There’s a familiar face waiting for us in the arrivals hall at Mexico City airport. Dora is there with a big beaming smile as we appear, and she tells us she’s going to be our guide once more for the next few days. It’s lovely to see her, and she’s as quick-witted and sassy as ever, wanting to hear all about adventures since we left Mexico City in early January but insisting that we speak as much in Spanish to her as possible.
Being tired and having had a very large shot of tequila on the plane, I fear I’m not quite as eloquent as I should be, but we recount our adventures in southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Costa Rica as best we can.
Thankfully the CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico) traffic is not as bad as feared and we’re soon driving through the hipster enclave of Roma before Dora delivers us to our discreet but very elegant hotel, Casa Mali, in La Condesa district of the city.
However it’s a different story when Dora picks us up at 9am the following morning, and we spend an hour heading south on congested roads to the historical district of Xochimilco. Dora keeps us entertained with fascinating stories of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera until we arrive, driving through close-knit flower and vegetable markets to finish at the embarkation point for its canals.
In Aztec times Mexico City was a vast and beautiful place built upon water, at the heart of a huge lake. To travel through the city the Aztecs navigated canals and waterways they had built, alongside artificially constructed islands full of vegetation, agriculture and housing. However when the Spanish took control of the city they drained and filled-in the vast majority of the canals, constructing roads instead for their horses and carriages, which are now sinking slowly each year into the soggy marshes underneath the city.
Xochimilco is the last remaining area that has canals, 140 kms of them, and its islands still provide over 30% of all the fruit and vegetables, and the majority of flowers, for Mexico City’s 26 million inhabitants. In fact the name of the district says it all; Xochi means flowers and Milco means place.
As a result it’s the go-to destination for ‘chilangos’ (residents of Mexico City) to relax at the weekends, hiring floral-painted boats to be punted along the canals past islands growing huge quantities of flowers, laden down with food and drink and often hiring mariachi bands to play for them while they glide along. It’s also where they celebrate anniversaries, birthdays and weddings with family fiestas.
Dora tells us that the very word ‘mariachi’ comes from this. In the late 18th and early 19th century when the main diplomatic language of Europe was French, it was also spoken by ex-pats in Mexico City. As a result, foreigners would often ask in French for traditional Mexican music to be played at their “marri-age”, hence the bands and music becoming known as ‘mari-achi’.
Fortunately we’re here reasonably early on a Thursday morning so the canals are yet to become clogged up with boats, but from Thursday afternoons onward and throughout the weekend, particularly on Sundays, the waterways become almost impassable with the 2700 boats registered to float on the canals all being booked out and jostling for space. By contrast we have a very relaxing hour slowly exploring some of the canals with only a few other tourists on the waters.
It's a different story when we arrive at the Frida Kahlo museum in the beautiful district of Coyoacán a short while later. Having been almost forgotten outside Mexico for thirty years after her death in 1954, the celebrated artist is now one of the most well-known and recognisable feminist icons in the world, and perhaps the most famous image of Mexico internationally.
Certainly the queues outside the museum, all on strictly timed fifteen minute slots, demonstrate her huge fame ensuring that the Frida Kahlo museum, based in the house she was both born and died in, receives more visitors than the enormous Museum of Anthropology we visited at the start of January.
Dora’s brilliant re-telling of Frida’s beautiful and sad life, inextricably entwined with that of Diego Rivera whom she married and divorced three times, prepares us perfectly for what we are about to see.
Frida’s health issues, ranging from polio aged six to a life-changing accident at the age of 18, meant she was frequently bed-ridden for large parts of her life, whilst also being permanently disfigured and in pain. Learning to paint in her hospital bed she captivated the hugely famous Rivera who became her mentor, lover and husband.
A promiscuous womaniser, Rivera broke her heart many times, so she retaliated by having multiple affairs too, with both men and women, and even with León Trotsky who she and Rivera helped gain asylum in Mexico. At Rivera’s side, she travelled the world while he was lauded as a contemporary and peer of Picasso, Dali, Duchamp and more, receiving huge international commissions for murals and artworks in stadiums, civic buildings, 5-star hotels and even NYC’s Rockefeller Center.
Frida quickly became a figure of fascination in artistic circles and high society for her very Mexican style and dress, partly as a reflection of her heritage but also to hide the rigid corsets and leg prosthesis she had to wear to be able to walk. Her own work was always overshadowed by Rivera during her lifetime, but in the 1980s she was ‘re-discovered’ by feminist activists in New York who admired her determination, resilience, sexual liberation and style, and her image started to adorn posters.
Inspired by this Madonna started to collect her paintings and unsuccessfully tried to make a film about Frida’s life. That film, simply called ‘Frida’ finally got made and released in 2002 with Mexican star Salma Hayek as co-producer and star, earning herself an Oscar nomination in the process. As a result, Frida Kahlo rocketed to global fame and this museum is now a ‘must-see’ attraction.
We spend an hour inside, shuffling through all the rooms and gardens of Frida’s family home in single file with the multitude of other tourists, studying her artworks, photographs, wardrobe, medical issues and the artistic life she and Rivera built for themselves.
One of her most famous paintings takes pride of place, entitled ‘Watermelon Smile’. Kahlo, in the days before her death, added a phrase to it that has become a global inspiration. She wrote ‘Viva La Vida’ upon it and Dora tells us that many years ago, when Coldplay first came to Mexico, she was assigned to them as their guide and took them to visit the Frida Kahlo museum. Chris Martin was captivated and soon after they released their multi-platinum album entitled Viva La Vida.
The neighbourhood of Coyoacán where Frida lived is both beautiful and old and was originally where the wealthiest members of society lived. Once rural countryside, and taking its name from the coyotes, who would prowl through it, at its heart is a grand palacio which the conquistador Hernan Cortez constructed for himself and is now the town hall.
It sits in the beautiful main square and gardens of Plaza Hidalgo which boasts a large statue of Miguel Hidalgo, the liberator of Mexico from Spanish rule. Dominating the plaza is what Dora describes, with her tongue in cheek, as a “simple Franciscan church”. It’s enormous and ornate and was once part of a huge Franciscan convent that encompassed most of the area, of which some buildings and the old arch still exist.
We wander through the town, enjoying its very charming and civilized air, and have lunch with Dora at La Esquina de los Milagros, before we head off by ourselves for some souvenir shopping and a spot of ice-cream – mamey, strawberry and corn – at one of the traditional parlours that sit amongst the gorgeous shops.
It’s been a day of fascinating explorations but our time travelling through Central America is almost at an end. Fortunately we still have 24 hours to enjoy the elegance and gastronomic delights of the Condesa neighbourhood… and we meet another familiar and unexpected face from our adventures once more.
