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The high & mighty

On our last day in Mexico City, we were free to choose what else to see, so we took our own little “lifestyles of the rich and famous” tour.

First stop was a little place known as Los Pinos, or the Pines. From 1934 until, oh, last month, Los Pinos was the home and office of the Presidente of Mexico. On December 1st, newly inaugurated Presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced he was not moving in, and instead Los Pinos would become a museum. AMLO had hinted he was going to do this, but when he finally did it, it changed everything all at once. Imagine if President Trump had tweeted, “The White House is a dump!!! I’m working out of Trump Tower. They can sell it to Disney!!!”

Front entrance
Grand Hall

So now anyone can wander around the complex for free, and all the military personnel that used to guard it are all-of-a-sudden tour guides. We got there shortly after it opened, and the crowds were already building.

To put Los Pinos in perspective, imagine the White House set in a much larger park, let’s say Arlington National Cemetery (without the graves, of course). The complex originated under Presidente Lázaro Cárdenas, who thought the existing offices in Chapultepec castle were too grandiose (sound familiar?) and decided to build a small working house/office lower down in Chapultepec park. As other Presidents came and went, some built new houses, so now there are at least three (which we could visit).

This looks familiar
Even moreso

We did notice that large meeting rooms in each house had been updated with modern communications gear, indicating that in the Mexican government, as in the American one, you never have enough conference rooms.

Outside one President’s office was this picture showing the American attack on Chapultepec castle…interesting choice!

The families we saw seemed to be enjoying the chance to see the compound, and the military and others working there looked uncomfortable, but were very friendly when we engaged them.

Soumaya museum from below the front entrance

After Los Pinos, we went to the Soumaya, a non-profit museum holding an eclectic collection of art belonging to Carlos Slim, a Mexican businessman who is perennially one of the richest people in the world. The museum is named for his wife, who died in 1999. The collection is fantastic, and even the architecture of the structure itself is memorable. Inside, a winding marble stairway takes you around the outside of the central displays, leading up to a massive sculpture display area at the top.

Among the highlights, a huge number of pieces by Rodin, including:

Gates of Hell
The Thinker

Why not a Faberge Egg?

Where should I put those spare Van Gogh?

Too many Renoir to count!

If you visit Mexico City, and you should, Los Pinos and the Soumaya are not to be missed!

On the Streets

Of course, we have had several opportunities to take to the streets during this trip to Mexico City.

Street crowds &
Vendors

We toured the Zócalo, the great main square of first Tenochtitlan and now CDMX. Since we are in the Chrstmas season, the crowds were still large on a Thursday morning and afternoon.

When walking round the city, it is easy to get a sense of vertigo, as there always seems to be a large building, usually a church, leaning at an odd angle. No matter how many times I saw one, it still challenged my balance, and walking in them was even worse.

Not exaggerated!
sinking forward
what’s with that tower
is it just me?

In the cathedral at the Zócalo, the leaning got so bad they installed a pendulum to measure it. By injecting cement, they have gradually moved it back toward level, but its not there yet.

Pendulum measures lean
injects cement under the floor

A quintessential chilango (nickname for CDMX natives) thing to do is to ride the boats in Xochimilco, a canal among some of the remaining man-made islands from the original lake Texcoco. It is highly touristic, but still fun, even when there are more boats than waterway in the canal.

Pole power
a rare tranquil moment

Our flotilla was boarded by a group of Pirate Mariachis

We didn’t attend a bullfight, but we did visit the bullfighting ring, said to be the world’s largest.

Famous Mexican matador
Look, no guardrail!

We saw these guys all dressed up near the Plaza Mayor. While it’s all fun and games now, there are reminders of how things used to be.

Anybody want a picture?
All we wanted was a selfie!

Two more posts coming, one on our last day in CDMX and another with some general impressions!

The other side

We visited Chapultepec castle the other day, and it was very interesting for a number of reasons. First, it has a dominating, 360 degree view of Mexico City. Second, it was the sight of an ancient retreat for Aztec nobility. Third, it was the seat of government for Mexico, both under the short-lived Latin empire of Maximillian I and then the 19th century Mexican Presidents which followed him. But mostly because it was the site of the last battle of the Mexican-American War. Or the American invasion, as it is known down here.

