At the top of these steps, I’ll stop and catch my breath, I tell myself.  I’m on a hike through Guanajuato’s callejones, the labyrinthine cobblestone alleys that wind through the city’s hillsides.  In places, they’re so steep that steps have been built to make scaling them a little easier.  My destination:  the monument to Pipila, a hero of the Mexican War of Independence, that is perched on a cliff overlooking the city’s main plaza.   Just ahead of me, a stooped old woman with long silver braids carefully negotiates the steps with a cane while a little girl dances at the top of them, calling out words of encouragement to her abuelita.  To my left and right are small stucco houses, as colorful as a selection of fruit sorbets:  pineapple, watermelon, apricot, grape.  A goat, tethered to a rope, is grazing in a patch of grass in front of one of them.

Slightly winded (but invigorated by the hike), I finally reach the statue, where I am rewarded with knockout views.  From the statue’s base, this oddly situated city is visible in its entirety, as is the gorgeous colonial architecture for which it is famous.  My eyes follow the line of the city as it snakes along the winding riverbed into which it was built.  In the 16^th and 17^th centuries, silver barons erected an opulent baroque city at the bottom of a narrow river gorge, and mine workers built homes on the precipitous slopes of the ravine.  From the Pipila statue, I can see it all:  the domes and spires of Guanajuato’s colorful churrigueresque cathedrals rising from the valley floor, the pastel homes on the surrounding hillsides serving as a backdrop, and beyond the city, at the top of a nearby mountain, the famous statue of Cristo Rey (Christ the King), said to mark the geographic center of Mexico.

I had come to Guanajuato (pronounced gwan-ah-WAH-toe) to study Spanish in one of the city’s many language schools, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that this enchanting city of 80,000 residents, equidistant between Mexico City and Guadalajara, is relatively undiscovered by American tourists. Guanajuato is often called the most beautiful of Mexico’s colonial cities, but American visitors to the region seem to prefer nearby San Miguel de Allende, home of a large colony of American expatriates and therefore a town where English is widely spoken. Oh, there are tourists aplenty in Guanajuato, but most of them are Mexicans, attracted not only by the city’s beauty but by the important role it has played in Mexican history.

Founded in 1554 when the Spanish discovered rich veins of silver in the surrounding mountains, Guanajuato was for a time the richest city in Mexico and one of the richest in the world.  (The region’s mines supplied, during the 16^th and 17^th centuries, a third of the world’s silver.)  Guanajuato is not so rich today (though it seems prosperous enough by Mexican standards), but reminders of the city’s former glory abound in the magnificent colonial buildings erected by the silver barons.  The city is such an architectural treasure that UNESCO declared it a world heritage site in 1988.

In the early 19^th century, Guanajuato was the site of an early rebel victory in the Mexican War of Independence.  After Father Hidalgo issued his famous “grito” (a call for Mexican independence) in nearby Dolores (now Dolores Hidalgo), his small army marched through central Mexico, arriving eventually in Guanajuato.  The city’s Spanish rulers holed up in the Alhondiga, a granary, until Pipila, an Indian miner, set fire to the gates, enabling rebel forces to enter and kill nearly everyone inside.  But the rebel victory was short-lived.  When the Spanish recaptured Guanajuato, they beheaded Father Hidalgo and several other rebel leaders, and for ten years their heads were displayed in cages that hung from the four corners of the Alhondiga.  The hooks that held the cages are still there.

Today the Alhondiga is a museum housing art installations and a permanent exhibit detailing the fascinating history of the Guanajuato (which also served as the nation’s temporary capital during the administration of Benito Juarez, Mexico’s first and only indigenous president).  And the dramatic statue of El Pipila, torch raised above his head, a defiant look on his face, is visible from almost every corner of the city, even at night, when it is floodlit.  Like the Alhondiga, it is one of the city’s chief tourist attractions.  On the first of my trips to Guanajuato, getting to the Monumento al Pipila involved either a lengthy bus ride or a grueling hike through the callejones.  But on my second trip, I found that El Pipila had been made more accessible by the Funicular Panoramica, a cable operated elevator that climbs the cactus and bougainvillea covered hillside, depositing tourists at the foot of the statue.  Though I had hiked to the statue on my first visit, I gladly paid ten pesos (about a dollar) for a ride, just to experience those wonderful views once again.

On both of my visits to Guanajuato, I studied Spanish at Instituto Miguel de Cervantes, which is actually located in nearby Valenciana, a tiny suburb in the hills above Guanajuato (and home to one of the region’s richest silver mines).  Every morning, I boarded a bus that the Instituto sent through Guanajuato to pick up students (most of whom had been placed with local families).  After a morning studying Spanish, I had my afternoons free to explore the city.  Guanajuato is an unusually walkable city, mainly because most of its streets are closed to cars, which travel instead on an intricate network of subterranean roadways.  Guanajuato’s meandering above-ground streets provide pedestrians with one delightful discovery after another:  street markets, museums and art galleries, ornate cathedrals, and a seemingly endless supply of enchanting little plazas (sometimes called plazuelas).

On any stroll through Guanajuato’s streets, you will encounter plenty of vendors selling snacks and handicrafts.  They display their wares on sidewalks throughout the city, offering freshly cut fruit, roasted corn, and colorful ceramics and textiles to passersby.  But the widest selection of goods in Guanajuato is undoubtedly at the Mercado Hidalgo, a former train station that has been converted into one of the largest markets in Mexico.  Designed by Gustave Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame), this massive building was constructed from pink quarry stone in 1910 to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of Mexican independence.  In its cavernous interior are hundreds of booths selling everything from seafood and produce to silver jewelry and tchotchkes commemorating important historical events that took place in Guanajuato.

In addition to being a city of historical importance in Mexico, Guanajuato is also something of a cultural center.  It is the home of the artsy University of Guanajuato, which hosts the annual Festival Internacional Cervantino, a cultural fair every October that features artists and performers from around the world.  It also boasts an impressive array of museums.  The Alhondiga probably attracts the most tourists, but a close second is the bizarre Museo de las Mómeas, located near a cemetery on the outskirts of town.  In 1865, as city officials attempted to make more space in the cemetery, they discovered that the corpses buried there had been mummified, the result of Guanajuato’s dry weather and the high mineral content of its soil.  Today, overcrowding is even more of a problem in Guanajuato’s cemetery than it was in 1865, so the city has imposed a 200 peso tax on families that want to keep their relatives underground.  Those who can’t afford to pay the tax are likely to find the mummified remains of their loved ones on exhibit in the museum, which attracts the morbidly curious from all over Mexico.

Guanajuato’s art museums feature less ghoulish exhibits (though they are sometimes just as morbid – death and violence being common themes in Mexican art).  One of Guanajuato’s best art museums is the Museo del Pueblo de Guanajuato (the People’s Museum of Guanajuato), located right next to the university in a renovated 18^th century colonial mansion.  Its centerpiece is a chapel painted by the great Guanajuato-born muralist Jose Chavez Morado.  Like most of the great murals in Mexico, Morado’s often depict the exploitation of the native people by European invaders, and the chapel mural in the People’s Museum is no exception.  Guanajuato was also the birthplace of Mexico’s most famous muralist, Diego Rivera, and his boyhood home, just a few blocks from Museo del Pueblo, has been converted into the Museo-Casa de Diego Rivera.  The bottom floor is furnished just as it would have been in 1886, the year of Rivera’s birth, and the upper floors house a collection of his art, including a number of works done in his youth.  One of the most unusual art museums in Guanajuato is dedicated not to a particular artist but to a theme:  Museo Iconografico del Quijote, a collection of artistic depictions of scenes from Cervantes’ Don Quijote.  The eclectic holdings of this museum include sculptures, murals, tapestries, a tiny painting on an eggshell, and works by Picasso and Dalí.

