Finding Frida
Many, many years ago, we took a trip to Mexico City. Actually, it only seems like many, many years ago. It was really only this past February. Remember February? That calm before the storm when we were all happily waiting for winter to give up the ghost so we could race out and go spring skiing, then rush straight into summer for a frenzy of hiking and camping, gatherings with friends and family, and evenings spent hanging out at our favorite restaurants…
Yeah, I hardly remember that either. So let’s just say, in a previous life, we went to Mexico City. We were younger, more idealistic, COVID naïve, and the only Corona we had experienced came in a cold, sweaty bottle with a wedge of lime. It was the good old days! (Cue the song by The Script.)
Mexico, as you probably know, is the land of enchantment, home to the Carlsbad Caverns, the Santa Fe art scene, and the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. Wait... Hang on... That’s NEW Mexico. OLD Mexico is a delightful, cultural mecca filled with street tacos, quaint little shops that close each afternoon for city-wide siestas, mariachis meandering through outdoor cafes, serenading lovers, and gringos getting kidnapped by drug cartels and dumped in shallow graves somewhere in the Chihuahuan Desert. Yes, that Mexico!
We traveled there against the U.S. State Department’s advice, which offered the above scenario of abduction and burial, with pages of cautions that basically said: “Don’t blame us if you get jacked.” Apparently things are a little dicey south of the border nowadays, whether El Chapo is on the loose or not. However, we had a bucket-list reason for going to Mexico City. We ignored the warnings and planned this trip six months in advance not only for the chance to munch enchiladas and mole, salsa dance the nights away, and flee from machine-gun-toting Federales demanding cash payoffs. Those were just side benefits. The primary reason we went was to find Frida Kahlo.
Editor’s Note: Frida Khalo is no longer living. If you didn’t know that, I’m sorry to break it to you so harshly. But she’s been dead since 1954 and remains in that state at this time.
We saved up PTO, paid for our airline tickets, set up an Airbnb in Coyoacán, Frida’s old stomping grounds, and threw caution to the wind, taking what was, perhaps, our last “regular” vacation of the twenty-first century. That’s right: no masks or social distancing or curve flattening whatsoever. It was wild and crazy!
If you aren’t familiar with artist Frida Kahlo, what you need to know is this: a. she was a pileous (i.e. hairy) woman who turned her unibrow into a brand, b. she was married to Diego Rivera, a fellow artist who looked like a giant frog, c. she was a prolific surrealist, d. she suffered from polio as a child, got into an accident at the age of 18, and started painting because she was stuck in bed, e. she was played by Salma Hayek in the 2002 biopic. There are many other interesting aspects to her life and career (including her pet monkey and her affair with Leon Trotsky - yes, that Leon Trotsky), but those are the basics that inspired our trip. We wanted to see how the real Salma Hayek... I mean Frida Kahlo lived.
“Feet? What do I need feet for when I have wings to fly?” - Frida Kahlo
Our Frida quest was anything but disappointing. In addition to touring her former home (La Casa Azul), seeing scads of her artwork and actually standing in her studio (“This is where she made those weird, rather disturbing paintings! Right here!”), milling around in her kitchen, her bedroom, and seeing a giant statue of Frida and her amphibian-like spouse, we had multiple opportunities to purchase Frida coasters, Frida mugs, Frida mousepads, Frida bobbleheads, Frida hats and t-shirts, even Frida temporary tattoos.
To our surprise, Mexico City is more than just a huge, 8.8-million-person advertisement for Frida Kahlo. It is also home to a plethora of other attractions, most of which can been found in districts the State Department deems highly sketchy. With this in mind, we bravely (or maybe stupidly) visited the Botanical Gardens, the Centro Historico district, and even the Teotihuacan Pyramids - just a 45-minute bus ride from the city down a highway which, according to the State Department, is brimming with criminal activity.
Pfft! We didn’t see no criminal activity! We did, however, encounter a number of street vendors selling food that was probably quite deadly. Following the guidance of a random online blogger, we only patronized food establishments with long lines of locals - the logic being if the fare was poisonous, the line would be short. This turned out to be excellent advice.
Part of our success at not dying revolved around preparation. We did plenty of research before we left, read about Frida, watched the movie, brought along a case of Pepto Bismol, drank only bottled water, and prayed diligently that we would not encounter anyone resembling Pablo Escobar.
This kept us from suffering from Montezuma’s Revenge and getting hijacked, but did not keep us from getting lost. Whether walking or Ubering, google maps managed to take us on long, ridiculous detours into places that were not always gringo friendly. Thankfully, I had been practicing Spanish phrases for these occasions, including “Por favor no me secuestros. Si, soy gringo, pero estoy con esta mujer mexicana y también soy pobre. No hay dinero aquí! Soy escritor, por el amor de Dios..” (Translation: “Please don't hurt me. Yes, I am a gringo, but I'm with this Mexican woman and also I am poor. No money here! I am a writer, for goodness sake!”). This proved to be quite useful.
In the end, our time in Mexico City was quiet and peaceful. We got our fill of Frida, enjoyed the museums and the cuisine, and even had time to sit in the Frida Kahlo Park (of course she has her own park) to engage in some art of our own.
The risky part of our trip, it turned out, was when we continued on to Acapulco. It’s just a short plane ride from Mexico City and hitting the beach seemed like a great idea when booking from the safety of our Colorado home. When we got off the plane in Acapulco and found a deserted airport, were shuttled to a deserted hotel (we only saw a handful of people the entire time - and they worked there), and walked a deserted beach - unable to spot another human being in either direction - we realized we might have made a mistake.
Consulting our friends at the State Department, we found a message that said, in essence, If you go to Acapulco right now, you’re an idiot! It seems that a few Americans had recently reported incidents involving abduction, assault, and murder.
Thankfully, we survived unscathed and returned to the States just in time for COVID-19 season!
What we learned from this once-in-a-lifetime trip can be condensed to this: 1. Frida really was very hairy, 2. She looked NOTHING like Salma Hayek, 3. No one in Acapulco speaks English, but they are fluent in USD, 4. Diego was a toad, not a frog, 5. the State Department might be a bunch of party poopers, but we would still call on them if forced into a windowless van by an armed man named Gordito.
We also discovered that art field trips are fun. Next on our bucket list is a journey to Amsterdam to visit Vincent van Gogh - if and when travel ever becomes a thing again.