Probably just as good as Xochimilco itself is the market in the neighborhood. It was the first one we stopped into on our trip, so we just assumed it was normal. Turned out it is a slightly cooler than usual market, and man, was it bustin’ out with the food.
While Peter was buying snacks from ladies in sparkling aprons, I took a spin around the place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such luscious-looking lard.
As I said in an earlier post, chicharron here is better than I’ve ever seen. I wish I’d taken photos of the normal display technique: propping it up vertically inside a glass case, with a light behind, so it glows orange (paging Matthew Barney).
Instead, here’s some more prosaic chicharron for sale, still certainly flaky and delicious:
I haven’t seen such a variety of moles before either–in the Yucatan, there’s a smaller number of recados (spice pastes) on offer. This market sold them both as dry powders and as pastes, with almonds, with shrimp, with walnuts, with pine nuts….
But this is my favorite photo from the market, and perhaps from our whole trip. How fresh is food in Mexico? It’s this fresh!
OK, chicken butts–this concludes our Mexico City photo tour. Thanks a million for looking.
Now the question is: When can I go back? And what should we do next time?
Years ago, when I lived by 36th Avenue in Astoria, there was a restaurant down there called Xochimilco. It was slightly upscale Mexican (which I now realize is just normal Mexican), and even though I couldn’t pronounce the name, I did know it was this beautiful network of canals in Mexico City.
It didn’t seem to go with the restaurant, exactly, as it sat under the rumbling N-train tracks, but it seemed even more improbable to me that there was this lush area of gardens and canals in Mexico City, which in my mind was nothing but concrete and traffic and smog.
But now I’ve been there, and I can tell you it’s true. But it still seems like a dream.
We took the metro and then the nifty little tram. Here’s the boss’s office at the tram terminal:
That looks so calm and normal, right? No indication of what lay ahead… On the tram, Peter and I are the only non-Mexicans, and then I see a guy with stubble and a Sonic Youth shirt get on, and he comes walking toward us. Sigh–must Brooklynites follow us wherever we go?
He and his girlfriend stand near us, and proceed to start speaking…in Greek. So Peter joins in, and it turns out they live in Belgium and a very cool and nice. And good thing we meet them, as once we get to the boat docks, a short walk from the tram stop, it’s clear that we would’ve been a little sad and lonely, just me and Peter on a boat. Because these boats are big, built for giant family outings.
Nothing’s really going on at the dock, and we feel a bit sad, as we’d thought we could maybe share a boat with some Mexicans, and now we feel like we’ll be missing out, on our lonely, only-four-people boat.
Our captain says, No, don’t worry–there will be plenty of party for us. And he gets us a cooler full of giant beers, and we set off. Slowly. These boats have no motors–they’re just punted, gondola-style.
After a little bit, we turn out and onto a canal, and I think we all privately must’ve laughed to ourselves about feeling lonesome and like we were missing out. Because this is what we see.
Soon we’re up in the fray, which miraculously never turns into total gridlock, and our boat just glides between parties.
What’s great is that the boats are so big, and the families so big, is that there’s enough room for kids to split off on their own. I saw one boat with sullen teens flopped on one end, texting, while their grandmothers gossiped on the chairs nearby. These kids were taking a breather:
And we’d also stupidly worried we should’ve brought food. What was I thinking? You never have to bring your own food in Mexico. Of course there was someone–on a boat–ready to make us lunch:
Lunch service, on our own boat, included the festive checked tablecloth:
We glided around a bit more, got off and walked through a greenhouse, and spied this odd guy:
All this time, I haven’t mentioned the music. Boats full of freelance mariachis glided through, latching on to host boats to sing a few songs, then carrying on. We’d been mooching off of everyone else’s ambience, so near the end of our two-hour tour, we flagged down our own guys.
“Sing us songs that will make us cry!” we said. Not that we needed to specify–they could be singing about rainbows and kittens, and all we have to hear is those trumpets and that full-throated voice, and we’d be weeping.
That’s our Greek fellow passenger in the foreground. Thumbs up for Xochimilco. I think I want to go back and have my birthday there. Or your birthday. Or anyone’s, really.
