el crispito

Boat Dance, Xochimilco

You can read plenty on Xochimilco that I won't duplicate here. Instead, here are a few items that you might want to know.

• Prices published as late as 2005 show an hour ride costing 140 pesos. We were charged 300. Did they more than double their prices or did we pay the gringo tax? We're not sure. There may be an official price board (often tourist attractions in Mexico will have these, and I think it may be a legal requirement), so if you're going, you might want to look into that before boarding.
• While the metro can be taken to get there, it seems that the trip would take a couple of hours, maybe more, to get from downtown Mexico City to the embarcadero. We took a tourist taxi from the Condesa df, and it cost us MXN $300. Often, it seems these taxis from hotels are a rip off. This trip seemed well worth the price, and we were dropped off right at the embarcadero.
• The driver advised us that there is a type of pork that they serve at the embarcadero that is out of this world. We're vegetarians, as you surely know by now, so we can't report on that.
• Getting a cab back from Xochimilco can be a hassle. Santiago (after driving us down there) talked to a friend there about getting us a "secure" cab back to the city, and he said he'd take care of it for us. It turns out that our very nice guide took care of this for us, waiting with us in the embarcadero parking lot until we left. If you're going, you might want to tip your guide on the boat and ask if they could help you arrange safe return transportation.
• You can buy sodas, beer, food and songs from various types of musicians while on the water. Two sodas and a water cost us MXN $60, and a song from a band of floating mariachi cost us MXN $70. I can't tell you about the food.
• There's a soft sales pitch. Like tour guides and buses that make a stop at a factory so that tourists can buy mementos and the guides can get kickbacks, we stopped at a little greenhouse during the trip, and near the end, our guide pulled out a big case full of jewelry of his design. They were not too pushy about it, and honestly, the jewelry was really cool. But you may want to be prepared for these "opportunities," since guidebooks tell you to take only the bare minimum of cash with you when out and about in Mexico City.

Shawn and I were not aware from having seen countless photos and travel shows about Xochimilco that there are lots of houses right next to the canals. You'll also see lots of greenhouses and a few places selling things like ice and drinks.

Lakeside House, Xochimilco

Our guides were both Xochimilcas, which means nowadays that they live in Xochimilco. The jewelry designer (on the left below) is Mayan, so there was a little joking about how he's not really of the indigenous group of Xochimilcas, even though he's called that.

Our Guides, Xochimilco

After a delightful and relaxing afternoon at Xochimilco, we were yet again reminded that life in Mexico is often stranger than fiction. After our guide had spent a fair bit of effort trying to arrange a cab for us back to the city (he made several calls that went unanswered, and the one driver in the parking lot was hesitant to take us), we finally crammed ourselves into the little VW bug taxi and took off for downtown. The seats were boxes of springs with thin coverings over them and sitting in the back seat, I had to sit on my leg. The driver asked us if we liked Creedence as he was flipping through the discs in his glove box, and we responded that we did. He then proceded to pull out the disc under that and put it in his CD player. Okay, it was banda and not my favorite of the Mexican musical genres, but it was his cab and as long as we made it back to the hotel in one piece, I didn't care about the music.

When the traffic got a little thick, he switched off the music. Shawn asked if he wanted a different CD, and he explained that he needed to concentrate because of the traffic. At certain points, he was, as Shawn described it, "driving like a grandmother." (Not you, Mimsie. He means a slow-driving grandmother.) When we got into the city, he became noticeably more anxious, timidly changing lanes and at one point being forced off the main road by a truck. Shawn quickly had to pull out his handy map and serve as navigator to the driver through Mexico City, and Shawn's not exactly an expert with the roads of Mexico City. Still, he did a stellar job, as did the driver, and an hour after we left Xochimilco, we pulled up at the Condesa df.

Knowing that he was used to driving only around Xochimilco and had been aprehensive about taking us through the city, Shawn congratulated him on doing a great job in getting us there. The driver laughed and then told us that yes, he was a little nervous, because he only has one eye. He then lifted his sunglasses to show Shawn his blank, dead, bluish-purple eye.

As we were walking later on to a local restaurant and battling the traffic ourselves, Shawn said "I hope our driver made it back okay." For all we know, he could be driving around still in downtown, stuck in some glorieta. At least he has Creedence to keep him company.