Welcome to Mexico City. Now, this is not just any city, it's a huge metropolis that's home to
9 million people. And honestly, I know Mexico City doesn't have the best reputation, but today I
wanna show you a very different side to this city, maybe a side that you didn't even know existed.
So in this episode, we're gonna travel to 3 very different neighborhoods across Mexico City,
and we're gonna see how people who call them home, live and work. Are you ready? Vamos! Let's go!
This isn't gonna be your typical tour of Mexico City. Yes, this city is brimming with
art galleries, museum sparks and historic architecture, but you can find all of that
quite easily in guidebooks. Today, I want to show you an alternative side to Mexico City,
the local sparks you'll see only if you stray a little bit off the beaten path.
We're starting out in the so-called 'barrio magico' or magic neighborhood,
a designation given to the most historic, culturally significant parts of Mexico City.
This is Coyoacán, Nahuatl for the place of the coyotes. I'm starting my tour of Coyoacán with
a quick breakfast in what is meant to be one of the best tourist spots in all of Mexico City.
So I'm about to arrive at this churrería. Hola! - Hola!
A churrería is a place that sells churros which are traditional deep fried dough sticks,
just pieces of deliciousness. And the thing is: this is the menu. It's not a simple choice. So you
can choose a churro with anything from mango, to cappuccino flavoring, to baileys, Nutella,
kiwi, all kinds of fruit, all kinds of delicious fillings that you can imagine.
All right, I made my pick, Nutella. I mean, looking at all that oil, I can definitely say
that churros are probably not the healthiest snack you could find on the streets of Mexico City,
but once in a while... I don't even know where to begin with this.
Which way?
Muy rico.
Gracias. So delicious. So rich. There's so much, so much
sweet deliciousness and cream inside of this. Absolutely amazing.
All right. It's time to burn off all of that sugar and follow the logos to a very typical
Mexican city spot. You know, when you come to a local barrio here in Mexico City, you can't skip
going to a mercado or a market because that's where you see how people go about their day,
how they work, how they live. Mercados are kind of like the souls of each neighborhood. So I'm
gonna take you guys into the Coyoacán Market. Let's see what we can find inside. Let's go!
When you dive into the crowded interior of a local market, your senses instantly become
overwhelmed with the smells, colors and sounds inside. To me, this is as real as it gets if
you want to experience a slice of local culture. So with markets in Mexico City, you don't just get
handy crafts or clothes or just vegetables and fruits. You get often everything pretty much in
the same place, at least here. My theory is you could probably survive in this market for a week
without ever having to leave. You'd have everything that you need.
So right here behind me, we've got Tostadas, apparently one of the most classical street snacks
in Mexico. So I guess you gotta take a seat and try one of those, huh?
Gracias. So here we've got the mushroom tostada, we got this beautiful, not just mushrooms,
but also cream and avocado, of course. And this is our cameraman's tostada with fresh shrimp. So
you can have these with pretty much anything, all kinds of meat, fish. And here's our
surprise. This here is a so-called agua fresca. So you don't really get this in many other countries,
especially not in Europe. This is kind of like a juice, but it's way more refreshing. So it's water
stirred in with some kind of flavoring, often with sugar, and this one is tamarind flavor.
That's not the kind of taste that you see every day, but it's one of my favorites.
It is sweet, cold, refreshing, just the kind of drink you, you could use on a summer day here
in Mexico. All right. Let's dig into the tostada, shall we? I don't even know how
you're supposed to eat this, honestly, but I see people using all kinds of sauces. Just pour it on
like that, I guess. I don't know if this is, I don't know how spicy this is. This could kill me
in a couple of minutes. Let's see. Time will tell. Green salsa. Why not? Looks great. This might turn
out to be devilishly spicy. I don't know if I can handle this. Here we go. My tostada's ready.
It's so great. Just the perfect combination of flavors, and the salsa on top
adds just like zest kick. I can see how you'd stop by the market just for the tostada, honestly.
And with a belly full of delicious Mexican food, it's time to keep exploring.
But right here, I wanna show you something a little bit different.
Check these out. These are so-called alebrijes. They're kind of surreal
abstract, magical animals that you only really find here in Mexico. And they are kind of like a
combination of different kinds of animal usually. So for example, right here, I mean, this to
me looks like a combo of crab and fish and some kind of magical dragon. Right here we've got
a bird painted in all kinds of beautiful patterns with flowers. Okay. I'm gonna pick
out one alebrije and treat it as my token of good luck. These two are my favorites,
but I can only choose one, the coyote or the Pegasus. I think I'm gonna get this one.
Our next stop is Xochimilco, a peaceful oasis on the outskirts of Mexico City. Thanks to its
natural beauty, Xochimilco is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the way to get around here
is on colorful boats called trajineras. On the weekends, you'll see families, both locals and
tourists partying at a big time on these boats. But today I wanna show you a very different
grassroots perspective. And on one of these boats, we meet Ricardo, the founder of an important
project. De la Chinampa, as it's called, works with local farmers on restoring these farmlands,
expanding Xochimilco's natural environment and protecting it from new urban construction.
It also helps provide jobs for more locals while maintaining Xochimilco's traditional
agricultural practices.
So where does all of this delicious food come from?
It comes from here, it's a local food, and we have many products
we harvested yesterday to make this tour. - Amazing.
First we have a salad.
Spinach and cherries and cucumber and carrots come from here. And now here we have
cheese, and we call it queso ranchero. And here in the Black Stone, that we call molcajete,
we have guacamole.