Views of
modern Mexico City
from Chapultepec

Most US historians now agree with Mexico’s view of the conflict, buttressed by ample evidence from those involved. Ulysses S Grant, who fought in the war as a lieutenant, said “I was bitterly opposed…and to this day, regard the war…as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” Then congressman Abraham Lincoln thought the war was immoral, intended to further the spread of slavery, and threatened our Republican values. Former President and congressman John Quincy Adams called it “a most unrighteous war.”

The haunting monument to the Niños Heroes atop Chapultepec Castle

On September 13th, 1847, a combined force of US Army and Marines stormed the defenders of the castle, which included several cadets from a Mexican military academy there. The American victory sealed the fate of the Mexican government, gave the US Marine Corps the first line of its anthem (“From the halls of Montezuma”), and established the Mexican legend of the Niños Heroes or Child-Heroes.

Six teenage cadets refused the order to retreat from the buildings atop the summit, and instead continued to fight. Plaques memorialize where they died; one took the Mexican flag before it could be seized and jumped over the cliff literally with the flag as his shroud. Mexico does not make a big deal about the US invasion, but the story of the Niños Heroes is learned by all children in school.

Painted inside the dome (notice the US flag, bottom center)

It is a little strange being in a museum and seeing the US military playing the role of the heavy. Even stranger is seeing captured US battle streamers as prizes of battle.

So much of the US-Mexico relationship goes back to this war. The historical consensus is President Polk, a southerner, wanted more territory where slavery could spread, ensuring a majority of slave states in the US Senate. Polk sent the US Army into disputed territory in Texas, and US Grant’s memoirs confirm the Army was directed to act provocatively to elicit a Mexican attack.

As a result of the war, Mexico lost almost half its territory, including California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, and parts of New Mexico and Colorado. Try to think of the United States without these lands! The US became a Pacific power, and a generation of military officers honed the skills which they would employ against each other in nearly every major battle of the US Civil War. After this aggression, Mexico did not trust the United States again for over 100 years. The Mexican view was aptly summed up by Porfirio Díaz, the Mexican President and later dictator, who said “Poor Mexico, so far from God, and so close to the United States.” It is nothing short of amazing the relationship has improved as much as it has, given how our mutual histories turned on the event.

Sights & sounds of la Navidad

Merry Christmas from the middle of Avenida Paseo de la Refroma, which is ironic for reasons below

Church and State are legally separated in Mexico. When that happened during the Reforma period after the revolution, it resulted in repression of the Church and the resulting Cristero war. In the end, the government seized all Church property. Which means that in a land where Church and State are legally separated, the government owns and maintains all Church properties! And Christmas shows up all over the place, from official squares to nativity scenes to toll booths (festooned with garland and “Feliz Navidad” written on the windows).

The Zócalo during the late afternoon, Christmas eve

The Zócalo after Christmas eve mass at the Cathedral

Christmas tree next to the monument to the Mexican Revolution

Feliz Navidad remains a common greeting, although a few “feliz fiestas” or “happy holidays” have crept into Méxican culture. Since “feliz fiestas” sounds so weird (are there any unhappy fiestas?) it may not catch on.

Mexico has a tortured history of religious involvement in political affairs. For a long time, all citizens had to be Catholic. The call for independence came under a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Still, México seems to have come to terms with a way to be officially secular without renouncing the essence of religious belief, which is after all communal and “other” facing.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Mexico City presiding at the Christmas eve vigil mass

¡Feliz Navidad a todos!

Big things in tiny spaces

Aztec temple, Spanish church, Apartment building

Winston Churchill once commented that the Balkans were so violent because they “produce more history than they consume.” CDMX produces a lot of history, too, and sometimes it is very concentrated. We visited two of its most densely packed historical sites today: Three Cultures Square and Tepeyac.

I expected the visit to Three Cultures Square to be a simple photo op: yes, you can grab an image with pre-modern (Aztec), modern (Spanish colonial) and post-modern (1960’s) structures in it. But as we toured the site, I came to realize just how much history was jam-packed into it.

First, it was the site of the Aztec town of Tlatelolco, where Moctezuma appeared before his people begging them not to attack the conquistadores. Instead, the Aztecs turned on Moctezuma and stoned him, resulting in his eventual death. There also the final Aztec chief, Cuauhtémoc fought and lost the final battle against Cortés, resulting in the end of the Aztec empire.

When the Spanish built this church there, it was the site of the baptism of a indigenous man who took the Christian name Juan Diego…more on him later.

Church of Santiago
Juan Diego’s baptismal fount

In 1968, students and workers protested against the corruption evident in the run-up to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Military and police opened fire on them in this same square, killing between 300-400 on the eve of the opening ceremonies.

