Well, I’m happy to report, on this sunny Thursday afternoon, that Mexico City does have some nicer parts, and that I have had some more pleasant and less dodgy times here! I’m aware that Monday’s entry may have given a rather bleak portrayal of my surroundings and my mood, but things did get better and I feel fired up with things to report.
So, I think I finished my last entry just as I was about to go and meet Ricardo on Monday evening. I made it to the bar he had suggested very un-Britishly late, having not quite anticipated how long it would take me to travel through rush hour on D.F.’s crazy old metro system. However, thankfully he was still waiting and chatting to the barman when I apologetically turned up.
I soon discovered that the bar was pretty much Ricardo’s local, just across the road from the impressively plush Hotel Nikko, where his work (he’s a consultant for a large computing firm) put him up from Monday to Friday. Ricardo, who is 29 like me, is originally from Monterrey (a large city in the north, near the US border, that unfortunately I don’t think I’m going to get the chance to visit). However, he has been working here on a project with a well-known soft drinks firm for some time now. So essentially, he exlained to me, he and I we were both strangers in this vast, frenetic and not-always-friendly city. True, I granted him, although I think it would be fair to say that he was a bit more accustomed to it all than me – and he didn’t have the impediment of looking so obviously European!
The bar we met in actually had a bit of a British theme and, what with it being so cold outside that night, and with them playing the Smiths and the Stones, I could almost have been back in London. However, I don’t think I would have been able to get such a good paloma back home – this time round the grapefruit and tequila drink being served with a bit of a tarter taste and in a salt-rimmed glass...
So, we found a little booth to sit in with our drinks and basically just chatted the hours away. Ricardo’s English was pretty good, seeing as his parents sent him across the border to the U.S. as a child to learn. However, I did try to speak Spanish, asking him to correct me when I got it wrong, or to give me clues when I was stuck for a certain word. Conversation was easy and, once again, I learned a lot about the life and lifestyle of another completely different inhabitant of this socially diverse city. Ricardo talked about how a lot of people from Mexico City really don’t like ‘his type’ from ‘the North’ because they are viewed as people who want to be American, and who are losing their identity to the U.S. In a sense he said this was true. As a child he went over to the States a lot (something that I think, due to elitism, is a lot easier for some Mexicans than others – depending on their class and where they come from). Also he told me that all the big U.S. firms and franchises (Starbucks and McDonalds etc.) try to ‘break’ the cities in the north like Monterrey first. According to Ricardo, those from D.F. get very jealous about this kin of thing – seeing themselves as the vanguard of Mexican culture, politics, industry and identity, and resenting the northern towns and cities for getting ‘pally’ with States. It’s something he seemed to think was quite infantile and silly – like, in his eyes, a lot of other things about Mexico (political corruption, strikes, the overbearing influence of religion). “I’m afraid you’re not spending time with the most patriotic Mexican, or with someone who genuinely loves his country”, he said, laughing, but somewhat sadly. I told him I didn’t mind. Goodness knows what I feel about being British at present – for everything that is very much part of me and close to my heart, there are many more things about my homeland that I could happily leave far behind.
Ricardo wasn’t enamoured with Mexico City, but told me he felt OK about working there during the week and returning to Monterrey at the weekends (although this is where his upwardly-mobile but also quite traditional sounding family give him a lot of grief for having ‘left home’ without having gotten himself married!). His company, he explained, paid for everything while he was in D.F. – his hotel room, his meals, his flights etc. – and, on that note, he asked me if I liked sushi, and if I fancied dinner in the hotel’s Japanese restaurant. After a few days of hit-and-miss Mexican food (my culinary vocabulary is still not all that advanced - meaning that my 'guesswork' has led to quite a few dud meals of late), this was music to my ears. I love sushi and, by this time, there was quite a nice little vibe between me and Ricardo as well! Therefore I said 'si' with a big smile on my face and headed off to the posh hotel.
