and i thought i had a long trip

I am now back at the beach.

Babs asked me how the weather was this afternoon, but I wanted to avoid looking at the readings in the hope I could pretend it was not too bad.

It was.  Heat index of 101.  And it felt like it.  I guess that is why they call it "feels like."

The cooler weather was one of the things I enjoyed about the highlands.  And I guess I misjudged when the weather would cool down in Melaque.

The photograph at the top is the main street at 5:30 in the afternoon yesterday.  Usually a bustling time.  The lack of movement is a good indication of just how hot it was.

But the weather is not the only thing I will miss about colonial Mexico.  I am also going to miss the cultural events.

I sat next to a Mexican gentleman -- and I mean that in the kindest hidalgo sense of the word -- at several of the concerts in Pátzcuaro.  His knowledge of Mexican music shamed mine.  And his knowledge of European music was just as impressive.

His name is Edmundo Árciga. A relative of a local archbishop in the 1800s.  He is now retired.  But he has an interesting background.
 

He invited me to a lecture on his new book -- Iré Ticátame, El Pajaro Azul, Un Epopeya -- in Pátzcuaro on 13 October.  That is him on the right.

I would have enjoyed staying in Pátzcuaro solely for the lecture.  Señor Árciga has an interesting theory about the origin of the Purépecha -- the local tribe that ruled an empire centered on its capital at Tzintzuntzan on the shore of Lake Pátzcuaro when the Spanish arrived.

Based on similarities of the Purépecha language and the Quecha language of South America, he argues that the Purépecha migrated to Mexico from South America.

The South America connection is not new.  A minority or archaeologists have argued there is an Incan connection with the monuments at Tzintzuntzan.  The style of buildings appear nowhere else other than the Inca culture.

But that is not Árciga's theory.  After all, monument similarities have been conjured up for years with very little evidence other than a common perceived look.

Unfortunately, the book is only published in Spanish -- for now.  There may be an English translation in the offing.  If there is interest.

I know I am interested.  For years, anthropolgists thought they knew exactly how the Indians traversed a Bering Strait land bridge and then spread through the Americas.

We now know that there were several migrations.  And not just north to south.  There is also some proof that the Indians encountered other settlers when they arrived in some areas.

This book will be another bit of spice to add to the ongoing discussion.

I just wish I could have been there.