Mexico City

It's been a while since my last blog post as we haven't been doing any international travel recently. That all changed a couple weeks ago when we flew down to Mexico for a visit. We hadn't been to Mexico for a couple years so we were really excited to visit one of our favorite places on earth. We started in Puerto Vallarta which is a great beach destination but not much of a cultural mecca so won't feature prominently in this post. The photo below of me on the rickshaw is the only shot from Puerto Vallarta. We enjoyed our time there but were ready to move on after a week as the temperatures were getting into the 80s and we had had enough of the beach.

The next stop on our itinerary was Mexico City, a place Ginny and I had not been to in more than thirty years. From our first walk around the city (pretty much our favorite activity anywhere we go), we were enraptured with the street life and the vibrancy of the city. We quickly got accustomed to eating mouth watering tacos, memelas, gorditas, and other Mexican delicacies (mostly from street vendors). Mexico City has plenty of great fancy restaurants but the street food is what I like the most (see photos at the bottom of the post). And fortunately, no stomach issues to report but some of it was very hot!

We prioritized visiting the Museum of Anthropology and Teotihuacan during our first couple days as those were both in our 'must visit' basket. We had visited both places before so there weren't any big surprises but they are both world class destinations and we were just amazed by the grandeur and antiquity of these Mexican marvels. See photos below for details but I highly recommend that you visit both of these places if you come to Mexico City.

On a recommendation from my cousin Hunter, we went to see Lucha Libre at Arena Mexico one of the first nights we were in town. It was quite the spectacle with a whole series of characters coming out to 'wrestle' each other in succession. While it's all obviously fake and staged, I was really impressed by the athleticism and acrobatics on display by the different luchadores. Some of the luchadores are 'good guys' and others are 'bad guys' and the theatrics of the whole production is quite entertaining (see photo below). We still preferred going to a Korean baseball game where the fan participation was off the charts but this was definitely a cool cultural experience.

I don't think we even scratched the surface with all of the museums that Mexico City has on offer but we did go to a number and were thoroughly impressed by virtually all of them. Probably our least favorite was the new Casa Frida Kahlo as it didn't have any of her paintings and we were rushed through the museum by a guide without the ability to really look at anything in much detail. But the Museo Tamayo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Postal Museum and Museo del Palacio de Belles Artes were all super impressive and I highly recommend them all (see photos below).

On one of our last days in the city, we rode the relatively new MexiBus cable car system. This is not a tourist attraction but is an actual part of Mexico City's transportation network. In the past ten years, the Mexican government has built three separate cable car lines that largely serve low income neighborhoods in very hilly terrain not easily served by other forms of public transportation. As such, the introduction of these cable car lines has dramatically improved the residents ability to get around the city and improved safety which is an issue on some of the local buses. Unlike most public transit in the city which is really crowded, it was very comfortable to ride the MexiBus and it only cost 7 pesos (38 cents) to ride the entire length of the line.

I've moved on to Guatemala where I'm staying with a host family in the city of Quetzaltenango (Xela for short) for the next month and doing an immersive Spanish program. Ginny will be joining me next week as she just hadn't had enough of Mexico City to leave so soon!