Not So Secret Secrets

On Tuesday, Alrica and I took a "Secrets of Puebla" walking tour. The things we saw are so secret that anyone could do them whenever they want (well, during business hours at least.) I am going to reveal many of the secrets to you. And you're welcome to tell others. Let this be a lesson to Puebla, don't trust Erich with your secrets.

If it's on a wall on the street, it can't be that secret, right?

One of the oldest buildings in Puebla still around today is the Franciscan monastery. The first Spaniards to arrive in New Spain (as the colony was called then) were soldiers. The soldiers thought the best way to interact with the indigenous people was to kill them. The next set of Spaniards to arrive were the Franciscan monks and priests who strongly felt there were much better forms of interaction with the indigenous people. They built their monastery, called the Franciscan convent, in the 1530s, just east of a river that ran right through the heart of the valley where the new city was growing. That building still stands. Also, the priests named the river, unsurprisingly, the San Francisco River. Beside the river, they planted gardens and grew food.

As more Spanish colonists arrived, they starting building their city on the west side of the river. The east side was more prone to flooding. So a division occurred with the Spanish on the west side and the indigenous population living on the east side. But the convent was already built, so the Franciscan friars stayed on the east.

We went into the convent building. Here, among other relics, we saw this statuette of the Virgin Mary.

Is this the face that launched a lot of conquering?

In legend it is said that Hernán Cortez carried a small statue of the Madonna with him as he conquistadored his way through present day Mexico. (You're right, conquistador is not a verb, but English is pretty pliable. You understand me.) Our guide told us this statue is that statue. We were looking at the very statue carried by Cortez, and after the wars, he gave it to the Tlaxcalan people who had been his primary allies in the region. Eventually, they gave it to the Franciscan priests of Puebla.

A bit of research reveals that this may not be true. In Mexico City, there is a statue of the Madonna in the Basilica of the Gaudalupe. That is also purported to be the very one carried by Cortez. And maybe neither of them is the true statue.

Notice the double headed eagle with the crown surrounding the container for the madonna. That's the double headed eagle associated with the Hapsburgs. King Charles I of Spain was also King Charles V of the Austro-Hungarian empire (and he was Holy Roman Emporer. He had a lot going on.) The decoration honors that particular Charles.

The Church of San Francisco

Today there is a church in front of the convent. The church dates from the 1700s, which is impressively old, but a mere child beside the convent.

Remember how I mentioned the San Francisco River? Well, if you come to Puebla today, you won't find said river. But where did it go? Into pipes. Yes, I'm serious.

In the early days of Puebla, the big problem with the river was flooding. As time went on, they controlled the floods better (more on that later.) But the river was still a big problem. It was making people sick. The San Francisco River was terribly polluted. So in the 1960s, the city decided to entomb the river. The water all runs through pipes and a major boulevard was built on top of what had been the course of the river. It is called the Boulevard of the Heroes of May 5 (or Bulevar Heroes de 5 de Mayo.) Before the piping of the river, there had been five bridges which crossed it. Four were knocked down. One remains, but it is under the boulevard and today is a tourist site (one of the secrets, I guess because it's underground.) In fact, it was just buried when they build the road. But it was rediscovered in 1999 and then in 2014 it was restored for tourism.

Puente de Bubas

This remaining bridge is called Puente de Bubas. It has had other names in its long life, as it was the second bridge built to cross the river, way back in the 1550s. But the name that stuck, the Bubas Bridge refers to one of its important uses in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. There was a hospital on the east side of the river and the bridge was used to transport sick people across the river to the hospital. The word "bubas" means boils or blisters or pox. They are some bumpy lesions on the skin of the infected. Some believe the bubas were caused by bubonic plague, others believe the disease involved was syphillis.