Across the plaza from the Don Quijote Museum is Templo de San Francisco, one of Guanajuato’s countless churches, most of which are built in the baroque, churrigueresque style that is so common throughout Mexico.  Perhaps the most noteworthy of Guanajuato’s churches is the Basilica de Nuestra Senora de Guanajuato, which serves as the opulent home of the Patron Virgin of Guanajuato, the 1200-year-old jewel-covered statue believed to be the oldest work of Christian art in Mexico.  Philip II of Spain donated the statue to Guanajuato in 1557 as a token of his appreciation for the wealth the city’s mines had created for him.    Today it is an object of devotion for the citizens of the city, who pray before it, light candles to it, and once a year, during the Fiesta de la Virgen de Guanajuato, parade it through the city’s streets.  But as I sat in the Basilica one afternoon, it occurred to me, as a bird flew into the sanctuary through wide open doors, that this church (and others I had visited) was as much a community gathering place as a place of worship.  Around me, children played in the aisles while adults sat chatting on pews.  There were also people kneeling in prayer and lighting candles at altars, but even more were socializing.  On another occasion, in the Templo de San Diego, adjacent to Jardin Union, I found a young man softly strumming a guitar while a pair of adoring teenage girls sat and watched.  And every day art is exhibited on the front steps of the Templo.  Perhaps for Guanajuateños, worship is not separate from daily life.

If churches serve as gathering places, so, of course, do the city’s plazas.  The Jardin Union, a shady, triangular plaza in the center of the city, is the hub of social activity in Guanajuato.  Lined with sculpted trees and open-air restaurants, it is busy day and night with locals out for a stroll, tourists relaxing over a beer, and students having animated conversations on park benches.  At its center is a bandstand, from which concerts are given every Thursday and Sunday evening, and surrounding it are some of the city’s most striking buildings, including Templo de San Diego and Teatro Juarez, a neoclassical theatre built during the administration of Porfirio Diaz.  Its Moorish interior can be visited for a few pesos, but the theatre’s most impressive feature, the colonnaded façade, flanked by bronze lions and topped by eight dramatic statues of muses, can be seen for free.

But my favorite Guanajuato plaza is Plaza San Fernando, site of an open-air market selling books.   I found myself there late one afternoon after a visit to the Alhondiga.  The workday was ending, and adults were gathering around the fountain in the center of the plaza, chatting while they watched their children play.  There were a number of outdoor cafes in this plazuela, so I grabbed a table at one, the intriguingly named La Oreja de Van Gogh (Van Gogh’s ear), and had a glass of wine while doing my Spanish homework.  At the table next to me, two Americans were having a loud conversation, one of them insisting that the book market was an oddity since, in his experience, Mexicans don’t read.  As I sipped my wine, the sky darkened, and a sudden shower began, scattering the crowd.  (Brief storms are common in Guanajuato in the late summer.)  I quickly paid my bill and took refuge in another (indoor) café, Bossanova Arte and Café, a tiny place with burnt sienna walls that served espresso drinks, beer and wine, and crepes.  I ordered a crepe, and by the time I’d finished it, the storm was over and life had returned to the streets.

Guanajuato’s restaurants are plentiful and inexpensive.  One of the most popular eateries in town is Truco 7 (named for its address), a café-restaurant with a bohemian ambience where you can have a satisfying Mexican meal for under five dollars.   But the Mexican food here may differ from the Mexican food you’re used to eating in the United States.  (I didn’t find burritos on the menu at any restaurant in Guanajuato.)   Mole sauces are a specialty in this region of Mexico, and most meals are accompanied by rolls, served not with butter but with bowls of green and red salsa.

For a romantic dinner, don’t miss Gallo Pitagórico, an Italian restaurant located in a gorgeous royal blue house just underneath the monument to Pipila.  From a table by this restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling, open-air windows (protected only by iron railings), the views are as stunning as they are from El Pipila.  And an excellent, multi-course dinner for two with wine will only set you back about $20.00.  For an after dinner espresso (or a morning espresso for that matter), try Café Dada.  Reputed to have the best coffee in town, this artsy little café, located on Plazuela del Baratillo, is especially popular with university students, who use it as a kind of study hall in the afternoons and evenings.

The University of Guanajuato and its 20,000 students ensure that Guanajuato offers plenty of entertainment and nightlife.  Guanajuato’s theatres, including Teatro Principal, Teatro Cervantes, and Teatro Juarez, are venues for concerts, plays, films and dance performances.  On my first trip to Guanajuato, I saw a free concert by the University’s symphony orchestra in Teatro Principal, which also shows independent and foreign films (including many in English) on Sunday and Monday evenings.

But one needn’t go to a theatre to be entertained in Guanajuato:  free entertainment can be found every evening in the city’s streets.  Mimes and jugglers perform in front of the Teatro Juarez, and bands of roving musicians called estudiantinas lead processions through the callejones.  Dressed in medieval garb, these musicians sing, play, and tell jokes (though their punch lines are lost on those who have a limited understanding of Spanish).  The processions (called callejoneadas) culminate near the Callejon del Beso (the alley of the kiss), where two balconies meet above the street.  Legend has it that if two lovers kiss here they’ll experience seven years of good luck, and every evening camera flashes light up the balconies as Mexican couples pose lip-locked above the street.

Guanajuato also has a fair number of nightclubs, places where one can dance the night away to salsa music.  El Bar seems to be the most popular dance club in town, but I was most taken with La Dama de Las Camelias, a fancifully decorated club that specializes in traditional music from Cuba and Veracruz.  Its walls are adorned by vintage women’s dresses and replicas of the prehistoric cave paintings from Lascaux, France.  As I had a drink with my husband there one night, a spotlight landed on the table next to me, a hush fell over the crowd, and a one-act play began.  When the play ended, the tables were cleared away, and everyone began to dance to Cuban music.

In fact, La Dama de Las Camelias seemed to capture the spirit of this beautiful, whimsical town:  like the city itself, it is cultured, festive, and visually exciting, with a sense of history and tradition and a strong desire to party down in the present.  Guanajuato casts a spell on its visitors, who often wind up staying longer than they originally planned.  One of my fellow students at the Instituto was so head-over-heals in love with the town that she arranged a leave of absence from her job and extended her stay by several months.  Unfortunately, my employer wasn’t quite so understanding, but I was smitten enough to return for second and third visits, and I hope I’ll pay Guanajuato a fourth visit in the not-too-distant future.

On the day after Christmas in 2015, my husband, Brad, and I embarked on a road trip in Mexico.  Our plan was to visit three of Mexico’s pueblos mágicos:  Taxco, Malinalco, and Valle de Bravo.

It didn’t begin as a road trip.  It began as a bus trip to Taxco, a picturesque town in the mountains of Guerrero that I had wanted to visit for ages.  But after our two nights in Taxco, we rented a car and spent the rest of the week driving on our own.  We were a little worried about driving in Mexico.  We’d heard (and read) horror stories about the problems American drivers can run into on Mexico’s highways.  But we found the toll roads in Central Mexico to be well maintained and easy to drive on, and we ran into no trouble at all.

Taxco is famous for its silver crafts.  Silver was mined in the Taxco area in pre-Columbian times, but when Cortes became aware of the region’s silver lodes, serious mining operations began, and before too long, Taxco’s silver veins had been mined to depletion.  In 1929, William Spratling, an American architect (and friend of Diego Rivera), moved to Taxco and began an effort to revive the town’s tradition of silver craftsmanship. His designs, based on indigenous motifs, gained fame and brought tourists to Taxco. The town became a magnet for American artists and writers in the 30’s and 40’s, when Paris was occupied by the Nazis. All the Mexican muralists spent time here, as did Patricia Highsmith, Hart Crane, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, Katherine Anne Porter, Saul Bellow. The rumor is that they spent more time drinking than writing or painting.

