Mexico

Mexico, land of infinite charm, strange paradox and incredible contrast, with nearly five centuries of glorious history behind it, is a great and rapidly progressing nation sometimes not altogether understood by the people of its big sister republic to the North, and by them far too little known.

Rare admixture of extreme antiquity and intense modernity, it has made almost immeasurable progressive strides during the past two decades, while at the same time stoutly clinging to its Old World atmosphere, grace and culture, and swiftly developing its enormous resources of natural wealth.

Where Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California end, Mexico begins. But at the boundary there is no barrier no barrier save that of tongue, and an imaginary line. We live in amity and harmony with our neighbor to the South, yet we have never known her well. Even by those of us who dwell along the border so very near Mexico too frequently is thought of as a land of barren mountain uplifts and desert wastes, of lean and rangy cattle, lanky sheep, and mines. Because that is the part of Mexico with which we are most familiar, the only part which any considerable number of us here in the United States have seen. In the broad wilderness expanses of the republic's northern regions, towns and settlements are widely scattered and none too large. Population is sparse, and transportation and communication are difficult at best.

That, and the accident of language, have kept us strangers to the beauty, grandeur and elegance that lie a little farther South.

We are just now coming into a full realization that at our southern doorstep spreads a tropical wonderland such as probably can be found nowhere else on Earth.

Mexico is a land of mountains, in whose clefts and recesses seems to have been concentrated the richest mineralization of the North American continent. The nation produces 40 per cent of the world's silver output, and immense quantities of copper, lead, zinc, antimony, mercury, and other metallic wealth. In addition, there are immense deposits of petroleum, particularly along the Eastern coast.Yet, agriculture and stock raising are the country's principal industries, with great tillable land masses still lying idle. Important products of the soil are corn, rice, sugar, wheat, coffee, vegetables, tobacco, cotton, cocoa and bananas. Fifty per cent of the world's supply of sisal comes from Yucatan alone. It is estimated that Mexico has 120,417,760 acres of land susceptible to cultivation, of which only about 30 million acres have thus far been broken by the plow. Grazing lands are estimated at 120,500,000 acres, and there are 44-million acres of forests, of which 25-million acres are rich in pine, spruce, cedar, mahogany, rosewood and logwood, all virtually untouched.

Nearly 65 per cent of Mexico's imports, by pre-war figures, come from the United States, while 60 per cent of her exports are sent to us. In July, 1945, nearly $2,000,000 in imports and exports passed through the border port of Nogales alone, while Northwestern Mexico's winter produce export business has reached multi-million dollar proportions and fish exports from the Gulf of California to the United States have become a great industry that constantly develops and thrives.

The accompanying color photographs, taken for Arizona Highways by Esther Henderson and Chuck Abbott of Tucson, have captured much of the splendor and grandeur, the Old World atmosphere and historic appeal that lie south of the Temperate Zone. Temples and pyramids of vanished races, and architecture of the early Spanish era, mingle with the natural beauty of the country to add to the enchantment that is Mexico.

In the central portion of the republic, situated on a lofty plateau in an oval valley at an elevation of 7,300 feet, is the capital, Mexico, D. F. With a history dating back to the year 1300, it was the seat of government of the mighty Aztec Empire. It was a great city when the tiny, struggling settlements of New York, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires were new. Cortez, who came in 1521, found there a city which to him was "the fairest city of the world," and there he set out to build a capital for New Spain which should have no equal in all Christendom. The Mexico City of today, with its elegant and graceful Old World structures of brick and tile and stone, is the product of his vision, and a living verification of the wisdom of his choice.

The Cathedral and the churches, the Castle of Chapultepec, the Paseo de la Reforma, huge markets like that of Merced; the many, many monuments honoring the nation's great men; the murals in the public buildings; the National Pawn Shop all of these are but a portion of the beauty and the contrasts and the greatness that is Mexico. The Cathedral of Mexico City, pictured herewith, occupies a site opposite the Zocalo on which was erected the capital's first cathedral, dedicated in 1534. The original building, deemed unworthy, was razed to make way for the present structure, built beginning in the year 1667, which stands as one of the finest edifices of its kind in all the world.

