When the first Spanish troops reached Tenochtitlan in 1519 in what is now Mexico City’s Centro Histórico (historical center), they were astounded to see ornate buildings, a highly engineered city with an intricate system of canals, a market center, and ceremonial plazas. These were all signs of a high culture that had developed independently of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. They found more signs of high culture in the Maya territory to the southeast and frankly throughout what is now Mexico.
There is so much to say about the indigenous cultures of Mexico such that the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park focuses almost exclusively on this area. It is unusual among the world’s leading museums in showcasing only two cultural areas of the world — Mesoamerica and Arid-America.
But as a world-class museum it also has access to temporary exhibits from around the world. Right now it is showing “Keramiká, Divine Matter from Ancient Greece,” an exhibit on loan from the Louvre with 89 exquisite vases and urns and five marble sculptures.
The result is that a convergence of high quality ceramic vases is going on in the National Museum of Anthropology. Though not billed together, and not even exhibited in adjacent galleries, ancient Maya vases in the museum’s permanent collection dating from the the classic and post-classic periods (300-1500 A.D) and ancient Greek vases (700 B.C.-200 A.D) are exhibited concurrently.
The comparisons between Greek and Maya vases are fascinating. Not in the sense that ancient Greece had any influence on the Maya, but rather in the similar use given to ceramic art as the medium for portraying events that have endured, with little decay, through millennia.
Clay seems deceptively simple. It is easily modeled and can be skillfully decorated, but when fired to high temperatures it becomes as hard as stone. Due to its beauty, ceramic art was a frequent offering in Greek and the Maya burials — placed carefully in tombs subsequently sealed or filled with earth where it survived the passage of time.
Decoration on some of the vases — both Greek and Maya — portrays deities and mythological or religious events. Many are pictorial documentation of events in the lives of living people.
View Greek vases from opposite sides and in many cases you’ll see before and after scenes in which the same people or gods are portrayed. The shape of the vases and urns varies, but the color, for the most part, is amazingly uniform — black background with orange-red figures, or vice versa.
View Maya vessels as if to be seen as a single panel all the way around. Archeologist Justin Kerr perfected a technique to photograph the entire surface of a cylindrical or round vessel in a single frame.
The interaction between Greek deities is portrayed graphically on many of the vases. Though ancient Greek can be read by modern scholars, there isn’t much text on the pieces displayed in Keramiká other than an occasional name of the patron for whom the vase or urn was made, or the name of the ceramic artist. Those versed in Greek mythology will understand the scenes showing gods interacting with each other. Portrayals of life markers such as birth, marriage and funerals give us insight into daily life and living quarters of the ancient Greek elite.
It is the Maya vases that include the most writing. Breakthroughs in deciphering written Maya weren’t made until 1977, but once they started they came fast and furiously. Within five years the understanding of written Maya went from 15% to 50% and comprehension went up to 90% when read in the context of the surrounding hieroglyphs. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to read. Only four books survived along with an assortment of texts carved in stone, most of them quite deteriorated. Then archeologists realized there was a wealth of hieroglyphic text, much of it in pristine condition, on ceramic plates and vases.
Just below the rim of Maya vessels there is frequently hieroglyphic text blessing the piece, describing its shape and referring to its owner and its use. Sometimes the name of the artist who painted the vessel is recorded as well — making them the earliest signed pieces of American art. Text set within the painted scene describes the event itself.
The scenes portrayed on both the Greek and Maya vases are small and it can be hard to see all the detail. In the Keramiká exhibit some of the scenes from the vases are enlarged to life-size photographs. It is as if we are looking over the artist’s shoulder.
I encourage you to see the beautiful pottery in the “Keramiká, Divine Matter from Ancient Greece” exhibit in the National Museum of Anthropology. It will be open until April 27, 2014. And on the same visit walk 100 meters to the Maya room to take in the remarkable vases and urns there. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Closed Mondays.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Remembering the northern cultures
I am sure I’ve been to Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology in Chapultepec Park hundreds of times. I regularly take student groups there. If anyone visits me in Mexico City I will suggest we go by. And I’ll go on my own to see temporary shows like the exhibit of Greek vases on loan from the Louvre there through April 27. It’s that good.
The museum was built 50 years ago during the administration of President Adolfo López Mateos (1958-64) who took great interest in Mexico’s ancient history.
Lead architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez reportedly asked President López Mateos: “Would you like a museum that will be as secure as a bank vault? Or would you prefer a museum that will give visitors the opportunity to wander outdoors as they move from one room to the next?2 Thankfully the president chose the second option.
Ramírez Vázquez took inspiration from the ancient Maya courtyard in Uxmal’s Nunnery Quadrangle. He mimicked Uxmal’s design with the top half of the long, low buildings intricately decorated while leaving the bottom half smooth. At one end of the huge courtyard a fountain, known as the umbrella, holds up an enormous canopy with a single column.
The museum is designed to give visitors a crash course in Mesoamerican anthropology. You enter through the room explaining how anthropologists view the world and then follow room by room the settlement and development of the high cultures of Mesoamerica. The main floor shows the archeology while upstairs shows how people lived. You’ll also see contemporary indigenous exhibits upstairs.
The Aztec room breaks this pattern. It has soaring ceilings and no upstairs. Architect Ramírez Vázquez said it houses “the essence of Mexican-ness.” Indeed the Aztecs who called themselves Mexicas gave their name to the nation.
However, in the 50 years since the museum was built, perceptions of the Aztecs have changed.
Now we understand that every ethnic group in Mesoamerica feared the Aztecs. Those that had been conquered by the Aztecs were tired of sending tribute to Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. Those that hadn’t been conquered were tired of being threatened with conquest. Many ethnic groups welcomed the opportunity to join with Hernán Cortés and his 550 Spanish soldiers to overthrow the Aztec empire. Granted that at the time they didn’t know what life would be like under Spain’s control.
I don’t normally take my groups into the last two rooms at the museum that cover the arid northern and western parts of Mexico. These cultures have more to do with Arid-America which extends into the U.S. southwest and I’d have to begin a whole new story to talk about them. They are set apart by the architect too, separated from the Mesoamerican rooms by a break in the building the width of a street.
