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Mexico City
  • Jeff Joll
  • Jeff Joll

Mexico City

With Jason and Josh Read more
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  • Trip start
    July 30, 2026
    Jeff JollMexico CityTraveler

    Arrived in Mexico City

    July 31 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 75 °F

    Jason, Josh and I met up in Houston Thursday evening for our flight to Mexico City this morning. Smooth travels.

    Our Uber driver, Octavio, have us some Spanish tonight twisters to practice. His English was better than our Spanish.

    We landed in Mexico City around 11 and were at our Airbnb by 1230-1300. Very nice place with balcony. After settling in, we took a walk of the neighborhood. The weather was ideal, probably mid 70s.I was impressed by the amount of trees and green space around us. We stopped for churros and then had lunch at a Mediterranean place, very good. We stopped at a Walmart Express to pick up water and some snacks.

    After our walk, we took a siesta before heading out again. We had tickets for Lucha Libre, CDMX's professional wrestling at 2030. We took a couple hours wandering around and eating to reach the event. One stop was Botica Mezcaleria, where we had mezcal, beer, and Chapulinas (grasshopper) . All quite tasty. We did get to experience the daily late afternoon/evening (rainy season)showers during our walk.

    Right before getting to the Arena Mexico, we stopped for some tacos and panbazo (?). All very good. There were lots of vendors, many selling masks like the wrestlers wear. We got sucked in and bought some.

    The arena looked to be full, 16500 fans, with most highly engaged. Lot of lights and excitement. The matches finished up around 2300. Once out of the crowds, I voted for an Uber just because I didn't want to be wide awake when got back to apt. It would have been a 40 minute walk.    Read more

  • Jeff JollMexico CityTraveler
    DancersTemple MayorPerson in Bell Tower ringing the bellsSkullsLunch in the marketLots of corn

    Day 2 - El Centro

    August 1 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 68 °F

    Lots and lots of people. And cars. At one intersection we crossed there had to be 100+ people on both corners crossing when the light changed.

    We walked to the main square in Mexico City is The Zócalo (officially named the Plaza de la Constitución), located in the historic center. Measuring 240 by 240 meters, it sits directly over the ancient Aztec ceremonial center of Tenochtitlan and serves as the vibrant cultural and political heart of the nation

    We visited the metropolitan cathedral, got pitched by a tour guide for the Temple Mayor ( we declined), visited the Temple Mayor on our own. The ruins of the temple date to pre colonial times.

    We walked through the principal market La Merced . The main buildings cover almost 22 acres with space for over 5,500 merchants. It is the largest traditional retail market in Mexico City. We stopped at line of many small food vendors for lunch.

    We rested a bit in the shade of the Alameda plaza.

    The Latin American Tower gave us a fantastic view of the city. About 550 ft high, visibility for miles despite a little smog.

    We used the metro a couple times, fare was five pesos. Very easy to use. First ride was very crowded.

    We headed back to the apartment and had a beer on the patio.

    We ate tacos at El Pescadito and had drinks at El Aserrin, including mezcal and pulque. Pulque is an ancient, traditional Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey (agave) plant, known for its milky appearance, foamy texture, and sour-yeasty flavor    Read more

  • Jeff JollMexico CityTraveler

    Biking the password Paseo de Reforma & soccer

    August 2 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 64 °F

    We got ready Sunday morning and headed to the bike rental station in the nearby park. Every Sunday morning, they close 38 miles of the Reforma to vehicles. It is filled with cyclists, skaters, runners and walkers. On average, 90,000 people take part each week with peaks of 160,000. Yesterday was a beautiful day, lots of people. It was definitely high traffic. I only dated take my camera out when traffic thinned out.

    We ended up in Centro and returned bikes. We stopped in the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Museo de banco de Mexico, and the Palacio Postal. These were all short stops, with the banco being underwhelming.

    To get back to apartment, we grabbed bikes bikes since we had a day pass.

    We spent a short time at the apt before heading to the Stadium Azteca for the Club America match. After a 40 minute ride, we walked a bit to arrive there and found the ticket sales. The lines weren't long but they were slow. Interesting, we gringos were the quickest in getting tickets, thanks to Josh's prep.

    The match was nice, lots of empty seats. The home team won, 3-0. The fans seated near us were friendly and we got our picture taken with Jose at the end

    To head home, we walked a distance to call an Uber away from the crowds. Uneventfully ride until we got out and the Uber pulled away. I immediately realized I didn't have my phone. Josh took off running after it and Jason called my number. Fortunately, the driver stopped so Josh was able to retrieve it

    We stopped in at once of the 2 Irish bars in our block for a beer and a snack. They lose my vote - they were out of Guinness.    Read more

  • Jeff JollMexico CityTraveler

    Cable cars, food and drink - a restful day

    August 3 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 77 °F

    We had a liesurely morning. Once we got out, we headed to Bisqueteria Aurora for breakfast. This spot was recommended by one of our drivers and it was quite good.

