd March.

I’m a little late posting this; got distracted by Martin Bashir’s Michael Jackson interview, which Televisa aired tonight.

Nevertheless, still buzzing from our visit Friday afternoon to the majestic late Classic Mayan site at Uxmal in the Puuc hills.

We left Mérida at 2:45pm and reached the site little more than an hour later, passing many tour buses travelling in the opposite direction.

For an hour we gawped in awe at the Pyramid of the Magician, circled the House of the Turtles and clambered up & down the Great Pyramid – virtually alone (bar several huge but sociable iguanas).

The setting sun cast a warm glow on the 1,000 year old structures and intensified their elegant sense of geometry.

We re-entered the site at 7:00pm to take our seats under the stars for the moderately good 45-minute ‘Sound & Light’ show.