No, I was not flashed by a man in a trench coat. The day started with some toast wrapped in a tissue and ended with a salad in a burger joint. Let me fill in the blanks.
Hidden Mexico is an Urban Adventure – a day tour run by local Intrepid guides. I was up at 6:30 for the shower with tiled pattern not fully appreciated by the myopic sans glasses before racing down for a ham and spinach omelette, three cups of coffee (mas? Si!) and toast wrapped in tissues to help them warm??? Flashback to reverse phenomenon of me being a kid and Mum wrapping a pineapple and cheese sandwich in alfoil to keep it cold but not disgusting. Back to reality. Toast rock hard but comes with nice chilli butter. With a final swig of cafe solo, time to pile into the back of the cab driven by Peter, the hotel’s cab guy who probably enjoys hotel kickbacks on peso touristicos.
For my (salad?) day, Caesar was the tour guide (I also wondered if that made me Doctor Zaius with my PhD and red hair). (Come on – you knew this blog was going to go down some random rabbit holes.) My two other companions for the day were Allan, a cool old gent from Boston and Betty, a little lady from Singapore with a big hat that she preferred to keep on and miss out on things rather than remove when she was asked.
First stop was the Templo Mayor. Winner! I was planning on going there later so time and dollars saved! Very Scrooge-like! These are the ruins (and museum) of the original major pyramid of the city of Tenochtitlan (what Mexico City was called) before Cortes and his band of merry conquistadors scorch-earthed the place in 1521. The pyramid was divided in half with the left dedicated to the rain god, Tlaloc, and the right dedicated to the war god, Huitzilopochtli. You realise what a kiss-ass, I am on these tours right? I have done all the reading, I am up the front absorbing all the learning, the guide engages with me because I dig (archaeology pun intended) his culture. All Scrooge aside – I did archaeology and history at uni at uni Tributes literally flowed down the steps of the pyramids from the decapitations and heart-ripping (don’t say you can’t die from a broken heart!), as people were sacrificed to maintain the natural order of things or improve bad juju of drought etc. I have always wanted to see this – bucket list stuff.
Next building over is the Hall of the Eagle Warriors. Not much left to see – reminding me of the performance of my Eagles in the SANFL in recent years – but some small frescoes that are magnificent. They also extracted a big statue of Mictantlecutli, god of the Underworld here. The entire site is sloping and apparently there are ruins down very deep that are only just holding the cathedral in place. Mexico City is a bit like the House of Fun at the fair – definitely on shaky foundations. It’s had three major earthquakes in the 20th century. Apparently there was a minor one the night I arrived and I never noticed – although I woke up 4 times that night …
Around the corner is this epic skull structure with each skull apparently fronting a long tube that pushes all the way through to hold the structure together. It’s like the long black rods on my Lego Voltron holding the legs to the torso! And I might add that the temple translates as Snake Mountain and Caesar cracked up laughing when I asked him if Skeletor was lurking around. (Behind is the cathedral poking out for a sneaky photobomb.)
The museum is really awesome. Except that the big moonstone was wrapped up like my rock hard toast for restoration. There is also a giant jigsaw puzzle looking piece of a woman appearing to give birth but she is really sucking in the souls of the dead warriors through her uterus and expelling them into the underworld. (How soon for a hysterectomy???) A random moment was when Caesar was telling us about Trotsky and how he was murdered with a toothpick instead of an ice pick. Ah, Spanglish.
Then, adelante! (Forwards!) To the National Palace where Cortes once lived and the presidente now lives. At this point, it was time to start swigging on The Drink Bottle Of Doom – otherwise known as the expensive drink bottle with magic filter removing dodgy water bacteria. Moment of truth. Would my organs liquefy into putrid slush from typhoid from the hotel tap? Or would I save serious McDuck bucks in never buying bottled water again? I sucked. And sucked. And sucked. Nothing. I tilted. I squeezed. Eventually a trickle dribbled into my mouth – roughly the amount you’d give a soldier who’d been machine gunned for palliative care. More dribbled out the seal and onto my top. I spent the rest of the day with 800ml of this shame dribbling down my front. Let us return to the National Palace where I saw this.