We proceeded to have a meal of delicious fresh sushi and sashimi in the most opulent surroundings that I’ve yet encountered in Mexico – an immeasurable contrast to that same morning when I had been hanging about with prostitutes in the mercado! I didn’t want it to end as I realised that such experiences are going to be pretty rare as I rough-it around over the coming months. I was certainly glad I’d smartened up a bit and put some heels on (although some of you might not believe it, I haven’t worn any in quite some time now!). However, the glamour and exquisite food weren't everything - it was an interesting night beyond that...
On a table in front of where Ricardo and I were sitting, I couldn’t help but notice two quite hefty, shifty-looking young Mexican guys, ordering almost everything on the menu and being pretty rude to the waiter. “Mafia”, Ricardo turned and said to me after they left. When he must have seen my eyes widen he said, “they're all around here, you know, it’s all to do with drugs…”. Whilst I don’t think drug use is as pronounced in Mexico as it is in many other countries (although I have no doubt it does exist), Mexico’s location means it is an obvious channel linking the ‘supply’ of cocaine from Colombia and Bolivia to the ‘demand’ in the U.S. “Those guys are in on it, for sure”, Ricardo said quite nonchalantly, “flashing their cash, but they won’t live beyond 40”. I had seen on the front page of a Mexican paper the other day that some chief drug baron had been murdered in the city, and that, apparently, was what the guys in the restaurant had been talking about on their mobile phones.
So there you go, more fascinating insight into what makes this city tick and, well, OK, on a personal level, a little bit of romance as well (although I won't say too much more!)! I saw Ricardo again last night but I hit the road tomorrow for Morelia and, realistically, if rather sadly, I think I realise that unless I meet someone who has more or less the same travel plans as me it will be very difficult to forge anything more than a fleeting fling with anyone I encounter on my travels. Maybe that's a good thing though - in terms of living for the moment and just making the most of things while they last. The wonders of the internet do make it easier to keep in touch now I suppose - and I will certainly do that with Ricardo (who knows, perhaps seeing him again if his work ever takes him to Europe, which it has done in the past). In the meantime, I would like to thank him for showing me a wonderful time here in Mexico City (and I would also like to thank his company, who shall remain nameless, for the two very posh dinners that he treated me to on their expenses haha!).
OK, well aside from all of that, I’ve been spending my days here dosing up on art and culture, making the most of the city’s impressive array of museums and galleries. Really, for anyone interested in ancient civilisations, anthropology, or modern art, Mexico City is a paradise. On Tuesday, Ramon the artist stood me up (well, not exactly – it turns out there was a confused message/unread e-mail situation). Therefore, after hanging around waiting in the hostel lobby for quite some time, I headed down to the southern suburb of Coyoacan on my own (actually, the truth is I was quite glad to be alone – it gave me the chance to process my thoughts and feelings about the night before and the time I'd spent with Ricardo).
Coyoacan and neighbouring San Angel are two smartish and refreshingly quiet districts of the city that you can amble around, as I did, quite peacefully and pleasantly, stopping off at various museums and galleries en route. First of all, I went to Frida Kahlo’s house, which was interesting in more of a contextual way (in that it is where she was born and brought up, where she did much of her painting, and where she spent much of her tempestuous but life-and-work-inspiring marriage to Diego Rivera) than as a place where you would go to see the best of her work. The reproductions of her more famous paintings, however, displayed alongside smaller, less known pieces (and pieces dedicated to her by Rivera), gave a lot of insight into her personal and political life. It struck a particular chord with me also to see the plaster cast ‘corset’ that she had kept after breaking her back in a road traffic accident as a teenager – something that apparently caused her orthopaedic problems throughout the rest of her life. On display, and decorated in her own inimitably colourful and symbolic style, it reminded me of the awkward and uncomfortable back brace that I had to wear throughout my teenage years on account of my scoliosis (curvature of the spine). My Mum couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to throw the ugly thing away when the specialists said no longer had to wear it. I, like Frida, didn’t want to part with it, though. It’s hard to describe - when something like that inhibits, encircles and strangely supports you, it becomes part of your life and personal history. It was therefore inspiring to learn that that was something I kind of had in common with the Mexican artist.
