Viva México!
The last time my wife and I visited Niagara, we felt like crossing over to the Canadian side and getting a better view of
the falls. That was the trigger to plan an international trip. For reasons only
a visa holder in the U.S will understand, we could only plan this trip during
the winter of 2016. Canada’s east coast isn’t the best place for a winter trip,
but still we were thinking about visiting Toronto for a weekend in October or early November. The visa forms
were filled up and we were actively looking for hotel reservations for the planned
weekend. Then, one of our family friends had come home and when this topic came
up, he suggested that Mexico could be a good option too. He had visited Cancun
few times and I also had seen few pictures ealier. It was definitely a place to
consider, especially given the time of the year and we got into research mode
again!
Mexico was much further away than
a simple drive to Canada for a weekend. So, we decided to stretch it a bit and
make it an 8 day trip during the thanksgiving holidays. We started our trip at
Mexico City and went to Cancun/Riveria Maya.
Day 1 - Mexico City
Travel to Mexico, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Zocalo
It was supposed to be an early
morning flight from Philadelphia to Mexico City via Detroit. We boarded the
flight to Detroit on time but, there were some technical snags and we ended up
flying one hour later than scheduled, barely in time to catch the connecting flight
to Mexico City. Luckily, our sightseeing plans for later in the day wasn't affected. Immigration at Mexico City was a breeze. I’m not sure if it was the
time of the day or the flight schedule, but there was hardly any crowd and we
were out in 15 minutes or so after collecting our baggage. For people who are
unaware, Indians who hold a US visa with valid stamping don’t need a Mexican
tourist visa. We get a permit on entry for tourists. We got a firsthand
experience of the Spanish country once we came out of immigration. The number
of people who could speak English were very few. All our Spanish lessons (for
10 days or so before the trip using some free apps on phone) dint help much when someone was speaking to us. We could speak some basic phrases but did not understand when
someone spoke back! Google translate app was a savior many times in the trip.
Thanks Google!! :)
First impression of the city was
like we felt at home! It looked so similar to many Indian cities. The crowd,
the shops on the road and of course the traffic.
We took a cab to the Airbnb room
that we had booked and after few hours of rest we headed out to the city. The
plan was to visit Zocalo - a part of the city that is home to the National
palace, Mayan temple, Cathedral and few other spots. It is one of the largest open squares in the world and home to many of the official ceremonies of the Mexican government. It is also a hub for protests. When we were visiting, preparations for Christmas celebrations were going on and the square was mostly blocked. But, we did see a protest few days later.
We first went to collect tickets for a ballet show which we had booked for Day 2 at at a popular place called Palacio de Bellas Artes. We walked up to the counter and showed our ticketmaster printout and asked for the tickets. He said something in Spanish which neither us nor google translate could comprehend except for the name Gandhi that came up few times. Finally, with the help of an English speaking tourist, we figured out that the tickets had to be collected from a store called Gandhi. After roaming around for a while we found the Gandhi shop with our tickets. Pleasantly surprised to find a shop named after Gandhi here, we got our tickets and continued to explore Zocalo which was a ten minutes walk from this point. We later found that there is a street called Calz. Mahatma Gandhi near the Chapultepec castle and also a college named after him. We were a bit late for sightseeing in Zocalo as all places close at around 5 or 6 pm. We found a good restaurant for dinner, Café El Popular. The waiter there helped with some tasters to help us decide the various Mole sauce options. We were skeptical about the vegetarian food options when we started out, but we were tummy happy after the dinner. We went back to our room in Uber. Not having to explain the directions to the driver in Spanish and T mobile’s free roaming service in Mexico made it super easy to travel with Uber. The only challenge sometimes was for the Uber driver to locate us in a busy area when they came to pick us up. After one driver cancelled the trip since we couldn’t explain to him in Spanish our location, we decided to wait in intersections which was a bit easier to explain in our broken Spanish.
