After Cuetzalan began the first day of the rest of my life (ok, month). For those who don't know, I'm one of five reporters in the COP16 News Center, which is a semi-official function of Mexico's Foreign Affairs Ministry. The COP16 is the UN-organized conference where diplomats and delegates get together to not reach any binding agreements regarding greenhouse gas emissions, alternative energy, and programs to mitigate and adapt to the effects of man-made climate change (i.e. global warming). This year it's in Cancun!
For the first week and a half, our team of 10 (reporters, editors, translators and the like) met for 10 to 12 (or 13) hours a day to practice, practice, practice producing multimedia reports for our website. We stalked people on the street, in parks, in their offices, to produce somewhat mindless videos and written stories on climate change, mostly to practice our production skills and familiarize ourselves with the language of the business.
Last Wednesday (Nov. 23?), we flew out together to Cancun. We're staying at an all-inclusive resort at one of the best beach spot's in the Caribbean city. It's incredibly bizarre to wake up each morning dressed to impress, laptop strung across the shoulder, stress levels set to explode, and see a bunch of lobster red, overweight tourists in tank tops and flip flops enjoying the beach and buffet. Our first afternoon, at least, we got to join them. Since then, however, it's been hectic, and as today (Nov. 29) is the first official day of the conference, it's only going to intensify.
Sunday was a very go-go-go kind of day, but I enjoyed it. My production team (cameraman, camera assistant, photographer and slighty-nuts production assisant) and I were rushed out of our bedrooms without breakfast to head north up to an archeological zone, where who knows what was happening. Once we arrived, not even the security guards knew what was happening, but as we walked past the gates, the camera dudes went racing up a sandy hill to where a huge group of people was standing. I scurried along in my pretty gold flats as they filled with rocks and sand. When I got up, I saw that the leader of an indigenous Mixe community from Oaxaca was performing the ritual sacrifice of a wild turkey to bless the inauguration of a Foreign Affairs-organized campsite for NGO workers and indigenous groups participating in the COP16. In retrospect, it was a little psychotic of me to ask that the cameras cover the actual slaughter, because of course we couldn't put that in my video, but at the time the ridiculousness of it all made me hysterically amused. Luis, the photographer, has an excellent picture of the neck and head splayed across a rock.
After the butchering, the Mixe leader passed around cups of mezcal, and the Foreign Affairs Secretary poured some on the turkey like any proper gangster would do. We hung around for a while waiting for an official to grace us with his presence, and finally bolted back to Cancunmesse, a convention center and one of two headquarters for high-level talks and events. There, we dropped off the van and caught a COP bus to the Moon Palace Hotel, the other HQ and home to our News Center. Which is in a basement. The space is normally used for training and hiring service personnel for the hotel (like cleaning ladies, waiters, cooks, etc). To get to the bathroom, we essentially walk through their complex, and it's still silly to me that when I take a break from a story and rush to pee, I run past neatly dressed Yucatecos in squeaky white sneakers and crisp uniforms.
Today, I've been blessed with a 10:30 a.m. work call, which can only mean that I'll be in the office until 2 a.m.
Check out our stories here!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Stupendous Spelunking in Cuetzalan
With my work on the COP16 News Center looming ahead, I made sure to make the most of my last weekend of freedom. Grant, Nick and I left DF at the splendid hour of 11:58 p.m. and headed 5 hours north to Cuetzalan, an ancient city in the state of Puebla. The name comes from quetzal, a beautiful bird whose peacock-like feathers were prized by the Aztecs. According to my 12 year old tour guide, quetzales are now extinct, but only since the 1980s. Way to go, cultural patrimony.
When we arrived around 5:30 a.m. to the posada, we awoke a sleeping man at the reception, who let us into a room with two double beds. Being a princess, I naturally got one to myself, but Nick was a little nervous that Grant would get the wrong idea, so in the morning, we went downstairs and asked for a triple.
We thought it would be obvious not to pay the full price on the double room, as we'd only slept in it for 3 hours. Wrong. We started bickering in Spanish with the lady at the front desk, who was like "hellz no," but fortunately Nick shifted approaches and asked gently if we couldn't reach a compromise. And it worked! Half price for the first night, and full price on a triple with ridiculously high ceilings and a bathroom with a shower head facing the toilet.
Later in the morning, we wandered around the tiny pueblo up steep streets and through a maze of market vendors.
Then we hired a 12-year-old gentleman to lead us down the highway, through a small annex town and out to Las Brisas, a beautiful waterfall whose natural wonder is amplified by the michelada (beer with spices) carts. 
All in all, the perfect way to spend my last sweet drop of freedom.
When we arrived around 5:30 a.m. to the posada, we awoke a sleeping man at the reception, who let us into a room with two double beds. Being a princess, I naturally got one to myself, but Nick was a little nervous that Grant would get the wrong idea, so in the morning, we went downstairs and asked for a triple.
We thought it would be obvious not to pay the full price on the double room, as we'd only slept in it for 3 hours. Wrong. We started bickering in Spanish with the lady at the front desk, who was like "hellz no," but fortunately Nick shifted approaches and asked gently if we couldn't reach a compromise. And it worked! Half price for the first night, and full price on a triple with ridiculously high ceilings and a bathroom with a shower head facing the toilet.Later in the morning, we wandered around the tiny pueblo up steep streets and through a maze of market vendors.
Then we hired a 12-year-old gentleman to lead us down the highway, through a small annex town and out to Las Brisas, a beautiful waterfall whose natural wonder is amplified by the michelada (beer with spices) carts. After Grant threw rocks at a hole in the waterfall's rock wall for a good 15 minutes, and after Nick skipped rocks with our guide's 10-year-old brother, the five of us went up and around to a second waterfall. Once we headed back into town and tipped our escorts, we went to a well-regarded restaurant across the narrow street from our posada. I thought I picked a winner when I ordered crepes with mushrooms, but it turns out, they had a different kind of mushroom in mind. They were long, chewy, earth-tasting strips in a blanket of crepe batter. At least the beers were cheap! 
