Mexico City - No Pants in the Subway

I have to say that I really, really miss Noa.  Tomás is very cute, but he gives me big sloppy kisses and barks whenever he hears somebody outside the door, which is all the time.  Tomás lives with Bé's friends in Mexico City, and I get to brush him and give him his food.  And I'm even a bit homesick for Mallorca, which is small and doesn't really feel like a city, not like this one. 




Playing dominoes with Bé's friends

Tomás and me

Mexico City is absolutely enormous!  About 21 million people live here.  If you want to know how many people that is, imagine all the people who live in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.  That's about ten million people.  Just put all those people together in one big city, give each one a twin, and that's how many people live here.  This is one of the largest cities in the entire world.

A long time ago, this valley used to have beautiful lakes and marshes in it.  The original city, called Tenochtitlan,  was built on a group of islands, and you could get about it by crossing little bridges or paddling your canoe along the different canals.  The Aztecs had built floating gardens, hanging gardens, towers and temples, two zoos and an aquarium.  It's hard to imagine it now, because most of the lake and marshes are gone and the city has been built where the lake used to be.  I look at the paved streets and try very hard to imagine the canals and flowers and wild birds, but I just can't do it.  Here's how a painter thought it might have looked, though:

 

 

Mexicans are very proud of their history, and can tell you all about their city.  When I asked what had happened to Tenochtitlan, Belén's friends said, "Come and see".  They took me to the nearest subway station.  The subway, which is a system of underground train tunnels, is called the Metro;and it's enormous just like Mexico City.  The map of the tunnels looks almost like a plate of spaghetti.

 

I've never been on a train before, let alone one that runs underground.  There were convenience stores up on the top level, and Tía Marta (that's what I called Bé's friend) bought me a package of chiclets.  I don't really like gum, but I took it and said, "Gracias" very politely.  I put one in my mouth, and Belén whispered, "Did you know that this is where gum was invented?"  She told me that the ancient Mexicans chewed the dried sap of a tree called chicle, and that they taught the Spaniards how to chew gum.  Can you guess where the word "Chiclet" comes from?

 

We paid our fares, went down a series of escalators, and found ourselves in a great underground room with a train track running right through the middle.  We only had to wait for a couple of minutes before a train came whooshing out of the tunnel and up to the platform.  The doors slid open, people on the inside and outside of the train changed places, the doors slid shut again, and the train shot off into a dark tunnel.

 

 

In a minute, the train came out into another lighted cavern, stopped, and the doors slid open again.  More people sat down in our subway car, and I almost choked on my gum.  The man at the end of the car had forgotten to put on his pants.  There he was in his Spiderman boxers!  He didn't even seem to notice, but everybody else in the car certainly did.  They were staring so hard that I thought their eyes would pop out, except for one older woman who was staring hard in the other direction so that she wouldn't have to look at him. 

 

I couldn't believe that anybody could leave their house without remembering to put on their pants!  But do you know what?  At the next stop two more men got onto the car without any pants.  There were no seats, so they held onto a pole and talked to each other.  They were both wearing suit jackets and ties, and their shoes were nicely polished - BUT THEY HAD NO PANTS!  By now everyone in the subway car was staring and giggling, and nobody was talking to anybody else any more.

 

At the next stop, the man with the Spiderman boxers got off the train.  Another couple of dozen people boarded our car, and I saw that three of them had no pants either!  Now the passengers were beginning to talk again, and I heard the words "sin pantalones" over and over again.  I guess that means, "no pants".  I have seen more people in their underwear than I ever, ever want to see again in my whole entire life.  I wanted to go home and wash my eyeballs with sanitizer.  Bé began to laugh and laugh and laugh.  Between giggles, she explained that every year, around the world, some people go on a "No Pants" subway ride.  You never know when it's going to take place, but it's a big joke like April Fool's.  We just happened to be riding the subway on No Pants Day.  When we went back to the house, people had already posted videos to YouTube.  You can look for them if you want to - but as for me, I don't want to see any more people in their underwear ever again!

 

 

 

Finally we left the train behind, along with all those crazy pantless people.  In the subway station was a map of the centre of old Tenochtitlan, showing all the Aztec palaces and temples.  The big structure at the far end is the Templo Mayor, which was actually seven temples that had been built one after the other.  This subway stop was called Zocalo, and we were underneath the centre of the old city!

 

 

 

We came out of the metro right into the Zocalo, which is a huge plaza that seems to go on forever.  I didn't see any temples, but there were street vendors, little tricycle taxis waiting for fares, and families out sight-seeing.  I was relieved to see that everybody here had their pants on!

 

The Zocalo, with the Cathedral in the background

Taxi!

 



I'd forgotten that I'd asked what had happened to Tenochtitlan, but Tía Marta hadn't.  She told me that this is where modern Mexico City met the past.  When the Spaniards invaded the city, they tore down the temples and palaces and used the stones to pave the Zocalo.  Nowadays, the city is preserving the ruins of the great Templo Mayor around the edges of the Zocalo, and there are always archeologists working there.  Anybody can go look at the ruins.  So we did.  You can look too - here's a video.

The Aztecs don't sound like the nicest people in the world.  They went to war with all their neighbours, and brought thousands of people back to sacrifice in the temple.  Six hundred years ago, when the sixth temple (there were seven built altogether) was inaugurated, the Emperor Ahuizotl ordered twenty days of human sacrifices.  On average, one thousand prisoners of war a day were sacrificed for those three weeks.  This does not sound like a happy cozy place to live, at least not if you lived in a country at war with the Aztecs. 

We went exploring down a side street, and suddenly Tía Marta put her arm around Belén and started to giggle.  Ahead of us was a Christmas tree - a special Christmas tree just for Bé.  Did I tell you that Belén loves ducks?  She collects duck ornaments, duck pictures, and always goes out of her way to say hello to any ducks she meets.  This Christmas tree was obviously made for Bé, and Bé was made for it.

By now, it was time to get ready to go even farther south ... all the way to Colombia where Milton was waiting for me.  I gave Bé and her kind Mexican friends the little Ontario pins that I brought with me, as a kind of thank you for showing me around their countries.  Sometime I want to return to Mexico and see more of it.  That's how I feel about every place I've seen so far, though!