A Visit with "El Gringo Suelto"

Keeping a blog has resulted in some unexpected benefits.  Those of you who follow my blog regularly know the story of how my posts on genealogy led me to make contact with a cousin I had never met before.  I have also made contact with a number of other bloggers who either live in Mexico (2 ex-pats and a Mexican) or frequently travel to Mexico.  We comment back and forth on each others' blogs.  Although I could not say that we are friends in the true, profound sense of the word (in this age of Facebook, "friend" is bandied about much too casually), a pleasant relationship has developed with them.  

In January of this year, when I was in Mérida, I had the pleasure of meeting Marc, the author of "An Alaskan in Yucatán".  We had a couple of very interesting conversations over coffee.  It was great to meet the person behind the blog posts, and I hope that on future visits to Mérida we will have the opportunity to get together again.  Today I met another fellow blogger, Kim, the author of "El Gringo Suelto".  Kim is in the middle of an adventurous road trip from his home in Boston across Mexico.  He is currently in Mexico City, so we made plans to meet today.

If you are a reader of Kim's blog, you know that he has never posted a picture of himself.  Out of respect for the elusive and mysterious "Gringo Suelto", I will not post any pictures of him here either.  If you want to know what he looks like... well, I guess your travels will have to cross paths with his so that you can plan a get-together.

We arranged to meet for breakfast at a restaurant in Condesa called "La Buena Tierra" (The Good Earth).

 

The restaurant is located a short walk from my apartment.  Alejandro and I have eaten there a number of times.  The food and service are good, the prices are reasonable, and the menu emphasizes healthy food.  Kim had mentioned in a comment on this blog that he likes "La Buena Tierra" also, so I suggested it as a place to meet.  We had a good breakfast there, but, since we both had Mexican egg dishes, our choices were not necessarily the healthiest options on the menu.  But, hey, I eat healthily at home, and when I'm on vacation I eat whatever I want.

After breakfast, Kim suggested that we take a walk to Chapultepec Park and visit the Anthropology Museum.  I have lost track of how many times I have been to the Anthro Museum, but it is the type of place that is always fascinating no matter how many times you visit.  It is one of the great museums of the world, and nowhere else will you find a comparable collection of artifacts of pre-Hispanic Mexico.

 The centerpiece of the museum, the Mexica Hall, with its treasure trove of Aztec artifacts

We only saw a portion of the huge museum before "museum fatigue" set in.  I don't claim to be an expert in archaeology, but I do have a fascination with the pre-Hispanic civilizations.  I hope that I was able to provide Kim with some additional information on ancient Mexico.

From the Anthropology Museum we went to the Zona Rosa where we had lunch at a popular restaurant called Casa de Toño.  The place is best known for its "pozole".  "Pozole" is a thick soup made with pork, hominy, and garnishes such as lettuce and radishes.

It was a very enjoyable day.  Kim is a great guy and very intelligent, and we had some very interesting conversations during the course of the day.   I hope that the feeling is mutual when I say that we are now more than "blog acquaintances"... that a genuine friendship has begun.