Last night, after our first great discovery of Mexico City, I had a couple of hours of rest before Vanessa and her mom took me to one of the most picturesque areas of the city: Coyoacán, an area located south of downtown from the city. The traffic to get there, as you can imagine, was absolutely incredible: 4 lane streets with no markings, people weaving in and out between cars at will, trucks crossing right in front of us with only a few millimeters to spare… Thankfully we made it without a scratch and finally arrived at our destination: the well preserved colonial zone of “Coyoacán” whose name literally means “Place of the Coyotes”. Indeed, in the center of the Centennial Garden there is a large fountain with two coyotes.

Coyoacán is one of the most historic areas of Mexico City and almost 5 centuries ago, Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, and his indigenous lover “La Malinche” spent a lot of time here. Today the whole area is full of cafes, restaurants and bars, and there are a variety of craft and food markets to visit. Three famous personalities had their homes here and all three buildings have been converted into museums. The home of Mexico’s most famous muralist, Diego Rivera, has been turned into a museum. Her ex-wife, Frida Kahlo, also lived in Coyoacán and spent most of her life in this house and eventually died here. Ella Rivera’s ex-husband donated the house to the public in 1955, shortly after Frida’s death. Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary, also lived in a house in the Coyoacán area after having lived with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Trotsky went to great lengths to secure his house to protect it from Stalin’s assassins, but in May 1940 his house was attacked and machine-gunned for twenty minutes. Then 3 months later, Trotsky was mortally wounded after being stabbed with an ice pick.

So, Coyoacán has some pretty interesting historical tidbits to offer. We sat in a quaint cafe next to the Jardin Centenario and had some sandwiches. I enjoyed a crepe with a variety of syrups such as strawberry, mango, and blueberry. We were accompanied by Vanessa’s best friend, whom she has known since they were 12 years old, and her boyfriend, a sociologist. There was a lot of noise – live music coming from behind us in the restaurant, from the restaurant next door, and from buskers stopping right in front of our table. I have always been very interested in the social sciences, so I jumped at the chance to talk to a sociologist. We had a very interesting conversation about how difficult it is to find a job in your field under a government that has a “neoliberal” agenda. According to him, the social sciences are not very well funded in Mexico, but a lot of funding is dedicated to private universities for engineering and science projects. He also gave me a quick overview of the political parties in Mexico, very interesting as the national elections are coming up on July 2 this year. After our lively discussion we went back to rest for another great day of discoveries tomorrow.