Xochimilco: Garden of Flowers
By Kate Blood
5 September 2008
It's early Sunday morning and a group of mariachis serenade birthday celebrants riding boats covered in splashes of primary-colored paint. The mariachi show is a comedy act. The group dances, sings, wiggles their behinds and daringly jumps from one rocking boat to another.
Beneath the boat canopies, wooden tables bear the weight of tubs filled with ice; bottles of beer and soda pop. A dozen adults link arms and sing along with the rowdy musicians; others snack on freshly grilled tortillas and corn on the cob.
As we move past this floating festival, children riding at the back of the boats smile with enthusiasm and wave hello. I wonder if the young boy piloting our own brightly painted craft has ever enjoyed such a peaceful day. Perhaps this hard-working youngster sees Xochimilco's historic floating gardens as nothing but back breaking work.
I'd like to ask our pilot about his life, but I don't speak Spanish. My long time friend, Rebecca, who lives in Mexico and attends a language school, sits on the other side of the boat. She and our driver, Armando, look so relaxed and happy that I decide against starting what might become a difficult discussion. Besides, another vendor has edged his green and blue vessel up against our boat. The salesman jumps aboard, carrying a sample case filled with hundreds of pieces of sparkling silver jewelry. The boat is now a floating jewelry store and Rebecca finds the offerings too tantalizing to resist. She bargains over several pieces and at the end of the negotiations becomes the owner of a lovely pair of delicate silver earrings.
Armando is not so sure Rebecca has scored the best price, but I can tell she is as pleased by the experience of successfully bargaining in Spanish as she is with her new silver hoops. I am equally pleased with our new friend, Armando, a driver from the Mundo Joven tourist agency.
Armando has been looking out for us all morning -- choosing a casual dock-side taqueria for breakfast quesadillas and a lesser known landing for the selection of our bright red boat (or trajinera, I was to learn later).
Another vendor cruises by offering stuffed toys, child-size guitars and miniature trajineras. I choose two trajineras painted in the same Day-Glo colors of our boat -- one topped with swans whose necks intertwine and another with "Xochimilco" written on the canopy. Each boat is crafted by hand and is priced at the equivalent of two U.S. dollars.
A vessel carrying young lovers drifts by. The boy pulls himself away from the girl's embrace long enough to flag down a floating cocktail vendor. Pesos exchange hands and the couple sips margaritas served in plastic cups with rims dipped in an orangey chili powder mixture.
As we float down a side canal, the setting changes. Several vendor boats line the banks in preparation for lunch service. Charcoal for cooking stoves is heating up and puffs of gray smoke cloud the air.
The trailing waterway and jungle-like vegetation could be a scene out of Apocalypse Now. Thankfully, the most dangerous aspect of this morning is the bull terrier running along the canal banks yapping at each passerby.
Rounding a curve we pass water-side homes that would not be out of place in suburban Northern California except for the businesses built on or alongside each property. One family has a greenhouse and garden shop extending their front yard. We decide not to disembark since the store's floating satellite shopkeepers have already presented us with a selection of cactus and blooming plants.
Another home offers float-in (as opposed to drive-in) ice cream: Five different flavors are served at the canal's edge from old-fashioned wooden ice cream makers painted vibrant orange and yellow.
Multi-colored flags fly in the breeze and Rebecca spies a pay-toilet business at the side of another home. We disembark and pay a few pesos to enter the bright purple and pink painted stalls. As we hand over our money, the owner offers thin sheets of gray tissue and reminds us to put the used paper in a bucket next to the toilet.
This time I ask what may be difficult questions and learn from Armando, through Rebecca's translation, that the sewage systems in much of Mexico are not as robust as what I am accustomed to at home. Paper always goes into the bucket; not the commode.
We talk about the recent improvement in Xochimilco's water quality. UNESCO has now declared Xochimilco's floating gardens a Cultural Heritage Site, but in the 1970s and 1980s, these canals had become a depository for the city's waste waters. Contaminated by residential and industrial pollution, the water could not be used for food crops, so local residents increased flower cultivation. Today the water is muddy but glimmers in spots with a healthy blue-green algae that grows on the water's surface.
It is difficult to imagine that 500 years ago Xochimilco was the agricultural hub of the great Aztec city of Tenochtitlan -- providing food for over 250,000 residents.
In 2008, Mexico City residents rely on Xochimilco's floating gardens for a break from the chaos of modern metropolitan life. Less than an hours drive from the Zócalo, every weekend hundreds of city dwellers escape for an afternoon floating along the waterways.
On the drive back to the Zócalo, Armando, Rebecca and I rarely speak. We have settled into that comfortable quiet easily enjoyed by good friends. But I'm sure each of us is also deep in thought -- wishing we were back in a swan-adorned trajinera, floating along the tranquil waters of Xochimilco.
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