Water once flowed through this

The other "secret" we visited was Paseo de Cinco de Mayo. It's a tunnel, putting it underground, and thus making it part of the secret tour. Remember I mentioned the trouble of controlling water and floods. This was a pretty consistent problem. The indigenous people had dealt with it before the Spanish arrived. One of the main solutions the indigenous people used was to build canals, tunnels, culverts which would direct the water downhill in controlled channels. The Spanish liked this method and expanded on it. That was the origin of the Paseo de 5 de Mayo. (Cinco means 5.) But why is it named for May fifth? Mainly, marketing. There is evidence that the tunnel was used as an armory at various times, the military would store weapons and ammunition in it. But there are stories (without any evidence) of the tunnel being used by Zaragoza's troops during the battle with the French that I mentioned in my last post. That battle is the Battle of May Fifth or the Battle of Cinco de Mayo. Saying "come see an old tunnel for water" probably sells fewer tickets than saying "come see a tunnel used to defeat the French in the most famous battle in Puebla's history."

It's a long tunnel

We walked about half a kilometer through the tunnel and came out near a high viewpoint. Here we could see much of Puebla below us. Also, beside the park was a stadium. We asked our guide what sport was played there. He told us it's main use was for the military lottery. In Mexico, not every male has to serve in the military. Instead, they have a lottery. They bring 8000 eligible men into the stadium and then choose 1500 of them by lottery. Those chosen have to serve, the other 6500 do not.

1500 out of 8000 is 18.75%

After the tour we visited the Biblioteca Palafoxiana. It is a public library (now a museum) that was founded in the 1646. It is the first public library in the Americas. Naturally, one cannot touch the books in there anymore. Still, Alrica was very interested in the techniques they would have used to make them and bind them. There were signs to tell you which subject areas were in which stacks, all in Latin. The woodwork in that room was amazing.

Old books! Very very old books!

Across the street from the library is the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, usually called the Cathedral of Puebla. This was a pretty interesting stop. Not only because we were allowed to take pictures (without flash.) Like many cathedrals we've visited, this one was in the shape of a cross. But there were some key differences.

The High Altar of the Cathedral of Puebla

Imagine a cross like you would see on the top of a church. The vertical piece has the base at the bottom and the apex at the top. The horizontal piece is shorter with a left side and right side. In most cathedrals, the doors where you enter are at the base. But here, we entered from the right end of the horizontal piece. Possibly during mass they have people enter from the base, I'm not sure. But the fact that there were even doors on the right side was an interesting change.

The organ in the Cathedral of Puebla

Another major difference is that the part corresponding to the "vertical" piece was much wider than the part corresponding to the horizontal piece. It was probably four times wider. And it was built into two aisles for walking. Near the base, the center was taken up by the massive organ. In the intersection of the vertical and horizontal pieces, there were pews. Just beyond that was something called the high altar. It's literally high, bring on a raised cylinder above the level of the main floor. It was intricately decorated with arches and statues and all the pieces you would need to preach from an altar. But this wasn't the end of the church.

The Altar of the Kings

Usually, when you enter at the base of the cross, you can see the main altar which is at the apex of the cross. But here you cannot. You see the high altar, but there is another gorgeous altar beyond that. To see that one, you must walk around the high altar. Then you reach the Altar of the Kings, dedicated to the kings of Spain who were considered the patrons of the cathedral.

This put me in a bit of a philosophical frame of mind. If I had not previously visited other cathedrals, I wouldn't realize this one was built so differently. You know the saying "Ignorance is bliss." Well, I'm not sure about that. But I do think ignorance can breed certainty. When you've had a narrow experience of the world, it is easy to conclude that your experience is what is normal or best and to assume that things that contradict your experience either don't exist or are just bad. Like when I tell Alrica she is my best wife, as sweet as that is, she does realize that the set of all wives I've ever had has a cardinality of one. So maybe it isn't as complimentary as it comes across.

Do you think this is Jesus gesturing "Whatevs?"

I was talking to a man from Britain and he was telling me a story. He was in the United States and someone said to him, "Oh, you speak British English." And he was offended, because, from his point of view, English is British English. American English is the oddity. I disagreed. American English, British English, Australian English, any English is just as old and original as any other. They all started being spoken at the same time. Yes, they evolved to have their differences, but they were all spoken by English language speakers in a continuous trail from the early days of Vikings conquering Germanic tribes and the Normans conquering their descendants in turn. Is the true English dependent on which plot of land it is being spoken on? i don't see how that could matter.