OK, let’s get this one out of the way first. It’s ridiculous and unfortunate:
And this is also pretty unfortunate. But it happens to be in a very nice neighborhood.
And there are other lovely combinations:
Excellent subway advertisements. Only because we were in Mexico City during Semana Santa, when crowds in the metro are at a minimum, could we take these photos without other people in them.
And then there’s this, much classier, in the Palacio de Bellas Artes. This font makes me want to buy tickets to anything.
Finally, back to the metro. You may know that Mexico City’s metro is notable for the fact that each stop has a symbol as well as a name, to aid illiterate riders. We happened to walk past the public transport office (honest, just happened to!), where we saw these sign showing the inspiration for several of the metro-stop symbols.
Favorite: It’s a toss-up between the duck and the grasshopper, I think. What’s yours?
And then I read the story and thought, “Wow, what a bunch of assholes.”
The story, see, suggests that it’s somehow a bad thing that Baghdad’s police department is now painted purple. I thought journalism was supposed to at least appear to be balanced, but there’s not a single quote in the article from someone saying how much they like the colors. Instead, it’s all a bunch of prissy architects whining–and basically agreeing that the old way, when Saddam Hussein controlled what color all the buildings were, was better.
Because how can you grouse about color, once you’ve seen it so exuberantly applied? Along with hot weather, fresh food and music that makes me cry, Mexico offers a glorious treats for the eyeballs, such as these:
El Camino Real hotel, midcentury fantasy by LegorretaToken Bug-matches-house photo, in Coyoacan, the Park Slope of Mexico CityI match the metro!Note the clothes drying too.Simply salmon, at the Trotsky Museum
And color isn’t just limited to buildings, of course. Here, in the market, enterprising lime-sellers put green shades around the lightbulbs above their stands, to cast an eerie glow.
And if you just want to buy color straight, here it is. As a bonus, I suppose it tastes like various fruit flavors.
Basically, I just want to say: Baghdad, welcome to the club. Don’t listen to the haters. If color makes you feel better, rock it–you deserve it.
Union power rocks. Maybe it’s because the union logos are so fantastic.
Here’s the same logo, painted on the Zocalo, and surrounded by shoes, I believe to represent all the people killed in the drug war so far.
And another on the Zocalo:
But by far the best was the very first one we saw. Stay strong, telefonistas!
The coolest part: After we crossed the street to take a photo, we saw that in front of the building, there was a stand set up selling tchotchkes featuring its bad-ass logo: notepads, coffee mugs, key chains, little hooks to hang your purse from the restaurant table. Seriously? Not only does the Mexican Syndicate of Telephone Workers have the most righteous logo in the country, they know it.
There’s no way to say this without sounding like an ass: When I signed up for a walking tour with Eat Mexico, I thought it would be a nice way to spend the morning, but not particularly educational. I mean, geez, I know what Mexican food’s about, right?
I know. I’m an ass! I already said it!
Within seconds of starting off on the walk, I was already learning that the pink tamales are the sweet ones. You’re probably thinking, well, duh. But I’ve never seen a pink tamale in the Yucatan! And it went on from there.
First of all, in the Yucatan, there’s nothing that starts with tl-, which is a Nahuatl-only sound. Here’s a fantastic array of toppings for tlacoyos, little blue-corn patties that are heated on a griddle and topped with Oaxacan string cheese and whatever your pleasure. The edges are folded over to keep everything in.
A finished tlacoyo, from another source
Another couple of blocks, after stopping for some chicharron that was as flaky as pie crust, I finally learned what tacos de canasta are. I’ve seen signs, and logically I know it means “basket tacos,” but hadn’t given it much thought, as, again, this isn’t something I see much in the Yucatan.
Turns out tacos de canasta are pre-made tacos filled with soft, mild things (potatoes, cochinita pibil). They’re usually stacked up in a basket and covered with a towel, to keep the steam in. People usually eat them for breakfast (Lesley warned us not to buy them in the afternoon, as they’re usually soggy by then).
And just how snazzy was our tacos de canasta vendor? This snazzy. He sold loose cigarettes too.