I must say, I do find the life and work of Frida (who is a national heroine here, and now something of a feminist icon worldwide) compelling, and I have been hungry to see more of her paintings, and learn more about her life, since visiting the amazing exhibition they put on about her at Tate Modern a few years ago. All the rent bleeding hearts, grisly gynaecological imagery, and broken spinal columns in her pictures may seem melodramatic and overtly personal when seen in the context of her turbulent and unfaithful (on both parts) marriage to Rivera, her miscarriages, and her childless ill-health. However, it’s this kind of boldness that appeals to me, alongside the often overlooked cultural representations that really sing out loud in her work. All the colourful fruits, animals and items of clothing in her self-portraits state so very proudly and definitely that she is Mexican and I love that.
Leon Trotsky was one of the men (amongst several women also) who Frida had an affair with, and the house in which he lived and was assassinated in, stands near to hers. She and Rivera, long-standing Communist sympathisers, gave Trotsky shelter in their home until he moved into his own place in the neighbourhood during his political exile here in Mexico. My knowledge of this particular part of history is not great but it was worth popping into the house (now a museum) if only to see the bullet-holes in the wall and the rather sorry looking little round-rimmed pair of glasses left on the table in the study where he finally met his grisly end with an ice-pick in his head.
So Tuesday was dedicated to art, as was this morning, when I sought solace in an alternative Rivera/Kahlo museum – the Dolores Olmedo Patino museum out near Xochimilco. Another house belonging to a wealthy collector and one time muse of Rivera’s, Dolores Olmedo, this museum was wonderfully tranquil and had peacocks strutting in the beautifully tended gardens. I groaned a bit when I bought my ticket and saw that a whole load of kindergarten aged Mexican schoolkids were lining up to visit the museum too (at the aged of 4 or 5 I did ask myself whether they would be able to appreciate the art?!). I shouldn’t have worried though – they were so sweet and impeccably behaved, walking around the museum quietly, as instructed by their teachers, in single file holding on with both hands to the hips of the child in front. It was like they were doing a silent and very serious conga!
Apart from them, the highlight of the museum was really the wide range of Rivera’s work on display. So far in Mexico I’ve only really seen his huge and undeniably impressive murals. However, this morning what caught my eye were the almost luminous portraits of all the very beautiful women that Rivera painted in his lifetime too (a large amount of whom he slept with as well – obviously one of those men with a strange, indiscernible magnetism, as he looked like a vast toad and they can’t have been after his looks!). A series of sunsets he painted in Acapulco were also gorgeous and made me long to get to that part of Mexico, as I will in about 2 weeks time.
I’ve mainly prioritised art above history during my time here in D.F. simply because it interests me more and because my time here has been relatively short. I kind of felt as if I should have gone to do the pyramids at Teotihuacan (the site of an ancient civilisation here on from which Mexico City as it is now known emerged) today as it’s my last day here. However, I didn’t really feel I had it in me and I’m sure I will be seeing many more ancient pyramids and sites during my time in this country in general. Plus, yesterday I got a bit of insight into all of that when I visited the vast Museo Nacional De Anthropologia and the Museo Templo Mayor next to the cathedral. It’s still a bit hard for me to get my head around all the ancient history, but I managed to learn a little bit about the rather grim legends of the gods behind some of these very old cultures. Most of them involve rabbits, pulque (that strange drink that I’ve still yet to try), and lots of blood. One such tale is that of Huitzilopochtli, who was improbably conceived when his mother, Coatlique, rubbed a ball of cotton against her stomach. His sister, Coyolxauhqui, vowed to kill Coatlique, to erase the dishonour of her pregnancy. However, at this point Huitzilopochi sprang fully grown and impressively armed as a warrior from Coatlique’s womb and decapitated and dismembered his sister, throwing her head and limbs down the pyramid. Delightful – clearly the Mexican’s preoccupation with blood and gore goes back a long way!
Right, I've written so much now, I must go and do my laundry (it's not all fun, fun, fun, this itinerant life!). Apologies to anyone who is not really interested in Mexican modern art or ancient civilizations - I got a bit carried away today, as I have the tendency to do from time to time! Next port of call is Morelia/Patzcuaro - where I'll hopefully be observing the typical 'Day Of The Dead' festivities first hand. I'll be there tommorrow night.
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