Mexico City, D.F.

Distrito Federal

I've been to some large cities in my day, but nothing really compares (in my experience) to D.F. Never before have I had the pleasure of being trapped in a subway car with the doors open at my stop, unable to leave because fifteen guys had jammed themselves in to the already stuffed train before I could get off, pushing themselves forward like an American football defensive line.
My rescue was facilitated by two giggling Metro inspectors, after I'd shouted "!Quiero salir!" enough times. Each one took one of my hands and yanked me through the packed bodies, my daypack disappearing down my waist as I traveled outward. Sometimes its a good thing to be skinny.

Travel lesson: never take the Metro in D.F. between 5:00-7:30pm (at the least) on a weekday.

Other subway notes: The constant stream of beggers, musicians, and vendors hawking 15 peso cd's (via portable speaker, and playing the worst in soft rock), peanuts, chicklets, band-aids, suckers, etc. One lame woman drags herself across the floor of the entire Pantitlan-Taxquenia train all day every day, 'shining' peoples' shoes with a filthy rag while making the same pitch over and over in a mechanical voice.

I was stunned and embarrassed by the sheer misery of her dragging herself past people's feet, but couldn't give her money being too shocked to respond to such a powerful spectacle of poverty. No one else seemed interested. Odet assured me it was a daily occurrence, and I saw her again the next day and again after that. By the third time she struck not as pathetic at all, but as someone of incredible personal strength. Her voice was not pleading at but sharp and professional in its automatic repetition. Could you drag yourself along the floor of a subway train by other people's feet day after day without end, as a way of making a living?

It makes me think of a New York performance artist I once read about, a black guy who did this performance of dragging himself (while wearing a suit and tie) the length of Wall street. It was a statement of how capitalism makes people crawl, particularly his people, and it worked so well as an intervention that other black men would come up and start shouting at him to stop. The difference of course, is that this was no performance art but simply everyday life.

There were the two shirtless guys, one with a pile of broken glass in his t-shirt. The shirt was placed on the floor, while they took turns ramming their bare backs into it. Then the pitch for a donation for this exercise. It amazed me that they thought people would pay for such a hideous spectacle, but they were just using whatever they had. I was struck by the sheer oxygen-like necessity of money in human life in moments like these, the food chain of urban existence being totally determined by the pursuit of a few pesos, not just for these guys, but everyone a money addict whether they wanted to be or not. The shirtless pair had the vague, flushed faces of drug addicts, and it was clear that they felt no pain as a result of their efforts. All this occurs in the dense, crowded atmosphere of the rush hour subway, with its grim-faced commuters, the same grim, joyless feeling you find on crowded subway trains the world over, the weariness of a daily grind that never eases. Life in the megalopolis that can never stop growing.

It was exhausting enough that I took myself an hour out of town, to the pleasant state of Morelos, and to a very touristed pueblito called Tepoztlan, surrounded on three sides by green mountains, and one summit that is topped by an ancient pyramid. A truly enchanting place aside from the centro filled with touristic noise, and the travel time equivelent of one micro-bus trip from my friend's house to the terminus of the subway line in D.F. To make the side-trip is like leaving hell and entering paradise. I actually returned to Tepoztlan a day after leaving, so enchanting was its fresh air, stone walls, gardens, and forested hills. Massive trees stood up out of a mountain creek.

Its good to actually have fun being a tourist from time to time. That is the point after all, isn't it?