Finally, the apartment blocs lining the square collapsed during the 1985 earthquake, again killing hundreds in the neighborhood.

Quite a lot of history in a space a little larger than a soccer pitch. Its like the Boston Tea Party, Gettysburg, and Kent State all happened on the same spot.

Later in the morning we went to Tepeyac, better known as the hill on which the Virgin Mary (our Lady of Guadalupe) appeared to Juan Diego (yes, that Juan Diego), which I covered here. Now we’ve been to Rome, Jerusalem, Lourdes, and Fatima, and we have never seen a denser pack of churches than around the grounds of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

yes, its sinking
The new & old basilicas
The Indians’ Church
The Church of the well
A Chapel just to “swear off” something
The original church on the hill

One cannot overstate the Mexican people’s deep devotion to this Marian apparition. As our tour guide put it, not all Mexicans are Catholic (80% are), but all Mexicans are Guadalupanos (or devotees of Our Lady). Any time of day or night, you’ll find common folk working their way across the central plaza of the Basilica…on their knees. During the days immediately before the annual feast of La Guadalupana (12 December), almost 11 million people visited the shrine, again in a space about the size of your average mall in the States.

I counted seven different churches, including the original chapel directed to be built by Our Lady, and the second, larger church which is sinking into that soft lake bed which underlies most of CDMX. Mexican families come for the day: there is always a Mass underway, there were long lines for confessions, and people celebrating marriages, good fortunes, or just giving thanks.

Look closely & you can see the cracks
Church of the well is…
moving away

One can always visit the famous tilma, the cloak on which the image of the Virgin appeared, by standing on a series of motorized walkways that take you slowly past; there is always a short line. The tilma is out of reach, as it has already survived an acid attack and 29 sticks of dynamite!

The tilma
A candle stand after 29 sticks of dynamite
Close up

The grounds of the Basilica are not large, but they are full of churches, chapels, images to place votive candles, and a few tastefully obscured shops. Of course, just outside the grounds are all the plastic religious gee-gaws one could want. Looking at the various sculptures and watching Mexican families enjoy their visits, you can see just how much this particular icon means to all of them.

Juan Diego, in roman garb…doesn’t he look classical?
Another Juan Diego, with tilma
A pictorial representation of the peoples and their Mother

Another big thing in a very small space.

“You didn’t build that!”

Teotihuacan was on the agenda for today. It is hard to grasp the size and scope of this development, but I hope these pics and video give some perspective.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Teotihuacan is how little we really know about it. We don’t know it’s name; Teotihuacan is just what the Aztecs called it. It means “city of the gods” since the Aztecs found it abandoned and assumed the gods must have built it. We don’t know who really built it, as it predates the Meso-american societies we have named but is more advanced than the unidentified ones. We know the Aztecs came from Tenochtitlan to hold religious services in Teotihuacan, and we know the conquistadors named one area “the citadel” because they thought it resembled a ready-made fort.

Archaeologists thought Teotihuacan had astronomical associations based on its location and orientation, so they called the largest pyramid the temple of the sun and the next largest the temple of the moon. Once excavated, they determined both were dedicated to Meso-american gods: Tlaloc and some unknown female counterpart. They estimate one-quarter of a million people lived in and around the complex, but we don’t know what happened to them.

View from atop the temple of the sun, the largest pyramid

The pyramid steps are highly irregular and steep. Most have no handrails; some have a steel cable on which to grab hold. At various levels there are plateaus, where the lines to climb snake back and forth. There are no guardrails. I saw whole families, from grandparents to small children, clambering up the pyramid. From the video, you get a sense of the crowds. There are no signs, no park rangers, no one overseeing safety. Yet I saw no one fall, and everybody seemed to be looking out for everyone else. One way to ensure safety is to make more rules, emplace more equipment, hire more inspectors. Another is to make people responsible for themselves.

As to the title of this post? Well you’ll recall President Obama’s comment that ‘if you own a business, you didn’t build that.’ In the case of the Aztecs and Teotihuacan, it’s true!

Getting history right

We visited the National Museum of Anthropology; random thoughts follow:

Mexico does a good job of memorializing its distant past. The story of the Olmecs, Toltecs, Aztecs, Maya, and others are all captured in a single museum, with each culture given its own hall tracing its origins, rise, and destiny.

