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Aztec dancers
Old guys wiggling and shaking and hopping around. They just kept going and going and going like an energizer bunny. "Its better for people like you not to have never come here. Go home, now, flee, before its too late!", is what the old Mexican lady sneered, as she looked at us judgementally shaking her head. "Mexico City is not for families, its dangerous .... and never take a taxi". It was comments like these that made us think twice about coming to Mexico. Stories of black taxi kidnappings, bus hijackings, and of course the numerous drug shootings that pepper the media. So imagine our disappointment when we didn't see pistol-toting hombres roaming the streets or burrito-munching shify-eyed seƱors eyeing our wallets. Mexico City is a modern bustling city, and despite its reputation for crime and kidnappings, is worthwhile stop on any Mexican itinerary.
After dumping our gear at the Emporio Reforma (great place for those looking for a mid-budget hotel), we walked to the Centro Histrorico area (historic center) and the Zocalo. This took us through a very modern down-time area complete with skyscrapers, malls and all the regular trappings of any modern city. Our first stop was for food, at one of the many street vendors the Alameda Central, a large inner city park. The veritable tortilla is
Diego Rivera murals
These are everywhere, but easy to miss given the numerous other things to see in down town Mexico city. Vibrant colors often showing initially benign, but on closer look, rather revolutionary images. fried, baked, raw, folded, open, squashed, topped with meat, fish, salsa, avocado, plain, ... those mexicans love their tortillas. But is more, favorite being adobo-style meat - not sure what adobo means, but it tastes like really tasty seasoned hunks of meat.
Apart from food, Mexican parks appear to be the make-out central for the city, young and old (and even geriatric). There are couples everywhere, engaged in all degrees of public displays of affection, typically right next to a family with gawking kids playing ball.
The few parks we saw also seemed to have some kind of show on - not sure whether it was that time of year (it was near to easter), or whether its just the celebratory partying Mexican culture. Outside the Palacio de Belles Artes, we saw an humans-dressed-as-animal show, or so we thought we did anyway. In reality we found out later it was a protest on animal cruelty and pro-vegetarianism - but it still provided sufficient minutes of giggles and squeals for our 2 year old who thought it was a live show of Barney.
We meandered through the historic center for a few hours, which took us through lots
The closest we got to a sombrero
Where are the sombrero senors in Mexico. They seem to be so common in bugs bunny cartoons, but nowhere in Mexico did I see anybody with a hat anywhere near as large. This was the closest - the guy looked sad, maybe lamenting the disapperance of customary sombrero wearing? of colonial buildings, a few ex-palace-like-buildings, museums and generally nice looking old buildings. There was plenty of people watching opportunities, including a great statue street performer and a cyber-punk-meets-day-of-the-dead guy.
We ended our circumambulation of the historic center at the Templo Mayor, a recently (1978) discovered Aztec temple in the heart of down-town (Mexico City was actually the capital of the Aztec empire, then called Tenochtitlan). From outside, it looked like a pretty flat excavation, with not much to see, so we decided to skip it, given we had other temples on the rest of our itinerary. However, right outside was a very cool band of Aztec dancers - bunch of old guys in loin clothes strutting and wiggling and generally looking very dizzy, probably from the copious amounts of incense smoke being generated by the burning pile of stuff on the ground nearby. I was impressed at how vigorous that dancing was, particularly given the age of some of those guys. While watching, we munched on some tamales - corn-dough stuffed with meat and wrapped in banana leaves.
It was getting late, so we headed back into the heart of the historic district to find somewhere to
Cyper-punk meets day-of-the-dead
A certainly made the statement that he was intending to. eat. We stumbled upon a small little eatery run by an old lady - very homely and welcoming, with a reasonable choice of food. We tried out Chocolate Mole - Mole is a the name for a broad group of sauces in Mexican cuisine, chocolate is kind of a savoury-sweet sauce, served in this case as an enchilada. It was .... interesting, though I'm not sure I'd be raving about it as much as the the numerous "we-love-chocolate-mole' blogs I had previously read on the web. But maybe the old lady wasn't a gifted chocolate mole maker.
So the day had been rather laid back, and given the rather modern, friendly and busy streets, we had quickly dropped our guard about the dangers of Mexico. Sure I still kept my eye on my wallet, bags, and peripherals, cameras were not unnecessarily kept in sight, and all the normal tourist cares were taken, but we had definitely fallen into 'this is just another standard city and we will take the standard precautions mentality'. So when the old Mexican lady gave us a stern talking-to, telling us Mexico City was no place for a family with kids, and that we really
Tortillas
Baked, fried, warm, cold, raw, with meat, without meat, ... - so many ways to dress this simple little pancake. should go back home because its super dangerous and you can get kidnapped, we weren't sure whether to discard it as fear mongering, or whether we were just naive. So looked glancingly out the door, noting the setting sun, and then told us to hurry up and eat. "The night is not safe ... and don't take a taxi if you value your life".
Rather than tempt fate, we decided to take her advice, gulped our food down, and then proceeded to walk-sprint (as much as one can when pushing a pram) the 30 mins back to the hotel. The sun was setting quickly, streets were getting darker. The last 10mins alas was along an unlit part of Paseo de la Reforma (a major boulevard in Mexico City) - really dark, and I kept muttering to Melenie "this is where they are, those gun-toting hombres, and burrito munching thugs that jump out and snatch the tourists". At one point, a few young teenagers walked out from an alley - my heart stopped - "here it comes ... stupid us!". Why are teenagers so scary -- honestly, watched too many CSIs and Law and Orders with criminal teenagers. Thankfully, the
Mexico Picante
Or some other kind of spicy sauce. I bought a few bottles and now sprinkle it on everything from chinese noodles to mushroom soup, much to the chagrin of my wife. trip was uneventful, apart from the discovery of really great iced coffee slurpees at 7-eleven.
And so we made it back safely. Honestly, it really didn't feel that unsafe, so I don't know if it was just historic fear-mongering (I'm sure Mexico City used to be more dangerous) - more likely its just the fact that we were in a pretty modern and populated part of Mexico city. Nevertheless, we decided we better play it a little safe while in Mexico, since running away from criminals is kind of hard with a baby and diaper bag in tote. So sadly the rest of our Mexico (and subsequent Guatemala) trip was restricted by 8pm curfews.
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