Going for a Run

My companions were having a slow start to the day, so I decided to go for a run. I ran to Chapultepec Park. Lizy wanted to go later, so I figured I could scope it out for the group. I ran under the big highway overpass. I noticed for the first time that all the walk signs in Mexico City are animated.

The boundary of the park is marked by a wrought iron fence. There are a series of gates that allow visitors to gain access. In Mexico City it seems very common to fence area ofs parks or highways, in a way that I is unfamiliar to me.Perhaps this is to prevent public spaces from becoming overrun with homeless people, like they have been in San Francisco. I was reminded of the debate around Berkeley trying to build student housing in People’s Park.

People’s Park Digression

People’s Park is a park in Berkeley surrounded by student housing. One of my colleagues, Shreya lived in one of the houses on the boundary of the park. It was historically the site of protests, which gave it its name. It’s ostensibly for students to recreate, however it is mostly a camp for homeless people.

Berkeley wanted to shrink the park to build additional student housing. There’s not enough student housing as it is, the university owns the land, and the students aren’t really able to use the park anyways, so it seems like a natural decision. However, there was a large protest movement since the public space was a home for the unhoused.

I heard about the public debate that was sparked on the radio driving to work. What responsibility did the University have to the homeless living in the park? What responsibility did they have the students? Shreya told me she sometimes felt unsafe walking home at night. I don’t have any of the answers, but Mexico’s City’s answer is to fence off the park.

False Start

The gate into Chapultepec Park was closed. There was a sign in spanish on the gate that I tried to read using Google Translate. As my phone was loading a gate guard unlocked the gate. Finally, I could go in, I thought. But, before I could dash in, a biker walked his bike out of the park, and the guard relocked the gate. How had he got in the park? I started trying to communicate to the guard using Google Translate.

“The whole park is closed?” I mimed out the whole thing with my arms.

“Yes.”

Did he say yes? Did he understand what I was asking? Suddenly, another runner came up to the gate. He was bilingual.

“Can you ask him if really the whole park is closed?” I said.

“Yes, he says,” the runner said after talking to the guard.

“But I saw a biker comer out. Can you ask him about the biker?”

They talked for a little bit back and forth. The runner turned back to me.

“I don’t understand how there was a biker in the park. The whole thing is closed on Mondays.”

Then the man ran off.

Rest of the Run

I continued my run on the streets of the city. I found a sort of trail in the middle of a road. On some roads in Mexico City there is like a third sidewalk in the centre of the road. Then I accidentally stumbled upon a running trail that circled the two Condesa Parks we had seen a few days ago. It was a nice, well maintained trail. There were outdoor calisthenics equipment, which one person was using. There were some other runners and walkers.

Most businesses seemed to be closed for Christmas Day. People were happily enjoying their day off strolling through the city with their family.

I ran back to the condo and found the group also ready for the day.

Driving into the Third Section of Chapultepec Park

I told Lizy that Chapultepec was closed on Mondays. She was surprised, but also surprised me by telling me there were two additional sections of the park that weren’t gated so in practice couldn’t be closed. We decided to drive to the third section, because it looked the most wild on Google Maps. On our way to the park we accidentally drove into a series of gated housing communities. They all had beautiful houses that were on a hill overlooking the third section of Chapultepec Park. Elizabeth wondered what theres people must do to have such big houses. We had to reverse and drive back out.

We finally found the road into the park. As we drove down into the valley containing the park we saw two cops sitting on a bench. “Why are there cops here,” I wondered aloud. Not one minute later another two cops were sitting by a lit fire, even though it was the middle of a sunny day.

“Why are there more cops,” Lizy said.

We never would figure out why and it cast a mysterious shadow over the third section of Chapultepec Park. Driving through the park there were no more cops, but it was unclear how we were supposed to interact with the park. There didn’t seem to be any place to stop the car and we didn’t see any walking paths. The act of recreating in the park felt like a crossword puzzle. We ended up just driving through and back out of the ravine.

Chinese Food in Mexico City

We were already hungry for lunch. Not much was open on Christmas Day, but Lizy heroically found an open Chinese restaurant. We ended up being the only non-chinese people in the restaurant. We ordered four bowls of noodles and a cold vegetable side dish. The food came very fast and was very delicious. The cold vegetable dish was flavoured with vinegar, chili, and sichuan peppercorn. It contained shredded potato and shredded green beans mostly.

For a main I got a noodle soup with beef broth and pickled vegetables. I thought it was a unique and interesting flavour, but Lizy thought the dish was overly sour and weird and preferred the spicy oily noodles she had ordered.

The other patrons in the restaurant seemed surprised we could use chopsticks. Maybe it’s less common for non-chinese people to eat chinese food in Mexico. We told the table next to us that in United States and Canada it’s common for white people to eat chinese food.

Second Section of Chapultepec

Andy was feeling tired, so we dropped Andy and Elizabeth back at the condo, then Lizy and I drove to the second section of Chapultepec park. The second section was much more developed than the third section. We saw families strolling through field, people playing soccer, and groups of friends picnicking. There was a closed amusement park and a non operational fountain.

We got out of our car and walked around. We saw a statue of a man lying in a pool of water. Even though the park wasn’t fenced there seemed to be a lot of arbitrary places small patches of fences inside the park. I could not quite figure out the fences. After walking around a bit we got back in the car and drove back to the condo as well.

Dinner

Lizy cleaned the shrimp she had bought at the market. Elizabeth diced some vegetables. I made shrimp ala Mexicana. I put one serrano in to make it a little spicy.