The next morning we joined the business people for breakfast and then hired Angel our taxi driver to take us to Teotihuacan, another theme park on the outskirts of Mexico City, actually about an hour's drive to the North.
I lie, Teotihuacan isn't a theme park at all but one of the major historical sites in all of South America. It predates the Mayan civilisation so is pretty damn old. Not wanting to just ride coasters on the trip it was important to me to indulge in some native culture and this place was ideal.
On the way to the site we passed lots of graffiti adverts painted alongside the road. At first I thought they were well produced tags but then I realised it was companies being advertised.
We also passed this line of police getting ready to lay waste to a small group of protestors....probably. We didn't stick around long enough to see exactly what was about to kick off.
Like LA, Mexico City is a bit of a sprawl with the city boundaries constantly being pushed with more and more property being built. Unlike LA however Mexico City is pretty hilly so those developments steal the skyline.
A stone sentry greets us at Teotihuacan. A little tip is to be dropped off at entrance one and picked up at entrance three. That way you don't have to walk all the way back.
This is the view from entrance one. Ahead is the citadel, which we climbed to the top of. It wasn't that high really as its the smallest of the main pyramids here.
A view from the top of the citadel looking down behind it. The excavation here is showing that the temples were much like a russian doll with one temple built over the top of another. As they peel away the layers they discover more about the history of the site. Obviously if they dug all the way through there would be nothing left so for now at least the excavation had stopped.
In the background are the two major pyramids, the Temple of the Moon and the Temple of the Sun. In the background you can make out through the Mexico City smog the absolutely massive Temple of Pluto, not really that's a mountain.
This is the Avenue of the Dead, the main throughfare running up the centre of Teotihuacan.
Weird cement brickwork and old wall paintings combined.
This is the Temple of the Sun, half way up the avenue. It's the larger of two pyramids and can be ascended all the way to the top as long as you're OK to negotiate around 250 steps, all of which are pretty high. Apparently if you make it to the top you get 10 years added to your life although the cynic in me says you lose 10 climbing it.
A not particular perfect pano of the Temple of the Sun, the smoggy skies making consistent light levels between shots a bit awkward. But you get the idea.
More aged stone work
Just to show we made it to the top here's a photo from there of the Temple of the Moon. The climb was pretty exhausting, I'm just not cut out for steep climbs; London is pretty flat so I'm not used to it. Other tourists were finding it hard too so I took solace in that. What surprised us was that shortly after making it to the top one of those groups of Chinese pensioners made it to the top too, totally fine and not feeling the effects at all. There must be something in that Tai Chi stuff they do.
Descending the Sun Temple, the idea of tumbling down the stairs was considered but deemed a bit disrespectful so wasn't carried out.
At the foot of the Sun Temple, the fence predates the temples by around one million years...or perhaps not.
Heading up the avenue towards the Moon Temple, although it looks bigger, it's actually smaller than the Sun temple. The trick is caused by the avenue actually being uphill.
Although the place was fairly desolate there were quite a lot of vendors selling random trinkets and souvenirs. A polite "no thankyou" was usually enough to get rid of them, but some were a little more persistant tempting you with a bargain price of one peso for their wares.
Another old mural.
A really cool stone dragon head.
Multicoloured structures. Like visiting Japan for the first time its quite amazing to see original architecture first hand, and old stuff like this still standing the test of time.
More ruins unearthed near exit three. The kids in red were a school party here for a few hours history lesson. I was quite impressed that Mexican schools send their kids to places like this rather than theme parks as often happens in the US and UK.
The Moon Temple done in a pano stylee.
Another pano and I like this one. It covers the avenue from the Moon Temple down to the Sun.
The Moon Temple. You can't climb to the top of this one, only the mid-platform in front of it. Having endured the larger of the two I had no urge to ascend this one either.
For those people who missed the chance of buying souvenirs, and how did you avoid the gauntlet of vendors if you are, there's a final chance to buy something at exit three. It's also worth mentioning that if you do, don't carry it in your hand luggage as it arouses the suspicions of security staff, especially if it's a little statuette, which they might think is being used to conceal drugs.
Having had our fill of Teotihuacan we met our driver, waiting patiently at the exit and headed off back into Mexico City for some more touristy stuff.
Now driving back into Mexico City we passed a modern take on the pyramids structures seen previously. It looks like most of the building was up for sale, I don't think they'll sell it until they finish the penthouse floor.
The city of Mexico City (that doesn't read right) has a main square called The Zocalo, in fact this is one of the largest main squares in the world and like the Palace Square in
St Petersburg is used for major concerts including the likes of Tiesto and Shakira, who managed to have over 200,000 attendees to see if her hips didn't lie. It looks like some other concert had taken place the previous night as they were packing up some rigging. The wonderful building on the North side of the square is the Metropolitan Cathedral, which looks a bit wonky, not due to my photography but subsidance.
A wonderfully colour street running off the Zocalo. Moneda for those that are interested.
A bizarre serious of sculptures.
A shop that sells uniforms, I only presume so people could pretend to be official for shop robberies etc. Actually although I didn't photography any its worth mentioning that the security forces in Mexico City are usually heavily armed. We saw some very impressive shotguns, machine guns and rifles being carried that would make the trenchcoat mafia jealous. I was scared that if I shot them with my camera their shot back would be a bit more fatal.
