Mexico City

Mexico City has some of the best street/urban art murals in the world, but almost all the attention in the press is focused on work done in the center of the city. In reality, much of the best work is being done on the east side of the Mexico City Metro Area (MCMA). The muralism […]

It would be hard to overstate the symbolic importance of Chapultepec Park, not only to Mexico City, but to the country as well. It has played a key role in Mexico’s history since the Mesoamerican era, with emperors and presidents eager to leave their mark on it. But its recent history also includes neglect. To […]

Like virtually every pueblo in Mexico, residents of San Gregorio Atlapulco (in Xochimilco, Mexico City) celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week) with processions, extra masses and a depiction of Christ’s crucifixion. But one thing sets San Gregorio apart from other pueblos: Holy Week is run by fourteen young men known as Los Varones. There’s no group […]

1. Mexico City On the way to Ecuador, I took a five-day diversion to Mexico City. As souvenirs, I picked up a stomach bug and a rather extreme case of sun-burn. Neither were timetabled, but both easily gained with the correct measure of self-neglect. I was respectively supported by a high altitude that increased the […]

I first met one of Xipe Tótec’s priests on March 30, 2018. I know the exact date because, happily, my Nikon records the date of every photo I shoot. Me, I’m not that good at keeping accurate records. Fortunately, I didn’t actually meet the priest because Xipe Tótec was the Mexica god of, among other […]

Katie Goodridge Ingram’s memoir According to Soledad is a rich and sometimes dark journey into her childhood years growing up in Mexico City and Ajijic, a small fishing village in the state of Jalisco. Her earliest years are spent in an affluent sector of Mexico City with her American parents who are constantly struggling to […]

The September 13, 1847 capture of Chapultepec Castle by U.S. Marines made a paragraph in a MexConnect listing of significant events by geographer, historian and all-around good guy Tony Burton. This was war. Fighting had reached Mexico City. Men were dying. Generals surrendered but there were numerous acts of bravery, including the celebrated stand by […]

It is customary for Mexican cooks to save the seeds they remove from dried chiles and store them, mixing several varieties in the same jar. This traditional recipe from El Bajio restaurant in Mexico City may be made with either boneless pork leg or beef shanks. Ingredients: 2 pounds cut-up boneless pork leg or beef […]

After poultry, pork is the most popular meat to serve in pipián sauces, and goes particularly well with green pipián, where the fresh green chiles and herbs counterbalance the richness of pork. Made with vegetable broth instead of meat or poultry broth, pipián verde makes a good vegetarian dish. Cut into large chunks and cooked in broth or roasted in the […]

Defined as “a rippling wave effect that passes right around a stadium full of spectators, achieved when all the spectators in turn stand up with their arms raised and then sit down again with their arms lowered” (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary), the Mexican wave or La Ola is a cooperative, coordinated and spectacular sight that gained popularity […]

The Zona Rosa is located conveniently close to Mexico City’s Centro Histórico . It lies on the northern side of the famous Paseo de la Reforma (a long tree-lined street modeled after the Champs-Elysées with its many historic monuments and traffic circles, referred to here as glorietas. The Zona is also bordered by Chapultepec Avenue to the […]

With a population oscillating at around 20 million, streets jammed with cars, and buildings that range from sublime to ridiculous, it is hard to imagine that Mexico City was, for many years, a model of urban development and civility. The “City of Palaces,” as it was once known, was orderly and planned, with uniform building […]

There are Mexicans these days who have never attended a Cinco de Mayo celebration. The holiday has taken a back seat to the many saints’ days and other festivals. The growth of celebrations in the United States was initially triggered by a lawsuit from LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, several decades ago, […]

-Valley of Anahuac, New Year’s Eve, 1507. Tenochtitlán, the great island city, capital of the Mexica empire, lies cloaked in darkness. An eerie silence pervades the vast ceremonial center — the Teocalli or Templo Mayor — spreading out over Moctezuma’s splendid palace, with its botanical gardens and well-stocked zoo, across the market places, canals, aqueducts, and within each of […]

Walking through Coyoacan, I imagine how it must have looked in the early 1900s, when Frida Kahlo was born in the now-famous “Blue House.” At that time, Coyoacan was a small country town. Even though she and Diego Rivera shared a city home, they frequented her birthplace often, and it was here that she chose to spend […]

