We've been going to Mexico City with some regularity recently to visit Jim's opthalmologist. We haven't stayed overnight except following his surgery, but even our short stays have intrigued me and have made DF seem like a place I'd really like to explore. We arrive by bus at TAPO and take a taxi to El Hospital Angeles del Pedregal in the very most southwestern edge of the city. Sometimes our taxis go through the streets, sometimes on the highways. For weeks, jacarandas were in bloom, filling the air with clouds of beautiful purplish blossoms. Our next trip is this coming Wednesday. For many of our visits, the air has been remarkably clear and free of pollution, but now there is an ozone alert and people are supposed to avoid driving.
However, it is also the 110th birthday of Harley Davidson motorcycles and a grand procession of them took place en El Zócalo, Mexico City's heart.
In spite of the alert, Miguel Ángel Mancera, mayor of Mexico City, has justified the incursion of all the motorcycles for economic reasons: hotel reservations and so forth.
Harley Davidsons weren't so friendly to México during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, more or less. According to today's La Jornada, "There is a history of Harleys in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. It's said that when Francisco [Pancho] Villa was angered by US support for Porfirio Díaz, the dictator overthrown during the Revolution,he crossed the frontier with his men to sack various towns in New Mexico. The government in Washington wasn't too thrilled with this and so authorized the US army to attack Villa in Mexico. The US sent twenty thousand men to follow him and his followers mounted on Harley Davidsons, many of them equipped with machine guns. The foreigners didn't succeed in defeating Villa and had to return to the US on their motorcycles.
If you read Spanish, the article in La Jornada about Harleys is definitely worth your time. The material in this post comes from the La Jornada article and from Notimex via Aristegui Noticias. The first photo is from the latter, the second from the former.