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Published: March 14th 2017
La Merced Market
The colour and contrast of the markets.I have wanted to visit Mexico City for many years. Canadians have the second largest city in the world literally in their backyard, but few consider it a tourist destination as they generally head to the country's beach resorts. I do appreciate the safety concern over the city, but I was quickly assured when I read the Canadian government's Travel Advice and Advisories for the city. While there are a number of travel advisories for the western and northern states, there is none currently for Mexico City. As it turned out, I felt safe during my entire visit.
Once again, I chose two neighborhoods to fully appreciate what Mexico City had to offer. Our first stop was the neighborhood of Roma Norte, which looks more like a European neighborhood than a Latin American one. While it doesn't have the vibrancy of La Condesa, it is up and coming by anyone's standards. Hipodrómo is another neighborhood in the area I would like to stay next time. It is was built during the art deco era and it reminds me somewhat of Miami's South Beach.
We spent the first couple of days with lighter activities. On the first day, we took
What do you really think Mexico?
Mexicans were not shy to share their opinion of President Trump... in a food tour put on by
Sabores Mexico Food Tours. We were fortunate to have the owner, Rodrigo, running the tour and we were the only two that day. It was a great way to see our neighborhood through a
Chilango and to try some of the local food and drink. We actually had an opportunity to try grasshoppers for the first time and they weren't all that bad! On the second day, we started out jumping on to a
Turibus and taking the sites in from a distance. For the most part, we stayed on the bus, but we took the opportunity to get off towards the end to see the Chapultepec Park, which had the zoo and castle. The most interesting thing about the park was all of the vendors and what they were selling. We quickly realized that there is a vibrant street food culture in the city, which I think is only second to Bangkok from what I have seen. There is an abundance, variety, and color to all of it that I just love. We had great views of the city from the castle, which were all that much better with the clear day we had. The
Shoe Shine
The tools of the trade for a Mexican shoe shiner. pollution wasn't as bad as I had thought and nothing like I have seen in China's bigger cities.
By Saturday, we were ready to do some serious sightseeing. Conveniently, most of the sites are in the Centro Historico neighborhood. Mexico City actually has the second most museums in the world next to London. The first thing I noticed about the historical part of town was how big it was. While every Latin American capital has a grand historical center, nothing compares to what Mexico City has. It makes sense given that it was one of the capitals of the Spanish Empire (Lima being the other). A common characteristic of Latin American capitals is that they have all built their business centers away from their historical centers. As a result, you are offered an architectural timeline as you move away from the center. There can be some very nice buildings along the way. I was struck at how many Art Deco buildings there are in the city.
It began to sink in by now at how inexpensive this trip was going to be. Many of the museums and attractions were free and we could ride the subway for only
Tres Galeones
Home of the best taco in the world! $0.25 USD per ride. Our central location for the first part of our stay didn't require us to use Uber much. The weather was also very comfortable and consistent for our entire stay. We only felt rain once.
For Sunday, we took in Muevete en Bici (Move on Bike), which is very similar to Ciclovia in Bogota. It is a great event and I know something similar is coming to Edmonton this year. The best part was cycling the stretch along
Paseo La Reforma to Chapultepec Park. This is where many of the modern office towers are located and its grandest statues like The Angel of Independence are located. There were two landmarks in Mexico City I knew about before arriving. One of them was Zocalo (center square) and this statue. Unfortunately, Graham's pedal came off his bike early on and he had to stop riding. In the evening, we took in
Lucha Libre, which is Mexico's version of wrestling. It was not located in the best part of town and the arena, while was built in 1956, looked ancient by today's standards. The masks the wrestlers wore are the most obvious difference, but the interaction between the wrestlers and their fans
The Colour of Mexico City
An usually colorful street side stall. was priceless. Even the women would get quite into it. We had front row seats so we were a bit concerned that we would see more than we wanted... As it turned out, some people in the front row did have to deal with wrestlers on their lap... I was amazed at some of the acrobatics of some of the wrestlers. All in all, it was an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours and it was well worth the $12 USD price tag.
Monday was market day and a number of them were concentrated just east of the historical center. There wasn't much new here to see other than how big the market was. It is still a great way, though, to spend a few hours and there are always a lot of photo opportunities. There were some specialized markets focusing on sweets, plastic flowers, and live animals that I hadn't seen often before.
On Tuesday, we made the move south to Coyoacán to see a couple of colonial neighborhoods and the southern part of Mexico City. I knew it would be quieter down there, so we only spent three out of our nine nights there.
The Angel of Independence
One of the most recognizable landmarks in Mexico City. It was still a nice change and I find it interesting how many of these large Latin American cities have engulfed colonial towns in their path like Coyoacán and San Angel (just a few kilometers to the west). There was an interesting contrast between these two neighborhoods. While Coyoacán was larger and more touristy, San Angel was smaller and catering more to wealthy Chilangos. The restaurant scene here was better than in Coyoacán. There were a lot of artsy shops in San Angel that were not present in Coyoacán. San Angel reminded me somewhat of Antigua with its restaurants and shops. A memorable moment to mention was when I took a picture of some food at one of stalls and the vendor got quite upset. She pointed to the sign saying "No Pictures". I deleted it to calm her down. I can only think she must be superstitious. Another random moment was when we were walking through Parque Vivero Coyoacán and we came across a matador training class... The instructor was representing the bull complete with horns!
As I similarly felt in Bogota last year, the value in some of the developing countries is incredible. One can eat at
Chilies
You can get pretty well anything in the markets. world class restaurants in these cities at least half the price of back home. While many of the people in these countries are generally poor, there is a small portion of the population, who are very wealthy. This is one of the benefits of visiting the capital cities vs anywhere else in these developing countries. With OpenTable being so established in Mexico City (394 listings), finding and reserving great restaurants was so easy. I will though have to make a note to do this much earlier to ensure I can get reservations to the absolute best restaurants.
A couple of notes on the two restaurants that really stood out.
Pehüa located in La Condesa had some of the most incredible presentation of food that I have ever seen. My apetizer even had
escamoles (ant larve) on it!
Aquarelle Bistro in Coyoacán was our best overall meal. The bartender came out to help us with our mezcal cocktail selection, as we hadn't been having much luck with it as of late. Some of them were more like margaritas complete with straws... They also allowed us to sample a few types of mezcal and wine before ordering, which I cannot recall every
Los Amigos
The team brings another tour to an end. being offered before... Mezcal has a very warm and smoky flavor to it and distinctly different than tequila. One last note on the culinary side. Our food tour's first start was a taco stand called
Tres Galenos. Here I had the best taco of my life! There hasn't even been a close second. I also tried something new called
Sopes, which was fabulous as well.
My trip wasn't perfect. We were without water three times during our ten days there. While I knew the water wasn't potable in Mexico City, I didn't know that it wasn't always available...
Finally, services like Airbnb, TripAdvisor, Uber, and Google Maps working with smartphones and their roaming packages have made traveling so much easier now that I can spend more time enjoying the places I visit rather than planning those visits.
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