I had booked us two nights in Hotel Los Arcos, a charming pension just a block away from Taxco’s central plaza.  On our first night, we had dinner at Terraza 360, a restaurant with stunning panoramic views of the town. Afterward, we strolled about in the quaint city center, which was decked out for Christmas with thousands of poinsettia bushes forming a design of some sort (one that I didn’t recognize) on the zócalo. The next day, we wandered around the town, visiting the cathedral and the many shops selling silver jewelry.  That night, we sipped mezcal at Mezcalería Xoco, while chatting with the friendly owner, and then took the teleferico (a gondola) up a mountain to have dinner and listen to mariachi music at the Hotel Montetaxco.

The morning of our departure, we sought out a popular breakfast restaurant (S caffecito) and then planned to go to the Spratling museum, only to find that the restaurant was run by Spratling’s adopted niece and is located in Spratling’s house. While we waited for our breakfast to be prepared, the owner, Violante Ulrich, gave us a tour of the house and showed us few pieces by Spratling himself, along with her own silver designs.  She told us that Spratling was gay (something confirmed by many of the books that have been written about Spratling) and that her father had been one of his best friends. After Spratling’s death, her father had come into possession of the house, and he (and his daughters after him) were determined to keep Spratling’s silver craftsmanship going. The pieces Violante showed us were expensive, but she eventually coaxed Brad into buying a couple of the smaller, more affordable ones.

After our breakfast at S caffecito, we toured the Spratling Museum and then headed back to our hotel, where we had arranged for a driver to take us to Toluca to pick up a rental car. Toluca is a big city, and getting out of it proved to be the most stressful part of our road trip.  But before long we found ourselves in the beautiful countryside around Malinalco, where we were planning to spend the next two nights.  We had a reservation in Hotel Paradiso, which looked as if it had been designed by Gaudí. I think we were the hotel’s only guests the nights we were there.

Malinalco proved to be the least touristy of the places we visited on this road trip. We were there mid-week, and we were told that the town is a popular place for weekend getaways from Mexico City. Our first night there, we walked around town for about an hour before discovering an open restaurant.  El Sarraceno was run by a French immigrant, and the food and wine were excellent.  Unfortunately, the restaurant has since closed, but we liked it so much that we ate there two nights in a row.

Malinalco is named after Malinalxochitl, a goddess who lived among the Mexica people as a sorceress. According to legend, she tormented the people, and they prayed to her brother, Huitzilopochtli, the Mexica god of war.  He advised them to abandon her, and they did.  She, along with a handful of her followers, settled in Malinalco and intermarried with the people there.  To this day, the people of Malinalco are associated with sorcery, and the town has a kind of new age vibe.

The main tourist draw in Malinalco is the archeological site Cuauhcalli.  Carved into a hillside overlooking the town, it was a place where elite Aztec warriors went to participate in some rather grizzly initiation rituals.  At the bottom of the hill is a museum that explains the site, run by the UNAM.

Malinalco is a pleasant little town with cobblestone streets, adobe houses, and many shops selling clothing and local crafts.  Brad was delighted to be able to buy a michelada from a street vendor and walk around town drinking it.

After two nights there, we drove to Valle de Bravo for the weekend—a weekend that just happened to coincide with New Year holiday.  If Malinalco was relatively deserted, the opposite was true of Valle de Bravo.  It was packed, and just getting into town involved sitting in slow moving traffic for over an hour.

I first learned of Valle de Bravo from watching Mexican telenovelas.  One novela I watched (I can’t remember which) involved a storyline in which the protagonists hid from the villains in Valle de Bravo.  Located at the side of Lake Avándaro, Valle de Bravo is especially popular with Mexico City’s more affluent residents, many of whom have vacation houses here.  It’s also popular with paragliders, and it’s located near Piedra Herrada, one of Mexico’s sanctuaries for Monarch butterflies.

We rented a beautiful Airbnb apartment with gorgeous views of the lake.  Every morning, a lovely woman named Pricila came to the apartment and made us breakfast and served it to us in the garden.  We found Valle de Bravo to be a charming town to wander around in, and we were happy that we could leave our rental car at the apartment and see the town on foot.  On the day that we decided to drive to Piedra Herrada, it took us so long to get out of Valle de Bravo’s traffic that we arrived at Piedra Herrada too late to enter the park.  We extended our stay in Valle de Bravo by one day so that we could go back–and also because, aside from the traffic, we were enjoying our stay in the town.

When we returned to Piedra Herrada the next day, we paid to ride horses to the top of the mountain, where the butterflies hang out.  It was a steep climb, and we felt rather sorry for the horses—and almost as sorry for the young Mexican men whose job it was to hike up the mountain beside the horses, threatening them and occasionally swatting them on their rumps to get them to move faster.  When we got to the top of the mountain, we thought that the poor horses had gone to all of that effort for nothing, for the butterflies were all asleep. It was a beautifully sunny day in Valle de Bravo, but at the top of Piedra Herrada, it was cloudy and gray—and in such conditions, the butterflies sleep.  They only fly when the sun is shining.  We were told that millions of butterflies fluttering about is quite a sight to behold—but it appeared that it was a sight we weren’t going to get to enjoy.  We decided to hike back down the mountain, and after we had gone a little way, we came upon a patch of blue sky, and we were able to see a few of the butterflies in action.  (For a video of these butterflies on a sunny day at Piedra Herrada, check out this blog article.)

On our way down the mountain, we struck up a conversation with a paraglider named Howie, who—small world—turned out to know a paragliding friend of ours in San Francisco named Eric.  We hiked down the mountain with him, and then we gave him a ride back to Valle de Bravo.

We were happy to spend an extra night in Valle de Bravo.  That night, while browsing the many crafts stores in Valle de Bravo, we happened upon La Chiquita Tlayuderia, a cute little restaurant that served tlayudas, a Oaxacan dish that is sometimes referred to as “Mexican Pizza.”  Large, round tortillas are topped with beans, sauces, cheese, etc.  We enjoyed a delicious meal there, accompanied by cervezas artesanales (craft beers).

The next day we were in a rush to return our rental car and then get a taxi to the airport for a flight back to San Francisco.  For me, it was the end of a year-long sabbatical, four months of which I had spent in Mexico.  It was a lovely way to wrap up my sabbatical.  It was a road trip that I would gladly repeat—though if I do, I will make sure to spend more time in each of these wonderful places.

On the Monday before Christmas, my husband, Brad, came to Mexico to spend the holidays with me, and we took up residence in an apartment in la Casa de las Brujas, a hundred-and-seven-year-old building in Plaza de Rio de Janeiro in Colonia Roma.  Officially, the building is called Edificio Rio de Janerio, but everyone in Mexico City calls it Casa de las Brujas (the Witches’ House) or Castillo de las Brujas (the Witches’ Castle).  There are several different explanations for the building’s nicknames.

One is is that the building has a turret that looks a little like a witch.

The other is that a famous witch named Pachita lived inside this building. Legend claims that around the time of the Mexican Revolution, many prominent Mexican politicians visited her frequently, and she did favors for them free of charge. Her spells allegedly led to ghosts and spirits being trapped in this building, and recent residents complain that they have been bothered by these ghosts, hearing odd noises and seeing  “strange presences at all hours.”  Brad and I haven’t seen any strange presences, though we have been bothered a bit by mosquitoes when we leave the windows open.

