paisajes, flowers, and quiotes, oh my!

Instead of sticking them in amongst the other posts, I decided to put most of my favorite plant& landscape (paisajes) fotos in their own post. Notwithstanding the fotos of the plants in the jardin of the ex-convento Yanhuitlán. See captions for any details, but I don't generally know any of the species names or anything like that, ja!

paisaje of the cerros (hills) that surround Teposcolula. Oaxaca has the very.best.clouds ever. (and really- many of the groups here in Oaxaca, their names for themselves as a people translate to "people of the clouds" ... or "people of the rain" as is the case for Nuu Savi/Mixteca people whose region this is.)

upclose on some cactus flowers and pollinator/visitor, Teposcolula

oh the colors and textures!!! and an unknown bird flying by (I think it might be a woodpecker?)

lots and lots of visitors all at this one flower at one time. Thalia spent her time while I was taking this foto, admonishing them to SHARE the pollen. I love her. I love pollinators. I love taking fotos. It was a fairly perfect moment.

this B&W foto is of a succulent's inflorescence that have a beautiful pink purple color. But I liked the play of shadows and light on this particular plant's inflorescences. And I'm trying to see more fotos in B&W lately- purposefully taking fotos with the all along intention of converting them into black & white. It doesn't always pan out, but it's a practice. One I started with the new year, for what that is worth (I don't really do New Years Resolutions but yeah).

Here's Eric with the giant agave and its quiote we ran across in Yucunuma. We are mildly obsessed with agaves. Well, maybe just Eric and me, Thalia generally just rolls her eyes at us.

another foto I planned for as B&W-- this one worked reallllly well. I'm especially pleased with the crisp texture of the agricultural fields and the mistiness of the morning mountains. I was inspired by a photo of Oaxacan mountains taken by a photographer I follow on la insta that I thought was so sublime. Teposcolula.

sublime quiotes silhouetted against a ridiculous lovely cloudy sky

Here's another, rather exuberantly flowering, individual of the succulent I posted above in B&W. See what I mean about the color? It's pretty amazing.

Our first evening we were treated to a pretty great sunset, here with some of the trees of the plaza of Teposcolula.

the rather scrubby hills in between Yucunuma & Teposcolula- before the pine forests begin

another cactus from the jardin at Yanhuitlán

This paisaje has the church at Teposcolula in it, but whatevs. I liked the fotos too much to not include it here.

I was not very successful in catching how the light reflects off the needles of the pine trees that grow all over the mountainsides between the villages of Teposcolula, Yanhuitlán, and Yucunuma. But this is as close as I got.

On our way home to Oaxaca de Juárez, I made us stop to take fotos a couple of times, once in the town this foto is set in/outside of, San Juan Teposcolula.

And then we stopped again so I could get some shots of the part of the mountains between Teposcolula & Yanhuitlán where the soil goes all deep red. Such a soft sky here.

Hill of Soap: Yucunuma

At the last minute, I decided we should visit the pueblo of Yucunuma, located nearby to Teposcolula. This is a relatively isolated town, reached now only by dirt road, and a pueblo that the Spaniards *never lived in* --- you know that made me wanna go! Ja. We found a taxi driver who would take us there and then wait for us to take us back to Teposcolula. (which is a good thing, there are only about 250 people who live there and the vast majority were asleep I think). We had been told that when we got there we should ask in the palacio municipal for a guide who would let us into the community museum. When we got there, the main plaza was devoid of people and at the Palacio Municipal, there were two teenagers and a dog in the portico and one lone guy in the office. This guy promised to call the guide, one Lazaro Cardenas Chavez. Having secured his promise, I wandered back outside to join Eric and Thalia in their explorations of the plaza. A moment or so later, I heard the guy over the town PA system, paging Lazaro to come to the palacio municipal!!! Literally just paging him over the airways. We had heard this sort of thing in Teposcolula but it was all town notices-- if you want to sign your kids up for catechism class, there's a meeting, etc. This was just like instead of using the phone. It was awesome. And it worked, Lazaro ambled along in five or ten minutes. Anyway, that was just a little side story. But it does give you a sense of how small the town is.

Here's some fotos of the main plaza and surrounding buildings. Here the church and the palacio municipal are...examples of porfiriato!

