Danzón - a chick flick?

I guess so with a female director and leading role but still one of my favorite Mexican movies.

It's about a couple of phone operators in Mexico City that live for the weekends and the Danzón. Julia (Maria Rojo) finds her perfect dance partner, finds a little romance and he suddenly disappears. The rest of the movie is Julia's search adventure for her dance partner in Veracruz. Lots of dancing, good music and low key adventure.



I used to sit for hours watching Danzon on the weekends on the Cuernavaca plaza. No live music, always recorded and often more dressed up than the folks below.

The Cuernavaca Mercado

The Cuernavaca Mercado (market) is a sprawling thing that winds around and up and down. Very easy to get lost in. It's located in an arroyo just about 6 blocks east of downtown and the plaza. Much of it seems under ground with many alleys that bring you up to city streets. Just about everything is for sale but mostly divided into sections of flower sellers, meat, vegetable, herbs, clothes and music CD's. You might even see a small boy run by with a pigs head.

When I was taking Spanish classes at Encuentros I also took some evening cooking lessons. Most of our assignments included a shopping list 'in Spanish' and we were to shop at the central market before class. You'd be surprised at how many flavors of 'mole' there are. We had some very good meals those evenings.

I recently heard much of the market was damaged by fire this year. YouTube Video of the fire

Deep inside the Cuernavaca market

Steps up to street level

Bags of herbs

Women in the vegetable section

Las Lagunas de Zempoala

Las Lagunas de Zempoala is a National Park in the mountains above Cuernavaca at an altitude of about 2,900 meters (9500 feet) above sea level. The park encompasses seven small lakes of which three, Zempoala, Tonathiua and Prieta, contain water year-round and the other four are seasonal. The surrounding hillsides are covered in forests of pine and other evergreens.

Lots of activities including rowing, sailing, horseback riding and camping. There are many hiking trails to walk and cliffs to scale for the more adventurous.

Access to Las Lagunas de Zempoala is via the Mexico-Cuernavaca highway, either the old highway or the new toll road, turning off at Tres Marias and proceeding toward and past Huitzilac village.  You can also take the old highway out of Cuernavaca.