We first went to collect tickets for a ballet show which we had booked for Day 2 at at a popular place called Palacio de Bellas Artes. We walked up to the counter and showed our ticketmaster printout and asked for the tickets. He said something in Spanish which neither us nor google translate could comprehend except for the name Gandhi that came up few times. Finally, with the help of an English speaking tourist, we figured out that the tickets had to be collected from a store called Gandhi. After roaming around for a while we found the Gandhi shop with our tickets. Pleasantly surprised to find a shop named after Gandhi here, we got our tickets and continued to explore Zocalo which was a ten minutes walk from this point. We later found that there is a street called Calz. Mahatma Gandhi near the Chapultepec castle and also a college named after him. We were a bit late for sightseeing in Zocalo as all places close at around 5 or 6 pm. We found a good restaurant for dinner, Café El Popular. The waiter there helped with some tasters to help us decide the various Mole sauce options. We were skeptical about the vegetarian food options when we started out, but we were tummy happy after the dinner. We went back to our room in Uber. Not having to explain the directions to the driver in Spanish and T mobile’s free roaming service in Mexico made it super easy to travel with Uber. The only challenge sometimes was for the Uber driver to locate us in a busy area when they came to pick us up. After one driver cancelled the trip since we couldn’t explain to him in Spanish our location, we decided to wait in intersections which was a bit easier to explain in our broken Spanish.
Café El Popular - https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150800-d2258050-Reviews-Cafe_El_Popular-Mexico_City_Central_Mexico_and_Gulf_Coast.html
Day 2 - Mexico City
Plaza De la Republica, National Museum of Anthropology, Chapultepec Castle, Palacio de Bellas Artes
We started the second day with a
breakfast at La Casa de los Bisquets near the Plaza De la Republica. We were lucky to find an English speaking waitress and she
helped us with some good veg options and we headed out to National Museum of
Anthropology.
 | |
| Left- Plaza de la Republica, Right-Breakfast Picures |
https://www.yelp.com/biz/la-casa-de-los-bisquets-m%C3%A9xico
Just outside the National Museum of Anthropology, we found a lineup of helmets with the NFL team designs on each of them. There was also a Houston-Dallas football game in the city in November just few days before our trip.
The National museum of
Anthropology is considered to be the main attraction in the city and it is a
huge museum that showcases the history of the country from pre Spanish era. It
has individual sections for major dynasties that ruled various parts of Mexico.
If you plan to visit this place, knowing a little bit of Mexico’s history will
help you appreciate the details showcased in this museum. We spent close to 2-3
hours here. This included Danza de los Voladores, a Mexican dance ritual in front of
the museum entrance where few people hang from a pole and spin around it upside
down. We were told that it was a pre Spanish tradition. We saw the same pole
dance again in Playa Del Carmen.
After learning a bit of history
in the museum, we headed to a Spanish era historic castle in Chapultepec park.
The castle is a short hike up a hill in the park which is right opposite the museum. As per the info boards we
read during the hike, this hill was an important location for all kingdoms
before the Spanish era too. One of the Spanish generals built this castle and
it was later used by the Mexicans as a military center and now as a museum. The
balconies from the castle provide good views of the city and the hills in the
background.
We walked to our next stop to get
food. On the way, we stopped at few places to take pictures.
We found a
cool vegetarian restaurant called Yug Vegetariano. This was
something that we found during our research for this trip. Here, there was no
reason to tell the waiter – Sin carne, sin huevo, solo vegetariano (No meat, no egg, vegetarian only!). We had the courage to experiment a bit and
got a variety of Fajitas and Enchiladas. The restaurant also had pictures of
Hindu gods and we were told that Sai baba visited this place once. We also
discovered during that day and again later from a tour guide that Iscon was
also big in Mexico City.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150800-d806124-Reviews-Yug-Mexico_City_Central_Mexico_and_Gulf_Coast.html
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g150800-d806124-Reviews-Yug-Mexico_City_Central_Mexico_and_Gulf_Coast.html
Next stop
after a brief nap at our room was the Folklore ballet show in Palacio de Bellas Artes.
It was something that we found during our research. It was a wonderful way to
get to know some Spanish culture. we were deciding between this and Lucha Libre(Mexican wrestling). But, the ballet show timings
worked perfectly with our schedule in the city and we left the wrestling for
the next mexico trip.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g150800-d153025-Reviews-Ballet_Folklorico_de_Mexico-Mexico_City_Central_Mexico_and_Gulf_Coast.htmlNext Blogs - Day 3 to 8. Stay tuned.
