Mexico City With great luck our time in Mexico City has coincided with the visits to the city at the same time by the chair of our radio organization, to allow us to discuss all of AM/FM’s work with 47 communities in filing for low power FM licenses, and the esteemed attorney for all of our family of organizations, both also not only comrades but great friends, and neither having been to the city either rarely or ever. The top of their lists seemed to be going to see the pyramids that are nearby the city, all of which made me want to share out great times at Café la Habana with them and everyone else, and now to add botanical gardens to the must-see list for travelers everywhere. In fact, with more honesty, I might have titled this report, “Botanical Gardens I Have Known and Loved.”
Our crew visited the Jardin Botanico del Bosque de Chapultepec yesterday with immense pleasure. Chapultepec itself is a great treat, perhaps three times the size of Central Park in New York City for example, and often called “the lungs of Mexico City,” where air is often an issue. Here, your eyes burn for the first couple of days, like Denver in the 70s and early 80s. The botanical garden is not that large, but is extremely well organized with a great selection of agave and cactus, as well as a separate orchid and fern house. Inch by inch, it is one of the more well-maintained and peaceful that we’ve ever visited. The park is home to a number of great museums, which get most of the tourist action, including one of the world’s best, the Museo Nacional de Antropología, which we have visited multiple times, along with Tamayo for contemporary art and other for modern art. All of which means that many overlook the botanical garden, which is a big mistake, and would be restorative, if nothing else.
But botanical gardens are so much more than places of calm in our usual storms. They are environmental jewels and potential bulwarks against climate change and its local impacts. Looking back, I’ve touted the botanical museums in Hanoi (2010), Copenhagen (2007), a surprise find in the Yucatán, the Jardin Botanical Doctor Alfredo Varrera Marin (2017) and mi companera’s favorite, and the Auckland Botanical Garden in New Zealand (2018), which has to be one of the best in the world. Our family first began this tradition many years ago with a visit to the garden in Amsterdam (2002) over Mardi Gras and found it vibrant even in the cold. Perhaps my favorite ever was the botanical garden in Rio de Janeiro which we visited on a side trip after the first Organizer’s Forum in 2002, and was amazing, featuring palm trees of unimaginable heights. Just this year, we visited the botanical garden in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which was impressive for a city that size and featured what seemed to be a volunteer army and the garden in Brooklyn, which is certainly world-class as well, where we got a special tour of one section from a family friend and former Fair Grinds barista, which was an unexpected treat.
These are quiet, unsung pleasures. There are no big animals walking about. No breathtaking views, either. Instead, there are deep introductions to the flora and how it fits into the culture and community. The plants and trees speak a language everyone can understand, and it’s important to listen to them carefully and then act accordingly.