I think we were all a bit daunted by the image of Mexico City, with it´s formal population alone being 2.5 times the size of London and it´s notorious reputation for crazy driving, crime and pollution. Maybe these negative images are always exaggerated, or maybe we just didn´t get time to see the “real” Mexico City, but our impression of the place was quite different.
Like Los Angeles, Mexico City is a city of cities, but unlike LA its accessible; it´s green and white minis provide a taxi service that buzzes all over the city, and its tube system is so cheap and efficient it puts the London Underground to shame. Even the buskers are more “advanced”; instruments have become mechanised as people simply wonder the tubes playing requests for money with a CD player in hand and a speaker in a backpack.
Our first real day in Mexico City and Jon and I met a Mexican film directer who Jon had met in last year´s London film festival for about 10 minutes. His name was Ricardo Benet, and he was a fascinating, wonderfully friendly guy who adopted us and told us all about his films. He writes and directs world cinema type stuff, setting several of his most famous films in Mexico around the theme of immigration to the 2 magnets for Mexican migrants, Mexico City and the USA. He took us all over the place, and he seemed to know everyone. He kept bumping in to other ”arty types”; opera singers, composers, film directors -but unlike in England his arty community didn´t seem exclusive or confined to the hugely rich – it was made up of all sorts of people. He took us to a little “village within the city” to the South with cobbled streets, church bells, quiet tree lined squares and little arty cafes on every corner – like I said, not the Mexico City we were expecting. Then he took us around Mexico University which has close to half a million students with theatre, music and drama facilities that looked and felt just like the South Bank in London. He even drove us to Frieda Carlo´s house, where he showed us her art and told us about her fascinating life – a feminist who painted herself with a monobrow who married a chauvenist, lived with a major disability and had passionate affairs with Communism and Trotsky.
The next day was more conventional; after Ricardo took us for a slap up breakfast in the Spanish colonial “house of tiles” (the Mexican equivalent of the Ritz) we headed in to the Zocolo, or central square. It´s a wonderful place, and you really get a sense of the layers of Mexican history as Aztec ruins from the 1300s lie alongside the Spanish colonial buildings, with the modern portaloos and McDonalds (the contribution of contemporary society) slightly absurdly superimposed on top of it all. Everything around the central square has a slightly odd look, not just because of the different layers of history, but also because the earthquakes have left everything standing at slightly odd angles – even the floor is dipped in some places. The surreal looking outcome is exaggerated by the fact that Mexico City is built on an ancient lake bed so the foundations aren´t very stable. The central cathedral is literally sinking in to the ground, dipping in the middle despite the Mexican government´s attempts to rescue it. It was really interesting to compare all this to the US, which seems so new and neat in comparison – its hard to believe that the US could be so much more economically advanced even though Mexico´s history and culture is so much deeper and richer.
The whole square had a particularly electric atmosphere to it whilst we were there because of the recent electoral controversy. The square and the streets surrounding it were filled with gigantic white tents set up by Obrador and the left in protest against the electoral results. There was only 0.5% separating Obrador from the centre-right winner Calderon and Obrador is making accusations of electoral fraud, demanding a full recount and bringing the Mexican democratic institutions in to question. This is a particular soft spot in Mexico, whose population was only able to vote for a single party for over 70 years and is still dubious of electoral manipulation. Although there weren´t as many people in the streets protesting as the number of tents might have suggested, many of the main roads were blocked and leftist protestors even cut off the entrance to parliament, an action which resulted in some violence. Mexico may have appeared far more developed than I had expected it to be, but hearing the news gave me a sense of the fragility of that progress.
Moving away from the square the surrounding streets were filled with hundreds of market stalls (some less legal than others) selling everything from fly ridden chickens to guitars and ”alternative” abortions. Jon and I found several streets that only sold gigantic puffy wedding dresses – 80% of the population are catholic and weddings here are a Big Deal. Girls have a special “coming of age” celebration when they reach 15, after which I guess they are able to marry. I couldn´t resist going in to one of these shops and pretending Jon was my fiancee so that I could try on one of these unbelievable wedding outfits. Informing the gentleman behind the counter that although we wouldn´t be buying today there was a good chance we would return to make a purchase tomorrow, I was shown to a large platformed cubicle with a heavy black curtain covering it. A quiet old woman dressed me – giving me a huge netted underskirt to make my dress puff out, and lacing up my corset – she even attatched a long white train longer than a room to the back of my dress. Then she asked me to step up on to a pedestal, turned these studio-like spot lights on me and threw back the curtain so that Jon could judge the transformation. I felt like I was in a fricking horse show or something! Jon pretended to be the “not easily impressed fiancee” and I the indignant future wife.
Heading homewards, we encountered a contrast to the glamour. Our hostel was right next to Sevilla tube station, at the end of a road that was sunk about a foot and a half. It had been raining, and the hostel owners had forgotten to inform us that when it rained, the sewage broke, flooded and bubbled up to fill the street with actual shit up to beyond your knees. Jon and I stood and looked at this sea of faeces as it began to get dark – the smell was absolutely diabolical - and realised that if we wanted anywhere to sleep that night, we were going to have to cross the 15 metres to our hostel door. Some old men were standing by the side of the road and laughing at us as we bought a set of black plastic bin liners and attached 3 to each foot in a makeshift attempt at creating wellies. A real crowd had gathered by the time we made our first steps in to the sludge, with neighbours peering out from their windows and our hostel mates jeering from the safety of their clean rooms. I cannot describe exactly how it felt when my bags burst, sort of like a paralysing squeamishness came over me as I felt the sludge descend over my flip flops. Hiarious! We made it across in the end though – and after a very long, very hot shower I felt better (although I will never be able to wash away the pyschological scars).
The second night the sewage debacle happened again, but this time we all had to get out of the hostel to meet a guy who went to my college at Oxford. I´d been put in touch with him by one of my hosts in the States, and all I knew about him was that he was a very prestigious business-politics tycoon in Mexico. Hence it didn´t help my feelings of apprehension to turn up with my travel mates soaked through and knee deep in sewage! However, the gentleman we were visiting, Timothy Heyman, and his partner (a witty Mexican woman who looked exactly like a blonde Cleopatra), were incredibly polite, unjudgemental and hospitable. Their apartment on the 20th floor was one of the most stunning places I have ever seen, with huge views over the city, originial paintings by Diego, a library and a set of invisible butlers and wait staff. Trying desperately not to get our sewage ridden shoes on their white carpets, we sipped incredible drinks, ate an incredible meal and talked about politics and economics. Tim was an incredibly interesting and intelligent man who told us all about the current situation, about the government monopoly over petrol (Pemex) and the need for greater liberalisation and sustained democratic reform. It was an entirely different perspective on Mexico than the one given by Ricardo, but we felt like we´d got to hear both sides of the story.
