You say DF, I say Mexico

Mexico City, CDMX, DF, Mexico

Mexico City…an astounding metropolis that goes by many names, and to contradict Bill Shakespeare, it warrants ALL the names to reflect its many sights, sounds and smells.

Mexico City, la ciudad de Mexico, can also be called: Distrito Federal, DF (day – effay) and, simply, MEXICO. As you drive around the country you constantly see highway signs pointing to “Mexico” which can be a little puzzling at first, until you realize that mexicanos refer to the capital city as simply “Mexico.”

The founding of the city IS the founding of Mexico. Legend has it that after the fall of the Toltec Empire around 1000 ce, the Aztecs were looking for a new home. They were told by their main god, Huitzilopochtil, that they should look for a sign…an eagle on a nopal cactus with a snake in its beak. Pretty specific. Pretty unusual. This is the symbol on the Mexican flag. 

They found that eagle (and nopal and the unfortunate snake) on an island in Lake Texcoco. This unlikely location was indeed confirmed by their god (really?). They founded Tenochtitlan, and immediately outgrew the island. It kept growing and growing…and the Aztecs kept expanding their empire from sea to shining sea. Until Cortes showed up 1519. And that, they say…was the end of that story. However, the City lives on.

Mexico City is huge. Depending on how you count and which Wiki post you trust, somewhere around 8.84 million, and 21.3 million (greater metro area) people live here. It is the 2^nd largest city in the Western Hemisphere, after Sao Paolo. It is divided into 16 boroughs (one of which, incidentally, is the title of the movie, Roma.)

We wanted to have enough time to soak in a decent start to a huge and fascinating city, so scheduled 3 weeks there from just before Christmas, through New Year’s and Dia de Tres Reyes (Three Kings, of Christmas carol and rubber cigar fame).  It was an amazing visit. An indicator is that Linda’s edited down photo count is ~1300!

Our home base was in el Centro, an apartment across the street from Parque Alameda, the oldest park in DF, dating back to the time of Cortes. This turned out to be a great central location, a short walk to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, an absolutely gorgeous Art Deco (inside) and neoclassical (outside) building started around 1904, stopped due to foundation problems, then the Revolution, and restarted, then finished in the mid-1930s.

We had heard that a lot of chilangos leave the City for the holidays (though how many out of 25 million makes a noticeable difference?), so things might be a little less crowded. We saw days where that seemed true, and others where we wondered how many people could walk abreast down a wide, crowded sidewalk.

On the upper deck. Mind the wires!

After getting settled and provisioning our apartment, we started our introduction with a narrated bus tour, yes…those silly double decker buses. They have audio in 9 languages (including Russian, in case Paul Manafort shows up), with your own headset. Mark’s earphones shocked him every time he moved in the bus seat (think your older brother rubbing his feet on the carpet but touching your ear!) It was a GREAT introduction to the city and who knew that the music was going to be so good? 

We were also not too far from the Zocalo, THE central square of DF. This is the site of the Metropolitan Cathedral, as well as the Palacio National, first built by the Spanish. The cathedral was begun in 1573, and, it turns out, that construction was more or less on top of the original Aztec site, the Templo Mayor, using most of the stones from the original Templo to build the “new” one.

It being Christmas, the Zocalo was heavily festooned with huge lights and finery, large sparkly wreaths and candlesticks and flores de noches buenas. People were everywhere most of the time, including vendors of food and about anything else you could imagine other than large appliances. There were people dressed in – Azteca costumes, with long pheasant feathers, doing purifying rites with copal, with lines of people hoping to start the new year purified.

The streets were jammed with vendors who put their merchandise on the sidewalks and streets, making just walking a challenge. The merchandise is moved around by diableros, men with hand carts stacked high, carrying mostly boxes that say Hecho en China, total loads weighing over 1000 pounds. Amazing.

Adelitas

A former colleague of Mark’s happened to be visiting DF with her family for the holidays from Switzerland, and they suggested seeing the Ballet Folklorico at the Palacio de Bellas Artes…. and are we happy she did! It was amazing, and totally worth the $55 per person for up close seats. Just seeing the inside of the theater was a treat, as the “curtain” is a metal panel weighing 24 tons, made by Tiffany, designed by the famous Dr. Atl (later post), with over 1 million (!) pieces of colored glass. Just one more example of trying to take in the magnitude and scope of Mexico City. The program started with indigenous drum songs and dances, and went through various cultural and regional music and dance, right up to mariachis. Viva Mariachis!

Teotihuacan

Temple of the moon

We hired a tour guide for our group of 4 adults and 4 kids to tour the ancient ceremonial city population 125,000. Established 100 BCE, it was according to NatGeo, probably the largest city in the Western hemisphere before 1400. Who built it is not known for sure, but apparently it happened before the peak of Toltec power. Then around 550 CE it was systematically sacked and burned – our guide said by the poorer classes, but no one really knows. 

