Tlateloco and the plaza de las tres cultculturas

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Jono and I woke with a little more energy, having had a good sleep. Man, that makes a difference. Sleep. I love it! We went for a walk a few kilometers from our hostel to Tlateloco and the plaza de las tres cultculturas. The name refers to the merging of three cultures (pre hispanic, spanish, and contemporary mexico). It was nice to hike out of the hustle and chaos of the city centre. I felt remarkably peaceful while strolling around contemplating history, enjoying the horn-whistle-traffic-chaos free ambiance and breathing in the scent of Jacaranda. But the history of this place is anything but peaceful, from the conquering of the initial Aztrec faction by the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan (who simply built their temples on top of the older Aztec temples), to the human sacrifices by the Aztecs and then them being conquered by the Spanish. Then, more recently in 1968, 400 student protesters were massacred by the government on the eve of the Mexico City Olympic Games. As if that is not enough violence for one area of no more than a square kilometer, it was also one of the worst hit by the big earthquake in 1985, where apartment buildings all around the temple collapsed and killed hundreds of people. Culture stacked on top of culture, violence buried under more violence. Destruction, covering up, rebuilding... craziness!

On our way home we stopped at a food market that had over 70 kitchens, serving local specialties accompanied, ofcourse, by cervesa or tequila. A lot of them seemed to be run by families and you felt literally like you were walking past or into their dining rooms. We ate a traditional dish called Pozole, a broth brimming with chicken and homminy kernels (corn that has been treated with lime water to remove the husk and make it more digestible), and topped with radish and oregano. You can also get pig noses and ears added, but we opted out of this.

We then walked past a square where Mariachi hang out to play their various string and brass instruments for the paying passer by. Then I KNEW I was in Mexico!

Buoyed by our morning, Jono and I felt game enough to navigate the crazy Mexican streets in search for a local market as we were craving fresh fruit and vegetables, and we stumbled upon the prostitute strip. We seem to be good at accidentally finding the seedy prostitute and drug streets in any City! Hastings street in Vancouver still takes the cake for seedy though. This street did not even come close in seediness scale. I caught the eyes of one of the prostitutes as I walked past her and we exchanged friendly smiles. Some of them looked very young though, which I hope was not the case. I am not sure if prostitution is illegal in Mexico City, but considering there were police standing next to some of them, I am assuming it is legal, or at least tolerated. I did read though in an English language local paper that the current mayor was trying to phase out street vendors, so I assume he would include prostitutes in this. We realised on this walk that Mexico City is made up of different degrees of craziness and chaos. We thought Centro historico was crazy enough, but as we got further and further away from the political center and tourist hub, the streets became increasingly cluttered and noisy and crazy. Entire streets would have their tarmac dug up and construction going on WHILE traffic was passing, with police blowing whistles, waving batons and directing. Small cluttered poky shops were selling anything from rolls of fabric, to plastic kitsch, to kitchen implements, CDs, electronics, cameras, clothes. Each store had its own music blaring or a megaphone armed sales person, speaking in Spanish, and sometimes, when seeing us in English. The cacophony of horns, whistles, music, megaphone sales pitches, construction and people was out of this world and hard to describe in words. And sooooo many people! Amidst it all, I witnessed some kid running with a sack over his shoulder, only to get arrested by FIVE police officers. The scene was quite unreal though, as the kid and the police were all smiling, as though playing a game of tag, and the kid just became IT. Even though there are more police than I have ever seen in one area and they carry machine guns and wear bullet proof armour, they all seem very relaxed and are often laughing with each other or passers by. It is quite incongruous. Perhaps I am just viewing it all through happy tourist eyes.

Anyhow, by the time we found the actual market we were absolutely exhausted. The market was written up in our lonely planet guide as a place for locals to meet their everyday needs, so we were thinking it would be a good place to find fruit. This place makes Glebe Markets looks like a country town church fete. The small dark blue tents were densely packed (with people and products) and almost ontop of each other, with low plastic ceilings trapping the heat and the noise and making me feel claustrophobic and trapped. And the only things we could see, electronics, random plastic things, fake designer clothes, knives and porn, were far from meeting our everyday needs. We had no desire for getting lost in this city of little full blue tents in the search for fruit, and something about walking past a pornography tent right next to a knife tent made me feel a little uneasy. We decided to walk back to the hostel, empty handed, but found a store selling lollies, dried fruit and nuts on the way back where we got some dried fruit atleast.

Wow. Time flies when sitting infront of a computer. I need to go and get ready to catch a plane the plane to Santiago. I am having trouble uploading pics again, so I have put a few up, but I will add more later, hopefully from Santiago, so watch this space, yet again!

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