Mexico City

Culhuacán

That is a familiar name to me (remember, I know nothing and what I know, I am confused about.

Most of it looks this bleak:

More colonias of Iztapalapa:

San Nicolás Tolentino:



Valle de Luces:



El mirador:

Another neighborhood in Iztapalapa is named Fuego Nuevo (New Fire). It is set in the place where the New Fire was lit by the Aztecs every 52 years (an Aztec century), meaning that everything was renewed.

There are ancient ruins, a site museum and the ceremony is reenacted now every year:

You know there is this church in rome. . .

But the real big deal in Iztapalapa is Easter, performed in the same hill of the Fuego Nuevo (but coming from the other side).

It is a huge performance, thousands go to Iztapalapa and inhabitants of the original barrios are proud to be the actors of the crucifixion (a reporter on the paper plays a Roman and has his own horse, mainly for the event)











In 1989 or 1990, the guy who played Christ was a student of mine at the University. I had just flunked him when I found out.
I gave an F to Christ!

The old church of Santa María del Monte, in Iztapalapa:



Another cute church in Iztapalapa, San Ignacio:



And Our Lord of the Calvary:

Iztapalapa has chronical water problems.
Since most of the water comes from the west, the pressure is lower there, and water is often scarse. Pipes arrive to serve water when it is lacking:

And, of course, water lacks the most in the poorest colonias.

El Hoyo ("The Hole")



El Salado



Palmitas

At the same time, since a big part of Iztapalapa is built over what used to be the lake, floods are not uncommon in some neigborhoods:

...but this looks like an awesome chinampa! (My kids were dazzled by the agricultural brilliance of the Aztec's innovation....)

Hi folks, I'm back from a few days of deserved rest.

Iztapalapa is home to one of the 3 campusses of UAM, the Metropolitan University (the other two are at Azcapotzalco and Xochimilco).
UAM is a public university founded in the 1970s. It's the third most important one in the city.

The murals are by Arnold Belkin, a Canadian born Mexican painter.

One of the ugliests monuments in the city is the "Head of Juarez", near the limits of Iztapalapa and the State of Mexico.

Perhaps it's hated so much because it's next to the big car deposit (where they take your car if its parked illegally or where they take it after recovering it, or parts of it, from a theft).

We finished Iztapalapa and now move to Coyoacán (west of Iztapalapa, south of Benito Juárez, in dark green), one of the most interestings boroughs of the city.


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Coyoacán was a city-state enemy to the Aztecs. These people welcomed Hernán Cortés and the Spanish, who used the area as a headquarters during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and made it the first capital of New Spain between 1521 and 1523. The village, later municipality, of Coyoacan remained completely independent of Mexico City through the colonial period into the 19th century.

Now it's the most culture-inclined part of the city, mostly due to the main campus of UNAM, the most important university in the country.

This is the center of Coyoacán:

And these are parts of Colonia Del Carmen, also the center of Coyoacán:

The building of the Delegación Coyoacán:

Some views of Plaza La Conchita, also at Colonia Del Carmen, Coyoacán:

The center of Coyoacán tends to be crowded on sundays:

At Colonia Del Carmen (center of Coyoacán) you can visit La Casa Azul (The Blue House), where painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera used to live:









(On these days there is an exhibit with many of Frida's garments).