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On the way home I had a 10 hour lay over in Mexico City. This time I decided to go to the Zocalo - the main square. On the way out of customs I made a mistake and changed money before I was completely out of the secure area. As a result I got 10 pesos per dollar instead of 12. Won't ever do that again. |
Again, I took the subway (metro) to my stop. I actually got off one stop before the Zocalo. I asked a few locals where to go next and they just pointed down the corridor. And I was glad to walk it. Notice all of the book stores - about a half mile of them. |
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A passage for books. There are 40 stores for 40 different publishers. There are Christian books, medical books, comics, childrens books, about anything you could imagine. I wish Americans appreciated books this much. |
The Zocalo. |
The national cathedral. |
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It was a zoo: merchants and tourists everywhere. Here a chaman is blessing people with incense. |
Inside the cathedral. |
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The sacristy of the cathedral. Cost a few pesos to get in. The sacristy is where the priests don their robes. |
I then decided to go for a walk. Here is an automatic toilet I found in a small "mall" of one building. You put the money in the side and the turnstile will allow you in. |
In the "mall" is a food court of 5 restaurants. As I was walking up to this one the man said: "What can I help you with" (in English). I said: "Mirando" (looking). He repeated himself, as did I. Then he said: "I'm speaking English here." I responded: "Estoy hablando espanol, aqui. Que es tu problema?" (I'm speaking Spanish here. What's your problem?) At which point he laughed and spoke Spanish with me. He made me a local breakfast (which I didn't like much), but the conversation was good. |
A local church. |
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I ended up walking along many, many streets of booths: seemed like a city wide mercado. While walking my first street I thought to myself "this is all junk". It was all plastic toys. Then I started to notice that there are "themes". There is an area with all dress shops. Another is all cloth. Another is all shoes. Etc. I guess this makes sense. Instead of wandering to different parts of the massive mercado hoping to find what you are looking for, you can go straight to the section that specializes in what you need.
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When I finally got back to the Zocalo I realized that I had 3 hours left and needed a guide so I wasn't just wasting my time. I ended up taking a taxi with a private guide. As we drove the city, the guide told me about different statues and buildings. And all in Spanish, of course. |
This was one of our last stops: place of three cultures. Culture 1 is the Mayans (pre columbus). Culture 2 is colonial (see the church in the right picture). Culture 3 is the apartment buildings in this photo in the background. |
This is also known as the gemela city: twin city to the main Aztec city that the conquistadors first destroyed. |
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This is a building next to the place of three cultures. The pictures are of student protestors that were killed in the 60's. They were protesting the government and were shot by the military. The next morning the people say the bodies were gone and the place was perfectly clean. The bodies were believed to be throw in the ocean. The incident was only 10 days prior to the Mexico City Olympic games, so the government wanted the incident to be forgotten immediately, but the people still remember. |
Maybe not the most exciting picture, but these two gentlemen was the most important part of my day. I got back to the airport station of the metro an hour earlier than I had wanted. Just before the exit the gentleman on the right was selling periodicals. I stopped and he and I talked in Spanish for over an hour. About 45 minutes into our conversation the gentleman on the left (who does speak some English) showed up and confirmed what I had told the older gentleman, who didn't believe I had learned all of my Spanish by reading books. He thought it was a problem in my Spanish. At one point he gave me an 8 out of 10 for my Spanish. Awesome! Guatemala worked! He gave me a couple of Mexican comic books: Melman (the monkey), which is very well known in Mexico. |
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The End.
