2004 MEXICO: MEXICO CITY

MEXICO CITY 10-13 May 2004
Delays caused by bad weather made Lufthansa miss their slot in London leaving only 20 minutes to catch the connecting flight in Frankfurt, so were amazed to find our luggage had also made the switch.

It was I think the first time I had used Trip Advisor to select an hotel, then but less so more recently it's readers gave good and clear recommendation. Hotel Catedral was spot on, brilliant location off the Zocalo (main Square), the cathedral was in clear view from our bedroom.

View of Cathedral from bedroom window

View of Cathedral from Zocalo

Cheap at the time we had to walk the last couple of streets as the taxi could not reach the destination for our arrival had coincided the a major renewal of city sewers.

We noted that the majority of taxis were green and white VW Beetles 'taxi libre' of the type we had been advised to avoid! We were advised that restaurants would phone for reliable taxis, but gradually we developed an instinctive feel for judging the suitability of the inevitable green/white ones.

Zocalo (on day of the dead)

Zocalo with VW taxi libre

11May, After breakfast that first morning we set out to view the Zocalo and spent the morning in the Palacio National. Its murals and black and white photographs depicting Mexican life in the past gave us a good insight into the history since winning independence from Spain.

The palace had been built by the Spaniard Cortes, having destroyed the earlier palace, and was the viceroys residence until independence in 1820.

The major murals were painted by Diego Rivera, their most famous painter in the early 30's.

We were able to view of the rooms of the second PM, the very popular leader Benito Juaraz (died 1872) who had especially high ideals on the running of a state.The old parliament rooms had been wonderfully restored from a fire just five years earlier.

After lunch we visited the Museo des Belles Artes the newly restored art deco building erected between 1904 and 1930. Diego Rivera's 'Man Controller of the Universe' dominated the third floor. Themes were mostly left wing politics, anti-war, anti-capitalism, anti-unemployment.

Museo Bellas Artes

12 May, Took our first very successful trip from the zocalo on the metro, a 2P a ticket for journeys of any length, in this case to the Chapultepice woods to the Museo Antropologica, the sort of introduction to a new country which is becoming normal first steps.
It was an excellent introduction of the older civilisations which seemed parallel to those of Peru.
BC to 700 AD Toetihuacan with large cities but without the refinement of the Moche civilisation in Peru.
Tolteca AD 650- AD 1250
Aztec, right up to their conquest by Spain. Notable for impressive stone carving, more refined than before but Roman rather the Tuscan in a similar era. Cortes was welcomed as a god and presented with a beautifully feathered headdress.
Maya, They alone among the Indians of Mid and South America had a language with a grammatical structure, though pictoral in nature. The first written records across this Latin American subcontinent are in Spanish.

That evening we returned to the Belles Artes to see the Ballet Folkflorique in a wonderful theatre with a stained glass cupola and
modern safety curtains reproducing a painting by Mexican artist Gerald Murillo. Dancing and music of a very high standard including that La Cucuracha by Carmen Miranda.

Walking back the hotel at 10:30pm we saw no obvious danger, it seems that as in Peru the danger warnings in the Lonely Planet (the bible guiding world wide lone travellers at the time) were overblown.

13 May, Complemented for my Spanish in the tiny tourist office stand on the Zocalo asking above for suggestions about the journey to Tasco. No problem, no need to book for there were buses every hour, it was OK to take our large rucksacks on the metro. She gave me the San Javier hotel and gave me the telephone number and directed us to the Sanborn's to buy a phone card, we also bought post cards.

They directed me onto the wonderful brass Palacio de Correos (post office) to buy stamps. On showing our passports we were showed around the upper floor with a party of visiting school children. Thus seeing a collection of olden wooden stamping blocks and a set of olden day mail bags. There was a huge mural a collage made entirely of stamps showing a kneeling woman holding an ear of maize with a background of fields and mountains.

Palacio des Correos

Not only is Sanborn's a high class general store but it also houses a wonderful restaurant in Casa de Asulejos (house of tiles), with smart waitresses in starched dresses which became our favorite stop for coffee. It was originally a Chemists Shop with an old stone soda fountain in one wall it now has branches in most cities.

Sanborn's store and Casa de Asulejos

In the afternoon we went to Templo Mayor, the original centre of Mexico City, a recently unearthed discovery from Aztec Tenochtitlan (1375) days, very close to the hotel and next to the cathedral.

AZTEC TEMPLO MAJOR

There had been seven levels of Aztec temples built one on top of the last, the lowest level still being excavated. The structure had been 40 metres high comparable with the catholic cathedral which is 65 metres high. For years it lay under the ruble of the Spanish houses built on top in the 1520's.

Dinner at Cafe de Tacuba an excellent meal fine garlic soup with a raw egg and fillet steak, no wonder a large French group emerged from the other half from whence we were entertained by music and singing.

Thursday 17 June 2004
An advantage of writing this account from notes and photographs made at the time of travel is the lack of need to write in strict diary sequence. I thus move to the very end of this first visit for the final two nights in Mexico City, and then skip onto the beginning and end of our second trip in November 2004.

So this written following an overnight bus ride from Jalapa. Joan records the journey through the mountains as very green with cows sheep and horses and mainly pine trees. Past a wonderful mountain lake edged with white rocks in the crater of an old volcano. A gradual descent to vast fields around Puebla with maize, which is even grown in the mountains, broad beans and cabbage. An authorised taxi from the bus station brought us to the Zocalo where we discovered much of the road works was leading to the hotel was now complete. The zocalo was full of huge tents and a stage presumably in preparation for a Saturday night event by which time we would be on a flight home.

