CDMXing
20 December 2021 | Mexico City
Steve Dolling

We've parked our butts in plastic beach chairs, feet in the sand, drinking margaritas on a good chunk of the Mexican coast: from Progresso to Tulum via all-inclusive resorts in the east and from Puerto Peñasco to Zihuantanejo via sailboat in the West. Cumulatively, we've lived in Mexico for about 2 years and have learned embarrassingly little of the vast country and her culture. It was time for a slightly deeper exploration, so we headed to Mexico City as our Christmas gift to each other.
Ciudad de México (CDMX) is an interesting city with a reputation. Somewhere in my mind was a distorted notion of a giant city in the middle of a volcanic bowl choked with pollution, unbearable traffic, and crime. You know, the kind of place where, as you are gasping for breath, someone will pull up on a motorcycle, reach into your taxi, grab your arm, and cut your hand off to steal your watch.
It is not like that.
For sure Mexico City has a history of violence. As I understand it, based on my informed Amigotours.com in-depth historical research, some badass dudes came here, tortured and killed a bunch of people, subjugated all the surrounding population and terraformed a little town on an island in Lake Texcoco. After a couple hundred years, it became the fifth largest city in the world: Tenochtitlán, center of the Aztec empire.
Then along came Hernán Cortez.
This good Christian from Spain rolled into Tenochtitlán and was appalled by the Mexica tendency to sacrifice children with double cowlicks on altars atop giant pyramids. He set about torturing and killing a bunch of people and subjugating the surrounding population to set things right in the eyes of the correct God.
80 or 90% of the people succumbed to steel, lead, and microbes. The city's beautiful pyramids. temples, administrative buildings, and palaces were all levelled to allow for the building of new temples, administrative buildings, and palaces. The lake was drained, and the city further terraformed until eventually, over a few hundred years, it grew to become once again the fifth largest city in the world: México, capital of the Estados Unidos Mexicanos.
The number of gods were reduced to one and most people here have ancestors from the old world and the new world though I am not really sure which world is which. It's a rich conflicted history about which Mexicans seem to be both intensely proud and deeply uneasy.
We stayed in the Hotel Zócalo Centro which is a totally cool modern hotel in an ancient shell built upon the foundation of emperor Moctezuma's palace and later the houses of Cortés. We're not sure but we think Moctezuma's granddaughter (Cortés' daughter) Leonor Cortés Moctezuma probably stayed in room 412 right next to us.
The Zócalo is the main square in the very heart of historical central Mexico. The name Zocalo comes from a plinth constructed as the foundation for a monument to Mexico's independence. They never got around to building the monument and the plinth eventually sunk into the earth, but the name stuck for the square. I like to think of it as the national metaphor for Mexican real estate development. Central squares in several Mexican cities are now called Zócalos.
We had breakfast every morning looking out over the Zócalo across to AMLO's house (Palacio National) and the big cathedral. It's a cool location. They shot the opening sequence for the James Bond film Spectre here in 2015 with helicopter action overlayed on a Day of the Dead parade. Mexico never had a Day of the Dead parade at the Zócalo, but they liked the film sequence so much they now have one here every year using costumes and props from the movie.
A walk through the Templo Mayor's destroyed ruins and the adjacent cathedral expose 700 years of history in a couple of blocks
CDMX is not like touristy coastal cities where most everyone seems to speak a little English. In CDMX, often the cab driver or server speaks less English than we speak Spanish, and Foster has rated our level of linguistic accomplishment as Toddler, or more precisely, Drunken Toddler. We often now find ourselves in trouble when we start a conversation and people assume we are fluent and respond in rapid-fire Spanish.
I used to say to people, "Los siento, no hablo español" which actually causes confusion when I do speak a little and claim I don't. My favourite new phrase is "Hablo español como un niño alcohólico." It is a ridiculous phrase which is universally understood and always triggers a warm smile. I used it often in CDMX.
