New Years with the Gutierrez-Marquez
Trip Start
Dec 07, 2005
1
3
78
Trip End
Apr 10, 2007
Mexico City,
Mexico
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
happy new year to all; we hope that everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable new year´s eve. daniela and i spent the night with her two aunts and uncles and a bunch of cousins. we had a big dinner at 10pm and ate 12 grapes at midnight, which is tradition here. after that, all the furniture was pushed to the sides of the room to make room for dancing. sadly, daniela´s aunts and uncles outlasted us--we were the first to hit the sack (around 2 am).
Last Friday, we went to xochimilco (http://www.mexicocity.com.mx/xochi2.html) with daniela´s cousins Laura and Mariana, and some of their friends: hapo and his nephews and Laura´s friends Frida and Marta
Three kings day
. For those in the know, xochimilco is a part of mexico city known as ¨the Mexican Venice¨. Once there, we rented one of the hundreds of wooden, flat-bottomed boats (I think that ¨punt¨ is the nautical term for these vessels) which would serve as our yacht as we cruised around the canals of xochimilco. The boats are all man powered, and each is equipped with a table, chairs, pilot who poles along the canals, and a roof. Before we left one of the local boat-based merchants deposited two five gallon buckets full of bottled beer and soda on ice. We paid about $14 US for two hours on the boat, and paid for the drinks we drank from the buckets once we returned (beers were $1.20 US). Our gondolier guided our yacht our of its berth, and we began bumping our way into the channel; even though the canal was relatively empty when we were there, there were still enough other day trippers to provide us with a steady stream of bumps and grinds with other boats for the duration of our journey. As we gained access to the channel, we were accompanied by river borne merchants and musicians selling flowers, songs, photos, tacos, and cold drinks. We rented a xylophone duo for a song (pun intended) and Frida induldged with some tacos. At the turnaround point, we jumped ship to use the bathroom, an re-boarded relieved and ready for the second half of our journey, which was populated by boats full of mariachis, norteños, and a boat with 6 (we had believed that there were only 3!) kings on it
With my little cousin Jorge
. Laura´s friend Frida filled me in about some of the history and points of interest about xochmilco, including the fact that the punts (each of which bears a woman´s name) used to be decorated with fresh flowers, and this was how the names were spelled out on each punt. Now, everything is painted on in the absence of fresh flowers every single day. Also, there is supposedly an island somewhere among the canals that is inhabited by thousands of dolls and doll parts. We saw a couple of trees that were festooned with dolls. Apparently, a man´s daughter died and he became obsessed with collecting all of the dolls he came across in his job as a trash collector.
Since new year´s, we´ve been resting and getting ready to head to chile on friday, when the real adventure will begin. hopefully, we´ll be able to take a whitewater rafting tour with the company that daniela´s uncle runs in chile, but we´re not sure yet. anyway, it´s going to be a big change of scenery and more of a step into the unknown for us. daniela´s been to chile once or twice, and i´ve never been. and there are a dozen or so countries we´re about to visit that neither of us have ever seen in person.
We miss you all and hope everyone is doing well. Please write if you are able.
