Or, Last Year in Mexico v 2020 in Soho!
This retrospective deals with a stupid Easter in London in lockdown two years back when I was clearly getting pissed and being foolish with chocolate on my terrace, then last year after my escape from the UK to Mexicos Mayan Riviera, for a magical time and much better mental health.
This year although I’m still not travelling I’m looking at farmhouses in Bulgaria still for my dream of having a place off-grid where I can have vines and fruit tree orchards ready planted, and an organic veggie patch. I want to hand-build a kiln in the garden also to experiment with raku and sit by an open fire in the evenings. The dream of this is still intact despite Bulgaria turning UK red since the beginning of February this year.
Top tip: If you want to enjoy Easter, or indeed any religious festival abroad, you really need to go at least a couple of weeks earlier than the destinations Easter (or holiday). It’s always a nightmare travelling at these times if you go exactly at the time of their local festivities and those of the country you are leaving from. I now check at both ends that there are no holidays at either end for relaxed travelling. This gives you time to acclimatise at the other end and check with the locals where to go or not go in terms of hellish busyness. It also means you can enjoy the preparations and atmosphere building up more fully. It’s at that time the markets and locals are busy getting ready and you can get into the full spirit of it all!
In other words, I still am still sort of travelling, at least, in my imagination which is fine for the moment but not much longer!
Declining mental health in lockdown
The decline I had suffered from not travelling and being alone back in town was huge. Although I roamed the completely empty streets completely freely like a survivor from a dystopian catastrophe novel, I realise now I deteriorated slowly but surely during this phase and by the time I arrived in Mexico I was in poor shape. Mexico saved me for which I will be eternally grateful.
The draconian measures taken were a travesty and harmed many more people than the so-called “virus”.
So have a look at Mexico and sanity with me again x
So from the last two years’ posts let’s look down memory lane together and weigh up the differences.
Last Year in Mexico from my Journal
‘I will still be in Mexico where they love a good religious festival and a bit of a party and interestingly the Mayans and Christians do it side by side at the local churches, or at least share the church grounds. When I first arrived and I was moving into my new flat, went past a church where some Mayans in full dress were dancing and chanting. I was very surprised but it’s a regular occurrence apparently. For Easter in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, where I was on the last trip, they are famous for this union of celebration. It seems things can be combined amicably if you have the right mentality, after all, we normal people all want peace, don’t we?’
What’s not to love? Chocky and booze preferably together. Who hasn’t polished off a box of chocolate liquors at Christmas? I thought I’d start with chocolate and booze to pique your interest. I will add the major gods as we go on our journey through my Mexican journey. As with all their gods, they do morph a lot and are considered more as spirits that in some cases you could outwit with cunning!
IxCacao, the goddess of chocolate
Ixcacao.The Mayan goddess of the cacao tree and chocolate
Ixcacao is made from the fruit of that tree. Prayed to along with the Corn Mother, and other agricultural deities. Chocolate is the term that refers to items made out of cacao beans The word comes from the Aztec word “xcoatl”, which was the word for the very first beverage made out of cacao beans.
In a process that remains unchanged to this day, the Mayans made chocolate by first harvesting the seeds from cacao trees. They fermented and dried them, roasted them, removed their shells, and ground them into a paste. They often combined this paste with water, cornmeal, chilli peppers, and other spices, then poured the spicy, bitter mixture back and forth between two containers to create a frothy head that was much like how we love the froth on a cappuccino. This nutritious drink seems to have been the most common Mayan method of consuming chocolate. The elite would drink it at the end of a meal. Although chocolate was clearly a favourite of Mayan royals and priests, common people likely enjoyed the drink on a few occasions, as well. Many ancient Mayan artefacts are decorated with paintings of the people gathering, preparing, or drinking cacao. It appears to have been a truly integral part of their religious and social lives.
The beans and drink were used in a variety of religious rituals honouring the Mayan gods, the liquid chocolate sometimes representing blood, and was considered “god food” indeed nectar of the gods. The Maya were so fond of chocolate that they not only gathered cacao beans in the forests, they grew the trees in their gardens. The cacao tree is native to the tropical rainforests of Mesoamerica, or the southern and eastern portions of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of El Salvador and Honduras. Even Mayan groups living in the Yucatán, where the climate wouldn’t support a tropical rainforest, apparently found ways to grow some cacao trees. They also had extensive trade networks that helped ensure steady supplies of cacao throughout Mesoamerica, even in areas too cool or dry for cacao trees to thrive. Just shows we all love a bit of chocolate and when you gotta have it you gotta have it.
