A Traditional Mexican House in Tlaxcala

Mexico city's very noisy and infuriating. That's why it is good to get out from there sometime.

I'm used to visiting Calpulalpan, a small town in the state of Tlaxcala.

Some weekends, when schoolwork slows down, we go to this place for breathing the "mount's clean air" (you know, Calpulalpan is some metres higher than Mexico city!!).

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Arriving to Calpulalpan takes aproximately 2 hours from the capital of our country. The landscapes are cool... I'll show some photos of the Calpulalpan fields later.

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Everytime we go there, grandmother's house is the common destiny... it's a traditional XIX c. Mexican house!! In ancient times, rich people's houses were so bloody big and were built on a whole block (we call it cuadra) or at least on a half of it. When the Revolution arrived, these dimentions became smaller and poor people could get them... doesn't mean that all the new houses are small!! In fact, this kind of houses are still big.

In civil-war-time (1910), there was a huge 'patio' and the rooms were built around it: kitchens, bedrooms, dinner-rooms, living-rooms, etc. (a format taken from the Spanish catholic convents). At the very centre of that 'patio', you could see a fountain. Even though some houses have changed a bit their original structure, they keep it in many ways.

Balcón que da a la calle (Street balcony)

In the balcony's pic, you can see how ancient may seem a street with houses like these: wood bars, the shape... even the colours have got a XIX c. style!

If you've seen Mexican films from the Golden-cinema-age (1940-1955), these images must be familiar to you. Now, let's look inside.

Calpulalpan child on a slide. (photo taken from the roof)

We can see here a half of this house's patio. It's not painted yet, so it looks a bit... strange. Behind the doors and the entries, you see the rooms (where there were beds before, but now we use them as warehouses... that's weird). The interiors are much better:

Living room with a chimney

Actually, chimneys are not common in this country. But Calpulalpan is a cold place and sometimes it's useful in winter... anyway, it's an ancient custom and it pollutes a lot. It's better if you get electrical heaters or something. For Godness sake!! In Europe itself chimneys are obsolete!!

Only as a curiousity: in San Luis Potosí, before 2000 (when I was a child) you could see houses and chimneys everywhere; but since that year, the romantic chimneys disappeared from the roofs (techos).

Photo: Daniel Orizaga

This is another perspective of the patio. As you can see, now there are two patios in the house, because the big one was divided by the middle. Now the house is painted. Much better like this.