The only record of eating yet again at the Cafe de Tecuba where we ate too much, with pleasant entertainment from a group of troubadours with their guitars, table by table if my memory is correct.

18 June, Took underground then a surface train/tram to La Noria where we walked through to the fabulous privately owned Museo Dolores Olmedo Patino. A wonderful sixteenth century house with a huge landscaped garden of grass with peacocks and fine trees and an enclosure for what Joan terms as 'old' meaning original dogs, completely bald before hair developed as we had seen the previous year in Peru.

Dolores Olmeda Patino, she still lives in part of the building, her apartment of was full of the treasures collected on the travels of this rich lady.

Furtive record of a quiet room

Photos of her family and one of Diego Rivera whilst painting her. Paintings of her and daughters. (My wife tells me one daughter married Zac Goldsmith another Imran Khan probably Pakistan's best ever cricketer come serious politician.)

The galleries were full of originals and is considered to be the best collection of the works of Diego Rivera. Normally there would also be her collection of the paintings by Frida Kahlo but they were currently on loan to an exhibition at Frida Kahlo's house which we visited on our next trip.

Wonderful ivory carving particularly the tiny Japanese ones, Wooden screens inlaid with ivory Cranes a wonderful comic elephant with short legs and a screwed up trunk.

Items stored in beautiful oriental cabinets. A reclining Buddha looking very Thai, and a wonderful impression of a reclining woman in reddish brown wood - no touching or photography in this house. There were lots of pieces of frogs which I was told were symbols of luck, good fortune and wealth. On leaving we noted the gate posts were also frogs.

Our final shots were of the statue of a bald dog which provided partial shade for two live dogs of the same type.

Bald Dogs one statue two live in garden

The afternoon was spent in that unique playground of Xochimilco, where Mexicans come to relax in colourful boats. To reach take the metro to Tasquena station and Tren Ligero to the very last stop.

Xochimilco, a back water on a quiet day

The Parque Ecologico the surrounding fertile botanical gardens (using the techniques used by Aztecs) are in fact floating though they seem solid enough.

Floating Garden?

Floating gardens a reminder that centre of Mexico city itself was built on a small island in a lake, because the nomadic Aztecs spotted a Eagle standing on a cactus eating a snake and took it as a sign to stop wandering and build the city of Tenochtitlan. Hardly the ideal place to build but mystic imperatives prevailed!

Joy and a sense of relaxed fun afloat is everywhere with the odd jazz band thrown into the mix. Obviously a place Mexicans come to celebrate special events. First stop on any further visits we make to the city.

SECOND TRIP to MEXICO CITY in 2004
From Joan's Notebook for once my record is sparse, Monday 30 October
The day started well with an upgrade to first class by KLM, now her favorite airline. For some reason the hotel Catedral (my telephone Spanish?) they had us booked for the 20/21 but quickly found us a room.

Halloween not the same as home though there are small children collecting in plastic pumkins. There was a big concert with an audience of 2000 though we left at 9pm for bed.

31 October breakfast in Casa de Asulejos (Sanborn's), especially wonderful on Sunday morning but when we left there were queues waiting for one of the tables, twenty five downstairs many more in the three rooms on the floor above.

The zocalo was a hive of activity being prepared for All Souls Day.

Brick ovens had been built for baking 'pan de muertos'

The baker was particularly welcoming to passers by.

Men were dressed appropriately for their role as Aztec fighters.

Xochimilco next stop where were asked to share a punt by a welcoming Swiss couple.

They lived in Mexico city with their young daughter and on their first visit to Xochimilco.

The man was extremely wary of kidnappers and didn't like his wife ever to be out alone after dark and in the city he always travelled by taxi or underground for safety. An important man from his office had been kidnapped for months as the bandits argued for a ransom. That fear at least was real, perhaps more so given a likelihood of a significant cash return - as backpackers we felt safe.

A more worrying currently circulating fear for the likes of us was of a few days of temporary kidnap as the robbers took you each day to draw money from ATM until the bank ceased paying. Perhaps this was the time we altered our strategy from carrying valuables, credit/debit cards in a thin waist wallet and passports in a neck wallet, to leaving them in locked luggage in a secure room. Travelling 'pay as you go' we never had serious amounts of cash, and by now ATMs were easy to find all over the world.

1 November DAY of the DEAD

We were up early and breakfasted at the hotel with only a few minutes to revisit the zocalo before catching the bus we had booked for Oaxaca.

Time enough to see lots of activity, bread being baked in the ovens,

Historical Performances and mock graves with offerings,

Three foot high skeletons with people dressed in old style Spanish or Aztec clothes.

A pyramid being dressed with flowers and fruit. In one corner a large tent with altars for different periods of history.

FINAL VISIT to MEXICO CITY
End of Trip Sunday 28 November 2004
Brian's thoughts for once, for Joan finished at Villa Hermosa
Unbelievable transition in the two days of travel from Flores in Guatemala to Mexico City. One from pre-industrial civilisation to tarmac roads, great landscape devoid of slash and burn farming, chicken buses to luxury buses meant we nearly starved for lack of visits on board from colourful peasants selling their produce, personal mobile phones everywhere, fly-overs and busy traffic for calm except for a ninety minute jam to Mexico Norte.

The big current issue across both Guatemala and Mexico is the huge occurrence of violence against women. 20% of females thought to suffer mental and physical violence and only slightly less sexual violence.

Photographs alone remind us of one last visit to a study day for schoolchildren studying drawing in a wonderful setting surrounded by posters. Where exactly that was remains for the moment a mystery.