WOW wow WOW! Ciudad de Mexico is like nothing I´ve ever seen before. 25 million people spread over the valley, and once again I arrived at night so didn't get to see the extent of what I landed into until the next morning. The hotel is very close to one of the large central parks, so after a Mexican breakfast of scrambled eggs and some kind of meat and bean mush (all very tasty), I walked around a bit before meeting up with another Aussie guy that I met at the airport. The police had closed the streets and there were literally thousands of cyclists and skaters streaming down the road for some kind of 'life be in it' event. Different bird sounds were eminating from different looking birds in different looking trees, and market stall were being set up in every nook and cranny of the park and in the streets. It was going to be a festive Sunday in the city :).
There were drummers and costumed dancers on stilts and cops controlling the crowds on horseback in the guise of the Cisco Kid. Colours were ablazing from every market stall as crafts and foods were being sold by noisy vendors who had to shout over the 90db pop music blasting from their stereos.
Further near the city centre, thousands of people were lined up to see some kind of free cultural museum exhibition they had set up in the main square, and indian dancers in fantastic feathered head dress were stompin' to some drum-tastic rhythms. All the while I was thinking about our little Fremantle festival and how we have to lift our game! haha. I´ve been eating real enchiladas and drinking Mexican cervesas, hehe, and listening to ramshackle brass bands on street corners (I love that Mexican trumpet) - the place is so alive!
There were some free art exhibitions on and they integrate modern art well with some of the old classic architecture which displays weird cross-cultural indian and spanish stone work. The diablo theme is evident in a lot of it - the art that is, but the Christians did a good job in establishing their own culture over the indigenous ones, to the point of building their capital on top of the old indian city. Some of the 19th and 20th century art we saw depicts the revolutionary battles fought over the main square when their first constitution was realised, and I kept thinking of the blood thats been spillt on the very ground I was walking on (me and a multitude of other people!).
And every now and again a small child or an elderly woman will ask for money or try and sell sweets for loose change, so the poor are still struggling for an existence among the thriving masses. Most of the poverty will be hidden from a gringo like me staying in the city centre, but its very alive and evident nevertheless.
My tour starts tomorrow and I don't really know how much access I'll have to the internet while on the road. We first visit Teohihuacan and the Pyramid of the Sun, which I'm really looking forward to, then a City tour of the main sites, then we go bush and visit some of the regional centres like Pueblo and Oaxaca. I'm still trying to overcome the jet lag a bit and the culture shock is starting to wane, but at least the weather is great!, hehe nice mid-20s, woohoo!
So the journey continues!
Hasta luego amigos!!