This building also has a certain literary fame, having been a “character” in several Mexican novels, among them Carlos Fuentes’s Agua Quemada, as well as the home of many artists and writers in the early 20th century.  William S. Burroughs lived in this neighborhood, as did many other writers, and it remains one of the artsiest parts of Mexico City.

At the center of Plaza Rio de Janeiro is a replica of Michelangelo’s David, and surrounding David are trees and cactus gardens (and a very interesting shrine to Santa Muerte, Saint Death).  In the days leading up to Christmas, there was a kind of fair in the park involving craft booths and nightly live music.  The area around the plaza is overflowing with cafes and restaurants, including Cafe Toscano, which Brad and I were surprised to find open when we went for a walk on Christmas afternoon.  We decided to have lunch there, thinking we would be unlikely to find any other restaurants open in the city.  (When we continued our walk after lunch we discovered that the city was full of open restaurants.)  We enjoyed a thin crust artichoke and green olive pizza and a couple of microbrews and then wandered around Roma for a couple of hours.

Colonia Roma was built during the presidency of Porfirio Diaz, and though the neighborhood was devastated by the 1985 earthquake, it remains a showcase for the architecture of the Porfiriato, as the 35-year reign of Porfirio Diaz is called.  It’s also packed with restaurants, parks, theaters, bars, cafes, bakeries, and boutique clothing stores.  I’m happy to find that Brad is as enamored with the neighborhood as I am.  During our walk, he expressed regret  that we’ll be leaving it in a couple of days to do some traveling in other parts of Mexico (though I’m sure he’ll love these other places as much as he loves la Roma).

After our walk, we returned to the Witches’ House and made a big pot of vegetable soup, which we topped with sauteed pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and grated manchego, and ate with delicious bread we had bought at La Puerta Abierta, a nearby bakery, and some smoked salmon from the Superama, a Mexican grocery store chain.  It was an untraditional Christmas dinner, but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

¡Felices fiestas!

Recently, I was talking to a couple of German tourists about their experience in Mexico City.  I asked what they had seen in the historic center, and one replied, “We walked though the historic center one day.  We didn’t really like it.”  My husband Brad was similarly unimpressed the first time I took him to the Zócalo, the main plaza in Mexico City (and the second largest in the world after Red Square in Moscow).  He complained of too much pavement and traffic, and it’s true:  traffic circles through the Zócalo (though many of the streets that surround it are pedestrian-only).  In First Stop in the New World, David Lida, clearly a big fan of the historic center, describes the Zócalo as “an austere, thirteen-acre concrete plaza.”

I admit to having been intimidated by the historic center the first few times I visited it.  The crowds can be overwhelming.  According to Lida, only 200,000 people live there, but an additional 1,200,000 make a daily commute to the historic center for work, and then of course there are the many visitors who come to see the Mexican capital’s most famous tourist attractions.  But the historic center has grown on me over time, and it also seems to me that the local government has recently spent some money sprucing the place up.  The Alameda Central, the oldest park in the city (dating from 1592), has been given a makeover, for instance.  But more importantly, on this visit to Mexico City, I’ve had the great good fortune to have some locals act as tour guides in the historic center.  I have thus seen some lovely places that I would not have seen had I just relied on guidebooks.

The historic center covers about three-and-a-half square miles, occupying the space that was once the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.  There’s much more to it than the Zócalo, though I happen to think that the Zócalo, despite all the concrete, has a certain grandeur, and there always seems to be something interesting happening there.  Because of its odd mix of architectural styles, the whole neighborhood is wonderfully atmospheric.  Lida describes it thus:  “The buildings in the Zócalo were built between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries.  As such, the architecture is something of a hodgepodge; within a block or two you might find facades with Corinthian columns, Moorish arches, Gothic spires, lion gargoyles, placid statues of Minerva and Pan, or Art Deco curves and angles.  Some structures are in great shape, while others look like they would fall down if someone sneezed in their direction.  Yet even in the decadent sections it is impossible to walk through the neighborhood without sensing its majesty.”  Along Calle Moneda, to the northeast of the Zócalo, a half dozen church domes are visible on the horizon, leaning this way or that as the churches sink into the soft soil of a city built on a lake.  Organ grinders and their assistants hold out their hats to passersby, hoping for a tip.  Vendores ambulantes (literally walking sellers, or street vendors) loudly and illegally hawk their wares, displayed on blankets in the streets.  The corners of these blankets have been tied in just such a way as to facilitate a quick escape should the police show up.

Though some fairly affluent people have been moving into the area recently, it remains largely a working class neighborhood, not nearly as hip and gentrified as Roma Norte or Condesa.  If you wander away from the tourist sites, you’ll observe ordinary people leading ordinary lives in a rather extraordinary environment.  In parts of the historic center, entire blocks are devoted to the same kind of merchandise:  jewelry, bridal gowns, stationery.  When I was looking for a small bag to take on a weekend trip to visit my friends Ceci and Pilar, my Spanish teacher Ernesto recommended that I go to Calle Corregidora, the luggage street.

It’s thanks to Ernesto, and some other people I’ve met here, that I’ve gotten to know this neighborhood better.  Here’s my guide to places worth visiting in the historic center.  (Most of the places I mention here are tourist attractions, though as I’ve already said, it’s also a good experience to leave the tourist attractions behind and get lost in the neighborhood.)

Around the Zócalo:

What is now the Zócalo was once the heart of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, but the only place you’ll find any real evidence of this fact is the Museo del Templo Mayor.  The Spaniards destroyed and built over Tenochtitlan, but in 1978, a lineman laying cables discovered remnants of the Templo Mayor, the main religious site and largest pyramid in the Aztec capital.  In the 80s, the site was turned into a museum.  The museum contains not just the ruins of the Templo Mayor but also Aztec artifacts that have been discovered all over the historic center.  One of the pleasures of the museum is walking through it and seeing these pre-Hispanic ruins juxtaposed with the Spanish colonial buildings rising in the background.  One truly feels a sense of the two cultures that have merged in modern Mexico.

It’s no coincidence that this museum is located next to the Catedral Municipal.  The Spaniards always built churches and cathedrals atop indigenous religious sites in order to establish the superiority of their religion.  But these churches also contain evidence of the syncretization of Catholicism and traditional indigenous beliefs.  As Ernesto pointed out to me, there are snake motifs in the Cathedral’s baroque exterior (and in many other buildings in the historic center as well), a reference to the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.  I’m not entirely sure whether these motifs were intended by Catholics to help ease the natives into Catholicism or whether they are subversive attempts of indigenous builders to insert their beliefs into Catholicism.

Across from the cathedral is the Palacio Nacional, a building worth a couple of hours of your time.  It contains some magnificent Diego Rivera murals and the living quarters of Benito Juarez, Mexico’s most beloved president (described to me by my friend Mauricio as the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico).

There are many restaurants offering lovely views of the Zócalo.  I’ve eaten several times at the always crowded El Balcón, where the views are stunning, the food is not bad, and the service is spotty at best.  But it’s worth putting up with the bad service to enjoy the views.

West of the Zocalo

There are several pedestrian streets surrounding the Zócalo.  The most crowded is always Avenida Madero, which leads to the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the Alameda Central.  It’s a chaotic place, packed with costumed street performers and overflowing with touts trying to get you into the many optometry shops on the street.  (Sometimes there are touts in costume. During Day of the Dead celebrations, a drag queen dressed as Frida Kahlo tried to lure passersby into a restaurant on Madero.) But despite the chaos, Madero’s churches and other historic buildings make it worth exploring.