In the tombs of their rulers, they included cacao beans and various vessels and utensils associated with cacao consumption. The chocolate drink was also exchanged between the bride and groom during the traditional marriage ceremony. And in Mayan baptismal rites, ground cacao beans mixed with ground flowers and pure water from tree hollows were used to anoint little Mayan boys and girls. What a lovely idea.
Chocolate drink recipe a la Mayan.
If you want to go all authentic or show off to your mates you can try the recipe below. We have a lot to be grateful to the Maya (and more anciently the Olmec but there is no record as to how it was prepared) for providing us with the basic cacao preparation even though we add other stuff to it now including milk and sugar but some chocolatiers have now added chilli and you can buy chocolate of a much higher percentage rate which is indeed more bitter and more as the Mayans would have tasted it in liquid form.
recipe for Mayan hot chocolate drink.
2 cups of boiling water
1 chile pepper cut in half seeds removed
5 cups of milk (or cream)
1 vanilla pod cut lengthwise
2 or 3 cinnamon sticks
8 ounces dark chocolate at least 70 per cent
Add sugar or honey to taste (although sugar is cheating and at least they had honey)
In a pot over medium-high heat, add pepper to boiling water. Cook until liquid is reduced to 1 cup.
Remove chile pepper; strain the water and set aside.(or again skip this step,
Put a saucepan over medium heat, combine the milk (or cream), vanilla pod and cinnamon sticks until it bubbles.
Reduce heat and add chocolate and sugar or honey; whisk often until chocolate is melted and sugar dissolves. and it froths up.
The other use for chocolate
Don’t get dirty thoughts, it was just an idea for a chocolate face mask to ridicule the system and show how unstable I was then.
This was a very silly blog I made about the trial of the effectiveness of a chocolate Easter egg face mask. I did it on my terrace in the sun and was rather drunk and mentally deranged (in lockdown 2020) at the time so it neatly ties in the chocolate and alcohol subject of this post.
Acan. The god of drunkenness.
Now girls we all like a tipple so I pray to Acan rather a lot while travelling now. Although I don’t care for mead which is the most similar drink. We all are boisterous when we’ve has a few and act the clown just like our newly discovered god. Of course, you have this category of god in many cultures. Now, these were not always about getting pissed but clearly, a lot were and a lot were incorporated into religious rites and ceremonies. The list below just shows that alcohol was an important part of life everywhere!
Now girls we all like a tipple so I pray to Acan rather a lot while travelling now. Although I don’t care for mead which is the most similar drink. We all are boisterous when we’ve has a few and act the clown just like our newly discovered god. Of course, you have this category of god in many cultures. Now, these were not always about getting pissed but clearly, a lot were and a lot were incorporated into religious rites and ceremonies. The list below just shows that alcohol was an important part of life everywhere!
Acan is a very boisterous God who loves to make a fool of himself while under the influence. His name means ‘groan’ or ‘bellow’ and by all accounts, he does a lot of groaning — particularly during the morning after. Acan is responsible for the honey and bark intoxicating drink known as ‘Balché’. This cocktail was – and is – very popular among the Maya. A specific subspecies of stingless bees were treated as sacred. The Maya called these bees Xunan kab, literally meaning “royal lady”. Hives would be kept by families for generations, like pets. These nearly extinct bees would gather nectar from the pollen of a local plant and a local tree which contained ergoline compounds that produced a psychotropic effect to the resulting balche’ elixir. Trances induced by the elixir would provide a glimpse into a sacred, invisible world. In some cases, Acan was also represented as a close friend (or aspect) of Cucoch, the Mayan god of creative endeavours, thereby also underlining how artistic flair was seen as an extension of recreational activities. I know I do my best work when I’ve had a few and many other artists have been well known for their heavy drinking and wild escapades so I feel this all makes a lot of sense.