Which means avocados, organic avocados, who come from the mountain.
And we prepare it with cilantro and onion. - Amazing.
But the cilantro come from the chinampas and the onions too. And in that pot,
we have café de olla, a coffee pot.
But is made with cinnamon, natural sugar cane
and Mexican coffee.
One of the best coffees I've ever had in my life. I'm on my second cup.
And I'm planning for a third one.
And in the last one we have quesadillas.
All the products come from Xochimilco. It's local food.
Xochimilco's water canals are the remains of a massive water transportation and food
production system originally built by the Aztecs in the precolonial valley of Mexico.
The small islands or chinampas, which dock the landscape are actually essential for the survival
of Mexico City. They provide it with water, with fresh produce. And since the capital was
built on top of a lake, the chinampas also play a role in stabilizing the ground underneath it,
so it doesn't collapse in on itself.
Wow, it's so beautiful.
This is one of the chinampas. - It's so huge.
The Aztecs fed the people from here, they fed 200,000 people from this area.
Wow! The chinampas are a very productive land.
Because here we can have 4 to 7 crops every year. Here we don't found any monoculture,
you found permaculture. You create life inside.
Because when you mix the crops, you have everything here.
And we don't use any pesticides.
And who are the people that work on this chinampas?
I have 3 workers. And they're born in this area.
And they know everything about to make the crops inside.
So local food. locally produced by local people?
Right. That is the goal.
So check this out. This is soil. And I think a lot of us are scared of this stuff, you know, because
it's dirty because it's not clean. But this, this is where it all begins. This is where all
of our food comes from. And it's amazing to see the process behind it all, how it actually grows,
how it's actually created, the origins of our food, you know? I feel like sometimes we're so
disconnected from the food that we eat, from the nourishment that we have. And it's just
amazing to take this soil, this life-giving soil into your hands for just a moment,
smell it, touch it, feel it. This is life.
Honestly, being here feels so wonderful. It's just this lush, amazing area of greenery, and it's half
an hour away from the center of Mexico City. This is one of the most beautiful calming places I've
seen in this country so far.
Now, onto our next destination, back in the center of Mexico City.
There's one last place that I wanna take you guys to that's really special here.
But in order to get there, I've had to come to a very different kind of neighborhood to the ones
that we've been visiting so far. This is Condesa, the hipster capital of Mexico City. Welcome!
If you're looking for a highlights tour of Mexico City, you might skip Condesa altogether. But
if you'd like to experience how Mexico City is changing from a truly local perspective,
I definitely recommend it. This is the definition of a hipster neighborhood. No sugar,
low in carbs, keto, vegan ice cream. Condesa is the fashionable hipster
center of Mexico, and very different from all the other neighborhoods in town.
It doesn't matter that we're in a hipster neighborhood. The charm of Mexico City
is always present. Should I say the danger?
I think this is our spot. Let's go inside. I've arrived at La Clandestina, a tiny hall
in the whole bar that deals exclusively in Mexican mezcal. Mezcal is a little bit like
Tequila in that they're both made from agave, but Mezcal tends to be much richer, much more
aromatic in flavor. The bar manager, Daniel, is here to give us an introduction. Wow, here we go.
- Hola. Hola. - Real Mexican Mezcal.
- Real Mexican mezcal. The authentic mezcal. - Amazing. So how strong is this exactly?
- Exactly, it's 54.6 degrees of alcohol. - Wait, 54.6?
54.6. It's one of the strongest that we have in La Clandestina,
but the high amount of alcohol permits you to taste more the flavors of the
actual agave of the actual plant. So it may taste strong, but it will taste good.
Do you shot it, or do you sip it? What's the culture?
You don't drink Mezcal in shots.
You drink it in besitos, little kisses. - Besitos?
- Besitos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Besitos.
- You give besitos to Mezcal. - Salute!
- And we just give a little sip. Okay? - All right.
Holy crap. It's really strong. It has like a smokey kind of taste.
- Yes. Yeah. - But it's very strong.
I'm sure you know tequila, that it's, you can say, that it's a kind of Mezcal.
There are families that do this and produce Mezcal and are just committed to do Mezcal for a living
for generations and generations to pass. There are actually techniques that require you to be a,
at least third generation of Mezcal makers for you to call it an ancestral
way of making Mezcal. Some of the Mezcals that we have,
come from plants that are older than me. - So it's like this little shot.
This little shot, it's like you are drinking a lifetime of a plant here.
All right. So how about this? When we raise a toast now let's raise it to the humble agave plant.
Yes, of course.
- All right. - Sure.
- Salute to agave! - Salute!
See, I could taste the lifetime of the agave in this one shot.
In this one sip besito, did you say?
- Besito, yeah. - Besito.
This is what much of Condesa is like.
All hipster cafes and bars, some of which do the important work of reconnecting
young Mexicans to their cultural roots, an amazing place to end a tour of Mexico City.
Today I really feel like we visited 3 different cities in one very huge metropolis.
The neighborhoods of Xochimilco, Coyoacán and Condesa are so vastly different from each other, but they
really make you realize how huge and how alive and how bustling this metropolis is. Honestly,
I feel like you could spend a week visiting each barrio in Mexico City and still only scratch the
surface. I loved my experience here, and I hope that you enjoyed following along. So thank you
so much for coming along and I'll see you guys in the next episode right here on DW Travel.