Mexico City – 3

Posted on January 18, 2003 in Vacations

All the way over here, Lynn asked me to repeat the spelling. “Chapulpetec Park”, I’d repeat for her. “C H A P U L P E T E C — just like it sounds.”

She liked the place well enough – we followed the guidebook recommendation and ate our way through it. Hucksters presented all kinds of delicacies along the way — pastries rolled out into sheets or bent into spirals; cups of freshly cut fruit; nuts packed half way in paper bags (if you ordered one, the vendor pulled out the bottom and filled the bag the rest of the way — otherwise, it would fall while on display); clay pots liberally sprinkled with chili powder and filled with sodas or sangria; lumps of raw sugar; and these red blobs that looked like raw liver covered in chili powder.

We didn’t try any of the burgandy lumps.

I ignored any cuisine which did not appear authentic, such as the hamburgers and hot dogs that the Europeans and Americans pushed for outside the National Museum of Anthropology. Not many vendors sold crafts, except right aside the Museum: objects appealing to children such as costume sets, blow-up figures, hats, toys, stuffed animals, knockoff action figurines, and sunglasses in a rainbow of colors.

Later, we went to the Civil Cemetery of Dolores at the other end of the park. The first cab driver we approached demanded an exorbitant fee and suggested we walk. “You’ll get there in half an hour if you go that way,” he said.

Forty five minutes later, I asked a police officer and a vendor where we were. Through a rudimentary conversation of Spanish, I learned that we’d been completely turned around by the people we asked along the way. I cursed the lazy cab driver (who’d demanded the price, I think, because he didn’t want to go there) and reoriented myself. We headed towards the Zona Hotel where the city’s luxury hotels congregate, found a willing driver in less than a minute, and arrived at the Panteon in a matter of minutes. (Enroute, one of the “Green Cabs” attempted to lure me inside — all the guidebooks and the government tourist agencies warn against them as traps for robbers — not that easy to escape from the back seat of a Volkswagen. When I refused him repeatedly, he called me a perro (dog), so I returned the compliment with an ejaculation of the choicest Tijuana street Spanish that I knew.)

We arranged to meet him in an hour once he dropped us off. All I will say about this memorial garden is that I would pit it against New Orleans, Pere Lachais, or any of the other great Cemeteries of the world. I got great photos of the graves of Rivera and Sisquienos (Fridah and other women were conspicuously absent from the “Rotunda of Heros”) and had a great time peering through the windows of tombs and, sometimes, down into the crypts below. Much of the statuary was remarkable. I figure we covered perhaps 3 to 5% of the ground: this place deserves an extended visit by me at a future point.

Send money so I can go!

I’m making notes as I go on — time at this cafe is limited, so I make my entries relatively brief and undetailed.