On Sunday, we met up with Dario, who friends had recommended that I call about a spelunking excursion. For 250 pesos each, we got equipment, a 4-hour tour and an "esnack," which I think is amazing. From Dario's house, we headed past a landscape of tropical green hillsides and down to the entrance of a cave. We climbed through the narrow walls, slithered "Matrix"-style along rocks and cannonballed into icy, icy waters. It was an impressive amount of fun, especially since all the other caves I've been to before are grandiose mammoths where well-lit paved paths with handrails invite families to gaze at stalactites. At the end, we each enjoyed a Negrito (or, "little black person"), essentially a Twinkie stuffed with chocolate filling, exactly the kind of snack you'd expect to be handed after an outdoorsy, athletic adventure, right?
Next, we cleaned up at Dario's house. I had brought a small hand towel on the trip just in case, so I used it to wipe the mud off my legs. Then, I realized I was wearing a bathing suit, so I could just rinse off my entire body! Then, I realized that the towel I had been planning to use was streaked with mud, so I had to air dry for a bit and wipe off with my soggy clothes. Sexy. For lunch, more micheladas at a seafood restaurant, and then a later afternoon departure for DF.
On Sunday, we met up with Dario, who friends had recommended that I call about a spelunking excursion. For 250 pesos each, we got equipment, a 4-hour tour and an "esnack," which I think is amazing. From Dario's house, we headed past a landscape of tropical green hillsides and down to the entrance of a cave. We climbed through the narrow walls, slithered "Matrix"-style along rocks and cannonballed into icy, icy waters. It was an impressive amount of fun, especially since all the other caves I've been to before are grandiose mammoths where well-lit paved paths with handrails invite families to gaze at stalactites. At the end, we each enjoyed a Negrito (or, "little black person"), essentially a Twinkie stuffed with chocolate filling, exactly the kind of snack you'd expect to be handed after an outdoorsy, athletic adventure, right?
Next, we cleaned up at Dario's house. I had brought a small hand towel on the trip just in case, so I used it to wipe the mud off my legs. Then, I realized I was wearing a bathing suit, so I could just rinse off my entire body! Then, I realized that the towel I had been planning to use was streaked with mud, so I had to air dry for a bit and wipe off with my soggy clothes. Sexy. For lunch, more micheladas at a seafood restaurant, and then a later afternoon departure for DF.
All in all, the perfect way to spend my last sweet drop of freedom.Madre y Padre come to visit
It's been almost a month since Madre y Padre came to visit me in Mexico City, but it still deserves a dignified mention on my blog. My parents stayed at an excellente bed & breakfast, the Red Tree House, just south of Parque Mexico and about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Mornings started with a delicious breakfast (I know, I was there eating all the pan dulce), and evenings ended with a wine happy hour and, if he had the better half of a glass, my dad serenading the room on the piano.The first afternoon they arrived, I took them on a walking tour of Roma and Condesa and to all the pretty parks in the neighborhood. At the last park, my dad admitted that his back had been killing him and that he can't walk for extended periods like that. Oops. On Sunday, we headed up to the Chapultepec Castle (where Matt proposed, how darling), then over to the beloved Anthropology and History Museum, where we skipped lunch and slammed chile-covered peanuts instead. At night we had a super fancy dinner (at a restaurant that was so fancy I'll never get to return) to celebrate John & Gretch's 29th wedding anniversary. Also darling.
Monday we took a road trip to Tepotzlan, in the state of Morelos, which was pleasantly free of DF crowds and angsty groups of adolescent students. Despite complaining of back pain earlier in the trip, my dad bested my mom and I throughout a steep, hour-long hike up to an Aztec pyramid. Fortunately he reminded us on various occassions, lest we forget :) After my parents devored a giant slab of salty cecina meat (pork? beef?), and I a soggy enchilada disappointment, we caught a coach bus back to DF and took a proper siesta. In the evening, the padres treated my friends to an evening of tacos and beer, and Lord help us, the Browns were playing.
Tuesday began with my parents waiting on me as I interviewed a source for a freelance story, then we headed to the Pachuca street market, where fruits, veggies, flowers and spongy cow stomach tissue are deliciously displayed. Next stop: Centro Histórico. Unfortunately, the grandeur of the Zócalo plaza and the billowing Mexican flag had been put aside for endless production equipment, which I later found out was for a crazy light show to celebrate the centennial of the start of the Mexican revolution. We passed through a labrynth of security to get to Mexico's Bicentennial Museum (this time for Mexican independence), which offered a very interesting but very long foray into Mexican history.
We put off lunch to have an early dinner at one of my favorite places to eat, whose name I can never remember. In Mexico, most restaurants have lunch menus, where you can get soup, rice, a main dish and dessert, plus fruit water, for 40 pesos. This place costs 85 pesos, but is infinitely more fancy. On Wednesday, the padres last day in DF, we headed south to Coyoacán. To my delight (I swear I didn't plan it) we had lunch at a vegetarian sidewalk café then checked out the Casa Azul, where Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera lived and got all Communist on each other. A walk through Coyoacán's historic little plaza ended with a mountain of pistachio ice cream for all. Qué rico.
Our last supper, if you will, was at the Taco Ladies, the infamous sidewalk eatery where the tables and chairs are plastic and foldable and the roof is a plastic tarp strung over a plastic tube framework. They actually serve quesadillas on their portable stove, but they're known universally as the Taco Ladies. And my, do they make a mean tortilla.
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