Lunch with Alfonso, Mts, Comics, etc

Last Sunday Alfonso said, "let's go for casadillas this afternoon."  From my experience last year, I knew that "going out for casadillas", was no simple outing in the neighbourhood for fast food. It was about a 45min drive across town, through the ultra-upscale Santa Fe neighbourhood where all the big corporate offices are, Microsoft and the like. Along the way we stopped to pick up Alfonso`s old friend, Irving who also accompanied us last year on this same outing and his daughter, Danielle.  

Alfonso, Irving, Danielle

Irving is German/Mexican, his parents having immigrated from Germany.  Our destination, the Leones de Desierto, Lions of the Desert, is a 1,867 hectare national park and is between 2,600 and 3,700 meters in altitude so considerably cooler up there. The area was used as a retreat for a religious group, thus the name Desierto (desert) means not "arid place", but not populated.  The "Leones" part of the name does not refer to the animals, but rather to the original landlord's last name. The park is considered to be the oldest protected biospheres in Mexico. It was originally declared a forest reserve in 1876 with the intent of conserving its fresh water springs to supply Mexico City. It was later declared a national park on 27 November 1917.  Crowds of people throng up there to picnic, tour the ex-monastery 

and eat casadillas in the big open air restaurant. 

The aftermath

The physical environment is very different from the city up there, alpine and cool, but it's a quintessentially Mexican family Sunday scene.  On the way back home, I happened to glance over to the east and, oh my gosh!  there were the iconic mountains,

 Popocatépetl 5,426m

 and Iztaccihuatl 5230m

It's not very often that the air is clear enough to see them, this was a rare treat.

A few days ago Harry and I went to Coyoacan, a lovely, genteel old neighbourhood.  Harry had never been there and wanted to see Frida Kahlo's Blue House and the neighbourhood where she and Diego Rivera and Leon Trotsky lived.  Frida's house is a very popular tourist attraction but, it being a week day, I thought it wouldn't be too crowded.  Wrong.  Tour buses were parked all over and the lineup was dauntingly long so we walked to the mercado and had ceviche tostadas followed by a beer on the plaza.  Returning to Frida's we were again put off by the line and went to the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Museum of Popular Culture where there was an exhibit featuring the work of the cartoonist, Gabriel Vargas whose comic strip, La Familia Burrón, was created in 1937. This cartoon has been described as one of the most important in Mexican popular culture.  These are some of his whimsical characters:

 

Returning back to Frida's once more we were relieved to see that there wasn't a lineup and, though it was still crowded inside, Harry had a chance to see the exhibits and admire that beautiful home and get a rather intimate perspective on her life.

Sunset reflection