One overcast afternoon in Mexico City, I took to the streets of Colonia Condesa armed with a small camera and backed up by posse of creative people who are as passionate about the D.F. as I am. We did what I love doing independently; we walked all over the neighborhood aimlessly, taking pictures of everything.

I was with the group I’d spent the day with at the art school while they worked on their mural. It was an awesome experience to walk around with people who enjoyed making regular stops to take pictures and we had six sets of eyes to pick up all the details of the neighborhood.

Condesa is one of Mexico City’s more famous colonias. It’s another one of the Barrios Mágicos and it’s known for being a trendy part of town. But like the rest of the D.F., you can always find a bit of grittiness and a few quirks in the mix:

A flower stall at busy intersection.

More flowers for sale.

ECOBICI, Mexico City’s bike sharing program.

Pretty tiles in cracked wall.

A restaurant waiting for its dinnertime crowd.

The “Love Ambulance”.

Creative wheat paste advertisements for a website that provides guides to the city. I identify with the woman in the upper left hand corner who has springs where her feet should be.

Separate bins for compost and regular waste in Parque Mexico. A friend from Mexico tells me that people don’t pay attention to this and throw their trash into any bin, but I like the effort and the potential it has.

The art deco street signs in Condesa are charming.

The Lindberg Theater in Parque Mexico being used for skating and recreation.

A building uniquely decorated with globe shaped light fixtures.

The Condesa branch of a Mexico City bookstore called El Pendulo. The Polanco branch is the most famous, but this one is also wonderful.

Of course once inside El Pendulo, I gravitated towards this.

Really great street art painted onto a piece of paper and attached to a post. Sorry if this scared you as you were scrolling down!

More street art. I like the way whoever did it took advantage of an already deep red wall to make something simple and vivid.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

On paper, the size and population of Mexico City can seem overwhelming. But aside from when I’m downtown or using the busy metro system, it often surprises me how the city doesn’t feel as populated or massive as it really is.

There are 16 boroughs in Mexico City, and within each borough are several neighborhoods. Some of the boroughs like Coyoacán and Xochimilco used to be separate towns that were swallowed up by the city over time.

While Mexico City as a whole seems to revolve around the historical center, more than other cities I’ve visited, the individual neighborhoods tend to have their own distinct character and vivacious centers. To me, this makes Mexico City feel more like a unified collection of towns rather than the big sprawling mass that it is.

In 2011, Mexico City decided to designate 21 of the most charming and historical neighborhoods as  “Barrios Magicos” (Magical Neighborhoods). Unsurprisingly, as a visitor to Mexico City, I’ve spent the bulk of my time in places that are on that list. Here are some everyday images from two of them, Roma and Coyoacán (and a few more from just outside):

An old bus turned in to public art parked outside a square in Roma.

Beautiful architecture in Roma.

A street in Coyoacán, not far from Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul.

The area around the central plazas of Coyoacán can be lively at night. It was a rainy night, but there were several vendors, plenty of people out, and live music under a tent in one of the plazas.

I love the joy in this photo. And the churros were delicious.

During the day I spent at CenArt, we picked up tortas for lunch in a charming neighborhood just outside Coyoacán. The flowers above and the following pictures were taken there.

Etched into a sidewalk. It made me a little wistful about my time in Cuba when I saw it.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had a friend from the States who was in Mexico City at the same time as me. She was there with a small art class and they were kind enough to let me tag along for one day of their mural painting.

The wall space they were provided with was located at CenArt, a colorful multidisciplinary art and education center in the Coyoacan borough of Mexico City. Painting is not a medium I specialize in, but I did get to put in a few strokes of light blue for the sky. I really enjoyed being in that environment for the day, surrounded by creative people in such an artistic space:

Really great art work on display on display in one of the lobbies.

Even the workshop space looked so artistic.

A work in progress.

A little garden made with recycled scraps.

Their almost finished mural against a backdrop of two very colorful buildings.

The resident cat relaxing in the bushes.

Centro Nacional de las Artes (CenArt)
Avenida Rio Churubusco 79
Colonia Country Club
Coyoacán, 04220
Ciudad de México

Visit their website for information on performances and exhibitions.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

In addition to wanting to explore a new colonia, I decided to base myself in the Roma-Condesa area for a few days so I could be just a little closer to Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park. On my first full day back in the D.F., I took a long and self-misguided walk to the park, and eventually found it with a lot of help from kind people along the way.

Chapultepec is akin to Central Park; it’s a huge tree-filled refuge from the city that houses various sights of interest and cultural institutions. One the most notable of them is the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. If you’ve been following my Mexico posts, you know that I have a keen interest in Mexico’s history and culture. This museum was like a culmination of all the places and stories I’d examined thus far plus an introduction to parts of Mexico and its history that I have yet to explore.

