Mexico City and surrounds
Notes from a trip through Mexico, October and November 2022.
22 October 2022
Day one. Relaxed, jet laggy, wanderings in and around Mexico City’s Centro Histórico. This was before the smog and (I suspect) mild high altitude discomfort started knocking me about.
Quick observation #1: They still mask heavy here (~50% by my reckoning), which I suspect is mass behavioural scarring due to Mexico remaining fully open during Covid-19 and taking the full brunt of the pandemic.
Observation #2: It feels very safe. Basic big city street wits will suffice. The busiest market streets in southern Centro reminded me of frantic Indian bazaars, funnily enough. And I consider those fairly safe! That said, the Uber driver that picked me up from the airport pointed out that he had to go through a very dangerous area to get to my hostel.
And #3: My broken-ass, crap-awful Duolingo Español has amazingly come in handy a few times. I’ve been able to meet waitstaff and assorted personnel halfway with their basic English and my mispronounced phrases. Eso es victoria.
22 October 2022
Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio de Bellas Artes and the Secretaría de Educación Pública (I’m amused they just allow you to wander around a federal government office building). Much of it reveals his staunch Marxist — or rather, Trotskyist — views (and things, uh, did not end well for Trotsky when he came to Mexico).
Sadly, public access to Rivera’s epic mural in The National Palace appears to be currently restricted. But not-so-sadly, I think I’ve had my fill of mural artworks for now.
Speaking of belief systems: why am I travelling across Mexico? I’ve given many different answers to many different people. ‘Something something, it’s celebrated cuisine and unique culture…’ ‘Mumble mumble, it’s complex history and aesthetic diversity…’ ‘Dither dither, I’d like to see a bit of Central American…’
But the stark, bedrock truth is that I’m visiting Mexico because Professor Tyler Cowen, libertarian economist and co-author of the Marginal Revolution blog that I read with nigh religious zeal every morning, told me so in a podcast. That’s goddamn right. And I’ve decided that for the rest of my trip, I will only tell my radical truths in these updates. Be astonished! Be embarrassed! Be slightly bored! Persecute me, if you must, just as Diego and Leon were for their convictions! Here I type, I can do no other.
23 October 2022
What I found on Friday:
The Angel of Independence, lightly graffitied and caged up.
Day of the Dead imagery is emerging all along Av. Paseo de la Reforma.
Stomped my way to the Revolution Monument. I somehow managed to walk over 32,000 steps in a single day — and then I did it again on the Saturday.
Lots of Mexicans practicing their DSLR camera skills on the fountains in Alameda Central. Wished I’d packed my big camera.
A palatially decorated post office in centre of town. Still operational. Huh.
Visited Plaza de Santo Domingo only because a character in a Roberto Bolaño novel reminisces about being a scrivener under its arches. The character utters my favourite line in the book: “Life left us all where we were meant to be or where it was convenient to leave us and then forgot us, which is as it should be.”
The Templo Mayor was a neat little Aztec museum located amidst the ruins of Tenochtitlán’s main temple. And you know what, if you have to mass sacrifice humans to appease the god of war and the god of rain and agriculture, then you have healthy community priorities in my opinion. I respect that. It’s a vibe.
24 October 2022
Danza de los Voladores performers in Chapultepec Park, outside the anthropology museum. Four people tied by ropes to the top of a thirty-metre high pole, spinning hypnotically back down to earth. No harnesses as far as I can tell!
24 October 2022
Anthropology is canceled! I hate it! I’m done. The Museo Nacional de Antropología was simply too huge to explore in a single day. Want to casually learn about the Aztecs, Mayans, and Olmecs (not to mention numerous other Mesoamerican civilisations) in a couple of hours? Forget it. Either your brain or your feet will break first.
I was even openly relieved that half of the (very lovely) ethnography galleries dedicated to modern day Mexican Indigenous groups was closed for renovation. Terrible, I know.
But in all seriousness, this is one impressive museo. Truth be told, I don’t even think I go to museums for specific content half the time. I enjoy the layout, aesthetics, and curation as art form of a good museum above all. And I’m intrigued by how museums can serve as vehicles for the mindset of a society’s intellectual and cultural elite. This one certainly ticked all the boxes.
(Also, the big Olmec heads and Aztec sun stone, and spooky skulls are pretty rad, I guess.)
