Mexico - Day 1

We reached our hotel at 9pm local time, 3am hone time, making a 26 hour day. Early bed but woke at 3am local time after 5 hours sleep.

We were off out at 8.15 to explore the more Bohemian side of Mexico City. We started off at the Coyoacan neighbourhood which was inhabited before the arrival of the Spanish and it is said Cortez made this the first capital of New Spain. Now it is part of Mexico City which is an enormous sprawling city of over 21 million inhabitants. We looked at some of the decorations remaining from the Day of the Dead celebrations and looked at an old church which had very ornate woodwork, painted gold, and beautifully painted ceilings. There was a corner around a Jesus statue which had all the orange flowers, skulls and plastic tatt which has religious significance for that day.

Our next visit was the highlight of my day, a visit to the house where Frida Kahlo was born, grew up and then lived with her muralist husband Diego Rivera Until her death in 1954. The outside is now a beautiful cobalt blue, the same as the Yves St Laurent house in Marrakesh. Inside there were photographs of her and her family, her and Trotsky and a few rooms devoted to her drawings and paintings plus a few by Diego Rivero who was much more revered than she was at that time. It’s quite a cult here now, with market stalls selling all sorts of Frida souvenirs made in China. Inside we saw the kitchen, which had beautiful blue and yellow tiling with painted yellow furniture. We saw her studio, bedrooms and the bed she lay on with a mirror in a lighter room to facilitate her painting. Across the courtyard, filled with palms and lucurisnt vegetation, was an exhibition of some of her clothes - the long flouncy skirts, embroidered tops and her headdresses. The exquisite work put in to make these must have cost a lot, but she did come from an affluent family.The house must be THE tourist attraction as the queues for the timed entries ran round the block.

Billed as a “relaxing ride on a pre-Hispanic boat (a flat-bottomed colourfully painted large punt) along the peaceful Xovhimilco canals it was anything but. It was so full of boats banging into each other as they jockeyed for position in the narrow waterways. There were little floating kitchens selling food to the Mexicans enjoying a day off. Some boats had music on board and sales people kept jumping on the boat to try to sell us Frida tablecloths or fake silver charms or plastic flowers. We did manage to eat our lunch which was delicious. The veggie option was mushroom filled blue quesadillas with rice, re-fried beans, guacamole and a spicy sauce.

We tried various places to change $ to pesos but they were shut, it being Sunday. (We’d been told $ were accepted but apparently not). The sex shops en route were however open. We had a quick walk to the big square to see some more day of the dead stuff still on the street before returning to the hotel. Our aircon wasn’t working so a chap came with a fan. Not much good do far and there’s so other room to move to. It’s 30C but it should cool down later. So far we are ok with the altitude of over 2000 metres.

I really had a lot of photos to choose from but I’ve decided on Frida and Diego’s Day of the Dead effigies.