It was 9:30 AM on September 16, 2022.
Sitting on my bed, I wasn't sure if I should go to the military parade that Mexico has to celebrate its independence day in Mexico City.
To be honest, I don't care that much about it.
But, on the flip side, I never saw it before and figured I might as well visit.
Given it was already 9:30 and the parade starts at 11 in the Historic Center, I knew I wouldn't be able to get to that specific location and get a good spot to actually enjoy the parade and take some photos.
But, in case you didn't know this, sometimes Mexico City will start their parades in Zocalo area and have them go down Reforma Avenue where they end up at some point past Chapultepec park.
It might start at 11 and the ideal location to see it would likely be at the Zocalo but you can always see it in another location somewhere along the Reforma Avenue and at a later hour.
Sitting down anyway to enjoy a quick drink of some vodka before heading out, I check Uber and see that, with traffic, it'd take an hour to get there from Iztapalapa.
Given it wouldn't be that much longer to get there by metro, that's what I chose.
After finishing the drink and charging my phone, I head out to Metro Chapultepec.
Along the way (and on the way back to Iztapalapa), I saw first hand how fucked up the metro was on the pink line.
In the moment, the Mexico City government is modernizing it but it's all fucked for those trying to get around along it.
For whatever reason, it's a pain in the ass to get to Metro Balderas specifically.
I ended up having to leave the metro station along the pink line and walk over to Balderas before getting back onto the metro.
Then finally to Chapultepec.
On the way back, I had to change metro lines 4 times instead of 2 where they had my ass go north to Guerrero before then going south again.
Annoying as fuck.
At any rate, once I got to Metro Chapultepec, I walked some minor distance up north to Reforma Avenue where I saw tons of people waiting for the parade.
I probably got there at around 12 (after having left home maybe 50 minutes earlier) and the parade itself didn't arrive to our location until around 12:30 more or less.
While waiting, I had a few small ham sandwiches and some water.
Surprisingly, they were only 10 pesos a sandwich.
Despite all the talk you hear about inflation in the US, Mexico and the world, you don't always notice it here in Mexico.
Anyway, I walked down the Reforma Avenue to find a good spot in the shade along the sidewalk for the military parade to show up.
While waiting, there were the occasional planes flying overhead that people were taking photos of.
There was some random dude yelling shit at people for stepping over the green space to get to the other side of some path to be ready for when the military parade would send some people to the other side (mostly just pissed at me and others for supposedly stepping on the plants but just yelling NO MAMEEES).
El gordito marica sigue llorandooooo.
Plenty of hustlers too trying to sell balloons, flags, food, etc.
And the parade itself lasted maybe two and a half hours more or less in total.
After about the first hour, there was a pause in the parade and Mexicans slowly starting leaving the event.
I began joining them as I thought it was over but then I saw more parade folks march down.
To be honest, I got kinda bored after the first hour.
At some point, it feels like a repetition of what you've already seen with people dressed in the same uniforms as those from before marching and many of the vehicles looking the same also with occasionally some minor variation.
They easily could've done this parade in half the time or at least include something else to make it more interesting.
It was cool to see but two hours and a half felt like too much time (especially with the repetition mentioned).
There was also some general looking dude (looked like a general to me) that was walking around trying to command everything.
I wondered if it was Cienfuegos because the dude kinda looked like him but I obviously had my doubts that they'd send someone as important as Cienfuegos to lead this event (but who knows).
They also had some nurses and female troops march down the road also.
Some of them looked hot as fuck.
I wouldn't mind one of them nurses making me feel better!
Finally, in the end of the event, they had some horses go down the road.
As you can see here, one of the horses was feeling pain (look at its leg) or it seemed distressed anyway and didn't want to go further.
They ended up injecting it with something and it kept on going after scaring all the families in this part of the road that were worried the horse was going crazy.
Honestly, if the horse was in pain, it did make me wonder just how poor the Mexican military is if they couldn't afford non-injured horses for their all important parade on this all important independence day.
Though who knows what the issue was exactly!
One funny thing too about the parade was that I couldn't help but feel it was like some big show for nothing.
The people in the parade seemed cool.
But, as this Tweet illustrates on my photos on Twitter, it kinda felt like they were just putting on a show but it wasn't overly impressive in terms of showing the military strength of Mexico.
The vehicles didn't look at that impressive.
It did cross my mind that none of it was overly impressive seeming.
Regardless, it was a cool event anyhow to see an important parade like this and also all the pride the locals have in their country.
Anyway, that's all I got to say on the event.
It was fine overall.
If you got anything to add, drop a comment below.
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And enjoy the photos here of the event below (including this first photo here of some chile en nogada I had delivered to my house after I got home).
Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt
A photo during my walk back