Welcome to Part 3 of my time in Coyoacan!
You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
As I said before, I have decided to visit every place I find in Mexico City just to see as much of the city that I haven’t seen or documented for this blog before.
As I left off in Part 2, I finished seeing the Center of Coyoacan and some cute waitress told me how to get to a place called Viveros de Coyoacan.
Viveros de Coyoacan is a green space basically.
A nice park area for recreational activity like jogging especially.
I have been to this park a few times actually on dates over my years living in Mexico City.
So I knew what to expect.
As I began walking, I did get a little bit lost and asked some ice cream lady for directions.
She pointed me in the right direction.
I carried on forward in which I saw a truck almost hit some car in this area here.
And the drivers had their windows down yelling for the next 5 minutes at each other.
I had to stop to watch the drama unfold in front of me with the only thought in my head being “OK, which one pulls out a gun first?”
No gun unfortunately!
But plenty of “PUTA MADRE!!! PUTA MADRE!!!! PUTA!!!! MADRE!!!!! PUTA MADRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
But no exciting gun battle to watch.
Had it happened, I surely would’ve asked them to wait a second for me to get some popcorn first!
But, alas, what could’ve been the most exciting moment of the evening never came to fruition.
So I carried on!
Arrived at Viveros de Coyoacan in about 15 minutes roughly from where the Center of Coyoacan is located.
Arriving to the Exhibition of Viveros de Coyoacan
Here is the entrance to what says “Viveros de Coyoacan.”
Being honest, I was a little bit confused when I stumbled across this.
I always remembered “Viveros de Coyoacan” being some park area where people jog around.
In the moment, I thought that maybe I somehow confused Viveros de Coyoacan for something else.
Though, as we’ll see, that’s not the case and the Viveros de Coyoacan that I know personally was just around the corner.
So I walk inside this exhibition area anyhow.
Here’s some initial photos are you can see here.
It was really just a bunch of flowers, plants and trees.
A lot of them!
Plenty for sell actually as I saw a few locals buying stuff.
No foreigners though in this area. Only Mexicans that I saw.
Was the scenery pretty?
Sure!
One thing I appreciated was this sign here apparently, from what I can tell, discouraging folks from trying to sell stuff here?
A no to street hustlers, I guess.
Which is good for me!
Similar to that fountain area in the last article, this place seemed like it could be a good spot to relax without being harassed by street hustlers.
It wasn’t the most exciting place but I don’t need exciting.
I saw a few benches that I could sit on.
Mix that with all of the green scenery and it works for me!
I liked it.
Of course, to be fair, I was often reminded of Lowes when I was walking through this area
For those who don’t know (especially non-Americans), Lowes is a store in the US selling random shit like paint, gardening tools, etc.
Stuff for home improvement.
For some reason, this place reminded me of Lowes when I walked around it.
Of the days when I was a kid being dragged around my parents in insanely hot Iowan summer when I really just wanted to be back home playing Xbox.
With my parents arguing amongst themselves – “No Kevin! We need red paint! Not blue, damn it!”
Anyway, despite the weird flashbacks to Lowes, the area was cool.
Better suited for someone like me who likes peace and quiet in some green scenery.
And with no hustlers allowed? I’m a fan!
Anyway, I walked over to the bathroom of the area and the lady only gave me this much toilet paper here for 5 pesos.
Remember this article I wrote here about how public bathrooms don’t give enough toilet paper for taking a shit?
I tell you – Mexican guys must be like women.
Women don’t fart.
Mexican men don’t shit apparently.
Or they want poop dripping down their legs since that is clearly not enough toilet paper.
Thankfully, I have enough experience in Latin America to know that one must carry their own toilet paper.
Because us American men are real men. We take LINCOLN LOG shits!
Jokes aside, that was actually the small and pitiful amount of toilet paper they gave me.
But I had my own so it didn’t matter as I said.
After that, I walked around the area some more and took some more photos as you can see here.
There was some small store I came across where the couple who ran it seemed very nice.
Was good to talk with them.
They were curious about me living in Mexico and what I’m doing here as a foreigner.
Good chat.
And I walked out afterwards.
Though, as I hinted at before, this isn’t all there is to see in the area.
When I showed up, I thought I must’ve confused Viveros for something else.
But I asked some employee at the entrance for the nearest metro station.
There was Coyoacan and Viveros/Derechos Humanos.
But, as I type this, I’m pretty sure he confused where each metro station was.
Pointing in the direction of where Coyoacan was (where I just came from), he said Viveros / Derechos Humanos metro station was over there.
But that was Coyoacan!
And he claimed the other direction would take me to Coyoacan.
The only thing he was right about was how Viveros / Derechos Humanos was closer.
Which I knew it had to be because the metro station shares the same name as the park and so it must be closer.
Anyway, I’m glad he at least was right on that as I followed his directions and found quickly enough the park area that I always associated with Viveros de Coyoacan.
A Peaceful Walk in Viveros de Coyoacan
As I walked down the street he told me to walk down, I saw some moving trucks labelled something like “mudanzas viveros.”
A street vendor standing next to them selling some type of juice.
And a gate to the park area that I recognized.
I asked the street vendor if “this is Viveros?”
He said yes.
And I explained how there was some green flower space over there.