Now is a good time to focus on those northern cultures — admiration for them is soaring. New expanded displays fill the Arid-America rooms. Nearby Chapultepec Castle is hosting a temporary exhibit that complements those exhibits titled “Infinite North — Indigenous people in movement.”
Infinite North focuses on 13 contemporary indigenous ethnic groups living in areas bordering the Gulf of California in Sinaloa and the states along the border with the United States from the Pacific coast to the easternmost part of Chihuahua.
Displays start with stunning baskets. Some so large they are angled sideways to allow visitors to peer inside and admire their intricate detail inside and out. Another that sticks in my mind is a tortilla basket made entirely of pine needles.
Most of the indigenous cultures of northern Mexico suffer from discrimination and poverty and are at high risk of disappearing. The case of the Kiliwa culture is the most dire. Only five people now speak Kiliwa.
As the exhibit explains, “The loss of a language takes with it the link that gives meaning to all of that culture’s expressions: cuisine, clothing, dances, fiestas, religious ceremonies, and art. Indigenous languages are an essential part of the identity of its people. It is through their language that ideas, objects, and practices take on meaning. Language is the code through which they perceive the world and construct its significance. A culture can disappear when its mother tongue is no longer spoken.”
I liked how the exhibit emphasized the importance of language with information available in Yoreme (Mayo), Yoema (Yaqui), and Rarámuri (Tarahumara) as well as in Spanish and English.
The Museum of Anthropology is open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. “Infinite North — Indigenous people in movement” in Chapultepec Castle is open until June, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Both museums are closed Mondays. Keep your eye out for other treats the National Institute of Anthropology (INAH) has for us celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Museum of Anthropology.
The museum was built 50 years ago during the administration of President Adolfo López Mateos (1958-64) who took great interest in Mexico’s ancient history.
Lead architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez reportedly asked President López Mateos: “Would you like a museum that will be as secure as a bank vault? Or would you prefer a museum that will give visitors the opportunity to wander outdoors as they move from one room to the next?2 Thankfully the president chose the second option.
Ramírez Vázquez took inspiration from the ancient Maya courtyard in Uxmal’s Nunnery Quadrangle. He mimicked Uxmal’s design with the top half of the long, low buildings intricately decorated while leaving the bottom half smooth. At one end of the huge courtyard a fountain, known as the umbrella, holds up an enormous canopy with a single column.
The museum is designed to give visitors a crash course in Mesoamerican anthropology. You enter through the room explaining how anthropologists view the world and then follow room by room the settlement and development of the high cultures of Mesoamerica. The main floor shows the archeology while upstairs shows how people lived. You’ll also see contemporary indigenous exhibits upstairs.
The Aztec room breaks this pattern. It has soaring ceilings and no upstairs. Architect Ramírez Vázquez said it houses “the essence of Mexican-ness.” Indeed the Aztecs who called themselves Mexicas gave their name to the nation.
However, in the 50 years since the museum was built, perceptions of the Aztecs have changed.
Now we understand that every ethnic group in Mesoamerica feared the Aztecs. Those that had been conquered by the Aztecs were tired of sending tribute to Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. Those that hadn’t been conquered were tired of being threatened with conquest. Many ethnic groups welcomed the opportunity to join with Hernán Cortés and his 550 Spanish soldiers to overthrow the Aztec empire. Granted that at the time they didn’t know what life would be like under Spain’s control.
I don’t normally take my groups into the last two rooms at the museum that cover the arid northern and western parts of Mexico. These cultures have more to do with Arid-America which extends into the U.S. southwest and I’d have to begin a whole new story to talk about them. They are set apart by the architect too, separated from the Mesoamerican rooms by a break in the building the width of a street.
Now is a good time to focus on those northern cultures — admiration for them is soaring. New expanded displays fill the Arid-America rooms. Nearby Chapultepec Castle is hosting a temporary exhibit that complements those exhibits titled “Infinite North — Indigenous people in movement.”
Infinite North focuses on 13 contemporary indigenous ethnic groups living in areas bordering the Gulf of California in Sinaloa and the states along the border with the United States from the Pacific coast to the easternmost part of Chihuahua.
Displays start with stunning baskets. Some so large they are angled sideways to allow visitors to peer inside and admire their intricate detail inside and out. Another that sticks in my mind is a tortilla basket made entirely of pine needles.
Most of the indigenous cultures of northern Mexico suffer from discrimination and poverty and are at high risk of disappearing. The case of the Kiliwa culture is the most dire. Only five people now speak Kiliwa.
As the exhibit explains, “The loss of a language takes with it the link that gives meaning to all of that culture’s expressions: cuisine, clothing, dances, fiestas, religious ceremonies, and art. Indigenous languages are an essential part of the identity of its people. It is through their language that ideas, objects, and practices take on meaning. Language is the code through which they perceive the world and construct its significance. A culture can disappear when its mother tongue is no longer spoken.”
I liked how the exhibit emphasized the importance of language with information available in Yoreme (Mayo), Yoema (Yaqui), and Rarámuri (Tarahumara) as well as in Spanish and English.
The Museum of Anthropology is open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. “Infinite North — Indigenous people in movement” in Chapultepec Castle is open until June, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Both museums are closed Mondays. Keep your eye out for other treats the National Institute of Anthropology (INAH) has for us celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Museum of Anthropology.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
The wonderful Chichicastenango
Tucked in the Quiché highlands, Chichicastenango hosts Guatemala’s most famous indigenous market. Early every Thursday and Sunday morning in a well- rehearsed exercise the plaza is transformed into a vibrant, colorful, tightly-packed market. Many vendors set up their stalls on the same spot their family has been occupying for generations.
For locals it is their regional food market. International tourists focus on indigenous textiles, jewelry, and masks.
The beauty of the market complements the religious importance of its setting. Facing the plaza the Church of Santo Tomás’ steep stairway resembles that of a pyramid — complete with platforms on which incense burns and shamans recite prayers in rapid-fire Quiché Maya. Inside a plaque reads: “In the early 18th century in this monastery of Santo Tomás, Father Franzisco Ximénez found and translated the Popol Vuh.” Frequently called the sacred book of the Maya Quiché, it is often quoted and referenced in ancient-Maya studies.