Tláloc, reclining, with the pumping station/gallery behind

Likewise, Mexico City made a major effort to add art to its public spaces in the past twenty years, and art drawing on its indigenous roots is featured. One great example of this is Diego Rivera’s statute of the rain god Tláloc, which is situated at the mouth of the Lerma river up on the Chapultepec heights overlooking the city. The pumping station there is set up like a mini-gallery of Rivera’s work, along with a chime system whereby the wind, the water, and pumps all combine to make music.

The Anthropology museum is huge. The central atrium contains this stunning pillar which uses rain water to generate a continuous fountain. The pillar is full of symbols celebrating the merger of Mexico’s indigenous and Spanish past.

While the vast majority of the artifacts on display are originals, there are recreations of some of the temples done is actual size.

Actual jade burial mask of Mayan ruler Pakal

Re-creation of Aztec temple decoration (life size)

There was no sugar coating, and the museum is constantly updating its displays based on new research. For an example of the former, the blood-thirsty nature of Meso-american culture is on full display, from skeletons of human sacrifice victims to discussions about the importance of slavery to the growth of these empires. There is none of the noble savage gloss which sometimes colors other North American histories of the Amerindian cultures.

As for keeping up-to-date, the museum noted new research which shows the Maya were quite adept at human sacrifice (a recent change, whereas previously they were considered more humane), and that the Aztec calendar we have all seen is not a calendar, but an Aztec representation of the universe. The museum is yet to capture some of the interesting, very recent finds in the Yucatán about the size and spread of the Mayan empire. But that is very recent, and we don’t really know how much will change as a result of the LIDAR (Laser Imaging Detection and Ranging) of the Yucatán, although it looks like our previous estimates on the Mayan population were off by a factor of ten.

More from what the Aztecs called “the city of the gods” tomorrow.

Ciudad de México

Live blogging from the Mexican capital, Ciudad de México, or México City as you know it. We’ll be here all week, and I will try to give you a sense of this massive, historical, and vibrant city.

But first, let’s clear up some confusion. All over México, you will see signs–along the highway, in the airport–pointing you toward…México! You may ask yourself, “how did I get here?” and you may say to yourself “this is not my casa!” (Apologies to the Talking Heads).

Here is the short answer: México is the name of a city, and a state, and a country. Ciudad de México is the capital of the country of Mexico. It is surrounded by the state of México, but is not within it. In fact, the capital of the state of Mexico is Toluca. Got that?

Mexicans refer to the capital as just “México” but they mean the city. The city used to be in something called the Distrito Federal or DF, which was akin to DC in the States. So old-timers may call it the DF, but the new appellation is CDMX.

CDMX is the political, historical, and cultural center of the nation and an overwhelming influence on México. At between 25 and 30 million people, it dwarfs Guadalajara, México’s second city, and is either the largest or second largest in the western hemisphere (Sao Paulo, another uncountable metropolis, is the competitor).

The city was built (literally) on the ruins of the Mexica (Aztec) capital Tenochtitlan. I’ll cover all this in more detail as we visit, but one amazing point is Tenochtitlan was built on a man-made series of islands in a great freshwater lake. Practically nothing of the original lake remains, but the unsteady foundations of a lake bed remain a challenge to the skyscrapers that increasingly mark the CDMX skyline.

Did I mention the volcanos and earthquake faults? More on that later!

Los animales de la ribera de Chapala

Simply “the animals of lakeside, ” if you’ve forgotten your high school Spanish.

Living in a relatively rural area, you become accustomed to the presence of animals. After a while. you don’t notice even the largest animals, or animals in the most unusual of places. So I made an effort to capture photos of the many animals I would otherwise not even notice because, well, they’re everywhere.

Horses (and donkeys) must be first on the list, as vaqueros (cowboys) originated in Mexico and are still seen throughout the countryside and small towns. They handle the local traffic very well, and generally yield the right-of-way. Sometimes you’ll see distracted riding (with cell phone), but if you want to avoid driving under the influence, just ride your horse to the beer store!

And a Miller lite, for my horse, por favor!

I’ll just tuck my horse behind the tuba in the parade, and no one will ever notice!

Dogs show up everywhere. This little guy has been holding down guard next to my development for several weeks now. They also show up on local roofs, and of course in front of the meat market!

Goats make less regular appearances. Most often you find them grazing beside the road, but several times a year they are headed to (well, be) lunch (i.e., birria).

Crossed the road, but refused to explain why…

Chickens here are really tough. There’s a flock out front of our development along the carretera (main road). They co-exist peacefully with the street dogs, who learned long ago that while a dog may win a one-on-one battle with a rooster, the prize isn’t worth the fight.

