Events & Festivals

Whether they’re into food, literature, entertainment or travel, Elizabeth Mistry has some suggestions that should do the trick.

Under GBP5.00

Corn tortillas (packet of 13) GBP2.50 or Chipotle Salsa (270g) both from the Cool Chile Company. Stall at Borough Market, London. Friday & Saturday only)

Tickets to one of the staged readings of Contemporary Mexican plays at London’s Royal Court Theatre in January 2006 (GBP5 or 3 concessions).
For more information call 020 7565 5000

Under GBP10.00

The Queen of the South - Arturo Perez-Reverte’s gripping epic of narco-violence and female brawn kicks off in Sinaloa, Mexico. (published by Picador).  Great for the plane, the beach - or just if you want to curl up on the sofa after all that turkey…

Under GBP20.00

One Blood - Mexican/US singer Lila Downs’ best album to date, haunting lyrics and superb musical arrangements.

Hunger’s Brides - Paul Anderson’s epic life of Mexican mystic and poet, Sor Juana - with a contemporary twist. Published by Constable and Robinson 
The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Urrea - Mexicanwave’s Book of the Year is a beautifully crafted fable set in northern Mexico in the run up to the revolution. Sadly only available to UK readers via the internet or by placing an order with your bookseller.

Under GBP30.00

For anyone lucky enough to be within striking distance of London, treat them to a meal at Mestizo Restaurant and Tequila Bar - 103 Hampstead Road, London, NW1 3EL
Tel: 020 7387 4064.

Under GBP40.00

Something a bit special from the deseo range of Mexican Silver (OK, so we’re biased, but this is a project close to our heart). 

Under GBP50.00

How about a donation to the Juconi / Railway Children project which works with 350 street children in Puebla?

Above GBP50.00

Why not commission Master craftsman Rafael Alvarez to make you a personal jugetera? 

Every jugetera or lightbox is unique and reflects the owners personality. His work appeared in the movie Man on Fire and film director Pedro Almodovar is a fan.
In the UK contact Cesar at the House of Guadalupe, Camden Market, London. 

And for a gift they won’t forget…

A return flight to Mexico City with British Airways (from GBP637.00 including tax). 

Three nights in the capital’s hippest new hotel, Condesa df (double rooms from U$195 per night plus taxes)  Each room is slick and span - and come with a bedside iPod.

This looks like something not to be missed – an international symposium on Tezcatlipoca and Aztec culture.

Tezcatlipoca

Saturday 26 November 2005 at Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street
09:00 – 17:00

Download an application or phone 020 7794 3172 for more information. Tickets £35 (Students, £10)

Those taking part include:

Eduardo Matos Moctezuma is an exhibition curator and researcher for INAH. From 1978 until recently he was Director of the Museo del Templo Mayor and as Director of the Proyecto Templo Mayor supervised the archaeological excavations of the Great Temple. The world’s leading authority on the Templo Mayor, Professor Moctezuma has published over 100 articles and 40 books. He curated The Royal Academy’s ground-breaking Aztecs exhibition devoted to the cultural riches of Mexico’s Aztec past in 2003 .

Susan Milbrath, Curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History

Guilhem Olivier, Institute for Historical Research, UNAM, Mexico City

Colin McEwan, Curator of Latin American collections in the Department of Ethnography at The British Museum.

Mexican Independence Day is celebrated with gusto all over the Republic and beyond.

National Palace, Mexico City

The Malecón, Puerto Vallarta

Overlooking the zócalo, Oaxaca

Chiles en nogada

Zócalo lights, Mexico City

The morning after the night before

General Allende leads the charge

Waiting for the parade to start…

Getting the castillos ready in San Miguel de Allende
More photos of the Fiestas Patrias in San Miguel

Empire State Building, New York City

September. The crescendo of patriotic festivities gathers force.

Fire works shatter the dawn, explode in the midnight sky.

School drum-and-bugle bands trudge noisily down the calles.

Drunken youths stumble through the night streets singing and shouting “Viva Mexico!”

