El Zócalo in Mexico City
- Jenny Rose
- Sep 15
- 3 min read
Mexico flies some of the largest flags I have ever seen blowing in the wind and one such flag can be seen flying in the center of the Zócalo in Mexico City.
For me the heart of Mexico City lies in El Zócalo also known as Constitution Plaza. I call it the heart because it is where the very center of the Mexica people, otherwise known as the Aztecs, had established Tenochtitlan which was their magnificent capital with its center located at the Templo Mayor which is located right off the Zócalo.
The Templo Mayor was the religious and ceremonial center Tenochtitlan and right next to the Catedral Metropolitana that Hernán Cortés commissioned and the first to be built in the Americas in the 1500s.
The layers of history are thick in the area with the Palacio Nacional next to the Templo Mayor and the Cathedral creating like a corner of the epocás. The Palacio Nacional is the seat of the federal government of Mexico and has been since the 1500s. It is an impressive building that looks out onto the Zócalo taking up an expansive width.
The building surrounding the square facing this impressive corner of history are hotels, restaurants and shops. In the middle of the square, or the plinth, which is what is the meaning of "zócalo" are often various exhibits, protestors, and other set ups for all sorts of events from concerts, to protests, to the celebration of the day of independence in September.
The day I was visiting was the week before El Día de la Independencia. A stage was being constructed in front of the cathedral. The Palacio Nacional was adorned with with the colors of the Mexican Flag and the bell that is over the balcony that sits plop dab in the center facing the square was fitted with a chord in the colors of Mexico and ready to ring during the Grito de Dolores late in the evening of September 15.
Around the square on that blue-skied Sunday morning were loads of people. Tourists, families, exercise enthusiasts running, vendors, people working on construction jobs, and homeless lying in repose with nothing more than the clothing on their bodies. The bells of the cathedral rang. I popped in to be surprised by a mass in English in the chapel. Then left the side of the chapel and proceeded to the Templo Mayor to take in the mysteries of the Aztecs viewing the artifacts of a a fascinating and very different culture that honored the rain god, Tláloc, with stone carvings of frogs and stone replicas of the god himself. Viewing skulls, bat costumes and all sorts of interesting artifacts from the time before the Spanish.
In the backdrop was the constant music of the harmonipan playing "La Bikina." Standing there viewing the stones, the skulls, the rooftop of the cathedral and beyond the building from the 50s of the Latino Seguro.
Mexico is a rich place and I am always in awe of the depth of the city and the country. I am haunted by the Aztecs. What was it like to live as an Aztec? The thought of human sacrifice alarms me but often wonder was it that prevalent and a main part of life and what were their thoughts on it? Were people sitting around wondering if they would be called to be sacrificed? Yikes.
Perhaps the people were like myself and just buzzing about experiencing all the same things as I do but without the technologies and luxuries like indoor plumbing we have now. Who knows but the mix of Aztec, Spanish and modern life is a rather powerful experience to behold, and grateful to live here and be able to experience it not just once but many times over.
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