Mexico City: The Bridge

Democracy Breaking Her Chains, David Siquieros

To leap, as we did, from the depths of the jungle and the silent majesty of Palenque directly into downtown Mexico City in less than two hours on a comfy Russian Interjet airplane was almost too much for us to handle. The pace, the international feel, the traffic and the noise, noise, NOISE, thoroughly rattled our nervous systems right from the moment we hopped into a cab at the airport until we were deposited in front of our somewhat centrally located hotel in the sort of seedy Zona Rosa.

After a 

night of spotty sleep in our less than perfect Hotel Principado (note: do not stay there!), Lynn, ever the navigator secured a decent map of the downtown portion of the city.  We located a great little spot, the Amour Caffé that specialized in great breakfasts, excellent coffee, and MTV videos. With map and guide book as our compass, we laid down a “Culture Trail” that we felt would give us a great sample of the history and art of Mexico writ large. We also resolved to ride the subway as much as possible, despite the generally unwarranted cautions about the dangers of doing so, as it was both cheap and very easy to use once we found our nearby Insurgentes station. We used the “your getting hotter/colder” method of asking many people for directions before locating it. Lynn recently learned that Mexican people always want to be helpful, so they will give directions even when they don’t quite know the actual location of your destination.  An important lesson learned!

First stop for us was the Museo Nacional Anthropologia This is truly a world-class cultural museum that spans a 6,000 year period documenting the civilizations that came and went in Meso-America according to the whims of climate, history, and location. Here, at last, was the big picture that placed (more or less) in order the rise and fall of the Zapotecs, the Olmecs, the Mayans, the Toltecs, and culminating with the fall of the Aztecs at the hands of disease, environmental devastation, and conquest by the Spanish. 

2300 year old Zapotec fertility figure 

The museum exhibits tell this story beautifully through the fantastic displays of pottery, sculpture, statuary, and everyday items from each of the cultural eras that celebrated fertility, life, humor, and beauty. Such fine work!  So much detail and care. It was obvious that the all-important cultivation of corn had given each of these civilizations the great gift of time. Time to build spectacular city-states as well as time to develop art that surpassed anything produced in early Europe. 

Mayan calendar

Also time to discover and employ mathematical rules that gave some element of predictability and control to an otherwise chaotic and terrifying world. The Mayans, for example, built amazingly accurate calendars tied to observed astronomical rhythms that stabilized crop production.  But these were not, by any means, entirely enlightened civilizations. 

Aztec Death Head

The museum also documented the brutality and cruelty that accompanied the rise of each group with the ever-present evidence of war, death, superstition, blood sacrifice, and slavery - all etched in every artifact. And all silent.

We couldn’t help but wonder how all of this distant, silent history informed the modern Mexico that we had been exploring. It took another visit to yet another part of the city to complete the “time bridge” we had been crossing.  We took a weekend day to visit the Palacio Nacional and the Palacio de Belle Artes where major works of the Mexican muralists, including Diego Rivera, are on display.

Emerging out of the subway into the heart of Mexico City, we were confronted with a truly staggering sight: an enormous plaza bounded on one side by the Palacio Nacional and the Catedral Metropolitana on the other. Because the entire plaza and buildings were constructed on spongy substrata, the buildings appear to be sinking, ever so slightly back into the ground. Sighting along one side of the Palacio Nacional, for example, you can see a pronounced curve where the central portion of the building is actually slightly higher than either end. It looks as though it might tear apart at any moment. Inside, we walked through beautiful courtyards and walkways, all showing evidence of being shored up, to our main destination: the famous Diego Rivera mural The Conquest of Mexico.

The History of Mexico, Diego Rivera

Even though the undermining of the Palacio is a product of poor civic planning on the part of the original Aztec builders, the emotional weight of the Rivera mural, the heaviness of it, seems to strain the building, as though it can barely hold up this monumental work. In one, jaw-dropping, sweeping, vast painting, Rivera ties the ancient past to the present. The mural is really a journey: beginning at the precise point where the Museo had left off.  At the bottom of the towering mural is the subjugation of the indigenous civilizations by a debauched, rabid Cortez. The battles leap out at you. As your eyes climb upwards, you can see and almost hear the suffering, the fascistic repression, the greed and corruption of corporate swine, with even more violence perpetrated against the common people…up and up, through the revolutions, the independence movements, French occupation, still more political upheavals,  and finally the culmination in the modern day  (circa 1930s) Mexican Republic. The term breathtaking, so often overused, is the exact word for this work.

The Great City of Tenochtitlan by Diego Rivera with Cortes' lover, La Malinche modeled after Frida Kahlo

Belle Artes

After a break to rest our eyes and brains, we set off for the Palacio de Bell Artes – yet another beautiful building filled with murals by other masterful painters, such as Orozco and Siqueiros, who continued the themes of exploitation and the struggle for liberation that we had seen in the Rivera work. Rivera and these muralists used their over-sized medium to educate Mexican campesinos about the heavy hand of the Spanish rulers and corruption that was rampant in the new government. All of these were placed in a gorgeous art-deco style building full of light and color. By the time we had finished our visits we were completely wiped out. We took the subway back to the hotel, had a quick bite and hit the sack.

After a few more days of Mexico City, we finally decided to give our nervous systems a rest and decided to head for Morelia, a much smaller town to the north that promised to be restful and, best of all, quiet!