Mexico Mix trivia quiz: Test your knowledge

My husband, a fellow journalist, has forged a second career as a writer for a company that supplies pub trivia “quiz packs” to bars all over the country. In the interest of family togetherness and harmony, I offered to provide some interesting and not so widely known facts about Mexico. When I started scouring my notes, my past stories and my overstuffed brain, fascinating factoids popped up like mushrooms after the first rain. And they didn’t stop after his project was complete, so I thought it only right to share the wealth.

Regular readers of Mexico Mix should have an advantage here — a good percentage of the answers have appeared in columns over the past few years. Answers are in the link at the end. If your genius doesn’t shine through on this quiz — or you found it laughably easy — don’t worry, there’s more. They will pop up when you least expect it.

1. Chichen Itza’s El Castillo is Mexico’s most famous pyramid, but it’s far from the tallest. In fact, one archaeological site has two pyramids that top El Castillo’s 84 feet. Which one is it?

2. Though Cinco de Mayo is often mistakenly referred to as Mexico’s Independence Day, by now most people have caught on that Independence Day is actually Sept. 16. But what does Cinco de Mayo commemorate?

3. Two movies due for release this year, Robert Redford’s one-man show “All Is Lost,” and the world War II-era “Little Boy,” recently wrapped shooting at Baja Studios, which overlooks the Pacific in northern Baja California. What 1997 blockbuster was the occasion for building the studio?

4. Mexico City has more museums than any other city in the world except for one. Which city has more?

5. The Aztecs called this florid member of the spurge family — a shrub that grows more than 10 feet tall in its native soil — cuetlaxochitl. Today’s Mexicans and Guatemalans call it “La Flor de la Nochebuena” (Flower of the Holy Night). What do we call it in the United States?

6. More than 200 years before the Spanish reached Napa Valley, they established the Western Hemisphere’s first wine region in what Mexican state? (Hint: It’s not Baja California.)

7. Twenty-five years after revolutionary hero Benito Juarez became Mexico’s first president, a socialist blacksmith in Italy named his first-born son after Juarez. That boy grew up to become what major player during World War II?

8. A traditional mariachi band usually consists of two to four violins, two trumpets, a guitar, a guitarron (bass guitar) and a vihuela. What is a vihuela?

9. If you’re driving on a two-lane highway behind a slow truck, and the driver blinks the left turn signal, it’s probably not because he’s planning to turn. What is he trying to tell you?

10. Scientists were able, for the first time, to observe the complete life cycle of a volcano from birth to extinction after Paricutin rose from a cornfield in 1943. Where will you find this volcano, which was active until 1952?

Click here to check your answers.

Former Chronicle travel editor Christine Delsol is the author of “Pauline Frommer’s Cancún the Yucatán” and a regular contributor to “Frommer’s Mexico” and “Frommer’s Cancún the Yucatán.”

Mexico Mix trivia quiz: Test your knowledge