I spent nearly a week in Ixmiquilpan, a city which actually doesn't offer that many things for tourists but there are excellent tours you can start from Ixmiquilpan. I stayed most of the time with Araceli (via Couchsurfing) who was an excellent host and two more nights with Hugo and Adriana, friends of Araceli. The main reason I came to Ixmiquilpan were the hot springs of Tolantongo, a magical place within the mountains about one hour drive from Ixmiquilpan.
The evening I arrived in Ixmiquilpan Araceli and I had a traditional Mexican dinner of the Oaxacan cuisine and for dessert chapulines (grasshoppers). They are toasted on a comal (broad flat cookware, especially to heat up tortillas) with garlic, lime juice, salt containing extract of agave worms and sometimes chili. It is common to eat them as a snack and drinking a Mezcal. Nearly every morning during my stay in Ixmiquilpan I had tamales (dish made of masa or dough which is steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf) and atole (traditional hot corn- and masa-based beverage of Mesoamerican origin) as breakfast as there was a great shop across the street.
The region of Ixmiquilpan is known for its natural hot springs which led to the fact that there are numerous recreational baths in the city. One day I visited the steam vault in the Centro Ecoturístico La Heredad. The natural temperature of the water is around 40°C which allows you to relax perfectly. As this bath was just one kilometre from Araceli's home we were walking there and her dog Payaso followed us all the way. He was waiting outside the steam vault while we were enjoing the heat for round about one hour and accompanied us back home afterwards.
One day Araceli got a visit from her former fellow student and friend Daniela, her boyfriend Andrés and their two children from Guadalajara. They passed by because they handed out their wedding invitations for the 23rd of February. We spent one whole day together in the hot water of the river, caves, tunnel and pools of Tolantongo. On the way to Tolantongo we bought some Pulque to go but since everyone assumed that someone else had already taken it with them, the pulque stayed on the counter. On the way back we got a second chance and stopped to take it with us. Back in Ixmiquilpan we finally had a late lunch. As we all got along very well Daniela and Andrés invited me also for their wedding which will take place in a little village in the south of the state of Puebla. This again shows the incredible openness and hospitality of the Mexicans. Even if or just because Araceli unfortunately cannot come to the wedding, I will accept the invitation to this celebration with great joy. I'm already excited to take part in a traditional Mexican wedding. This date doesn't interfere with my non-existent route planning, but it sets a destination a few hundred kilometres away that I intend to head for gradually over the next few weeks.
On the 2nd of February Araceli and I attended mass in the church as this day marks the religious holiday known as Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas). Throughout Mexico on this
date, people dress up figures of the Christ Child in special outfits and take them to the church to be blessed. Families also get together with family and friends to eat tamales, as a
continuation to the festivities of Three Kings' Day on January 6. February 2nd falls exactly forty days after Christmas and is celebrated by the Catholic church as the feast of
the Purification of the Virgin or alternatively, as the Presentation of the Lord at the Temple. The origin of this religious day is an ancient Jewish custom. According to Jewish law, a woman was
considered unclean for 40 days after giving birth, and it was common to bring a baby to the temple after that time had passed. So it is celebrated that Mary and Joseph would have taken Jesus to
the temple to be blessed on the 2nd of February, forty days after his birth on December 25. The mass we attended was musically framed by a Mariachi band. You can hear some of their songs in the
video below about Ixmiquilpan. After the mass was over the people were forming a procession which led to the house of this year's patrons. It is the task and honour of the patrons to provide food
and drinks as well as musical accompaniment for all guests present.
Instead of joining the lunch at the patron's place Araceli and I went back home as we were invited to a birthday party of the daugther of a friend of her's. This celebration was supposed to
start at two o'clock. We arrived at 14:20 and as it turned out, definitely too early for Mexican standards. At three o'clock the hosts finally arrived from the house and brought some drinks for
the bar. Typical for a Mexican children's birthday party there were some dozens of bottles of soft drinks and that's it. Fortunately, there was also a single bottle of water. Since Araceli and I
were the only ones who used it, that was enough. Oh by the way, around five o'clock the guests came and there was finally something to eat.
With Lorenzo, one of Araceli's brothers I went to the fields. They do have some five hectares of farmland where they cultivate all kind of vegetables and salads. We went there in a pick-up truck, which is the main form of vehicle people do have in this region. Lorenzo told me that he also likes to ride to the fields by bicycle (in contrast to most Mexicans who prefer the car instead of physical exercise even for a drive of 100 meters). Unfortunately, his bike is very old and barely functional at the moment. I helped Lorenzo to unload some concrete fence posts which he wants to set up soon to stop people from parking on their property.
I'm very grateful to Araceli and her whole family, her mother who was cooking a delicious lunch one day, her brothers who showed me around or lent me their room as well as their dogs Oso and Payaso and their two pigs. The first two nights I had the honour to sleep in a little apartment that Araceli rents out through Airbnb. As it was reserved for the following days and I decided to stay some days longer they offered me another room within the house. The last day I was spending with Araceli and Lorenzo we had a Molcajete relleno for lunch. Molcajetes are stone tools, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle, used for grinding various food products, especially to prepare salsas. This one was filled with different kind of meat and sausages as well as nopales (cactus), spring onions and chilies. In the evening we watched the final moves of the NFL Super Bowl while having a Michelada, a Mexican beer-based mixed drink with lime juice, chili-based sauces, spices and tomato juice, served in a chilled, salt-rimmed glass. Araceli and her family also taught me some words from the Otomi, an indigenous language still spoken in the central altiplano region of Mexico.
One night I went out with Araceli to a bar where we danced Cumbia (my first time!) and she introduced me to her friend Adriana. As a consequence Adriana's boyfriend Hugo invited me to join a horse race with him and his friends. The horse race was going to take place in the race track "El Cuervo" near Cadereyta de Montes in the state of Querétaro. As this was close to my next destination anyway I didn't hesitate long and went with them. However, my actual plan to continue directly from there taking a bus/ride to the capital Santiago de Querétaro didn't go well but I returned with the lucky winners to Ixmiquilpan. Adriana and Hugo invited me to stay with them and continue my journey the next day. Hugo and his friends were by far the most chaotic (but very funny) Mexicans I met and spent some time with.
The next day I postponed my departure from Ixmiquilpan another time and stayed one day longer as I was invited at a little birthday party with the family of Hugo in the afternoon/evening. During the day I went with Hugo's friend Moi to a smaller town about an hour and a half away by car to buy a truck. This old Ford with the year of construction 1951 wasn't fully functional anymore. So it came that we exchanged the starter battery three times, then we had to find out that a hose was leaking and when that was finally fixed, there was a new leak. So we were busy the whole afternoon repairing the truck, but in the end we couldn't take it with us.
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