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Published: October 9th 2008
Mexico after Belize and Guatemala felt like an entirely different world, though not in the way you might expect. It was easier to get around than in Guatemala, and had so much more going on than in laid-back Belize. The three are so diverse it is hard to believe how close they are to each other geographically. Our first stop was a small town in Chiapas called San Cristobal de las Casas. San Cristobal is known as a home to large percent of Mexico's indigenous peoples, as well as a center of Zapatista activism (the city was taken over for a short period in 1994 by the rebel group). After some interesting conversations with our hostel owner Fernando, I highly suspect that he was a Zapatista (he told me he is against all federal government and believes the states should govern themselves at a local level). It was exciting to be talking about things I've learned in my political science classes where they actually happened, and to people that they actually affect.
A major part of our trip to San Cristobal was visiting Na Bolom, the former residence turned museum of Franz and Trudi Blom. He was an archeologist and
she was a journalist and photographer, both were activists for the Lacondons, an indigenous Mayan people, and the preservation of the rain forest. Their huge estate used to be a monastery and includes a tree farm, where trees saplings are raised and given to today's Lacondons to help replenish the rain forest. The photos and information in the museum were fascinating, and the house and its decor were beautiful. Part of it has also been turned into a hotel, way out of our price range, but the cool thing is it always has three rooms set aside for any Lacondon individual to stay for free. We were able to go to dinner at Na Bolom one night, which is served in the original dining room and only uses produce grown in the backyard garden. Another interesting museum we visited was the Museum of Mayan Medicine, explaining the medicinal plants and rituals used by the Mayans.
From San Cristobal we also rented bicycles and biked to a nearby village called Chamula. The ride was intense - we were biking uphill on a dirt road most of the way, but it was worth the sweat when we finally arrived. The town
is famous for its unique church, which was truly an experience. Although technically a Catholic church and decorated with images of the saints and Mary, the people have combined Mayan tradition and Catholicism for centuries. The remnants of the Mayan traditions were especially evident in this particular church. The floor of the interior was covered in dried pine needles and groups of people clustered around burning candles and bottles of soda. Different colored candles signify different types of prayers and requests in Mayan belief, and the soda is sprinkled as nourishment for the god(s). Apparently they used to use a traditional alcoholic drink, but this was substituted with soda in an attempt to diminish alcoholism. The church was filled with the sound of prayers being spoken in Mayan. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside, which is understandable but also disappointing as this was one of the more unique places we visited.
From San Cristobal we headed directly to Mexico City (known as Distrito Federal or simply "DF") for the remainder of our trip. Here are a few of my initial impressions of the city: 1.
lots of police everywhere, all carrying machine guns, very scary! and
also a surprising number of women police 2. much cleaner than expected (both the streets and the air, and especially the lack of dog poo on the sidewalks compared with BsAs) 3. uglier than Buenos Aires (I know it sounds mean, but the buildings just aren't as pretty, though of course there were many exceptions) 4. literally a church on every block 5. a much slower pace than I expected for such a big city. We had four days in DF, with plans from dawn til dusk each day, and we still only saw a fraction of it. Our first day was spent hitting up some major museums: The Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Anthropology. Both were incredible; we discovered two new favorite artists, Roberto Turnbull and German Venegas, and learned a great deal at the Museum of Anthropology about the indigenous people of Central America and Mexico. Jenn and I joked that we could be professors of Mayan Civilization by the time we left, since so many of the places we went focused on Mayan culture.
The next day we headed to Teotihuacan, an ancient excavated city just north of the DF. We had a
Mariachi band
at the Xochimilco canalschance to learn about the Teotihuacans at the Museum of Anthropology the previous day; the city was built by a distinct people group, not the Aztecs, though the Aztecs took over later on. Part of Teotihuacan is the world's third largest pyramid, the Pyramid of the Sun, which we were able to climb and enjoy the view from the top. A museum on the site contained many well-preserved murals as well.
After Teotihuacan we visited Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's house (know as the "casa azul") in Coyoacan, which was awesome. The house is filled not with famous works of art by the well-known couple but with photos of them with friends and family, costumes worn by Frida in several of her self-portraits, trinkets and gifts from around the world, their original dishes and furniture, and best of all, words and designs painted by Frida and Diego on many of the walls and doorways of the house. It was pretty incredible.
Later that night we went to a Lucha Libre fight, an enriching cultural experience for sure! It was a lot of fun and gave me my Halloween costume for this year!
Saturday we set out for
mole
Rosita here loved it the Xochimilco canals. All of the land that is now Mexico City used to be a lake, it was gradually irrigated and land was built up, creating an extensive series of canals. The southern part of the city is still comprised of these canals, with houses built on the makeshift islands or "chinampas" accessible only by boat. Our trajinera ride was beautiful and relaxing; boats filled with mariachi bands, food vendors, and large parties shared the canal and provided lots of entertainment. The chinampas are extremely fertile and covered with all kinds of flowers and trees. One creepy tree was hanging with all sorts of decrepit dolls with missing limbs that were fished from the canals. We enjoyed amazing chicken mole for lunch, one of my favorite Mexican dishes.
After the canals we stopped by the Museum Dolores Olmedo, the mansion-turned museum of an extremely wealthy patron of Diego Rivera. The huge grounds had lots of peacocks, and supposedly also hairless dogs native to pre-Columbus Mexico, though we didn't see any. The art collection included many Rivera works from different points in his career, as well as a room of Frida's sketches and a large collection of portraits of
Isla de las Muñecas
This is actually a copy of the original Island of the Dolls, which is further up the canal. Creepy! Dolores herself by various famous artists.
That evening we got drinks at La Risa, a traditional pulqueria that only serves the colonial beverage pulque. I got the feeling that this was not a place frequented by tourists; it was like walking into a dim and dusty saloon, complete with swinging double doors at the front and tables filled with regulars who eyed us suspiciously. We ordered guava-flavored pulque; it was thick and sweet and really tasted more like juice than anything else. Not bad! We made friends with the kids at the table next to us and hung out for the rest of the night. Mexico's Dia de Independencia was coming up on the 15th, so they took us to the huge Zocalo or main plaza in the city center which was brightly decorated and crowded with families and entertainment. Our new friends taught us some slang of Mexico City, including "que chido" - "how cool!"
For our last full day Jenn and I did a self-guided walking tour through the city center. This was centered around the Zocalo from the previous night, and included visits to the Cathedral, the Palacio Nacional, the Gran Hotel, and the Museo
we love Diego
at the Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño de las Bellas Artes. Unfortunately, the Palacio Nacional was closed due to preparations for the 15th, so we missed out on seeing some major murals. However, Bellas Artes houses some incredible ones by Rivera, Siquieros, and Orozco. We were in the Catedral Metropolitan during mass, which was kinda cool. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering a huge outdoor market near the Zocalo, finishing up our shopping and doing some people watching. We watched some great break-dancers who were performing, they made Jenn volunteer to lay down along with 4 other people from the audience while one of the dancers jumped over all of them. Pretty impressive!
Sadly we were leaving on the Dia de Independencia, one of the most important holidays in Mexico. It would have been fun to stay one more day and enjoy the festivities, but we were also ready to come home. Mexico was beautiful, safe, fascinating, and so much fun. If this inspires anyone to plan a trip make sure you invite me, I would go back in a heartbeat!
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mr and mrs navala
non-member comment
cool blog
We wanna be a luchadoro and a luchadora. El potato alfredo and la donya amelia. with brightly colored wrestling masks.