Acan is a very boisterous God who loves to make a fool of himself while under the influence. His name means ‘groan’ or ‘bellow’ and by all accounts, he does a lot of groaning — particularly during the morning after. Acan is responsible for the honey and bark intoxicating drink known as ‘Balché’. This cocktail was – and is – very popular among the Maya. A specific subspecies of stingless bees were treated as sacred. The Maya called these bees Xunan kab, literally meaning “royal lady”. Hives would be kept by families for generations, like pets. These nearly extinct bees would gather nectar from the pollen of a local plant and a local tree which contained ergoline compounds that produced a psychotropic effect to the resulting balche’ elixir. Trances induced by the elixir would provide a glimpse into a sacred, invisible world. In some cases, Acan was also represented as a close friend (or aspect) of Cucoch, the Mayan god of creative endeavours, thereby also underlining how artistic flair was seen as an extension of recreational activities. I know I do my best work when I’ve had a few and many other artists have been well known for their heavy drinking and wild escapades so I feel this all makes a lot of sense.
Balché’ is still used by the Maya in Yucatán as an offering in planting ceremonies and to ward off trickster spirits who might try to damage field crops.
Other indigenous ingredients for Maya “happy hour” included a tobacco plant more powerful than present varieties, mushrooms called “k’aizalah okox” [the “lost judgment mushroom”], peyote and seeds from the morning glory (later used as an ingredient in xtabentún), and bufo marinus, a large tropical frog.
The Spanish reported the Maya added tobacco or toad skins to their alcoholic beverages. Apparently, glands in the frog skin are a powerful alkaloid compound that is poisonous in large quantities, but small amounts gave their balche’ an extra kick. Balche’ wasn’t just a beverage. The Maya used an enema apparatus to introduce the alcoholic or hallucinogenic substances into the colon for a faster and more potent effect.
It is believed that to be able to come closer to the god, the Mayans would drink till they are completely intoxicated in hopes of seeing even a glimpse of their god, some would even take certain substances to get high, like mushrooms and tobacco. In fact, this is still a common practice today, where people would gather to drink together. Imagine all this happening around their pyramids and sacred sites in the moonlight or around fires. Transport yourself to a bit of Mayan madness, the equivalent to a rave these days.
List from Wiki
This extensive list from Wiki gives you an idea that worldwide people have always loved a drink or two, either for religious reasons or just to get merry. Cheers!
- Acan, Mayan God of alcohol.
- Acratopotes, one of Dionysus’ companions and a drinker of unmixed wine.
- Aegir, a Norse divinity associated with ale, beer and mead.
- Aizen Myō-ō, Shinto god of tavern keepers.
- Amphictyonis/Amphictyonis, Greek goddess of wine and friendship.
- Bacchus, Roman god of wine, usually identified with the Greek Dionysus.
- Ba-Maguje, Hausa spirit of drunkenness.
- Bes, Egyptian god, protector of the home, and patron of beer brewers.
- Biersal/Bierasal/Bieresal, Germanic kobold of the beer cellar.
- Ceraon, who watched over the mixing of wine with water.
- Saint Brigid, patron saint of brewing.
- Dionysus, Greek god of wine, usually identified with the Roman Bacchus.
- Du Kang, Chinese Sage of wine. Inventor of wine and patron to the alcohol industry.
- Inari, Shinto god(dess) of sake.
- Li Bai, Chinese god of wine and sage of poetry.
- Liber Pater, a Roman god of wine.
- Liu Ling, Chinese god of wine. One of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove
- Mayahuel, Mexican goddess of tequila.
- Methe, Greek personification of drinking and drunkenness.
- Nephthys, Egyptian goddess of beer.
- Ninkasi, Sumerian goddess of beer.
- Nokhubulwane, Zulu goddess of the rainbow, agriculture, rain, and beer.
- Oenotropae, Greek goddesses, “the women who change (anything into) wine”.
- Ogoun, Yoruba/West African/Voodoo god of rum.
- Ometochtli, Aztec gods of excess.
- Radegast, Slavic God. …
- Siduri, wise Mesopotamian female divinity of beer and wine in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
- Silenus, Greek god of wine, wine pressing, and drunkenness.
- Siris, Mesopotamian goddess of beer.
- Sucellus, Celtic god of agriculture, forests, and of the alcoholic drinks of the Gauls.
- Tao Yuanming, Chinese spirit of wine.
- Tenenet, Egyptian goddess of childbirth and beer.
- tic. …
- Tezcatzontecati, Aztec.Abundantia, Roman goddess of abundance (see
- Varuni, Hindu goddess of wine.
Old Bird Travels Solo! 