Exploring the unlikely intersections of walking, photography and making
I can’t claim to know Mexico City well—a single 8-day visit does not fully reveal the intricacies of a large city—but I can suggest some starting points for your own first time in this city. For reference, Gail and I were in Mexico City from October 31 to November 8, 2018. The Elephant in the... Continue Reading →
If Chapultepec is the lungs of Mexico City then Paseo de la Reforma must be its pulmonary artery. The Bosque de Chapultepec is a very large park. One of the largest city parks in the Western Hemisphere. Much larger than New York’s Central Park. Big. And very busy with 15 million visitors each year, 250,000... Continue Reading →
It can be found just 40 kilometres out of Mexico City. Timewise, it is a much longer journey back in time, one measured in tens of centuries. Here is a city so ancient that even the Aztecs, who were busy constructing their own city, Tenochtitlan, drew inspiration from the deserted ruins of Teotihuacán. It was... Continue Reading →
Place of coyotes. That’s the likely translation of Coyoacán, an apt image for a colonial era village that began life as a distinct and remote village not yet subsumed into the megalopolis of Mexico City. Cortés lived here from 1521 to 1522, waiting for the demolished Aztec city of Tenochtitlan to be rebuilt as colonial... Continue Reading →
It started out as a hacienda and a vast swath of land covering much of western Mexico City, owned by the Countess (or condesa) of San Mateo de Valparaíso, Maria de la Campa y Cos. By 1902, the land had evolved from her large estate to a colonia, or neighbourhood, for the middle and upper... Continue Reading →
An architect, an artist, a revolutionary. Leon Trotsky. Born 1879. A staunch Marxist, he fought in the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and quickly rose to power in the Communist Party. After unsuccessfully opposing Stalin in the 1920s, he was rapidly demoted and ultimately dismissed from Stalin’s regime. By 1929, he and wife Natalia Sedova ... Continue Reading →
Standing here, in the Zócalo, the heart of Mexico City, I can see the city’s entire cultural history laid out. Layers of history spanning thousands of years. I can see it and I can touch it, all from this vantage point. Physically, the Zócalo itself is nothing more than a large central plaza, a stone-paved... Continue Reading →
One of Mexico City’s sixteen boroughs, Xochimilco is, in some respects, the heart of the city. The vast lake that once covered the Valley of Mexico—including the entire site of today’s Mexico City—was tamed 1,000 years ago with a network of canals defined by artificial islands, called chinampas. Canals were once the main mode of... Continue Reading →
November 1. Day of the Dead in Mexico City. We are in Mercado Jamaica, in the Venustiano Carranza neighbourhood, about 5 kilometres southeast of our hotel. It is here, in this bustling flower and food market, that families come to buy marigolds with the hope that their vivid colour and floral scent will guide their... Continue Reading →
It hits us as soon as we leave the hotel. The blur of senses. Cars and trucks merge with walkers in a dangerous dance as we make our way east on Avenida Indepencia. Crowded sidewalks, shared with vendors under makeshift poly sheds, ply belts and plastic gizmos. A chef, high on a step ladder, slices... Continue Reading →