Oaxaca and Mexico D.F.
Continuing my story about Oaxaca. I didn't stay there very long because the atmosphere was missing... It's a beatiful city but there was something missing, that something which makes me want to stay in certain places longer than a day. During the day I stayed in Oaxaca I wondered around the streets, churches, and plazas. I also went to Mounte Alban - it's a Zapotec culture city located about 20 minutes' drive from Oaxaca. It's quite big and it's possible to see the pyramids, walls, tombs and sculptures (also of sacrifices, as is the case with all such bloody cultures). I walked and walked around and then lied down on the grass shaded by a few trees and had my customary "Nap on the Ruins." When I wake up from such a nap I am always full of new ideas - must be the ghosts of all the people who built the city and lived there who wisper into my ears while I sleep... When I came back to the hostal a new person came to my dorm room - Lorraine from France who is travelling for a few weeks in Mexico. Later in the evening we went to walk around the city by night and sat at one of the restaurants facing the main plaza. Seth from US and a Spaniard who prefers to be an Englishmen and lives in England but whose name I just totally forgot and can't recall however much I try... joined us and we discussed... globalization! Seth spent some time in Oaxaca five years ago and was telling us how the city have changed in these five years. For example the old cobblestoned streets around the main plaza are being replaced by walks made of modern concrete tiles. Sad. And little cafes are replaced by restaurant chains. Sad as well. We parted at midnight and on our coming back to Hostal Fernanda Lorraine and I found everything closed and dark... We knocked and knocked ("Wiiiiiiillma! let me in!") and just as we were beginning to be curling down on the footsteps like the doggies who come home too late after a day of running, one of the tourist staying at the hotel opened the door. What a joy! The next day I set out to Mexico D.F. and after another ride through the beautiful Mexican nature I got to the city at around 6 pm. The subway system works very well. In a flash I got to the historic center and found Hotel Republica - an old hotel but the cheapest I could find. The people who work there are very nice. It's probably the noisiest hotel I have been staying in. There's some water pipes construction going on beginning every day at 6 am, the tv in the lobby displays soap operas, if the tv is not on the radio blasts romantic music, and there's usually a bunch of people hanging around the reception area talking, laughing, telling jokes. I have been waking up several times at night because of all this hustle and bustle but the people are so nice and goodnatured that I just smile and fall asleep again and don't have any murderous inclinations toward them... they let me use the phone, adjust the hot water for me since it is on and off because of the contruction, tell me about exhibits and how to get to the various museums... they are really good people - laud but good. I started feeling like part of the community here on Calle de Republica Cuba. When I got here it was raining hard so I went just right across the street to a small taquerilla and got friendly with three men who run it (they all look like "a sentence of five years just for the look" as my friend Viola used to say and I named them for myself "the three little inmates"). It's a tiny place with just three tables but the food is good and the drink made of fermented fruits makes me fall asleep fast regardless of the noise. The area reminds me a bit of the Getsemani in Cartagena. It's old part of the city with many tiny stores, snack and juice places, women cooking on the streets... It's looks very similar except in Getsemani brothels ruled (in terms of number per square km) and here what rules are the stores with "Everything for the bride." There are huge store windows with hundreds of wedding dresses which give me goosbumps and langerie to be worn under these dresses which give me even bigger goose bumps - all kinds of very elassssstic supporters for waists, boobs, bottoms... It looks like everything in and of the bride has to be squeezed and hm... lifted up? Can a bride breathe in these? From the cultural point of view it is interesting to see the wedding traditions and all the gadgets that accompany it. The elastics and all such must exist everywhere where there's the tradition of a white wedding dress but I think it's just not displayed in a big window for all passers-by to see (do the grooms not want to hit the road when they see them? I would...).
I am fascinated by Mexico City. Of big cities Buenos Aires is still my favorite one but Mexico City is the second. It resembles BA in that the different districts of the city are cities of their own. I visited Coyoacan, south of the Centro Historico, and it will probably be my favorite part of the city because it is like San Telmo in BA - a bohemian place full of artists displaying their crafts. There are, of course, used books and records stores, coffee, tea and beer places, mimes and street artists, and lots of people walking laisurely admiring this great atmosphere. I went there with Rodrido whom I met on the way to the Mueseum and Home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera (but only works of Frida are displayed there) and he showed me around. Rodrido and I very much enjoyed the museum which is a really nice home with a beautiful courtyard and a fountain and many artefacts belonging to Frida. I wanted to go the museum because I admire Frida as a person and a painter. I admire her strong character and the courage to do whatever she wanted, regardless of what the society might think of her and her actions. And at the same time she was a very sensitive person, I am sure of that... her paintings show it. She suffered so much physical pain during her entire life and so much pain inflicted by the ones she loved most and still she wrote on one of her painings: Viva la vida! I felt good visiting her home... a home of a soul I understand.