The city itself definitely has a lot of traffic and a lot of people, but it is surprisingly clean and calm. There are no horns honking. Pedestrians weave in and out of traffic with a confident calmness. Nobody seems to obey the traffic lights, but cars and pedestrians all seem to follow the rule of "don't do stupid stuff" and it all kind of works with an interesting mutual respect that I haven't noticed in other cities around the world.
Covid is a serious thing in CDMX. Masks are worn everywhere, and temperatures are taken at the entrance to every business or public building. Hand sanitizer is dispensed by volunteers on the streets. There are no protests or complaints. A cab driver explained that everyone here has had a friend or relative who has been very sick or died and their idea of freedom is keeping the virus suppressed enough that they don't have to go back to the red-light restrictions and buying oxygen cylinders to care for their friends. We saw one incident where a tourist at the national museum of anthropology was asked 3 times to put his mask on and he would remove it as soon as the guard walked away. They ejected him from the museum, and he stormed out without his mask. I think there was a small cheer. Interesting.
I never really understood Frida. We went to the museum. I will never really understand Frida. I think it's a Mexican thing. Diego I get. Google "art deco atheist communist muralist", Diego Rivera will be the first hit. Interesting stuff. I have no concept really of what is right and left in Mexico. I'll have to advance beyond Drunken Toddler level to learn a little more.
And speaking of Diegos, our tour took us to the Basilica de Guadalupe where Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin bumped into the virgin Mary on three occasions. The third interaction resulted in an early polaroid image developing right on his cloak so that the bishop would know he wasn't making up a story. The bishop ordered the building of the shrine that Mary was asking for. This is the third most visited sacred site in the world. The latest iteration features a moving walkway past the original cloak, and you can exit through a kind of walk-through holy water dispensary where the priest seems to hit about six people per shot. With 10 million visitors annually at 250mL per throw, if half opt for the holy water, they have to be slinging over 400,000 litres of holy water per year. I must confess the Diego story to me seemed to blend together with some of the Aztec and Mayan stories and I can't say one was more compelling than another, but the Pope made Diego a saint in 1990 so his story has legs.
Personally what was compelling for me was the old Basillica which is typical of old buildings in Mexico City as it has a noticeable lean to it as it sinks into the lakebed. The new one seems level for now. All over the city you can see old buildings with several degrees of tilt.
Interestingly, the Aztecs kept rebuilding their pyramids. Templo Mayor was on it's seventh iteration when Cortez had it destroyed. The guide mentioned something about a 52-year cycle where the next emperor would build a bigger and better pyramid on top of the old one to emphasize the majesty and growing greatness of the empire or something like that. It seems like a nice story, but I think that the Aztecs were just trying to keep their pyramids from disappearing into the lakebed. One emperor's pyramid was just preload for the next emperor.
Xochimilco is a cool place. Here they have canals that were typical of the whole valley before the Spanish drained it. We went for a ride on a pole propelled trajinera and enjoyed an excellent lunch prepared on a food boat which rafted up behind us. Mariachis boarded and played for us. It's a cheesy Mexican tourist experience, but one with hundreds of years of history and world heritage status. Even locals love it.
Overall Mexico City was amazing. Not at all the violent crowded polluted urban hell I've heard some describe it as, but instead a vibrant, clean, colourful city with broad boulevards lined with poinsettias. It's an impressive national capital that is unique. We never feared for our safety and walked around freely even at night. To be clear, there are whole neighborhoods that hotel concierge marked out of bounds with a highlighter. One neighbourhood features gondolas over top to allow safe passage for the rich folks who live up on the hill. It's dubbed a Pueblo Magico because if you go there, like magic, you disappear.
The food was great and the people were well, Mexican. That is they were warm, welcoming, hard-working people with a sense of humour and openness. Even the street vendors are super polite and everyone is respectful. We never saw anyone mistreated or harsh words exchanged.
I feel like I understand Mexico a little better. Advancing towards Sober Toddler.