Near the end, we were almost maxed out, but we stopped for tacos al pastor. I eat these plenty in the Yucatan, but these were different–the pork was crispier, and more important, the pineapple was raw, which added a super-fresh contrast. (In the Yucatan, a slab of pineapple is stuck on top of the rotisserie, so it drips over the pork as it cooks, which isn’t worse…just different.)
Our last stop was at a carnitas stand, where Lesley broke down the vocab for us–words like suadero and guiche I’d never even thought to look up–and explained how carnitas is really a texture experience, and people mix and match pork parts according to how much bounce and chew and crunch they want. A-ha.
But the high point, at least in terms of personal milestones, was eating…eyeballs! This never sounds like a great idea, but I’ve been particularly squeamish about eyeballs ever since my brother dissected one from a cow in high school, then brought it home in a plastic baggie and left it in the fridge right at eye level for a week. And Peter told me how he’d had to eat a lamb eyeball in Greece once, and it popped a little and had something hard in the center.
So there we were at a stand that was advertising tacos de ojo, and Lesley pointed this out. Janneth, Lesley’s friend and a tour-guide-in-training, noticed us all shuffling around looking anxious, and she said, “I’ll get some. I’ve never tried them either.”
The guy at the stand dug into the stewed cow skull, scooped out the eye and lot of other meat around it, and threw it on his chopping block. And then, just like every other taco meat, it got hacked up into little tiny bits. A little anticlimactic, but a huge relief. Here’s Janneth and the finished product, looking surprisingly benign:
It tasted like…beef. Very mild beef. I’m not entirely sure why anyone would choose ojo over lengua, say, but I’m glad I’ve tried it, as now I won’t live in fear. And if I hadn’t gone on this tour with Eat Mexico, I never would’ve gotten there.
A few minutes before the whole eyeball-taco frenzy, a man had asked Janneth what our gang was up to, eating miniscule bites of tacos and taking photos left and right. Her answer: “Somos gastronomicos.” And the guy looked happy and congratulated her.
Ah, Mexico–where you can still proudly say, “We’re foodies.”
Mexico City is heaving with commerce. Maybe not quite as much as Bangkok, but the sidewalks and storefronts are pretty crammed with opportunities to buy, buy, buy. Limited space and competition mean it’s important to display your wares in a sensible manner.
Here are just a few examples of excellent pegboard salesmanship on display throughout Mexico City:
But the real prize goes to this cactus-paddle stacker:
Whenever Peter and I travel, we usually find ourselves at the end of the line. This isn’t metaphorical–it’s real, and it’s a conscious choice. We look at the transit map, pick a point off on the fringes, and head for it.
Mexico City is inconceivably vast. We bought an enormous foldout map that covered two-thirds of the twin bed in our hotel room, and the areas tourists normally go to (Condesa, Roma, Centro) covers about a square inch. Coyoacan, where the Frida Kahlo museum is, is a couple of inches south.
So Peter decided we’d go to the end of the new suburban rail line, Cuautitlan, up in the north. The train was pretty slick.
And so was the station.
The end of the line is pretty shiny.
It’s not even near the edge of the city, but it’s a start.
Those green lines are bus routes heading into even more remote suburbs.
The train ends in a giant big-box-store-architecture kind of terminal, with a mini-mall.
Cinder blocks and I-beams spell progress.
The mall is pretty normal: grocery store, couple of phone stores, a Ticketmaster outlet, a popsicle vendor. Oh, and a pawn shop with the cutest logo ever.
Pawn Power!
Another sign this mini-mall is not in America: the sex shop.
Excuse me, not a sex shop...a love store.
We finally wandered out into the real world of Cuautitlan. It looked pretty much like every midsize, reasonably prosperous Mexican town.
There’s a church, and some topiary. And a park with a clock tower.
There’s some architecture that looked like it could be in Astoria.
We ate some remarkably scrumptious esquites–corn off the cob, with chile, cilantro, cheese and a huge gob of mayo. (Note to Yucatan esquiteros: Up your game, dudes.)
It was starting to rain, so we high-tailed it back to the station, briefly stopping to do the math on how much our dream house would cost us here in Cuautitlan.
About US$45,000. Not bad.
We sat back on the train and watched the rainstorm roll in.