Delaware Punch. Delaware? That's not normal, am I right?

Everyone's normal is as normal, to them, as everyone else's normal is to those people. Every normal is equally normal. It's hard to wrap your head around. No matter how strange a custom or language or way of life may seem to me or you, it is normal to the people who have always had that custom or language or way of life.

And that may be one of the secret of the world. Except, like Puebla's secrets, it's accessible to anyone.

A City Called "Town"

Imagine you founded a town and everyone called it Town. Super creative, right? Like naming your dog "dog" or your daughter "girl child" or refusing to name your car forcing your family members to refer to it as The Car That Shall Not Be Named.

The trees are cut in the shapes of birdhouses!

Now, further imagine that you built in a halfway spot that was between the main port of a colony and the capital city of the colony, giving goods caravans a place to stop, stay, sell, buy, and rest. Good spot, right? But because it is so excellently placed, the town grows. People move in, new colonists, indigenous people, people from smaller nearby villages. The town grows until it becomes a city. But what do you do about the name? Everyone still calls it Town. Do you tell everyone, "Hey! Stop that! We're changing the name to City." You know, an Istanbul, Not Constantinople moment. Or do you just shrug and say, "Okay, call it what you want. It's fine, it's all fine."

Pretty colors

This isn't just some hypothetical, dreamed up scenario. This is a vastly simplified sketch of the history of Puebla, Mexico. It starts, according to legend, with a dream. The year is 1530. The place is New Spain (which is present day Mexico.) A bishop wakes from a dream. He writes a letter to the Queen of Spain about his dream. She needs to start a new town in New Spain, halfway between the port city of Veracruz and the main city, Mexico City. But the good bishop has had a dream in which he saw the place, exactly where the new town should be. How did he know this was the place? Because in his dream he saw angels descend from heaven and trace out the major roads of the town.

Chickens for sale in the market

The queen agrees about the need for the town. (Did she agree that probably angels showed the bishop where to put it? That's not as clear.) So she says, go forth, my bishop, find this place and start this new town. He does, setting out from his monastery with several other priests and monks. And around 15 miles later, he finds the very spot, or so he says, in his dream. And because the angels guided him to it, the new town is named Puebla de los Ángeles, because puebla means town and you can figure out what the rest of the words mean. It is Town of the Angels. (This is about 250 years before Los Angeles, California is founded. So the good bishop didn't steal the name from the north.)

I don't know what kind of business Karmona is, but they have a beautiful mural.

The town was founded in 1531, and a year later, it was doing so well that the queen designates it a city! Hooray! But she didn't change the name. It doesn't become the City of the Angels, but rather, the City of the Town of the Angels. And most people just call it Puebla, so it is the city of Town.

Decorative Arch along Calle de Los Dulces or Sweets Street

Let's fast forward a few centuries. In the 1860s, France invades Mexico, you know, like you do when your an imperial power. There's a major battle in Puebla in which the French forces are defeated by the Mexican defenders. The Mexicans are led by Ignacio Zaragoza and they win this decisive battle on May 5, 1862. In honor of the victory, Benito Juárez declares Cinco de Mayo a Mexican holiday. What's more, he changes the name of the city, dropping those angels and substituting a human. It is now Puebla de Zaragoza, which is still its name today. But like before, everyone just calls it Puebla. (And now it has over three million people in it. That's a big town.)

Church of St. Christopher

Alrica and I had a lot of fun exploring the Historic Center of Puebla, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of its architecture goes back to the 16th century, not too long after it was founded.

Entrance to Capillo del Rosario

We visited the Capillo del Rosario, which is the chapel of the Virgin of the Rosary. The interior is covered in gold. There are all these amazing statues. Normally, I don't take picture inside of places of worship, unless they indicate it is okay. Here the rule was "just don't use the flash," so I didn't use the flash.