Second city of Mexico is Guadalajara, a portion of which, including its cathedral, also is pictured in the accompanying color portfolio.

Guadalajara (Gwad-dah-lah-hah-rah) has a population of some 250,000 and is the capital of the great state of Jalisco (Ha-lees-co), terminus of the Sud Pacifico de Mexico's railroad between Nogales, Sonora, and the most important point in Mexico's western tier of states.

Cristobal de Oñate, one of the captains of Cortez the Conqueror, founded Guadalajara in the year 1530, as a base for Spanish exploration and colonization of the West Coast of Mexico and that vast region which is now the Southwestern United States. It was given the name of another beautiful city, in Spain, which it bears proudly, being today one of the most gracious urban centers in all Mexico, a colonial city with great church edifices, ease and charm and graceful manners, a city noted for its songs, its poetry and its beautiful women and art.

Guadalajara is in many ways a very modern city. There are street cars and buses and fine shops and elegant homes. There are luxurious hotels, parks, an opera house, several large theatres and numerous cinema palaces. But despite its modern dress, Guadalajara still exudes an Old World charm. "Guadalajara es mi novia" (Guadalajara is my sweetheart), its people say. Life there is lived a little slower, a little easier. The bustle and hurry and clatter of our own big cities is not there. With all its modernity, there is still time for art and for poetry, for easy conversation, for music and for moonlit nights. Imagine, if you can, a city of 250,000 population with taxis and buses and all makes of automobiles, yet having as a principal means of transportation hundreds of horse-drawn hacks jolting along over asphalt paved and cobblestoned streets. In Guadalajara the old mixes well with the new.

MEXICO

Many attractive places of interest surround it, among them Lake Chapala (Cha-pall-a) pictured in color on page 1 of this issue of Arizona Highways, the largest lake in all Mexico, 15 to 20 miles in width and stretching 70 miles into the neighboring state of Michocan.

Another great lake, pictured in the accompanying color portfolio, is Lake Patzcuaro (Pots-kwah-ro) in Michocan, lying halfway between Guadalajara and Mexico City. Patzcuaro, at an elevation of some 7,000 feet, is a famed fishing center for Tarascan Indians, with their unique and picturesque butterfly nets, more than a score of whose villages lie on its shores.

Here, in the days of their now long vanished empire, the Tarascan monarchs came in the summer to while away their vacation time. The name means "Place of Delights" and truly Patzcuaro could not be better described. Along the lake shore and its adjacent heights, wealthy Mexicans of the present era have built many commodious and luxurious homes, unobtrusively sharing the beauty and grandeur, sunshine and tranquility with the Indian villages basking nearby. The region has gained fame as an art center, because of its vivid colors and infinite combination of sky, lake and countryside.

On each Friday at sunup, little fishing boats by the hundreds start for the village of Patzcuaro, countless specks of white in the blue of the lake. It is weekly market day. The trails and roads are filled with Tarascans carrying their goods, or prodding heavily laden burros to greater speed. Here each week is conducted a market of almost the proportions of a county fair, most interesting market in all Mexico.

Few Indian tribes on the American continent are as colorful as the Tarascans. Love of their native land and their great courage are their outstanding characteristics. They, alone of all the tribes, successfully defied the predatory Aztecs, and were never conquered or subdued by this most powerful of all early Indian empires.

In this central belt of the Republic of Mexico likewise lie many other objects of interest, such as the ancient pyramids and temples, the more recent Shrine of Guadalupe, and the two magnificent volcanic mountains, Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl.

Of the pyramids of great antiquity two of the most celebrated and best preserved, dating back to Toltec times, are the pyramid-temple of Quetzacoatl, the Toltec god, and the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, pictured in the accompanying Kodachrome portfolio, standing like sentinels over the wide countryside for miles around.