Jobu got to the pyramids

When the Aztecs found the city in the 1400s naming it Teotihuacan (meaning “the place where the gods were created” in Nahuatl), the city had been abandoned for centuries. Its prominent features are a massive Temple of the Sun, and slightly smaller Temple of the Moon. The site is also a weapon of math instruction – the number of steps and other things all revolve around the founders’ calendar, reminiscent of but pre-dating the Maya.

Xochimilco

Remember that island in the lake that Mexico City was founded on (not to be confused with Swamp Castle)? Well, there are still floating gardens, called chinampas, a sort of early but effective eco-garden, created by the Aztec to expand useable space, including land to grow food. 

Much of Xochimilco is devoted to a touristy boat trip with 15 of your best friends and about 100 other boats. The canals were so packed with pole boats, each with a long picnic table and about 20 small chairs, that we probably only moved maybe 100 yards over the course of an hour, It was hard to tell, but it was a classic cluster, and we were in tears laughing. 


Mariachis (with badly tuned instruments), ladies cooking tortillas, guys playing marimbas (also out of tune), souvenirs, sombreros - all on smaller flat-bottomed boats that tied up to you if you wanted something, Pure, unadulterated, how-in-the-hell-do-the-Mexicans-do-this joy (for us anyway). You have to see it to believe it.

 At the end of the boat tour, we were sitting on short wall waiting for the bus to go to the next place, next to a Mexican lady selling necklaces. She held them up to us, we politely declined, then we offered her a cookie out of our ziploc lunch bag. She took one then started talking to us in Spanish. As usual, Mark got maybe 1/2 of it, Linda got 80+%, and we talked for only a few minutes in Spanish. But she was very kind and smiled and it made it all worth "taking the chance", which is after all only one of not understanding all the words. Viva Mexico. If you take nothing else from our blog…take the chance!

Museums, museums everywhere

It seems like there are more museums per square…anything than just about any city except D.C.

It's not a calendar!

not gonna say it....

The Big Kahuna of museums in DF is the Museo de Anthropologia. It is so large and so detailed that we took parts of 2 different days to see it, and even then probably only scratched the surface. There is the huge and well-known Piedra de Sol, usually referred to incorrectly as the Aztec Calendar. Modern archaeologists believe it is likely to have been used primarily as a ceremonial basin or ritual altar. During the Mexican-American War, soldiers of the United States Army who occupied the plaza used the Piedra del Sol for target shooting. Geez, Louise. [Tip: if you get there and there are lines at the ticket booth inside, look for the automated ticket kiosk over near the gift shop. No line!]

Chapultepec garden gate

jumping to escape the Americans

We visited Castillo Chapultepec, which is beautiful. In 1846-47, it was a military academy, and was the place where 6 young cadets threw themselves from the parapets, wrapped in La Bandera de Mexico, to escape the marauding Americans (who were after, among other things -- California, Texas, NM and AZ) and become immortalized as the Ninos Heroes. Virtually every pueblo in Mexico has a street named Ninos Heroes. Later the ill-fated Hapsburg emperor Maximillian lived there, then later still, the president- dictator Porfirio Diaz. A decent amount of bad karma.

Muertos bull ring, so detailed!

completely covered in Huichol beading

Regional dresses, beautiful!

Probably our favorite museum was the Museo de Arte Popular (Folk Art), near our apartment. It has four floors of displays, including woven fabrics, the awesome beadwork of the Huichol, fantastical Oaxacan alebrijes, many different art pieces made for Dia de Muertos, and Mark’s favorite, the display of “typical clothing” from many of the indigenous peoples still in Mexico. And … free if you have Mark’s Mexican Old Guy (INAPAM) card! (60 years old and up)

Frida's blue house

We also visited Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s home in Coyoacan, and the Diego y Frida House in San Angel, designed in Bauhaus style by Juan O’Gorman (O’Gorman also lived there). There are 3 separate residences in the compound. 

Frida, Diego and Juan's houses

Not too far away is the house where Leon Trotsky lived, and at which was later assassinated in 1940. Not knowing much about Trotsky until we got to DF, it is a fascinating place. If you plan to go, read Barbara Kingsolver’s La Lacuna first. In fact, just read it anyway.

A must-see is the library building at UNAM, (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 350,000 enrolled!), in the vicinity of Casa Azul, the library is about 8-10 stories high and covered on all 4 side by mosaics designed by Juan O’Gorman. Study up on your Mexico history before you go, and either get a knowledgeable guide to explain the murals, or do some homework – your effort will be rewarded. It is fabtastic. We think if O’Gorman had a little better PR about 90 years ago he would be thought of on a par with Diego Rivera. There will also be a separate blog post on The Muralists. You could spend a solid week just searching out murals and learning of their symbolism.

Whew. Sorry for the long post, but it reflects the size, density and complexity of CDMX!

2019 enero