Diego Ignacio was the ranking mask-maker in Chichicastenango until his death on Christmas Eve 2013. From his father, Miguel Ignacio, Diego inherited the morería (mask-making shop) he worked and, in turn, left to his heirs last December. The Ignacio’s morería includes a home linked to an occupation and responsibility that has been in their family for generations.
In 1938, famed U.S. anthropologist Sol Tax in search of folk tales interviewed Diego’s grandfather — also Diego Ignacio, and also a mask-maker. In his diary Tax noted “Ignacio did not volunteer any stories,” adding, “Chichicastenango seems to have a dearth of folk tales.”
In Spain a morería is the section of town where Moors live. In Guatemala it is where Moors are made — in the form of masks for the dance of Moors and Christians. Morerías also make masks for characters in all the Indigenous festival dances. Some masks portray European or African faces, most are of Indigenous faces, native animals, and fantastic and imaginary beings carved out of wood.
Anyone who has been in Mexico or Guatemala for any length of time has come across this type of mask. Folk art museums and private collectors have whole walls covered with masks on display. Souvenir shops have them for sale. Vendors walk amidst patrons in outdoor restaurants selling masks. Usually missing are the costumes that should accompany the masks.
Without a costume the mask is incomplete. When worn together in indigenous pageants, dancers give up their personality and take on another. The Ignacio children delighted in putting on costumes and masks and dancing to traditional music from a boom box. When they did so the transformation they went through was such that they were unrecognizable.
Like his grandfather, Diego did not reveal information easily. It took me several visits to Diego’s morería before I understood that his principal source of income was not from mask sales to tourists but rather hinged on the rental of expensive full sets of costumes, masks, and script to dancers performing in festivals in Chichicastenango and nearby towns and villages.
Well into my series of visits to his morería, Diego surprised me and members of my study trip by showing us notebooks filled cover-to-cover with elegant handwritten script — instructions for the set director and lines to be recited by each of the actors performing in what I had thought was restricted to dance and pantomime.
The plaza and adjoining streets is the “stage” on which these pageants are presented. Though usually packed with spectators, necessary space always opens up when the actors need it, but rarely can their recited words be heard.
The more I scratch the surface of Chichicastenango the more cyclical and enduring its life seems to be. Which member of the Ignacio family will take up the baton from Diego and keep the morería alive? Even we outsiders now have our recognized niche in maintaining the market cycle through purchases and patronage of restaurants and lodging.
My trips to Chichicastengo always include breakfast at the timelessly elegant Mayan Inn. My reading of Sol Tax’s diary leads me to believe that’s where he interviewed Diego Ignacio in 1938.
Back in the 1970s I’d rouse my college students early in Panajachel in order to get to the Mayan Inn for breakfast. Our motley appearance always led the head-waiter to caution me, “This breakfast costs five dollars.” Upon telling him that was fine we’d sit down to a grand multi-course breakfast in which the silverware, pitchers and serving dishes were sterling silver and the service impeccable.
In 1980 Guatemala’s internal war intensified. I didn’t return to Chichicastenango until 1987. But I was at the Mayan Inn for breakfast my first morning back. Midway through breakfast I told the waiter I’d returned after a long absence and complemented him on everything looking as it always had, “except for this,” as I held up a spoon. He nodded and told me an amazing story — one that someday will certainly nurture folk tales.
“When the guerrilla army was approaching Chichicastenango the owners arrived with moving vans and took everything that was portable — even windows, doors, and bathroom fixtures. All they left was walls, floors, and ceilings, yet they paid us our salary throughout that time period. Five years later they brought everything back. Except for the silver.”
For locals it is their regional food market. International tourists focus on indigenous textiles, jewelry, and masks.
The beauty of the market complements the religious importance of its setting. Facing the plaza the Church of Santo Tomás’ steep stairway resembles that of a pyramid — complete with platforms on which incense burns and shamans recite prayers in rapid-fire Quiché Maya. Inside a plaque reads: “In the early 18th century in this monastery of Santo Tomás, Father Franzisco Ximénez found and translated the Popol Vuh.” Frequently called the sacred book of the Maya Quiché, it is often quoted and referenced in ancient-Maya studies.
Diego Ignacio was the ranking mask-maker in Chichicastenango until his death on Christmas Eve 2013. From his father, Miguel Ignacio, Diego inherited the morería (mask-making shop) he worked and, in turn, left to his heirs last December. The Ignacio’s morería includes a home linked to an occupation and responsibility that has been in their family for generations.
In 1938, famed U.S. anthropologist Sol Tax in search of folk tales interviewed Diego’s grandfather — also Diego Ignacio, and also a mask-maker. In his diary Tax noted “Ignacio did not volunteer any stories,” adding, “Chichicastenango seems to have a dearth of folk tales.”
In Spain a morería is the section of town where Moors live. In Guatemala it is where Moors are made — in the form of masks for the dance of Moors and Christians. Morerías also make masks for characters in all the Indigenous festival dances. Some masks portray European or African faces, most are of Indigenous faces, native animals, and fantastic and imaginary beings carved out of wood.
Anyone who has been in Mexico or Guatemala for any length of time has come across this type of mask. Folk art museums and private collectors have whole walls covered with masks on display. Souvenir shops have them for sale. Vendors walk amidst patrons in outdoor restaurants selling masks. Usually missing are the costumes that should accompany the masks.
Without a costume the mask is incomplete. When worn together in indigenous pageants, dancers give up their personality and take on another. The Ignacio children delighted in putting on costumes and masks and dancing to traditional music from a boom box. When they did so the transformation they went through was such that they were unrecognizable.
Like his grandfather, Diego did not reveal information easily. It took me several visits to Diego’s morería before I understood that his principal source of income was not from mask sales to tourists but rather hinged on the rental of expensive full sets of costumes, masks, and script to dancers performing in festivals in Chichicastenango and nearby towns and villages.
Well into my series of visits to his morería, Diego surprised me and members of my study trip by showing us notebooks filled cover-to-cover with elegant handwritten script — instructions for the set director and lines to be recited by each of the actors performing in what I had thought was restricted to dance and pantomime.
The plaza and adjoining streets is the “stage” on which these pageants are presented. Though usually packed with spectators, necessary space always opens up when the actors need it, but rarely can their recited words be heard.