At the corner of Madero and Isabel La Catolica is El Templo San Felipe Neri “La Profesa,” built by Jesuits in the 16^th century.   As I learned from Ernesto, the statue of the Virgin to the left of the main alter is a portrait of an important figure in Mexican history, La Güera Rodriguez (which roughly translates as the White Lady Rodriguez, or perhaps more accurately, the Fair Skinned Rodriguez).  Considered one of the great beauties of her day, she had an affair with Agustin de Iturbide, a general loyal at the time to the Spanish crown, and convinced him to support Mexican independence.  He went on to become one of the great heroes of the Mexican War of Independence (and was briefly, after independence was achieved, named Emperor of Mexico).  La Güera Rodriguez lived in a house just across Madero from this church.

Catty-corner from the church is the Museo del Estanquillo, which houses photos and letters collected by the openly gay writer and intellectual Carlos Monsiváis.

A little farther up Madero is the Palacio de Cultura Banamex, a beautiful colonial mansion that has been turned into a private art museum by one of Mexico’s biggest banks.  Admission is free.  When I was there with my friend Mauricio, we saw an exhibit of modern sculpture that was surprisingly erotic, but the real draw was the house itself.

A little further up is the Casa de Azulejos (House of Tiles), another colonial mansion, this one famous for the blue tile work of its exterior.  It’s now a Sanborns–a department store with a restaurant.  It makes for a lovely lunch spot.

At the end of Madero is the Torre Latinoamericana, one of the most reviled buildings in Mexico City.  Though it was once the tallest building in the country, every Mexican I have talked to hates it.  The reason, perhaps, is that its construction involved the partial destruction of the Church of San Francisco, one of the oldest and most beloved churches in the city, the remnants of which are located right next to the tower.  You can pay a few pesos to take an elevator to the top floor of la Torre, where the views of the city and surrounding mountains, on a clear day, are spectacular.

If you cross Eje Central from Madero, you’ll find yourself in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, one of the most iconic structures in Mexico City.  Built during the Porfiriato, the thirty-five year reign of President Porfirio Diaz, this neoclassical theatre also features decorative details that link it to indigenous Mexican culture, as Ernesto informed me one afternoon while we drank coffee at the 8th floor terrace cafe in the Sears building across the street.  He urged me to go examine the building’s arches more carefully in order to see both the snake and dog motifs that Mexicanize this otherwise very European-looking structure.

The Palacio de Bellas Artes is primarily a theater, but its upper floors have been turned into a museum dedicated to Mexico’s most famous muralists, including Siqueiros, Orozco, Tamayo and Rivera.  Its most famous work is Diego Rivera’s Man at the Crossroads, originally intended for Rockefeller Center in New York, but torn down because it featured a sympathetic portrait of Vladimir Lenin.  Later, Rivera reconstructed the mural here.  On one of my visits to this building, I saw an elementary school teacher explaining the painting to a group of rapt students.

To see another of Diego Rivera’s most famous murals, you can simply walk through the Alameda Central to the Museo Mural Diego Rivera, a museum that houses only one mural, Sueño de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central (Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park).  This mural could not be in a more perfect location, for it gives us a peek at the history of the park that lies just outside the museum’s doors.  In the mural, you can see wealthy white Mexicans (and foreigners) enjoying the park while police officers prevent poor and indigenous people from entering.  This park eventually became a popular cruising ground for closeted gay men, though today, among the crowds enjoying the newly renovated park, you will see many hand-holding same-sex couples.

Across the Eje Central from the Palacio de Bellas Artes, a couple of blocks to the north, is the Palacio de Correos (palace of mail), sometimes simply called the Edificio de Correos (the mail building).  Also built during the Porfiriato, this building still functions as a post office.  It was heavily damaged in the 1985 earthquake but has since been restored.  It’s a magnificent (and beloved) building, definitely worth a few minutes of your time.  It’s still a post office, so there’s not much to see here other than the building itself, though there is a small art gallery on the first floor.

Across Calle de Tacuba from the Palacio de Correos is the Museo Nacional de Arte (National Museum of Art), located in another glorious building from the Porfiriato, this one originally intended to be the Palace of Communications.  The museum houses many treasures of Mexican art, and also features temporary exhibits, such as the current exhibit giving an overview of modern art during the 20^th century.

A few steps away is a wonderful place to have lunch, Café de Tacuba.  Located in a house built in the early 17^th century, the restaurant serves traditional Mexican cuisine which you will eat while being serenaded by mariachis.  The house has quite a history.  Diego Rivera married his first wife there; in 1936, a politician who had just been elected governor of Veracruz was assassinated there.  Its walls are adorned with some masterpieces of Mexican art (including an excellent portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz).

Looking west from Avenida Madero, you can see the Monumento a la Revolución (Monument to the Revolution).  It lies outside of the historic center, across Paseo de la Reforma, but it’s well worth the walk.  This building, begun during the Porfiato, was intended to be a new Congress for Mexico, but its construction was halted by the revolution and never resumed.  It was just a skeletal dome for several decades until an architect presented the government with a plan to turn it into a monument to the Mexican Revolution.  Underneath the monument, there is a fascinating museum that tells the story of the revolution, Museo Nacional de la Revolución (though it might be somewhat less interesting to those who don’t read Spanish).

North of the Zócalo

A few blocks north of the Zócalo is Plaza Santo Domingo, which is lined with print shops.  Under its porticoes, men known as escritores publicos (public writers) sit at desks and type on electric typewriters.  They write letters and fill out forms for people who are either illiterate or have no computer or typewriter.

Right off of the Plaza Santo Domingo, on Calle República de Cuba, is the Secretaria de Educación Publica (SEP), where Diego Rivera painted his very first murals.  The building is open to the public on weekdays, and it’s well worth a look.

I’m told that Calle República de Cuba is the site of Mexico City’s hippest gay bars, the ones frequented by queers who are too cool for the Zona Rosa.  I’m a little too old for nightlife these days, but I’m curious about these places.  Time Out Mexico recently published  an article about these bars.  Perhaps I’ll check some of them out before leaving town.

Not far from the SEP building is the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, another grand colonial building filled with murals.  The most famous ones in this building are by Jose Clemente Orozco.

Several blocks north of the Zócalo on Calle Republica de Bolivia is the Museo de la Mujer (the Women’s Museum), which tells the story of Mexican history from the perspective of women.  I went there one afternoon to see a documentary about the Brontë sisters that was playing as part of MICGenero, an annual Mexico City film festival with a gender focus.  After the film, I wandered around the museum for a while, and it seemed like a fascinating place.  I keep meaning to go back and spend more time there.

South of the Zócalo:

One afternoon after our class, Ernesto suggested that I check out the Calle de Regina, a pedestrian street several blocks south of the Zócalo.  This street was officially designated a “corridor peatonal cultural” (cultural pedestrian corridor) in 2008. Lined with cafes, bars and restaurants, Calle de Regina is also known for its murals, vertical gardens, and cultural activities, including the exhibit of traditional and contemporary Day of the Day altars I saw here in November.  It’s not a touristy place.  It draws crowds, but they’re Mexican crowds, and its inexpensive restaurants tend to serve tacos, pizza, and beer.

Around the block from Calle de Regina, on San Jeronimo, another pedestrian street, is a funky bar/restaurant called Hosteria La Bota.  It’s located near the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, and it seems mainly to attract university students.  This is another place I visited on Ernesto’s recommendation, and I’m so glad I did.  Its eccentric ambiance was described by Chilango magazine as follows:  “Parece taberna española y al mismo tiempo el desván de tus abuelos” (“It seems like a Spanish tavern and at the same time your grandparents’ attic”).  Its décor could be characterized as curated clutter.  Every inch of the walls is covered with some kind of odd object:  animal heads, old posters, vinyl records, curios, knick-knacks, hanging bicycles.  Both times I ate there, I had the torta de pulpo (octopus sandwich), and it was surprisingly delicious.

