Part of the reason we went to Mexico City the dates we did was to be there for Mexican Independence Day on September 16 (we had September 16 off from school). It was such a great experience to be in the capital of Mexico (full title is La Ciudad de México, D.F.; the D.F. stands for “Distrito Federal”, or Federal District, since Mexico’s federal government resides there).
I’ll do my best to recall everything I did and saw:
Tuesday, September 15:
We arrived the day before Mexican Independence Day, in the afternoon. After about an hour in a taxi, we finally made it to Paco’s house. It mainly took so long because of the traffic (on the way back to the airport it only took us 25 minutes, because there was not nearly as much traffic on a Sunday). Mexico City is the second largest city in the world with a population of about 25 million. Because of this, even at off-hours you’re bound to hit slow-moving traffic, simply because the population is so dense.
Anyway, as soon as we arrived to Paco’s house, we were met with the warm hospitality that Mexicans are known for. Paco’s mom even let us know that “Mi casa es su casa.” Relaxing over a Corona, we visited with Paco and his mom as we discussed our plans for that night, to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.
In Mexico, on the eve of Independence Day at 11 p.m., the president of Mexico (currently Felipe Calderón) walks out onto the balcony of the Palacio Nacional, the government’s main building, in front of el Zócalo, Mexico City’s main plaza. A HUGE crowd of people waits for him in el Zócalo, where he proceeds to issue the “Grito de Dolores” (Cry of Dolores), Miguel Hidalgo’s call to rebellion against the Spanish in 1810. This includes a shout of “¡Viva México!”, followed by a cry from the people of “¡Viva!”.
We didn’t actually watch “El Grito” from the Zócalo, because we heard there would be way too many people there. Instead, we watched it on TV at Paco’s house while his extended family all gathered to have a nice Independence Day dinner. We then dressed up in traditional Mexican attire (Paco wore a poncho and sombrero, and although Claire and I didn’t have much, we wore Mexican flag headbands and painted Mexican flags on our faces!
Then we headed to Paco’s friend’s house for an Independence Day fiesta!
I have never seen so much passion for one’s country as I did at this party. Everyone was wearing either red, green and white (the colors of the Mexican flag), or ponchos, sombreros, or even fake mustaches. One of the attendees kept shouting passionately, “¡Viva México!” and everyone would respond “¡Viva!” They served traditional Mexican food and played traditional music, and everyone danced. A perfect way to celebrate one of the most important cultural holidays here!
Wednesday, September 16:
As it was a holiday, Paco’s parents had a day off from work so they took us out to a late lunch/early dinner at a delicious seafood restaurant.
Seafood is very popular in Mexico, especially in the form of cocktails. This one had every kind of seafood you could imagine in it. Soooo good!Afterwards, Paco and his friend Mario drove us to the Centro Histórico (historic center) of the city, which included the Zócalo. As it was Independence Day itself, there were several people walking around the Zócalo, as well as vendors selling food and various Independence Day gadgets.
There we saw the Palacio Nacional, where the president had shouted “El Grito” the night before, and walked along the streets around the Zócalo to see the other historic sights (I’ll post all my pictures soon and explain everything in the captions).
Thursday, September 17:
Paco’s mom was so sweet and took the day off from work to show Claire and me around some more of the city. We first went to el Museo de Antropología (Anthropology Museum), one of Mexico City’s best museums, which had a variety of rooms dedicated to everything from the evolution of man to the Aztec ruins. It even had the original Aztec calendar!:
After the museum we walked across the street to Chapultepec (which means “Hill of Grasshoppers” in the Náhuatl language), Mexico City’s largest park (seriously, it was huge). It includes several attractions like lakes and a zoo, and even “Los Pinos”, the residence of Mexico’s president! However, we went specifically to see the Castillo de Chapultepec (Chapultepec Castle), which sits at the top of a hill in the park. This castle served as the residence of Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota in 1864, and continued to house Mexican presidents until 1939, when it was converted into a museum. We were able to walk around the grounds and see the rooms of Maximilian and Carlotta, and the castle had a breathtaking view of the city!
From there I could really tell that there are 25 million people living in Mexico City; it was all buildings, so close together!!
After that Paco came and met up with us, and we all drove to Coyoacán (“Place of Coyotes” in the Náhuatl language), a cute little town outside of downtown Mexico City. Our first stop was none other than the “Blue House,” more commonly know as the Frida Kahlo museum! Yes, this was the house in which Frida, the renowned Mexican artist married to Diego Rivera, grew up. It is so named because of the bright blue color it is painted, and it has beautiful gardens. Although most of the rooms were closed due to renovation, we were able to see one room full of Frida paintings.
The rest of Coyoacán was very cute with a small Mexican pueblo feel, so we walked around for a little while. Apparently it’s famous for its tequila-flavored ice cream, so of course we had to try some of that! (Delicious). Then Paco took us to a street taco stand. It seemed like one of those really popular places that only locals know about. You can pick the type of meat you want on your taco (we got the ones with a little bit of each type of meat), and the rest is an assembly line: there are bowls full of potatoes, onions, salsa, and even nopales, which is an edible cactus that is very popular here in Mexico and DELICIOUS (it looks and tastes somewhat like green beans). Once we added what we wanted to our tacos, we just stood on the street next to everyone else who had ordered and ate standing up!