The more I scratch the surface of Chichicastenango the more cyclical and enduring its life seems to be. Which member of the Ignacio family will take up the baton from Diego and keep the morería alive? Even we outsiders now have our recognized niche in maintaining the market cycle through purchases and patronage of restaurants and lodging.
My trips to Chichicastengo always include breakfast at the timelessly elegant Mayan Inn. My reading of Sol Tax’s diary leads me to believe that’s where he interviewed Diego Ignacio in 1938.
Back in the 1970s I’d rouse my college students early in Panajachel in order to get to the Mayan Inn for breakfast. Our motley appearance always led the head-waiter to caution me, “This breakfast costs five dollars.” Upon telling him that was fine we’d sit down to a grand multi-course breakfast in which the silverware, pitchers and serving dishes were sterling silver and the service impeccable.
In 1980 Guatemala’s internal war intensified. I didn’t return to Chichicastenango until 1987. But I was at the Mayan Inn for breakfast my first morning back. Midway through breakfast I told the waiter I’d returned after a long absence and complemented him on everything looking as it always had, “except for this,” as I held up a spoon. He nodded and told me an amazing story — one that someday will certainly nurture folk tales.
“When the guerrilla army was approaching Chichicastenango the owners arrived with moving vans and took everything that was portable — even windows, doors, and bathroom fixtures. All they left was walls, floors, and ceilings, yet they paid us our salary throughout that time period. Five years later they brought everything back. Except for the silver.”
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Banking through the years
I wonder if I could quantify the percentage of my adult life that I have spent inside Mexican banks. As nationwide institutions, Mexican banks fill the role that the post office and Internet play in bill payments in the USA. A tremendous array of services can be paid at banks. Even payments between private parties are made at banks since anyone can deposit to anyone else’s bank account — the deposit slip becomes the proof of payment.
When I started doing business in Mexico 40 years ago it was close to being a strictly a cash economy. Bank hours were short and lines were long. With banks only open from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. weekdays, employers had to pay their workers’ salary in cash or give them time off to cash their payroll checks. Those of us with a lot of banking to do had messengers we’d send to the bank ahead of time to stand in line. Upon getting to the head of the line my messenger would stay there and let people by one-by-one until I arrived. Then, exchanging only a nod, he would step out of line and I would take his place.
Back then every bank exchanged U.S. dollars at the same rate. Longtime foreign residents in Mexico remember well the 12.5 multiplication table. Banks would buy dollars at 12.49 pesos per dollar and sell them at 12.51 and we got good at the math. It had been that way since 1954. We could have peso accounts as well as dollar accounts in Mexican banks. With a dollar account we could cash a check and have the teller hand us U.S. dollar bills. Nice and straightforward.
That was also when a bank employee would manually enter each check or deposit on a card with a carbon copy attached to it. At the end of the month the copy became the monthly statement. Tellers would check the card before cashing a check. In our own branch office we could ask to see the card to check our balance.
Branch managers had to authorize cashing an out-of-town check. I remember listening to a bank officer in Mérida describing over the phone to her colleague in Cuernavaca what my signature looked like. On the island of Cozumel trying to cash some travelers’ checks I was told the manager was out. I asked his secretary when he would be back. She glanced out the window and said “in about half an hour.” I looked out the window expecting to see a coffee shop but instead saw a sidewalk barber shop in the shade of a big tree. I walked across the street, greeted the man seated with a sheet draped over his shoulders, and asked him if he was the bank manager. He replied affirmatively and I presented him my travelers’ checks to approve. In a few minutes I had cash in hand and was on my way.
The late 1970s and 1980s were boom years for anyone with a foreign source of income. During some of those years inflation ran at over 150 percent and the exchange rate soared even faster. The central bank couldn’t keep the country stocked with currency.
Store cashiers would give change in chewing gum or candy when they ran out of coins. I remember being in line in banks and hearing the head teller shout out “Who’s here to make a deposit?” Those with deposits were waved to the front of the line so the bank tellers would have cash with which to work.
By the 1980s Mexico was printing one-hundred-thousand peso bills. President de la Madrid (1982-88) was credited with having made everyone a millionaire! President Salinas (1988-94) carried out the transition from the “Peso” to the “New Peso” (designated as “N$”) with three fewer zeros and finally back to the “Peso” we know and use today.
Computers have taken some of the fun out of banking. There’s no more need to describe a signature. Last month a teller in training had her computer screen turned so that I could see it. Not only is my signature clearly visible to every teller and bank officer in that banking network throughout the country, a scanned copy of my identification card was on the screen too.
Lines can be long at times but those bankers-hours of the 1970s have been extended. I know of three banks open long hours that only close on Christmas and New Year’s Day. Account holders frequently get bankcards that give them access to special lines that move very quickly.
One thing that has gotten worse is that it is now very difficult to exchange foreign currency in banks. Visitors from abroad need to change money at the airport or use exchange houses (casas de cambio). An even better option is to use ATMs to withdraw Mexican pesos. I’ve found that ATMs also give you the best exchange rate.
Travelers checks? I haven’t seen one in years.
When I started doing business in Mexico 40 years ago it was close to being a strictly a cash economy. Bank hours were short and lines were long. With banks only open from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. weekdays, employers had to pay their workers’ salary in cash or give them time off to cash their payroll checks. Those of us with a lot of banking to do had messengers we’d send to the bank ahead of time to stand in line. Upon getting to the head of the line my messenger would stay there and let people by one-by-one until I arrived. Then, exchanging only a nod, he would step out of line and I would take his place.
Back then every bank exchanged U.S. dollars at the same rate. Longtime foreign residents in Mexico remember well the 12.5 multiplication table. Banks would buy dollars at 12.49 pesos per dollar and sell them at 12.51 and we got good at the math. It had been that way since 1954. We could have peso accounts as well as dollar accounts in Mexican banks. With a dollar account we could cash a check and have the teller hand us U.S. dollar bills. Nice and straightforward.
That was also when a bank employee would manually enter each check or deposit on a card with a carbon copy attached to it. At the end of the month the copy became the monthly statement. Tellers would check the card before cashing a check. In our own branch office we could ask to see the card to check our balance.
