Much like its famed persona - artist, rebel and socialist - Frida Kahlo, Mexico has borne the battering of train wrecks that pierced through her body and maimed her. She still came out alive and legendary. Much like Frida’s art, Ciudad de Mexico (the Capital of Mexico) is surreal, layered and truly transformative. It is full of self-reflection and repose. Like the Aztecs, Mexico has ripped out and offered her beating heart as sacrifice to the sun god Huitzilopochtli so that he may bring her to where she is today. Millions of human sacrifices lie in her wake. When the Spanish, French, United States libertarian and conservative rebellions eviscerated her, chewed her and spat her back out, she rose from the ashes like a phoenix. She doesn’t concern herself with the misgivings and childish debates of the outside realms. Truly absolved in her own struggles, striving to be better. Entranced, lost, absolved in her own world. She is forward and progressive. She is a ‘mestiza’ – a woman with mixed indigenous and Spanish descent.
Originally called Tenochtitlán, Mexico City was founded by the Aztecs. Legend has it, these people were instructed to leave their town of Aztlan some 1000 years ago, by Huitzilopochtli. He had said, they will find their new dwelling on a site where an eagle, seated on a cactus, will be eating a prickly pear.
Image of revolutionary artist Frida Kahlo
This majestic scene was supposedly found in the center of lake Texcoco, and the Aztecs built a floating city with the use of canals and hydrophytes (plants that grow in water), an engineering feat in itself. Where the lake once was, is now dried up and in its stead, there are 1600 neighborhoods with 8.9 million people. Memory of this story, however, reverberates in the city, with statues of the eagle on a cactus, or illustrations on city emblems.
Just as Frida Kahlo was, Mexico is in love with her traditions, culture, and art. Slow to realise this love, her heritage languished when European and Western (or in this case Eastern) ideals were pedestalised and gave way to capitalist society. Much of the artefacts of Aztec origin (more than 50,000 pieces) were in fact acquired and preserved by Kahlo’s husband Diego Rivera.
At the Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo
Rivera, (informally known as ‘the Toad’ by his friends and particularly by Frida’s parents) built the Museo Anahuacalli as a legacy for Mexico. This he bequeathed inside a replica of the pyramids of Teotihuacan. Made of black volcanic rock obtained from the terrain around the volcano Xitle in the southwestern part of Mexico City, the building is poetic in its architecture and design. The first floor is dark, and eerie, representative of the underworld, and as you ascend to the next floor, it houses figurines of the earthly world. Female fertility was possibly associated with the earth’s fertility, which was represented in these clay figurines. Each moment in life was considered transcendental and thus celebrated in diverse ceremonies. The last floor houses the spiritual world, where all gods and shaman figurines are displayed. The roof opens up to the sky, as if into the universe where we all finally belong.
This building still pales in comparison to the magnanimity of the Aztec pyramids at Teotihuacan, an hour out from the capital. The colossal size of these buildings makes one marvel at the engineering abilities of these ancient civilisations. Of the 3 pyramids the largest is the sun temple, the smaller the moon temple and the smallest is the temple for the feathered, serpent god Quetzalcoatl. However, with Covid restrictions, tourists were not allowed to climb to the panoramic views of their summits.
Historical city center at the site of the Aztec capital of Tenochitlan (excavation taking place to the left), with Spanish-era cathedral in the background
One can further learn about daily life at the site by diving into the Nation’s history through the Museo Anthropoligico (Museum of Anthropology). You walk through human life and culture in Mexico from the dawn of Homo Sapiens, to the Olmecs, Mayan, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Aztec, and finally the Spanish civilizations. On its second story, you will find all the current ethnographic civilizations that still exist today. A map in the Bosque (Castle) Chapultepec in the magnificent Chapultapec park is telltale of Mexico’s original territory that spanned its current boundaries but included California, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. These were snatched away in the Mexican American war between 1846 to 1848.
Historically religious concepts must have been diverse and complicated but included beliefs with the supernatural, life after death and the ruling of spirits. An entire section of the Teotihuacan pyramids is called ‘Avenue of the Dead’. Human sacrifices were offered ritualistically, and very grotesquely. Skull walls are still found and excavated at various sites. Shamans were usually leading these beliefs and were considered the bridge between the human and spirit world. They transported themselves to the spirit world in a state of trance, usually achieved through ingesting hallucinogens, insomnia, inflicting pain or meditation. Today, you will find artisanal skulls, skeletal masks, costumes etc amassed in artisan markets, and embedded in the design of restaurants, shops, murals etc. Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), held on Novemeber 1st, is still celebrated in Mexico.
Museo Anahuacalli built by Diego Rivera and architect Juan O'Gorman. It is influenced by the Aztec pyramids, the singular rock formations of volcanoes in Mexico and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright
Each neighbourhood in Mexico city is different from the next as you walk through the streets of San Rafael, Roma, Condesza, Santa Maria or Couyocan, to name a few. With chique café’s, restaurants, boutique hotels, book stores, public gardens and walkways. Spanish and French mansions have been restored and repurposed to fulfill these roles. The city is impressively connected by a well-managed and impressive transport network of metro buses and trains. This system caters to 4.5 million passengers on average per weekday. Yet, it is still not enough as pushing, shoving, elbowing and, at times, even biting are some of the ways people sardine themselves into the trains.
The historical city center, or Centro Historico, where Tenochtitlán was founded and the ruins are still being excavated, is surrounded by European cathedrals and other buildings. 9000 buildings populate the area, with 1550 declared historically significant. However, the sheer size and weight of these buildings, on soil that is still soft from lake Texoco, are sinking. It is said a new step is added every 25 years to each building in the area. This pushes architects and historians to find innovative solutions to these problems.
Much like the Aztecs, Frida too did not receive the recognition she deserved during her lifetime in Mexico. Now, her house Casa Azul (or ‘blue house’) has enshrined her life and art. Museo Casa Estudio Rivera and Kahlo are the post-modern studios Rivera built for himself and Frida. Connected by a bridge, the studios are where much of their art and life is open to the public. It is here that Frida found her husband and sister bedded together.
Mexican cuisine too holds onto its roots. The Mole sauce containing fruits, nuts, chilli peppers and spices is a revered delicacy. Remnants of previous mole sauces are always added and can carry on remnants of older sauces over many years. Escamol, ant larvae and pupae, is still an opulent treat in the country. Often dried, and ground into their peppers, it has a very distinct taste. Maize is a staple, historically, and thus most of the cuisine involves corn flour including tortillas, tostadas, arapas and the like. Even the delectable sweet churros are said to have originally been made of corn flour, now usually made of wheat. They make a special drink which they simply call Fruita de Agua (Fruit Water). Thirst quenching and refreshing, it has rice and fruits blended together. Tropical fruit is not hard to find in this country!
Seated on the central high plateau, Mexico’s climate and relief are varied with different micro ecosystems. Some zones are perfectly arid supporting little vegetation, whereas others are entrenched with trees, so that perennial or thick high mountain forests are home to some very queer animals such as the coati mundi. The mystical cenotes, found in the Yucatan peninsula, are a treasure trove for an aquatic environment.
Like the Mole sauce, which always has remnants of a previous Mole sauce, Mexico continues to hold onto its past. A connection to the primordial in the form of art, music and cuisine. It clings onto it dearly, and like the mole, gives it all the vintage flavour and kick a traveller so desires.