By the time we got back near the center, Mexico City felt a little smaller. Barely.
So, all this, and I would love to say the Thais are my people, that I have found my true heart-home on the globe.
And yet. And yet… I can’t. There is a connection that isn’t happening, some part of me that doesn’t throw off sparks when I come into contact with Thailand. I have felt it scores of times in Mexico, and in Syria, and even occasionally in Egypt, when I can cut through the smog and the traffic and the tourist fascination.
Is it because there is just too much like-going-with-like in Thailand? There, I’m on board with everything already. In Mexico, I feel like I’m visiting what could be my better self, if I stretched—my self that’s quicker to laugh but also more polite, that paints the room in cobalt blue and rose pink, that drinks without fretting about it. Syria is the model me that has perfected the art of hospitality, developed my sense of taste without being snobbish about it and learned to live with dignity no matter the circumstances.
More practically, though, the answer may simply be language. I speak Spanish and Arabic. Except for the ten hours Peter and I spent in a classroom in Bangkok near the end of our trip, I don’t speak Thai.
Those five days of classes were thrilling, though. Why did no one tell me there are languages in which you don’t have to conjugate verbs? That pronouncing tones can be fun, and not impossible after all? Our teacher was a delight, and even if we don’t recall anything we learned*, we at least made a Thai friend.
I rely on words. Even as I’ve switched to more of a photo format on this blog, I’ve felt like I’m cheating. The sensation produced by a great picture somehow doesn’t count if I haven’t hashed it out in three too-long paragraphs, then pruned it all back to one tight one.
As much as I felt freed up last year when we went to Thailand and bumbled around, language-less and reduced to pointing and smiling and giving the thumbs-up, I also felt cut loose, bobbing along in the current and never mooring anywhere or with anyone.
A lot of people, probably most of them, travel like this. But a lot of people are simply better at this style of travel than I am—they’re more outgoing, and they can make a real connection with people by pointing at lines in a phrasebook. But coupled with my more passive style, my lack of fluency, or even functionality, makes me a pure spectator.
I would never say I’m fluent in Spanish or Arabic, but I can order in a restaurant, buy bus tickets and crack the occasional joke—all without thinking too much about it and worrying over what kind of impression I’m making.
I think this is the key: if I can slip off my cloak of self-consciousness (like an invisibility cloak—but the exact opposite), there’s a chance for me to really see the person I’m talking to and really listen to what they’re saying. Less me, more them—probably a lesson I could use in any language, in any country.
It appears the only solution to my Thailand quandary is…more. More visits, more study, more food. And plenty more time with my bootleg Rosetta Stone software.
And in the meantime, I won’t take my grasp of Spanish pleasantries for granted, nor my ability to read Arabic.
*except the phrase paw dee, which means “just right.” But even that doesn’t really count because it turns out I already knew it, because my mom has been saying it for decades, to mean something more like “close enough.” I didn’t even know it was Thai until I took this class—it was jarring to hear a familiar phrase in a list of other non-cognates.
It must’ve worked its way into the family idiolect through my ex-stepdad, who was a monk in a Thai monastery for a while before he showed up on our patio when I was six or so. In my memory, he was wearing his saffron drawstring pants the first time I saw him, and he probably said, “Paw dee” right then, for all I know.
Just wanted to let everyone now that a new version of my iPhone app, Cool Cancun & Isla Mujeres is out. And it should now really be titled Cool Cancun & Isla Mujeres & Puerto Morelos–but that’s just a little unwieldy, no? I added 20 new listings for my favorite under-the-radar beach town, which is only about 20 minutes south of Cancun Airport–so an easy day-trip, or a great destination on its own. The price is still a bargain at $1.99–spread the word to anyone who’s headed down that way for spring break or beyond.
And I just got a huge box of the brand new Moon New Mexico guide! They look great, if I do say so. They have more color photos, and overall, I think the book is just a bit tighter all around. I found some really excellent restaurants, and got out to some even farther corners of the Land of Enchantment. And, as usual, the update website is there as backup–I’ve already got one small change posted, in fact. (Such is a guidebook writer’s life…)
Watch this space for a book giveaway later this week!