Branch managers had to authorize cashing an out-of-town check. I remember listening to a bank officer in Mérida describing over the phone to her colleague in Cuernavaca what my signature looked like. On the island of Cozumel trying to cash some travelers’ checks I was told the manager was out. I asked his secretary when he would be back. She glanced out the window and said “in about half an hour.” I looked out the window expecting to see a coffee shop but instead saw a sidewalk barber shop in the shade of a big tree. I walked across the street, greeted the man seated with a sheet draped over his shoulders, and asked him if he was the bank manager. He replied affirmatively and I presented him my travelers’ checks to approve. In a few minutes I had cash in hand and was on my way.
The late 1970s and 1980s were boom years for anyone with a foreign source of income. During some of those years inflation ran at over 150 percent and the exchange rate soared even faster. The central bank couldn’t keep the country stocked with currency.
Store cashiers would give change in chewing gum or candy when they ran out of coins. I remember being in line in banks and hearing the head teller shout out “Who’s here to make a deposit?” Those with deposits were waved to the front of the line so the bank tellers would have cash with which to work.
By the 1980s Mexico was printing one-hundred-thousand peso bills. President de la Madrid (1982-88) was credited with having made everyone a millionaire! President Salinas (1988-94) carried out the transition from the “Peso” to the “New Peso” (designated as “N$”) with three fewer zeros and finally back to the “Peso” we know and use today.
Computers have taken some of the fun out of banking. There’s no more need to describe a signature. Last month a teller in training had her computer screen turned so that I could see it. Not only is my signature clearly visible to every teller and bank officer in that banking network throughout the country, a scanned copy of my identification card was on the screen too.
Lines can be long at times but those bankers-hours of the 1970s have been extended. I know of three banks open long hours that only close on Christmas and New Year’s Day. Account holders frequently get bankcards that give them access to special lines that move very quickly.
One thing that has gotten worse is that it is now very difficult to exchange foreign currency in banks. Visitors from abroad need to change money at the airport or use exchange houses (casas de cambio). An even better option is to use ATMs to withdraw Mexican pesos. I’ve found that ATMs also give you the best exchange rate.
Travelers checks? I haven’t seen one in years.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The best coffee in Veracruz
There are plenty of things to see and do in Veracruz, but a trip to the port of Veracruz isn’t complete without having coffee at La Parroquia.
Visitors of all nationalities, presidents and heads of state make sure that La Parroquia is on their itinerary. Even in his haste to leave Mexico to go into exile in 1911, deposed-President Porfirio Díaz had time for coffee at La Parroquia before boarding his ship to France.
The original La Parroquia was located in one of the portales (porticoes) facing the small city plaza.
The café opened in 1808, taking its name from the building across the street — the parish church. As protection against pirates, Veracruz was a walled city and space was at a premium. The church with its bell tower and the government building with a lookout tower took up two sides of the plaza. Shops and businesses occupied the other two.
The café and its offspring have been owned and operated by a succession of Spanish immigrants for whom Veracruz was their port of entry to Mexico. One who made a lasting stamp on it is Fernando Fernández. On Jan. 12, 1936, as a 14-year-old boy, he disembarked from a steamship at the Veracruz pier. It had been a three-week trip from Santander with a stopover in Havana.
An itinerant photographer took Fernando’s picture wearing his Sunday best as he walked down the gangplank.
Fernando worked his way up in his uncle’s business and eventually bought it. But it turns out that he purchased the business but not the real estate. The day Fernando Fernández lost a lawsuit with his cousins over the real estate his waiters carried the two large, shiny Italian coffeemakers to the new location on the Malecón (sea wall) four blocks away and rechristened it the Gran Café de la Parroquia. The tables, chairs, waiters’ uniforms, even the tiles on the floor are the same as at the original location.
As it has been since the nineteenth century, the favorite type of coffee served is café lechero. The waiter delivers the patron a tall glass on a saucer accompanied with a spoon. The glass is only quarter-filled with thick black coffee.
Protocol calls for the patron to clank on the glass with the spoon to alert the lechero (milkman) to come and fill the glass with steaming-hot milk.
The lechero arrives with both hands occupied — one with a kettle of coffee and the other with a kettle of hot milk. He first asks the patron if the amount of coffee is to her or his satisfaction. If it is, he puts the spout of the milk kettle to the edge of the glass and starts pouring as he lifts the kettle high up above the patron’s head. Just as the frothy milk swells over the top of the glass, he brings the stream of milk back down. It is all done with such skill the dome of milk foam stays put and does not flow down the side of the glass.
At the Gran Café de la Parroquia on the Malecón the two tall espresso coffee makers from Turin, Italy, are where everyone poses to have their picture taken. Last week Fernando’s son Felipe told me “They still have 80 percent of the original parts. They were designed to use alcohol as fuel, we’ve converted them to electricity.”
I asked Felipe about the peculiar payment process that I had noticed on one of my first visits. He told me that was also his father’s innovation. “He streamlined the bottleneck high volume restaurants all share — the payment process. While in Belgium he saw this process and he put it into effect here.”
The way it works is upon leaving the kitchen each waiter puts his tray on a counter in front of the cashier. She totals the sale price of all the dishes and the waiter pays for it, on-the-spot, in cash. After that it is the waiters’ responsibility to collect from their customers. The waiters total up the bill right at the patron’s table and make change from their pocket. There is no waiting for the bill or for one’s change. Quite marvelous.
Felipe Fernández told me that at the beginning of their shift each waiter is given a 1,000-peso fund with which to work. They return it at the end of their workday. I always like streamlining financial transactions and enjoy watching the efficiency with which this one works.
When in Veracruz, make sure to have a frothy café lechero at one of La Parroquias — the Gran Café de la Parroquia on the Malecón, at La Parroquia de Veracruz next door, or at the Gran Café del Portal in the original location. All are run by the extended Fernández family. You’ll see why Porfirio Díaz made it his last stop before departing Mexico.
Visitors of all nationalities, presidents and heads of state make sure that La Parroquia is on their itinerary. Even in his haste to leave Mexico to go into exile in 1911, deposed-President Porfirio Díaz had time for coffee at La Parroquia before boarding his ship to France.
The original La Parroquia was located in one of the portales (porticoes) facing the small city plaza.
The café opened in 1808, taking its name from the building across the street — the parish church. As protection against pirates, Veracruz was a walled city and space was at a premium. The church with its bell tower and the government building with a lookout tower took up two sides of the plaza. Shops and businesses occupied the other two.