He said how there’s various entrances.
Anyway, this park space was clearly separate from the garden flower space as there was no direct walk connecting one to the other.
And I was at least glad that I found this place because it was higher on my bucket list of places to document given I knew how nice this park.
It works well for enjoying alone time, jogging and dates.
On top of that, similar to the garden area before, I’ve never been harassed here by street hustlers or panhandlers.
It’s great!
So I walked inside.
Right away, some cop came out of the blue and wanted to give me hand sanitizer.
Oddly enough, part of the hand sanitizer somehow bounced from my hand and hit my eye.
It stung a tiny bit but nothing more.
The cop told me that I only have 30 minutes here because it closes at 5 PM.
It’s 4:30 PM.
That was fine because I knew the park anyhow and knew I could walk around it taking photos in that time for this blog.
And, in hindsight, a slow paced walk appreciating the scenery literally did take 30 minutes.
I showed up at like 4:34 technically and did a full circle around getting back to the same gate at around 5:04 more or less.
And I took my time walking.
Appreciating the scenery and taking what photos I could.
So a solid 30 minutes is needed at least to enjoy the area for a quick walk.
Obviously, more time needed for those who want to sit down or jog.
Anyway, here’s some initial photos.
I kept walking along.
One thing I appreciated was how half of the people were not wearing masks.
Masks not required apparently!
Thank our Lord and Savior Allah!
Took the fucking mask off.
And got to enjoy the fresh air of the place without sweating my ass off anymore.
Here’s some more photos, including one of some tree with a loving message for a couple from what I can guess.
I hope I and YIC have a good future together!
I think it says I and YIC, right?
Anyway, I kept on walking.
Funny enough, there was some dude jogging who had a literal Natuto costume on.
Japanese looking letters or some shit on this back.
For those who don’t know, that was an old anime show when I was like in middle school or something.
And here’s a grown adult wearing something of it while jogging here.
Not sure if that’s a foreigner or not.
Some cute gals jogging in the area too.
Who doesn’t like cute women jogging?
Uncle Ruckus knows as you can see here.
Uncle Ruckus on black women (jogging scene)
Then I came across this green space here of people relaxing in the green glass way in the background behind all the trees.
I'm pretty sure you can't see it actually but whatever.
A good place to relax anyhow.
There was this other space here where it looks like they are trying to grow another green space maybe for relaxing?
That was my guess anyway.
With the symbol of modernity in contrast to nature as you can see in that photo – the tall building right behind all of the trees.
Funny enough, they decided to name certain areas of this park by street names as you can see here.
Not sure why a green space has “street names.”
It isn’t like anyone is driving a car down that spot.
And it’s supposed to be a green space, right?
There was this random building here.
Not sure what it is but it looks important maybe.
Anyway, here’s a few last pictures.
On my way out, I found myself on the wrong gate and kept on walking to find the one that I walked through to get here.
Leaving Viveros to Derechos Humanos
As I walked out of the park, plenty of other folks were too obviously.
There was one cute older couple who looked to be in their 80s where the older man was encouraging his woman to do the last bit of the jog.
Made me think “aww, maybe that’ll be me someday with a cute Latina gal that I’ve been married to for 50 years in the future.”
Once outside of the park, I asked the street vendor outside about how to get to Metro Coyoacan as I was told it was the closest by the other guy by the garden.
The street vendor told me that Viveros / Derechos Humanos is the closest metro and how to get to it.
It was maybe a 10 to 15 minute walk from where I was?
And so I walked on over along this street here.
Here’s some photos of the walk over, including of some place called “Comision de Derechos Humanos de la Ciudad de Mexico.”
Guess that’s why the metro is called “Viveros / Derechos Humanos.”
And I did wonder if that is the same “Derechos Humanos” group that some Mexicans hate?
There’s some random organization in the city that focuses on human rights that you’ll see some Mexicans of Mexico City bitch about because they believe that the organization makes it easier for criminals to not face justice for their crimes in the name of “human rights.”
Is that the same organization that some bitch about?
I have no idea.
Anyway, as I walked closer to the metro, I noticed a lot of street food places like you’ll see near plenty of metro stations for obvious reasons like the extra foot traffic.
And here’s photos of what the inside of Viveros / Derechos Humanos metro station looks like.
This is one thing I like about Mexico City!
Regarding how different metro stations (not all of them) have a certain theme inside them.
For example, Bellas Artes has some ancient architectural ruins inside a few spots that I saw last time I was there just last week.
Copilco has some good artwork in the part where you wait for the train.
La Raza has some cool science stuff on the walls.
And, as you can see in those photos, Viveros / Derechos Humanos seems to have some cool nature or environmental stuff painted on the walls.
Cool!
I always liked it how they “bring to life” some of the metro stations with the artwork and whatever else included.
Anyway, I asked a metro officer inside on how to get to my next destination that day of sightseeing.
I decided to leave Coyoacan for a second to check out a park called “Parque de los Venados.”
I’ve never been there but I heard good things about it so I decided to check it out since it wasn’t too far from where I was.
The dude told me to go to Metro Zapata.
And that’s where the next article will take us too.
Interested in my time in Parque de los Venados?
Then check out the article here!
And follow my Twitter here.
Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt