Partially fulfilling a promise to myself to go somewhere sunny and warm once a month from January until Chicago thawed, I ducked away to Mexico City for a long weekend in March. This was a complicated one: a thoroughly energizing, packed trip that kept prodding me with the realization that I should have given CDMX a full week of my time. I finished the weekend exhausted, gastrically compromised and plenty happy... but like my too-fast tear through the Balkans two years ago, I swallowed too much too fast and finished wanting more, but also needing a good long break before venturing forth again, my pre-scheduled LA and New England trips notwithstanding.
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| Courtyard restaurants with trees growing through 'em: who cares! |
I stayed in an adorable, clean, light-filled hostel in a courtyard just behind the Zocalo, in the historic center of Mexico City; it was an ideal perch, and a private room for about $20/night. (I've jumped off the AirBnB wagon thanks to the company's role in hypergentrification and the ways that they've changed the character of residential areas of cities across the globe, and mostly been pleasantly surprised to find equally affordable, character-packed hostels and guesthouses to fill the gap.) From there, I spent a couple of days exploring the area, from Diego Rivera's stunning murals at the Palacio Nacional to the murals and architecture of the Palacio Bellas Artes to the sprawling gorgeous wonder of Chapultec park, with a breakfast stroll through Roma and a street food exploration of the city center to round out my tramping. (I had one day in Coyoacan and Xochimilco as well, but that's its own post. Oh, and Teotihuacan. Which... Yeah, that's a next-post thing too.)
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| You will be shocked to learn that the street art here was: Very Good |
The city's art is stunning; Rivera's murals at the National Palace are truly a top art experience in the world, political and vibrant and pointedly resonant in 2019, and he has good company throughout the city. While I didn't make it to the SHCP, its existence points to how much the city values art: it's a museum of artwork sent by artists as tax payments. Valuing art: can you imagine such a thing!
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| Just one of... 5? 7? panels in this grand staircase, which spill down a corridor as Rivera spells out his vision of colonialism and capitalism oppressing native peoples. Random dude included for purposes of scale, and to help you, the viewer, figure out what you're supposed to look at (the mural). |
The street food is as incredible as advertised; I could run down a series of names, but truly the best way to find the amazing stuff is to roam with a trained eye (a great part of the street food tour was being instructed on what to look for). Clean counters, fast-moving lines, meat being seared to order; this all gets you in the neighborhood of some truly perfect bites. I was felled late in the trip by a gut bug that, of course, came from the one afternoon that I gave in to exhaustion and stopped off at a relatively touristy restaurant that offered salads. Lesson learned.
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| Get you to a market and scope out all them delicious spiced nuts. |
A few fragments stick in my memory: a late-night cab ride into the city from the airport, passing a brightly-lit storefront in which a young guy was bench-pressing cases of coke. Another flourescent-lit shop in which an older man worked a foot-pedaled sewing machine while his younger friend sat with him drinking a beer. The existence of a street named after Henrik Ibsen (!!) and a game of cricket being played on a patch of grass in between two major thoroughfares as I approached that street. The cool spray of the towering waterfall in the courtyard of the Anthropological Museum in the middle of Chapultec.
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| Also, color everywhere. CDMX is one of those places that makes you realize how drab our palate is in the States (having this realization again as friends traveling in Thailand send me photos of their journeys there). |
It's all blurs and fragments, another legacy of being there too short a time and moving too quickly to let serendipity and idle conversation at leisure overtake me. Lesson learned; I'll be keeping my long-weekend trips to the unplugs and the familiar, and stick true to my conviction that you need a week for any major city to unfold itself to you.
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| OK fine I'll give you one recommendation, which is that the breakfast at El Cardenal is as delicious as promised, and the room as charming and light-filled and serene as described. Please do not ask me any more questions about this!!! |
Next time: Coyoacan, Xochimilco, Teotihuacan, and What I'd Do Next Time!
