Mexico City

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We arrived in Mexico City, tired and confused at 6 AM. Our first impressions were a bit on the sinister side; people wearing face masks to combat the pollution and the necessity to catch a "secure" taxi after a recent spate of violent attacks and robberies. The hotel didn't help to dispel our fears having a certain "Shining" feel about it!

After a quick sleep we ventured out to explore and realised (by daylight) it was just like any other big city in the world. We walked up to the main plaza (huge pavement, giant Mexican flag), saw the cathedral (big and wonky due to it sinking back into the marshland like the rest of Mexico City), visited the wondorous house of tiles (large house with tiles on it) and the theatre (only saw the foyer- the rest was closed). In fact it turns out that most of the city's main sites are closed on Mondays, so we spent the majority of the morning wandering around the Ministry of Education building observing some of Diego Rivera's finest murals. Born out of the Mexican revolution, he was commisioned to portray the lives of Mexicans, at the time, struggling to form a national identity and solidarity. We spent the afternoon at the San Juan market which lacked any real atmosphere, but served its purpose, allowing us to stock up on knick knacks and presents (sorry- you know who you are).

The following day we headed for Teotihuacan via the city's cheap but swanky underground metro system (10p per journey) and rather confusing bus network. Teotihuacan is thought to be the root civilisation for many Mesoamerican cultures, with the main features being the Avenue of the Dead, passing the Pyramid of the Sun and leading to the Pyramid of the Moon. At first, the site seems vast with little to see apart from the two main structures but upon further exploration we found some intricately carved courtyards covered with murals and the restored Temple of Quetzalcoatl along with a good museum. The pyramid of the Sun (3rd largest in the world behind the pyramids of Giza) was impressive, although a bugger to climb due to the altitude.

Worn out, we returned back into Mexico City, on a mission to find Frida Kahlo's house, buried in the bohemian suburb of Cocoyan. Her blue house is built around a stunning courtyard filled with plants, fountains and unusual artefacts she collected over the years. The house is a combination of her artwork and clothes, with most of the rooms remaining as she left them; scattered with paints, easles and personal effects. The place had a relaxing, creative ambience and was great way to finish our day.

We awoke on the final morning of our trip with a feeling of doom, but had puposely left the two best museums until last, in a desperate bid to cheer ourselves up. First off was the world class Musuem of Anthropology. The collections are vast, so we had decisions to make about what to see and miss. We chose to visit the exhibits that had the most relevance to what we had seen on the trip (yes, a lot of Mayan stuff). The most impressive feature though, was located in the Aztec room with the circular, stone Calender of the Sun, 3 metres in diametre, adorning the wall. Next up was the Museum of Contemporary Art which was fanastic but disappointingly a lot of the exhibitions were closed. Random bonuses of the day were a variety of novelty painted cow sculptures lining the street and an improptu procession of cyclists and religiously decorated trucks.

The ride to the airport was a sombre affair, although the taxi driver tried his best to lighten the mood with interesting stats on the city, the most astounding of which, is that it now has 32 million inhabitants. There was, however, time for reflection in amongst the facts and figures. In retrospect we managed to see a great deal in a relatively short amount of time. Our initial apprehension at coming to this part of the world, fuelled by horror stories from fellow travellers and scare mongering by guidebooks, proved completely unfounded, as we had nothing but good experiences in the places we went and the people we met. Our final hour was spent seeking solace in beer and sleeping pills at the imaginatively named "Flaps Bar" at the airport. A fitting end to a fabulous trip!

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Photos

Teotihuacan
View from the Pyramid of the Moon