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Above panorama: Palacio de Bellas Artes
After traveling the English speaking countries of Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, The Cook Islands and the US, coming to Mexico meant no more English but Spanish. My Spanish is almost non existent, but I recognize a lot of words and as you go, you pick up a lot of words quickly.
Landing in the huge Metropolis of Mexico City, you don't realize the city is at an altitude of over 2200m because it lies on a high plateau and not on a mountain. Actually, it lies in a valley!
I remember about this high altitude since I was a young kid and was watching Carl Lewis trying to break the world record long jump at the Olympics. He couldn’t, because Bob Beamon once jumped an amazing length at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and the commentators were saying that the record was so long standing because of the conditions in Mexico City. Higher altitude, means less air resistance and faster speeds and longer jumps. It has stuck with me to this day!
About 20-25 million people live in the entire urban area of Mexico City, making it the second most populous urban
area in the world, after Tokyo.
Mexico City has a beautiful historic center where I also booked my hotel. Not far from it is the main square (Zocalo) where a huge cathedral and the national palace (in use as the offices of the Mexican president and the Federal Treasury) are situated. Just behind the cathedral, some old colonial buildings have been cleared away to excavate the Templo Mayor, the site of an ancient temple, but now not much more than a pile of rubble.
A stroll through the historic center quickly reveals that there are plenty of colonial style buildings left. In fact, the city is filled with them! One exceptional example is the neoclassical Palacio de Bellas Artes, completely of white marble from the outside.
A must-see is the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. It has artifacts from all periods in Mexican history on display and some very impressive ones. The architecture of the museum itself is also interesting.
I also visited a Lucha Libre event. Lucha Libre is a form of wrestling, but everything is about the show. They don’t really fight each other, it’s acrobatics and it’s all staged. But it’s fun. The wrestlers
are well known, but always wear masks not to get recognized. Mexicans love the fights and cheer at all the acrobatics.
Most matches are 3 fighters against 3 others although usually there are is only one fighter of each team in the ring, until hell breaks loose and everybody starts “breaking the rules”. It’s pretty funny to watch. I’ve included a video to give you an idea how it looks like. I wasn’t allowed to take in my camera, so most pictures that I took with my phone aren’t very good.
The neigbourhood of Coyoacan is a pretty area, with some beautiful Mexican houses with colonial flavour, nice for a stroll in the afternoon. There is the house of famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. She lived in the 20th century and the entire house is now a museum and can be visited. I visited the house, which is a true artist house with a big atelier and her art is great. I was only allowed to take pictures outside, though.
From Mexico City, I took a day trip to the temples/pyramids of Teotihuacan, the topic of a separate post!
(note: pictures continue further down and on the
next page as well)
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Congratulations on your First Front Page blog! :)