The café and its offspring have been owned and operated by a succession of Spanish immigrants for whom Veracruz was their port of entry to Mexico. One who made a lasting stamp on it is Fernando Fernández. On Jan. 12, 1936, as a 14-year-old boy, he disembarked from a steamship at the Veracruz pier. It had been a three-week trip from Santander with a stopover in Havana.
An itinerant photographer took Fernando’s picture wearing his Sunday best as he walked down the gangplank.
Fernando worked his way up in his uncle’s business and eventually bought it. But it turns out that he purchased the business but not the real estate. The day Fernando Fernández lost a lawsuit with his cousins over the real estate his waiters carried the two large, shiny Italian coffeemakers to the new location on the Malecón (sea wall) four blocks away and rechristened it the Gran Café de la Parroquia. The tables, chairs, waiters’ uniforms, even the tiles on the floor are the same as at the original location.
As it has been since the nineteenth century, the favorite type of coffee served is café lechero. The waiter delivers the patron a tall glass on a saucer accompanied with a spoon. The glass is only quarter-filled with thick black coffee.
Protocol calls for the patron to clank on the glass with the spoon to alert the lechero (milkman) to come and fill the glass with steaming-hot milk.
The lechero arrives with both hands occupied — one with a kettle of coffee and the other with a kettle of hot milk. He first asks the patron if the amount of coffee is to her or his satisfaction. If it is, he puts the spout of the milk kettle to the edge of the glass and starts pouring as he lifts the kettle high up above the patron’s head. Just as the frothy milk swells over the top of the glass, he brings the stream of milk back down. It is all done with such skill the dome of milk foam stays put and does not flow down the side of the glass.
At the Gran Café de la Parroquia on the Malecón the two tall espresso coffee makers from Turin, Italy, are where everyone poses to have their picture taken. Last week Fernando’s son Felipe told me “They still have 80 percent of the original parts. They were designed to use alcohol as fuel, we’ve converted them to electricity.”
I asked Felipe about the peculiar payment process that I had noticed on one of my first visits. He told me that was also his father’s innovation. “He streamlined the bottleneck high volume restaurants all share — the payment process. While in Belgium he saw this process and he put it into effect here.”
The way it works is upon leaving the kitchen each waiter puts his tray on a counter in front of the cashier. She totals the sale price of all the dishes and the waiter pays for it, on-the-spot, in cash. After that it is the waiters’ responsibility to collect from their customers. The waiters total up the bill right at the patron’s table and make change from their pocket. There is no waiting for the bill or for one’s change. Quite marvelous.
Felipe Fernández told me that at the beginning of their shift each waiter is given a 1,000-peso fund with which to work. They return it at the end of their workday. I always like streamlining financial transactions and enjoy watching the efficiency with which this one works.
When in Veracruz, make sure to have a frothy café lechero at one of La Parroquias — the Gran Café de la Parroquia on the Malecón, at La Parroquia de Veracruz next door, or at the Gran Café del Portal in the original location. All are run by the extended Fernández family. You’ll see why Porfirio Díaz made it his last stop before departing Mexico.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Admiring the monarch butterfly
I have a reader of The News to thank for my wonderful trip to visit
overwintering monarch butterflies near Valle de Bravo last week.
Millions of butterflies fly from the U.S. and Canada to Central Mexico
every November, and fly back north in March. Modern scientists have
known for less than 40 years where they stay in Mexico.
Canadian zoologist Fred Urquhart and his wife Norah searched for decades before announcing the discovery in the August 1976 issue of National Geographic. In 1952 the Urquharts had developed a tag light enough to allow monarchs to fly unencumbered. Within 20 years they had recruited 600 volunteer taggers in the U.S. and Canada. The tags pointed to a Mexican overwintering spot, but where?
A breakthrough came when the Urquharts asked readers of Mexican newspapers to help them. One reader of The News, Kenneth Brugger, set out in his camper to find the Monarchs with his wife Cathy, sending back regular reports to the Urquharts.
In January 1975 Brugger made the call the Urquharts had been waiting for. Brugger had found millions of monarchs clinging to evergreens beside a mountain clearing.
Dr. Urquhart describes his first visit to the overwintering grounds in his National Geographic article. “Then we saw them. Masses of butterflies — everywhere! In the quietness of semi-dormancy, they festooned the tree branches, they enveloped the oyamel trunks, they carpeted the ground in their tremulous legions. Other multitudes — those that now on the verge of spring had begun to feel the immemorial urge to fly north — filled the air with their sun-shot wings, shimmering against the blue mountain sky and drifting across our vision in blizzard flakes of orange and black.”
Urquhart’s article intentionally didn’t disclose the location of the butterflies but gave enough clues that the next spring I went out in search for them. At the very first place I chose, Angangueo, Michoacán, I found people who led me to the butterfly sanctuary — now the best known of them all.
On that first visit I was free to walk between the trees where clumps of butterflies were so heavy branches drooped with their weight. The sound of thousands of butterflies beating their wings is ethereal. I’ve tried several times since then to record it; it’s never the same.
Since then a number of monarch wintering sites have been discovered in Michoacán and more recently in the state of Mexico. What the sites have in common are three things: oyamel fir trees the butterflies cling to, milkweed the caterpillars eat, and an elevation close to 9,000 feet where winter temperatures hover from just below freezing to just above. Inactivated by the chill, the monarchs burn up almost none of the reserve fat they’ll need on their northward flight.
To celebrate her birthday this month, Digs collaborator Carol Hopkins invited her brothers and sister to come to Mexico to see the butterflies. Within two hours of departing Mexico City our group was starting up the trail to the preserve near San Francisco Oxtotilco. An hour and a half later — far from the closest parking lot or food vendor — we entered a wondrous bit of forest with the tall, gray-green oyamel trees with branches drooping with the weight of butterflies.
Our delightful guide, 23 year-old Ignacio Velázquez Vera, has led groups since he was 10 and loves the monarchs. He enthusiastically taught us how to tell the difference between male and female. He gently extended the long probiscus of a butterfly to demonstrate how it allows the monarch to reach deep to drink nectar or water. Sadly, he told us that there were only half as many oyamel trees covered with butterflies this year.
This may be a topic when President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper meet with President Peña Nieto tomorrow in Toluca.
