La Ciudad de México/Teotihuacán/Xochimilco

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Alright so last weekend i went to Mexico City, Teotihuacán, and Xochimilco. We left at 10pm to go to Mexico City.....well we were supposed to leave then but we didn't actually leave until around 11. So it was a 12-13 hour bus drive to mexico city with tons of buildings, streets, and people. Arrived at the hotel around 12 and left for the center of Mexico City at 1.

El Centro/La Ciudad De México -
In the center there was the Cathedral, lots of vendors, and the Governmental palace i believe it's called. We first went to the governmental palace where they had the presidents' office i believe, and murals from Diego Rivera. When we finished with the government place we got back on the bus bet were missing 2 girls. So we waited and waited and finally the bus driver thought he saw them so my friend steve went to find out. Turns out they were two random french girls that weren't with the group. So we were still missing out two girls.....They eventually came running about 30 minutes later. We went back to the hotel to get ready to eat and what not. Dinner took place at a little restaurant in the red-light district, mmm it was delicious. Then some of my friends and i wanted to get some night shots of above the city so we looked for a tall hotel that we could easily go to the top of. Well what we found wasn't exactly a hotel but they let us go up to their sky-garden which was about 2/3 of the way up the building. It was a beautiful sight! After a few minutes they offered to take us up to the helipad for some better pictures, but we said no because we didn't want to die. What was a potentially dangerous situation turned out to be awesome.

Teotihuacán -
Then sunday we went to Teotihuacan......What an awesome place! The pyramids were awesome and the entire atmosphere was fantastic, a childhood dream come true. Inside there were vendors all over, from "set-up" shops to just laying your stuff on the ground and selling that. Here I had my first encounter with bartering and all that stuff. I bought a few things for friends and my brother, but what i really wanted was a Teotihuacán blanket. The vendors will start at a very high price and even higher for foreigners. For the blanket most wanted a starting price of 350 pesos which is a little less than 35 USD. I could lower the price to 200 pesos but i didn't want to pay more than 150 at the absolute most. So this was a problem. I eventually found a vendor who seemed that he would go below 200 until he sold one to a girl in our group for 200. This messed everything up, so i didn't get my blanket here. But the nice thing is that these blankets are going to be all over. So we spent all day in Teo saving monday morning for Xochimilco.

Xochimilco -
If you want to spend a nice day on a boat on a canal that runs i believe 70 kilometers kilometers long then Xochimilco is the way to go. We got on to a small "boat" called a trajinera. These are basicallt a piece of wood with 4 pillars connecting the roof to the bottom. And the "drivers" of the trajineras use giant poles to push through the water like in venice with the Gondoliers. So our ride was about an 30 min to our farthest point and about 30 min back not counting a stop at a flower garden that they export beautiful flowers out of. When we returned to the "docking station" there was another little market place where i didn't have time to barter but i found out some cool things and the average starting price. This just means that I'm going to be super prepared for when i actually buy what i want. There were no jewelry items here that were too good or anything like that for shose of you who wanted jewelry...sorry.

Well that's all we had another 13 hour bus ride back where we spent about 5-6 hours playing poker games and what not for fun. Until the next update, Ten cuidado y vaya con Dios!

P.S. pictures are at

-Rob Clark

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Comments

[Momma Wandean]

Hey Roberto!
So good to hear about your adventures. The pictures are fab! love you much, Momma W