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Published: January 31st 2010
Cycle Day
Look closely, the milk cartons are children!!Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Ice creams and Fiesta!
Sarah- On Sundays in Mexico City the Paseo de la Reforma, one of the largest roads that runs through the city centre, is closed to traffic. It suddenly becomes a very different place, filled with cyclists, joggers, dog walkers, aerobics classes and even bike repair stalls! We had a walk around in the morning and then were picked up from our hotel by Erik and his Dad. Which was very kind of them!! We drove to a district of the city called Coyoacan, which used to be a town until it was enveloped by the City. However it still retains it´s village like charm and is very popular with the locals on the weekend as we found out. We went to two museums in the area, firstly to the house that Diego Riviera built to hold his collection of pre-hispanic art. It´s a crazy building and was built taking into account lots of Aztec and Mayan theories, including sections for each of the main gods. We had a tour in English which was great, held jointly by Erik and the tour guide! On the roof there was a great view of the
At Diego Rivera´s massive house!
This is what sunshine looks like!! snow capped mountains and volcanoes around the city.
Secondly we went to "La Casa Azul", or the Blue House, a beautiful tranquil house where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived and belonged to Frida´s family. It was very busy, but great as the house was spectacular and there was a lot of of wonderful art. I had to have a bit of a sit down as the heat, crowds and lack of breakfast was having an effect on me. That was soon sorted out as we went into central Coyoacan and got ice creams! Ice cream is always the cure!! We had a look round the town centre and inside the church, and then headed on a bus (our first Mexican bus and an experience!) and metro to Eriks´s Uncles house, where a party was being held!
The party was in honour of an Uncle returning to visit from New York, we had loads of food (including some vegetarian dishes prepared by Erik´s Mum especially for Ben) and it was all delicious.. I don´t think Ben could move for a bit as he ate so much! We attempted to speak as much Spanish as we could but Erik
La Casa Azul
Frida Kahlos family home was very handy as translator when we got stuck. There was a band playing music from the North of Mexico and we were each dragged (willingly!) into dance a lot, which was great fun😊 Sometimes if you dont share a language with someone lots of smiling is enough to communicate!!
Later on in the evening we went back to Eriks house and had a Chamomile tea and met his cat Solitude (thats the English spelling I´m not sure of the Spanish!). We had some lovely popcorn from Texas and some sweets from the North of Mexico, and then Erik´s brother drove us back to our hotel. We drove via the Univeristy, which is so big it is called a city, and got to see a bit of Mexico City at night which is quite a sight. Erik´s brother spoke a little English and with our little Spanish so we could chat quite a lot with a hodgepodge of the two!
Dancing with clowns and pre-hispanic artefacts!
Ben- The next day, after lazing by the pool for a while (on the roof of the hotel!) we went back to Bosque (park) Chapultepec with the aim of going
Eriks Dad!
Taking over the band:) to the Anthropological museum, apparently one of the worlds best.
When we arrived at the park we saw a clown shooting long thin balloons into the air while techno music played loudly. Lots of kids scrambled to get the balloons. It was strange and funny so we stopped and watched.
The clown noticed us and called us over, interrupting what he was doing and alerting the sizeable crowd to our presence (contravening our tactic of staying anonymous in crowds). He called us over and then ensued, for me, one of the most fun hours of my life, and for Sarah, one of the least enjoyable (but i think she enjoyed it really).
It started by making me say things in Spanish that i didn´t understand, that made the crowd roar with laughter. I was unsure but i played along as i thought it couldn´t hurt. He then spoke with me (with the aid of a microphone) and more and more people were coming to watch the silly gringo say stupid things.
Over the next hour, around about 100 people watched as i had a balloon sword fight with the clown (he was Darth Vader and I
was Luke Skywalker). 3 Mexican girls took it in turn to be ´my girlfriend´(Sarah had ´boyfriends´- a teenage boy and an older bloke who was a very nice chap), and halfway through an Australian guy turned up who was dragged into it as well, who also got a Mexican ´girlfriend´. So this involved greeting them properly (kisses on the cheek and standing with our arms around each other - the clown insisted on this and the crowd loved it - I think the boyfriends and girlfriends enjoyed the attention too!) and lots of dancing. The clown seemed to pick me for most of the little ´tasks´he arranged.