Last month’s column focused on the gastronomy of the Estado de Mexico, the state that nearly surrounds Mexico’s capital. This month, we’ll take a look at the myriad dining experiences to be had in the capital itself, Mexico City, commonly known as “el D.F.”, short for Distrito Federal. The city has been a center of migration […]

The oral contraceptive pill, often referred to simply as “the Pill” was officially fifty years old on October 15, 2001. In the words of The Economist: it “was arguably the first lifestyle drug to control a normal bodily function – fertility – rather than a dread disorder. It transformed the lives of millions and helped reshape […]

One of the most popular of Mexico’s many fairs and festivals is the Festival del Mole, the National Mole Fair, held each October in the village of San Pedro Actópan, in the Milpa Alta delegation of the Federal District. This part of the D.F. is unlike any other, a mostly indigenous area with landscapes of rustic beauty which include […]

This recipe uses more almonds than most and eliminates the chocolate. It is a Oaxaca style, rather than a Puebla style, almendrado. 1 3-4 pound chicken, cut into serving pieces salt and pepper corn oil for sautéing 4 cloves garlic, peeled 1 medium onion, peeled, halved, and stuck with 2 whole cloves 1 piece cinnamon stick […]

We were lucky: we managed to visit the famous pyramids of Teotihuacan on a rare sunny winter’s day, when Mexico City’s air was clear and, from our bus, you could actually see the snow capped volcano of Popocatepetl some forty miles away. I should explain that it was Christmas Day, a time of year when […]

2004. It’s showtime in Athens. The Greeks are all stirred up about the Olympic Games, worrying about terrorist threats and who’s going to pay the bills when the party is over and everybody goes home. Thirty-six years ago, it was a lot like that in Mexico City. Before you read what I remember about those […]

This is the story of Mexico City College and the hidden black trick. Some of you may have missed Morris (Moe) Williams, even though he was out and about for more than four decades. Beginning in the fall of 1947, he was an Azteca, a player on the American-style football team at Mexico City College. […]

Please pardon me. I have neglected Mexico City. It has been years since I have told you how much I love it. Don’t laugh. For much of our time in Mexico, the really big city has meant life-threatening smog, bumper to bumper deadlocks and keep your hand on your wallet. Careful on the metro and […]

The reputation of Mexican criminal investigators is often somewhere below zero, except on this occasion. They don’t even hear about a lot of crimes. They seldom solve cases. Even when they think they have caught a crook, they rarely gain convictions. Judges shake their heads. Maybe the warrant was defective, wrong address, misspelled name. Or […]

Infernal Drums A novel by Anthony Wright Moon Willow Press, 2011 Available from Amazon Books: Paperback The primary story of Infernal Drums, to this reviewer, is not very interesting. The protagonist, Jonah Everman, is not very interesting — a drifter who lacks both common sense and any commitment whatsoever to the society, however seedy it can be, in […]

Mexico’s economic downturn may be worse than those of other nations, because so much of Mexico’s economy depends on tourism. Mexico City is desperate to restore its tourism industry; perhaps they’re suffering from an abundance of media coverage of killings, kidnappings, and cartels. What can Mexico possibly come up with to attract tourists under this […]

Mexico City Christmas lights Published or Updated on: January 12, 2009 by Daniel Wheeler © 2009

I recently returned from three weeks in North America’s highest and oldest capital— La Ciudad de México, La Capital, el Distrito Federal, or simply “ De Efe” for short—researching Moon’s new Mexico City Handbook, and I fell in love. Maybe I always fall in love with cities I write about, but It’s difficult not to be impressed […]

The first traces of an awakening sun touch the morning horizon, brushing aside the night’s long shadows. On the streets of Ixtapalapa, a working class neighborhood 30 minutes by cab from the center of Mexico City, young men – some in the dress of the Jerusalem of 2000 years ago – shuffle by hurriedly. Many […]

My grandfather, Frank Henry, was an English silver mining engineer in Mexico during the Revolution of 1910-16. This is the story of a family’s harrowing escape from marauding bandits at the height of the Revolution. Sadly, it was without my grandfather, as he had been brutally murdered by the bandits while defending their home from […]

Some of the longest lasting and most useful lessons in life come at the worst of times and in the most dreadful of ways. It’s because life is so unpredictable, I suppose. We become all the better for it. The anguish suffered from a painful experience must really stimulate those nerve connections in the old […]

We possess an extraordinary account of this beautiful story, dated in the 16th century: the Nican Mopohua, written by an Indian nobleman, Don Antonio Valeriano, who was baptized and converted to Catholicism. He was a very educated man. The language he used was Náhuatl, the one the Aztecs spoke. The story is called the Nican Mopohua […]

