Christmas in México!

Although many countries throughout the world celebrate Christmas, I find it interesting that each region or country has its own unique traditions and Mexico is no exception. 

Piñatas are not just for birthday parties, they have a special meaning during Christmas in Mexico. During Christmas parties which are called "posadas," bright piñadas with seven points are brought. The seven points represent the seven deadly sins, the bright colors of the piñata represent temptation, the blindfold represents faith, the stick is the will to overcome sin and finally the candy represents all the riches of heaven. Overall the lesson is that faith and willpower will overcome evil and lead to reward.

Us Mexicans and Latin Americans in general stay up later than Americans and Christmas is no exception.  The main Christmas celebration in Mexico is Christmas Eve and most families attend mass at 8 or 10pm, then return home to have a large meal with family and open presents at midnight.  Christmas day is reserved to celebrate the life of the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Mexico does decorate for Christmas with lights and in Merida there is no shortage of decorations.  The centro historico has lights along many streets and many glorietas (roundabouts) have lights or Christmas trees.  Homes are decorated as well and traditionally each home has a Christmas tree and nativity scene. 

Of course, snow is not a possibility down here in Mexico but I welcome the warm weather and I definitely don’t miss trying to get home for Christmas in the snow!

Remate de Montejo in Christmas eve

Yucatan Christmas

Leave you the link for the website of a tour operator in case you are interested on learning more about Mexico!!!

http://www.adventures-mexico.com/en/our-tours/1

Squashing the Mexican Stereotype

Before I continue with Mayan prophecies, I´d like to take you into the Mexican Stereotype... You´ve probably heard at least one, and laugh, they are actually very funny, we mexicans laugh too, because they are not truth!

 All Mexicans are poor. 
This is simply not true.  The Mexican economy ranks 13 in the WORLD.  Yes, the world.  Also, the richest man in the face of the earth is a Mexican.  True, there is some poverty in Mexico, as there is poverty in every country.  However there are also nice shopping malls, grocery stores and a number of other modern comforts here.  Friends actually think I take a chicken bus to the market and haggle prices for vegetables with farmers, when I actually go to a very nice grocery store.  I recently had friends  from the US come to visit who told me they didn’t bring any of their new or designer clothing because they didn’t want to be a target for robbery.  They ended up being the worst dressed people at restaurants on their vacation.  I just had to laugh.

Remittances from Mexicans living in the states comprise the second largest portion of the Mexican economy. 
Also laughable.  Remittances or contributions sent by Mexicans living abroad to their families at home in Mexico are no doubt a substantial part of the economy, but In no way is it number two.  In Mexico’s economy, before remittances lie oil, manufactured goods, electronics, automobiles, industrial exports, heavy industry, construction, food, and financial services.   Mexico is not just a country full of poor people waiting for family members to send money; it is a country comprised of regular people like doctors, lawyers, engineers, factory workers and anything else you can imagine.

Mexico is dangerous. 
While there are parts of the country that can be dangerous, the majority of the country has a crime rate lower than the US average.  One usually would not think twice about sending their child on a school trip to Washington DC, however statistics show that the murder rate Washington DC is nearly four times as high as Mexico City.  In reality, not visiting Cancun due to violence along the border is like not visiting Vegas because of violence happening in New York City. 

I hope this article has been an eye opener for at least a few people.  Mexico is a wonderful country with amazing culture and kind people.  I know that once you visit you will think the same.

I invite you to please post your Mexican stereotypes below!  

And leave you some nice pic from Mexico! 

http://www.adventures-mexico.com/photogalleries

2012... End of the World according to Los Mayas?

We've all heard about this issue and we all feel curious and maybe even afraid of what will happen on December 21, 2012. In my particular case, let me tell you that 3 years was afraid that this date comes as advertised! Sometimes I could even secretly cry (not kidding),until two months ago I began to overcome my fear of something that has not happened yet.

Let me start with some facts and objective information about the Maya and their calendar. The Mayans had two calendars, the long count and the short count, we will pay attention to the short count calendar. This is comprised of two calendrical systems, the 365-day Haab and the 260-day Tzolkin. The Maya merged these two systems into a top system called "Calendar Round", made up of three spinning wheels and only once every 18.980 days, one day of the Tzolkin would coincide with one of the Haab.

