Day 1 - Los Touristas

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The first morning, we booked the Turibus because the Lonely Planet told us to. Mexico doesn’t really do public toilets, or timetables, so when the bus finally arrived, Ian and I went straight to the back of the top deck and pissed into a plastic bottle, which Ian kindly carried around in his bag for the next few hours. Only then were we ready to be cultural and all that.

Starting in Polanco at the Auditorio Nacional, the bus took us all the way down the Paseo de la Reforma to the Palacio Nacional in the Zócalo – the name given to the main plaza of most Mexican cities. La Reforma was built by Emperor Maximillian, when Mexico City was under French rule, to shorten his commute to work every morning. Based on the Champs-Elyseés Y Lisé, it’s filled with statues of Mexico’s various ‘heroes’, including Christopher Colombus and Benito Juarez as well as monuments dedicated to its independence and various revolutions. The Mexicans are very proud of their independence and revolutionaries such as Juarez are talked about fondly, however it was hard not to notice the irony of the Monumento a la Indepencia against the backdrop of a towering HSBC skyscraper (something to do with neo-colonialism, I think).

Having been to Liverpool, Malaga and Barcelona, I didn’t feel I needed to see any more cathedrals but the Catedral Monumento in the Zócalo is pretty incredible. Every crevice was ornately decorated, inside and out. Built with the bricks of the Templo Mayor it replaced in the 16th Century, and funded by pilfered Aztec gold and silver, Ian was quick to point out, ‘Well, every cloud, mike…’ And for 15 pesos each we were given a guided tour of the Campanario (bell tower), home to the biggest bell in America (excluding Ian). Climbing the 60 stairs to reach it was a tough reminder that we are over 2000m above sea level and Ian was really struggling.

In 1979 some electricians working near the Cathedral stumbled across the ruins of Templo Mayor and now there is a huge excavation project and accompanying museum. The ruins were pretty cool, but couldn’t help feel I’m going to see some intact ones over the next week or so. All I got from the museum, which was all in Spanish, was that the Aztecs love human-sacrifice as much as the Mexicans love hair gel and this was once the venue for a sacrifice of 20,000 people.

Recommended by a local Mexican retiree, it was time for a late lunch in the Casa de Azulejos – a house covered in china-blue patterned tiles – whose design was influenced by the China-Mexico-Spanish trade route that kept Mexico rich long after the Spanish stole all their gold. After a beer in the traditional Opera Bar, we went to meet Garry for some beers, tequila rosado and dominoes at a cantina (the working man’s bar) in trendy Candesa. On the way we were interviewed (and filmed) by some Mexican school girls who were ‘practising their English’.

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