Deep Sea Seranades
I’m Dan Piraro, the creator of the Bizarro newspaper comic, and this is my weekly blog post. The large Sunday Bizarro comic above is mine, as are the comments below. The past week’s Monday-Saturday Bizarro comics that follow were written and drawn by my partner Wayno. For more fun, check out Wayno’s weekly blog post.
And here’s this week’s ANSWER KEY to my Sunday comic’s Secret Symbols.
Bienvenido, Jazz Pickles.
Olive Oyl and I are in Mexico City for a few days, celebrating twelve years together, and also because we really love Mexico City. It’s a few hours from our home in Central Mexico, so we visit at least once a year and hit the parks, museums, restaurants, cafes, and art events. We think of it as a gorgeous, tropical New York City.
On this trip, we did something we’ve been meaning to get to for years; we visited the canals in a part of town called Xochimilco. It is the last vestiges of the Venice-like floating city of canals and causeways that Cortés and his conquistadors strolled into just over 500 years ago.
People have inhabited these man-made islands since long before Columbus stumbled upon the so-called New World, and have continued to do so as the behemoth of modern Mexico City grew up around it. The local communities of indigenous peoples participate in the modern economy, but are intensely proud of their heritage and tend to live pretty simple, natural lives.
For almost a hundred years, a portion of the canals has been used to attract tourist with party boats. It’s still a very popular destination for tourists, Mexicans celebrating special occasions, or those just looking to spend a couple of hours on the water.
Left, a shot of the boats lines up along the dock. Right, the view from the front of our boat as we left the dock.
As you can see in the photos above, the canals are crowded with these mini party barges decorated in colors inspired by your average college acid trip. Each has a long table and a couple of dozen chairs, and a guy who stands at the back and propels the boat by pushing a long pole against the mud below, like the gondoliers of Venice. Even at top speed, you’re still only drifting.
Each boat is also equipped with music, drinks, and the option of delicious quesadillas crafted from homemade tortillas, cooked on board over hot coals. And because it’s Mexico, the law requires that margaritas, tequila, and mezcal be available, and they are, from passing boats full of booze.
There are also mariachi-band boats that will pull alongside and play a few songs for a price, or board your boat and play all afternoon or evening if you like. The boat traffic on weekends is formidable, and the competing parties can be as noisy as Spring Break, even without a band on your boat.
We enjoyed this part of the journey for the most part, but the next part of our boat trip was our favorite.
Recently, the well-known diva, Lady Gaga, filmed a music video directed by Tim Burton on one of the small islands in Xochimilco. “The Dead Dance” is based on Mexico’s Day of the Dead holiday. The video was shot in a place called Isla de las Muñecas (Island of the Dolls), which is more than an hour by (pole-pushed) boat beyond the partying tourist area. For an extra fee, your Mexican gondolier will take you there.
Gaga’s music isn’t my jam, but we enjoyed the visuals of her video, and we’ve wanted to visit that weird island since we first heard about it a few years ago.
In a screenshot from early in the video, Gaga stands among some of the dolls on the island.
After navigating the noisy, chaotic, touristy section of the canals, we were pleasantly surprised by the immediate calmness of the waters beyond. Trees, flowering bushes, jungle vines, and wildlife abound in every direction. An occasional shanty pops up amid the greenery, which tells you this is where the locals live, and canoes and boats of various types are moored here and there along the water’s edge.
Every so often a dog would stick it’s head out of the thick walls of vegetation to demand respect as we passed through its territory. Others trotted out onto boats or canoes to bark, take a whiz, or just watch us float by.
Though we were still in the middle of Mexico City, it felt like we’d been transported to the Louisiana Gulf Coast, minus the alligators. It was truly remarkable, which is why I’m remarking on it now.
By the time we arrived at the Isla de las Muñecas, I was happy to get off our boat to get rid of the beer I foolishly finished just before we left the tourist canals. What we saw on the Isla de las Muñecas was about an acre of jungle filled with spooky structures built of sticks, logs, and discarded wood, all of which were plastered with rotting dolls covered in mold, paint, mud, and any other disfiguring substance you might think of. It’s meant to resemble a nightmare, and it succeeds. If you’re not already creeped out by dolls and ventriloquist dummies, you might well be by the time you leave.
After wandering around for half an hour, Olive Oyl and I took a couple of pretty fun portraits of each other among the Mattel carnage and made our way back to our boat for the return drift.
We enjoyed our time in Xochimilco, but it probably falls into the category of boxes that only need to be checked once.
The history of Mexico City and its journey from a city floating on a lake to what it is now is fascinating, and the fact that so many indigenous people still live among such a large, verdant jungle in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world is astonishing.
This final shot was taken in front of our boat when we first arrived. The hand-painted signs on the armada of boats are all different, and ours was oddly appropriate. We’re not sure if it was planned by the tour operator, pure coincidence, or divine providence, but the sign on our boat seemed made for us.
El Padrona is Spanish for “the female boss,” which definitely describes my Olive Oyl. She plans every aspect of our life together and keeps it running smoothly. The “CH” on the heart in the middle happens to be the initials of her name in real life. And Bichota means just what you might assume by the sound of it. In her capacity as la patrona, CH can occasionally veer into that territory, as well.
At dinner that night, O2 and I reminisced about our dozen years together and hoped with puppy-love eyes for another dozen or more.
I’ll end this report with a photo of a Xochimilco resident who loves him some rayas rojas.
Let’s paddle over and see what Wayno was up to last week with his Bizarro cartoons…
The opener of dragon season.
Undercoating is the car sales version of the extended warranty for electronics.
That little alien knows, but he’s not saying.
I hope he bought some okra soda to wash down his calorie bar.
But we still don’t know why.
Check that spelling carefully.
That’s the whole deal this week, JPs. Thanks for your valuable attention. If you’re enjoying that we offer our content for free, please consider helping us keep it that way via the links below. We’ll kiss your photo before we go to bed at night.
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