25 October 2022
Chapultepec Castle, with unparalleled views of Mexico City’s smoggy skyline. It was once the official residence of the hilariously doomed (and Austrian!) second Mexican Emperor, as well as a succession of presidents. A rare monarchic chunk of the Old World transplanted in the Americas.
26 October 2022
Mexican food & drink ramble (part 1 of ?)
Huevos y escamoles: A breakfast omelette with ant eggs. This was the first thing I ate in Mexico. Yes, I deliberately hunted it down. Yes, I’m that kind of a person. Verdict: Mr Wikipedia states that escamoles “taste buttery and nutty, with a texture akin to that of cottage cheese”. I concur.
Tacos al pastor: Mexico City’s specialty which happens to be… tacos with doner kebab meat. Verdict: Delicious but they can’t get away with this. Zero effort food innovation. See me after class.
Nopales: the flat stem of a prickly pear cactus. I had mine grilled with beans on top. Verdict: I was very excited to try this, but alas — it tasted like an underwhelmed okra, with a bit less slime.
Eyeball, tripe, and cheek tacos: mine came from Los Cocuyos, a famous and Anthony Bourdainified taco joint in CDMX. Verdict: good, very good, but I was a little too shy with applying the salsa and ended up with a mouthful of ocular gristle.
Pozole: a meat and veggie stew that uses a wonderful ingredient called hominy (dried corn kernels that have been alkali treated). Verdict: hearty as heck, but I ordered it with the worst (and only) flautas I’ve ever tried. The meat inside the deep-fried tortilla was like leather and I still have no idea what they are ‘meant’ to be like.
Enchiladas: I’m not bloody explaining what enchiladas are. Verdict: I had mine for lunch in a nice restaurant close to Roma Norte while somewhat tipsy. Delectable, obviously. However, I paid near-Australian prices for it and don’t know how to feel about that.
Tostadas: I ordered chicken mole, slow-cooked pork, and beef tongue w/ lime juice tostadas from a well-regarded spot in Coyoacán Market. Verdict: I overate and felt bloated. Luckily, gluttony is not a sin since chubby monks are a thing. Believe it or not, the beef tongue tostada was my favourite.
Pulque: fermented agave plant sap. Verdict: hell yeah. This is the juice of the working class, the farmers, and the true-blooded revolutionary. Tierra y Libertad!
27 October 2022
More of Mexico City in no particular order:
- You can visit Leon Trotsky’s house in Coyoacán and see the desk where he was assassinated with an ice axe to the back of the head by Ramón Mercader. After his release from prison, Mercader was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
- And just around the corner you can visit the significantly more popular house of Frida Kahlo. An attractive building, but lacking in her actual artwork. It also presents a rather narrow narrative of her life, framed mainly in terms of her injuries and illnesses, and not, for example, her Marxist politics or her complex relationships. “Her and Diego got along just fine!” the museum would let you believe.
- Coyoacán itself is a fantastic suburb and a relaxed, welcome escape from manic Mexico City. Great architecture too.
- Chapultepec Park is a great little (humungous) green space in the city’s heart. Problem is I get hot and bothered when I see Mexican men wearing puffer jackets in 25 degree weather. Why.
- Mexico City’s churches and cathedrals are grand, old, ornate. Only one wrinkle — they’re all horrifically sinking into the ground and tilt like drunken Pisa Towers everywhere.
- Lots of Day of the Dead stuff blossoming around the place like cempasúchil flowers. A zombie march. Horror costumes. Papier-mâché monsters. It’s (spiritually and religiously inflected) spook season!
28 October 2022
Boom. Aliens.
The pyramids of Teotihuacán: a culture that actually pre-dated groups like the Aztecs by a couple of hundred years and inspired their pointy building endeavours. Then one day the Teotihuacán civilisation fell apart and no one really knows why. So, in other words, aliens did it.
Speaking of aliens, I was pleasantly surprised by how uncrowded it felt in places, despite all the tourists. Plus, they don’t let you climb the ancient ruins anymore, so the structures are even better to look at now.
Had lunch at a fascinating cave restaurant called La Gruta near the pyramids. Very friendly waitstaff, not so friendly menu prices (by Mexican standards) — but ordered what was probably one of the best salads I’ve ever had?
Also, I enjoyed the ride out of Mexico City and witnessing the colourful concrete sprawl over the hillscape. Nearly 22 million people in the greater metropolitan area…
1 November 2022
The Museo Soumaya, which houses the immense private art collection of Carlos Slim, Mexico’s (and formerly the world’s) richest man. It’s named after Slim’s late wife and that’s sorta nice — particularly if you like amorphous silver anvils. What’s sorta not so nice, however, is the entire floor dedicated to ivory carvings. I wonder how many dead elephants contributed to the artistic tastes of a gentleman worth 5% of Mexico’s annual GDP.
