From DC al DF

Generally speaking, I fly in a Dramamine-induced coma. I’ve been known on multiple occasions to wake up after a landing and ask my neighbours when we’ll be taking off. Last weekend, though, despite academics-induced exhaustion, I couldn’t sleep on our flights to and from the DF - or the Distrito Federal, better known as Mexico City. Thus, a friend and I ended up reading Virginia Wolfe’s “A Room of One’s Own” aloud to each other. I am now convinced that to share a book with someone like that is one of the most intimate, delightful things you can possibly do.

We flew in and out of Toluca on Interjet, an airline that hands out free beer, tequila and rum with your juice and has the most spacious cabin I’ve ever seen. Taking the bus into the DF from Toluca, the very first things I noticed about Mexico were that 1) some of the buildings were tall and glassy and clean and 2) there were trees. Neither of these things being particularly common in Juarez, I was immediately struck by the differences between my temporary Mexican hometown and the nation’s capitol. In Juarez, for example, the sky is blue. In la Ciudad de Mexico, the sky is a peculiar shade of orange-pink smog-induced haze. And, beyond the clear presence of international commercial giants (such as HP and Wal-Mart), el DF can also lay claim to the most beautiful post-Conquest architecture I’ve seen.

Another wonder of the DF that captured my heart: the most rapid, frequently and regularly running Metro system imaginable. Chilangos – or residents of the DF – are right to boast of at least this one thing: that their Metro system is a true gem. Where else could you possibly find pre-Colombian ruins interspersed and preserved amongst a 20th century mass transportation system? Although it does have just as many odd folk as any other public space. One clearly drugged-up child hit a friend and kissed me and, shortly thereafter, two other young men wandered through the cars launching themselves into piles of broken glass, scarring their backs to make a few pesos off of terrified tourists. My favourite moment, though, would have to be when a child hiding from his friends in a box jumped out, yelling “Rarrrrr!!!” and, instead of surprising his friends, terrified one of the other BSP students half to death. Oh yeah, and when the entire system’s electricity cut out thrice in a row with us inside the train. And when yet another train skipped our stop because a rally in support of Mexico’s parallel presidency under Obrero was being held in the Zocolo, the ever-busy, ever-important plaza bordering one of the presidential palaces and an absolutely stunning cathedral.

The Zocolo, conveniently just a half block away from our hostel, was also during the course of our weekend host to a group of indigenous protesters. This would not be so out of the ordinary except for the fact that the women were entirely nude and the men almost so save for a small, most-advantageously-placed poster listing their demands tied about their waists. I have to admit to not really having seen more than a few people entirely nude in my life before. It was a healthy shock, though, I think. There was something refreshing in the unashamed naturalness of the event.

Anyways, in terms of actual accommodations, the hostel was lovely architecturally, although it had so many stairs that my thighs were incredibly sore from climbing them throughout the length of the trip. It was great exercise, though, as was going to Mama Rumba, which is supposedly Mexico’s premier salsa club. I had one partner for three songs straight that made me do multiple dips and quadruple, lightening fast spins. You know, one of those guys who literally dances so hard that you physically can’t see anything or anyone else. It was spectacular. At least until they started playing reggaeton, whereupon we left only to later find three clubs within a block and a half vicinity all playing rich salsa rhythms. My poor soul, it felt torn to pieces – too many splendid choices!

The third night, I stayed in. I earned it, after multiple lectures, a trip to the national anthropology museum, and a failed trip to see the Teotihuacán pyramids. Failed because the bus ride that usually takes 15 minutes took over three hours and, thus, had us at our destination just 5 minutes before the park closed. Like any good adventurer, though, we bared it well. We decided to take an hour-long walking break before getting on a returning bus. Thus, we ambled along the town streets drinking our chelas and nibbling on freshly-baked pastries, wondering what people over the age of 16 do in a town where a plaza gazebo and trampoline provide the only public entertainment beyond a few hole-in-the-wall arcades. The answer seems to be that they leave to be elsewhere. Despite its oddities, though, the trip was not a total flop. Looking out of the window on the bus ride to the village, I felt as if I finally understood why the ancient Aztecs and Maya believed that their land was truly the centre of all the Earth and creation. The fertile, curvaceous landscape of Mexico State was not without reason the home to some of the most prolific seats of female worship. That there can be such poverty in such a landscape…

Aside from that, though, other notable elements of our trip included a tour of famous murals and of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo’s house. Not knowing anything at all about the subjects, I was intrigued although perhaps not quite enthralled. At least not until I saw the letter Pablo Neruda wrote to Frida. My fingertips were less than a centimetre away from the writing of one of my favourite authors. Oh, to have received a letter in that green ink (he always used a green pen)! To have been so admired and respected by such an artist!

Or to have lived on the second floor of the Chapultepec castle. The castle itself is lovely and enclosed in the midst of the largest urban green space in all of Latin America. Such a vision after 4 months spent almost entirely in a desert was, to say the least, divine. This was only heightened by the fact that the second floor of the castle is, itself, almost half-garden. The spacious, comfortable, privacy-conducive layout of that floor, when coupled with the various female sculptures and paintings located throughout the courtyard, made for one of the most sweetly simple homages to women I’ve come across.

Generally speaking, though… I loved the whole experience. I felt incredibly at-ease in the DF. The city is vibrant, noisy, and never static. There is always someone blasting music, always something socially huge going on somewhere. It has all the perks of a capitol city replete with theatres and black street-markets alike. I could actually see myself living in the DF for a while. There is so much happening and promising and bursting with potential in Mexico. Wherever I go, I’d like to be part of such a scene.