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Well, bit of a fun packed weekend in Mexico City. Got there on Friday afternoon (after the legendary Literacy day at Santo Domingo) and found the hotel we´d planned to meet at. I´m sure that the normal rooms were nice, but the ones we stayed in looked like prison cells from the outside. Shared shower and loo and stuff, but they were clean and ours had a telly (of sorts), plus, just 3 pounds 50 a night to stay there.
So, we hit the shops, and had a wander round the centre part by the zocalo, stopping off for a bite to eat etc. Ed arrived in the evening, and we wandered round in search of food again, and ended up in a completely packed restauraunt thing which looked really small from the outside, but was huge, and did tacos for 8 pesos each. Top stuff.
Saturday morning, after a quick pan dulce, we had a look at the Diego Riviera murals in the palacio municipal in the zocalo. Many toursits and school trips, but they were really good, loads of detail, could have spent ages looking at them if really tall blond european people didn't keep pushing past.... then we got the metro to paseo de la reforma and walked up and down to look at the huge statue of the angel. There was loads of stuff going on, as Wednesday is el dia de niños, kid´s day, where they have games and parties and just celebrate being kids.... so they had loads of events on as it was the weekend. We then walked down to the other end of the paseo, as we wanted to go up the torre de.... I´ve forgotten the name. Anyway, it´s the tallest point in the city, and our trusted lonely planet told us that we could go up to the top and look at the view, but the lady on reception told us that you haven´t been able to do that for the last 2 years. Oops. We did, of course, take the side of the Lonely Planet. It is our travelling god. We were outraged that we couldn´t get to the top.
So we carried on to Chalutepec a forest that contains main roads and museums and art galleries. We got harassed by all the stall people, and then went and had a look round the Anthropology museum, for about 3 HOURS. It´s really (deceptively) big. We thought it would take hardly any time at all. And we only really looked at half of the different rooms, and we didn´t read all the signs or look at everything in the last two rooms.....
Later in the afternoon, we all met in the zocalo to meet kerry, who had to dash to go to a concert she´d been invited to. We had (a discounted) meal at the restauraunt under the hotel, and then walked to the torre latinoamericana (the second highest tower in mexico city we think). We DID go up this one, and the views, although a little bit hazy, were amazing. I swear, I have never seen such a HUGE city in my life. You cannot believe how far it goes on for. The photos don´t do it justice. I read somewhere that it gets 600 new inhabitants a day or something, and you can well believe it. We had a look round the torre museum, loads of photies of the earthquakes and the story of how the tower survived them (its been there since like, 1856) and then we went and chilled out in the hotel for a bit. Tried to go to the cinema in the evening, but the only film we vaguely knew the story of wasn´t on till really late, and we didn´t have a clue what any of the others were about. We persuaded the ticket checker guy to let us past so that we could look at all the posters and try and get a vauge idea of what any of the films were about, but no joy. So we went to the spanish cultural centre for a drink and a short boogie to the oh so cutting edge DJ who had the coolest hat in the world, then back to the hotel...
And did we need sleep... Sunday was a VERY early morning. We got up at half 5, and then went to the street where the trolleybusses go up and down to get the bus to the north bus terminal to go to the pyramids - Teohuitican. None of us can spell or say that word, no matter how many times people repeat it for us, or we read it really slowly and try andmemorize it.
Anyway, seeing as we got the first bus out there, and it was about 8 in the morning (And pretty cold) when we arrived, we got to see the pyramids without all the tourist riff raff there. They were amazing. I still can´t believe that something built that long ago can actually still be there, and some bits still had paint on! How??? We climbed up el pyramide del sol, pyramid of the sun, which, from reading the info signs, was actually dedicated to a water god at some point... but still. It´s the world´s 3rd biggest pyramid, pretty special, and in the photo, in the background, you can see el pyramide de la luna, the moon pyramid, which you can´t climb all the way because the sign by the middle steps says it´s an ´area de investigacion´, but hey. After a good few hours there, and a look round the museum at the bits and bobs they´d found and dead bodies etc. and a chat with a guy picking up rubbish who was extremely keen to share all his knowledge with us about the restoration of bits and pieces once he learned we were from england and could speak and understand spanolo... we headed back to the city. After another packed trolley bus ride (where Ed and I gave up our precious seats to let a couple of women who had wriggling toddlers sit down - why the huge guys who clearly can hold onto the ceiling rail better than I can didn´t give up their seats is a mystery. I nearly fell over many many times) we wandered back to the hotel via a pemex march (very quiet and orderly indeed) and then I headed back to tepo.
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