Day 14-17: Mexico City and Teotihuacan

After another 6 hours in the bus, we reached Mexico's capital around midnight. When coming close to the city at night, an immense amount of lights as far as the eye can see welcomes you. It gives a very good impression actually of how large this city really is... maybe you could almost compare it to Coruscant minus the high tech stuff and flying space ships. :P Our hostel was located right in the middle of the old centre and we booked a trip for the next day right away.

Together with our guide and 5 other tourists of our age, we left the next morning for a tour to two special sights and Teotihuacan, probably THE most important sight of all Mexico. We first stopped at Tlatelolco, an Aztek site in the middle of Mexico City which the Spaniards sort of totally destroyed when finding it. Then we drove onwards to the Shrine of Guadeloupe, or actually the two shrines. Mexico City is built on an old drained lake and almost all of the old buildings are sinking away. The old Shrine is already quite deep down, so due to the importance of it, they decided to build a more modern church right next to it. Guadeloupe is the most important religious figure in Mexico, having appeared four times to an indigenous inhabitant during the Spanish era and thus convincing the Mexicans to join Christianity without much further struggles.

Around lunch time we continued towards Teotihuacan where we first visited a cactus and obsidian farm where we actually had cactus for lunch and had the possibility to buy some souvenirs made of obsidian. They had symbols for everything, a figure for health, one for the rain, one for luck and also some for love... I am sure you can distinguish these last ones somewhere on the picture...

Then we entered the site of Teotihuacan. This is the most important Aztek site in Mexico, definitely when it comes down to tourism. The pyramids are not all as nice anymore, as some very clever archaeologists tried excavating them with help of dynamite... The two biggest temples are the ones of the Sun and Moon, which you can both (partly) climb onto. We first did a guided tour and then we were free to start climbing! Mexico City is already at a height of 2000 meters, so it's not so hot anymore, but the air is significantly thinner, making exercise even more tiring. Still, we reached the top in quite a good condition and were able to enjoy the great view and the fact that we were standing on such a cool structure. ;)

Pyramid of the Moon and Sun, us in front of the Sun one and me on top of the Moon one

The following we headed into town to see the main sights in the city itself. We started at the big market square, where the cathedral is and some important and beautiful government buildings, all around the biggest flag I have ever seen. Then we headed towards the fifth highest tower of Mexico City to see the city around us. Joke overcame her fear of being in a tower and elevator in a city where big earthquakes take place every now and then and all the way up we indeed had a good view. If the smog would have been less present we might even have been able to see the volcanoes that lie close to the city, such a safe place to live. :)

Before heading to the metro we visited Tenochtitlan, the first city on the place where Mexico City is now. The remaining ruins are located just next to the Cathedral and obviously also underneath it. Much isn't there anymore, but some very nice features are still there to be seen, like some turtle and eagle carvings. For more animals which we hardly get to see in Belgium, we then took the metro (incredibly cheap and quite an event in itself ;) ) towards Mexico's free zoo. The Mexicans themselves are already awed by a pair of geese, but we were just there to see a few species our own zoo does not have. First of all the panda bears, followed by an Anaconda and some huge Condors. Very nice all of it and a welcome rest from the busy city centre.

Finally we went to the Museum of Anthropology, where we could see the civilisations which we hadn't visited sites from on our way through Mexico and see artifacts from places where we did go to. It's really a great museum, not too big or detailed and the overview you get is really clear. We didn't have time though to take it all in, so next time we come back, we will have to indulge ourselves more into contemporary Mexico, instead of the ancient history. And as you can see below, those old Mexicans made some weird stuff back then... :P

And then it was time to head home again. After two incredible weeks it felt like the right time though, as at least my stomach was yearning for some more regular food again and Joke's feet needed some well deserved rest and care. Mexico truly is an amazing country and I have to say that this is one of the best trips if not the best I have made so far. If I repeat it one day I would want more time to enjoy some sights better, because it sure is all worth it.