Sunday, August 28, 2011

Weekend Crowds Take Over in the DF

With el Chopo and Insurgentes visited in the morning, in the afternoon I took another Metro train up to the Tepito Market.  This turned out to be a huge affair taking up all the sidewalk as well as two lanes of each side of a six lane boulevard extending for at least six city blocks and spreading out on all side streets for that length.

This market not only had the usual pirated knockoffs, but stall after stall of jeans, shirts, underwear, socks, and almost anything imaginable.  The crowds spilled out into the street where six lanes of a one way boulevard were bottlenecked into two, creating a massive traffic jam for the length of the market.

Fairly typical of the "Third World" market, Tepito was reminiscent of the gigantic Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok or the equally large Marche aux Puces in Paris.

A walk from Tepito southwest took me past the Plaza Santo Domingo--sort of a mini Zocalo--to the Calle Donceles where, as advertised, I found at least a dozen used book shops.

In a country where new English language titles can set you back $40-50 even for paperback, it was refreshing to find prices more in line with the budget traveler:  $2-10 depending on the title and condition.

Not all the shops had English language titles, but I found a huge pile in the back corner of one place, and many of these books were from the 1970s or earlier.

Walking further down Donceles took me to both the national Chamber of Deputies and the Mexican Senate.  And on another pedestrian walkway, the Calle Condesa, I was delighted to find an unofficial used book market on the street, though there weren't any non-Spanish language books in sight.

My walk then took me past the UNAM university bookstore where next door there appeared to be an exhibit dedicated to "Instruments of Torture and Capital Punishment."  This reminded me that the Police Museum, near my hotel, has an exhibit titled "Serial Killers."

This morning I took the Metro way up to the northeast side of the city to check out the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Perhaps most simply described as the most important religious shrine in Mexico, this attraction apparently draws throngs of visitors 24/7.

I will admit that the crowds nearly defeated me today, and it took me nearly a half hour to find a less crowded way into the broad square where thousands of visitors came to pay their repects, some of them actually walking on their knees to do so.

A colonial relic of a cathedral, sinking into Mexico City's soft ground, is flanked by a couple of even larger modern structures where people flow in and out constantly to choral music piped into huge speakers.  A larger than life bronze statue of John Paul II overlooks the entire scene.

Back on the Metro, I faced my first experience with a transport breakdown and wasted an hour trying to get a train back downtown.  Apparently a bicycle race near the Alameda-Zocalo route completely messed up many of the major bus routes, but I have no idea what delayed the metro trains.

All I know is it was a bit scary to see the crowds pouring into the station platform with almost no trains arriving to ease the jam.




No comments:

Post a Comment