A WEEK IN MEXICO CITY

  

MEXICO CITY TODAY

   This Thursday, Bob and I are off for a week in Mexico City. I'd always been aware of the city as somewhere “down there:” large, crowded, unsafe. But now that I've done my homework, I've learned that it's a sophisticated, cosmopolitan destination for in-the-know world travelers. Like us.

    Yes, Mexico City is huge: somewhere between 21 and 25 million people, depending on who's counting. That's slightly larger than greater New York City. It's over 7,000 feet above sea level, sitting on what was once a shallow lake surrounded by mountains. Its air quality can be quite bad, especially on work days when I-don't-know-how-many-million people jump in their cars, heading to work. We're advised not to walk too fast or too far. 
    The city, then called Tenochititlan (The City that Walked on Water), was founded by the Aztecs in the 14^th Century, and when Cortez first saw it in 1519, he and his soldiers could barely believe their eyes. Like Venice, it was built on man-made islands connected by bridges, had a population of around 200,000, which was five-times larger than that of contemporary London. It also had most of the amenities you'd expect in a modern city: an aqueduct bringing fresh water, a central palace with public buildings (the Zócalo), a museum, botanical garden, zoo, aquarium, theater, ball field, flourishing street markets, and so on. 

TENOCHITITILAN (circa 1519)

    Once Cortez and his cronies were done, though, the Aztec emperor, Montazuma, was dead, and the city was pretty much in ruins. In fact, thanks to warfare and imported European diseases, the population of the whole empire quickly dropped from an estimated 11 million to 1.5 million. But there was a bright side. Those who survived were lucky. Their souls were going to be saved, thanks to hoards of Roman Catholic missionaries.
    Today, few canals exist, and the city, like Venice, is sinking.