That's the trouble with having a very experienced tour guide. You can say almost anything you want, with a great deal of gravity, so it must be true. Except when you know it isn't. We've got an excellent guide. Very experienced. Very mature. Very articulate. Very proud of Mexico. But we've learned to take everything she says, except hard facts about Mexico, with a grain of salt. Not sure how much she's travelled outside of Mexico. "It's very expensive" she's said. So every time she talks about places I've been to, that she presumably hasn't, I wonder a little more.
For example, this morning she told us that the square we were going to see has been the main central square of the city since Aztec times (true), and is the third largest square in the world behind Tiananmen Square and Red Square (not even close). Warning bells went off in my brain as I've been to Red Square. Famous - yes. Significant - yes. Big - not really. So we looked it up. Constitution Square (El Zocalo) here in the city comes in at number 45, slightly behind Red Square. Even Tiananmen Square isn't number 1. It comes in at number 8, which means that the largest square which is in Dalian, China, and is four times it's size, must be mind bendingly huge.
So, please excuse me if any of the facts I tell you about Mexico City are wrong. It's what we're being told, and my filter isn't always foolproof. Take yesterday's assertions as we drove from the airport. "No Mexicans are trying to cross the border into the US. No Mexicans want to. They are all from Guatemala and Honduras. It's just that we all look the same." Or the fact that every impatient taxi driver, she could guarantee, "isn't from around here", as she honked the horn and swerved across lanes.
Today it was that there are 4 million cars in the city (probably true), but none of the choking pollution is due to them, as they have to have regular emission tests. It's all due to trucks and agricultural vehicles. Hmm. The young couples kissing in the park aren't really kissing. They are just sharing oxygen due to the high altitude. Come on! You have to breathe to get oxygen.
She's very old school and conservative. Superannuation is a conn as you can't trust the government to still have your money when you retire. Bike lanes and pedestrian friendly zones are a waste of time, as all it does is slow down cars like us. All taxis are pink, because the mayor is gay. But nothing cracked me up as much as the look on her face when she came across a young woman coming out of a motel with lycra shorts. After telling us how inappropriate it was, she wound down her window while stuck in traffic and yelled her disapproval at her. When the girl didn't respond, she wound up her window, and said in a very satisfied voice, "It's OK. She's speaking English. She must be American".
In short, every problem or issue is due to somebody who isn't a real Mexican.
The trouble with having a tour group of 2, is that you get the whole truck load, and you can't stop to look at something without getting the "Over here, please". And there's certainly nowhere to stifle a yawn discretely. After 4 hours of being lectured to non-stop, with a heavy Spanish accent, about most of the 600,000 items (true) in the Museum of Anthropology, I'm not sure I can remember a fraction of what we've been told, and I'm not sure that the things I can remember are actually true, but that's never stopped me before, so here goes.
Mexico City got the Olympic Games in 1968, (right) and she hopes they get them again (no way Jose). At that time there were 4 million people in the city. Now there are 20 million, and they've all come in from the countryside, so that the rest of the country is fairly empty. That's just like every man, woman and child in Australia deciding to move to Sydney. That of course causes huge problems we were told. Water, housing, pollution, unemployment, transport and a host of others.
Except that she also tells us that unemployment runs at 5% (officially it's 3.9%, so she's selling them short, but actual unemployment is probably higher), and that they have universal, free hospital care (true for unemployed, subsidised for workers). There is little unrest or violence (it's only those pesky students, so they don't count).
Mexico was territory originally part of the huge Mayan civilisation, one of the six foundation cultures of the world. The Mayans rose from humble country dwellers in about 2000BC to become the dominant civilisation in the region, and lasted to about the 1500s when they were largely absorbed by the conquering Spanish, though elements are still around today.
The city now known as Mexico City was founded as Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs in 1325, and a century later became the dominant city of the Aztec empire. Hand ups who knows what the symbol on the middle of the Mexican flag is? Hands up if you knew it was an eagle with a serpent in it's mouth standing on a cactus bush? Come on, somebody must have known.
Well, the story is that the Aztecs had a fable that when they saw an eagle with a serpent in it's mouth standing on a cactus bush, they needed to build their capital city there. They came across one, and that's what they did. Unfortunately the cactus bush was growing in the middle of a huge swamp, but if that is what the Gods say ..... Not surprisingly, when the Spanish arrived, they called the city the Venice of the Americas. When the Spanish wanted to expand the city, they just filled in the swamp with dirt, making roads between the buildings instead of canals. Do you see a problem with that? If you walk around Mexico City today, you can certainly see the problem. Lots of buildings are at crazy angles. Some buildings have sunk so far that you have to climb 20 steps to get back up to the footpath. But on the bright side, whenever they excavate to shore up foundations, they add greatly to the 600,000 ancient exhibits in the museum. Seems its hard not to trip over them when you dig. The story is that they are so plentiful that government ministers used to give antiquities away to women for favours.
After being marched around the museum for over two hours, we were dropped at the main Catholic Cathedral which adjoins the (not so) huge Constitution Square. The police and riot police had the whole square barricaded off in anticipation of a pesky student march and planned riot in the afternoon, so the square was off limits, but the Cathedral was still open for visitors. Very impressive as you would expect from a major catholic church in a large capital city.
Walked the perimeter of the square to admire the armour, batons, shields and preparations. Later on, Mandy told me that there should have been a large flagpole in the square, which of course there had been. She just hadn't noticed. Gotta love a man in uniform, especially if he has a large baton. A bit of beefcake is sooo distracting.
After being dropped back at the hotel, we walked all the way back down to the square to have some more beefcake - sorry, a hamburger for lunch at Maccas. Quite a cheap city food wise. We've been pleasantly surprised. The Big Mac index is AU$5.95, which is much cheaper than home. We've eaten dinner both nights for about $6 a head.
Oh, and by the way, if you were concerned, we never saw one pesky protester all day.
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