We left Puerto Vallarta on a night bus rolling for D.F. (what the Mexicans call Mexico City). After a few movies and some semi-sleep we arrived around ten in the morning when all was said and done. Our level of nervousness was rising the further into D.F. we got as the approach is covered by thousands of dwellings some permanent suburbs, some temporary squatter structures. The metro population of Mexico City is somewhere in the number of twenty three million inhabitants some registered, many not. One in five Mexicans lives within the reaches of this sprawling metropolis.
The location of Mexico City has been populated for over two thousand years and within that spread there has been influence from the gulf of Mexico down into the jungles of Central America. Within the center of town Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztec armies and took Montezuma. We got off the bus and quickly were directed to the metro station outside of the terminal. For two pesos (less than .20c) we were able to reach the breadth of the city in its magnificent web of several lines serving airports, bus terminals, cathedrals; everything was at our disposal for 2 pesos. With a dodgy history of violence and pickpocketing, the ride faired well considering that Marie and I tower over Mexicans and with giant backpacks in an always packed metro, we were rather imposing yet easy targets. We quickly made the transfers to find our way to the center of town in the Zocolo.
We checked into our hostel and nearly passed out, Maries feet were swollen at the ankles from our long bus ride and we really needed to rest properly and raise out feet above our head to drain the collected fluid. The hostel was a bit more than we had paid to date but it included a decent breakfast and dinner (lots of starch) which helped balance it out.
The following day we ventured out after a rest and some free food. The weather was polluted with a chance of clouds. The air quality in Mexico City is infamous for causing eye and respritory issues. We walked from the Zocolo to the Palacio des Belles Artes and turned onto the main road through town, Reforma: the Champes des Elysses of Mexico. The street is littered with parks and statues and commemorations to heros and Presidents. The art in this town is superlative, hardly a corner or street is bare of sculptures, graffiti or installation. Public art– we loved it very much; the vibrancy of visual culture here is crazy. You have all this contemporary street art juxtaposed against five hundred year old plazas and cathedrals, with many of the ghosts of Olmecs and Toltec cultures not to mention the human sacrifices of the Aztecs.
We made our way to the Modern Art Museum on the grounds of the forest of Chapultepec getting rained on by sour clouds. We passed through its permanent collections with Frida and Rivera well represented, a more contemporary installation exhibit based on dadaism and finished off with a display saturated with sad stories of prisoners and the art created about it. It was a lovely afternoon saturated with art and cultrure. We made our way back via markets and Metro, at 2,250 m above sea level, a short day becomes a long day.
We woke up with the intention of visiting the museum of anthropology, but due to unexpected sunshine, we quickly joined a tour to the ruins of Teotihuacan with minutes to spare. We first visited the Plaza of the Three cultures and were given a run down of how much human sacrifice really was a part of Aztec tradition. Everyday someone was sacrificed and the remains were cooked into a dish and fed to everyone in the city. We learned that for every Pyramid, usually there are several layers built on top of another. Some temples are still being discovered within the city including the Templo Mayor of the Aztec city of Tenochitlan, which Mexico City was built on top of. When the Spanish came, they burned everything and tried persistently to eliminate the old culture with their new. Old pyramids were destroyed and the stones reused to build cathedrals and roads.
We headed next to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The site of the miracle of the appearance of the virgin Mary to the peasant Juan Diego. the story goes, he went daily to the church kilometers away when one day the Virgin appeared to him to tell the bishop to build a cathedral near where he lived. He went to the bishop and told him, was scoffed at and dejected. He went to his routine again ignoring what the Virgin had told him until weeks later she appeared again asking why the cathedral was not built. He responded that he required proof. The virgin told him to put flowers in his cape and to present it to the bishop, When he did so and unfolded his cape, miraculously, her image was stained permanently into the cloth, the church was built thereafter. Many pilgrims walk the final few blocks to the church on their knees, and on holy day the square is awash with blood.
We continued to Teotihuacan a city abandoned before the Aztecs arrived. When they did arrive, having no evidence of who built it, credited the Gods with its appearance and they hailed it as a sacred place. Later on they would take residence here, but for the most part it was kept the same. We visited an artisan workshop and were shown how cacti had been used for centuries for paper, needle and thread, and even rope. We were shown how volcanic obsidian is shaped into statues and masks. We were given tequila and Mescal, a fine thing. We visited the ruins first climbing the temple of the Moon and then the Temple of the Sun and visited the small museum and made our way down the avenue of the dead, called so by the Aztecs because of what they thought were funerary mounds of dead gods. In fact said mounds were all buried temples and dwellings; even now there are hundreds of unrecovered mounds left so for lack of funding. At the end of the avenue of the dead, the temple of Quetzalcoatl, the serpent tongued god, is the site of an archaeological dig and restoration. Often as is true everywhere, money talks. Last year, a group of Japanese archaeologists gave the government lots of money to do research on the the temples. Through their use of horizontal coring, they managed to compromise the structural integrity of the temple of the Moon and as a result, it is damaged and people are no longer allowed to rise to the top. As per usual, no-one knows what they are doing and if you have money you are allowed to do anything. Sad.
On the way home we drove through the harrowing streets of a city under siege by the worshippers and rush hour, we were arriving during the apex of a religious procession. We hopped out of the minivan of terror into the chaotic streets of Mexico City and walked the last two blocks to the hostel. Marie whipped out the fire hoop to play on the rooftop bar and we enjoyed the company of some of the travellers that were staying here as well as the five dollar liters of beer.
The next day we went to my favorite museum in the world: the Museum of Anthropology, I first came here with my mother, when I was in the sixth grade, and conveniently studying the history of the Aztecs. It was pretty cool to see Montezuma´s headdress and the giant Aztec astrological calendar again with a bit more knowledge under my belt. The museum spans the whole history of Mexican culture and archaeological evidence. Needless to say you need several visits to digest everything.
We rushed through some parts of the museum to make it back to the hostel to intersect the arrival of Kira and Rhea who flew in separately from the United States to meet up with us on the trip. We hadn´t seen Kira since Burning Man two months before and had met Rhea briefly in Portland before Burning Man. It was and is very cool to have a posse of like-mindeds to enjoy the trip with. Right away we all headed out again despite the girls´ long flights and made our way to the house and museum of Frida Khalo and Diego Rivera, a lovely home left as it was and filled with their workspace and many of their pieces now on display. What a place to visit, it included a display for the up-coming Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), one of the reasons we are here in Mexico.
We left this wonderful neighbourhood for the Zocolo and prepared for the next day´s bus ride to the small town of Patzcuaro in the State of Michoacan, home of the legendary party to celebrate the dead.
Paul and Marie
