After spending some months around South America, we made our way to Mexico for a month-long trip around the country to perform and carry out small artistic collaborations.

A quick initial stop in Mexico City allowed us to try our first Mexican food: Taquería La Tapatía was our introduction, and what a memorable one! Tacos, flautas with consome, agua de horchata y jamaica. But our touristing did not last for long as our first Mexican bus was ready to take us to the North: on a route that crossed swampy unexpected landscapes, we were driven to Morelia. We got to see a couple of exhibitions in town, such as at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Alfredo Zalcegave, and we also enjoyed paletas at the local chain La Michoacana. But the real reason we went to Morelia was to perform at the CMMAS centre for electronic music. Our host Tonalli introduced us to the fantastic things they are developing there.

Morelia is definitely a place that we would love to visit again, maybe even on the occasion of CMMAS’ music festival; but this time around we had to head back to Mexico City for a concert at the Vernacular Institute. Our performance day was inaugurated in a special way by a wonderful old friend from our time in Shanghai, Jaime, who cooked us an incredible breakfast including chilaquiles. Jaime also took care of the after concert party, including teaching us a lot about mezcal and its production (and consumption). One final stop in the city was represented by the incredible wonderland of Pasteleria Ideal.

Some fantastic photos from our Vernacular Institute concert were captured by Cristina Medellín. The courtyard of the venue is truly beautiful!

Soon it was time to fly to Mérida, where our host Tiffany picked us up and drove us toward Chuburná, for our residency at Casa Ocea! This peninsula has mainly grown into a tight and friendly community of expats. Our residency week was mainly spent organizing our final performance event, and for this we set up a little collaboration with a couple of local artisans, commissioning them to create giant marimba bars from local stone and wood. Both of our collaborators were extremely excited about the novelty of the strange task.

A highlight of our time there was a visit to the Fundación Javier Marín, that includes the studio of the homonymous Mexican artist and a pottery workshop he developed for the local community, called Barro de Sac Chich. Apparently they give great New Year’s parties there! We only enjoyed a fantastic lunch instead, that included cochinita pibil, a sort of ground barbecue very famously from Yucatan. We also had the chance to discover a little bit more of the archaeological sites, cenotes, and more after we picked up a car in Merida.

The next improvised stop was the only one in our entire tour where we went even if we had no musical commitments there, but we had heard so much about it that we couldn’t suppress our curiosity: San Juan de Cholula. We first took the bus to San Cristobal de las Casas, the we continued onward in a crowded small bus. As soon as we arrived we found ourselves following a large parade of men wearing their traditional white skin fleece jacket heading who knows where. It turned out that they had some festivities going on in the building next to the famous white and green church: they were ceremoniously undressing some statues of religious icons each adorned with dozens of garments. This went on for probably 40 minutes, while chanting and instrument playing went on in the background. There was also plenty of incense, and a lot of alcohol being drunk. This drink is called posh and is a cane-sugar liquor. Of course we also entered the famous church where, with pine needles and candle wax all over the floor, live chickens are being sacrificed. As we understood it, local curanderos prescribe remedies to church goers’ afflictions in the form of candles, herbs and flowers, or chickens, which are then used in ceremonies. Definitely one of the stranger places we’ve ever been!

The next bus took us to Oaxaca where our friend Jaime came to pick us up to bring us to Teotitlán del Valle, the small village where he had organized a concert for us through the local contact of his friend Beto, who is apparently well connected to the cultural house of the community. Beto also runs a wonderfully successful weaving company / collective called Taller8. The lunch we had all together at the local market included fantastic garnache, chocolate, and chapulines! The cultural life of the whole Oaxacan area is strongly devoted to the figure of the late Francisco Toledo, and we repeatedly found references to his work and persona. Back in the Oaxaca city centre, we mainly spent our time eating everything we could: tlayuda, menudo, huitlacoche. Other food we tried, worth mentioning: esquite, pipian, aguachile, gorditas de nata, pulque, pozole.

One of the main goals we had was to visit the ceramic studio of Hernan / Barro Madre, who created beautiful water flutes of every kind and other ceramic instruments making sounds.

Our next stop was Puebla. There, our hosts at Casa Olinka were great at taking care of us: immediately the señora de la casa cooked for us un unforgettable mole, and Alfredo her son helped us make our concert a great success. But the real stars of our Pueblan adventure are Agnija and Nereo, who organized 150% of it, and shared the stage with us performing their sound and visual set mainly using… a bicycle!

The day after the first concert the incredible Agnija took the time to give us the most outstanding tour of the city that anybody could ever imagine, ranging from historical secret locations (like the communal laundry hall), to sanctuaries of craft knowledge (ceramic and glass), from food markets (cemita) to her four favorite bars (our favorite one being La Pasita, because it reminded a lot of our Portuguese ginjinha adventure).

A small interlude took us to the nearby town of San Andres de Cholula where we got to perform at the independent space called Proyecto Táctica. The crazy manager there, Rodrigo, was so nice that he gave up his bedroom for us and preferred go camping in the garden. The town is particularly famous for being continuously inhabited for a long time, and for having a church built on top of a pyramid. Our new friend drove us a little out of town toward the amazing volcano Popocatépetl, which could go off at any time - there we got to hike together among cactus fields. Back in town, we had lunch at the Mercado municipal San Pedro Cholula with special tacos that also included nopales.

Two were the last two appointments of our whole tour: a concert at MUSA in Puebla, and an evening out at the stage of lucha libre. One last glass of yolixpa, made in the very village of our friend Nereo, and we were off, finally on a flight taking us back to Europe, after four months of non-stop touring!