“Without watercolors we wouldn´t know nearly what we know about the ancient Mexicans,” said the gentleman across the expanse of polished desk with a sweet smile. “All of the codexes were painted with colored pigment in water on amate paper (thick, handmade paper from the inner bark of the amate tree that only grows in the State of Morelos). […]

Not a river exactly, Xochimilco is a vast system of canals and gardens at the southern extreme of this megalopolis called Mexico City. It was a lake at the time of the Aztecs. They floated rafts on the shallow lake´s surface and heaped them with rich soil and compost and grew enough produce on them […]

“Wait,” she protested. She bent over the crouched photographer busily framing the pleasant scene for posterity, his camera at the ready, shutter cocked. She spoke loudly into his ear. “Wait!” On the very street – no, more like a boulevard in a city of grand boulevards – where being seen is becoming the number one […]

On a balmy summer evening in August 1940, a young man gained admittance to the study of Leon Trotsky’s heavily guarded house near Mexico City. He asked Trotsky to read something he had written. While Trotsky was poring over his article, the visitor removed an alpine climbing axe from his overcoat and sank it into […]

I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party (although I did subscribe to the Daily World during the wild and woolly Sixties), but a visit to Leon Trotsky´s house in Coyoacán has affected me beyond all my expectations. It reminded me of my youth when I imagined, however […]

“The faculty of being is born in the habit of creating,” says multi-talented artist Raymundo Becerril Porras, whose very life seems to personify this idea. Creation, after all, is an integral part of who he is, with his career encompassing that of painter, dancer and writer. As Becerril notes, “for me, art is my life.” […]

Photographer Ricardo Gómez Jimenez has been snapping pictures most of his life. “From childhood on, I have always liked the camera,” says the 34-year-old native of Mexico City. When asked to recall his first memories involving photography, Gómez recounts how some of his initial artistic experiments involved taking shots of keys. “I would grab a […]

Es costumbre para los cocineros mexicanos guardar las semillas que le remueven de los chiles, mezclando diferentes variedades en el mismo frasco. Esta receta tradicional del restaurante Bajío de la Ciudad de México puede ser hecha con piernas de puerco sin hueso o con chamorro de res. Ingredientes Para la carne y el caldo: 2 […]

If you would like a glimpse of several slices of Mexican history in all their messy complexity, with its heroes and villains, both local and foreign, the National Interventions Museum should be on your list of places to visit. Located in the Ex-Convento Churubusco of Mexico City, the museum [Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones] offers exhibits […]

For artist Raúl López García, it is the language of his subconscious that manifests itself in his paintings. “About two years ago, I realized that I wasn’t inventing anything, but that I was simply transporting my own experiences to a canvas,” says Raúl, who uses just his first name in connection with his artistic endeavors. […]

Available from Amazon Books: Hardcover “Mexico City offers us a mirror of our urban prospects, and Americans ignore its example somewhat at their peril.” Mexico City has long exercised a fascination for writers of varying foreign stripes — Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Jack Keruoac, D. H. Lawrence, William S. Burroughs, B. Traven; not to mention Latin […]

MexConnect contributor Anthony Wright has published his first novel with the Vancouver, Canada-based independent publishing house Moon Willow Press. The novel, called Infernal Drums is set in Mexico and is a heady mix of road tale, occult drama, and dark comedy. Anthony, an Australian, spent a number of years in Mexico City during the 1990s, […]

Some time around the turn of the eleventh century indigenous tribes from the Valley of Anahuac trekked north and settled in the land that Franciscans, half a millennium later baptized, “Tlanepantla”. Today Tlanepantla thrives among Mexico’s largest populations, with nearly twelve million (12,000,000) inhabitants. Below the gray stones of Chiquihuite Hill, smelting, metalworking, machine-building, and […]

Mexican-American author Daniel Hernandez has hit a fresh nail on an old head by exploring different youth cultures in Mexico City. Youth is a favored subject for a modern mass media obsessed with this demographic, and one would think the market was pretty well saturated by this point. Moving rapidly from an emerging subculture in […]

It’s surely one of the coolest jobs in the world — donning a glittery mask and playing superhero or villain every night, flying around a packed arena. These are the men and women who aim to make their living as luchadores — athletes-cum-performers in the unique and very Mexican sport (or whatever you want to call it) […]

