Mexico City Traffic:

We walked for a while and saw some of the sights, finally ending up at the big square called Zocalo, this is where the famous Independence Day celebrations are held. There was a religious convention just starting so we didn’t hang around long.

The Theatre in Mexico City:

Government Buildings:

This is the famous bell rung by the President on Independence Day

The big flag at Zocalo (although I thought the one in Cancun is bigger)

We decided to find a slightly more upscale restaurant! although the price was good! (5 pesos = 50 cents) funnily the piece of paper underneath says 6 for 5 pesos. There were about 20 sheets of paper so I guess the price changes according to demand. We went to a Chinese buffet place where it was 55 pesos for all you can eat. The food was good. We went back to the hotel to shower and change and then headed out to one of the lively areas for some bars and drinks.

We caught a taxi to Zona Rosa, so named (Pink Zone) as it is the gay area of town which also has the liveliest bars. The bell boy offered to get us a taxi for $15 but we flagged a cab and got it for less than $2! Nearly all the bars had bands playing, but all were the same kind of stuff - Queen, ACDC, Bon Jovi covers, not really our thing at all. We found a bar where the band had stopped for a break and got a table, the only table was about 4 feet from a huge speaker and the seats were about a foot high and not at all comfortable, but swayed by the litre of beer for 45 pesos we stayed for a few drinks. There was also a cut through from the main street so passers by would wander through every so often. Bearing in mind this part of town, there were many, shall I say ‘flamboyant’ older gentleman wearing clothes that would make Elton John look tame. As I mentioned the seats were tiny, so small that when I sat down my knees were pointing in the air and as guys do I absent mindedly had my knees apart while sitting which I only realised when a 60 yr old in a glitter shirt blew a kiss at me!

The band came back on and the noise almost threw us out of our chairs and we couldn’t hear each other speak so we headed off to another bar. We found one with an all female band singing Mexican pop, so we stayed there a while. Strangely there was no drinks menu and they said they didn’t serve soft drinks when Jannet asked for a coke. We ended up sharing a jarra of beer (a jug of beer with about 4 pints in it). We were about to order a second when we decided to ask the price 260 pesos we were told, which is stupidly expensive - about 4 times higher than the place we had just been too. Jannet asked another waiter and he said 220. It seems like the waiters just make the price up for their own gain, with no price lists anywhere. Needless to say we didn’t order a second and the waiter didn’t get a tip either. We found a third bar where the prices were much more reasonable and had a few bottles there before calling it a night and taking another cab back to the hotel.

SUNDAY

Sunday morning we would be out of the hotel all day, we planned to visit Xochimilco which is one of the tourist attractions, it was quite a long way south from where we were staying and then go direct from there to the Robbie Williams concert.

Still a little fearful of the infamous Mexico City subway system we flagged a taxi and it took maybe an hour and a half to get there. Partly because it was quite a long way away but also because we were caught up in football traffic as Pumas were playing Americas that day. The cabbie we got was very knowledgeable and friendly and explained how we should get from Xochimilco to the concert which was on the West part of town. We finally arrived and the price of $15 for the fare was not unreasonable.

We had a quick look around and decided it wasn’t really worth the effort of getting there. This was a floating Market 28! Xochmilco is basically a canal system and you either rent your own boat which are much like gondolas or jump on a collectivo (shared boat like a bus). You then float down the canal for an hour while various other gondolas come up to you and try and sell you crap. After that you then go back up the canal the way you’ve just come and more people try to sell you crap.

Before we went on our boat trip we had lunch at a Mexican Restaurant, where I had one of my favourites - Chicken Mole. Then it was on to the boat, we went for the collectivo option as it was only 10 pesos against the private hire option of 140 pesos. In any case the private hire option just attracted even more attention from the people selling - elotes (sweetcorn), tacos, ice cream, and the floating mariachi bands (many of which were pretty awful by mariachi standards). It really is a comical sight with scores of boats going in opposite directions and crashing into each other on a narrow canal.

We reached the end of the canal and decided to just make a run for it into the nearby village rather than endure another hour and a half back. Besides we wanted to arrive early for the concert.

We flagged a cab to the train station and then caught the train about 5 stops to the subway station. We were both very reluctant to use the subway system but once we did we found it great and used it tons more after our first experience, even late at night. Not scary at all, there are security guards posted at all entrances and just regular people using the system to get around the traffic choked city. Of course there are people that want to sell you crap, there must be tens of thousands of them as at each stop there’s be a new person get on the train, walk the length of the carriage and get off at the next stop only to be replaced by someone else. There were chiclet sellers (chewing gum), ‘bands’, ‘singers’, the deaf and dumb guy who passes out the stuff and then collects it back in when he hears the bell that announces arriving at the next station, people who would speak of their life of woe – the best ones though were the guys who sold rip off DVD’s and CD’s. They’d have a portable DVD or CD player playing their latest mix (which always has Queen on it) and a car battery to power it in their rucksack!

The best thing of all about the subway is the price – 2 pesos from anywhere to anywhere on the system, and the system is very extensive and covers the whole City.

After a couple of changes we arrived at the nearest station to the stadium where Robbie Williams was playing (Foro de Sol). We caught a cab and asked the driver to take us there. There were 9 separate entrance gates, I am sure the cabbie was running his meter up as we passed our gate and he insisted he could get us closer – traffic was horrendous and it was getting late. About 30 mins later he’d done a complete circuit of the Stadium and we arrived back at the place where we wanted to get out in the first place!

