Today, we had a tour of Mexico City. As I mentioned yesterday, Mexico City looked a little scary out the window of a tour company sedan on the route from the airport to the hotel. But by the light of day, it blossomed in gorgeous colorful mosaics and intricately curling ironwork.
Our hotel is near El Centro Historico, which is the zocalo where the presidential government offices featuring the stunning Diego Rivera murals are located, as well as a huge Catholic cathedral full of those little mini-shrines that make such places invite an hour’s worth of exploring.
We saw these sights as part of a small tour van with a a very knowledgeable guide. He took us next on a van ride uptown, where we stopped at a touristy gift store and a silversmith´s shop. At this point, it was after noon, and I needed to eat, but there was no food stop planned. At all. I talked the guide into stopping for a fast-food bite just for my poor, pitiful sake, but hell if everyone else didn’t race for the door of the Burger King on my heels.
Yeah. Twenty-four hours in Mexico, and still no Mexican food. I had a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner Friday in Hermosillo.
After that, we drove around the upscale houses of the park area near the National Museum of Anthropology, and finally went to the museum.
Now, this museum is one of the primary reasons Deborah and I went to Mexico City. And on the “city tour,” the only part of the museum you are scheduled to see is the ancient Aztec section, which is relevant to the city. This is impressive in and of itself, and features the huge Aztec calendar stone. But we wanted to see the entire museum, which covers all of Mexico. So the tour guide showed us how to catch a taxi or the bus, and we stayed behind when the tour van left.
We walked through that entire museum in an hour, snapping photos left and right. Deborah liked the ceramic pottery with animal figures built into the vessel shapes. I liked the masks. I was enthralled by the Mayan codices, but that was the final exhibit we saw and halfway through it, both our batteries ran out simultaneously.
There will be photos when I get home.
We took a public bus as far as we could get down the main drag, then got off and limped back to our hotel down a busy, vibrant street packed wall-to-wall with shoppers taking in the stores and boutiques.
And we had enchiladas in the hotel restaurant for dinner. Finally!
Stay tuned for today’s adventure: Teotihuacan on Two Hours of Sleep.
Author Nancy E. Shaffer 
Would love to go to that museum. and the cathedral!
If you’re flying out of Mexico City (and I guess you’ll have to, unless you’re taking a bus to the next stop), I’d get to the airport earlier even than in the US. My experience was that they didn’t announce the gate until the plane was almost ready to take off, but if you go to the gates of the airline you’re flying on, somebody might tell you. It’s probably better for international flights, and maybe they’ve improved the whole system since I was there a few years ago.
Sounds like a heavenly trip! Hope it’s all good!
No, we had to wait until the last minute. But the ticket agent at least knew which general boarding area to send us to until our flight info appeared on the monitor.