A riotous image of a storm of people bolting down a wide Mexico City avenue, in the midst of a live Maldita Vecindad rock performance from the back of a moving truck, comprises one of many memorable video images from that band’s new, self-produced history of itself. The scene describing the pandemonium on the day […]

In the novel “Virtual Light,” cyberpunk author William Gibson envisages a Mexico City of the near future where the air is a sooted ebon and the populace wears oxygen masks. It might seem far-fetched, but with the city’s population topping 20 million, and the city’s cars about a third that number and all of it […]

Some time ago I was exploring the Mercado de Antiguëdades de Cuauhtemoc in downtown Mexico City with my brother-in-law and an entrepreneurial young Mexican named Carlos Villasena, press officer for the Philippine Embassy in Mexico – who was at that time just breaking into the antiques game, teaching himself to spot a bargain in the […]

Legendary Mexican artist and master muralist Diego Rivera spent so much time avidly collecting pre-Hispanic art it’s a wonder he ever got around to painting. Rivera amassed a collection of thousands of objects: pottery items, stone and jade figures of animals, gods and humans. Many of the purchases were made on the black market. On […]

Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, I will go my way to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. -Song of Solomon Summer day of bougainvillea, wild poinsettia and swaying jacarandas – carefree, carefree – a dry wind carried the restless spirit of the future on its back, fanned by strange […]

People are still going about their business as usual, only we’re all wearing surgical facemasks. I can’t decide if this whole fear campaign is a massive media beat-up or if it has some credence. Greetings from Mexico City… On the subject of the city – and schools, and cinemas, and restaurants, and bars, and churches, […]

Has anyone heard of a Rio Flying Cloud? A Whippet? A Phaeton? They sound like the monikers of mysterious yet amusingly kitsch vessels that move through the air in old time superhero comic books. They conjure a weird parallel universe where history is a malleable substance and citizens go about their lives with no sense […]

Art and sport seem rarely intertwined. There is the American cliché of the muscle-bound football jock bursting with idiotic energy, indulging his time off the field to torment the nerdy, isolated artist (who invariably exacts his revenge by growing up to become a Hollywood screenwriter and perpetuating the cliché in teen flicks — wherein the […]

Most modern art aficionados know that if mysterious British artist Banksy didn’t create the urban world’s love affair with quirky riddles in stencil art on public walls, then he certainly spearheaded its emergence into light — at least from a broader (if somewhat bemused and undecided) public’s point of view. Those in the know will […]

In Mexico City, graffiti is a bit like prostitution. Nominally, it’s illegal — carrying a $1,000 peso (100 dollar) fine or a day in jail. But like the hookers plying their trade in mini skirt collectives along infamous thoroughfares such as Sullivan and Tlalpan, the rule of law doesn’t seem to stand in the way […]

Mexico City is a center of art and culture, a required stop for world class traveling exhibits and concerts. Pop Art makes its presence known in Mexico City’s Museo de Arte de la SHCP. Pop Art is said to be the first movement to straddle two aesthetically opposed dimensions, arriving at a fresh place where […]

A new exhibit running through January at the Museo de las Culturas Populares in Coyoacan, Mexico City, celebrates the “wow” factor of the wrestling phenomenon known the world over as lucha libre (free fighting) — that is as famous a Mexican cultural export nowadays as Frida Kahlo, Day of the Dead, and tequila. It’s also big in […]

Despite years living in Mexico City, I had never been to the archeological zone of Templo Mayor — once the heart of the Aztec empire of Tenochtitlan, now located in the heart of the Historic Centre next to the National Palace and the Cathedral — right off the Zócalo, until very recently. It was something […]

As I have said before, Mexico City, to these old eyes, is too big, too hectic, too crowded, too liberal, too much of several things. Mexico City is very exciting, prosperous, problematic, fashionable, contradictory. As I have said before, there is so much to see, stately cathedrals, marvelous museums, magic marketplaces, significant statues, almost perfect […]

David is more than a little disgruntled this morning. He limps out of the bathroom of our Mexico City hotel room and like a disgusted pet owner of a wet and smelly dog that has been too long in the rain. He holds out what he refers to as his “leg,” an unwieldy contraption that is actually […]

For anyone planning on spending time in Mexico City, the Xochimilco Canals (pronounced: so-chee-MIL-ko) is an experience not to be missed. After a first glance in any guide book, the traveller would be forgiven for dismissing Xochimilco, expecting it to be a little garish perhaps, probably overrun with tourists; a place relegated to the bottom […]

