Eight men in a bus. Tuesday 17th September

Breakfast is scheduled for 9.00 so I manage 20 lengths of the pool to help wake up. A hearty breakfast is called for because we're teeing off at 10.30 and hence won't get the chance of any lunch.

The swimming pool a little later in the day.

Adjacent to the pool is this large jacuzzi. 

So here we are on the first tee of the Kigbeare course. This is the most demanding of the seven courses available. Today we're playing better ball stableford and first are Keith and me, playing against Bill and Mick.

The first hole is a downhill run of about 400 yards. The only thing that you really don't want to do is hit right into the tree line, which is exactly where my ball is going. 

Bill's however was dead straight. 

A nice picture of Mick with a tee rather than a fag between his fingers. Below Mick going about his business, as it were. 

Look for the eighth man in the mirror. After the round the winners are announced and it's.......Chris (again) and Graham, by a point from Bill and Mick. Keith and I took bronze, a further point behind. 

This place has something for everyone, so here's a pictorial tour of a few of the facilities. 

One of the several rooms dedicated to crafts. The whole gamut from necromancy to pyrography is covered. 

The pottery studio. 

About a dozen snooker tables. 

Not forgetting the bowling rink. 

That's yer lot for today. 

Eight men in a bus. Monday 16th September

6am, McDonald's car park and rendezvous time with Shep and the bus. Rather appropriate really "The Lord's my shepherd, I shall not walk......." but Shep will be the first one to tell me he doesn't spell his name like that. He probably won't be the first one to tell me I'm misquoting the 23 Psalm. I think it's Old Trafford rather than quiet waters that he is led to, but there are always the pastures green for him.

Time to take the register.

     Bakewell  Andy            /
     Duce          Nigel            /
     Exton       Bill                 /
     Morris       Graham       /
     Pickett       Chris            /
     Pickett       Mick             /
     Sheppard  Keith            /
     Ward         Jason            /
     Montmorency               Absent

Our destination is the Ashbury Hotel, Fowley Cross, near Okehampton Devon. EX20 4NA. According to the sat nav, from Boston this will take 5 hours 2 minutes without stopping and is a total distance of 287 miles. I reckon with a fair wind and clear waters we should make it by 1pm.

At first sight there's no chance of fitting another four sets of clubs, four cases and four people on board. However we eventually squeeze in quite cosily.

 Here we are on the Stamford to Corby road. I think the lorry in front of us is also heading to Okehampton.

Why do the naughty boys always occupy the back seat?

Second stop, the famous Gloucester services. Why famous, you ask, well firstly for the architecture. The whole complex virtually disappears into the landscape, despite the glaring signage on the tarmac. Inside it's bright, clean and airy. Very different from the usual motorway offering. Secondly it is home to one of the best farm shops in the UK, making it the only services in the UK that people go out of their way to visit.

Third brief stop at the Exeter services. Now I don't claim to be an aficionado of motorway services but this one is as bad as Gloucester was good. Visually intrusive, with a facade dominated by advertising. The interior is no better. To get to the toilet facilities there is a circuitous route march past every franchise, a bit like some airports divert passengers through the duty free. Not many points for the Exeter services I'm afraid.
Finally arrived at 1.32pm. Here's an overview of what is on offer. This afternoon we will play the Pines course. This is a grownup course with slopey fairways and plenty of chances to get into trouble. Were we able to see them, I am sure that the views would have been fabulous. However we did see a lot of Devonian clouds and not a little rain. It means that you will have to wait until tomorrow's blog to see the much  vaunted vistas.

We are billeted in Moorview which is the brown block just to the right of the centre shiny lights.
And this is Bill and my room. In case anyone is remotely concerned, the single bed is mine.

What single bed, I hear you ask, well if you look in the mirror it's clearly visible in the left hand corner. 

Utilitarian is how I would describe the accommodation, nevertheless it's comfortable enough with plenty of storage space. There wasn't much time between finishing the golf and our evening meal, just a quick shower and change.  

