El Grande D.F., or cinco pesos!

Since I´m terribly behind on my entries (and really want to catch up), and since I don´t really know what to say about Mexico City, I´m just going to do some short notes on my reflections on the city and my experience there. As a side note, Mexico City is also called Mexico Distrito Federal, or Mexico D.F., or most commonly, ¨D.F.¨. I´ll probably do that.

- there are a lot of people in Mexico City. A lot. About 30 million of them. Think about that - it´s the entire population of Canada, concentrated into one city. Which makes for one crowded, congested, polluted city. There are people everywhere, at all times. The streets are crowded. The metro is crowded. Oh, the metro is sooo crowded. If you thought the C-Train at rush hour was bad, think again. That´s the Mexico City metro on off hours. And don´t think that people are polite about getting on and off - I´ve never been physically roughed around so much in my life.

- pollution is bad. Around 2pm on my first full day there, I thought it was getting cloudy and overcast. And then I realized that was just the smog. It was like a thick grey blanket covering the sky. I can only imagine what that does to your respiratory system.

- the historical centre is beautiful, and elaborate. Organ music constantly fills the air as people play for money, giving it a slightly charming feeling.

- you can buy almost anything, real or fake, legit or stolen. One street in particular, Madero, is filled with people illegally selling goods right on the sidewalk. It´s a constant cat and mouse game between the vendors and the special police set up to regulate them. One minute they´ll (the vendor) be perched up on a makeshift pile of cardboard boxes, yelling into a megaphone, and the next they´ll be scrambling to stash all their goods into a bag, or blanket, and hide them from the police. Two minutes later, they´re all set up again, back on the podium, yelling into the megaphone. Also on the metro. A second doesn´t pass on the subway without someone walking down the cars, yelling ¨cinco pesos¨and whatever they´re selling. No matter what it is they´re hawking, whether it be kleenex or candy, it is always cinco pesos. My favorite thing I saw being sold was a pack of intelligent tests.

- I saw all the regular big Mexican monuments, filled with the regular propaganda. I really enjoyed all the Diego Rivera murals scattered throughout the city - at the National Palace, at the Secretariat of Education, and of course, the many Diego Rivera museums.

- Mexico city has some really cool neighbourhoods - upper class, posh areas where the rich can get away from the poverty and pollution and pretend they don´t play a role in sustaining people´s misery. In particular, Coyoacan is really nice, especially on the weekend, when the elite from Mexico City fill its plazas and streets with their purebred dogs that cost more than they pay their servants in a year.

- Mexico City has a really famous cathedral, and like most colonial churches, is overly excessive and elaborate. The real irony lays in the fact that right beside it are the ruins of the Aztec Templo Mayor, the most significant and important temple for the Aztecs in their city of Tenochtitlán. The Spaniards destroyed this magnificent temple and used the stones to build their cathedral. Today you can see Aztec descendants performing dances and other ancient customs for tourists and wealthy Mexicans for money.

- the ruins of the city of Teotihuacan, located about an hour or so outside of D.F., are fabulous. The pyramid of the sun, the principal building in the ancient city, is the 3rd biggest pyramid in the world. Climbing to the top and enjoying the panorama was a really amazing experience.

- another traveler and I made a day trip to the very cute little city of Taxco, a couple of hours south of D.F. It´s most known for its silver, which is sold everywhere, for very cheap. But it´s also a very attractive place, fun to just wander around and explore. However, it´s a very popular holiday destination for chilangos (people from Mexico City) and we made the mistake of visiting on a Mexican stat holiday. When we showed up at the bus terminal to get a ticket back to the city, where all our bags were (and where we had paid for another night at the hostel) we were informed that they were all sold out. So I walked down the street, stopping every car and asking if they had any space for two people while my companion stood on the side of the road, mortified. I almost had one guy too, but his wife kept giving him the look of, ¨if you let this grubby looking girl into our car I´m going to divorce you.¨ Luckily for us, we met two other Brazilian girls in the same situation, and we shared a taxi back to the next biggest town, from where we were able to catch a bus back to D.F.

- I got to take a boat ride down the canals of Xochimilco, a slightly-Venice like suburb on the outskirts of Mexico City. Lanchas ply the canals, with other boats coming up selling all sorts of food and drinks and live mariachis offering their services. Afterward, walking the (concrete) streets of the city, I came across a pulque stand (a cloudy, slightly alcoholic drink made from the maguey plant, a speciality in Xochimilco), where I proceeded to enjoy a cup with the 70 year old town locals. After about an hour, some basic conversation and lots of laughing at my Spanish skills, I quickly realized that as much as some of Mexico can seem novel to me, I am just as much of a novelty to most Mexicans.

I think that sums up most of my time in Mexico City. It´s an interesting city, full of contrasts and oxymorons. I can honestly say I like it, but I wouldn´t spend a lot of time there again. It´s just too big, too polluted, and too obviously unequal. I started to feel my soul slowly being sucked away, and decided it was time to leave.