Handheld (December 29)

(Map of the day.)

We had booked a day trip through Agencia Transportadora, and would take place from 10-5. We would be traveling with two other couples, who were wealthy, older, and from New York. We all piled into a shiny SUV with a driver and a ring-wearing guide.

Our first stop: the town of Santa Maria del Tule, which is home to the widest tree in the world. They estimate that the tree is more than 2000 years old, and the trunk's diameter is 138 feet (30m). It is located beside a (relatively) small church:



There are lightning rods around the churchyard that contains the tree, and special underground water systems are in place to provide the tree with enough water (it consumes 40,000L per week). The tree, which is a cyprus, had a very unusually-shaped trunk. It had odd corners jutting out and many crevices. Some trunk detail:



Its canopy was similar to that of a weeping willow; long flowing branches hung quite low. It was impossible to get the whole tree in the camera's viewfinder:



Our next stop took us into a home in the town of Teotitlan del Valle. This town is re-known for woven carpets. At the home/workshop, we watched a demo on wool preparation and then some actual weaving. First the raw wool is washed in a nearby river, then it's pulled between two paddles to smooth out the fibers, and then the wool is run onto a spindle:





The wool's natural colour is dark brown or beige. To achieve the other colours, the wool is dyed using: moss for green, marigold for yellow, indigo for blue. To get red, a parasitic worm from the prickly pear plant is crushed. For some of the plant sources, the plant is fermented for 26 days and then boiled to get the colours out. Additives like lemon juice or baking soda also create different hues and tones. These are all dyed naturally:



Using a foot-operated loom, the carpet is woven. The desired pattern is copied onto the strings, and then the coloured yarn is passed back and forth as the peddles are depressed:



The carpets were stiff and prickly. After the demo, the weaver tried to sell us some of his carpets. One that was about two square metres was priced for $8500Mxn ($850Cdn)! Even the New Yorkers scoffed at that price, although apparently it does typically take about 2-3 months to complete the rug.

Next on the tour: the very remote Parque Estatal to see mineral pools and a petrified waterfall of Hierve el Agua. The drive was about an hour from Teotitlan, over rough roads and by careening drop-offs. The villages we drove through seemed indescribably poor, down-trodden, and without hope. It's funny that no matter how remote we go, we can find Coke and ornate churches... . Kids on the dusty roadside were selling grass-woven knickknacks.

The view of the petrified waterfall was amazing. It looked like water had literally been frozen as it cascaded down the cliff. The phenomena is caused by the same process that creates stalagmites: minerals in the water deposit themselves and grow into the unique formation:





Andrew and I broke from the doddering group and took a trail that lead away from the main pools, which looked too family-friendly for my tastes:



We found a smaller pool, whose water was cool and bubbled/foamed out of the rocks. The water felt very soft. We continued down the trail, descending uneven steps that eventually curved around the bottom of the waterfall:



The view was awesome:



Here is a field of Agave plants, which are used to make Mezcal (more on that below):



However, after a good amount of time hiking around, we realized that this trail would not lead back up to the main pool area, and we only had about 20 minutes to get back to the SUV. The distance was about two kilometres, in searing heat, and up and over hard ground... . This is before we realized that we were out of time:



Next we hit the pyramid site of Mitla. The town of Mitla had tight, winding streets and there were vendors galore on-site. The site was disappointing. It really only had two buildings with large courtyards, and little else. The claim to fame of this place is the geometric carvings on the walls; however, to us, they looked restored and inauthentic.





Perhaps we had been spoiled by the excellent sites of Tula and Cacaxtla??



We were whisked off to a Mezcal store/distillery to see the process of making the potent alcohol. (Note: all tequila is a type of Mezcal, but not all Mezcal qualifies to be tequila.) First, a mature (nine year old) Agave plant is harvested and its leaves are removed, leaving a pineapple-shaped stump:



The plant is then chopped up and put into a fire pit where logs have been burning and smoldering. Water is added, and the whole thing is covered and left to smolder for three days. The softened chunks fibers are the pulverized by a large stone wheel, usually pulled by a donkey:



The liquid that seeps out is distilled, producing an alcohol that is 98% pure. It is further distilled and aged to produced drinking-quality Mezcal. Here's some of that pure stuff:



The tour complete, we were dumped off in the city centre, and we ended the day with dishes of ice cream in front of the Basilica de Nuestra Senora (aka: another large and lavish cathedral) just down the street from our hotel.