San Ángel, UNAM, MUAC

Yesterday was a pretty busy day. I set out early after grabbing a bowl of cereal at the house and set out for San Angel and UNAM. I had intended to head all the way down to a smaller village not yet totally engulfed in the city, where there is a chapel designed by Luis Barragan, but I read it was closed, so I decided to start with San Angel. I took the MetroBus down avenida insurgentes from Revolucion. Insurgetes is an interesting street, a major through fare, with nice restaurants, office buildings, and a mix of everything. It took a long time to ride down, but it was interesting to ride on the street level and see a long section of the city. And because it was mid-morning on a weekend, it wasn’t too packed.

I jumped off at Bomberos, and from there it was a short walk west to the main square of San Angel, along streets lined with cobblestones. There are a series of a small squares, public spaces, and all the vendors were setting up for the day. Much more of a artisenal fair with native handicrafts, soaps, embroidery, and wooden masks. It seems San Angel is a hot tourist spot as well- lots of foreigners. Around the square were a few highly curated and highly expensive artisan craft stores for the upmarket tourist and expat, as well as a slew of smaller boutiques selling one-off clothes, designer jewelry, and higher quality craft goods and pottery.

Looked like some really nice cafes and shaded patio restaurants as well. I, on my short budget, opted for a smaller joint filled with locals and had ordered a plate of scrambled egg enchiladas with sweet green chili sauce, served with a roll, refried beans, coffee, and orange juice.

San Angel is one of Sal’s favorite neighborhoods, and I can see why- the market square is picturesque, but its nothing compared to the quiet, narrow cobblestone lanes and the giant old houses with massive old, wooden doors, colorful walls and the beautiful flowering trees. It’s just a lovely place to wander and get lost.
Also in San Angel, at the edge of the neighborhood, is the venerable church of El Carmen, an ancient church with a stark and empty churchyard. The church was kind of pretty, but the real prize is the monastery next door.

The sprawling monastery was run by a Carmelite order of nuns, and constitutes a huge complex of gardens, courtyards, cellars, halls, chapels, and cells. All the walls are whitewashed adobe 2’ thick, so windows are special moments of carving away the wall. There was a surprising amount of light and space, something very restful and serene about wandering through.

(The Carmelites, for reasons I have yet to discover, sold the monastary to the federal government, which turned it over to the INAH, basically the department of culture. They run most of the big museums in the capital, including the Museum of Anthropology)

Or, rather, would have been serene, had I not volunteered to photograph a gaggle of teenagers (there were a lot of teens and early 20-somethings in groups here, for some reason) who were trying to take a group shot. From then on, members of the group kept talking to me, asking me about where I was from, and what I thought of Mexico, and one of the more bold girls flatly asked me if I was single. After all of her friends started giggling, she turned to them and basically said “he’s cute!"

My grandmother warned me about “those flirty Mexican girls" (but really, 1 pass in 3 weeks is really not much. I’m sure people hit on Saori all the time.)

Anyway, the big draw to the monastery apart from the extensive collection of 17th century art and furniture is the mummies in the basement. They have about a dozen mummified bodies displayed in glassed-in coffins. Nobody really knows who they are, or why they were mummified in the church. Pretty spooky and gruesome, they look like what you expect mummies to look like, shriveled, eyeless, some with long hair, clothes turned ashen and tattered, slack jawed.

From San Angel, I walked to UNAM. The Universidad Nacional Automonous Mexico (more or less) is the second oldest university in the Americas. Apparently, it used to be located in the historic center, but the powers that be decided that a bunch of rambunctious students running around the old palaces was a bad idea, so they kicked them down to a massive complex south of the city.

But what a complex! The entire thing was planned and built in the 1960s by modern architects, so its a complex of buildings on pilotis, massive murals, an unbelievably huge field of a quad its difficult to see across. Surprisingly, there were two guys tossing an American football around. I walked around, took some photos, and continued on my way south.

I walked to MUAC (the university museum of contemporary art) which was a big mistake. It’s actually on a south campus, which is separated from the main campus by a massive lava field/nature preserve. To walk it, you’re on a sidewalk with a fence and a lava field wilderness on one side, and a freeway on the other. Not the most pleasant experience. Should have taken the metrobus. Anyway, I did make it to the museum, which is a great work of modern museum architecture. I wanted to shoot so many photos but my camera was out of batteries. They had a gift shop associated with the MoMa in New York, but also had some really cool Mexican designers work featured, including the work of a jewelry designer a friend of mine knew. The downstairs has a restaurant with glass floors over the native lava rocks. Pretty cool, need to go back again.
Sensibly took the metrobus back to the city center, and grabbed some tacos al pastor for dinner before heading back to the house