Bosque, el parte 2

Today began fairly normally. I woke up with a crudo from yesterday's adventures. Wandered to Starbucks for coffee and the most reliable internet connection I've found in Mexico. Played frogger with the traffic. Passed the chiles oaxaquenos guy on the bike. It ended fairly normally as well. Trip to the grocery store. Hanging laundry on the roof. Lamenting the fact that my internet connection at home isn't strong enough to watch last week's episode of 24 again.

In between, the guy chasing me with a big rock, the strange military base I accidentally wandered onto, and my complete inability to figure out how to escape the maze-like network of paths in the Bosque de Chapultapec reminded me that I am still, in fact, in an unfamiliar city, however many routines have entered into life!

The aforementioned Bosque de Chapultapec may be my favorite part of Mexico City. It's the second largest urban park in the world--bigger than Central Park, and second only to Philadelphia's Fairmont Park. It's filled with museums, gentle paths, lakes, benches, a zoo, and countless things I've yet to see. One of my Sunday rituals has become a long run through section one. Today, with the help of google maps, I made a small change. Just one little turn extra. Of course, had I looked closer at Google maps I would have realized that the one little turn took me onto some bizarre convoluted network of overpasses, underpasses, and pedestrian bridges.

Fast forward to a lost and confused Matt running past a boot-camp-looking obstacle course, a guard with a large automatic rifle, and the several dozen soldiers behind him. After explaining in broken spanish to the one gunless man at the gate that I was horribly lost and just needed directions to the Bosque, I took off running again. The drugged out looking guy I had passed on the street earlier, however, had apparently started following me. And picked up a rock. And, for no apparent reason, seemed very angry.

Fortunately, the guards encougaged me to return to their side of the which gave me an easy way around my newfound crazy friend. Whatever chemicals fomented his craziness also made it pretty clear that I'd be able to outrun him without too much challenge. And, I think it requires quite a few drugs indeed to throw a rock in the direction of underpaid guys carrying assault rifles.

For the next hour or so, I found myself completely lost in section two of the Bosque, which helped build both my appreciation for how large the place is--the first 15 minutes of being lost were spent running around the perimeter of a Six Flags, one of two amusement parks in this section--and how much cleaner section 1 is. So, next week, back to la primera sección y sus calzados limpios. Much more exploring left, and only three weeks to go!

Fotos

An entry? Not really... but, photos at last!

http://picasaweb.google.com/mthomaspsu/MexicoHighlights?feat=directlink