The pyramids and temples of Mexico were built by great early Indian cultures, each overrun by succeeding cultures prior to the Aztec and each destroyed or absorbed before the Spaniard came. These tombs and temples speak eloquently of the greatness of long vanished empires, whose peoples were builders and artists with advanced civilizations of their own. They worshipped fiery gods, drew great riches from the earth. Out of the dust they came, and they perished in the dust. But each left its imprint on those who followed, and even the passing of the centuries has not erased the marks.

The Shrine of Guadalupe, with its great stone stairway, is an outstanding example of more modern architecture. Now falling into ruin, its magnitude and majesty still remain. Guadalupe, the Dark Madonna, is the patroness and protectress of Mexico, the most revered of all its saints.

Overlooking the shrines and temples and pyramids are old Popocatepetl (Po-po-kah-taypetul) and Ixtaccihuatl (Eeks-tock-see-wattle), the grim old volcanoes, whose snowcapped crowns have been watching over the Valley of Mexico since time began. Popo's elevation is 17,794 feet, second highest in Mexico, and Ixta's 16,200 feet, two photogenic landmarks addressed by Mexicans as members of the family.

Clinging to a steep mountainside of the Sierra Madre range, 99 miles southwest of Mexico City, is the ancient and picturesque pueblo of Taxco (Tahss-co), standing as a monument to colonial days. Here by government decree, no new building is permitted to mar the ancient form of the town or clash with its 18th Century dress. It is the home of the silver shops in which are wrought the distinctive artistic creations which are instantly recognized the world over as Mexican. All the pageantry of Mexican history has sounded its tread between the town's white adobe and brick walls. Here, Cortez the Conqueror mined silver for the avaricious King of Spain. At an altitude of 5,740 feet, Taxco knows neither winter nor summer, except that in summer come the rains that wash the dust off the tile roofs and the travel stains from the cobblestones. In winter, only sun and cloudless blue sky are Taxco's lot.

Two hundred miles eastward and to the south of the national capital, in the Valley of La Joya, in the state of Vera Cruz, lies Orizaba (Oh-ree-za-va) and a tropical paradise where bananas and coffee and orchids grow wild. Overlooking this valley is the snow-tipped Pico de Orizaba, elevation 18,225 feet, the highest mountain in Mexico. An Orizaba village is shown in the foregoing Kodachromes.

Also in the portfolio is a scene at Cholula, eight miles west of Puebla, and at one time sacred city of the Aztecs. Cholula now is only a conglomeration of Indian villages picturesquely situated in a beautiful and well kept valley. Out of the valley rise the spires of many ancient churches, and it is said that there is a church for every day in the year. When the Spaniards crushed the Aztec Empire they found countless images and idols in the valley. Cortez vowed to replace each image with a church. These holy edifices still stand today.

Only a few miles from the heart of Mexico City are Mexico's famed "Floating Gardens", at Xochimilco (So-chee-meel-ko), rich tilled acreage cut up by a vast network of canals. The name means, "Place Where the Flowers Grow," and its people are essentially gardeners. The marsh land yields abundantly of truck crops and blossoms. During the week days Xochimilco is a busy market center of hard working men and women. On Sundays the people decorate their boats with flowers and rent them to visitors. On week days, vegetables! On Sundays music, blossoms and fiesta! A part of the Xochimilco gondola fleet is shown in the accompanying color portfolio.

Mexico is old, very old, and many of its customs, methods and manners are still primitive, but this rich and awakening republic stands at the doorstep of a new day.

In Mexico City men of vision are at work. They are planning roads and building schools. Vast reclamation projects are being formulated. The science of agriculture is leaving the classroom and going out into the fields. Progressive forces are in action all over the land. The cities are teeming with modish life and modern industry. But even there, the clash of traffic and the blink of neon lights and street signals cannot conceal the fact that Mexico is definitely Mexican a country with a personality that is uniquely its own.