Library and then Coyoacán

Gail and I decided (with Sheryl’s help) to spend our last morning in the Historic Center to visit the library. It looks like an old, ornate church from the outside. Once you get in, the entirety of the walls, some 10 meters (30 feet) high were painted with, you guessed it, murals. Again, they were steeped in historical and political references plus had some great descriptors along the walls. And it was a library. There were several folks there reading what looked like old newspapers and doing research. Fascinating.

Afterwards, we went on down to Coyoacán, a lovely neighbourhood south of the city center. Sheryl and I had spent one day here in our time together I was excited to return to spend more time.

This is the cranky part of the trip. We got there early check in and found the previous guests’ bags there - unsecured. That was surprising. Had anything gone missing, we would have been on the hook for it. The cleaner arrived as we got there, so we asked her to clean the bedroom with a door lock - so we could secure our own bags. We also put away a full bag of groceries into the fridge - which the cleaner promptly threw out including a couple of my personal containers. The host was not very helpful - it was a misunderstanding???

We went out and got more groceries for our breakfasts and such. We discovered the next morning that the cleaner had turned off the fridge too. Our stuff was barely cool. And the WiFi didn’t work. And we couldn’t get the washing machine to work. We called the host (again) and she showed up an hour later to fix things up. Some instructions would have been helpful here. The washing machine still didn’t drain the water, so we just had the clothes in the dryer for 2 hours…

The big thing was the ants. Every time we went to pull any food out, the ants came charging over to see what was for dinner. The host said she would get some ant traps which she didn’t do. There were a bunch of other things like the dishes (metal) couldn’t go in the microwave, there was only one wash cloth and one dish towel, and no bath soap. The location was great and it had two bedrooms and a pure water spigot. We muddled through. We got a refund of at least one night and maybe more.

Coyoacán is a beautiful and less touristy area. We went out and did a bit of exploration around the markets and squares. We have nearly a week to play here.Read more