Wow. I don't even know where to start. Lets see. Mexico city has become a little less intimidating over the last five days, but no less crazy and generally stressful. Despite the amazing time I have had so far, I can say with absolute certainty that if I had to live here I would be absolutely, certifyably insane by month 2.
Day two in town consisted of some general wandering about town with a smattering of Diego Rivera murals here and there. I met Alvaro, a host from hospitalityclub.org and spent the rest of the day pounding the pavement with him and my host Sandra.
Day three was all about Chapultepec park, the only true green space near the center of the city, and subsequently desparately overused. It is easy to see the intention of creating a natural haven, but the sheer masses of urban refugees negates much of the relaxing effect, and it is littered with garbage everywhere. Ugh. I went to the modern art museum first, which I loved. I found lots of new favorites, since I knew next to nothing about Mexican art. My mood was especially elevated by a young educator who was sheparding a group of first graders through the place. I first ran into them in front of an abstract Rivera painting as he was explaining the concept of cubism. Since he was talking to five and six year olds, his Spanish was close to my level of understanding, and I could actually follow. "Here is Ema. Take a picture with your imaginary cameras. Ready?" A bunch of kids shout CLICK! "Now Ema turn to face the wall to your right. Another picture please! More screaming "CLICKCLICK! "Another turn with your back to the group now...and...." CLICKCLICKCLICK! " One last picture facing the wall on the left, kids!" CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK!! "Now imagine the four pictures you took in your head. Got it? Imagine putting them on top of each other so you can see all four of them together. That's .....Cubismo!" Anyway. I love watching people work who have found a way to combine their skill and their passion in such a great way. He had those kids mesmorized - they were visibly learning.
After the art museum I checked out Chapultepec castle on top of the hill and was flabbergasted by the endless expanse of the city. You have almost a 360 degree view from there, and it is almost impossible to make out the city's end anywhere. I took a few pictures but they simply couldn't capture the feeling. I just kept walking around the castle being aware that I was looking across the homes of 20 million people - the cultural effect of that kind of density is only just becoming clear to me.
The castle also has a few nice murals , and the omnipresent Rivera in the temporary collection. Then, the museum of Anthropology. Another massive task - too massive for me as it turned out. In front of the museum are four voladores (flyers) who, every half hour, climb to the top of a pole and attach themselves to a rope in order to fly around the pole exactly 13 times each (adding up to 52, the number of weeks in the year). It is an amazing ritual to watch, but I couldn't help but think that the spiritual power of this tradition is gone when there are 200 tourists taking a picture of you. I can't pretend I'm not a tourist, so here's my picture . Do you feel cheap? Anyway.... The museum is wonderful, and I did come back the next day to try to finish up, but ultimately I think I retained nothing of what I learned there...just the image of age old cultural beauty in sculpture. Alvaro came to meet me at closing time and we had some beers at a very nice bar called Pendulo in the Polanco district and talked politics. A nice ending to a very busy day. My feet hurt so bad.
After my second stint in Chapultepec the next day, I went back downtown and caught a little bit of Wynston Marsalis and his orchestra playing a free open air concert in the Zocalo. I loved standing there in a perfect warm, slightly breezy, evening looking around at the quite beautifully illuminated Palacio, the Cathedral, and enjoying good music with some couple thousand cheerful jazz enthusiasts. I didn't get to stay long though because I was due to meet Sandra to get ready to go to a party organized by some friends of hers to raise funds for their University's communication conference. We got there at about eleven after driving around and gathering some friends for two hours. It was much larger than I expected...I would estimate the crowd at about 750. Having no idea where I was, I walked through security and into the garden. The house was on a hill, so the illuminated city made for a great view and great party lighting. The bar consisted of a few desks with only one kind of alcohol - some whiskey, and a very high school looking band was setting up their equipment. We joked that we had stumbled into a kinderparty, given the average age of the revellers was about 20. After a secret but quite heavy social anxiety attack on my part I managed to get over myself and start a conversation with a guy who's name escapes me now - as does every other name I was told that night. Eventually, Omar, yet another global freeloader, came to join us and I managed to have fun. I did feel transported to some strange Mexican highschool memory though. We finally got home at 3:30 and I slept hard and long.
On Saturday I reached a point where I could not handle another day of the city. I felt incredibly stressed out and close to tears at one point, just overwhelmed and exhausted in every way. I had been busy, but it also had to do with severe culture shock around the energy and size of the place I was in. It doesn't seem like people really take breaks. Too much for my little Pacific Northwest mentality. I spent all day travelling around, chasing my friend Alvaro who had promised me a field trip to get the hell out of town. By 6 pm we finally connected and made our way with his girlfriend Ana and their spoiled brat of a dog nimbus to Valle de Bravo. We rendezvous'ed with Alvaro's friend Georgina and three musicians in the middle of the highway somewhere, switched the passenger loads around a little bit and continued. Valle de Bravo is a very pretty little burg on a manmade lake in the middle of some beautiful hillsides and lots of pine forest. It is quite a bit cooler than D.F. and the air is crisp and clean, just like I like it. Georgina was one of the main organizers of the Spring Equinox Festival in V. de B. (the Spring equinox is a big deal here and cause for much celebration). I immiediately developed one of my typical travelling mini-crushes on this woman, who is an absolute powerhouse, and beautiful to boot. We stayed at her house after checking out the town and listening to our travelling companions play some nice jazz at a cute little bar. Her house is a very beautiful bright, open, rustic cabin in the middle of the woods. I slept in the livingroom in front of the lit fireplace after sitting under the trees for a few minutes to acknowledge the dark sky and counting dozens of bright shooting stars. I consciously felt my heartrate slow and had random dreams filled with an overwhelming feeling of joy.
We stayed in V. de B. for two nights to check out the festival and decompress, and left on Monday afternoon. I had planned to ride with Georgina, since she was flitting about the festival all weekend surrounded by a large number of groupies of all ages and sizes, and I had not had much opportunity to get to know her. However, my plan was foiled by Alvaro's empty gas tank and Georgina's quickly approaching date with her girlfriend. There was a bit of tension in the car after we finally managed to fill the tank and get on the road, since the lack of gasoline had been a topic of discussion all day prior. I asked to drive in order to have something else to focus on, and ended up chauffeuring us all the way back to Sandra's house. After my last entry, would anyone have thought that I would be driving inMexico city myself so soon? Me neither, but I did, and I deserve some kind of award, that's right. I spent the night reunited with my stuff and made plans to move on. However, Christina (Sandra's roommate) and I agreed that there was still lots and lots of things I hadn't seen, and since I am flying out of Belize the chances of my return were slim in the near future. I could not bear the thought of another week in Mexico city, but most of the things I had missed were weekend types of events. We compromised, and I decided to explore some of the surrounding area during the week and return on Friday to partake in a Mexican wrestling show. I swear the girls say its nothing like WWF, and its funny as hell, but I have my doubts. On the way to the bus station this morning, Chris and I had breakfast in Coyoacan - the oldest neighborhood of Mexico City. Nothing like what I have seen so far. Pretty, mellow, green, and thoroughly charming. We checked out the Cathedral and the went to find the Frida Kahlo museum ...It's closed for the next two weeks for repairs. Shit. It was on my short list.
I got on a bus at around 4 pm and rode for an hour and a half south to Cuernavaca, where I am writing from now. I found a moderately inexpensive room and took an hour just to sit and feel the relief of being absolutely alone, with no one to meet or call or chase. I am in a little internet cafe that charges 5 pesos per hour and have been endlessly emailing and journaling... all the things I haven´t had time for. So. That's it. My longest entry so far. Stay tuned.