Wall behind the main altar

Arches and Gold (but not the Golden Arches)

We visited a market that was both unsurprising and surprising. The unsurprising parts: You could buy fruits, beans, meats, vegetables, bread, and even a few home goods. The surprising parts: There were two different shrines inside the marketplace. If you need to pray to the Virgin Mary to improve your haggling, you don't have far to go. Another surprise, there was an internet cafe inside the market.

I can buy and pray in the same place? Talk about convenience!

We went by the Barrio del Artista, the Artist's neighborhood. Here there are studios/galleries of several local sculptors and painters. There is also a nearby Market for Artisans called El Parián. There we saw a snake in the street! Okay, it was painted cobblestones, but it sounds more dramatic if I leave that part out.

Hiss, hiss

In the Artist's Neighborhood, we also came across this statue of three naked people. But we came from the backside first. I wondered, "Why do I see a man's bare bottom but also a face?"

You see butts and a face, right?

Walking around the front side, I discovered the "face" is a mask being held by the central figure, the woman, who is also holding a serpentine monster in her other hand. Don't mess with her.

It makes more sense now. Not much more.

Many of the homes and businesses in the Historic Center are brightly colored, streets lined with a spectrum of row homes. One of the most brightly colored is Callejón de los Sapos, meaning the Alley of the Frogs. (It's also called South Sixth Street, but where's the fun in that?) It's an open air market with lovely buildings and crafts. And yes, there is frog decor going on too. Yes, there are frogs in its history too. When the river would flood, this street would be full of frogs.

One end of the Alley of the Frogs

Frog on a Wall

Frog Fountain

For lunch we had famous, traditional foods of Puebla. Perhaps the most famous in Puebla and throughout Mexico is mole poblano. I should note, poblano means "of Puebla". Like someone from New York is a New Yorker and someone from Venice is a Venetian and someone from Reno is, I don't know. Are we Renoites? Renovians? Renovators? The point is that someone or something from Puebla is Poblano. This includes poblano peppers and mole poblano. Mole (pronounced MO-lay, not MOHL) is renown for including chocolate as part of the sauce. You can taste the chocolate, though it isn't sweet. But the taste of the peppers is even stronger than the chocolate. The other traditional food we had was pipian verde. Pipian is a sauce also made with poblano peppers, but it includes ground pumpkin seeds. There are two traditional varieties: verde (green) and roja (red). We chose the green. Each was served over a seasoned chicken thigh and leg. I know Alrica found them too spicy, because I ended up eating one and a half lunches. There are worse problems that one and a half delicious lunches.

Mole poblano

Pipian Verde

Outside of the Historic Center, we passed by an advertisement for a McFlurry at McDonalds with which we were unfamiliar. McFlurry Sponch! What word sounds like a more appetizing foodstuff than "sponch?" This is up there with schmaltz and headcheese. Way to make me hesitate, ad!

Now you get your Golden Arches

We will definitely have to return. There is still a lot left in the Historic Center we didn't see, including the oldest library in the New World (which is much cooler sounding than the newest library in the Old World.) As you might guess, that's a big draw for Alrica. So we will have to go back.

Reminded me of Buddhist prayer flags, except they are not Buddhist prayer flags.

But truthfully, we have to go back anyway. Because the Historic Center of Puebla is beautiful, fun, and extremely cool. And it doesn't have any ego about all of its wonders. You know, it's just the Town.

Celebrating Transitions

If you are reading this, you're welcome to do so. But in my heart, as I write this, I know this post is meant for my son.

We just enjoyed our second wedding of the summer. It was a fantastic affair. My favorite part was the vows which were heartfelt, emotional, indicative of a deep love, and in one case, quite funny.

The wedding got me thinking. You see, our son came to attend the wedding of his cousin. (Like me, he has a lot of cousins, though he has only seven first cousins to my eight, but when you expand beyond that, he has all of mine and all of his mother's side. So he's got me beat.) This made me contemplative, perhaps even philosophical. I was trying to explain to my son why having these happy occasions matter, why we want to attend them, what they really represent.