The tickets said 7.00pm start – to me that means when the gates open, but no it was when the support band would come on. It was about 6pm when we arrived – me thinking we’d be close to the front by being early, but it turns out people had been arriving since 3pm.

Another major mistake – the tickets said no cameras allowed, my camera is only tiny and I wanted it for some Xochmilco pics too. I wondered whether to risk taking it, but suspected everyone would be searched on entry and then I’d have to hand my camera in and collect at the end with a gazillion other people – possibly to find it had been ‘lost’ so I didn’t bring it with me. Guess what no searches and everyone else had a camera! I could have kicked myself.

Our tickets were the second best, the area right in the middle at the front had sold out when we bought ours, so we had to settle for one of the sides and further back from the front. Jannet did try to bribe our way in to the best section with a 500 peso tip but the guys weren’t having it.

There were 60,000 people at the concert and this was the second night, another 60,000 were there the night before, the vast majority of which probably bought their ripped off Robbie CD from one of the guys on the subway. RW had just won international artist of the year for MTV Latin America and this was the final date of around 10 dates throughout Latin America on his World Tour, it also went out live on SKY. It seems it’s only the US where no one knows who Robbie Williams is. The performance was great with the usual mix of audience interaction and great music for two hours. He said he’ll be back nst tour and next time we’ll go again and get the best tickets.

The subway closes down at 11 (until 5am) and we just managed to squeeze on the last train of the night back to the hotel…. for another 2 pesos each. One thing I found really strange was that all the bars close down early around 11pm or so. Even in the Zona Rosa they were closing at 12. In a city of that size you have to wonder where people go out at night. Iin the centre where we were there were hardly any bars at all. We fancied a nightcap and a bite to eat but had to make do with a Sanborns before going back to the hotel.

I forgot to mention the weather, the first day we arrived it was sunny and quite hot maybe high 70’s. Everyone was saying to us “is isn’t it hot?” and we were like … mmm not really. After that the days were cloudy with sunny spells possibly low 70’s. The nights were chilly down to the low 50’s. A big contrast to the heat and humidity of Cancun.

Monday

Today we had planned to go and see Teotihuacan the famous Aztec pyramids. We chose the 2 peso subway + 20 peso bus combination instead of the 450 peso organized tour. We didn’t really know where it was just that it was North of the City. There was a far flung subway station called Ciudad Azteca (Aztec City) so I guessed it would be somewhere near there, wrong!

After an hour or so we arrived at Ciudad Azteca hoping to catch a bus or taxi to the pyramid. Jannet asked for directions and we found out we were miles away so backtracked on the subway to a bus station we’d passed half an hour earlier on the advice of the person we asked. Once there we were told it wasn’t the right bus station so we caught a taxi to the correct one. There we caught a bus only to find it stopped to pick up more passengers at the bus station we had been told was the wrong one! About 45 mins later we arrived at the pyramids and went off to explore.

It’s about a two mile walk from one end to the other and of course there are people trying to sell you crap all the way. Hardly any tourists there, the sellers probably outnumbered the tourists by at least 2 to 1. This time the items of the day were magic crystals that were coloured glass, fake Aztec aretfacts, bird whistles, rugs and real dodgy silver that they were selling for 10 pesos for a neck chain. My favourite one was the guy who after showing me his fake silver and receiving a no gracias suddenly produced a bottle of water in the fashion of a magician and said “mira!” (look!). Kind of like I would be so in awe and so dying of thirst that I would have to buy it.

The pyramids were very striking though and well worth the journey. I climbed both and Jannet climbed the smaller one. Unlike Chichen Itza the steps are not uniform with steep phases and not so steep.

Temple of the Sun

View from the top of the Temple of the Sun (with zoom):

Proof I got to the top (the marker at the highest point)

View from the top of the Temple of the Moon:

Aztec Carvings and Paintings:

The bus ride back to the subway was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that we caught the slow bus which weaved in and out of tiny villages for 45 minutes before it joined the main highway.

We had decided to visit both Teotihuacan and Chapeltepac (a large park with museum) on the same day but due to our long journey it was now dark. Still, we decided to head there anyway.

Once we got there we couldn’t find the park and besides the museum was already closed, wandering a dark park at night is not the most sensible thing to do in Mexico City. We decided to look for a restaurant or bar but couldn’t find anything just hotels and commercial properties, finally we flagged a cab and asked him to take us somewhere with restaurants. We ended up at Polanco and even though it was 8pm everything seemed either closed or empty. We found a Chinese place that looked busy and ate there. It had the best Chinese Curry I’ve found in Mexico. After the meal we went back to our hotel via subway and had a little walk – we finally found a bar still serving (at 10:30pm) and had a beer and a coffee. They closed at 11 and we made our way back to sleep.

TUESDAY

We had an alarm call at 5am (our flight was at 8am) and checked out. We caught the subway to the airport for 2 pesos again, much cheaper than the 150 we paid for the inward journey. Check in was smooth and flight was on time, our transfer was waiting for us in Cancun and dropped us off at the door.

Overall I really enjoyed the trip, it was nice being tourists again , since the only places we’ve traveled to in 6 years or so have been England and Cancun. I still wonder where people go at night in Mexico City though.