Environmentalists have identified the problem as a combination of genetically modified crops in the U.S. and Canada which are displacing milkweed and illegal logging in Mexico.
A key to preserving the world’s natural treasures is making their preservation a reliable source of income for local people. The monarch butterfly reserve near Valle de Bravo is doing just that. We paid Ignacio, his mother and his sister for horse rental and guidance to the preserve. Another family member watched our van. We paid an admission fee to the ejido on whose land the monarchs winter.
The Velázquez Vera family and the ejidatarios receive a higher income from the butterfly reserve than they would from cutting the forest and selling the lumber. Ignacio works the rest of the year in Valle de Bravo hotels but says his heart is always in the mountains.
Thanks to the new Supervia Poniente expressway, all of this is possible in a two-hour drive from southern Mexico City. The butterflies usually leave in early March so you still have time. Send me an email for detailed instructions on how to get there.
Canadian zoologist Fred Urquhart and his wife Norah searched for decades before announcing the discovery in the August 1976 issue of National Geographic. In 1952 the Urquharts had developed a tag light enough to allow monarchs to fly unencumbered. Within 20 years they had recruited 600 volunteer taggers in the U.S. and Canada. The tags pointed to a Mexican overwintering spot, but where?
A breakthrough came when the Urquharts asked readers of Mexican newspapers to help them. One reader of The News, Kenneth Brugger, set out in his camper to find the Monarchs with his wife Cathy, sending back regular reports to the Urquharts.
In January 1975 Brugger made the call the Urquharts had been waiting for. Brugger had found millions of monarchs clinging to evergreens beside a mountain clearing.
Dr. Urquhart describes his first visit to the overwintering grounds in his National Geographic article. “Then we saw them. Masses of butterflies — everywhere! In the quietness of semi-dormancy, they festooned the tree branches, they enveloped the oyamel trunks, they carpeted the ground in their tremulous legions. Other multitudes — those that now on the verge of spring had begun to feel the immemorial urge to fly north — filled the air with their sun-shot wings, shimmering against the blue mountain sky and drifting across our vision in blizzard flakes of orange and black.”
Urquhart’s article intentionally didn’t disclose the location of the butterflies but gave enough clues that the next spring I went out in search for them. At the very first place I chose, Angangueo, Michoacán, I found people who led me to the butterfly sanctuary — now the best known of them all.
On that first visit I was free to walk between the trees where clumps of butterflies were so heavy branches drooped with their weight. The sound of thousands of butterflies beating their wings is ethereal. I’ve tried several times since then to record it; it’s never the same.
Since then a number of monarch wintering sites have been discovered in Michoacán and more recently in the state of Mexico. What the sites have in common are three things: oyamel fir trees the butterflies cling to, milkweed the caterpillars eat, and an elevation close to 9,000 feet where winter temperatures hover from just below freezing to just above. Inactivated by the chill, the monarchs burn up almost none of the reserve fat they’ll need on their northward flight.
To celebrate her birthday this month, Digs collaborator Carol Hopkins invited her brothers and sister to come to Mexico to see the butterflies. Within two hours of departing Mexico City our group was starting up the trail to the preserve near San Francisco Oxtotilco. An hour and a half later — far from the closest parking lot or food vendor — we entered a wondrous bit of forest with the tall, gray-green oyamel trees with branches drooping with the weight of butterflies.
Our delightful guide, 23 year-old Ignacio Velázquez Vera, has led groups since he was 10 and loves the monarchs. He enthusiastically taught us how to tell the difference between male and female. He gently extended the long probiscus of a butterfly to demonstrate how it allows the monarch to reach deep to drink nectar or water. Sadly, he told us that there were only half as many oyamel trees covered with butterflies this year.
This may be a topic when President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper meet with President Peña Nieto tomorrow in Toluca.
Environmentalists have identified the problem as a combination of genetically modified crops in the U.S. and Canada which are displacing milkweed and illegal logging in Mexico.
A key to preserving the world’s natural treasures is making their preservation a reliable source of income for local people. The monarch butterfly reserve near Valle de Bravo is doing just that. We paid Ignacio, his mother and his sister for horse rental and guidance to the preserve. Another family member watched our van. We paid an admission fee to the ejido on whose land the monarchs winter.
The Velázquez Vera family and the ejidatarios receive a higher income from the butterfly reserve than they would from cutting the forest and selling the lumber. Ignacio works the rest of the year in Valle de Bravo hotels but says his heart is always in the mountains.
Thanks to the new Supervia Poniente expressway, all of this is possible in a two-hour drive from southern Mexico City. The butterflies usually leave in early March so you still have time. Send me an email for detailed instructions on how to get there.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Highlights of an Acapulco road trip
Road trips to Acapulco have long been a part of life for residents of Mexico City. In viceroyalty times it could take a week along the royal highway. In the 40s one might overnight in Taxco. In the 80s it was a whole day affair.
Since the 1994 inauguration of the modern autopista, the trip has been streamlined and now a door-to-door trip can be as fast by car as by plane. Nevertheless, most people still make the drive an event in itself. They look forward to their favorite landmark stopping places along the way — perhaps breakfast in Tres Marías and cecina for lunch at Cuatro Caminos? I used to look forward to hamburgers and ice cream cones at the dairy shop in Iguala before Iguala was bypassed by the new highway.
In addition to its many culinary attractions there are other worthy destinations along the Acapulco route. Cuernavaca, Xochicalco, Taxco, and the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa are some of the more notable. Now there’s a new place to add to the list — the Cuernavaca campus of the Tec de Monterrey (Monterrey Institute of Technology).
Though stunning from either direction, the Tec’s signature structure is most spectacular when approached from the south. Upon entering the Valley of Cuernavaca the campus rises on a rocky promontory encircled by a native deciduous forest and overlooking fields of rice, roses, and sugarcane. Its majestic, four-sided, four-story, green-glass building is framed and capped by sharp-edged concrete with an open courtyard the size of a city block at its center.
Inside the courtyard there is more of the native forest — irrigated throughout the year. It provides an interesting contrast to the same non-irrigated trees immediately outside.
