This image is taken from a visit to a mortuario in san marco de chomula in mexico (not sure what distrito). It was such a peaceful place right outside of the main city. This is one of the places from my trip to mexico I remember most vividly. I rode out by horseback to get to this village. The village was very small and on the way were many peasant commune farms littering the road on both sides. The town was pretty high in altitude- I remember this because it was pretty cool air for mexico. My professor had warned us that the town's population still practiced paganism- which of course is one of the more important reasons to scope it out in the first place. When we got there we got the usual white tourist hopping off a stallion stares that I'm sure were very similar to the one's hernando cortez got when he first made contact with the new world. This place was so authentic it blew my mind. Immediately I felt this sense of calm and the whole time that feeling never receded from my body. I walked around and explored the main piazza that included a cathedral that had originally been built by the catholic church but had since been converted back to a pagan temple. The catholic references were still quite obvious in the architecture. Once inside this cathedral there were no pews in sight. Just a marble floor with a countless number of burning candles on the floor and pine needles smoldering to produce an emphemeral and aromatic atmosphere. It was so foreign to me but I tried to act completely normal, mirroring the locals of course. Right as I had gone past the crossing of the vaults there was a curtain concealing any activity that happened in the apse. They were sacrificing animals to their gods that they worshipped- Gods that were very very very familiar to me as a christian. The statues of saints from the original catholic church were still in the temple and now served as the idols for these pagans. It was one of those moments in my life that was completely eye opening. I have these flashbacks every now and then that I really enjoy, but the horse ride out to this place made the experience complete. It was quite remote to say the least. We were stationed temporarily in San Cristobal de las Casas.

Another experience that came out of the beautiful city was the moonshine made by the local indian village women. It was quite tasteless and effective to say the least. I walked around aimlessly in the markets of chomula for a few hours until i came too.

Wonderful experience there with the indians.