We have a large selection of literal snow-birds, in this case Pelicans. Thousands over-winter at the town of Petatán on the other side of the lake. This small pod (collective noun for pelicans) chose to stay at our club, which is less crowded and far more posh!

You can find more exotic birds, too. Here are some roof Peacocks: not very good as guard birds, but beautiful nonetheless.

Finally, you see plenty of cows. Like NOB, they are generally behind fences, but the median strip and road sides are public right-of-ways, full of grass. So it is not uncommon to find cows adjacent to, in the middle of, or crossing busy roads. This is especially true in the early morning, and at night. Which is why the expat lore is “never drive at night in Mexico.” Some think that’s because of the danger of criminal or gang violence; au contraire, the danger is several tons of Mexican beef ambling across your lane in the dark!

When the levee breaks

Watching the change of seasons NOB, I was getting ready to make my annual “*sigh*, it’s so boring lakeside, what with the warm dry weather, sunlight, and tropical flora” post. I still may post that eventually, along with an appropriate pool shot (over my feet) with a margarita. But as I prepared to write it, I thought about the fact I live on Lake Chapala, and rarely ever mention it.

That is not unusual, as Judy & I are not “active water people.” If we go to a beach, it’s to lie under a palapa, drink margaritas, and read books. If we go to a pool, we mill about in the water for a few minutes to cool off. We don’t swim laps, we don’t tan. If we visit a lake or stream, we take some photos, but we don’t fish or go swimming. We did win–during a charity auction–a small-boat lunch cruise on Lake Chapala, so sometime soon we’ll report back on that.

Still the lake has a major effect on us (Note: it affects us. It has an effect on us. It does not impact us, unless someone drops a meteor into the lake, whereupon waves would then wash over our house. Sorry, the use of “impact” in TV English, to the detriment of affect/effect, drives me to distraction). The lake has a moderating influence on our climate: we’re generally 5-10 degrees (F) warmer than Guadalajara in the winter, and the same but cooler in the summer. Essentially, the lake creates the micro-climate which makes living lakeside so pleasant, year-round.

There is a running debate about the quality of the lake’s water. Locals swim and boat and fish in it: that much is clear. Some expats are outraged when they see sewage runoff entering the lake, but perhaps they don’t know that that happens in every body of water. Routine testing of the lake’s quality shows it to be above the standards set by the US EPA. Still, there’s little recreational boating, so what’s with that?

The level of Lake Chapala varies greatly. It is fed by the Rio Lerma (to the east), where a series of upstream dams sequester water for agricultural uses. So the lake only gains water when the farms already have enough and/or the levees are full. We can tell when the levees release water, as the amount of lirio, a freshwater aquatic weed, increase rapidly. Many years past, the lake also drained out via the Rio Santiago, but I am told the lake level no longer supports such drainage. Instead, the main loss of lake water comes from pipes which feed the growing demand of Guadalajara, or simple evaporation, which is a major source of loss in a such a hot, dry environment. On any normal day, you can see a haze hovering over the lake which is simply the amount of water vapor leaving it. The shallow and wide nature of the lake contribute to this effect.

In Mexico, land recovered when water recedes is public land: it belongs to the government. When the lake is particularly low, large swaths of fertile land appear. Of course, the government is unprepared to claim such land, so enterprising Mexicans do so. Farmers plant on it; cattlemen place herds on it. Locals create walking trails which provide a glimpse of the houses of the rich and famous from an unusual angle (lakeside) where there generally are no privacy walls. I’m told someone even built a off-road, dirt racing strip on a sizable patch of muddy shore, once. Folks fence their efforts in, run bootleg power lines, even build small structures.

Then the lake rises, and all this is inundated. You might even say, “impacted.” Would you swim/water ski/sail over shallows which might contain, oh, power lines? barbed wire? a roof? Locals do, but must most expats shy away.

We had a strong rainy season this year, meaning Lake Chapala is at a 40 year high. The strange thing is, the rainy season ended back in October, and we’ve had several rain storms since. We even had some cloudy days, and the temperature hit (dramatic drum roll please) 59 degree F. Locals were wearing ski jackets, stocking caps, and gloves. Expats were fully dressed, (¡Gracias a Dios!) for a change. I even saw a Canadian wearing long pants!

My development has a boat dock and a seawall which measures about 15 feet. Usually, the lake is off the seawall during the dry season, although it sometimes climbs on to the seawall during the rainy season.