There’s so much of the historic center that I have yet to see, despite having spent several months this year in Mexico City.  It contains dozens and dozens of museums, for instance, and I’ve only visited a fraction of them.   In fact, there’s so much in the city as a whole that I haven’t seen.  It’s such a vast place that I’m beginning to think I could spend the rest of my life here without taking advantage of all it has to offer.  I guess it’s good to know that there will be plenty of new things for me to see on my next visit.

I love reading books that are set in the place that I’m traveling, especially when I’m traveling alone. The book can be my dinner companion, and it can make me feel more connected to the place I’m exploring. On this trip, I’ve mainly been reading Mexican LGBT short stories, most of which are set in Mexico. But no piece of Mexican fiction I’ve read has evoked Mexico as strongly as has Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Lacuna.  It was recommended to me earlier this year by a fellow student at Calle 55 in Merida, an excellent Spanish language school. A historical novel set largely in Mexico during the early 20th Century (although a big chunk of it takes place in Asheville, North Carolina), The Lacuna gives us a peek at the daily lives of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Leon Trotsky.  When my classmate told me about it, I was intrigued, so I bought it for my iPad. But I waited until I was living in Mexico City to start reading it.

The novel is narrated by Harrison Shepherd, a gay American-Mexican, born to a Mexican mother and American father in the US but raised in Mexico. As a young man, he works as a cook and a secretary, first for Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and later for Leon Trotsky. Harrison is like a smart, gay Forrest Gump, witness to an extraordinary number of historical events. Even when visiting his father in Washington, DC, for instance, he’s present for General Douglas MacArthur’s 1932 assault on the Bonus Army encampment. But The Lacuna also bears a resemblance to The Book of Salt, Monique Truong’s novel about Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’s gay Vietnamese chef. In both books, a celebrated circle of artists and writers is seen through the eyes of the lonely gay man who cooks for them.

When I got to the part of the book that took place in Trotsky’s house, I found myself wanting to revisit the Museo Casa Leon Trotsky. I had been there once before, years ago, on my first visit to Mexico City, just after visiting the Frida Kahlo Museum. I found it to be a fascinating place, one that tells a story I’d long wanted to better understand.

I first heard the name Trotsky as a teenager:  after Vanessa Redgrave gave her infamous acceptance speech at the 1978 Academy Awards, she was described in the press as a Trotskyite. I had no idea what that meant, and it wasn’t easy to find out in 1978. There was no Internet, and encyclopedias and other reference materials at the time simply said that Trotsky was a figure in the Bolshevik Revolution who fled Russia after Stalin came to power and was later assassinated in Mexico. But there was no indication of what a Trotskyite might be, what political philosophy Trotsky espoused, how it differed from Stalin’s. In 1978, in the US, communists were the enemy. There was nothing else to know.

Barbara Kingsolver paints a much more detailed portrait of Trotsky. He comes across as a kind and honorable man who really wanted to create a democratic form of socialism, not just in the Soviet Union but around the world. In her telling, he was intended to be Lenin’s successor, but in a plot twist worthy of a telenovela, Stalin tricked him. Trotsky (known as Lev in the book–apparently his real nickname) had fallen ill and was convalescing in the Russian countryside when Lenin died. In a letter, Stalin informed him of Lenin’s death and convinced him not to return to Moscow just yet. The state funeral had been delayed, Stalin said, and Lev needed to rest and recover his strength for the tasks that lay ahead. By the time Lev returned to Moscow, the state funeral had already taken place and Stalin had used the occasion to persuade the entire country that Trotsky had betrayed Lenin and the revolution. I have no idea if this is historically accurate.

It definitely is historically accurate that Diego Rivera and several other Mexican communists urged Mexican President Cardenas to offer Trotsky asylum in Mexico. For a while, Trotsky lived in Frida’s blue house in Coyoacan.  He and Frida wound up having an affair, leading to a rift between him and Diego, though not as much of a rift as one would expect. In Kingsolver’s version of the story, Trotsky moved away from Frida’s blue house to a nearby house on la Calle Viena not because of his affair with Frida–Diego and Frida both had plenty of affairs and neither considered infidelity an especially big deal–but because Trotsky read a letter Diego had sent to a mutual friend which characterized him as a stick-in-the-mud who couldn’t “let the revolution rest for a night and get drunk with a friend.”

The falling out between these two men creates an enormous dilemma for Harrison, who is forced to choose between Rivera and Trotsky. He chooses Trotsky, and he remains at Trotsky’s side until the end. Trotsky is a father figure for this young man, who has had so little interaction with his own father, and Trotsky’s assassination, which he witnesses, continues to haunt him for years.

But before I got to that passage in the book, I hopped into an Uber car and headed to Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky. I wandered through the rooms of the house, which have been preserved as they were when Trotsky lived there: the kitchen and the offices which were used in Kingsolver’s book by Harrison, who both cooked and typed for Trotsky; the bedroom Trotsky shared with his wife, Natalya; the bedroom of their grandson Seva, who was wounded in an assassination attempt organized by the great Mexican painter David Siqueiros, a Communist Party member loyal to Stalin; and the office where Trotsky wrote and was eventually assassinated. I strolled through the cactus gardens that were one of Trotsky’s great passions. He went on expeditions to the Mexican countryside, where he dug up cacti to replant in his garden. Trotsky believed that in an ideal state every person would do both physical and intellectual work every day. While living in this house, he spent part of every day writing and part of every day tending his chickens and rabbits and cacti. The rabbit hutches are still on the grounds of the museum, and supposedly descendants of his rabbits still survive (though they don’t live at the museum).

His gardens are a peaceful place. I sat on a bench in them and continued reading Kingsolver’s book, including her account of Trotsky’s assassination.

It’s terribly sad story. Even before Lev and Natalya arrived in Mexico, Stalin had gunned down many of their friends and family members, and every month seemed to bring them more bad news. During his exile in Mexico, Trotsky knew that he could be killed any day. His belief in the revolution kept him going, kept him writing, despite all the personal grief he and his wife had endured. After his assassination, 200,000 people followed his coffin through the streets of Mexico City. The Mexican government bought the house from Natalya in order to give her some financial independence. She moved to France, where she died in 1962. And today, this museum is the only site in the world that pays tribute to Trotsky and his ideas.

Although virtually every tourist in Mexico City makes it to the Frida Kahlo Museum, many skip the Trotsky Museum.  But if you’re spending a day in Coyoacan, you should visit both.  If you know anything about Frida Kahlo’s life (even if you’ve just seen the movie Frida), you know about her involvement with Trotsky.  These museums complement each other in a wonderful way, and one is just a short walk from the other.  And if you’re looking for some interesting fiction to read on a trip to Mexico City, I recommend The Lacuna.  

Soon after I arrived in Peru, I began to regret not having planned to spend more time there.  I was instantly enchanted by the country–by its beauty, its charming people, its delicious food, its magical archaeological sites.  I tried to cram as much activity as I could into my nine days there, and my nonstop exertion, combined with the altitude and the strong sun, wound up wearing me out.  Nevertheless, I was spellbound by Peru and I can’t wait to go back.

I began and ended my Peruvian adventures in Lima, spending my first two nights in the Bohemian neighborhood Barranco, which had been recommended to me by my friend Caty.  While in Barranco, I dedicated myself mainly to the enjoyment of ceviche and pisco sours–an activity to which I would gladly have devoted much more time.

