Mexico City...From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

"That’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” - Bill Bryson, "Neither Here Nor There"

During all the years we have been coming to Mexico, we have avoided Mexico City like the plague.... terrible pollution, some of the worst traffic in the world, 27 million people (although no one really knows how many there are); you name it, there are many reasons. But in looking at where we were going on this trip and getting some advice from people who have traveled all over Mexico, we finally decided to take the plunge. 

Day One...

So after a two day quiet interlude in Amy's favorite Mexican city, Tlaxcala, we took the two hour bus ride to Mexico City. Our immediate introduction was the crazy traffic in this city, so crazy that when we were within half a mile of our hotel, we told the taxi driver to drop us off and we would walk. The driver told us that the traffic usually wasn't so bad, but there had been lots of big protests in town and traffic had been diverted all over the place. And he had already sort of volunteered to drop us off early anyway... But the walk was nice, on a quiet street, past colorful markets and up to the huge zocalo, the main square. This is surrounded by beautiful historic buildings, including the giant cathedral, built in the 16th Century. 

After checking into our hotel, the very nice La Catedral, just a block off the zocalo, we went to a little tourist kiosk. We asked the guy there for a good place to eat and he pointed us to a nice little restaurant in a nearby street. "Look for the roast chickens at the entrance", he said. 

Amy had the mole enchiladas and I had a delicious red, spicy soup with all sorts of mysterious pork parts. Yum!!!

After lunch, we went to the wonderful Museo de Arte Popular, which is a great museum dedicated to folk art from all over Mexico. Especially nice were the Dia de Los Mueros items and some great Trees of Life. 

Day of the Dead bullfight...

Tree of Life

????

From there it was a long walk back to the hotel, past some interesting restaurants and the great Mercado San Juan, which I'll write more about later. The commercial areas of town are very interesting, as on one street, all the stores will have the same stuff. So you have electronics street, stereo street, car parts street, musical instruments street and even cowboy stuff street. I,guess this makes it much more convenient to shop. 

Checking Tripadvisor for a nearby restaurant, we found a nice one, Casa de las Sirenas. It is in a 17th Century building and has a nice third floor terrace, with a view over the Templo Mayor (all that's left of ancient Tenochtitlan, the Aztec city), the Zocalo and the cathedral. If the view wasn't good enough, the food there is muy deliciosa!  They have these small plates, which are hardly small at all. We had a superb steamed carnitas of marinated duck, crab tacos and a small chile stuffed with ground pork and a lot of spices. That was actually like a super good version of Puebla's great dish, chiles en Nogada, only ... Better.  All washed down with a very nice Casa Madero Chenin blanc   

Day Two...

The great ancient city of Teotihucan is about 50 kms to the northeast of Mexico City. It is very old, even by Mexican standards, having been occupied from about 200BC TO 650AD.  When the Aztecs were around, it had been abandoned for almost 1,000 years and they called it the City of the Gods. The third biggest pyramid in the world (after the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt and Cholula, near Puebla, Mexico) is here. From our hotel, it took us over two hours to get here, first by the crazy, crowded Metro, then by public bus, which had to negotiate the bad traffic. Once we got here, it was very foggy and we couldn't see anything. But soon the fog lifted and we could see the Pyramid of the Sun in all its glory. 

One of the highlights here is to climb this huge pyramid. It's not all that hard, about 210 feet high. But at an altitude of almost 7,000 feet, you get out of breath soon. But after about a 10 minute climb, we were at the top. 

The Pyramid of the Moon from the top. 

Having climbed to the top, I had now climbed the three biggest (not highest, but biggest according to the Mexican Dept of Anthropology) pyramids in the world: Cheops in 1979 and 1980, Cholula in 2014 and now the Pyramid of the Sun. 

After descending, we walked along the Avenue of the Dead, which is the two kilometer long road linking all the sights in Teotihuacan. At the end is the Pyramid of the Moon which you could only climb about half way up. But there was a beautiful view from here. 

Walking around the ruins, you are constantly approached by vendors selling cheap Mexican handicrafts, fake artifacts and annoying whistles, that are unfortunately bought by parents for their little darlings who constantly blow the darned things. So throughout this magical place you would always here loud whistles. They also sold this jaguar head thing where when you blew into it, it growled like a jaguar. We were tempted to buy one, but eventually passed. 

From here it was back to The City (lots of traffic on a bus and the crazy, very crowded metro) to the Museum of Anthropology, one of the great museums of the world. It's pretty hard to see in one visit, as it's so big, so we concentrated on the rooms of Teotihuacan, The Aztecs and the Maya. We also went to some areas where they had some of the modern Indiginous culture. 

Aztec...

Maya...

On the Metro...

For dinner we took the advice of our friends, Alice and Robert, and went to a Mexico City institution, Salon Corona. This place has been around since the 1920s and has lots of the basics, tacos and such. They have great draft beer, light or dark. Reading Tripadvisor, someone suggested to get the fried Mojarra, which is a Mexican river fish. It wasn't on the menu, but they had it. Let me tell you, it was one of the most delicious fish I've ever had. A big, whole fish in all its fried greasy glory. It was washed down perfectly with the cerveza obscura. 

Day Three

This would be a "walk around Mexico City and explore the markets" day. First we went to the Mercado de Merced, a HUGE market, of mostly vegetables, but a few other things, too. There were lots of piñatas and we tried to find the Donald Trump piñata we saw in the New York Times, but couldn't find one. 

Some inter species piñata hanky panky...

More market scenes...

From here it was over to the Mercado San Juan. Originally a black slave market 500 years ago, its specialty now is all kinds of meat, including exotic meats like crocodile, armadillo and iguana. We stopped for lunch at a place that had sandwiches made out of all sorts of weird items, including ostrich, crocodile, iguana, lion and tiger. I'm not sure I believe the last two, but Amy had the ostrich and I had the iguana. While the ostrich was pretty good, the iguana really didn't agree with me. It's hard to put the taste into words, except it was just a but too reptilian. But at least I can say I've eaten iguana. 

As we walked around the market, there were all sorts of creatures for sale, including bugs, deer, pigs, goats, turkeys and who knows what else. There were also tasty looking salami, cheeses and fruits. 

We ended or Mexico City adventure back at the Las Sirenes restaurant, looking over the Cathedral. It was a fun three days, but I'm not sure we will come back to Mexico City for awhile. We really prefer the smaller towns and especially the festivals in those places. So our next trip, at Christmas, will be to my favorite place in Mexico, Oaxaxa, which celebrates Christmas in a grand way, with lots of posadas, feasts and even a radish festival. Should be a blast. Until then, hasta luego!