There are five dining rooms with the food available from a central serving station. Basically you could eat as much as you liked. I had three courses, assiette de viandes followed by hake in parsley and lemon butter sauce with three veg and sauteed potatoes. Apple crumble and custard sweetened the last course. For mass catering the standard was excellent. 

Prizes went for first, second and third places determined by the stableford scoring system.  Chris Pickett 40 pts Keith Sheppard 31 pts Nigel Duce 27 pts.

After a long and tiring day, everyone was in bed by 10.30, except me who is still writing this. So it's good night from me.

Mexico City and beyond 11th Feb

Last evening in the city and we have tickets for the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico. To be frank we really bought the tickets because we were advised that it was the only way to see the wonderful auditorium of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in action, moreover with ballet, the language it was performed in was irrelevant.
As the show started at 8 o'clock, we headed back to the Sanborn restaurant (you remember, the merchant's  house covered in the blue tiles) which was only a stone's throw away from the theatre.

You can see the audience gathering outside the entrance as we crossed the road to join them. It turns out that the title is something of a misnomer as the show is a series of song and dance numbers reflecting the history and regional traditions of the country from pre Hispanic times to the present day. It is not a ballet as we would understand it. To give you the full flavour of the show let me quote from one of the thousands of reviews that appear on the TripAdvisor website.

"WOW would be the first word! Exhilarating, Entrancing, Exciting, Enthralling, Exhuberant, and Entertaining would be only a few of the E words one could use for this incredibly talented group of Entertainers!  ....the dancers, the musicians, the costumes, the choreography, the music, the colours, the history told, and, of course the stunning Bellas Artes, this is a MUST do. If you do not do anything else during your stay in beautiful Mexico City, take in a performance. Every Wednesday and Sunday.........Enjoy!"

Not quite my literary style, but the sentiments are spot on. I agree with every word. Now, at a thousand words a go, some pictures. Here we are looking at the proscenium arch and safety curtain. Note the stained glass in the proscenium arch which depicts scenes from the national history and the the stunning colours in the glass of the safety curtain. This view also lets you see what it's like sitting "in the gods". You can see how elevated the view is if you look down into the boxes.

This is the huge chandelier that is part of the ceiling rather than suspended from it. Shades of Tiffany if you will forgive the pun.

This shot was taken with a zoom in order to give some details to the characters on stage. The huge puppet was played by a person on stilts and stood at least 15 feet tall. The musicians are standing stage left.

There are 45 male dancers on stage in the picture below. There's an equal number of women and if you include the musicians there must be at least 120 front of stage performers in the show.

The still camera can still betray those little gaps in synchronicity.

The whole theatre was put to good use. Here you can see the chorus using the boxes.

All in all a really entertaining and enjoyable show .

We  now have one day left in Mexico City before we fly back to the UK this evening. There is one more must do visit to make and that is Mexico's Machu Picchu equivalent. I am speaking of Teotihuacan. You can buy a tailor made day tour at considerable expense or take one of the public buses marked Pyramids for not a lot. We were tipped off that hiring a taxi for the day was the ideal compromise, being not too pricey but giving us complete flexibility and the trip to the airport built in. So we made our way to Teotihuacan pronounced Teo ti wakan. Try it, four syllables, Teo ti wak an. Got it? Well done. Most visitors blithely assume the city is Aztec in origin, but it is much older and built by an entirely different civilization.
It is situated about 45km north west of modern Mexico City. Founded around 100 BCE with major monuments being continuously constructed until 250 CE. At its zenith in the first half of the first millennium CE it was the largest city in the pre Columbian Americas and at least the 6th largest city in the world at the time. It was systematically sacked and burned around 550 CE but may have survived until sometime between the C7th and C8th CE.
What you can see below is the most prominent structure which is called the Pyramid of the Sun.

Most visitors try to ascend this, no mean feat with temperatures in the mid 30s Celcius. Some however make it a group thing, witness the group in white. We haven't a clue what the glue of this group was, but they were certainly creating an event.