Each cycle of 18,980 days is equivalent to 52 laps in the Haab and 73 laps in the tzolkin, and at the end they both return to the starting point. Every 52 laps on the Haab held the new fire ceremony, analogy was a "Mayan century." It is also important to emphasize that they are driven by cycles of 20 years each called "Katum."

I hope I have been clear of how the Mayas managed their time, so we can continue with the prophecies, the first to board says that from the last Katum, one which began in 1992, would had 20 years to make a change on how we think and create awareness and understanding that everything on our planet breathe.

They also said that our sun changes in cycles of 5.125 days, where he began to form spots and increasingly large eruptions that would affect our planet. In this case, the end of that period of 5,125 years would be just the December 21, 2012, the end of the last Katum. Likewise said the seventh year of the last decade, (1999) would begin an era of darkness, where we´d face ourselves to realize our predation and how our behavior has contributed to make the changes happen and we realize how wrong our materialism is and free us from suffering.

Now let´s move on to the second prophecy:

This has much to do with the previous one, says that in the seventh year of the last Katum (last Katum starts in 1992) there will be an eclipse (which actually happened), but how this eclipse is special because the earth would be right in the center of a cross formed by the sun and most other planets, coincidentally, the four ends of the cross would be placed in the 4 zodiac signs belonging to the 4 evangelists who star the Apocalypse of John.

Click here for more interesting info

Yucatan Food Cooking Classes

In today´s post I want to tell you how good I was in the job the other day. To put you in context, I live in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, and work in a tour operator, let me tell you that my job is mostly an office job, actually It is an office work, but the last week, my boss needed me to make a tour for some tourists! I thought to my self, Ok... I can do this, I mean how difficult could it be to talk to some foreigners about my beautiful home, right? Sweet Jesus I was wrong!!! but of course, I did not realized of that at first (we always think we´re superman).

The tour I had to give is named "Taste of Yucatan", and my boss told me he would take me on the tour with him like I was a tourist to see what I had to do, so we did and it is actually a really interesting tour, consists on giving to the tourists the closest look to the local culture (in this case the Mayan culture in Merida) and actually we try the tourist to stop being one, and get immerse into the culture and for example, what people really like about this kind of tours is that they don´t do the typical touristy things, but they are able to do the things locals do, that´s fantastic and authentic! So, returning back to my story, in this tour we went to the local market (one of the biggest in Latin America) and went to see what the different vendors have to offer, and all of the things they sell are kind of rare, there are thousands of spices, fresh vegetables, funny artifacts, and very unusuall food like cow breast and fried cow lungs! So it turns on to be something that neither tourist or me expected!

After this Merida market visit, we went on a public bus to a local home to have the Merida cooking classes, so, when we arrived the lady of the house received us in the kindest way! and the Yucatan food cooking began! so the way that I learned how to cook  the food it was kind of like the Mayan used to, not like in a restaurant would and it was very interesting.

So the awaited day came, and I had to give the exact same tour to the passengers... I went to our meeting place and was so nervous, I have to confess I was even wishing they don´t show up! but, they did! In fact I had understood they would be a gay couple but they were a regular married very kind and nice couple! their name was Elizabet and Gary and we had a blast! They actually love Mexico, it was their 6th time here!

Basically my tour was a success! I would love to know something about Elizabeth and Gary, but all I know about them is that Elizabeth really like "Breaking bad" and "Dexter" and Gary loves "The Godfather".

I will leave you the link of the tour in case you want to check it!

http://www.adventures-mexico.com/en/our-tours/day-trips/taste-of-yucatan

And here you can see a very useful Yucatan Recipe book!

And see you in my next adventures in Mexico!! :D

The Beginning of the Adventure

Well, I´d like to explain what this blog is about...


I live in Mexico, and now when I realize of how full of everything you want is this country and how little I know of it, just made me want to communicate  the feeling... How can a person live her whole life in a place and NOT knowing it at all... Don´t get me wrong, I know some places, it´s not like I never do anything and I´m just sitting in my bed, but I know so little!!!


I´m sure you can relate with me, but in the other hand, how can somebody really know a place like Mexico when there´s just so much things in every way, culturally, vegetation, animal species, etc.


Sometimes is just incredible how even tourist from other countries can know better than you about your own country!


And well, overall that´s the reason why I´m starting a blog, i wanna share my point of view, experiences and mostly interesting things to do, and I want you to witness how my adventures develops.