Chiles en nogada

The toy sellers in the jardin have doubled in number, adding Mexican flags to their inventory, flags that now festoon nearly every building in town.

Restaurants offer the seasonal delicacy chiles en nogada, with its colours of the national flag: whole green chile peppers smothered in a white-cream sauce of meats and fruits and spices and nuts, topped with red pomegranate seeds.

Excerpted from On Mexican Time by Tony Cohan. Published with permission from the author. 

16 September is Independence Day and a national holiday.

Easter in Tzintzuntzan is a potent mix of Purépecha and Catholic rituals and celebrations, captured beautifully in these stunning b + w images.

If you wish to learn more about this ancient lakeside town, I recommend Randy Johnson’s intelligent photo essay.

Two year’s ago, of course, I was in Tolimán, witnessing the re-enactment of the crucifixion on the summit of the hill they call Calvary. Heady stuff.

Billie Mercer took these photos in San Miguel de Allende on Good Friday.

Every year, tens of thousands of visitors gather at Chichén Itzá in Yucatán to witness the arrival of the Vernal Equinox.

Pyramid of Kukulkán – photo credit: Space Imaging

The Pyramid of Kukulkán dominates the centre of Chichén Itzá and embodies Mayan myth and natural astronomical cycles. As the sun sets at the spring (and autumn) equinox, a play of light and shadow creates the appearance of a serpent that gradually undulates down the stairway of the pyramid.

The 79-ft high structure is better known as “El Castillo” – so named by Diego de Landa, the first bishop of Yucatán and a man infamous for ordering priceless Maya documents and idols to be burned in an auto de fe in 1562.

This year, half a dozen government agencies and academic institutions collaborated to webcast the phenomenon.

See also:
All Misty Eyed: Missing the Spring Equinox at Dzibilchaltun 

Billie Mercer took a stroll through Colonia San Antonio in San Miguel de Allende on Friday evening.

She captured a great set of photos of the altars some of her neighbours have decorated in purple, black and white for Viernes de Dolores (Night of Sorrows), the Friday before Holy Week. Billie tells me it was a touching experience.

We’ll be renting a house in this same Colonia ourselves during April.

Colonial San Miguel is one of the best places to be in Mexico during Holy Week.

For a superb account of Semana Santa there, read our friend Isabella Tree’s Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico. Isabella’s is some of the best travel writing on Mexico I’ve ever read. She dedicates a whole chapter to Easter in San Miguel.

Ocotlán – Convento – Rodolfo Morales

Spring has arrived in Oaxaca and the wonderful purple trumpet blossoms of the jacarandas have been out for a couple of weeks. 

Appropriate then for Oscar Carrizosa to get in touch this week and ask me to mention this year’s Spring Festival, which runs from 20-27 March with a varied programme of art exhibitions and classical music.

The festival began in 1982 at the initiative of then Governor Pedro Vázquez Colmenares, for the celebration of the 450th. anniversary of the founding of the city of Oaxaca. But after the sudden death of the great painter from Ocotlán, Rodolfo Morales in 2001, his name was added.

Festival website.

Thanks to Larry Miller for allowing me to use this photo of the restored convento complex in Ocotlán.

Photo: James and Ellen Fields, Eclectec SA de CV

Carnival week is almost upon us but the razzmatazz has already started in the the port of Mazatlán in Sinaloa state, 850km (530 miles) northeast of Mexico City. The Pacific resort is playing host to the annual Caribbean Series – a week-long, round-robin tournament featuring the top baseball teams from the Mexican, Dominican, Venezuelan and Puerto Rican winter baseball leagues.

After three days of competition, Los Venados de Mazatlán (‘The Stags’) have put themselves in a good position to win the “Little World Series” title for the first time. Were that to happen, the baseball-mad Sinaloense would surely make this the biggest carnival celebration ever.

Journalist Jon Clark is on the spot and took a series of photos from the opening games. In this one (right), Arturo Vázquez López from Jalisco, dressed in a full charro cowboy costume, twirls a giant matraca, a wooden rattle, from his seat behind the home team’s dugout.