So we would salsa (ish) dance, performing one of two moves when the clown called out a word, then tango, then strut to the pink panther theme tune, then some R&B would come on and the clown would demand that the girls (so this involved Sarah when it came to her turn) dance in what can best be described as seductivally (The Australian guy´s ´girlfriend´kept taking his top off in the dance) which the crowd really enjoyed!
Then (or perhaps before) it came the turn of four of five very small
children to dance (the clown didn´t make them do anything risque) which was very sweet, although one small boy performed a strip tease to Robbie Williams´ Rock DJ - although the clown managed to stop him before he took his trousers off. Very odd.
All this was happening and the crowd was getting bigger and bigger. The finale involved the man calling out ´Sophia!´, to which the girl responded ´Juanito! Que Paso!?). She would then run towards the guy and jump, the guy (therefore Me with two different girls, the Australian with his one girlfriend and the big Mexican man with Sarah) would catch them, swing them and their legs to one side, then round to the other, then forward and back with one leg either side. It was very acrobatic. The two girls i performed this with had trouble jumping high enough (and I wasn´t exactly the maestro!). The crowd really adored this. Then to finish it all off i took the place of the the lady and performed the move with the clown, which involved lots of him groping me and the crowd roaring with laughter.
When it had all finished the clown thanked us profusely
for a long time, saying that because of our participation the crowd was huge and he made lots of money. He then sneaked of for a cigarrette, but not before we posed for photographs with an endless queue of people for about 15 minutes it seemed.
We then went to the museum, and the pre hispanic art and figurines (Maya, Aztec and pre Aztec) seemed rather tame in comparison!! But really it was a stunning collection of very old and very interesting peices.
Uneventful day....
Nothing much happened the next day, but I did get hit in the face by a flying orange!
Ruins and Pyramids - Aztecs at last yay!
Sarah - Next day we headed to the Centro Historico again and visited the Templo Mayor, which is the remains of one of the major temples in the Aztec City of Tenochtitlan, which is where Mexico City now stands. When the Spaniards arrived they destoyed what lay above ground but due to the city sinking, a large amount survived under ground level. They had to knock down two old colonial buildings to get to the temple but it was worth it as it´s pretty spectacular,
Templo Mayor
A nice arty shot by Ben of old and new(ish) you can walk around above the ruins and see how the temple was enlarged over time.
After this we got on the metro and a bus to visit some temples and pyramids (including one that is the third largest in the world) that survived the Spaniards, Teotihuacan. The site is about an hour north of the city and on the drive there you get a really good idea of how massive the city is, buildings and neighbourhoods as far as the eye can see for miles and miles.
Ben- The site was very incredible. Huge stone structures built 150AD to 250AD without the wheel or pack animals. Lots of the buildings you can walk upon but as many are closed off (understandably). The Temple of the Sun (originally thought to be dedicated to the sun god, although recently discovered to have been a tribute to Tlaloc the rain god) is the huge one. We climbed up this (which was pretty tough in the heat) and enjoyed the incredible views of the ancient city. We then explored the avenue of the dead (so called because The Aztecs - upon discovering this city that had long been abandoned - thought
Pyramids
On top of the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihuacan that the buildings that flanked the 2mile long road were tombs) and the other huge pyramid, the pyramid of the moon. This is smaller but just as high as it is built on higher ground.
It was all pretty immense to be in the remains of such an old city. The solitude of it (it was an hour outside of the city, and being there late in the day, not a lot of people were around), the relentess sun beating down and the many different cactus that scattered around the site made it an incredible experience. (hopefully we´ll have put some pictures up of this).
We´ll put some pictures on the last blog as well, so have a look.
If you want to see where we have been staying, it´s the yellow building with all the people outside here!
Hostel Our posh hotel was here! It´s the one with the swimming pool😊
Hotel
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olivia
non-member comment
all very interesting...but how many cigarettes have you smoked/ pounds have you lost or gained- come on bridget, keep it up!! loving the blogs, you lovely chaps. big bum love. x x x