
Morelia – overview of a Mexican town
By Frederic Friedel
The Super GM tournament that is being held in Morelia is in its first break
day. Time to pause and take a closer look at this Mexican city, which, if the
organisers of the tournament have their way, may well become a popular resort
for chess tourists from all over the world.

These are the two key hotels in the middle of the Centro Historico, the downtown
area, with the Hotel Virrey de Mendoza, on the left, where the players stay,
and our own Hotel Alameda on the right. The players do not have wireless Internet
connections, as we do in the Alameda. Some of them "borrow" wireless
from the Internet Café to the left of the hotel. But unfortunately the
café closes down at ten or eleven pm. and the players are left high and
dry.
The baroque Cathedral of Morelia dominates the skyline of the city. It was
started in 1660 and took 84 years to build. The impressive stone building which
rivals any in Europe, and has the tallest church towers in the Americas. In
order to get an overview of the city we decided to climb to the top of one of
the towers of the Cathedral, which is the dominating feature of the town.

The interior of the Cathedral is beautiful and impressive. Unfortunately we
were told by the security guard that nobody was allowed to climb the towers.
However, he did take us to the reverend in charge of the church, and when Padre
Gustavo heard that we had come all the way from Germany to do Internet reports
on the chess tournament he immediately granted us special permission.
That's Nadja Woisin with her video camera climbing the endless spiral stairs.
Nadja is our Spanish new
page editor, and in charge of most of the ChessBase operations in Hispanic
countries. You guessed it: Nadja speaks fluent Spanish, just like a native.
She also produces the video material on such chess adventure trips.
That's how narrow it gets before you reach the top of the church tower. The
final stages of the ascent are conducted on all fours – or threes, if
you have a video camera to schlepp with you.
Don't let her fool you, the lady is absolutely terrified! As she should well
be, with no retaining guards, just a few steps from eternity. Up here you discover
that human beings were really not built for heights. Leave it to the birds,
I always say. They have built-in mechanisms to counteract gravity. We don't.
We go splat.
That's me, taking the final few steps of the ascent, emerging through the hole-in-the-ground
that leads to the top level of the tower. Today, a day later, I can still feel
numerous muscles in my legs, most of which I did not know existed. They are
now making sure I never forget that they do.
Incidentally, when we arrived in Morelia after our 23-hour
odyssey, we were understandably exhausted. Even more than one would expect,
I thought. For instance, on the first day I rushed from the playing site to
the hotel to get my camera equipment, rushed back, up the stairs to the theatre
– and was panting and wheezing like a circulatory challenged nursing home
inmate. It was a bit alarming, until one of our Mexican friends explained that
this was perfectly normal. The town lies almost 2000 metres (6000 feet) above
sea level, and the air is noticably thinner. "You are always out of breath
during the first couple of days," our Mexican friend said. I'm sure I would
not have been able to climb the tower on the first day after our arrival.
And that's how foolish some people can be. I mean, how much further can you
see if you climb a suspiciously worm-eaten ladder to a shaky wooden platform
thirty feet higher up? It's probably some macho thing.
That's how big the church bells are. The main bell of the Morelia Cathedral
is El Salvador (The Saviour). It weighs over 6,000 kilos and it's still
in working condition.
'
A view of the second tower, with the city and the surrounding mountains. About
200 km away there is the famous Monarch
Butterfly reserve of Sierra Chincua, Michoacan. We hope to go there on the
next free day. After all, about one hundred million monarchs think it is a worthwhile
place to visit.

This is the old city, where the chess event is taking place. 1 is the players'
hotel, 2 our own Alameda, 3 the Palacio Clavijero, where the games are played.
It is gigantic and occupies more than a city block.

The Palacio Clavijero up close. The halls for the Super GM tournament and the
giant Open are in the part to the right of the picture.

A view towards the extended town. The curved roof in the middle is the market,
to which we will come in a separate report. Everything is very nicely in walking
distance.

This, incidentally, is the 18th Century Hotel Posada de la Soledad, where
we were first
put up. Doesn't look quite as romantic from a bird's eye view.
Back to ground level. A young lady all done up in front of the church.
There is also a fair amount of poverty. After one of the press conferences
I was approached by two very pretty young street children who asked me for money.
I didn't have any on me. Then they asked me to give them a bottle of water,
from the ones standing on the refreshment table next to us. Even though nobody
was guarding the table they didn't just take them and run. Well brought up urchins!

In the courtyard below the Cathedral people play open-air chess. The whole
city has caught the chess fever – you see people all over the town carrying
boards and little bags with the pieces.

A simultaneous exhibition on the Cathedral square. The master takes all comers,
of which there are many, new opponents taking the place of those who have finished
their games.
Wherever you turn people are playing chess. We learnt that 80% of the many
hundreds of participants in the Open were not from Morelia, but from all over
the country. So this is a chess invasion.

Old and young, male and female, everyone's doing it here in Mexico. With great
enjoyment, obviously, and with a fair degree of competence, as cursory glances
reveal.

One of the cutest things I've seen: a human and a pigeon (left) kibitzing during
the giant Open tournament, which has now finished.

On the main square next to the Cathedral there is always some kind of activity
going on. Here it was the Clases de Capoeira, Samba Y Axe. This is
some form of ritualised martial arts, performed by alternating members in the
midst of a circle of chanting colleagues.

There were many girls amongst the participants, enjoying themselves every bit
as much as their male counterparts.
The action is vigorous, much of it is artistic and acrobatic. The performance
lasted for well over an hour.

In a more serene corner of the square artists offer their works for sale.

Some of the professionals offer photorealistic oil paintings, for the proud
sum of 12,000 pesos a piece. That is around US $1,000.

The Cathedral at night, spectacularly illuminated. The town is rightfully proud
of this architectural masterpiece.
Coming soon to a chess news page close to you:
- ChessBase goes to the Market
- Veselin Topalov takes on the Morelia team in Futbol
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