The campus was inaugurated in January 2008. Soon after, it won a prestigious international award as the “Best University/Higher Education Facility” for its “spectacular scale, innovative use of technology and for its design taking into account the location and natural flora of the region.” I’m impressed by it’s proximity and similarity in scale to some of the ruins at the archeological site of Xochicalco. Just as ancient Mesoamericans used limestone in innovative ways, the Tec de Monterrey Cuernavaca campus takes concrete to a new level of scale and creativity.
The campus was primarily designed by architect Juan Carlos Pérez. Pérez is a graduate of the Tec and it is the intent of the campus design to reflect the cutting edge technology being taught to its students. The campus is an environmental model for water use and treatment and electrical conservation.
A new student-union building houses a wonderful, glass-enclosed, new art gallery. The inaugural exhibition opened last Friday and is titled “A Family of Artists.” The artists are all Cuernavaca based and all from one nuclear family!
Paintings, drawings, and sculptures, all in the magical realist style, are executed by parents Adriano Silva Castañeda and Yolanda Quijano and their two sons Alejandro Quijano and Adriano Silva Pantoja. Magical realism, where the supernatural blends with the natural, is a term frequently associated with a genre of Latin American contemporary literature and is increasingly being applied to art — especially Latin American art.
The artists are not only members of the same family they are also all members of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana (Hall of Mexican Fine Art), established in 1949. Membership in the Salón is by invitation of their peers.
Its purpose is to expand the Mexican art market through exhibitions of fine art in two prestigious galleries in Mexico City. One of the founding ideas of the Salón was that it would be an art forum able to circumvent the large commissions charged by art gallery owners.
There are about 400 members of the Salón counting those no longer living. Membership, like the members’ art, is for life and beyond. If that figure is correct, the Silva-Quijanos represent 1 percent of the membership. I wonder is there is any other family so well represented?
Based on the prices I saw posted (everything is for sale), it seems that the Tec’s gallery, like the Salón, is not charging a commission on the pieces displayed in “A Family of Artists.” If so, it is commendable.
In these gorgeous days you might contemplate a road trip where you can combine food, marvelous sites, and fine art. Though there is a food court as well as a restaurant at the Tec de Monterrey, the courtyard of the Tec has tables just begging for a picnic basket.
“A family of Artists” will be open through March 15, Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Closed Sundays. Free admission. Located at the Tec de Monterrey adjacent to the Mexico City-Acapulco Autopista del Sol at kilometer 104.
The campus gatekeeper will point you to the art gallery. Some highway signs refer to the campus as ITESM (Instituto Tecnólogico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey). Easy off-and-on the toll road.
Since the 1994 inauguration of the modern autopista, the trip has been streamlined and now a door-to-door trip can be as fast by car as by plane. Nevertheless, most people still make the drive an event in itself. They look forward to their favorite landmark stopping places along the way — perhaps breakfast in Tres Marías and cecina for lunch at Cuatro Caminos? I used to look forward to hamburgers and ice cream cones at the dairy shop in Iguala before Iguala was bypassed by the new highway.
In addition to its many culinary attractions there are other worthy destinations along the Acapulco route. Cuernavaca, Xochicalco, Taxco, and the Grutas de Cacahuamilpa are some of the more notable. Now there’s a new place to add to the list — the Cuernavaca campus of the Tec de Monterrey (Monterrey Institute of Technology).
Though stunning from either direction, the Tec’s signature structure is most spectacular when approached from the south. Upon entering the Valley of Cuernavaca the campus rises on a rocky promontory encircled by a native deciduous forest and overlooking fields of rice, roses, and sugarcane. Its majestic, four-sided, four-story, green-glass building is framed and capped by sharp-edged concrete with an open courtyard the size of a city block at its center.
Inside the courtyard there is more of the native forest — irrigated throughout the year. It provides an interesting contrast to the same non-irrigated trees immediately outside.
The campus was inaugurated in January 2008. Soon after, it won a prestigious international award as the “Best University/Higher Education Facility” for its “spectacular scale, innovative use of technology and for its design taking into account the location and natural flora of the region.” I’m impressed by it’s proximity and similarity in scale to some of the ruins at the archeological site of Xochicalco. Just as ancient Mesoamericans used limestone in innovative ways, the Tec de Monterrey Cuernavaca campus takes concrete to a new level of scale and creativity.
The campus was primarily designed by architect Juan Carlos Pérez. Pérez is a graduate of the Tec and it is the intent of the campus design to reflect the cutting edge technology being taught to its students. The campus is an environmental model for water use and treatment and electrical conservation.
A new student-union building houses a wonderful, glass-enclosed, new art gallery. The inaugural exhibition opened last Friday and is titled “A Family of Artists.” The artists are all Cuernavaca based and all from one nuclear family!
Paintings, drawings, and sculptures, all in the magical realist style, are executed by parents Adriano Silva Castañeda and Yolanda Quijano and their two sons Alejandro Quijano and Adriano Silva Pantoja. Magical realism, where the supernatural blends with the natural, is a term frequently associated with a genre of Latin American contemporary literature and is increasingly being applied to art — especially Latin American art.
The artists are not only members of the same family they are also all members of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana (Hall of Mexican Fine Art), established in 1949. Membership in the Salón is by invitation of their peers.
Its purpose is to expand the Mexican art market through exhibitions of fine art in two prestigious galleries in Mexico City. One of the founding ideas of the Salón was that it would be an art forum able to circumvent the large commissions charged by art gallery owners.
There are about 400 members of the Salón counting those no longer living. Membership, like the members’ art, is for life and beyond. If that figure is correct, the Silva-Quijanos represent 1 percent of the membership. I wonder is there is any other family so well represented?
Based on the prices I saw posted (everything is for sale), it seems that the Tec’s gallery, like the Salón, is not charging a commission on the pieces displayed in “A Family of Artists.” If so, it is commendable.
In these gorgeous days you might contemplate a road trip where you can combine food, marvelous sites, and fine art. Though there is a food court as well as a restaurant at the Tec de Monterrey, the courtyard of the Tec has tables just begging for a picnic basket.
“A family of Artists” will be open through March 15, Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Closed Sundays. Free admission. Located at the Tec de Monterrey adjacent to the Mexico City-Acapulco Autopista del Sol at kilometer 104.
The campus gatekeeper will point you to the art gallery. Some highway signs refer to the campus as ITESM (Instituto Tecnólogico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey). Easy off-and-on the toll road.
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