Yucunama's palacio municipal

the church, through a few of the trees & plantings of the town plaza

there was a very large kiosko in the middle of the plaza. Thalia liked it for dancing/practicing her pirouettes...I liked it as a framing device. We all have our (all-consuming) hobbies...

the campo started pretty quick here in Yucunuma or...who needs a cochera anyway?!

Lazaro, whose page had awakened him from a nap (he'd been working much of the night...or working & then drinking, based on how he smelled), took us on a tour of the museum (no fotos of that as the light was very low and Lazaro talks fast but it was cool little community museum) and then the rest of the town, including all of its significant sights and places.

most of the people in Yucunuma are farmers - so agricultural fields surround the town. Right now it is the season of harvesting the dried maize stalks (the corn already having been harvested), this to be used as food for livestock for the rest of the year

Lazaro explained that this work happens at night/early morning because it's cool then and if they tried to do it in the heat of the day, it would all turn to dust. Here are the corn stalks all piled up.

We ran across this HUGE agave plant with a very cool-looking quiote

Yucunuma has its own giant ahuehuete tree - this one at least a thousand years old. Here's Thalia, Eric and Lazaro walking towards the tree. There is a spring at the tree (one of three springs in Yucunuma-- which is rather unusual, none of the other ancient or colonial settlements have springs) which keeps the tree healthy as ahuehuetes are really swamp trees

Eric and Thalia at the site of another of the town's springs, at this one they have always traditionally had lavaderos-- laundry sinks, using the water and the soap from the root of the nama'amole plant...in fact, this is the source of the name of the pueblo: in Mixteco, Yuca for "hill" and Numa for soap or the plant (sources vary).

local horses also came to drink from a trough at the same spring site

Thalia got to pet the foal! <3

Ex-Conventos II: Yanhuitlán

About half an hour away* from Teposcolula over the mountais is the ex-convento of Yanhuitlán. Formally known as Sto Domingo de Guzman Yanhuitlán, it just gets called Yanhuitlán, especially by those of us from Oaxaca de Juárez where we have our own Sto Domingo (de Guzman). This ex-convento has had even more extensive restoration than that of the ex-convento at Teposcolula and the museum is much more extensive, including copies of some beautiful codices of the Ñuu Dzahui (ancient Mixteca culture). The land immediately around the church and ex-convento is also more landscaped with native plants-- yay!!! for me!!!

(*depending on how fast your driver goes on the mountainous, very windey, narrow, somewhat rutted and sometimes just plain old washed out road). We've gone relatively slowly with a driver who is clearly told not to scare the Americans or wreck his very nice car fully equipped with all the safety features to a one-eyed taxi driver and the driver of a collectivo van who both drove like the demons of hell were after them. Seat belts?! Who needs seat belts?? Good fun! Seat belts?! Who needs seat belts...)

The church of Yanhuitlán is, as I have mentioned elsewhere, one of the tallest if not the tallest churches in Mexico. Because Yanhuitlán is situated in a valley/plain Yanhuitlán is visible from quite far away. The town itself is relatively small and the main plaza/centro is located lower than the church & ex-convento so there really is nothing to block one's view of the church for miles and miles.

the church with Thalia for scale

looking up the belltower (this is from a terraza in the ex-convento so not from ground level, even)

In my opinion, the interior of Yanhuitlán is quite a bit prettier than Teposcolula's so I've got more fotos of it. The vaulted roof is so high it's actually quite difficult to capture on "film" but I gave it a try...

the interior altar, the retablo was designed/made by some famous Spanish retablo artist

Another view, looking towards the entrance of the church

and looking waaaay UP! at the vaulting of the roof

maybe my favorite bit of the interior of the church

beautifully painted/restored; lots of Mixteca symbols

On to the Ex-Convento now...here's the lower level cloisters. I always think it's amusing-- that aspect of ex-conventos that includes niches empty of their (presumably) santos...

view of the cloisters from across the courtyard. I think the upper level has been entirely reconstructed...or at least quite extensively. I think it's still quite stunning, although this is not a universal opinion.

Upper level of cloisters. Such beautiful light and shadows!!!

I loooooved the design in the courtyard, created from stones. As far as I can tell, it is the crest of the Dominicans.

A rather unexpected place arches were used here: the latrines. There were SIXTEEN toilets, four on each side of a giant middle block in a cavernous, well-ventilated chamber. Did all the friars have to go to the bathroom at the same time?! Here, Eric demonstrates sitting on the can. All rather hilarious. Thalia was quite horrified: "everyone would have been able to SEE you if you were on the toilet!"

