This day was the first one to start in a very relaxed manner. We had breakfast and sat there for a while before any action started. While the majority of the group went to see Mexican Free Wrestling, me and two others took an Uber to the center and went to visit the museum of popular culture / museum of “alebrijes”.
Alebrijes are very colorful, magical creatures that are supposed to accompany you after your death. The museum presented many designs of alebrijes in different sizes and styles as well as other popular items of the different Mexican cultures and tribes. The alebrijes were absolutely stunning and super inspiring and my little notebook didn’t stay empty during the visit. There was also a section about traditional textile design and how the different colours are gained from nature, which was very interesting.
After finishing our visit, we walked around the center for a while and found some food, which we ate in the big park/square in front of the national art gallery. After this, we went to an artesanal market which was hidden in some very narrow little streets in a part of the neighborhood with much less traffic and people. Even here on the market, we saw no more than 5 tourists. Most people seem to really be too afraid to visit DF, at least we’re still basically the only white tourists in town.
We had a coffee on the market and decided to slowly make our way back to Coyoacán, where we live. Going to the neighborhood you live in in Mexico, doesn’t necessarily mean being closer to home than before, as neighborhoods can easily have 700.000 habitants, which is 1.5 times Bilbao. After some thinking and researching, we decided to take another Uber and went to a quare close to home, our idea being to walk back from there and visit a local park with lots of the famous mean little Mexican squirrels.
The sky had been pretty black since an hour before and when we got out of the car it finally started to rain, so instead of walking on, we stepped into the Museum of popular cultures (a different one). The museum wasn’t big, but the arquitecture and vibes of the space as well as the expositions were stunning. We stayed there for a while and also watched some locals practice traditional dances on the square inside.
As we went outside and started our way back home, the real rain started and we waited a bit under a roof half way until we decided to just go on. We arrived not as wet as we had thought because the rain softened a little but when we were inside, an enourmous thunderstorm with lots of water came down and we could watch it from the safe shelter of the house.
It has been like this for the last few days. One day without rain, one day with a thunderstorm from 6 to 9. People tell us that rain in the rain season was predictable as a watch before the climate started to change a few years ago.
While the others still hadn’t come back, the rest of our evening was occupied by discussions with Esmeralda’s mum about things like risk and danger in Mexico, and life and death in general. Even though she is actually Basque, the cultural clash between my Western culture and the Mexican one is enormous. The Mexicans’ view on the value of life or the importance of death has nothing to do with mine/ours. I find it kind of difficult to get an idea of the actual danger in different things around here when confronted with this attitude. Concepts like probability or logic are basically ignored or mistaken for fear, when compared with things like fait or the universe’s power.
We had a quick and not very satisfactory dinner (rice again, yay) at home and stayed in until the rest of the group arrived – euphoric. We could listen to the adventures they had lived in the fighting show and watch some photos and videos. It all looked like a really unique, extreme, special and extremely authentic experience, for sure something they won’t ever forget, whereas our day will probably be forgotten I a few weeks. I would have probably not felt comfortable with watching all the violence and blood, which is why I didn’t want to go in the first place, but also feel a sorry about letting this opprtunity pass by instead of stepping outside of my comfort zone.