    Our next venture was to a cable car line to take a ride. We decided on the cable car line starting at Los Pinos (officially Cablebús Line 3). It is is 5.5 kilometers long ( 3.4 miles) and runs from Los Pinos / Metro Constituyentes to Vasco de Quiroga in Santa Fe. It takes about 20–21 minutes to complete the end-to-end trip and provides some great views of that section of the city. It runs along the edge of Bosque de Chapultepec, the city's largest park at 2140 acres. It was impressive seeing the scale of it from above. There was also a very large cemetery along the border of a portion of the park. Once there, we got off, bought water to get change, and took the cable car back.

    Lunch was at El Tizoncito, which claims to be the originator of the El pastor taco. Given that, it had to be our choice. Tacos were good.

    We spent some restful hours on the balcony of our apartment talking before heading out for a bite to eat. We ended up at Orinoco, a small chain, for tacos. This was followed by a stop at La clandestina mezcaleria. We each had a mezcal based cocktail.

    Once back at the apartment, we got ready for an early night to bed in preparation for getting up at 3:30 the next morning.    Read more

  • Jeff JollMexico CityTraveler

    Balloon Ride, Teotihuacán Pyramids & dinner

    August 4 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 55 °F

    It was an early day with the alarm going off at 3:30. Our driver was scheduled to arrive at 4:10 and we were to be outside at 4:05. Jesus arrived promptly at 4:10 and we left to pickup two other passengers, Meghan and Lydia. There were recent grads of University of Milwaukee and both worked at marketing agencies. Traffic was light so our 30+ mile ride only took about 50 minutes.

    We declined the photo package for the balloon ride but Jesus took a number of pictures as we waited for balloons to be inflated. Our balloon was Cometa. It was one of more than 50 to take off. The baskets held up to 16 people, I think we had 15 in ours. Our balloon took off just about the time the sun was rising and lasted about 40 minutes. We were generally only 100-200 feet up but we did get as high as 500 feet. Our flight path took us up around the pyramids and other ruins. Very interesting to see from above. Josh and I were in a compartment with Clark and Roxie. Josh named Clark "Ken", from the Barbie movie.

    The landing was smooth and the was interesting to see how efficiently the ground crew worked. Once we were on the ground but still in the basket the pilot and ground crew lifted the basket right into the trailer that would haul it

    After a van ride make to the starting point, we make our way to Teotihuca with an additional passenger. I don't recall her name (originally French) but she studied black holes from the mathematical perspective. The main structures were the Sun and Moon pyramids but there were lots of other ruins. We were allowed to climb the stairs partway up the Moon. We spent around 90 minutes walking around, trying to picture what life should have been like 1000 years ago here. The was the center of a city estimated to have a peak population of 100,000 - 150,000 people.

    The ride back back took a little more than an hour. Once there, were headed off for some lunch. A couple of places we tried were closed so we ended up at El Tizoncito for El pastor tacos. Once back at the apartment, we all took a nap.

    We had dinner reservations at Maximo at 6:30. Josh made it weeks ago. It is considered one of the finer shining experiences in Mexico City. It was about a 30 minute walk there. We arrived early but were seated almost immediately. We did the tasting menu (photo attached). There were a couple items provided in addition to what was listed. Definitely fantastic food. A couple times we had to ask a second time what we were eating or how to eat it. And we ate some samples without being sure what it was. It ended up being close to a 3 hour experience with a very attentive staff.

    After walking back, we spent an hour on the balcony before heading to bed.    Read more

  • Jeff JollMexico CityTraveler

    Chapultepec and Coyoacán

    August 5 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 66 °F

    The first part of the day was spent walking through Chapultepec Park and Chapultepec Castle. The park continued to get busier as the day went on . Lots of people out enjoying the day and lots of vendors selling food and other items, including the little monkey headgear.

    The castle was very impressive.

    We decided to combine a visit to Coyoacán with a basketball game. Coyoacán is a historic, bohemian borough in Mexico City located about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) south of the city center. Known for its cobblestone streets, colonial architecture, and vibrant arts culture, it was famously the home of iconic artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, as well as revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

    Tickets had been sold out to the Kahlo house for quite some time but we were able to visit the Trotsky House. It was very interesting. While there, it started pouring - different than the light afternoon showers we had experienced so far.

    We took an Uber up to the town square to check it out and find some food. Really didn't get to look around much because of the rain and poor drainage (inches of water done places on the streets). We are at Los Danzantes. The food was great. Their other location is a Michelin restaurant so that is indicative of the quality.

    We walked to the Gimnsio Olímpico , a facility used for the 1968 Olympics. The Diablos Rojos play their basketball games here. There were not a lot of people there. A couple minutes into the game, there was a problem with the scoreboard / clock. It took an hour to get it resolved. We enjoyed the rest of the first half but left then. An Uber got us back to the apt.    Read more

  • Jeff JollMexico CityTraveler

    Museo Nacional de Antropología & Mezcal

    August 6 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 75 °F

    The main activity of the day was spending 5 hours in the anthropology museum. It is a world class museum and definitely worth the time.

    We stopped for Korean barbeque for lunch then we chilled at the apartment late afternoon before heading down to the bar a couple doors away to drink some mezcal. A great way to finish up the trip.Read more

    Trip end
    August 10, 2026