Mexico City Day 2 – Dia de los Muertos

We spent the day wandering around the Centro Historico taking in the sights. 

The Cathedral, which is over the top with gilding, carvings, saints well pretty much you name it and it is over the top, is a bit deteriorated on the outside but they appear to be do repairs all around so at least the decline will be either slowed or arrested. 

We didn’t take any pictures inside as there was a service going on and somehow it just feels sacrilegious which is nutty since there were lots of people taking photos but there you go.

The Cathedral is on the north side of the main square, a very barren place called the Zocalo which is fronted on the other three sides by various ornate government buildings not the least of which is the Palacio National, the Mexican equivalent of the White House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zocalo by Day and by Night.

Unfortunately, like many cities, many of the museums were shut because it was Monday so we shall have to go back again (darn!) We spent several hours literally just wandering around people-watching, looking at the architecture and taking in the random street sculpture that litters the City.

Since we were drawing a blank at picking museums etc. that were open we stopped by the tourist kiosk where a lovely woman gave us a pretty decent map and pointed out several places we could go for Diego Rivera murals and Offrendas (sort of installation pieces for Dia de los Muertos).

We headed off first the Museo de Belles Artes which is an architecturally fabulous art-deco building at least from the inside

There was an El Greco show going on so we did a quick pirouette through (Darcie and I are mostly art-philistines and have pretty much the same level of patience)  We spent a bit more time enjoying the couple of Diego Rivera murals amongst a handful of others before heading out to to check out the Alameda Central and the offrendas at the nearby Panteon de San Fernando.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those orange things – one hundred percent marigold flowers: skulls made of wire and mesh then covered in flower heads and rivers of flower heads around various tombs.  Very cool.

On our way back to the Zocalo we stumbled on an installation piece located in and around the ministry of the exterior which was actually a cry for justice regarding the massacre of 45 children in a building fire that the government has seemingly been doing little about.  We will have to research this a bit since this was something another visitor told us.  Anyway the art piece was very cool

 

 

 

 

 

One thing that is not apparent from guide books or anecdotes by others who have been to Mexico City is that it seems that there are endless shops all selling pretty much the same stuff most of which is just that, stuff.  How do all these places stay in business?  I can understand all the restaurants as there are endless throngs milling around enjoying themselves and they have to eat sometime (it seems that the stalls are always full-ish) but bric-a-brac? Who needs so much stuff?  Just to be clear it is not tourist schlock (although there is plenty of that) it is more just general-population schlock.

By the time we made it back to the Zocalo where we were hoping for some Dia happenings the local streets were jamb-packed with cars and pedestrians.  Many of the streets were closed to cars and were heavily populated with locals out enjoying themselves and loads of police of various stripes.  Everyone was having a good time, police weren’t getting upset about people just wandering out into the streets messing with the traffic, there were no fights, no obvious crime just a lot of happy people ourselves included.

The Zocalo was much more crowded than during the day but still remarkably empty.  I suppose since today is a Monday the main event must have occurred over the weekend and so we missed it.  Nonetheless there were plenty of people dressed up in elaborate costumes.

We wandered around for a few hours more as evening fell and more people in costumes came out.  At one point a motorcycle club showed up drawing several hundred people across the very busy ring road around the Zocalo essentially blocking traffic.  Before you could shout “Boo” there were around 6 police cars and 6 motorcycle cops (about 20+ officers) directing traffic and in the end stopping it for 5 minutes so the lads could shift themselves and their rides across the street to be right next to the edge of the plaza. They police even brought out a raft of plastic barriers from somewhere and created a temporary corral to isolate the bikes from the traffic.  It was  all done quickly, efficiently and without much fuss despite the fact that traffic on the side roads must have backed up horribly while it was stopped.

All in all another great day finished off by another great ride on the amazingly cheap and incredibly efficient Metro.