4 November 2022
Mexican food and drink ramble (part 2 of ?)
Huaraches: masa (maize) dough with “stuff” on top. Verdict: remove the salsa and the lime and you effectively have Mexico City’s answer to the HSP. Very filling, but nothing to fly to Central America for.
Tamale and atole: maize dough again, this time steamed in a corn husk. Paired with a warm and slightly sweet corn paste beverage. Verdict: I only knew about tamales prior to this trip because Leonardo DiCaprio screamed the word in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. They were good, despite not being terribly flavourful. They reminded me a bit of simple rice-based Chinese village breakfast foods and drinks.
Quesadillas: but these were fancy pants, rich people quesadillas with seasonal veggies from La Gruta, the cave restaurant next to Teotihuacán. Verdict: as with most upper-crust food, the ingredients and presentation were nice, but where’s the soul, man.
Enchiladas mineras: Guanajuato’s answer to enchiladas. Hearty, protein-packed and carb-rich fuel for real men after a hard day down in the mines (which is its actual traditional origins). Verdict: I dig it. No pun intended.
Gordita: masa stuffed with anything you want, really. Mexican street food at its most primal. Verdict: it means “chubby” in Spanish. Heh.
Tacos al vapor: oily, steamed tacos. Verdict: worth a try, but I prefer regular tacos and regular food poisoning risks.
Chilaquiles: scraps of fried corn tortillas in sloppy sauce. Verdict: good for hangovers, jet lag, and general late morning hunger pangs. At least, that’s what a friend told me.
Guacamaya: an epic torta from León composed of pork rinds, avocado, and very spicy salsa. Verdict: loved it, hurt my mouth to eat it, loved it.
13 November 2022
The Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe. A Nahuatl-speaking Virgin Mary appears before a 16th-century Indigenous Mexican peasant… A miraculous image appears on a cloak pressed with roses… And blam, we have the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. Do I care about the actual religious story? Not particularly. Am I interested in how this keystone narrative helped shape a unique and unifying element for a troubled colonial society? Sure, sounds cool to me.
14 November 2022
I came to Xochimilco on my last full day in Mexico to observe the remnants of the old Aztec canal system and the agricultural marvels of the chinampas. Instead I drank a lot of beer.
14 November 2022
Mexican food and drink final (part 3 of 3)
Chile relleno: Roast pepper stuffed with cheese. Verdict: Can’t go wrong with this, I reckon. Even better, I had it slopped on my plate at a local fonda (a tiny, family-run restaurant).
Tlacoyo: Blue corn dough stuffed with cheese and beans. Verdict: I’ll admit it didn’t taste that different from every other maize dough thing I’ve had. But blue food is simply more magical.
Mole poblano: A thick, spicy, and only mildly sweet chile and chocolate sauce. A Puebla specialty. Verdict: The greatest. I’ll never see chocolate on savoury the same way ever again.
Pasita: Another Puebla specialty. A raisin liqueur shot with a bit of cheese dunked in it (yes, cheese). Verdict: Touristy as fuck. Nevertheless, the liqueur is quality medicine.
Pan de Muertos: A sweet bread made specifically for Day of the Dead. You’ve seen the damn Pixar movie. Verdict: Great for those on the Other Side. And for those with a crippling sweet tooth on This Side.
Chapulines: Spiced and roasted grasshoppers! Verdict: While I wholeheartedly endorse entomophagy, these didn’t taste of much.
Various Puebla sweets: Made from sweet potato, condensed milk, and various dentist unfriendly ingredients. Verdict: Above average. In my mind Indian confectionery remains king! But don’t trust me. I’m a degenerate. I’ll chew sugar cubes if nobody’s watching.
Cochinita Pibil: Yucatan-style pulled pork. Verdict: Ignoring the cheap ‘tequila’, viagra, and oral steroids (all easily available along the Playa del Carmen tourist strip), I think this is the only ingestible product that’s peculiar to the Quintana Roo-ish area. What a shame! Many cuisines do a way better pulled pork.
***
Thus concludes these posts. I have redeemed myself for failing to hunt down Mexican food when I was in the States. But I am also glad to be going home. I miss goddamn vegetables.