Nice frontage, and I do mean the building.
Some random church, and there were many.
Just how many boxes is that dude carrying exactly?
Back at the Zocalo, we'd explored the area to the east, so decided to head west.
The cathedral is a Baroque structure built in 1667 but finished 200 years later. I reckon the Olympic village in Stratford will take just as long.
We stopped off for food in a wonderful Mexican restaurant on Francisco I Madero street. As is ever the case I tried some random stuff from the menu and having been warned what I'd ordered was quite spicy, still went through with it. It was quite hot but not as hot as whatever the hotel served us at breakfast on the previous morning.
I'm quite brave when it comes to food but there was no way I was going to try "She asses of head"
A plant outside the Cathedral. How did they grow that?
I'm usually wary of taking photos inside religious buildings but it was alright here. Quite a lot of gold here and the cynic in me makes me wonder that if religion was so charitable why so much of the money collected was invested in stuff like this. The Vatican is much much worse at displaying its opulancy than here though.
This plumb line shows how much the cathedral is tilting and they mark it every few decades. Rather oddly it seems to be tilting in various directions over time, not just getting worse in one.
A really beautiful piece of sculpture outside the cathedral. I didn't really appreciate the Mary image until I saw the photograph.
The green volkswagen is the city taxi, which makes the city at times look like a Green Hornet meets Herbie convention at times. There are mini cab type taxis such as the one in the foreground, which are cheaper but not necessarily as safe, much like comparing the black cab and minicabs back in the London.
Walking Cinco del Mayo street, which is one of the main shopping streets in Mexico City. We weren't there to shop though, just walking on through.
Nice patterns on the wall, and no tagging over the top of it. Actually I think all the graffiti takes place on the highways out of the city. I was expecting to see lots within the city and didn't.
This is the Palacio del Belles Artes (Palace of Fine Arts to you non-Spanish speakers) and is the premier opera house in Mexico City. Quite an amazing looking building too.
As well as doing the opera, the building also houses various exhibitions. I can't remember what one they were showing on this occasion but we weren't enticed enough to pop in for a look.
Old school tram, no rails though. This would be fun for a joyride.
To the west of the Belles Artes is the Alameda, which is the city's take on New York Central Park but on a mucho mucho mucho smaller scale. It offers the city people a place to escape the heat and relax in an oxygen rich environment. There's quite a number of food stands, which we avoided like the plague, choosing instead to play it safe on the food front.
An interesting idea for a sculpture. It's actually holding a flag, but I couldn't get it and the hands in shot. As we've all seen a flag before I chose to sacrifice that.
Hmmm, anyone fancy a shock?
West of the Alameda the roads meet the Avenue de la Reforma, which is the Main highway that runs through the city. The building on the left is the National Lottery HQ I think, and the yellow structure is a rather dirty statue that advertises a bank I think. The piece in the middle is just a random piece of art.
Loving the wings on the windows.
Heading back down the Reforma, our hotel is on this road but a short walk away, too much of a walk for Jeppe though :) I think I underestimate how much walking I can do in a day. I dragged Keith around the streets of Tokyo and did the same with Jeppe in Mexico. Sorry guys!
There is a great mix of architecture in Mexico City. Some wonderful skyscrapers juxtapose the equally wonderful pyramids. Why does using "juxtapose" instantly give the impression I'm an art-loving pretentious twat?
This is the Monumento a Cristobal Colon, dedicated to the inventor of the enema. Actually its Christopher Colombus the guy who found America by accident when he got his east and west mixed up. Luckily for us my map reading was a lot better than his!
Strange sculpture. We stopped for a Starbucks near here and were soon joined by a couple of business men and their security details who covered the exits and ensured no-one got close. We'd never lunched with mafiosi before :)
Another statue in the middle of Reforma, this one in honour of Cuauhtemoc an Aztec ruler of what was the city in the early 1500s
Woohoo, some urban graffiti. The megaman reminded me of a large scale invader piece and the ghost was pretty cute.
Hidden on the left a Mexican take on the Shephard Fairey "Obey" logo.
A close up of the ghost
This building was next to our hotel. Designs like this must be great in the event of a major evacuation, you just slide down the left-hand side.
Bizarre dinosaur rowing-boat sculpture outside our hotel.
Equally strange, but its great to see so much art on the streets. Mexico City has more museums and galleries than any other city so art is very important to them and its wonderful to see it out on the streets.
Cool building, not so much fun to slide down in the event of an evacuation though.
What was quite weird about the Mexican roundabouts is that traffic doesn't go around it in one direction like in the UK but they close half the traffic and allow one direction to go around it anyway they wish (note the car on the left)
Along the Reforma there was a series of chair installations, which were open for use by the locals, as you can see from these two girls making use of these high chairs. It's not so obvious how they got up there though.
The most famous structure on the Reforma is the Angel de la Independencia. A golden angel not unlike the one I saw in
Berlin.
Having seen pretty much all of the main attractions in Mexico City we headed back to the hotel and then went out for dinner. Jeppe, just so you know the walk was only 5 miles :D
