After only one week of travelling in Mexico I felt like I’d already seen so much. It’s now been 3 weeks I realise but in this blog I’m mainly focusing on my first week in the southern highlands.
From the moment I arrived in Mexico City and found out it was Mexican Pride that day I knew the city was one of cultural and philosophical diversity. As I wandered down the main avenue I saw buildings draped in flags, shops adorned with balloons and pedestrian crossings painted - all with the rainbow colours that have come to represent acceptance of the LGBTQ community, clearly widespread in this newly liberal country.
I joined a walking tour and learnt a little about Mexico’s colourful political past and their beloved Benito Juarez - the first indigenous president who separated church and state. I was shown marvellous examples of colonial, Parisian, Art Deco and functionalist architecture on the main Reforma Avenue. Some styles were introduced on the basis of presidential preference, such as the Parisian balconied buildings whilst others, such as the functional aluminium and glass skyscrapers, were necessary to protect the building from the widespread subsidence unavoidable when you build a city out of stone and marble on a drained lake bed. Nowhere is the subsidence more obvious than at the cathedral - sinking at an alarming rate of 8cm a year. Here, at the heart of the historic centre and with the huge zocalo (main square) in front is where the mix of ancient, colonial and modern traditions truly collide. As I stood people watching, an ancient ritual was played out before me - tribal drumming and dancing, performed in head dresses and loin cloths of brightly coloured feathers and animal skulls, as an advertisement for the main ceremony of dousing believers in smoke and flicking water from the leaves of herbs as a way to cleanse the soul. Simultaneously, the devout Catholics of the population repented for their sins through prayer in the cathedral just behind me. All of this played out with the zocalo as a backdrop, newly furnished with Glastonbury-esque stages, and filling with extravagantly dressed punks, ravers and drag queens ready for the pride festival.
Talking of eccentric dressers, later that afternoon I visited Frida Kahlo’s house in the beautifully quiet area of Coyoacan. The famous Mexican artist had lived in this bright blue house for the majority of her artistic life, both in childhood as a photographer’s daughter and as an adult with her husband Deigo Rivera. She was an inspirationally positive person, having suffered through polio as a child, a near fatal bus crash and finding that she was infertile, but putting her anguish into her vivid paintings whilst living life to the fullest in the most bohemian way. Her multicoloured, corseted, layered outfits, primarily chosen to support and conceal her weak, damaged body, and inspired by traditional costumes from her mothers indigenous heritage, have become a symbol of Mexico and her portraits can be found on many walls, posters, menus and trinkets.
The strong cultural eclecticism continued as I explored Oaxaca, a provincial capital with a grid network of streets; lined with one-story multicoloured colonial buildings, filled with beeping old Volkswagen beetles from the newly independent Mexican era and decorated with political graffiti highlighting the issues important to modern Mexicans. For example, this painting parodies the last supper with an anonymous drug cartel leader as Jesus and various corrupt politicians and religious leaders as the disciples. The sight of the zocalo at night with its old stone church and crowds of balloon sellers, caricaturists and folk dancing was a beautiful one.
I found a similar architectural and cultural landscape in San Cristóbal (an addition to my planned route as a rest stop between 2 long bus journeys but in fact a place that really should be on everyone’s Mexico itinerary). The brightly painted houses, separated by cobbled pedestrianised streets adorned with the paper cut out bunting left over from the day of the dead celebrations, that I had previously seen in Oaxaca and more statement graffiti - here mostly themed around feminism. Here, however, the Mayan traditions are much stronger with much of the population still direct descendants and practicing the herbal medicine, obsidian crafting and weaving. The elements also play a more obvious role in the daily life of the town. In this mountainous region when it rains it pours and the streets become rivers almost instantaneously. The mountains, and consequently the trust of the people, have been torn apart by mining industries and sucked dry by Coca Cola - who apparently pump 1million litres of water a day from an underground water source and charge the locals a premium to drink it. My tour guide got particularly irate as he explained that coke was much cheaper than the bottled water (also produced by coca-cola) and so babies are being brought up on the sugary ‘shitty’ drink.
As well as the walking tours, which I have come to prioritise as my first activity in any place of cultural interest I have also been on a fair few day trips to see the out-of-town ancient ruins and natural wonders. These tours always consist of rides in sweaty mini buses, bilingual guides and stops at the ‘handicraft workshops’ where you are given a demonstration of the process behind said craft and then cajoled into buying the end product. I have however learnt about and tasted a lot of Mezcal - the Mexican alcohol made from fermented and distilled Agave juice (of which Tequila is a specific type). I don’t particularly like the stuff, it tastes like pure alcohol, sometimes with a smoky or slightly sweet after taste but the hand-dyed and woven blankets, obsidian ornaments and amber jewellery are far more difficult to resist! The main attractions of the day trips were generally saved for last such as the natural phenomenon of hierve el agua - a rock formation likened to a petrified waterfall as natural spring water cascades over a cliff depositing its minerals to leave a limestone formation. We climbed down to get to the top of the falls for a stunning view over the valley and a dip in the pool at the top. In contrast, Teotihuacan, another day trip highlight, involved climbing up a large, thousand year old pyramid of the sun for an equally impressive, though much less refreshing, view over the ancient city’s main avenue and the twin pyramid of the moon. The final stop on this tour was to the Basilica of our lady of Guadalupe - a complex of shrines and churches dedicated to the sighting of the Virgin Mary by an indigenous man - that conveniently occurred at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Despite my doubts of its name sake this area was an incredibly interesting and fittingly eclectic Mecca of Mexico City with gothic, baroque and almost futuristic churches side by side. The newest basilica is designed like a football stadium for maximum capacity with abstract stained glass and a roof like Damon’s spare ribs in Lincoln. A priest preached to hundreds of people inside whilst I was there whilst the old church was deathly silent and precariously leaning forward.
I feel in the three cities I have seen the three cultures of Mexico’s long history in different proportions. The ancient Mayan culture, mouobvious in San Cristóbal, the colonial Spanish influence, most noticeable in the architecture and the still strong Catholicism, whilst the new culture of globalisation in Mexico City
Where beautiful beaches are found the true culture of a country seems to be washed away and a new international beach culture is swept in with the tide of tourists.
