And so the second day arrived with the question of what to do? My taxi driver from the airport had suggested I see the ruins at Tlatelolco. Sounds good I thought and I read up a little on the ruins in my guidebook. The ruins are the site of one of the final battles between the Spanish and the Aztecs and home to the remnants of a great Aztec temple. The story of the Aztecs is quite astonishing. They were a wandering tribe that settled in the Valley of Mexico just 200 some years prior to the Spanish arriving and proceeded to build a complex, large civilization with stunning architecture, sophisticated agricultural, justicial and trading systems, and much more. The tragic part is that so much of that incredible civilization was destroyed by the Spanish based on the twin justifications of lust for gold and lust for souls through conversion. I think the latter was probably more of a rationalization of the first. Anyhow, I highly recommend reading an account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. It is one of the most stupendous, impossible, and sad tales that you will ever read.
Before heading up to Tlatelolco, I got some breakfast at a cafe on the west side of the Alameda Central, a park several blocks west of the Zocalo. It was Sunday and the park was filled with people and vendors selling everything you could possibly want.
As I walked on the sidewalk on the south side of the park, I noticed an interesting site on Avenida Juarez, an east/west boulevard that is one of the main streets in Mexico City. The street was blocked to vehicles and instead was restricted to bicyles, pedestrians, and inline skaters. I later learned that this was part of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard's policies to improve pollution in Mexico City by promoting alternatives. The restriction on Avenida Juarez is not without controversy, though. Many street vendors have protested the policy because it hurts their business on one of their busiest days of the week.
Then it was off to the ruins at Tlatelolco, which are about two to the three miles north of the Alameda Central on another main street called Lazaro Cardenas. Here I was in for another eco surprise. The street had been recently converted so the right lanes in both directions were devoted to zero emission buses. Apparently, this also was a part of Ebrard's anti-pollution policies.
After a 15-minute, extremely crowded, bus ride I arrived at the site of the Tlatelolco ruins. As you can see, much of the Aztec temple complex was razed by the Spanish. Ironically, much of the stone was used to create cathedrals, like the one you see in the background. I guess the Spanish were trying to send a message.
At the time of my visit I knew a little about the history of the ruins. What I didn't know was some recent history. The plaza on the west side of the ruins, just to the left of the cathedral, was the scene of a horrific massacre. In 1968, thousands of students gathered at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Aztec, Spanish, and Mexican) to protest the Olympic games, which were being held that fall in Mexico City. Government snipers posted on the roof of the Foreign Ministry building opened fire, killing hundreds, maybe thousands of protesters. Again, at the time of my visit, I did not know about this tragic event. Yet I distinctly remembered getting chills as I stood on the plaza taking the picture. When this happened I thought the chills arose in me as I thought of the battle between the Spanish and the Aztecs. I wonder, though, if I may have sensed some of the more recent history subconsciously.
Below is a picture of the Aztec ruins with the abandoned foreign ministry building in the background. Ironically, the building is its own sort of ruin now and another reminder of the sad history of this site.
The site is also a reminder of the unique ethnic history of the Mexican people. About 80 to 90 percent of Mexicans are Mestizo, that is, mixed. They carry a mixture of Spanish and Indian DNA. Every time I visit Mexico I can't help but think of this fact. There's really no ideal comparison to it in the United States, because most of the Native Americans were wiped out by disease before Europeans arrived (read Charles C. Mann's "1491" for a fascinating look at this topic). Europeans arrived in what was to become the US one hundred years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico, So while a significant percentage of Native Mexicans died out as well, it was not before the population had become significantly Mestizo. I wonder what it must be like to carry these twin strands of DNA, and the be a part of that third culture - contemporary Mexicans. In many ways this is what is most fascinating about Mexico.
Next: Your guide travels from the north of Mexico City to the south, to Coyoacan.
