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Published: April 9th 2006
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Me on the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacan
Me on the Sun Pyramid at Teotihuacan with the temple of the moon in the background Mexico City is quite a lot like the other Latin American capitals I´ve visited really, except so much bigger. It is like a dirtier, more congested version of Buenos Aires and you have to walk twice as far to get anywhere, the metro is never in the right place, the buses are packed and the taxis are dangerous. It is however an amazing place and I love it. My hostel is lovely although a bit noisy and I am staying with some other girls who are travelling on their own from Aregntina, America and Germany.
I´ve spent the last few days walking around the city really. I went to a couple of history museums which were really interesting although it takes me ages to read the information boards which are always in Spanish. The Anthropology museum was the best, huge and amazing - full of artifacts from all over Mexico from all different civilizations and wonderful displayes of modern indigenous cultures. I walked down the Paseo de la Reforma where you can see monuments to every important person and event in Mexican history inclduing, Christopher Columbus, Aztec Kings, Revolutionaries and Independence. There is also an interesting collection of street art.
Cathedral
Side of the Cathedral in the Zocalo - the centre of Mexico City In teh main square some boys were breakdancing to entertain the crowd and were excellent acrobats, at the other end of the scale some guy was making toilet noises into a mic and calling it entertainment, anyway, each to their own - the Mexican chiuldren seems to quite like it.
There are some lovely parks in the town too, although the trees never quite manage to hide the traffic sounds which are hard to escape from. One really surprising thing is the number of little birds there are allover the city, although maybe there aren´t actually many and it´s just that the ones there are are not scared of humans like all our birds at home. You wouldn´t get very far being scraed of people in this city!
I went to the Basilica de Guadalupe - the church erected especially for the painting of Mexico's Virgin mother and official empress. All a bit bizaar to me but nevertheless very interesting. It is a modern church with a conveyor belt to go past the original statue. The older churches around the new one are subsiding due to soft grounds and 400 years of earth quakes.
Yesterday I went
Guadalupe
Shrine to the Virgin de Guadalupe - Mexico's patron saint, mother and empress. on a tour from the hostel to the Teotihuacàn Pyramids. These are amazing, built around the time of Christ they have survided incredibly well and are absolutely huge! The people on my tour were also lovely and we spent time exchanging travelling stories. The guide, Monica was so well informed and she told us so much about Mexican culture past and present. I also checked out some of my first real mexican food (I have managed to stick somehow to pasta and salad up until now) and I had lovely little corn tacos things filled with refried beans and served with guacamole. Yummy.
In the evening I went to a square where there were literally scores of mariachi bands. I watched one group who seemed to be improvising songs about member of the audience with new verses errupting every time someone know was pushed into the ring. At the end of each verse the assembled crowd screamed with laughter so as it hotted up a bit I made myself scarese before someone had a chance to shove the gringa into the ring and I became the source of some hilarious and unintelligible joke!
Today I went to some
Marichis
Mariachi bands entertain the crowds in the Plaza Garibaldi of the Meico City suburbs. San Angel was once a beutiful village but now it is a beautiful suburb wirth Mexico's sprawl fully engulfing it by several tens of kilometres. There was a street market of local art work and the cobbled empty streets made a lovely change to huge wide packed interchanges. There was also an interesting shopping centre made in a old paper mill.
Coyoacàn is the up market suburb and teh tree-lines streerts feature the ex-homes of both the famous artist Freda Khalo and the exiled Leon Trotsky. Both their homes are now intesrtesing museums, in Trotsky's house you can see all his rooms axactly as tehy were left on the day he was assinated, including his desk at which he was sitting when hit from behind by an ice-axe. Nice.
My final stop was Xochimilco - a kind of floating islands in boggy lake with canels cut through - the same as how Mexico was believed to be when the Aztecs ruled. I took a short but lovely boattrip to the craft market where I bought my first souvenir - an Aztec god carved in stone. Yes I bought a rock, just what my
Trotsky's desk
The desk at which Trotsky was assinated on 21st August 1940 over-weight bag needs! Have I learnt nothing from the Ecuadorian hat affair?
Anyway, I am off to Oaxaca next for a week of Spanish revision in a language school and after 4 days of walking probably about 20k a day I'm quite looking forward to 6 hours on a bus! I will update you all again soon. Hope all is well.
Charlotte xx
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Gina Morley
non-member comment
Mexico
Charlotte, it sounds like you have made the most of your time, so far. Thanks for updating us on your latest adventure. I'm glad you are enjoying Mexico. I have only been to Mexico five times, but I've loved each trip I have been on. Your "aunt" Gina