This is a view from the middle of the Avenue of the Dead looking towards the Pyramid of the Moon. These names were given by the Aztecs who discovered the ruins hundreds of years after they had been abandoned. Hence the names are neither in historical context or descriptive of function. For example they mistook the buildings lining the road as tombs, hence the name. In fact they were dwellings for many multiethnic people, possibly the first examples of apartment buildings. Notice too how the shape of the pyramid echoes the surrounding topography. The same is the case in all the very large structures. Not only are we standing in the middle of a World Heritage Site but also in the world's first grid plan city which had a population of between 150 and 250 thousand people.

This is the view from half way up the Pyramid of the Sun looking back towards the Avenue of the Dead and some of the buildings along it. Not only were the exteriors coloured a deep red but many interiors retain original brightly coloured murals.

Here we have reached the top of the Pyramid of the Sun. Out of shot to the left is the Pyramid of the Temple of the Feathered Serpent. More Aztec fanciful nomenclature.
There don't appear ever to have been any defensive fortifications, suggesting the lack of any external threat and supporting the theory of cooperative multiethnic living.

Finally a zoom photograph of the Pyramid of the Moon from the top of the aforementioned Sun. Why this large sophisticated community ceased to exist after 900 years is an enigma. But the destruction and burning of the the largest buildings owned by the ruling and wealthy class points to internal dissent. This may have been brought about by famine caused by climate change as a result of volcanic activity. Maybe there is an important message here for us all today.

Talking of climate, here is one of the bald Mexican dogs that have evolved their own way of coping with the heat. An important message to us senior citizens, go bald and sleep.

Finally I would like to give you some impression of suburban Mexico City. It is a real sprawl of low rise concrete block buildings. They are crudely constructed and reek of poverty but the use of bright emulsion paint enlivens the vista and lifts the spirits.

So goodbye Mexico, we would love to come back and see some more of your wonders. You have left us with fine memories but you have titillated us for more. 

Mexico City 9th February Street life

The plan today is to return to the historic centre retracing our steps of yesterday for a closer look at various things followed by a trip on the Turibus to see some of the sights outside the centre.
The pictures below are taken in Zocalo, you remember the huge public square in the historic centre. The ceremony that is being performed is called limpia or cleansing and is supposed to bring balance back to the body and spirit.  It is an Aztec blessing that involves burning copal,  a type of incense derived from a resinous pine tree. The ubiquitous smell is very distinctive. The feedback on TripAdvisor from the punters is suprisingly positive,  but I suppose if you have paid your money.........

The incense seems to work particularly well for the armpits. Whilst we are in the square,  one or two facts may be of interest. In the centre of the square stands a giant flagpole from which the National Flag flies during the daytime. At 6am and 6pm there is a ceremonial raising and lowering of the Flag. This is a formal military affair much like the changing of the Guard in many countries. It's well worth googling the event as it is very impressive. It takes a team of over 20 soldiers with white gloves to handle the flag with great respect and store it in the National Palace until it is brought out to be raised the next day.

The whole of the centre of the city is kept very clean by many teams of cleaners such as you can see below. 

Other people who make their living on the streets include the once much loved union of organ grinders. These people have been a regular feature on the streets since the latter part of the C19. Originally from Germany, as their organs proclaim, the job has been handed down from father to son (or daughter) over the decades. Here you can see Helen tipping one with his wife, also in the uniform standing nearby. They are no longer so popular as they have to compete with the human statues, super heroes, etc. Moreover their organs are not what they once were. 

This picture is in fact of a street recycling operative. He goes from dustbin to dustbin looking for goods to recycle for his own profit.  The various plastic sacks are held by a band around his forehead. Each sack contains a different type of recycling item. He has just dropped a plastic water bottle into the black sack on his right shoulder. A truly green scavenger who works extremely hard for the pittance that he earns. 

