Last night before bed I was doing some stretching exercises and got hit with a terrible headache. Literally it felt like a cascade of sharp pains and I immediately had to stop and lie down on the floor, and stumble around for a bottle of ibuprofin. The pain subsided in 20 minutes.

I believe this is altitude-related, and I am not too concerned because I felt much better on the second day. But it reminds me just how out of whack my body is to the altitude, and how I have to take it easy until I am better acclimated. Today was MUCH better by comparison, and my breathing feels normal again. What I can do physically is somewhat limited, and I notice myself still taking breaks to sit down and catch my breath.

I awoke this morning bright and early at 7am (why can’t I do this at home?) and scarfed down a quick breakfast of eggs, bacon, green rice (yes!), and something that certainly tasted like an enchilada, but it was in lasagna form. Even though the descriptions sound dubious, it was all delicious, and certainly hit the spot.

I ventured into the Zona Rosa, which in english translates to “tourist trap”. This is actually a very walkable and somewhat pleasant area south of the impassible Paseo de La Reforma, where I snapped the photo of the Angel of Independence in my previous entry. A word about this avenue: There are times where earlier experiences prepare you for later challenges in life. In this instance, it was this thing:

This is all you need to know about Paseo de La Reforma, and consider this your training. The fiats, vee-dubs, and renaults are the logs, and snakes. You are the frog. And if you THINK that roundabout is a one-way, guess again. It changes after five minutes in the opposite direction. Frogger is a curious game inasmuch as you don’t win anything other than your continued existence as a little frog in peril of being squashed at any moment.

On the other side of that thing is the Zona Rosa, which is a small collection of streets roped off by opposing avenues. Inside, there is a small set of cobblestone streets, restaurants, bars, cafes, clubs, and STARBUCKS.

There is a Starbucks next to where I work, so I hardly needed to see one in Mexico City, but I am a creature of habit. I walked inside to get my doble espresso (a daily ritual for me) and noticed that they say the same exact dumb Starbucks things in Spanish as they do in English. “Quieres un ‘venti’ latte?” And true to Starbuck form, it costs muchos pesos.

But back to the Rosa. This is your basic bar/restaurant/club/cafe commercial district, which at 10 in the morning, was not of too much interest, so I headed to the Insurgentes metro station, and took my first subway ride in Mexico city. It was not unlike what I was doing 10 months ago, which was taking the subway every day in NYC but this time with marble-clad flooring. Everybody knows a REAL subway has grimy concrete made smooth by a million trampled wads of bubble gum. Also, it should be 100 degrees with 100% humidity all the time, even at night. Marble flooring and good ventilation is for the weak! Thank goodness at least the subway cars were themselves rickety, other wise I would have been completely put off.

Now, Mexico City is blissfully CHEAP. I am talking you can buy tons of things for less than a dollar cheap. I believe I’ve taken out 182 dollars in pesos, and I’ve only spent about a quarter of that in two days. It costs literally 20 cents to ride the subway (Versus $2.50 in NYC!)

I took the subway metro all the way to the Zocalo (Centro Historico) and climbed back into civilization.

*COUGH*

Did I mention Mexico City is polluted? Well, the Zocalo is the official exhaust pipe of the city, and I had just gotten a major toke. The air here was just one color: Brown. The buildings here were the same color: Brown, with a bit of maroon for variety. The plaza itself was an even more cheerless shade of brown. Everything here is caked in soot and akimbo from the sublimation of poor soil. As if this place was a birthday cake that had collapsed from being taken out of the oven too soon.

In fact, the Plaza is impressive. As I mentioned earlier, it’s the second largest urban plaza in the world, and the site of the original Aztec grand temple, where unspeakable acts of mass violence were carried out by Aztec priests and Conquistadors alike. This strikes me as a place that nobody dares to love, even to this day. There are urban spaces that spring from brotherhood and urban spaces that spring from fear. Zocalo is very much a place that was born and nurtured out of an eduring fear. First, of the gods, then of the catholic church, and today, the sheer weight of history and government. And even though there are three UNESCO world heritage sites on this very location — you just can’t exactly bring yourself to warm to this place. It’s simply there to be looked at, which is exactly what I proceeded to do.

I first looked at the Metropolitan Cathedral, a curvy baroque structure improbably made out of the same stones from the sparsely lined Aztec temples destroyed by the conquest. It is airy and gorgeous, and also completely out of plumb. The interior nave is comparable in quality to some of the nicer cathedrals in Madrid, but incable of forming any vertical lines, leaving a surreal effect on the observer.

I then looked at the destroyed Aztec grand temple, slightly north of it. I was fascinated to learn that the temple has been rebuilt and enlarged MANY times. All of the layers have now been exposed, like the nesting russian dolls — so you can gaze upon the successive renovations all at once, with a little temple on the inside, and a great temple exterior five or six “shells” later.

I also saw more than one stone altar, and felt a bit sick knowing this is where every day a victim would be placed and then sliced open in exchange for another day of human existence. Nearby there is also a stone idol of a god in repose holding a little bowl. That bowl was where human hearts were then placed as an offering. And not to much further was the skull rack, which was where the victims sculls would be arranged in neat rows. Somehow, a civilization accepted these things, and then set upon this practice for centuries, which makes one stop and think what other preposterous conceits infect our contemporary sensibilities while totally escaping a collective sense of outrage.

After leaving the grand temple, I checked out the Palacio National where I saw my first Diego Rivera murals and did my best to commit them to digital camera, even though countless reproductions exist already.

It was 3pm by now, and even though the light of day was still strong, I was dog tired, and made my way back to the hotel. I spent the rest of the day walking around the neighborhoods north of the Angel of Independence, and stopping to eat a late lunch.

I find parts of Mexico City (the parts away from the Centro Historico at least) to be inviting, and pleasant, if not a bit sooty. This is a monster of a city. It’s a real monster, HUGE. You can take several world class cities and mash them together to make this place and the effect would be the same. Yet despite it’s size, it seems liveable and human-sized in many parts. You can think you’re in a quiet neighborhood and the effect is only broken when you have to cross an avenue, and then you’re reminded of just how jam packed with humanity this place is.

More to write on this stuff, but I’m afraid of filibustering. I’ll post a new update tommorow, where either I will visit Coyoacan, or the Anthropoligical museum or both. Until then!

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