Everyone told us, "Mexico City is cold in the winter!" We went and, wow! The weather was 75 to 80 degrees every day we were there. The seven hour bus ride took nine. Well, things happen; we made it safely and checked in to the Best Western Majestic Hotel in the Downtown area. The hotel is beautiful, has nice rooms, and nearby sightseeing. Exhausted, we had an early supper, wandered around the square, and then called it a night.
The central square fronts the hotel, and has an ice rink and a snow tent set up for people to enjoy! In the square were street vendors, dancers, and a large police presence. Across the street is the Metropolitan Cathedral, built directly over the ancient Mexica Templo Mayor. Beautiful as the cathedral is, it is a shame it was built there. Chances are the remaining ruins of the Templo Mayor will never be excavated. What a sin.
We went to Frida Kahlo's house and museum. Kahlo was a disappointed woman. Her works are disturbing, beautiful, gruesome, and candid. Her home is interesting, with lovely grounds and rooms. We traveled to Xochimilco, famed floating gardens of the Aztecs. The Spanish did what they could to destroy it, but there remains beauty that lets you forget the largest city in the world for an hour or two. Plant nurseries line the canals, as do homes and restaurants. Flower, blanket, and jewelry vendors float in small skiffs. Some boats have mariachi bands. Others are set up as restaurants. One couple fed our group of 38, delicious fast food.
After the boat ride, we went to the large and beautiful Delores Olmedo Museum. Outside, among the bronze statues are peacocks, peahens, other fowl, and a family of dogs. The dogs are an ancient hairless breed called Xoloitzquintle. They stood or sat completely motionless, like statues! Later we dined at the famous House of Tiles. The house was purchased by Sanborn's, the Mexican restaurant/gift shop chain.
Across the street is the magnificent Palacio de las Bellas Artes, where we saw a Ballet Folklorico. What a show! As in all Folkloricos, a variety of dances and costumes samples Mexican folk culture. Some of the women's skirts contain ten to 20 yards of fabric! Young children at the front of the audience danced, eager to be on that stage one day.
Day three, off to the Castle of Chapultepec where Emperor Maximillian and his lovely Carlotta ruled before his execution. Several of us opted to go instead to the huge Museum of Anthropology. You need at least two days to see it all. We saw over half in five hours. The displays and information become too much after that long. The Museum of Natural History in Victoria, British Columbia simply doesn't hold a candle to this museum!
Day four, to the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. The sheer magnitude is breathtaking. Archeologists think that what you see on the surface accounts for a mere ten percent of the whole! All the grassy knolls hide ninety percent of the Teotihuacán community. We had a guide who was able to give us an abundance of information. We also had an unending horde of vendors pushing their carvings and jewelry, blankets, and whistles at us as we tried to digest the surroundings.
As we walked along the Avenue of the Dead, our guide showed us the acoustics of the temples. Each sits across from another in a perfectly measured location to allow the priests to orate from the one pyramid and be heard by all. If you stand in front of a temple and clap, you will hear a duck quacking back at you. Closer to the Pyramid of the Moon, the duck becomes an eagle squawking at you. An incredible feat of engineering and architecture: how did they know? We explored a palace. There were rooms with wall paintings and carvings. There was a shower stall with tub in one bathroom; the drainage system for a toilet in another...these folks knew what they were doing!
The air in Mexico City is brown and thick and if you have any respiratory issues, do not take them there. It is worse than Los Angeles was in the 1970's. I use a C-PAP machine to for sleep apnea. On arrival at the hotel, I noticed that the filter was dirty; it had been in for over six months. I replaced it with a clean filter. Eight days later I looked at the new filter and found it just as dirty as the one had been.
Day five, we traveled about an hour and a half to Cuernavaca, a popular weekend getaway for Mexico City. The air is clean here, and the town, relatively quiet. We were treated to a tour of the cathedral, and to one of the oldest monasteries in Mexico. From the church, we walked a few blocks to the Palacio de Cortes, where Cortes was in charge of the conquest. The palace has a large mural by Diego Rivera.
On to Taxco, a colonial city built on the side of a mountain. By law, there is no modernization of colonial city centers, therefore, no elevators, and no other changes. Taxco is a silver mining and jewelry town. Silver is regulated by the Mexican government and the silver prices are set by international markets. Craftsmen get their silver from the government and no one family can hold a monopoly as in the old days.
We stayed in the lovely Hotel Agua Escondida at the Zocalo. Across from us was the beautiful baroque church Santa Prisca, famous for being constructed in just ten years. The carvings are breathtaking. Inside, is a centuries old German pipe organ.
Taxco is an exhausting city: the roads are vertical and the noise and movement is frenetic, with hundreds of Volkswagen Bug taxis and minibuses. With no side walks, little or no parking and the streets one car wide, pedestrians vie with taxis on every inch of cobblestone. We truly felt like we had earned our touring stripes when we piled into a burrita with about 14 other people to get around town!
Day six, I chose to look through the shops and have hot chocolate. It was a good time to rest! After lunch, we hopped into burritas and rode back to where our bus was waiting. Then back to Mexico City for Christmas Eve dinner. We arrived at the Hotel Majestic, checked in, then changed and went to dinner at Los Girasoles where we were served a starter, a lovely salad, and a turkey dinner with a sweet pineapple mole.
Christmas, a group went to see the Shrine of Guadalupe. I chose to rest...touring is hard work! Later in the day we took a Turibus tour of the city. This lasts about three hours and really shows you all the ‘must-see' spots. We found the Hard Rock Café, so hopped off the bus for lunch. Afterward we finished seeing the city. There are so many fabulous statues, parks, and museums there; you could spend years discovering it!
That night, many of us traveled to Tlalpan to a real hacienda. This was a working pulque hacienda for many years. I was unable to find out how long ago it was converted, but the place is fabulous! The service and food were outstanding and the prices were about half what you would expect in the US. We have found our new favorite place!
Day eight, we walked across the square to the Templo Mayor, a major archeological dig in the very center of this mega city. We went through the museum first, for history of the site and to see the changes from Mexica times through to the Spanish conquests. We were able to walk among the ruins where there are informational plaques to explain what you are seeing. At one point, I became quite emotional. Here was a society so much more ancient than any I have ever been exposed to...here they ate, and slept, and played, and built. We will only be able to see such a very small percentage of what they did, because the city is built over their achievements.
One last note: the taxi service in our community is amazing! The day before we left, we walked to the taxi stand in Chapala and asked one of the drivers if someone could pick us up the next morning at 6:15. No problema! Sure enough there it was, right on time. When the chauffeur dropped us off we told him our ETA and asked if he could have a taxi there to meet us? Our bus arrived, and there it was! I am impressed at how such a casual system works like clockwork!