We walked on up the pedestrianised shopping street called Madero Ave. All the big names were on display as you would expect. There were also traders working the street selling various trinkets from blankets. At some stage a signal  must have been given because within 15 seconds they had all disappeared. They simply lifted each corner of the blanket and melted away.  I noticed a large number sought sanctuary in the old Franciscan priory grounds. Like sunshine after a shower they were all back out again in a few minutes. 

We then cut across to a square that we had visited yesterday, following our ears really because there was a loud percussive band playing. We unknowingly had encountered a choncheros. 

This is a ritual dance that has been passed down the centuries through many generations, as it still is today. It has religious, political and cultural origins and expressions. The roots are in pre Hispanic culture but includes Spanish and Catholic influences. This is not a display for the tourists. No money is exchanged. The participants are doing it for the pleasure and a bit like going to church. 

Look at the clothes and you will notice "Morris dancing " style bells around their ankles. These are ayoyotes or Aztec bells. They are the seeds of the ayoyotes tree and imitate the sound of rain during the dance. The Tiamanalli or offering in front of the dancing circle represents each of the four elements, earth  wind, fire and water. Below is the youngest generation playing a huehuetl, that is a drum made from a tree trunk. 

The dancers show a combination of enthusiasm and fervour. This is clearly a serious albeit enjoyable activity. 

Any readers over the age of 60 ought to recognise the logo that Helen is standing in front of. Bob Beamon's incredible leap, the Tommie Smith and John Carlos's black power salute were amongst the highlights of this hyperbolic,  high octane, high altitude event. 

The sign is the original from the games and was used in the 50 years exhibition held in Mexico City in 2018. It is now a popular photograph background in front of the Palacio de Bellas Artes. 

We had the chance to look inside the Metropolitan Cathedral. This is the Altar del Perdon in splendid gold, it stands behind the Doors of Forgiveness, the central entrance to the cathedral from the Zocalo. The doors are only opened on special occasions. Maybe forgiveness is a little thin on the ground. 

Suitable headwear was in order for the next activity which involved riding atop the open double decker bus around the city. You can see the bus level with the brim of my hat. We have come around the corner out of Zocalo and the bus takes us back past the Post office and the Palacio de Bellas Artes up to the start of Mexico City's Champs Elysees, the Paseo de la Reforma. 

Construction of the Paseo de la Reforma began in 1864 linking Zocalo with Chapultepec Castle where the Emporer Maximilian l and his wife lived. It developed into the boulevard it is today with statues and monuments along the route. It is the centre for National celebrations and political demonstrations, especially around the Angel of Independence monument. Below you can see the statue of Christopher Columbus. Not pointing to the west, but looking more like a magician pulling a veil to reveal his globe of the world. Meanwhile his four monks are recording the event in their Facebooks. 

We continued down the Paseo de la Reforma though the CBD where all the really tall buildings are including the Torre Mayor at 230 metres is currently the tallest building in town. Notice the copyhats riding the bus ahead of me. 

The bus paused for a while here as it is the nexus for several tourist routes. We are looking at the Auditorio Nacional, a 10,000 seater venue for performance and music. It has a worldwide reputation for excellence. Originally built in 1952, it was the venue for the gymnastics in the 68 Olympics and was refurbished to its present design in 1990. We stayed board and the bus headed back towards the Paseo again but first we passed the Bosque Chapultepec which is the largest city park in the Western Hemisphere. It has many attractions and was certainly very busy on the Sunday afternoon we looked in. There's a very large and popular boating lake, the medieval castle, the zoo and botanical gardens plus, of course plenty of alfresco eating opportunities. 

This is the Angel of Independence monument that I referred to earlier on and it is less than 400 metres from our hotel. It's a pretty lively place, in the short time we were there, we were to witness a mass participation cycle race and a political demonstration. Although it looks older, it was built in 1910 to celebrate the centenary of the  start of the Mexican War of Independence 

We alighted the bus at El Angel and walked back to our apartment in the San Marino hotel suites which you can see pictured below.  We had the penthouse apartment top right facing off picture right. 

We were fortunate to have a restaurant on our ground floor that served an excellent steak which we could enjoy whilst being serenaded by the band playing below.