Mexico City
Trip Start
Mar 28, 2008
1
15
26
Trip End
Jul 31, 2008
Mexico City, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
So I'll begin again
Looking out of the aeroplane window at the vast expanse of Mexico City. (It lacks poetry doesn't it) I was conscious on only one thing. How can one city be this big? it's huge.
Mexico City nestles in a valley surrounded by many valleys and hills, this is what causes the city's legendary pollution. the winds from the coast cannot blow over the hills and down into the city to expunge the pollution. Consequently all the fumes that are emitted in the city just sit above the buildings in a grey haze of dust and yuck. This haze is still visible even 85 km outside the city proper.
Mexico City must have once been a sizable and manageble metropolis, but with the explosion of population in the cities sometime in the last century, the city has grown and grown and grown. From the plane you can see the houses stretching as far up the hillsides as they dare before petering just before the summit.
Every inch of space is used in Mexico City. washing lines hang between television aerials, cars are parked in back gardens. This is partly why the city is so enthralling. When you're surrounded by attempts at efficiency and spacial planning that would make a gym look flabby, it gives you an extra kick of energy and get up and go. Why should you hang around when everyone else is up and doing? The other thing Mexico City gives you is exhaustion. I suppose the combination of high altitude, pollution and frenzied activity will inevitably cause this but it's a suprising.
On the way from the airport to my hostel, the incredibly good value and chirpy Hostal Moneda, one other thing intrigues me. There are police, traffic policemen, gardeners, street sweepers, police cars, information points everywhere. They all have their own uniforms, they all look impressive and they all seem to blow whistles from morning until midnight. Being conspicously a tourist, its quite reassuring that there is a small army ready to give directions or advice at every corner. There are also a lot of armed policemen. While this might make a traveller ill at ease the Mexican gun carriers don't. During the official part of the present Iraq War, journalists at one time were keen to point out the difference between the Britsh and American army's way of interacting with the local population. Most reporters, ive the opinion that the British army were much more palatable ostensibly because the standard way of carrying and walking with an SA80, the army's official rifle, is across the waist with the butt resting in the crock of your elbow and the muzzle pointing down and off to one side. The american way to carry the M16 is to have the butt still in the elbow but the muzzle pointing up. It may seem trivial but if I was asked how I wanted a foreign invading force to carry highly powerful firearms around my home town or past my business, I would immediately reply that the British way is less threatening. It also opens up the chest and face of the soldier which makes them seem much more approachable and allows me to see who their face more clearly. To cut a long platitude slighty shorter I will say that the Mexican armed policeman use the British method and so if you walk past the odd gun touting Mexican Officer, you are less worried that he will have an itch in his trigger finger.
The Zocalo, the main square in Mexico City is amazing. There are few more impressive buildings that the Plaza Nacional and the constant voices of gardeners and traffic policemen make this the square a thrill to wander in. The architecture is amazing too. The fine filligry hune from the otherwise dingy dark brown stone used my the Spanish colonists, is trully stunning. Each portico and pediment is individual and full of almost farcical decoration. Stone lions here, touthy gargoyles there.
