Park Villa

Dear Friends,

Jerry and I took a trip to Mexico City last week and I’d like to share some pictures and stories with you.

We arrived on December 26th and met our friends and neighbors Jeff and Lydia at our modest hotel near Chapultapec Park called Park Villa. This hotel/motel hadn’t changed much in the 30 years since Jerry had lived there in the 70’s when he had his camper van parked right outside his room.

Even though he raved about this hotel, I got nervous - the rooms were only $50 a night!!! I couldn’t imagine what kind of a fleabag place we were commiting to! But I grew to feel very warmly towards the place as the days went on.

The rooms were spartan, but spotlessly clean. To me its best feature was this lovely restaurant where I would have my huevos, fresh fruit, and tea each morning.

Around noon the parrots would be freed from their cages and squawk lustily throughout the rest of the day.

(Jerry said that back in the 70’s they also used to have lions in a cages. I can’t imagine!!!)

Our friend Jeff wasn’t so crazy about the fancy breakfast at the hotel.  Instead he preferred the neighborhood tamale vendor a few blocks away - for about 50 cents every morning he would get a steaming tamale and coffee. Here is Jerry getting his morning fix.

All the best,

Mary

The Zocalo

Dear Friends,

We kept on finding ourselves returning to the Zocalo or town square. It is the heart of the  Central Historic District of Mexico City. Our first full day began with a free two hour walking tour led by Estacion Mexico.  I learned so much in a short time.

The main thing was this: Mexico City is sinking - fast!

That’s because Mexico City is built directly over an Aztec city which was built over a natural lake. (It had something to do with the Aztecs building their city where the eagle was resting on a cactus with a serpent in his mouth. You had to have been there, I guess)

So these buildings are sitting on very, very wet ground. All over the place you see them tipping and sinking into and away from each other. Take a close look at this photo of the huge cathedral  for example - the cacti are standing straight up, but the front of the cathedral is definitely tilting into the middle of the Zocalo.

Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t this crazy???!!!! 

Here is the cathedral from the back.

Its insides are dripping with gold.

Next to the cathedral is an excavation of the original Aztec city.

A bookstore in the area had the perfect Christmas tree.

Hurdy gurdies are ubiquitous. Some say they came with the Austrian Emperor Maxmillian in the mid 19th century to make him feel at home. Others say that they came with a large settlement of Germans towards the end of the 19th century. In any case, the first couple of them are kind of charming, but the next 40 or 50 of these honkers get to be annoying. 

I kind of liked their low-tech package delivery system. 

Here is the Zocalo by day.

Here it is all decked out for Christmas. Believe it or not, there was an ice rink in the middle of the square.

All the best,

Mary

More Historic Buildings near the Zocalo

On our walking tour we got to see some other beautiful historic buildings near the Zocalo.

My favorite was the Post Office or the Palacio de Correos de Mexico. It had been heavily damaged in the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake but was beautifully restored. You can see it was all decked out for the holidays.

Here is a picture of Lydia and me.

We saw this beautiful ceiling on our tour.

Here is a  Diego Rivera mural in the Presidential Palace.

Recognize these two?? We grabbed a bite to eat in a luncheonette after all that walking!

Ballet Folklorico and Xochimilco

Dear Friends,

The evening of our first full day in Mexico City we went to an outdoor performance of Ballet Folklorico de Mexico at the Castle in Chapultapec Park. Wow, wow! Words cannot begin to describe the feast for the eyes and ears in this Christmas program. Through costumes, live music, and dance it told the history of Mexico from pre-Aztec times, through the Spanish conquistadors, up to modern times, The centerpiece of the program was the procession of the Virgin de la Guadalupe and the re-enactment of the Nativity Story, complete with live horses, lambs, and goats. Ballet Folklorico is a must see if you travel to Mexico City. Here are some pics.

The next morning we headed for an adventure to the Canals of Xochimilco (pronounced So-chee-MEEL-ko.) south of the city. Remember on an earlier email I said that Mexico City was built on a lake? Well Xochimilco is what is left of the lake and the canal system of earlier times. The four of us rented a gondola and gondolier for a couple of hours and made our way in these colorful boats.

