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TRAVEL Mexico’s Heart and Soul

By Kathryn Jones |

Mexico City probably ranks close behind Baghdad as an international destination a lot of travelers would just as soon drop from their itineraries right now. Along with its well-publicized smog, a tourist pall hangs over the world’s largest city (population: more than 18 million and counting).

Even well-traveled friends grimaced when they heard my plans. They rattled off a litany of problems to discourage me: pollution, poverty, traffic, overcrowding.

If 1 really wanted to go to Mexico, they asked, why not visit Cancun or Acapulco?

Because I really wanted to go to Mexico. And the capital is the country’s heart and soul; Cancun and Acapulco are more like its bare, prettily pedicured feet.

Despite its problems, Mexico City is still the closest international city to Dallas-only 2 hours and 19 minutes by air. That’s less time than it takes to fly to New York City or Los Angeles. Mexico is also the next best thing we Texans have to Europe, if people would look beyond the border towns and beach resorts.

Border towns only tease. Mexico City seduces. It does so slowly, with the strum of a mariachi’s guitar, a thousand beautiful churches, fancy shops, humble street markets, lovers kissing in parks, mysterious Aztec legends and the spicy-sweet smell that could be called Eau de Mexico-a blend of flowers, tortillas, chili peppers and diesel exhaust.

Parts of the old, colonial Mexico in the central historic district around the Zócalo (the sprawling town square) look like the quaint, narrow streets of Paris’ funky Left Bank. Artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and Jose Cle-mente Orozco painted here; their murals appear in unlikely public places like school staircases and covered markets. It’s a Mexico City that too many visitors miss.

One of my prime motivations for coming to Mexico City was to shop-or rather browse. And here’s something I immediately discovered: Ignore anything a taxi driver at a hotel tells you. If you ask for suggestions, he’ll probably take you to some tourist trap run by his brother or distant cousin or some store where he gets a commission for bringing in customers. (Trust me. I found out the hard way and ended up spending an hour in a huge curio shop the size of a K mart. I told the driver I was looking for antiques; the only thing in the store that was more than 50 years old was the manager.)

The best way to discover Mexico City is to take the risk of getting lost in it. It’s easy to do. Streets change names without warning as they slip from one neighborhood into another, disappearing and then reappearing. No wonder wary tourists confine most of their walking to the main boulevard, the Paseo de la Reforms, and the accessible but antiseptic Zona Rosa (Pink Zone) shopping district. But with a good street map, you’re never far from a major thoroughfare.

An acquaintance, a longtime Mexico City resident, had some words of advice after my fiasco with the taxi driver. If you want to buy folk art and crafts, he said, go to the downtown Fonart, a state-owned Mexican craft store. If you want to buy some cheap curios, go to one of the many street markets. If you want deals on designer goods, go to the Zona Rosa. But if you want to get a feel for the city and perhaps a bargain on an unusual item, take a walking tour north of the Zócalo.

Following these less-traveled paths and risking an occasional wrong turn is one way to scale down Mexico City’s vastness and see it for what it is: a collection of a thousand neighborhoods, or colonias, each with its own flavor.

In the shopping area directly west of the Metropolitan Cathedral is further evidence that Mexico is the product of two cultures, the Spanish and the Indian. Shop after shop sells replicas of statues, chalices, tapestries and other religious artifacts in the cathedral. Sandwiched in between are medicinal herb shops with baskets full of roots, bark, leaves and other strange, dried-looking items. Made into a tea or ground up and applied as a poultice, the folk medicines supposedly cure everything from upset stomachs to headaches.

Two streets behind the cathedral is a short: pedestrian walkway called Calle de Palma (Palm Street). Mexico City is a city of entrepreneurs, and street vendors here sell everything from delicious candied nuts fit’s a good idea to avoid most street food) to brightly embroidered hair bands. Prices are cheap-and bargaining is expected. Don’t be too intimidated; vendors aren’t nearly as aggressive in Mexico City as they are along the border.

There aren’t many gringos in this neighborhood, and that’s part of the charm. You may draw a stare or two, but Mexico City dwellers, like New Yorkers, have learned to tolerate foreigners. Few people speak English, so if you don’t speak Spanish it’s wise to take your English-Spanish dictionary along.

North of the Palma market is a charmingly funky neighborhood of narrow streets with names like Republica de Cuba, Brasil, Peru and Costa Rica, which are written on colored tiles set into the corners of buildings. Belisario Dominguez is particularly beautiful; rows and rows of narrow buildings painted turquoise, rose and yellow and trimmed with wrought-iron terraces brim with flower pots. Watch out. though; Dominguez quickly becomes Venezuela street before you know it.

To see great art, you don’t have to fight the crowds at the National Art Museum. On San Ildefonso street, the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National Preparatory School) has murals and other works by the aforementioned Rivera. Siqueiros and Orozco. To the west (the street changes its name to Republica de Cuba) is one of the oldest and most beautiful plazas in the city, Santo Domingo. A baroque church sits on the site of the first Dominican church founded in New Spain.

Except for the street markets, shopping in this quarter isn’t geared to tourists. Still, you can find an occasional buy on an unusual item. Try frame shops for beautiful old prints and frames. Gun and cutlery stores sometimes sell antiques such as huge, ornately carved iron gate locks from ranches in the country. Tourist curios are cheaper at the street markets off the well-traveled paths; there’s also a more interesting variety since the vendors are selling their items to locals as well.

Here, you can really see how the Mexicans shop. The concept of the department store still hasn’t taken hold in these small neighborhoods- Instead, small, family-run stores often sell only one type of item. Entire street blocks are devoted to a single product, like plumbing fixtures or fabric or glass. In the South American quarter are blocks of shops that sell nothing but wedding dresses and accessories. One store in this quarter, Sobremix, only sells umbrellas. many in beautiful patterns.

No space is wasted along the narrow side streets. You literally might walk by a cobbler-in-a-closet. A woman may be selling tacos, candy or tortillas, her griddle wedged into a doorway and her baby sleeping on a blanket at her feet.

1 hailed a taxi and left the neighborhood with tired feet, more photographs than souvenirs and memories of simple pleasures like eating nuts under a palm tree and watching people who seem so familiar yet so foreign.

I found what I had come looking for.

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