I also visited the Presidential Palace. First on my own and then with a friend Alejandro whom I met in Argentina when he was on vacation there and who lives in Mexico City and works in the Presidential Palace. Alejandro showed me the offices inside the palace and a beautiful courtyard with grass and trees which is the cafeteria for the people who work at the palace. Very nice working place, yes, indeed. I spent a long time at the palace when I went there by myself, looking at Diego Riviera murals. They are really amazing. They tell the history of Mexico, from the pre-columbian cultures until the present or rather the time in which he lived. His strong ideas regarding politics and social systems show in the murals. His style is beautiful. I spent a long time standing in front of each mural: so many details, so many connections, hidden and open meanings... He really was a master. I also saw his murals at the Belles Artes museum, and murals of other Mexican artists. The museum is architectonically beautiful and the galleries inside display very nice works, most of them modern.
Today I walked all the way Avenida Reforma which is the modern part of the city with skyscrapers, banks, hotels. In the middle of the two-way street there's a park so the area is very green and welcoming. I went as far as the museum of anthropology which is one of the best museums I have visited (my favorite still being the Metropolitan Museum of Art). It is very interactive. There are lots of artefacts but also a lot of information on all aspects of anthropology, culture, customs, traditions, history, linguistics - well, all that concerns humans. I started with the gallery on "how it all started" and how a neanderthal evolved into a homo sapiens sapiens. Regarding the "missing link" I read somtime ago that it is the homo sapiens sapiens who is the missing link and I tend to agree with it. But that's the beginning of another entry in the blog because the missing link writing these words is so tired after walking up and down the Reforma and the miles and miles of the incredibly huge museum that it will go to bed and continue soon on the wonders of the museum (and things connected to the sacred feminine, as promised). Buenas noches.
I am fascinated by Mexico City. Of big cities Buenos Aires is still my favorite one but Mexico City is the second. It resembles BA in that the different districts of the city are cities of their own. I visited Coyoacan, south of the Centro Historico, and it will probably be my favorite part of the city because it is like San Telmo in BA - a bohemian place full of artists displaying their crafts. There are, of course, used books and records stores, coffee, tea and beer places, mimes and street artists, and lots of people walking laisurely admiring this great atmosphere. I went there with Rodrido whom I met on the way to the Mueseum and Home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera (but only works of Frida are displayed there) and he showed me around. Rodrido and I very much enjoyed the museum which is a really nice home with a beautiful courtyard and a fountain and many artefacts belonging to Frida. I wanted to go the museum because I admire Frida as a person and a painter. I admire her strong character and the courage to do whatever she wanted, regardless of what the society might think of her and her actions. And at the same time she was a very sensitive person, I am sure of that... her paintings show it. She suffered so much physical pain during her entire life and so much pain inflicted by the ones she loved most and still she wrote on one of her painings: Viva la vida! I felt good visiting her home... a home of a soul I understand.
I also visited the Presidential Palace. First on my own and then with a friend Alejandro whom I met in Argentina when he was on vacation there and who lives in Mexico City and works in the Presidential Palace. Alejandro showed me the offices inside the palace and a beautiful courtyard with grass and trees which is the cafeteria for the people who work at the palace. Very nice working place, yes, indeed. I spent a long time at the palace when I went there by myself, looking at Diego Riviera murals. They are really amazing. They tell the history of Mexico, from the pre-columbian cultures until the present or rather the time in which he lived. His strong ideas regarding politics and social systems show in the murals. His style is beautiful. I spent a long time standing in front of each mural: so many details, so many connections, hidden and open meanings... He really was a master. I also saw his murals at the Belles Artes museum, and murals of other Mexican artists. The museum is architectonically beautiful and the galleries inside display very nice works, most of them modern.
Today I walked all the way Avenida Reforma which is the modern part of the city with skyscrapers, banks, hotels. In the middle of the two-way street there's a park so the area is very green and welcoming. I went as far as the museum of anthropology which is one of the best museums I have visited (my favorite still being the Metropolitan Museum of Art). It is very interactive. There are lots of artefacts but also a lot of information on all aspects of anthropology, culture, customs, traditions, history, linguistics - well, all that concerns humans. I started with the gallery on "how it all started" and how a neanderthal evolved into a homo sapiens sapiens. Regarding the "missing link" I read somtime ago that it is the homo sapiens sapiens who is the missing link and I tend to agree with it. But that's the beginning of another entry in the blog because the missing link writing these words is so tired after walking up and down the Reforma and the miles and miles of the incredibly huge museum that it will go to bed and continue soon on the wonders of the museum (and things connected to the sacred feminine, as promised). Buenas noches.
posted by Asia Kabat at 6:19 PM
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