The gondolas were like Mother Ships that  were “serviced” by a variety of vendors - from food to trinkets to entertainment.

As we floated down the river, each gondola created its own tableau - groups like this one floated by within an arms reach. I wanted to know more about them: was this a family celebration? 

In order to appreciate what happens next, you need to know that our friend Jeff can’t stand mariachis.  There is something about the blaring trumpets, the out of tune singing, the  screechy violins, and the heavy ranchero beat that drives him up the wall. So to make him happy we bought a few tunes from two marimba players floating by.

Things got pretty wild on the gondola after that!

More later.

All the best,

Mary

Teotihuacan

In preparation for our trip to the Pyramids of Teotihuacan  (pronounced TAY-o-TEE-wa-KAN) the following day, we made a pilgrimage to the Museum of Anthropology in Chapultapec Park.

Jerry had raved to us about this museum. When he lived in Mexico City back in the 70's he would return to this museum again and again. We soaked up what we could of its rich offerings.

Here are some pictures from the museum. I couldn't get over how "modern" really old stuff looks.

The next morning we headed out for the Pyramids of Teotihuacan. 

Now a word about transportation in Mexico City. We used Uber almost exclusively - the one time we hailed a taxi for convenience it cost us about three times as much. Now since the pyramids were about an hour outside the city, we got the brilliant idea to hire the Uber driver we had used the day before. He quoted us a reasonable price for driving us around all day from 8 AM to 6 PM. The agreed upon day he drove us out to the Pyramids, but then started haggling us about price, threatening not to drive us back to the city unless we paid him in full. We turned Lydia loose on him (a force to be reckoned with, believe me) and we eventually got what we wanted, albeit for far more than we expected to pay. I took home this moral - in a foreign country you are protected by Uber.  It's a safer cashless environment, plus somewhere in Uber-heaven they know where you are and whether you got where you were supposed to have gotten. When you go outside the Uber system, you might have problems.

Back to Teotihuacan. We arrived at the Pyramids and after haggling with the driver, had a bit of breakfast to fortify our strength for the long day ahead.

Then we got into the Park and wow! Right in front of us was the Temple of the Sun. It was built around 100 BC and was the center of a thriving civilization until about 500 AD. 

We climbed every step to the top. Here are some of the vistas.

 We made it to the very top!

After such a sublime day, what else but hit the Market on our way back to town? We tasted the local fare. Just in case you were wondering no one got sick!

All the best,

Mary

Our Frida and Diego Day

Friday was our Frida and Diego Day.

We started with an upscale breakfast at the San Angel Inn.

Then we headed to the The Studio Museum where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera did their work.  It was built in the 30's by their friend Juan O'Gorman - each had their own separate house, but there was a bridge connecting Frida's casa with Diego's. That day was a feast for the eye and for the soul.

Here is property from the outside. (Someone said that the curved outdoor staircase is recent.)

First we saw Diego's studio.

Then we visited Frida's casita. I got a kick out of the window-washing angel-voyeur into Frida's living room.

I don't remember which house this staircase belonged to, but thought it was coolly minimalistic. Definitely non-ADA.

From The Studio we headed over to their house. This was quite the tourist destination. We ended up buying our tickets ahead of time online - otherwise it would have been at least a 2 hour wait to get inside. The outside gardens were gorgeous. (Knitting friends, I've decided that I'm going to make a Frida shawl with this bright blue and other super-suturated Mexican colors.) 

This young visitor got into the Frida spirit. Isn't she gorgeous?!

This Patti Smith poem made an impression on me. 

When touring Frida's home, I couldn't help but think about our friend Melanie who just passed away at the age of 25 from complications of lupus. Like Frida, Melanie lived life bravely and managed to create a personal style which rose above her physical infirmities.

Not to dwell on such sadness for long . . . 

Olla from Jerry Diego and Frida Mary