Found the hotel, in the Zona Rosa district, which at night is teeming with activity - not always savoury - have seen quite a few prostitutes of both genders! However it's not that far from downtown, and has its own charm.
First album of photos on the picasa web page is sights around Mexico City.
On the first day we hired a taxi driver who drove us around all day for 800 pesos for the four of us - about $20 each. He took us first to the main bullfighting ring in Mexico City - the Monumental Plaza Bull Ring, which holds about 110, 000 people and has fights on a Saturday. It looked hot and uncomfortable, and for those of us with other than tiny derrieres, the concrete seats looked narrow and constricting!!! Next stop was the Frida Kahlo house in Coyoacan. None of us knew much about Frida Kahlo before we went there - only what we had remembered for those of us who'd seen the Selma Hayek film! Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived in this house during part of their marriage; they had a stormy relationship and divorced but came back together throughout their lives. They were both communists, and their paintings are passionate and strong and evocative of their times and lives. For example Frida had an affair with Trotsky. There's a lot more info here. The print I bought is shown and described here.
After this we went to Xochimilco...
In pre-Hispanic Mexico , in the valley where Mexico City stands was a lake called Lago Texcoco, which now has long been drained. The Aztecs, long before the Spanish came, dug a series of canals around the edge of the lake, and the mud they dug was heaped on the earth around the canals or on anchored reeds atop the water. These plots of land, appeared like floating islands called chinampas - hence, their name ‘floating gardens’.
To maintain soil fertility, farmers annually scraped muck from the canal bottom and applied decaying aquatic vegetation to the islands to prepare seed beds. The gardens became one of the most productive farming systems ever developed. By the time the Conquistadors came, the area of Xochimilco had become a rich agricultural district where many of the city's flowers, fruits and vegetables were grown.Today this area, once on the edge of Mexico City, has been engulfed by the city. There are miles of these canals of which only 14 km, lined with farm homes and trees, dominated by the ahuejote, are navigable. The Gardens, besides still producing flowers, fruits and vegetables, have become a favourite spot where both locals and tourists come for a few hours to relax in the canals and enjoy their market culture.
Our trajinera (flat boat), like the 2,000 others that daily ply these canals for both work and pleasure, glided over the water with ease. Smaller trajineras, called chalupas came up alongside and continuously harangued us, offering drinks, food, handicrafts and much more - seemingly everything under the sun was for sale on these floating markets. Some were virtually floating kitchens, which offered a complete hot meal. Very touristy and yet not - there were many locals having parties on these boats, mariachi bands playing - it was all very festive and relaxing.
We went around the next day on the Turibus, which provided us with an overview of the main sights here. We also all got sunburnt, underestimating the strength of the sun as we sat in traffic for hour after hour after hour!
In the Zocalo we went to the archaelogical site of Tenochtitlan.
The Aztecs built their capital city, called Tenochtitlan, in the center of enormous Lake Texcoco. The Aztecs believed they were the “chosen people” of Huitzilopochtli and did everything that he desired of them. During the fourteenth century, Huitzilopochtli told the Aztec chieftain that their new homeland would be on the island in Lake Toxcoco, and when they reached the island they were to look for an eagle eating a snake perched on a cactus growing from a rock or cave surrounded by water. This would be the location where they were to build their city and honor him. They found this location and began to build their city around the year 1325 AD.
The city of Tenochtitlan continued to grow, having an estimated population of 200,000. The city grew to a point where there was no more room for expansion on the island and they were forced to move out into the lake areas. The agricultural portion of this expansion was successful because of the invention of the chinampas or floating gardens. The floating gardens were constructed by bunching twigs together then stacking mud on top of the twigs. They were not anchored at first and could be towed until the plants roots anchored into the lake floor.
The Aztecs connected the island to the mainland by three causeways that ran next to dikes that were built to keep the fresh water of Lake Texcoco separate from other salty lakes of the area. The dikes also protected the agricultural chinampas. Canals ran between the chinampas; they were used to convey traffic through the city, including to and from the market of Tlatelolco.
The city flourished until the year 1521 when Hernandez Cortes and his Spanish army invaded and captured the city. The Spanish also had two other advantages: a lot of tactical skills on behalf of Cortes and smallpox, which devastated the Aztec population. After he defeated the Aztecs, Cortes destroyed most of the buildings that they had built and constructed the new Spanish city on top of the ruins, even using many of the original Aztec building materials in the new construction. He built his home on top of Montezuma’s palace and his cathedral on top of the Aztec temple. After a battle in 1692 the Spanish destroyed most of the art of the Aztecs in the name of Christianity. More info from Wikipedia here.
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