Monday, March 14, 2022

Siete Dias en la Ciudad de Mexico

 

Selfie at Teotihuacan
Following our stint in Imperial Beach, we took a 7 day tour of Mexico City with Road Scholar.  We've traveled with them before and felt secure with their approach to dining, covid and safety.  

Dia Uno 3/7/2022
Our flight to Mexico City (henceforth MC) left at (yawn) 6am.  With a flight change in Phoenix, we arrived at 3pm and were greeted by Road Scholar (henceforth RS) representatives, Haydee and Beatrice.  One of the benefits of booking with RS is transportation to and from the airport.  After checking into the NH Collection Mexico City Centro Historic, we had dinner in the hotel. It was disappointing that Haydee elected not to use this initial dinner for the orientation and introductions.  The large table was full, and we ate alone.  I found this less than ideal.  The hotel is in the heart of Mexico City's historic center, footsteps from Zocalo Plaza which we drove past, the Temple Mayor and pedestrian strolling streets. A bit of travel at Flickr.

Dia Dos 3/8/2022

Our Road Scholar Companions at Zocalo Plaza

Once again, there was no orientation today.  Also, we had to constantly introduce ourselves to people and explain we had no name tags because we weren't home to receive them.  We had our first lecture today from Alma Lilia Roura on the history of Mexico City. She will be our daily lecturer speaking on the history in a chronological format. Today's lecture introduced us to the 3 formative muralists: Diego Rivera, David Sequeiros, and Jose Orozco. 

Following her lecture we toured the Historic District of MC which is centered over and around the Aztec ruins.  We walked through Zocalo Plaza where we encountered the Feminists marching on International Women's Day.  Our guides kept moving us along and preventing us from even observing the march.  The guides claim that the feminists can become violent.  I felt I was denied the opportunity to experience a cultural event.  Our first stop was at the ruins of the main temple of the Aztecs.  The adjacent Museum Templo Mayor holds Aztec artifacts found in the area. The ruins were buried under Spanish era buildings and were discovered when excavations for a new building were begun.  These artifacts and ruins helped historians determine the scope and purpose of the ruins.

Aztec Ruins of Templo Mayor

After lunch and a bit of information about the surrounding Spanish architecture, we took a short walking tour.  Our trip to the Secretary of Education building was cancelled due to the Feminist Protests.  The feminist groups in Mexico have a long history.  Today they have a reputation of becoming distructive during the International Women's Day protests.  It began two years ago when powers that be failed to address the rape of a teenager by policemen and when the continued disappearances of native women were not investigated. Nearly 70% of Mexican women are victims of sexual assault, and around 9 women are killed every day.  So, instead of seeing murals at the Education building, Wayne and I went to the Grand Hotel to see the Tiffany ceiling and have a margarita.  From the roof deck we at last had a view of the Feminist protestors.  See this and more at Flickr.  

Wayne in the Grand Hotel

Dia Tres 3/9/2022

Selfie in the courtyard of the Anthropology Museum

The lecture today was on the pre-Colombian period.  MC was founded and named Mexica-Tenochtitlan by the Mexica people in the early 14th century.  This founding spot happened to be in a lake.  Two centuries later and then the capital of the Aztec empire, the Spanish arrived in 1521, and all went to hell.  Yesterday we had a look at the fallen Aztec empire remains at the Templo Mayor.  Today at the National Anthropology Museum we saw a large collection that covered all pre-Columbian civilizations located in Mexico as well as in former Mexican territory in what is today the southwestern United States. 

After personal time and lunch we stopped at the Diego Rivera Mural Museum.  Only one mural resides here.  Miraculously, it survived intact the 1985 earthquake that destroyed the Hotel del Prado where it lived. The subject of the mural is the Alameda Park, but is packed with over 150 characters including Rivera and Frieda Kahlo.  Can you find them? There may be a better look at Flickr.

Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central 

Dia Quatro 3/10/2022

Selfie at Teotihuacan Archeological Site

It was a very busy day with 3 different stops.  First we visited the Basilica of Our Lady Guadalupe.  In front of a large plaza sits the old Basilica built in 1695. It was closed for many years due to its sinking.  As more water is extracted from the aquifer, many buildings begin to sink.  In 1974 the latest Basilica was built adjacent to the old.  The new holds Juan Diego's cloak.  We heard some pretty questionable information on this cloak from our guide, Paco.  He stated that NASA came to examine the cloak and found it to have super natural powers, that Juan Diego's face was discovered in the Madonna's eye.  How anyone would know what a man from 1531 looked like is beyond me.  To view the cloak, we stood on a moving walkway and got about 15 seconds to admire the miracle.  

Our next stop was the Teotihuacan Archeological Site. It is an ancient Mesoamerican city reaching its apex 1 AD to 500 AD when more than 125,000 residents lived there. It is unclear who settle here, but most speculation suggests people from Oaxaca.  Across the access road to Teotihuacan are the ruins of Tepantitla, a residential complex that contains a number of murals painted around the year 450. 

Finally, we managed to visit the Ministry of Education, a visit previously cancelled due to the Feminists' protests. Originally this building housed the Spanish convents. It was secularized in the 19th century and taken over by the Secretary of Education.   Here we saw Diego River's first large-scale mural project completed in 1928. His and other murals cover nearly all the walls of the two inner courtyards. See more of our exciting day at Flickr.

Dia Cinco 3/11/2022
Where's Waldo?  Here we are in Casa Azul

This was my favorite day so far.  Early morning we drove to Coyoacan, a borough of Mexico City. The name comes from Nahuatl and probably means "place of coyotes". The Central Garden Park pays homage to this with a fountain topped by coyotes.  This great bohemian neighborhood was home to Frieda Kahlo, Trotsky, Diego Rivera and other well-known artists and political activists.  We toured the Casa Azul, Kahlo's home, visited the San Juan Bautista Church, and took a very interesting lunch boat tour on the canals.  A fun virtual tour of Casa Azul is here.  The day is much better depicted in photos at Flickr.

Dia Seis 3/12/2022

Road Scholar Tour Group at the National University of Mexico

Today we went to college in search of more murals.  We walked into the campus past the University Olympic Stadium. This was the site for the 1968 Summer Olympics where the infamous Black Power salute debuted.  I was more excited to think of that than viewing the Rivera mural done in relief with stone.  The main campus is built around a huge field that was filled with people of all ages taking part in a variety of activities.  Tossing balls for dogs, tai chi, dance, drumming, etc made the place seem more a civic park than a campus.  Our main focus was on the numerous murals and mosaics. The University is in the area of San Angelo which is near the Coyoacan neighborhood we visited to see Freida Kahlo's home.  In San Angelo proper there is a weekly Saturday art bazaar in the San Jacinto Park.  It was really large with many artists and crafts people.  We were left on our own to shop for 2 hours.  Wayne and I spent about 30 minutes, got bored and went looking for something else.  We explored and found a hotel with garden dining where we had truly the best margaritas yet along side the Mexican one percenters.   Dinner was out tonight at Restaurant El Bajio.  So far we have been less than amazed at the food choices.  It was one thing I was excited to experience.  But our offerings, other than the soups, have been bland.  Pics at Flickr.

Dia Siete 3/13/2022

Palacio de Bellas Artes

We spent the majority of our last full day here at the Palacio de Bellas Artes where we attended a morning performance of the Ballet Folkloric of Amalia Hernandez and afterward visited the great murals in the same building.  In the performance hall the stage curtain is a mosaic of almost on million pieces of glass made by Tiffany. The ballet has been performed since 1952. It brings together in one performance the music and dances that reflect the various regions of Mexico from pre-Columbian through modern day. The costumes were the best for me...so, so colorful.  After the performance, we entered the building again and viewed the murals that surround the second floor.  They were by the 3 big guys: Sequieros, Rivera and Orozco.  Most notable was Rivera's, "Man, Controller of the Universe" which he reproduced in response to the Rockefeller center mural, Man at the Crossroads, that was destroyed.  

In preparation for flying home tomorrow, we had a covid test and passed.  Everyone in the group passed.  Kudos to Road Scholar for keeping us safe; Kudos to the citizens of Mexico City for the complete compliance with Covid cautions.  Pics at Flickr.

Restaurants we dined in.



















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