We bussed there from Cholula. Again, Mexico's public transport system made it fairly easy to get in and out of Mexico City. We shared a lovely night at their house, catching up on things and meeting Lourdes' son, Juan Carlos. Lourdes is an archaeologist and has a wealth of knowledge about many of the ancient sites we had visited in Mexico.
The next day they took us out to explore the area. Valle de Bravo is a beautiful colonial town, although it almost looked medieval to me. It was stunning!
Houses have to conform to historic building standards so even the rooves have a uniform appearance.
We ate breakfast at a restaurant with fabulous views over the town and nearby lake.
There was a troll shop in the town!
There was a wonderful spiritual retreat place nearby called Carmel Maranatha. Sadly, we weren't allowed to take photos inside but it was beautiful.
We then went to an amazing hotel on the lake. The views over the lake were stunning.
There was one area that had a stained glass roof over it. The light underneath was incredible!
The family looked after us wonderfully. The next day we farewelled the beautiful property in the trees and Gary and Lourdes very kindly drove us back to Mexico City. They showed us their apartment and we finished the visit with a superb meal at a local cafe. Thank you Gary, Lourdes and Juan Carlos!
We checked into a great place in Mexico City (it's very quiet for such a big, noisy city) and spent the next few days exploring the places we didn't get to the first time we were here.
First stop was the Anthropological Museum. This place was enormous! It could take all day to see it all properly. The entrance was very impressive.
Inside were artefacts from many ancient Mexican civilisations. Some were incredible. I've just added a few select photos in here.
There were a few life-sized representations of what some of the pyramids really looked like. Imagine entire pyramids decorated like this!
The colours in some of the artwork were amazing.
There were some weird and wonderful pieces of ancient art.
Olmecs are famous for sculpting these huge heads, about two metres high. They must be accurate depictions though because, even today, we sometimes see Mexicans who have facial features like this.
Olmecs often made smiling statues. I loved them!
This marker stone with writing is from Yaxchilan, the ruined city we visited near the Guatemalan border a while ago. They had distinctive picture-style writing.
The next day we explored the famous Templo Mayor. This temple was the very centre of the Aztec civilisation. It's located in the heart of Mexico City. It was discovered during renovation works on a building and the decision was made to demolish buildings around it so archaological digs could be undertaken. Today, the ruin sits surrounded by grand colonial buildings.
One of the raised walkways we were on ran on top of an old water or sewer pipe. This pipe ran right through the main pyramid. Whoever built this pipe clearly knew they were going through an ancient building but I suppose that people didn't care about these things for a long time.
There was a museum on site and I loved the way they showed the colours some of the walls were painted.
The amazing thing is that the Aztecs built their entire town on islands on a lake. They extended the land by driving timbers into the water then gradually builing up the land. The idea behind this was that the lake water gave them a huge benefit in growing crops. They could grow three crops per year compared to the usual one. This helped make them such a dominant force.
This also means that the current Mexico City is also built on the old lake bed so there is a problem with buildings sinking. Look closely at the different angles on the buildings below.
This church with the dark stones and the white steeple is leaning significantly.
Next stop was the National Palace to see the Diego Rivera murals. (Diego was Frida's husband.) His work was very political and often portrayed the history of Mexico in some form. This mural was huge.
I was most fascinated by one of his murals that showed what the Aztec city looked like when it was built on the lake. Note the two volcanoes in the background. These are the two we saw from Cholula on the other side. The pointy one is the famous active Popocatepetl.
We visited a gallery showing art from artists who were allowed to pay taxes with their artwork. There were some cool things there!
Out on the busy streets, I realised just how homogenous this world has become.
There was one last Diego Rivera mural to see. He was famously commissioned to paint a mural at the Rockefeller Centre in New York, but they didn't like how he included his anti-capitalist ideals in it. When he refused to remove the offending parts they demolished the entire mural. He reproduced it here in the Palacio de Bellas Artes.
By this time it was late afternoon so we made our way north to Plaza Garibaldi. This was a much rougher part of town with people sleeping in the streets and the smell of pee everywhere. There has been a big push to clean this area up.
The plaza itself was fine and is famous for its mariachi bands. Men, and the occasional lady, roamed the plaza with their instruments hoping to play people a song for a fee. I loved their distinctive black suits decorated with silver.
There were different styles of silver decorations.
The buttons on these pants were owl faces!
We had the best margaritas in all of Mexico here. They were tamarind ones and were the perfect blend of sweet, sour and salty. Yum! Note the mariachi guys dressed in white in the background. The white costumes indicated they were from Veracruz.
Not only were the margaritas amazing but I loved the glasses they were served in too!
In true Mexican style, free music was being played in the square. People obviously knew what sort of music it would be and came prepared with their hankies. We hadn't seen this sort of dancing elsewhere.
Much to our amazement, a group of perfectly groomed horses and riders, all with matching gear, rode past. It turned out that they were policemen! They were dressed like mariachis. It was great to see!
Soon, we heard thunder and it started raining. It had been so long since we saw rain that we can't even remember where it was. It didn't last long. Wet season is coming so we can expect a bit of rain from now on.
We walked 4kms back to our hotel. Our maps programme on the phone took us through some pretty seedy areas. Everyone is so friendly though that when John saw a lady standing on a corner he said hello to her. I made the comment (discreetly) that perhaps he should have asked "how much?" as she looked a bit suss. To our surprise, on the next corner was another lady. On the following corner was a lady who was bursting out of her dress at the top and the dress was so short that we could see what she had for breakfast. There was now no doubt we were in a red light district!
The next day we explored the huge artisenal market. We had bought almost nothing on the entire trip as we didn't want to carry things with us. I was tempted so many times by the amazing arts, crafts and foods in Mexico.
At one stage we stopped at a cafe for a cold drink and were amazed to see a series of tables set up in the middle of the arts market. The tables were full of people playing chess.
There were old and young alike. This girl only looked about 6 or 7 years old!
A few couples even had the matching outfits happening. John was very pleased about their choice of colours.
We stopped for some tacos at one stage and I just had to take a photo of the variety of sauces available. They love their sauces in Mexico!
Our last day in Mexico was a Sunday so we thought we'd do the Mexican thing and join the hordes and head to the local park. As expected, it was packed but there were still places where you could find a bit of relative peace and quiet.
Inside the huge park were restaurants, street stalls, museums and even lakes where you could hire boats.
Although Mexico City is terribly polluted and is very busy and noisy, we were rapt to have such a selection of food. We ate Japanese, Korean and Italian. As much as we love Mexican food it was so good to have something different after four months.
It'll be sad to leave this amazing country but it's time to go home - almost! We're spending a few days in San Francisco on the way home so I'll be back again soon.
It'll be sad to leave this amazing country but it's time to go home - almost! We're spending a few days in San Francisco on the way home so I'll be back again soon.
Adios!
Heather and John
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