My son with his mother at the wedding. (It was very informal.)

Of course, he's not a parent, he doesn't see it the same way I do. To him, a graduation ceremony is a long, arduous process. In his words, "boring." And I admit that most of the graduation ceremony is watching other people cross the stage, hearing names of people I don't know, seeing them shake the hands of deans and provosts that I don't know. But for those seven seconds that it is my child crossing the stage, that his name (or her name) is announced, and when he is shaking the hands of strangers, that makes it all worth it to me. The entire proceeding seems wonderful.

Of course a wedding is even more eventful to a parent. That is an entire ceremony (and party afterward) dedicated to your child (and one other person, but still a lot more concentrated than a graduation.)

Why are these events so important to us? I think it is about our shared human experience. We all have finite lives. We grow, first up, and then old. And along the way we have other people who mean so much to us. We want to celebrate our shared experience of growth.

When my kids were living at home, I saw them growing everyday. But it was incremental, such a tiny change from one day to the next. Then you look at your kids one day and marvel that they are so different than they were a year ago, or a decade ago, or since they were babies. But special moments make us take note of how much they have grown and changed. We build rituals around them, we call them rites of passage. Why? I believe that there is something deep in our psyche that needs to mark the changes, to celebrate what those who mean the most to us have become and to imagine what they will become in the future. A graduation marks the end of one phase of life and the start of a new adventure. A wedding is the fusion of two beautiful souls into one family, ready to face the future together.

These are the sorts of things we can't celebrate everyday. If we did, they wouldn't feel momentous, they wouldn't feel special. Each of us only gets a few such ritualistic moments of grandeur. And that's why it is so important to attend when you can, to celebrate when given the chance.

This summer we got to attend two different weddings, to see two separate couples become two beautiful families. And I imagine some of the wonders they have in store in their futures. Maybe they will have children and continue this cycle of rites. Even as the world changes, as society reshapes itself in each generation, there are some things so intrinsically human that they repeat.

I think much of this passed right over my son's head. He's not yet at a point that he feels the joyous explosion of humanity in such events. One day, maybe he will, though probably not before another graduation comes his way. When it does, I hope he will accept the "boredom" of the moment to let us savor the transition and celebrate him. Because he is a part of me and a part of his mother in a way I can't explain to him in words. I'll try my best to explain it in behaviors, actions, and love.

Update our packing

After nearly a year traveling the world, we are back in the US for two weddings. It is great to see some of our family and friends but also an opportunity to think about what has been working and what hasn't. For those who don't remember, we posted this last year. 

So here are our changes:

Electronics: It was time to get a new computer for me which then led to me assessing all of the peripherals. My new computer has USB-c ports as well as an HDMI port and we are saying goodbye to USB 3.0. This allowed me to get rid of some of my adapters but I also purchased a new mouse and flash drive that worked with USB-C. Check out how small that flash drive is and I love that it has both USB-c and USB 3.0 ends. Flash drives make printing plane tickets or other paperwork easy. 

 

A purchase of a new Universal Adapter will make it easier to charge multiple things at once and this one has lots of spots to plug in.  

For flights with seat-back entertainment systems, we picked up a bluetooth adaptor that plugs into the stereo port and then allows me to watch movies with my own earbuds.

 

Clothing: When you only have three outfits, they wear out a bit faster than usual so now was a good time to change some stuff out. Two of my shirts were a heavier cotton which was super comfortable. However, that meant that in places where they don't have clothing dryers (which is most of the world), they dry too slowly and end up smelling mildewed. I'm swapping them out with quicker dry shirts.  

Our plan is to stay in warm places from here on out so we picked up a couple pairs of shorts with zipper pockets too. I love the extra security! 

Finally, fingernail clippers get dull and my research led me to this pair that should last much longer. I love how sharp they are!  

In a few days, we head off to Puebla, Mexico. What else should we think about for updating our packs?  

 

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