Mexico City 2009

Monday, 19 Oct. 2009 I´ve been sleeping fitfully since I arrived here Friday, but that´s to be expected.  I also experienced this in Costa Rica last year and eventually I´ll sleep well.  I lumbered over to Chapultepic Park only to be told by one of the security guards that the park is closed Mondays.  Who ever heard of a city park being closed on Mondays!  I then tried to walk around the circumference of the park just to get a sense of its size and presence, but soon there was no sidewalk and nothing but oncoming traffic seeking its prey.  I nearly got run over earlier this morning because some idiot had parked right on the corner (a lot of people do this in this city, and incidentally almost no one uses their turn signals, and pedestrians are just as bad since everyone crosses against the traffic.)  I eventually made it to a network of charming streets near my neighbourhood but my objective was to find the Paseo  de Reforma which is the Grand Boulevard of Mexico City.  Think of Georgia Street on steroids.  Reforma has, I think twelve lanes separated by one, and in the part near Chapultepic Park, two planted boulevards with plenty of statues and monuments along the way.  I think it was about a two mile walk but I made it to the Zocalo, which is the central square of the city.  This is the world´s largest public square and it holds the legislative buildings, the Cathedral and the presidential palace.  This week there appears to be a book fair on in the square with white tents and pavillions all over under which books are being displayed and sold.  I would like to see the square empty in order to get a sense of its enormity.  It is also part of the historic district where all the charming old architecture is concentrated. Everything in this city, it seems, is huge and the distances  between places are vast.  The cathedral itself could easily contain four or five Christ Church Cathedrals.  The high altar and many of the shrines are covered in gold, likely plundered from the Aztecs, and who only knows from whom they must have plundered it.  Speaking of size, this also makes me think of what happens when everything gets too big and takes on its own life and momentum, killing and destroying every form of life that gets in its way, and so you have the phenomenon of urbanization.  This makes me also think of the myth of Prometheus who stole fire from the gods and gave it to human kind, and was thus punished for thousands of years being chained to a rock while an eagle would come every day to feed on his liver.  And it turns out that humankind wasn´t ready for this gift. Almost across the street from the cathedral are the ruins of one of the Aztec temples, only discovered thirty years ago.  They are still doing excavations and access is blocked but there is still a viewing platform.  I´ve noiced some identical looking stones in some of the old buildings and it was probably taken from the Aztec structures. I would have explored the Centro Historico more but I´ve been very tired from some four hours of walking so I took the metro, which is their subway, back to my hotel.  The metro makes our Sky Train and Canada Line look like a child´s train set. The trains have many cars, too  many to count and the crowding is incredible.  Desperately poor Mexicans come on board to hawk their wares, in this case a guy selling early sixties rock and roll cd´s while playing at high volume some samples for us. When I returned to the hotel I was painting in the courtyard and talking with two other guests.  One had just returned from viewing the pyramids at Teotihuacan and mentioned that the one annoyance was all the hawkers there, and really they are everwhere here.  But he also observed that it is the desperate poverty for many in this country that drives them to do this, otherwise it´s the drug trade or worse. Despite the size of this city I want to try to walk as much of it as possible.  This means getting lost a lot, and so I have to carry a map with me or sometimes ask for directions from whomever.  Funny thing, on Sunday, twice someone stopped me in their car to ask me for directions.  Like yeah I really live here. There´s something about exploring an unfamiliar city on foot that I find hugely gratifying.  Rather like walking a labyrinth.  A city is really to me like a human brain in microcosm, and this is kind of like remapping my brain for me I guess.  Yeah a lot of the sites and some of the other stuff for tourists have their appeal but I want to know the city on its own merits, at least as much as possible in the short time I have here.  So I end up spending a lot of time in neighbourhoods and settings that tourists usually want to avoid, but its worth the trade off because it gives more of a sense of how people live here.  Living in a highly touristed city, Vancouver, in the downtown area I see every day what a pain in the ass tourists can be and usually because they seldom really clue in that people actually live here.   It is also nice having the luxury of four weeks to do this in.