Arriving into The Unknown – The Present

So if you had mentioned Mexico City to me before I had arrived- the third most densely populated place on earth, with 15 million inhabitants – the images that would have sprung to my mind would have been teaming millions, a megalopolis, chaos, franeticity, thick pollution, crime and earth quakes. Not one of the places that you would go out of the way to visit.

At the bus station on the outskirts of the city, I purchased a voucher for a twelve-mile taxi ride. In contrast to my Cairo journey, I knew this time the region to which I was heading, the city’s historic core, the Zocola.

   My guidebook said, insist that the driver takes you all the way to the hotel. Don’t let him fob you off or bundle you out somewhere else. And sure enough, ten minutes into the journey the taxi driver starts saying,’ Which hotel, Senor? Which hotel?’

I indicated on my map, ‘Hotel San Francisco in the Zocola,’

‘No, no. It’s not possible. Una autre Hotel par pavour. Closer, closer.’

‘No, no. I have bought my voucher for a taxi all the way to the Zocola. Hotel San Francisco par povar. That is where I am going.’

He would remonstrate, throw up his arms and repeat, ‘No, no. Not possible una autre hotel’. He’d lean over to examine my map and point to a road which was somewhat nearer.

And this continued for thirty minutes. There would be occasional silent interludes, when I would be lulled into a false sense of security into thinking we were back on track. But then the argument would start up again. Him remonstrating. Me stubbornly refusing.

So for the last half-hour, I’ve been getting gyp in one ear (‘una autre hotel, una autre hotel’) and now in the other, as we get closer to the centre, a cacophony of car horns.

Images of extreme chaos are springing to mind  – Bombay and Cairo revisited can only just be around the corner. And despite the current hassle from the driver, this is not a bedlam into which I would be willingly off-loaded.

But then he pulls over and points down a wide street that runs on to the Zocola, and along this thoroughfare there was not a car in sight. It was still a bedlam of sorts alright, but not what I had expected – a mass of bulldozers, cement mixers, men with spades and pneumatic drills, sledgehammers, temporary wooden walkways, gapping potholes and open man covers. Yes, the road was ‘up’.

‘You see’, said the driver, ‘Zocola not possible’. And then he’d drive onto the start of the next parallel street leading down to the centre, which was also undergoing serious reconstruction. He’d carry on around the corner to the next road and then the next. All of them were like obstacle courses. And at each corner, he would repeat, ‘You see, Zocola not possible.’

And then he muttered something to himself, which was probably along the lines of, ‘Stupid gringo. Do you honestly think I can drive through this lot.’

I smiled sheepishly and got out. I negotiated my way through this landscape of machinery  to Republic de Cuba in the Zocola.

And along the way, it was a case of up one steep kerb, across a wooden walk way, stride over an open man hole cover, down an even steeper kerb, walk along a gravel covered bed and so on. At the busier intersections along this assault course, both builders and policemen were giving people a helping hand.

But it was not what I had expected, to arrive at the very heart of one of the most noisiest cities on earth, expecting disorder of the highest extreme, when instead of carbon monoxide I just get the sounds of the shoveling of cement.

After five nights at the Hotel San Francisco, I began to memorise the locations of the biggest potholes, which of the newly cemented streets would be almost dry by now, which roads had the most robust walkways and so on.

This alternative chaos soon grew on me. The complete relaying of these streets had after all turned the area into a pedestianised zone for a while; a conservationist’s dream.

If I had arrived a week later, I would not have been so lucky. The Zocola had been closed to traffic for three months. The new version was due to be reopened the weekend after I left, although I found it difficult to imagine.