There were a lot more murals – some with big elephantiasis knees featuring the Spaniards as grotesques which was cool – but only 6gb in this account means I can’t upload them! Caesar took us for cheap eats. 5 tacos and a water for 50 pesos or 3 bucks Aus. Pork flavour and retried beans. I was by now missing my lettuce, chicken, avocado, sweet potato and basmati rice traditional lunch. I am a bit of a health but at home. But throw me halfway across the road in a flying tin can and I will always eat whatever cultural thing there is to eat and suffer later. So 5 tacos and a lengthy conversation about Trump with Allan it was. Greasy and I missed my veg but when in Rome!
A stroll down the mall and then through Chinatown beckoned. Eventually, we hit a local market where I saw some horrific plucked turkeys (one for the therapist – truly the corpses were massive). We hit the exotic fruit section. I was never going to buy anything but the spirit of scab was strong. Finally, Betty came in useful! She couldn’t figure out which fruit she wanted. Having never eaten a fig, she had to try one! Who was there to help her out with a quarter? Moi! What about that other weird fruit? What was that? The shopkeeper thought Betty was going to pony up some cash and free fruit kept lobbing into my gob as if I were a big Pac-Man mouth gobbling up Betty-supplied pac pellets. In the end, I think she bought one piece of fruit. Then we ate grasshoppers. Well, I did! Crunchy, proteiny, salty! Why were these not on the plane???? I would eat a bag of these at my desk at work instead of a tuna can.
The tour broke up three hours early so, carpe diem, all Hocking adventures free time. I knew exactly what to do. Just around the corner was the magnificent Belle Arts Museum that I thought I would miss, so with Google Maps and $5 roaming in case ‘around the corner’ was not a geographic certainty, I was off like a frog in a sock! Caesar told me it was free. Caesar was telling me chicharron – that’s pork – so let’s say a chicharron pie. 70 pesos it cost me but still only a couple of bucks. The vertically challenged volunteer was also telling me a solid chicharron when he said I would get access to the special exhibition, the murals and ‘everything’. Turned out everything was, in fact, nothing. The main collection was locked up tight. More boxes than the storage warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark were in a corridor. The murals were pretty epic – mostly from the 30s and 40s – and a few exposed boobs that would get me banned from Facebook. The special exhibition was about Zapata but minimal English captions. However, I did get to play with some some fun stuff.
It was about this time that three cups of coffee, 5 tacos, a bottle of water, RSI in my thumb, two nubs of thumbnails and a hellish double knot in the drawstring of my pants created a perfect storm of conditions for a bathroom disaster. Took me 10 minutes to get those pants off. The torment was real as I bled down under the fingernails, considering whether to throw myself on the mercy of whatever poor unsuspecting woman walked in the door. I will never tie a double knot again.
Greatly relieved that I didn’t have to walk around the city like a 3 year old going home from kindy after an accident, I returned to the Belle Arts Museum to take photos with my phone because of a bizarre camera ban. Cameras with no flash = ban. Phones with no flash = fine. No comprendo. Anyway, even without a collection, the building alone is worth the price of admission. It is an Art Deco masterpiece with MesoAmerican and North American designs throughout. A magnificent dome caps it off.
Time to hit the frog and toad. I have been particularly struck , and a tad disappointed, by the lack of tourist tat. Seriously, I haven’t seen one nasty shop selling Mexican crap yet. Where are the tea towels, fridge magnets, post cards, shot glasses and boobs made out of shells I have come to rely on for a laugh on every country???? Really, I was just looking for a fridge magnet. I walked up the mall side of things past the organ grinder (no monkey), looked in a couple of shops and headed home. Which leads us back to the salad at the beginning of this lengthy post. The only thing open near the hotel was a burger joint but I just couldn’t face a burger after those tacos.
Stay tuned for the next post – markets, pyramids and local artisans!
HockTales: a Central American Adventure 