#465 - Medellin and Mexico City tips, and the cinematic drama of the Mexican Revolution
and a switch to Substack...
Welp, Elon and Twitter are shutting down Revue, the newsletter service I’ve used for years, so time for me to switch to Substack. Should be seamless for you - give me another week or two to ensure it all looks good and branded - feedback welcome!
Sad day, but I saw it coming. And I hear good things about Substack.
As for travel, I promised you Medellin tips two weeks ago and was offline!
My friend Danny put together a good document of all his findings.
For me, I just did many of the same things I did last time which are great:
Psychotravels for plant medicine
Parapuente San Felix for $40 paragliding
Tejo en Medellin for Pre Colombian ‘cornhole with gunpowder’ game
Guatape daytrip for a giant rock and beautiful lagoon
Now I’m in Mexico City for my second time since 2014, and reflecting on this Heraclitus quote, as my life is so different from the last time I was here the experience is almost distinct.
Tepotzlan was a cute mountain hippie town an hour south of the city, which was fun if it’s on your way, but otherwise I’d say skip it, as it’s like any other hippie mountain town. Bodes poorly for the rest of the federal tourism Puebelo Magico program, if that’s the No2 town on the list!
Xochimilco boats were way more fun this time with a group and day drinking, as that’s all you do there. Such delightful Mexican chaos!
I somehow missed the Chapultepec Castle and museum last time - well worth the visit for the views and history. Did you know France took over Mexico in the 18th century and installed a Hapsburg Emperor for 3 years before the locals got fed up with him?
Otherwise, you can’t go wrong in the Condesa and La Roma neighborhoods. Beautiful big tree lined avenues and European density of buildings and shops.
Tech
Tech circumventing policy ftw.
I doubt Bridge will catch on since very few power users care about tracking intros, but I hope this space takes off eventually to map social graphs better and get us all more intros.
Lifehacks
I’ve been reading up on the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s, which was WILD!
Strongman of 30 years Porfirio Diaz never designated a successor so in 1911 Francisco Madero challenged him and won, somewhat within the system.
Madero was elected President, taking office in November 1911. He immediately faced the armed rebellion of Emiliano Zapata in Morelos, where peasants demanded rapid action on agrarian reform. In February 1913, prominent army generals from the Díaz regime staged a coup d'etat in Mexico City, and assassinated him by orders of the new President, Victoriano Huerta. This initiated a new and bloody phase of the Revolution as a coalition of northerners opposed to the counter-revolutionary regime of Huerta, the Constitutionalist Army led by Governor of Coahuila Venustiano Carranza, entered the conflict. Huerta's regime lasted from February 1913 to July 1914, with the Federal Army defeated by revolutionary armies. The revolutionary armies then fought each other, with the Constitutionalist faction under Carranza defeating the army of former ally Francisco "Pancho" Villa by the summer of 1915.
So that’s where the indigenous land reform Zapatistas come from - trying to give land back to the peasants who had had it enclosed and taken under Diaz.
And the legend of Pancho Villa, who was supported by the US and starred in Hollywood as himself, until it looked like he might win, when Woodrow Wilson withdrew money and Pancho attacked a town in Texas to goad the US into interceding.
This saga would make a great movie - I only see American takes on it, though maybe this 2003 HBO one is decent.
Fun
This Youtuber is an animated Brit who animates the latest foibles of Big Tech. I think he goes a bit overboard on the delivery, but still, I learned a few things.
I’ve been enjoying this Youtuber’s videos about urbanism from an Eastern European perspective. I never thought about how skyscrapers work from a city perspective for example, and his takedowns of Dubai and the new Egyptian planned capital are great.
He does have a video defending communist public housing blocks though, which seems a bit tone deaf. Sure they’re urbanist, but people don’t want to live without utilities at a time or hear their neighbors sneeze -just check his comments, lol.