Mariachi Hangout

Last week I went to Plaza Garibaldi, which is famous as a gathering place for mariachi bands.  It is a lively, although rather seedy, center of nightlife.  The plaza is surrounded by bars and restaurants (none of them very good according to Alejandro), where you can pay mariachis to play at your table.  Although it is only five blocks away from the Palace of Fine Arts and other tourist attractions, it is in the less attractive part of the Historic Center and not far from the notorious neighborhood of Tepito.

I walked north from the Palace of Fine Arts along Lázaro Cárdenas Avenue, the "Eje Central" or Central Axis of Mexico City streets.  Leaving behind the touristic sites, the first few block were not bad.  The street is lined with stores selling cowboy attire.  In fact, a few years ago, I bought a nice pair of boots at one of the shops here.

 

However, the last two blocks before reaching Garibaldi were rather, shall we say, unsavory.  There was graffiti on the buildings, trash strewn on the sidewalk, and homeless people / drug addicts lying about.  Obviously, I was not going to take out my camera to photograph the area and its denizens.  I did not have any problems, but I certainly would have found those two blocks quite scary at night.

The plaza itself was clean and respectable looking.  I was there in the afternoon, and the place was dead.  It comes alive at night with crowds and the cacophony of numerous mariachi bands.

There were only a few mariachis to be seen on the square, although I could hear a band playing in one of the bars.

At one end of the plaza, by Lázaro Cárdenas Avenue, is the Museum of Tequila and Mezcal.  I did not go into the museum, although Alejandro says that he has heard that it is interesting.

On one side of the square is Tenampa, the most famous bar / restaurant at Garibaldi.  It is celebrating its 100th anniversary.

Just down one of the side streets is this mariachi school.

Street art on one of the buildings

My reason for coming to Garibaldi was to visit a handicraft market which recently opened.  It is located at the far end of the square.

Even though the market opens at 1:00 PM,  there were only a handful of stalls that were open.  The vendors obviously wait until evening when the plaza is busy.  This woman who is from a village in the state of Oaxaca was weaving on a backstrap loom.

Looking at the merchandise at the few stall that were open, the place really did not seem to have anything that I couldn't find at any one of the other handicraft markets in the city.

That was my quick and disappointing visit to Garibaldi Square.