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topes


Topes, these are the méxican speedbumps. Not “tope” that is singular and this would be senseless. “Topes” they are called and that has its reason. They always come in pairs. Before and after each crossing, – even at traffic lights, – before and after any possibility, where pedestrians could cross, before and after each bus stop. Several times before each entry into the city and, of course, several times at the exit. They occur in the city every 300feet at the latest and certainly also in between. We speak here of méxican styled topes, with non-consideration it lifts off your car and / or the axes are missing.

Topes, the thrill for the acceleration between. 

tamul


After the heavy rainfall of the last days, the waterfall of tamul should deliver impressive amount of water. There is a possibility to get to the base of the waterfall by canoes, but the currents were too dangerous, all the canoes were moored on the shore. Carlos Jesus, a friendly mexican guy, offered us a lift to the falls, together with his friends. As he told, the way tot he falls was unsuitable for our big truck. After several kilometers and a strenuous hike we were there. The turquoise water falls 315 feet vertically into another, tearing and muddy colored river. Impressively.

Thanks to carlos, for that wonderful trip and day and by the way: he was right, we couldn´t have passed the path with our rig.

edward james


The eccentric multimillionaire, offspring of wealthy scottish parents, was born in 1907. He was wellknown in the english nobility and was friend with surrealist artists such as dali and magritte. In 1947 he came to méxico and wanted to create his garden eden. In the mexican rainforest, 5 km east of the locality xilitla, he bought a piece of rainforest and planted numerous orchid plants, but all of them froze in a cold period in 1962. There upon he decided to immortalize the orchids in concrete as a scupture garden. With the help of innumerable construction workers, mostly resident otomí-idians, edward james built a fantasy garden which extends arbitrarily into the jungle without a recognizable system. Out of the 36 curious buildings, only one is habitable and many are or have not been completed. The eccentric principal , nicknamed by the mexicans as “the crazy englishman”, almost poured his conplete assets in conrete. He died in 1984 and probably hasn´t been able to enjoy the freedom in his garden eden, instead he instructed the construction workers for more than 20 years. To concrete was the goal.

drive to xilitla

tourist view ... ... often the reality!

We drove through the sierra madre oriental mountains to the rain forest area of the gulf of mexico. In a rain forest it has to rain and so we had pouring rain the whole day. We needed almost 8 hours for just 250 km , because there were curve after curve and countless topes (more about topes in an upcoming blog contribution). the biggest challenge instead was to keep the roof windows on the roof of our atego. Soaked with rain the braches hung in the roadway …

Expression of deeply mexican religiousness is to be seen just everywhere, numerous omini-chapels fringed the way.

 

tula


Tula was the capital of the toltecs and as teotihuacán (see blog contribution: https://blog.guthier.com/?p=2512&lang=en ) it was also probably destroyed by its builders. By the way, the presentation of the columns on the restored tlahuizcalpantecuhtli pyramid has been done by the archaeologist and does not correspond to the historical circumstances. 

You will get more information here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tula_(Mesoamerican_site)

pépe´s rv park


… on the tour again … after 3 1/2 month we picked up our truck at pépe´s rv park where it was stored.

co_works exhibition houston