Mexico City garbage Bashny.Net

Hike in most non-touristic area of Mexico City. But what to say about the tourists, even if the capital's residents know little about this area of the city! Even on a map of the area there - advertising shyly covers Cuidad de Basura - city garbage ...

The road to the landfill begins almost from our house. Railway track cuts through residential neighborhoods, passes by the airport, which is constantly flying over his head sitting down and taking off planes. It crosses a river, where the water content in the waste material can be neglected. Past the old, ruined sewage treatment plants and slums, where residents can not afford a home without a scent. We go gradually covered with dust, a blank stares of people not spoiled by tourist hordes. "Do not go on, there is robbed!" - Admonishes us, but indicate the direction to the city of scavengers ...

We are a party of four. Anthony, an American from Texas (born, by the way, in Puerto Rico), lived in the house for all and tempted by the unusual "tour." Tatiana Yashnikova not had time to participate in a similar campaign a few months ago. Alina - a young journalist, received the assignment to make a photo report about the inhabitants of a dump me. The team, though fighting, but not much. To fight back, in which case, of course we will try to avoid but took only the most necessary things - cameras and a few pesos on the way back ...

Populated areas have ended. Air smelling of sewage from the canal filled with a viscous, bubbling substance ... On the road, a thick layer of dust, which we are already pretty soaked. Concrete fence with barbed wire separates us from the rest of the world on the other side. Flocks of black birds fly at our approach, filling the silence ringing shrill cries. In the distance you can see the skeleton of the huge building in which we recognize the stands. It is unlikely that it is popular - everything has long overgrown buryanom.

Exit to the huge rusty gate closed on the thick wire. From stolid guard booth appears accompanied by a large, but also pofigisticheski minded dog. "Exit should be?", He unlocks the door of the gate and lets us back to the human world. What hides the fence, behind which we were? The huge wasteland, where only the wind playing with the dust, but few travelers fly over black birds ... point of our destination is still somewhere ahead ...

Finally, after the prison towers of the citadel, appeared piles of garbage. A lone figure took us a look from the top of the hill. Ahead - high rack ring road, where noticing what was going on downstairs, rushing machine. Ahead offers a spectacle of post-apocalyptic movies! In the dusty haze carried by horse carriage with the coachman, wrapped in some rags. Wind blows through the "road" scraps of packages and some rags. Urchat motors huge garbage trucks, barely visible behind the huge mountains of waste. Through the heavy, smoky air eyes suddenly find some huts, among which roam wrapped in many layers of ragged figures ...

We were not paying attention. A few minutes later the shock passes and we begin to adapt. Anthony has found a souvenir - it is working sun ochki.

Alina familiar with the Spanish language, already finds something from the local inhabitants. Scary scavengers who were once foolish to rob, wandered into the heart of the landfill, the gringos, are in no hurry to do so. On the contrary, we smile, carried out on top of the mountain and we find ourselves on a true street! Instead of asphalt - meters of compacted trash. Instead of stone facades - the low walls of the bags and scraps of rags. Dozens of friendly dogs of all stripes and colors run somewhere about their business without even making attempts to bark or bite prisheltsev.

Soon we were safely communicate with the inhabitants of this strange settlement, look in the "home", take pictures. There is not a drop of aggression in this, perhaps, the poorest segment of the population of Mexico City. They seem genuinely pleased to be able to communicate with aliens from another world. We are pleased to show their way of life. Our appearance, then, that someone pays attention to them, showing through the dirt and dust sincere smile on litsah.

Everything here in this settlement - have your traders and dining. There is work and business. It is - sort of garbage and selling it to traders. Plastic bottles and aluminum cans, metal scraps and ropes - all carefully sorted, stored and sold. Even your own transport is present in abundance!

Not everyone lives in a landfill. Some of the workers come here just to work, but those who spend their entire lives here, hvataet.

Unfortunately, we did not have time to dine at a local restaurant and our walk ended earlier than we had planned. On one "street", wide, where it can drive a car, we attracted the attention of some of the local "bosses." Middle-aged guy politely asked us not to shoot. Without aggression, without further ado, he intelligibly explained his position - if the shots fall into the Mexican press, the city administration will be difficult to turn a blind eye to it, in fact, not a legal activity and that, absent a settlement on all cards. And, you may receive the police and the peaceful existence of Cuidad de Basura may come to an end ...

Well, the most impressive 40 minutes ended in Mexico City. We went out for the territory of landfills, we stopped a minibus and went back into the world familiar to us. But these open face of the helpless and useless colony remember me for a long time. Even in far from normal living conditions, in others there is much more human than some elite areas. Taking their destiny such as it is, the inhabitants of the landfill are not embittered and not dropped. The joy of life, open hearts and kindness - that revealed to me during this brief tour to the bottom ... It is unlikely that it will be able to hit me more than Cuidad de Basura - city musorschikov.