For the following day, I had booked an early flight to Cusco, but I was bumped from my flight and wound up spending most of the day in the Lima airport.  (This was my second bad experience with LAN Airlines.) I was grumpy when I arrived in Cusco late that afternoon, but the beautiful countryside in the Sacred Valley and the amiable driver my hotel had sent to collect me quickly put me in a better mood.

My driver, a native Quechua speaker, spoke slow, formal Spanish, free of slang and very easy for me to understand.  On the two-hour drive to Ollantaytambo, he tried to teach me a little Quechua (though I’ve forgotten every word he taught me), and he asked me to teach him a few words in English.  He was the first of several native Quechua speakers that I hired as drivers or guides during my nine days in Peru, and they were all warm, friendly men.

Cusco, capital of the Inca empire and one of the longest continually inhabited cities in the Americas, has an altitude of over 11,000 feet, causing many visitors to experience altitude sickness.  There’s a debate in the guidebooks over whether it’s better to adjust to the altitude in Cusco before going to Machu Picchu and other sites in the Sacred Valley or whether it’s better to adjust to the slightly lower altitude in the Sacred Valley before going to Cusco. I opted for the latter, deciding to go immediately to Ollantaytambo, a town with its own celebrated ruins about an hour and a half from Machu Picchu.  I spent two nights in El Albergue, a hotel inside the Ollantaytambo train station. All of the good things I had read about this hotel turned out to be accurate. The rooms are spacious and comfortable and many of them have lovely views of Ollantaytambo’s ruins and the surrounding mountains. The hotel’s restaurant serves organic produce from its nearby farm.  Best of all, it serves breakfast beginning at 5:30 a.m. to guests who are planning to board the 6:00 a.m. train for Machu Picchu, and after they’ve finished their breakfast, the train is waiting for them just outside the restaurant.

Many people had told me that Machu Picchu is one of the few “must see” tourist destinations that really lives up to the hype, and they were right.  It’s a breathtaking place, and its story (to the extent to which we know its story) is fascinating.  I arrived early, before the site had become too crowded, and hired a guide named Jose, who escorted me about and explained the mysteries and wonders of the place. He told me all about Inca cosmology, Inca construction methods, and Inca engineering.  He also propounded a wacky theory that has been disputed by nearly everyone to whom I have repeated it: that the Incas and the Quechuas were two entirely different races of people, the Quechua being a servant race ruled by the Incas, who were unusually tall.  The chief evidence for this is Inca door frames, whose height indicates that they were meant for people much taller than the typical Peruvian of today. The Inca race, he claims, was completely killed off by the Spanish, and because the Quechua people venerated them even after death, the Spaniards burned their bodies, making any investigation of his theory impossible. I tried googling this idea and turned up nothing, so he may be the theory’s lone proponent.

When I bought my ticket to Machu Picchu, I paid extra to hike up Huayna Picchu, the mountain seen just behind the ruins in most photos of the world’s most famous archaeological site.  I had read several articles that said that this hike was absolutely not to be missed, so I paid the 50 extra bucks it costs to have access to the Huayna Picchu.  And then I began to read articles that said that the hike was dangerous and terrifying, that the descent was particularly perilous, involving narrow stone steps, no railing, and a precipitous drop down the side of the mountain should you misjudge your step.  On the train to Machu Picchu, I sat next to a Japanese tour guide who had led several expeditions to Machu Picchu but had never climbed Huayna Picchu. She told me, in barely comprehensible English, that a Japanese tourist had once fallen to his death on the hike and that now no Japanese tourist would dare climb that mountain.  (She was wrong.  I saw several Japanese tourists making their way up the mountain.) Jose assured me I would be fine, and I when I saw several middle-aged and older hikers doing the climb, including a woman who I would guess was about 70, I figured there was nothing to worry about.

The ascent took about an hour, and though I had to stop and catch my breath frequently, it wasn’t until I got almost to the top that I encountered any difficulties. Not too far from the summit, there’s a nice terraced area with lovely views–views that are every bit as impressive as the ones from the top. I now think this would be a good place to call it quits.  But I didn’t know any better at the time, so I pushed on.  A little ways ahead, I saw that the 70ish woman had turned around and was heading back. She had apparently run into a challenge she was unprepared for, and I soon discovered what it was: a narrow tunnel with wet, muddy floors that one has to crawl through.  I crawled through it, and when I came out the other side, I noticed that my backpack had come open.  I thought nothing of it at the time, but when I got to the summit and wanted to take a photo, my camera was missing.  In a panic, I headed back toward the tunnel, only to run into a park employee who told me I wasn’t allowed to go back in that direction.  When I explained to him that I had lost my camera, he calmly pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to me. The case was muddy, but the camera worked fine.  I thanked him profusely, then returned to the summit, and soon afterward, began to descend those narrow, terrifying steps I had read about.  I held on to the side of the mountain and edged down the steps, taking the advice that the man behind me was giving to his wife:  “Don’t look down. Just face the mountain and go down slowly.”

I obviously made it back to Ollantaytambo in one piece.  That night I had quinoa and pisco sours in a restaurant overlooking the town square while all the town’s residents, including the restaurant’s employees, were glued to a soccer match between Brazil and Peru.  I was utterly charmed by Ollantaytambo, a pretty little town surrounded by soaring mountains. The nearest mountains are home to the ruins for which the town is famous.  There’s a crafts market next to the entrance to the ruins, and there are numerous cafes and restaurants catering to the hippie backpacker types who are drawn to the town.  On the evening I arrived, I went to a funky bakery on the plaza and had a chocolate banana muffin and mug of coca tea, which is said to help tourists cope with the altitude. (I wanted to bring a bag of this tea back home with me, but I read online that it’s illegal in the U.S.)

The day after I visited Machu Picchu, I hired a guide to show me around the Ollantaytambo ruins—another affable man, one who was as interested in hearing about my life in California as he was in telling me about Ollantaytambo. Then I hired a driver to take me first to Pisaq, another town with famous ruins, and finally to Cusco, where I was planning to spend four nights.  The entrance to the ruins at Pisaq is at the top of a mountain, and the ruins spill down the mountain, leading eventually to the modern town of Pisaq, located in the valley.  When we got to the Pisaq ruins, I hired another guide and then agreed to meet my driver in Pisaq’s Plaza de Armas.  The guide played an Andean flute as he led me around the Pisaq ruins.  After an hour-long tour, he pointed out the path that I would follow to reach the plaza and told me I should hurry because it would take me about an hour to get there. It was another nerve-wracking descent, this time because I was often not sure I was going the right way.

By the time I reached Cusco late that afternoon, I was exhausted and sunburned.  I had done much more hiking in the past two days than I am accustomed to, and my knees were really upset with me.  And the mild temperatures in the Sacred Valley had fooled me into thinking that the sun was nothing to worry about.  The altitude may moderate temperatures, but it also intensifies the impact of the sun.  I was shocked by how red I was when I looked in the mirror that evening.  But at dinner that night, when I glanced around the restaurant and noticed that it was packed with beet-red gringos, I felt a little less foolish.

Cusco is a lovely city, but the first couple of days I was there, I was so tired I didn’t want to do much.  I did wander around a bit with the other sunburned tourists, visiting churches and museums.  On my third day there, I was fortunate to befriend Christiam, a Chilean art student who acted as my guide for a couple of days, taking me to the Templo del Sol and to some good restaurants.

As is to be expected in a tourist town in a poor country, the streets of Cusco are full of people looking to make a quick buck.  Indigenous women wander around in traditional dress with baby llamas (and fully grown llamas), offering to have their photos taken with tourists for a tip.  Several young men sidled up to me and asked, in surprisingly good English, “Wanna smoke weed?”  And on almost every street corner, there are young women offering massages to male passersby.  “They’re not really massages,” Christiam explained to me, though I had already come to the same conclusion myself.

