Pictures in Color, Visiting Mexico City

by Hawa Janneh (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find USA

I have travelled to a number of countries and I have to say that Mexico City has been my favorite place so far. At the time I was living in Austin, Texas my mom and I took a five day trip to the city and it was very special to me because when I planned the trip I didn’t realize at the time that it was almost a prophecy coming true. As a child I moved around a lot and I don’t have a lot of things from my childhood but one of the things that I kept was an old university Beginning Spanish text book that belonged to one of my parents. Inside the book a page is torn out and stick figures I scribbled when I was a toddler are strewn across the inside covers. Throughout the years I studied this book and it was one of the things in my life that caused me to have a desire to see the world and experience different cultures. The first half of the book talks about Mexico and inside are pictures, many in black and white of places like Mexico City, Teotihuacan and La Universidad de Mexico. In Mexico City we stayed in a very nice hotel in the main part of the city. For breakfast we were served by a waiter in white gloves on a table with white table cloths. The staff was very helpful and professional and safety was a priority. The hotel had contracted with a trusted taxi company that drove us to and from the airport. We mostly travelled on our own using the very convenient metro system and walking. In the metro station there were special cars that only women and children could ride. I was impressed that Mexico City was taking real measures to improve the safety of metro riders. At the Zocalo we could see armed tourist police with machine guns. I must say that during our time in Mexico City we felt relatively safe despite being warned by acquaintances that it could be dangerous there. We watched the changing of the guard in front of the Palacio Nacional next to the Catedral Metropolitana. We learned that many of the structures that the Spanish built when they came to the new world were built on top of Aztec ruins. We took a tour bus to Teotihuacan. The templed city was breathtaking. I couldn’t wait to climb to the top of one of the temples. When my mom saw the majestic temple she did not want to make the climb. I went ahead and climbed to the top. A few minutes later after I reached the top I heard her call my name. A kind gentleman had helped her up to the top. We went to Castillo de Chapultepec. Some rooms were filled with royal decor and others had historical murals on the walls. Artifacts displayed included a wanted poster for Pancho Villa. There was also a recital going on that day in the courtyard a chorus adorned in various indigenous clothing. We visited the Bosque de Chapultepec where there was a memorial of the nine boy soldiers who died defending the castle during the Mexican- American war. We saw many other equally impressive sites in those five days to include La Basilica de Guadalupe, the Torre Latinoamericana and the University of Mexico where the 1968 Olympics were held. The botanical garden at the university was so beautiful that I had to touch some of the plants to make sure they were real. On the last day we went to the Museo Nacional de Anthropologia with it’s impressive collection of artifacts that represented ancient cultures like the Aztecs and Toltecs. At night we strolled through the streets stopping for a taco from a nearby street vendor or snacking on corn with mayonnaise. As I thought about the Beginning Spanish book that I often read as a child, it was surreal to take pictures in many of those places that I had seen in that book some in black and white and now I also have pictures of me in color.