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Published: October 16th 2009
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On Friday I took an early walking tour of downtown Historic Center that lasted a little over 3 hours. It was a great walk, led by a history buff, that lent a fresh palette to my impressions from the day before. The walk started at Zocalo, which is enclosed by The Cathedral, National Palace, and other government buildings. The murals inside the former residence of the President, National Palace, was my personal highlight. Painted by one of the greatest artists of our generation Diego Rivera, they depicted Indians as a highly advanced civilization which was deceived and pillaged by the greedy Conquistadors. The life-sized murals, sequentially arranged all along the walls of the inside courtyard, are full of detail and truly amazing color. The group, consisting of about 8 hostelers, then proceeded to the ruins of Aztec main temple, the likely sight of gruesome human sacrifice. At one point of the tour an indigenous priest performed a purifying ceremony on a group of us which consisted of him blowing smoke from a burning chalice all over our bodies and yelling nice things in our faces. At the end he gave each one of us a a pebble of petrified lava instructing
us to guardalo, safe-keep it. The tour finished up at the Palacio de Belles Artes (fine arts museum and opera house) at which point an exhausted bunch of us proceeded to the local cantina for a celebratory cerveza and victuals. I decided to join a Swede by the name of M. and a Polack named P. for more sightseeing. This time to a neighborhood called Coyoacan, the residential south of the city. Our goal: the Frida Kahlo Museum, the former residence of Diego Rivera and his concubine.
M. and P. turned out to be excellent companions for the day. The first is a video game developer in town for a wedding couple days away, the other is a multi-disciplinarian with extensive travels in India, a stint driving a cab in London, or leading tours in Dublin. Throughout the day conversation was full of lucid exchanges and heated dialogue. The Frida Kahlo museum turned out to be another major highlight for me. It is fairly small, but what it lacks in size it makes up with thoughtful arrangement, appropriately eery ambience, and plain unadulterated charm. The art commentary, as much as my limited spanish allows me to discern, adds greatly
Freemasons!
At Palacio Nacional to the personification of Frida and Diegos social and intellectual life together, her struggles resulting from a spine crippling bus accident, and his torturous infidelities. Unfortunately, the museum didn deem it important to translate the commentary into other languages. The end of the gallery opens up into the courtyard of small walkways, radiant flowers, and one lazy resident cat. The neighborhood surrounding the museum is also well worth checking out. Coyoacan is probably the greenest part of Mexico City with its trees, plants, flowers, and numerous parks. It is full of character, irresistibly picturesque alleys, cobblestone roads. This is where I first realized the primary distinguishing factor of this city--color. Without wasting adjectives I can say that these colors and combinations are the ones the western word is often spooked by. Imagine the brightest tinges of pink and purple, orange and green, blue and red, yellow and crimson, and many more--as far as the eye can see. Here nothing is hidden, everything is embellished to the max.
After an 8 hour walking day bursting with impressions the sensible thing to do would be to retire into quiet contemplation. However, this is Mexico City, throw out your sense and sensibilities,
Flower
Frida Kahlo Museum and get ready for another round of beer and tequila. The hostel was buzzing with energy so when we got there we got right down to business. Some people went to a luche libre--mexican wrestling--fight. Apparently that night was big: Japan vs Mexico, mens fight, womens fight, gay fight. I ate my dinner contemplating whether a fake wrestling match between two or more men donning colorful masks can get any gayer. I didn go but later reports answered my question in the affirmative. Around midnight there was a sudden stampede to get into a waiting van outside. Despite my best efforts I was swept away with the crowd. We took some time getting there as the driver got lost and didn know where the place was. I wonder what the best taxi driver in this city looks like. He must be as old as the library of Babel.
When we finally arrived we found ourselves outside a club in the hip Condesa district. I was quite dismayed at this fact, as I was wearing swimming trunks and flip-flops, which would surely draw eyes of derision with this fashionista crowd. Fully expecting to be turned back at the door I,
nonetheless, strutted towards the door as if I left my diamond encrusted watch at a table while popping my third bottle of Dom Perignon. This seemed to work as moments later I was swimming against the current on the dance floor on the way to the bar. A few of us created a dance circle. M. who earlier in the night declared his affinity for Freudian motivational theory with a timid but scandinavian harshness: "she just needs to be taken, declared, conquered," proceeded to do just that with the a cute mexican girl dancing next to him. Good for you, young conquistador. The night continued in various stages of disarray as people were either miraculously found or mysteriously lost. The latter was celebrated with: "Heyyy, Salute!", while the former with: "Where the hell is so-and-so? I don know, well...Hey, Salute!" Still a bit self-conscious about my attire I went outside for a breather. Since by now I was fluent in spanish I got to talking to a young mexican about the eternal question of womanizing. This guy was a wellspring of information about locations, characteristics, quirks of his many girlfriends and wives. I fueled his enthusiasm with outright sarcasm to
Federales
With heavy weaponry. Common scene in D.F. such a degree that he offered to give me a ride back to the hostel. I arrived at the hostel a little after 3 am, woke the attendant, and told him that another group of 6 or 7 of us will be arriving within half an hour.
Waking around 10 am next morning I found no signs of either M. nor P. Half an hour later the duo stumbled through the door demanding cold beer. Fresh as daisies they recounted an incomplete story of taxi drivers, gentlemens club, exorbitant bills, arguments, and temporary imprisonment of one while the other obtains sufficient funds to cover the nights entertainment. I was quite happy that I had the foresight, or rather luck, to avoid this nonsense. An Australian guy pulled one even better. After losing everyone at the club he ventured outside not knowing where he was, where the hostel was, or anything else practical. Setting his sights on a tall building in the distance he walked all night until, remarkably, finding the way back to his comfortable bunk bed. Mexico City, silly, why you do these things to us?
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