I didn’t get to spend too much time in the park, but I did enjoy my walk in on my way to the museum and seeing more unexpected sides of Mexico City.

A monument to the Ninoes Heroes, six teenage soldiers who died defending the castle in Chapultepec during the Mexican-American War.

The base of a large sculpture and fountain in the courtyard of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia.  It’s called “El Paraguas” and resembles a giant ornate umbrella that doesn’t protect you from the rain.

This is kind of like a plea to be remembered. Beautiful and applicable for the setting, but at the same time it’s sad to think about how what has been forced out of existence by oppression often gets reduced to a museum exhibit.

A hologram wall depicting faces of people or their skulls depending on where you’re standing. A poignant reminder of our similarities beneath the surface.

A model of Teotihuacan’s Temple of Quetzalcoatl.

A map of Tenochtitlan, i.e., what the area Mexico City encompasses looked like before the Spanish arrived and eventually drained the lake.

An Olmec head. These are incredible. In addition to being enormous, these heads are also known for their features which puzzle people because they more closely resemble African or Pacific Islander features than those of Mexico’s indigenous populations.

Portraits and stories of indigenous people of Mexico. I really like the way this was presented.

In one part of the museum, they use mannequins and sets to present life size depictions of culture in different parts of Mexico. Pictured here is Volador from the state of Veracruz. Apparently if you are lucky, there are certain times when the museum holds live performances of the Danza de los Voladores.

Beads, alebrijes and other crafts from the state of Oaxaca.

An intricate Tree of Life sculpture.

Tip: The Museo Nacional de Antropologia is extensive, so if you want to visit it, I recommend setting aside a whole day for it and another separate day for Chapultepec park.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

Happy holidays! I’m in Swakopmund, Namibia and I’ve just returned to connection to the outside world after spending a few days in Etosha National Park searching for rhinos, lions, zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, ostriches, buffalos, leopards, and elephants. We spotted most of those animals, but most of all we saw springboks (a kind of gazelle) everywhere.

In the desert-covered Namibia, Christmas is during summer, so people take elements of Euro-centric holiday traditions and fuse them with some local flavor. At one of the lodges in Etosha, someone placed a Santa doll on top of a springbok, the closest thing the country has to reindeer.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

Like a plant photography nerd rebel, I snuck into a botanical garden. Except at the time, I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be there. When I walked up to the entrance, there were two security guards chatting away. I made brief eye contact with them and they didn’t say anything so I kept on walking. I walked pass a few people who looked like they worked in the Santo Domingo complex where the garden is located. They also said nothing. So I took out my camera and started taking pictures of a few of the 1,300+ varieties of plants that are housed there.

Then out of nowhere, a woman came into the garden saying I wasn’t allowed in without a tour and I had to leave. Oops. I knew there were free tours of the garden, but I didn’t know that you were required to be on one to go in. But I made the most of my short visit while it lasted:

So much creativity went into the design of the garden.

Love this shot, only wish that the bird hadn’t decided to leave a present on the cactus that it’s perched upon.

Really great placement of a reflecting pool.

In more rural semi arid parts of Mexico, sometimes you’ll see houses with landscaping that include a fence of of cacti like this.

After the woman kicked me out of the garden, I took one last picture of a huge agave plant before I left.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

Not far from Oaxaca city, in the town of Cuilapan de Guerrero, is a monastery that bears many similarities to the often lively church and monastery of Santo Domingo. But Cuilapan’s Convento de Santiago Apóstol took on very different fate. Before it was finished being built, it was abandoned.

While Cuilapan is now a quiet pastoral town, before and during the colonial era, it was an important settlement. In colonial times, the Spanish started the construction of the monastery there as a place to convert the indigenous Mixtec and Zapotec people of the region.

It became an elaborate, expensive, and of course, exploitative endeavor. The construction of it was halted in the 1570s.  No one is fully sure why, but common ideas are because it violated the Spanish mandate for modesty and authorities stopped it, not enough funds were available to complete it, there were disputes over who should pay for it, or a decline in the indigenous population resulted in fewer hands to build the church. Or maybe some combination of two or more of the above.

What was built of the the formidable Convento de Santiago complex still stands, but time has taken its toll:

Fading murals.

Mexico had a president of African descent almost two hundred years before the United States did. Vincente Guerrero, a man of mixed races, helped liberate Mexico from the Spanish. When he became the second president of Mexico in 1829, he abolished slavery in the country. He was essentially assassinated at the Convento de Santiago less than two years into his presidency. This is a memorial to him.

The stairs have become warped. It’s really easy to trip on them if you’re not paying attention.

