MEXICAN  MEMORIES

                                            Ric Polansky  ©

Not all the pictures I wanted to take could be shot. Sometimes I travelled just too fast (and in the wrong direction)  and with too many predetermined stops. Life can trick you that way, especially when you get too focused on one goal. Or in my case, too concerned with the past to realize which direction the future is already moving.

 Mexico City is easy to find, fly south and before too long it is below you, for hours, palm thatched huts lacking water, electricity and sanitation gradually give way to buildings with roofs surrounded by a maze of dirt roads that ebb and then leak into an earthen colored  asphalt which in turn grows into low rise apartments done in dry brick in the shadow of taller and menacing concrete structures.  A place where you can fly over for hours before landing.

 MEXICO has long been the ugly step sister of Cinderella America, shunned Princess bride lacking cleanliness and prosperity; full of beggars and crowded life-styles.  

That too is changing thanks to the Cancun dream that has taken hundreds of miles of swamp land and converted it into a pleasure playground.. Now tourism plays an important economic role in the blossoming growth.

Yet, think of any topic however rare or mystifying from art to zoology – Mexico has it.   How Mexico became to be interesting to me was the Olmec culture. In the blink of an eye the Olmec culture was born building massive earthen works, possessing gods, cultural beliefs, a love for jade and an intricate system of counting.

At first it was speculated they were an off shot of the Mayan’s but then carbon dating confirmed they were about as long ago as  2200 BC., and in fact were the “mother culture” of Mexico. Relics of their past existence have perplexed archaeologists’  for hundreds of years. Negroid heads of a giant size found in the deep swamp jungles near Villahermosa, Caribbean side.

The carvings were  too big to be ignored and thousands of theories have been written, discussed, but none make any true sense yet. Stone head statues of probably visitors to Mexico, certainly NOT indigenous to the area. Here is another, a turbaned Arab fighting a shark.  

Here then is basically where they roamed, the gulf coast civilizations that expended into the Zapotek’s, Mixtec’s, Mayan who too intermingled with the Toltec’s.   

The mysterious rulers of the PLACE OF THE GODS,  Teotihuacan just disappeared. They had ruled some 1000 years in harmony. Look carefully at this picture of the temple then the background mountains.

Here then was born the riddle of Quetzalcoatl, the bearded robed white man that came ashore full of kindness, new charitable rules and culture in a place called Tulan. But soon dark forces ran him out and the Atlantans are all that survived.    

These Toltec´s conquered the Mayan states in far off Honduras and Tikal as early as 500 AD and almost by accident left their masterpiece of construction at Chichen Itza when the Itza too retired back into the jungles of Guatemala. 

Then of course came the Spaniards. They landed in this very bay (and it is here also where Cortez burnt his boats to insure his men would conquer and never retreat. 

And here is what remains of his first house. 

And here is the first Church ever built in the America’s.

 And here is…. Well take a look at the pictures and see for yourself!  

If you can’t visit the country have a look at my web site. It has lots of fun shots and many free fotos and posters just for the downloading.

www.ric-polansky.com