Then, to settle all the rich food we just ate, we went to a typical Mexican cantina for after-dinner drinks.
A cantina, at least in the sense that we experienced, is a relaxed salon that often offers live music. We stayed there for awhile, playing dominoes and enjoying each other's company. Then, a mariachi band came up to our table and offered to play some music for us, so we bought four or five songs!Friday, September 18:
On Friday all of Paco’s family had to work, so Claire and I took advantage of our time on our own to experience Mexico City’s public transportation; never were we more grateful to have a family there, willing and able to kindly drive us all over the city. Not that public transportation in Mexico City was anything inefficient; it just took us over two hours to get to our destination, because we had to catch a bus that ended up being about an hour ride because of the traffic, and then two different metro trains, both of which we rode to the end of their line. It really made us pay attention to how HUGE Mexico City is!
Our destination was Xochimilco (Náhuatl for “Place where Flowers Grow”), another little pueblo town on the outskirts of the city known for its canals. Mexico City was actually built and expanded on a lake, and Xochimilco is a reminder of that. Actually, like Venice, Mexico City is known as a sinking city. It’s been said that some of the buildings have sunk about 10 meters in the last 100 years, and when we were walking around the Centro Histórico a few days before, we could tell. For example, we saw a church that now has to be entered by walking down several steps.
Anyway, Xochimilco was similar to Venice in more ways than one. Not only did it have canals, but we were able to rent a gondola-style boat (trajinera) and ride along the water!
I went to Venice a few years ago but didn’t actually ride a gondola, so this was a real treat for me. The trajineras in Xochimilco are a lot bigger than Venice’s gondolas, and all are painted in very bright colors. As the “gondolier” slowly pushed us along the canals, we had time to relax and take the sites in. There were smaller boats of locals riding by us, wanting to sell us souvenirs or corn-on-the-cob cooked right on their boat! There were also boats full of mariachi bands wanting to play for us, and although we didn’t actually get any songs, we were still able to enjoy the music since other people did:). Our gondolier let us stop off at two different places; once to peruse an artisan market on the water, and another to stop into a flower shop full of gorgeous flowers! (There were several flower shops along the way). We had a little bit of time to walk around town before we caught the metro for a long ride back, during which we got caught in a heavy downpour (for the months of September and October, Mexico is in its rainy season unfortunately. Speaking of weather, I also noticed that Mexico City was a lot cooler than Monterrey. In Monterrey I’m usually hot, but I was so cold the whole time I was in Mexico City!).
Friday night Paco and his friends took us to a Mexican rodeo. We were hoping to see a bull riding, but there weren’t any that night, because instead there was a dance competition! We watched couples in beautiful costumes from all over Mexico dance a variety of Mexican dance. They were SO good, spinning and jumping around really fast and doing all sorts of flips and twirls!
After we watched the competition we had the opportunity to do a little bit of our own dancing (although not nearly as good). We danced to banda music the whole night, which is a brass-based traditional Mexican style music. It originated in northern Mexico, but has a very Western/cowboy feel because it became popular in the Western U.S. states. Banda is a partner dance in which you hop from side to side, left to right, to the rhythm of the music. It’s best if the female holds onto her partner very tight, so that she can follow his lead. Although hopping side-to-side is pretty simple, every once in awhile the male can change it up and hop in a different direction or rhythm, so the female has to be ready. There are a lot of other moves that can be done with banda, but I decided to keep those to the experts!
Saturday, September 21:
Well you certainly can’t go to Mexico City without seeing the pyramids, so that was our plan for Saturday. First for lunch we went to a market that had several food vendors, all selling typical Mexican food. There were mainly tacos there, but as I had been eating tacos all week (literally – breakfast, lunch and dinner!), I wanted to try something different, so I ordered what I think was called a bambosa. Whatever its name, it was delicious. It was a sliced sandwich roll, cooked in garlic-flavored oil and filled with potatoes and chorizo. YUM!
Afterwards, it took about an hour and a half to get to the pyramids, because we actually did drive outside of the city, to a place called Teotihuacán. Teotihuacán has two main pyramids: Pirámide del Sol (Pyramid of the Sun) and Pirámide de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon). It was Mexico’s largest ancient city, housing the Aztecs, and was developed around AD 400.
We climbed the Pirámide del Sol, by far the bigger of the two and the world’s third-largest pyramid (about 70m high). Although it didn’t take too long to get to the top, it was intense because the steps were very steep and small. It was SO worth the view though!!:
Afterwards, we walked through some more of Teotihuacán, along the Calzada de los Muertos (Avenue of the Dead), which is lined by stone structures assumed to be tombs. At the end of the Avenue, we saw the Pirámide de la Luna and were able to walk into some of the ruins.
Our country’s history in the United States dates back just a little over 200 years; imagine being able to tour your country’s history from almost 2000 years ago! If you ever visit Mexico, I hope visiting the Aztec ruins at Teotihuacán is at the top of your list, because how often do you get to see something so ancient and so different from everything you’re used to seeing??
P.S. My sources for the historical and cultural information in this post were The Lonely Planet for Mexico, and wikipedia.com.
