Ephemerica

We’ve been in Mexico City for about a week now, and it is about as crazy as you would expect a city of over 25 million people to be. First, how we got here. We were whisked to a bus stop in Toluca by Moises’ dad, and within seconds of arriving, our bikes were thrown under the bus and we were on our way. The disorientation only began there. We had a plan for how we were going to ride to Teresa’s parents house once we got to the city, and the route seemed pretty straightforward. However, when we actually saw the major roads and the traffic on them, we got a little freaked. We ended up riding from the bus station downtown to visit Moises at his work for lunch, and then continued from there to the delegacion of Tlalpan, which is in the southern part of the city. To give you an indication of how big the Distrito Federal (DF) is, to get from the city center in the middle to Tlalpan on the southern edge was around 30 km! Anyway, when we finally navigated our way to the house, we were weary from dodging buses and taxis, and very happy to be welcomed by Teresa’s family.

The last week has been spent alternatively packing as much sightseeing as possible into a day with days of downtime and recovery. Mexico City has so many amazing sights that in our week here, we’ve only scratched the surface—which is actually great, since it gives us an excuse to come back We got the chance to see some amazing art, not only modern artists like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (and other muralists), but endless examples of pre-Hispanic art at the National Anthropological Museum (you can easily spend a whole day at this museum). We also enjoyed visiting some of the neighborhoods, getting a feel for the town outside of the historic center. And of course, we enjoyed the archeological sites. Teresa’s mom has been our most excellent tour guide for most of the week, shuffling us from Metro to taxi to bus to Metrobus seamlessly, helping us navigate our way through the city.

The first site we visited was the Templo Mayor, which is right in the heart of downtown Mexico City, right behind the Cathedral. This was the heart of the ancient island-city of Tenochtitlan that was part of the Mexica/Aztec empire (for more information about the Mexica/Aztec distinction, check out this Wikipedia article). The most amazing thing about it to me was that it was only discovered in 1978! The Mexica had a construction method of enlarging their buildings by building over the top of the old ones. This temple had been built over seven times by the time Cortez came to conquer the city in the early 1500’s. Then, as was the method of the conquistadores, they razed the city and built Catholic churches on the sites of the old buildings of worship. And there the ruins of the temple remained until they were rediscovered by accident.

On Sunday we went with Teresa’s family to Teotihuacan, which is about 50 km north of Mexico City. This site is dominated by its two large pyramids, the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon. Surprisingly, it only took just over 10 minutes to climb to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun (and that was with lots of resting and lots of traffic). This site is so huge that there are still parts of it that are covered by grass and dirt, patiently waiting to be excavated. Unfortunately, the museum was closed though—yet another reason to return. On the way back, we stopped by an amazing restaurant called La Gruta (The Grotto), which is in a giant cave near the ruins. In addition to the atmosphere and food being incredible, there were three dance routines that were performed, ranging from one in ancient Mexica garb to one in the traditional style of Veracruz.

We’re expecting a package today from Amazon with a map and a guidebook, both of Central America. Although our highway map of Mexico has been very useful, we have suffered somewhat not being as mentally prepared in advance for our climbing days as we were when we had our elevation map in Baja. Our plan is to leave the city as we came in, by bus, to the city of Puebla. Then we’ll bike south to Oaxaca—all reports indicate that things have calmed down quite a bit there since the end of last year, so we’re looking forward to it.

Posted by Matthew on April 4th, 2007 | Filed under: Mexico