The flash of skate blades against gleaming ice. A cold-edged wind that creeps into your bones. The sharp, metallic smell of snow in the air. Winter. These are the images that most of us connect to our vision of an outdoor skating rink. But the rink I am standing beside is in Mexico City‘s Zocalo (main […]

For big cities worldwide, transportation is a major issue. Regular streets, avenues and boulevards may not be sufficient for growing traffic levels, so new streets are constructed, old streets re-routed, and mass transit systems established. Since 1863, when the first subterranean railway was opened in London, many cities have opened completely new transit routes by […]

City parks were not an important part of my life when I was a child. I was raised in the country on a farm which, for all practical purposes, was a park. Growing older, though, I learned to appreciate the importance of city parks, especially in large urban areas. In fact, I wound up residing […]

What can one say about Mexico City? It’s the capital of Mexico, the biggest metropolis in the Western Hemisphere and the world’s eighth-richest city. It’s also a first-rate tourist attraction. Located in the Valle de México (Valley of Mexico), a natural bowl ringed in by volcanoes and mountains, the city sits at an altitude of 7,350 feet […]

The year was 1966. America was mired in an unwinnable and unconscionable war. The Civil Rights movement was about to burst on the scene after generations of festering below the surface of White consciousness. And all over the so-called free world, a restless energy was growing among the youth that was to become a formidable […]

Some years ago an Australian TV commercial extolled the virtues of a non-alcoholic substitute called “Claytons.” A famous actor refused his last strong one at the bar, telling the barman: “Make mine a Claytons,” over which the voice over intoned: “The drink you have when you’re not having a drink.” Since then, the word has […]

I once lived next to an elderly woman in Mexico City whose home was a veritable museum of unique and occasionally bizarre collectibles. Her living room was given over to the collection and there was barely space enough to sit. Among the many items the woman possessed were several 19th century, German-made porcelain dolls — […]

The center arch of the wall contains the Mexican eagle holding a serpent that showed the end of the Aztecs’ migration. Included on the current Mexican flag, the eagle also represents a resurgent Mexico with resistance and self-assertion. Above the eagle Rivera painted the leaders of Mexico’s independence from Spain: Father Hidalgo, Salvador Allende, and […]

During her heyday from the 1920s to the 1930s, unconventional artist Carmen Mondragón was demonized in much the same way as the fire-breathing creature of legends past. A defiant voice in the midst of a repressive era, she was mischaracterized as a madwoman and even a witch. So pervasive were these falsehoods that even after […]

While perfect storms have been ravaging parts of America north of the Mexican border, Mexico itself — and especially Mexico City — is currently enjoying idyllic weather, a veritable Indian summer ahead of the approaching winter. For visitors to the capital, particularly the Centro Histórico, it is a delightful time to make the most of […]

The Mexico City airport is the gateway to Mexico City and Central Mexico. The Mexico City airport is also the airline hub for the entire country. If you are flying to a destination in Mexico not served by direct flights from the USA, you will probably change planes in Mexico City. More than 20 million […]

Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice, That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice What I tell you three times is true — — Lewis Carroll Are there ghosts in Mexico City? Built on the ruins of the grand Aztec City […]

An icon in Mexico City, the Revolution Monument or Monumento a la Revolución is also known as the Arch of the Revolution. It is located on Plaza de la Republica between downtown Reforma and Insurgentes, and has long been a premier tourist attraction, one of the capital’s architectural must-sees. Only in recent times, however, has the Monument […]

Most people probably have a vague idea that the Green Revolution was something to do with improving crops in the developing world, but how many realize that it began in Mexico? In fact, the Green Revolution continues in Mexico through the pioneering work of CIMMYT, the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center based in Texcoco, […]

For an offbeat travel experience in the Mexico City area, consider a visit to the Museo Frida Kahlo in Coyoacan. Hidden behind high cobalt blue walls at the corner of Londres and Allende in this charming southwestern suburb, the museo is where the surrealist artist Frida Kahlo was born, grew up and later lived with […]

In Mexico on the first two days of November, the dead are remembered in a very special celebration which is one of the most hallowed traditions in the Mexican culture. Each year, a series of unique events are held in several parts of the country to commemorate family members who have passed away. In the […]

Many cities worldwide have famous downtown squares, or plazas. Notable examples include London’s Trafalgar Square, Moscow’s Red Square and Beijing’s Tienanmen Square, among many others. Such a plaza is an essential part of a city’s history and identity. Consequently, it is a major draw for tourists. Mexico City’s principal plaza, called the Zócalo, fills such […]

