Lake Texcoco’s land is not an even plateau: comprised of multiple overlapping formations, it is a spread made from shreds of different grounds, diverse vegetation forms, different salt concentrations in the soil, and traces of several dwelling sites on the ground surface. Among them are thin layers of rubble, trash, displaced water, cement planks, and other synthetic matter. Little by little, these materials have naturalized, mixing in with the native elements preceding them. They colored the land with new hues. The volcanic stone, extracted from the ground layer, is located under the lacustrine mud. The latter is the last material layer remaining from the ancient lake. The volcanic stone is also extracted from neighboring hills, and has been used to build trails throughout Lake Texcoco’s plateau. These porous, light, hard stones are sometimes black like the entrails of the Popocatépetl volcano, and sometimes red like the rust of ferrous metals. On the shores of the Nabor Carrillo Reservoir, the volcanic rocks have piled in a precariously-balanced levee framing the great span of processed water. The black widows live under these rocks: in the gap between two stones about to touch, the most poisonous spider in the Valley of Mexico builds its nest, lays eggs, and dies. [...]
Widow
in ENCYCLOPEDIA