After the usual delightfully relaxed ETN luxury bus ride from San Miguel to Mexico City we checked into our hotel, Hotel Isabel, which has elements of former loveliness marred by the usual attrition of time and lack of maintenance coupled in this case with a certain low-rent decor (heavy-duty dark colored carpets, dark colored vinyl wall coverings, bright fluorescent lighting not making the color schemes any more appealing, a certain essence of sewer and so on). In all fairness this was not unexpected since we were of course only paying 390 pesos ($33) a night for the two of us for a hotel about four blocks from the Zocalo.
Checking in was easy and we quickly made our way up to the Zocalo itself to see what was happening. We had heard from our friend Yaya that there was an outdoor ice skating rink to avail ourselves of. Sure enough there was indeed a rink, a snow ball fight area (kids only and you had to wear a helmet and a face shield sort of like shock troops since the snow was a little rough and lumpy), a snow man making area (Munecos de Hielo which literally translates to snow dolls, again for kids only) a snow mobile course (kids only), an inner-tube slide for all ages and an ice sculpture “museum” and on the night we arrived an outdoor ice-carving carve-off.
The snow ball fight area seemed a little daft although the kids were certainly having a lot of fun. The ground was made up of those rubber mats you see in restaurant kitchens with holes in them for drainage etc. There was no snow on the ground, you were given a bucket at the start filled with snow, the kids were divided into two groups by a screen a lot like an opaque tennis net, a whistle was blown as soon as the snow men had left the kill zone and the kids proceeded to hurl the icy lumps at each other. At first I was surprised by the protective head gear, so un-Mexican, but after seeing the impacts of the snow balls I could quite see why it was necessary – the snow was mostly ice!
The snow man making area was really great, mainly populated with 3 to 6 or so year olds and a parent or sibling. The snow was piled on the tables in front of each nino who then proceeded to pack the snow into a mold. Once the mold was full it was separated and voila, a snow man. the kids then adorned their work with eyes, a carrot nose and little twig arms (all plastic of course), flopped a wooly hat on and finally twirled a scarf around the neck. There was so much joy on their faces, it was really sweet to see (getting old and soft I am).
The snowmobile area, Motos de Nieve, was hilarious since the 50cc snow mobiles really struggled with the “snow” and the kids really struggled with the snowmobiles, many crashes occurred on every run. There were mobile-wrastlers at each of the two corners to try to get the kids to turn and failing that to shove them as they flew past in the frequently vain hope that the shove would get the moto turning, fat chance! We watched more than one helper get run down by errant moto-wielding 8yr old hooligans!
The toboggan/inner tube run was very popular, running all day long but a run is a run and not much more can be said.
As we wandered around, we noticed a couple of occasions where a ring of people would form to watch a large group of dancers perform to a mix of music. At some point during the routine, they would unzip their jackets to expose Pepsi T-shirts. Clearly the makings of a Pepsi commercial and another way for them to promote themselves. There were Pepsi adds everywhere since they seemed to be the main sponsor of the event. For the the first two performances were were only able to see arms/hands flailing in the air since we couldn’t see over the crowd. We were successful in watching the full performance later that afternoon when we’d decided to sit in one of the bars looking over the Zocalo to do more people watching. Here’s the best we could do with the camera.
The ice skating rink was very popular and highly regulated. You stood in line early in the morning at a booth (one in each corner of the Zocalo) and shuffled along to pick up an arm band and register your name with the officials who then gave you a time slot. Some time before your time slot rolled around you stood in another line, eventually getting your arm band checked by something like five different people before finally getting into the area where you traded your shoes for skates (and disposable booties). Then you got about 30 minutes on the ice give or take. The day we watched all this it was sooo warm that the ice was more of a lake
Note the clear reflections off Lake Zocalo… Other than trying to keep an outdoor rink frozen in 25C (75-80F) weather the rest of the system was terrific, lots of ice guards to help and a good range of skates, although the idea of a sharp edge was so remote you would have had a hard time cutting butter with them. Darcie and I skated on New Year’s Day at the end of the day when the ice was ice and not a lake. I got busted for taking photos (a well published no-no which I of course ignored) so we only have two somewhat scary looking ones:
The night before our skating adventure (30 minutes of skating, five hours in various lines – Hey! we skated in Mexico City, outdoors, on NYD!!) we went to Paseo de la Reforma for New Year’s Eve. The Paseo was shut to traffic, many barricades had been set up along with a jumbo screen every 100 meters or so. There were also many little bottle necks between sections, only a few exits out to side streets or cross-overs from one side of a section to another, hundreds of police stationed up and down inside Stalag 15 and riot police on the side streets just in case.
I suppose Mexico has a history of excitement or maybe the government just wanted to make damn sure there would be no wild behavior on New Year’s, this is a Catholic Country Damn It…etc, who knows (I suspect the government was making sure the drug cartels would not try to do anything foolish). Anyway, despite the setup the event itself was very laid back with lots of families (from swaddled babies to ancient grand parents), no alcohol or obvious drunkenness, no drugs that I could see, some good music, some tedious music (what is the fascination with Mariachis?) and some great fireworks. The scaffolding we had seen when we were last in town at the beginning of November had turned into a spectacular 150ft tall “Christmas tree”
Needless to say we got to bed after 2am.
Feliz Ano Todo
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