Exploring Enrique Metinides’ images is to immerse yourself in those depths of humanity awash in raw emotion, as the 79-year-old photographer has captured some of the most poignant moments to unfold on the streets of Mexico City across the span of five decades. Much like the many accidents Metinides spent immortalizing on film throughout the […]

“Mexica” is the word the Aztecs used to refer to themselves. It became the name for the city and the country of Mexico. There are about as many tourist attractions in and around Mexico City as you will find in the entire country – making it a city not to miss in your travels.  Photos […]

In the preface to his monumental biography Sor Juana, the late Octavio Paz wrote, “In her lifetime [1651 to 1695], Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was read and admired not only in Mexico but in Spain and all the countries where Spanish and Portuguese were spoken. Then for nearly two hundred years her works […]

We had come down on a chartered bus from LSU with our professor to study Spanish. A classroom had been rented and arrangements made for us to stay in private homes. Classes were held in the morning and we were free to do what we wanted to do with the rest of the day. The […]

A charwoman-actress once captivated Mexican high society in her alter ego as Don Carlos Balmori. An elaborate tomb in Mexico City’s main cemetery, the Panteón Civil de Dolores, is a lasting reminder of one of the nation’s strangest ever spoofs. Hand-painted tiles once decorated the tomb depicting Concepción (Conchita) Jurado as both an elderly grey-haired […]

This map shows the Mexico City urban system. Map showing growth of Mexico City  (formerly known as México D.F.), 1700–2000 Tony Burton

For the full article and image gallery please visit: Graffiti: Mexico City’s wall art emerges from the shadows

Patrick Dennis found me in Sullivan Park, just behind El Monumento de la Madre in Mexico City, one fine Sunday, and changed my life. His buddy, Nina Olds, Gore Vidal’s mother, and my mother’s buddy and neighbor in Southampton for years had asked him to check me out, “for Sue”. Was I a starving artist, […]

Five places in Mexico are on the list of the world’s 100 most endangered heritage sites. “The World Monuments Fund (WMF) is the foremost private, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of endangered architectural and cultural sites around the world. Since 1965, WMF has worked tirelessly to stem the loss of historic structures at more […]

Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Campeche, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, México (State of), México City, D.F., Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Puebla, Queretaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Yucatán, Zacatecas,

There is absolutely no place in this world or any other quite like Mexico City. I don’t quite understand why so many people avoid it. One of these days, whenever I can get together enough money or land that job I’m looking at, I expect to live there. Again. My first recollections of Mexico City […]

Corazoncita, or little heart, is a Mexican expression of affection, similar to ‘sweetheart’. This is a story of my first visit to Mexico, and how a sweet, little Mexican girl became mi corazoncita. The only deviation from reality is the use of a false name for her, necessary because of her current participation in Mexican politics. […]

Entering a Mexico City taxi means entering the special world of cabbies – a place where two traffic lanes can swiftly become three, seatbelts generally are very few and far between, and where there appears to be very, very little change for large bills. Those who have hurtled down Insurgentes Sur or zoomed around Reforma’s glorietas while […]

Mexico City is one of the world’s largest urban centers, and its population continues to grow at a rate unequaled by any other area in the nation. The Mexico City region has long been the center of economic and political activity in Mexico. The area where the City lies today has been a center of […]

As I become familiar with Mexico City, I’ve come to believe that this city is best taken in small pieces. To try to understand the whole city, one can easily become overwhelmed and jaded by the urban sprawl and terrible conditions in some areas. I’d like to pay homage to one of the first places […]

An earlier column described several Guinness records and their connection to Mexico and Mexicans. This month’s column examines four more very different Guinness records which do not involve quite as much physical activity. In movie images, Mexico is almost invariably associated with cacti and it should, therefore, come as no surprise to find that the […]

Which village in Mexico celebrates the passing of the Old Year and the entrance of the New in the most unusual way? Almost certainly, the village of Santa Rosa Xochiac, just thirty minutes by car south-west of Mexico City, and still inside the Federal District. There are two churches in this village and, on December […]

Shooter: Network slang for a cameraman A book in progress by Bob Dutru Being a “shooter” was “A Job” that kept me nervous, excited, slightly off balance most of the time; kept my adrenaline pumping; took me in luxury and squalor to places that in my wildest imaginings I never dreamed I’d ever go to; […]