One of my favorite things about Ex-Convento Yanhuitlán is all the windows that have beautiful views (this plus next two fotos are some examples)

who needs santos is what I say...

door/window to a terraza

lots and lots of cactus and agaves (many/most with quiote, what the flowering stalk is called in Mexico)

Thalia points out the cute cactus bud

couldn't resist the late afternoon light on these cactuses!!!

Scene of the garden, looking out towards the cerros (hills)-- note very red soil on this side of the valley

okay, this will be on my fotos la sirena insta, and also: botany nerd alert! But these are bulbils or bulbillos on the quiote of an agave. I'd heard of these and thought that they were seeds that sometimes germinate in the fruit. But in fact, the are vegetative reproductive shoots that grow out of the axils of the pedicels on the quiotes of some spp of aave e. It turns out that seed viability in some agave spp is quite low and seedling survival rates are terrible and so reproduction by bulbillos is more sucessful that via seed. AND there's some evidence that Nahua traders moved bulbillos as far north as area now known as Arizona. According to gardeners, bulbillos are far easier to propogate than using seeds. Agave life histories are super amazing and cool and plants are the best.

Ex-Conventos I: Teposcolula

I'll *start* this post with the history and then just lots of eye-candy!

If you are un-familiar with Mexican history, you might be confused about all the "ex-conventos" that I refer to at times. To understand this term, you have to know about La Reforma. Very brief overview: In the mid to late 1850s a liberal government (with significant input by minister of justice and Zapotec Oaxaqueño Benito Juárez) decided to significantly reform Mexico's political and religious structures, taking away the substantial power of the church by forcing the sale without compensation of church properties  not directly used for worship and drafting a new, federalist constitution (aside: I'm waiting for the Mexicano version of Lin-Manuel to make "Juárez"). Naturally, conservative forces including those within the church, military, and landowner were not thrilled and so precipitated a civil war- la Guerra de La Reforma. The liberal forces won and so church properties were confiscated, monasteries abolished, cemeteries were nationalized, and civil marriage instituted. Overall, and in the end, the land policy of the Reforma was largely a failure- the confiscated land which was supposed to be given to the landless ended up in the hands of wealthy landowners and regular people were more impoverished than before. However, this is why the country is littered with places known as "Ex-Conventos:- these are the land and buildings that were once monasteries but were forced out of existence by the laws of the Reforma. In Oaxaca, these monasteries were all Dominican and associated with the various large number of churches the Dominicans built during the colonial era. Some ex-conventos buildings were significantly altered and repurposed for housing (like the San Pablo ex-convento in Oaxaca de Juárez), but many were left to ruin. Such seems to be the case for the ex-convento de San Pedro y San Pablo Teposcolula, the subject of this post, along with its associated church and chapel (Capilla Abierta). This ex-convento has been restored and converted to a small museum that mostly features some paintings of the life of Santo Domingo and a beautiful refractory.

San Pedro y San Pablo Teposcolula, Capilla abierta to left of church (and foreground)and ex-convento to the right

with Thalia and Eric for scale...

this and following two fotos: the lovely cloisters of the Ex-Convento de Teposcolula

examples of the Mixteca flower imagery

found in the ex-convento (and church)

the restored, painted arches of the refractory of the Ex-Convento de Teposcolula

 The Capilla Abierta has also been restored and is a thing of great beauty and inspires quite a bit of awe even in modern eyes. This capilla was constructed as an open-air structure in order to accommodate the up to 10,000 indigenous converts the Dominicans thought they might have here. I'm not sure if it is still used for worship- there is a modern altar with uncomfortable looking stone chair for the priests so maybe?

this and next three fotos: views from within the Capilla Abierta

view from outside the structure-y of the Capilla Abierta (since the entire open-air atrium is technically part of the capilla...)

The actual church, with its single bell-tower, is rather dwarfed by the ex-convento and the capilla abierta, but here's some fotos of it anyway...

dome of the church as seen from the ex-convento

interior & at the top of the dome pictured above: this rosette done in a Mixteca style

for me, the most striking aspects of the interior of the church: the dome rosette above and this, the organ with its gleaming gold case and elaborately painted underbits