The courtyard of the monastery looked almost exactly like Santo Domingo’s, but without upkeep.

A small outdoor section has been turned into a garden.

I’m glad I found my way to the roof where there were beautiful views of Oaxaca’s Valles Central region.

The bucolic surroundings of the church were a nice change of scenery for a day. Here, a barefoot man is herding goats.

The row of arches in the forefront stops abruptly on the left side.

In some parts of the complex, you can see some Mixtec elements incorporated into the design.

A row of arches contrasts with a line of unfinished column bases and creates unintended asymmetry in the roofless basilica.

The entry way to the basilica.

The complex.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

Plaza Santo Domingo is a place where I’ve spent a lot of time in Oaxaca. Like other squares in Latin America, it is a multipurpose space. On a busier day in Plaza Santo Domingo, you might encounter traditional music or a colorful wedding procession performance. On other days, it is a family room, a meeting and hang out spot for friends and families and foreigners.

On many days, it is wonderfully quiet. While Oaxaca’s Zocalo (the main square) is usually buzzing with activity and protests and inspiration, the often quieter Santo Domingo is where I’d go to sit in a perfectly empty square with a notebook and head already brimming with thoughts.

In addition to slow travel days and public celebrations at Santo Domingo, this year I also decided to explore some of it’s cultural offerings:

The facade of Santo Domingo.

Sheet music from Oaxaca’s colonial era inside the Santo Domingo Cultural Center.

On the second floor of the Cultural Center, there are many great view points of the plaza and beyond. On the one side, the windows look out over Oaxaca’s botanical garden.

Detailed painting on the ceiling of the Santo Domingo Cultural Center.

The Santo Domingo Cutural Center is housed in what used to be the church’s monastery. If you visit Oaxaca and you’re interested in the local history, the Cultural Center is where you should begin. There are many rooms full of artfully arranged items from Oaxaca’s history and I spent hours visiting all of them.

The architecture of Santo Domingo is fascinating to me. Over two summers, I’ve taken many many pictures of it and the desert plants that decorate the plaza.

The courtyard in the center of the Santo Domingo Cultural Center.

People preparing for wedding festivities. Weddings at Santo Domingo are a fun affair for anyone who happens to be nearby when they occur. The church remains open during the ceremony and following the ceremony, you might catch a song and dance performance in the square and a procession through town with music and a large paper mache statues.

Elaborate gold leaf detail at the altar inside the Santo Domingo.

The detail on the ceiling inside Santo Domingo is unreal.

Young graduates gathering in the Plaza Santo Domingo for picture taking and socializing.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

On the quiet continuation of a Centro street in Oaxaca, I come across the ruins of an old aqueduct. Weeds spring out of the top of worn brick and stone arches that once carried water from the mountains to the city. Houses are built right up against the aqueduct. I’m not sure how there is room left for it in Oaxaca, but there is even more charm and quaintness in this part of town.

Walking along the aqueduct, for a brief moment I feel like I’m in a previous era. It’s more than the structure’s relic status. There’s the rustic nature of the materials used and the roundness of the arches. These are elements that are often forgone in more modern creations but constitute a kind of beauty that is simple and timeless. The structure is of a period where function and beauty were allowed to intermingle more regularly.

As I continue, I think about the ongoing water shortage in Oaxaca. I wonder what it might have been like to walk along the aqueduct when it was in use, beginning in the mid-1700s and almost 200 years thereafter. I wonder if such visibility of the flow of water makes you think more about its source, how it’s used, and how much of it there is.

I wonder about the people who currently live their lives up against this beautiful relic. Those who walk and drive through the arches daily. I wonder if it’s just a bunch of stone and brick to them or if it’s as gorgeous to them as it is to my unfamiliar eyes. I wonder if everyday they are enchanted by Los Arquitos and tickled when they duck to walk through doors behind arches.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.

As I was sifting through photos last night, I came across this shot of one of the coolest murals I saw in the street art-friendly city of Berlin. I spotted it at the East Side Gallery, a long stretch of murals that cover a section of remnants of the Berlin Wall.

The car smashing through the wall is a Trabant, the main vehicle of the German Democratic Republic (the former East Germany). The license place displays the date, November 9, 1989. That was the day the Berlin Wall fell.

I remember that day and the events that followed. I saw images of it on the news. Crowds poured across the border, people partied on top of the wall, and the emotions were intense. I was way too young to have any idea why such a border could exist and what the fall of it really meant, but I knew it was something big.

My young mind also couldn’t have imagined that almost twenty-two years later, I’d find myself standing in some of those same places I saw on the news, now with an understanding of that wall’s significance and a palpable sense of the potency of witnessing and experiencing history.

©2012 Girl, Unstoppable. All Rights Reserved.