Mexico City 2009

photo: carmen baumann

by David Blount Porter

Mexico City 1973, crowded, dusty, exciting sort-of organized chaos, old world splendor, strange food for a norteamericano. Driving was the most challenging traffic encountered in my life, and the most fun for a 23 year old.

Mexico City 2009, the city so big now no one entirely agrees on just how many people live here.  Suffice it to say most likely twice as many at this point than in the early 1970’s.  The chaos is clearly more organized and flows at its own level. Our bus trip from the airport is a torrential downpour. Was like a journey through some movie set.  We were one cast of many characters coming to the heart of the city through swells of water that sometimes hid the sidewalks.  This is, I am told, most unusual for Mexico City, Distrito Federal, D.F.  There was a sense of adventure and surrender on the bus among the cast of journalists and travel agents. I might add there was sizeable respect for the bus driver by the end of the trip.

The Paseo de la Reforma, DF’s wondrous avenue reminded me of the Champs-Elysees in Paris, only greener and more luscious. The heavy traffic one would expect in any large city (especially one of the top tree largest in the world) was not a surprise.  In fact, moving slowly along allows one time to take in some of the sculptures and statues strategically placed along the Reforma, while people watching from the perch of the tall warm bus gliding, ok, sometimes crawling, through traffic. It was nice to have time to take in some of the old world culture and elegance.

Onboard Mexicana Airlines and at the airport I was impressed by the gentle and friendly manner of the mexican people.  The care given was more than perfunctory, almost like one would treat a loved family member.  This is certainly a welcome attitude in such a crowded and busy environment.

The word Mexico is ostensibly taken from the nahuatl language from perhaps Aztec times. It has variously been translated many ways generally agreed upon to mean something like the center of something very big and significant, the moon, the sun or the universe. While driving into the center of Mexico City it became clear that although I had perious notions, mostly from bad presss, of its dangerous shortcomings, they were not entirely accurate of the whole city.  In fact, I felt entirely safe and at ease during my stay, even at night walking through parts of the districts, Polanco, Zona Rosa and the Zocalo. Having visited over 20 countries, I am aware that there are part of cities one does not venture forth into without proper advice from locals and adequate preparation.

The clean and well organized exhibits at the National Museum of Anthropology helped me understand how culture in the Americas progressed from primitive tribal societies into urban city life over many centuries.  There is a level of sophistication that is unique to D.F.  One can feel it creeping into the psyche or at a subliminal level. This place was first thought of as a place to bring the very best of the people and build a city for gods.  Intention is a wonderful director for challenging and growing a city of this magnitude. Since the beginning of building a small center of culture in the lake that ran three to five meters deep, to today there has been a love of life and excellence that has been a theme, according to our guide, Sonia Licea, of Grey Line Tours.  She speaks with reverence of the people who designed to make this place the center of the best this world has to offer.

In many ways, I, too, feel there are things, people and experiences offered here unlike anywhere else in the world.  In one moment the night life of Zona Rosa is bubbly, chic, seductive and passionate while in another moment the peace of sitting atop the largest pyramid known on earth, stretch the mind to release preconception about the place and open the mind to learning something new, something fresh.

I feel grateful to have been immersed in a place intended to be the center of the human universe.  The Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon in the ancient City of Teotihuacan is known as the place where gods are made (thanks, again Sonia) despite all the seeming chaos.

Mexico City for many, including myself, is a place where the best of one can be brought to focus.  There is a part of me discovered on this trip that I want to visit again and again.  When I say, viva Mexico, as a citizen of this world, I say it for my Mexico City.