On my final night in Peru, my husband’s hotel points got me a suite in the Sheraton in central Lima, only a short walk to the Plaza de Armas.  I spent my final afternoon in Peru exploring the museums there.  My favorite was the Casa de la Literatura Peruana, a fun literary museum that made me want to read more Peruvian literature.  (I found the exhibit on feminist poetry in Peru to be especially interesting.)

I was already a little travel weary when I arrived in Peru, and by the time I left, I was completely exhausted.  Nevertheless, I really didn’t want to leave.  I wanted more time in Peru.  And I’m sure I’ll be back.

Twelve days ago, I left Mexico to do some traveling in South America, starting in Colombia, where I just spent a week and a half.  A violent reputation steered tourists away from Colombia for years, but the country’s security situation has improved dramatically, and recently it has been getting a lot of positive press in travel publications.  It’s a place I’ve been wanting to visit, so when I found an amazingly cheap ticket to Bogotá on Interjet, one of my favorite discount airlines, I snapped it up.

Here, in no particular order, are six of the things I enjoyed most in Colombia.

Street Art in Bogota

La Candelaria, the oldest part of Bogota, is home to several universities and most of Bogotá’s tourist attractions.  During the drug war, it was a dangerous place, but it’s been experiencing a revival in recent years.  The neighborhood’s colonial buildings, in addition to housing some hip bars and restaurants, are often covered with colorful and imaginative murals.  On a Bogotá Bike Tour, I learned that the local government is paying artists to produce street art not only in la Candaleria but in other parts of town as well.  This street art certainly makes walking through Bogotá’s chilly, drizzly–and often grimy–streets a more pleasant experience.

Social Urbanism in Medellin

Medellin, once the most violent city in the world, has made a remarkable turnaround over the past two decades.  In 2013, it was named the planet’s most innovative city by the Urban Land Institute.  Many people give the credit for Medellin’s transformation to former mayor Sergio Fajardo, a political independent who dubbed his policies “social urbanism.”  Social urbanism involves public investments in infrastructure and education in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, which in Medellin tend to be at the tops of the steep hillsides that surround the city.  (They remind me of the ironically named neighborhood the Bottom in Toni Morrison’s novel Sula.) The local government has connected these neighborhoods to the rest of the city with creative public transportation projects, mainly el metrocable, a kind of ski lift that carries people from the light rail train to the hillside slums.  In the city’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhood, there are now escalators that climb the sides of the mountain so that residents no longer have to trudge up flight after flight of stairs to reach their homes.  The city has also invested in schools, community centers, and “library parks,” combinations of green space and libraries.  The most famous one, Parque Biblioteca España Santo Domingo, features an award-winning architectural design that is attracting tourists to the neighborhood that was once ruled by Pablo Escobar.

Botero

The art of Fernando Botero is everywhere in Colombia, not just in museums.  I saw his sculptures in plazas in all three of the cities I visited in Colombia, and I also saw street vendors and souvenir shops selling replicas of his most famous paintings.  The Botero Museum in Bogotá and the Antioquia Museum in Medellin are the best places to see his work, but both museums also exhibit hundreds of modern masterpieces by other artists that Botero donated from his private collection.  According to Botero, his famously oversized figures are not fat:  they just have volume.  Nevertheless, the word I heard most frequently from other museum-goers was “gordo,” or fat.  Botero’s paintings and sculptures are often quite funny, and they contain wry social commentary.  Maybe I’m overreaching, but his art seems to share a sensibility with the fiction of Gabriel García Márquez.  In the work of both men, reality is depicted in a distorted way that manages to reveal something essential about Colombian society–and about humanity.

La Ciudad Antigua in Cartagena

Cartagena is Colombia’s biggest tourist attraction for a good reason.  The Caribbean port city contains a beautiful walled “ciudad vieja,” or old town, that is full of color and music and fabulous restaurants.  I’m not a fan of heat, and walking around in Cartagena is a little like walking around in a sauna.  But I still enjoyed wandering its narrow streets and taking photos of its colonial mansions.  I saw dance performances in plazas, heard the sounds of salsa emanating from bars, and ate in wonderful restaurants.  (My two favorites were Restaurante Donjuán, where I had a tasty quinoa salad with shrimp and chipotle Caesar dressing, and El Boliche Cebicheria, where I had a couple of craft beers and a spicy ceviche with fresh coconut.)

Quite by accident, I arranged to visit during the Cartagena Independence Day celebration.  On November 11, 1811, Cartagena declared its independence before any of the rest of what was then known as the viceroyalty of Nueva Granada. This led to a standoff with the Spanish military in which 4,000 people died, prompting Simon Bolivar to give the city its enduring nickname, La Heroica.  Today, Cartagena’s Independence Day is celebrated with parades of beauty queens, loud firecrackers, and the entire populous running around with huge cans of shaving cream and spraying everyone in sight.

Because of the holiday, many tourist sites were closed for the week, including several of Cartagena’s museums.  I wound up going to a museum that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have visited–just because it was the only one that was open–and I’m glad I did.  The Museum of the Inquisition, predictably, gives an overview of the Spanish Inquisition, both in Spain and in the Americas, displaying some grisly torture implements that were used to extract confessions from people accused of blasphemy, heresy, witchcraft, and sodomy.  (One of the most horrifying ones was used to crush the breasts of women accused of witchcraft.) But the Inquisition turns out to be only part of the museum’s focus. The top floor is devoted to local history, including Cartagena’s 1811 Declaration of Independence. For me, the most fascinating rooms were the ones that told the story of nearby San Basilio de Palenque, the first settlement in the Americas populated entirely by former slaves.  In 1603, a group of escaped slaves, led by the legendary Benkos Biohó, built a fortified village in the mountains about 30 miles from Cartagena.  San Basilio withstood attacks by the Spaniards for over 100 years.  It occasionally sent expeditions to Cartagena to attack incoming slave ships and liberate the captives.  When the Spanish government grew weary of trying to conquer San Basilio, it officially granted the town’s residents freedom and a large degree of sovereignty.  San Basilio de Palenque even has its own language, Palenquero, a Spanish-Bantú creole. It’s the only Spanish-based creole that is still spoken in Latin America.  Communities of escaped slaves sprang up all over the Americas, including the US, though American history books rarely talk about them.  In Cartagena, which has a large Afro-Colombian population, the founding of San Basilio de Palenque is a celebrated part of local history. Palenqueras, colorfully dressed women who come to Cartagena from San Basilio to sell fruit, are iconic in Cartegena.  (Tourists pay to take their photos.) They’re such an important part of the city’s identity that they were heavily featured in the Independence Day parades, alongside the contestants for Miss Colombia.

Tejo

Okay, I’m not really sure that Tejo was one of my favorite Colombian experiences, but it was certainly one of the most interesting ones. Tejo is a popular Colombian game that involves throwing rocks at little triangles of gunpowder in order to cause an explosion.  It’s played in bars, and apparently one of the rules of the game is that you have to drink lots of beer while playing it.  I found it a little unnerving.  It sounded like someone was getting shot every couple of minutes.

There’s no explosion in the following video.  (The group I was with wasn’t very good at the game.)  But it gives an idea of how the game is played.

I doubt I would have ever gone to a Tejo bar if it hadn’t been a stop on the Bogota Bike Tour, and I probably will never go again.  Still, I’m glad I got to experience this weird game.  It was an unforgettable experience even if it wasn’t exactly the most pleasant one.

Dancing in the Streets

In Colombia, I kept running across dance troupes performing in parks and plazas.  As someone who can’t dance, I’ve always been fascinated by people who can.  And Colombia is full of skilled dancers.