Mexico
Miguel Hidalgo

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    • Day 18

      Day Five - La Condesa Market and Polanco

      April 30 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

      Right outside our door was a wonderful three-block food market. We hurried over to the tamale stand that Sheryl had read about and bought six before she ran out. We also filled up on some fruits and veggies. Nice start to the day.

      We went up to the Soumaya Museum. The architecture of it is sparkling outside and holds 4 floors each successively smaller accessed by a circular ramp all the way up. It houses an extraordinary one-person/family’s collection of art steeped in Mexican cultural heritage as well as of technological progress. I loved the large array of telephones from the wooden kind with a crank to the modern brick cellphone. The top floor was devoted to primarily bronze sculptures that I don’t seem to have taken a picture of. I guess I was so taken, I forgot. I highly recommend this free museum.

      Across the street was the Jumex Museum. We didn’t go in but the sculpture outside was ginormous! This neighbourhood, Polanco, is quite posh. The coffee shops and shops charge premium prices for everything. It was pretty though. They have a really nice rails to trails with a separated bikeway and walkway. It didn’t look like the railway was operational, but the rails were still there.

      We finally used the bus system. It was good. Fairly easy and very frequent - 5-minute headways. Walking behind the bus station, we saw evidence of an earthquake that split the sidewalk and up a very old wall. The earthquake thing here is kinda scary. They happen not infrequently. The story is that earthquakes happen in September - or at least the last three big ones have been in September. Hmmmm.
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    • Day 5

      Polanco

      January 13 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

      Polanco is one of the fanciest neighbourhoods in Mexico City with some Michelin star restaurants. After the Anthropology museum I walked half an hour down Reforma Avenue to Polanco. By this point I was starving and found a nice little café that made a great omelette and my first refried beans of the trip.

      I spent an hour or so wandering around the streets, feeling very underdressed and poor! The neighbourhood had a couple of nice parks, as usual for Mexico City there were lots of dog walkers.

      I then headed back to the hotel to meet my tour group for the next couple of weeks. I booked a 2 week trip with Intrepid to ease myself into travelling and so that I didn't have to do some of the long trips through Mexico alone. We met up at the hotel and our leader, Sabina took us to a nearby restaurant for dinner. First impressions were great, there were to be 16 of us in total with a real mix of ages from early twenties to mid seventies. I'd clearly just missed a pro-Palestine demonstration in the city centre as I saw lots of people with placards and flags.
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    • Day 2

      Polanco

      October 30, 2016 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 59 °F

      After a delicious but late dinner, we were able to easily sleep in a little longer... An extra hour more than we had planned because we didn't realize CDMX's daylight savings had taken effect while we slept. We definitely didn't complain. We enjoyed some coffee before setting off to the upscale Polanco neighborhood for a food tour.

      It started in a restaurant called Guzina Oaxaca where we learned about the common ingredients used in salsa and mole. The owner/chef, one of the top 20 in Mexico we were told, helped save the pepper that gives mole negro its black color which is often incorrectly thought to be from chocolate. There are around 45-50 ingredients in a typical mole (vs around 5 in a salsa) and no single ingredient should overpower the rest. Our tour guide, Luis, was very interested in hearing about our Pujol mole experience and was hoping to make it there soon.

      Our next stop was a tamale shop. From the three vegetarian options, we chose the frijol y queso and nopal (cactus) y queso. They were equally delicious. We also tried a different type of atole (traditional warm corn drink) than we had the night prior at Pujol which was a chocolate version.

      Luis took us through the lively Lincoln park which is lined with old Spanish-style mansions that have since been converted into beautiful restaurants. The park was named after a statue of Abraham Lincoln was gifted by president LBJ in the 60s. The park was swarming with people and festivities. In the park was a public viewing of the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Mexico that was taking place in the city that day.

      At our next stop, we enjoyed mushroom quesadillas with hibiscus agua fresca. We learned that the difference between a taco and quesadilla is how they're served - tacos are rolled while quesadillas are folded in half.

      The next two stops were for dessert. First we went to a packed ice cream shop to try "mamey" fruit ice cream. The fruit is the shape of an avocado but pink on the inside and brownish on the. The ice cream was just the right amount of sweet. We followed the ice cream up with a stop at a gourmet chocolate shop that is known for its chocolates designed to taste exactly like other treats such as Mexican cake, mango and chamoy, pistachios, guava and so many others. The chocolates were served with mezcal and, surprisingly, the combination was quite pleasant.

      Agua and Sal, known for its fresh seafood, was the next destination. We enjoyed a refreshing ginger drink and an awesome Marlin tostada. The Marlin was cooked to have a similar texture and taste to pulled pork.

      Finally, and thankfully because we were getting full, our last stop took us to a restaurant known for its tortilla soup. Our guide, forgetting that white meat is not included in our vegetarian eating habits, told us that it contained pork skin. Nonetheless, we tried the soup and it was pretty good, but Brittany was thankful she didn't have crispy pork skin floating around in hers.

      The tour ended close to the highly rated anthropology museum so we decided to stop in. Not being big museum people, we were going to opt for a tour guide but learned they were unavailable on Sundays, so Nico was the impromptu guide. The Mexican history is really fascinating. The exhibits featuring Teotihuacan, Aztec and Mayan history were especially interesting. The Aztec sun stone was the most impressive display.

      We waited out the rain in the museum. On our way back to the hotel, we took a stroll through Chapultepec park and were treated to a pretty sunset over the castle.
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    • Day 2

      Frida Kahlo

      October 28, 2018 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

      Visita a la casa azul de Frida en Coyoacán. Magia, identidad, color, mística, sufrimiento, dolor, amor, sueños, emoción...creación. Conocimos su taller con ese caballete inmneso, pinceles, brochas, colores.. las camas desde donde pinto por mucho tiempo, su coleccion de mariposas, sus escritos, sus pensamientos ... recorrimos el jardín maravilloso donde estuvimos pintando un buen rato...así como frente al altar de muertos, siempre presente en cualquier época del año... esta vez lo vimos más nutrido, muy colorido, fotos de su papá, Diego Rivera (a quien Emilia se encontró durante el corrido) cempasuchis, mole, pulque, tamales... fotografías, calacas y mucha emoción...al final del día, la vimos a ella inmensa en el gran desfile de muertos sobre la calle reforma... Joaco comenta: "sabes mamá Frida es muy bonita... " y le digo: ¿que te gusta de ella? Y contesta: "sus ojos negros y su pelo amarrado", me dio mucha emoción oírlo, me sorprendió. Luego me dijo que como el ya conocía México, ya no le daban miedo los esqueletos... pues sabía que no eran de verdad, que no existían...Read more

    • Day 4

      Dos Museos

      May 19, 2015 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

      Museo Soumaya was created by a Mexican billionaire who dedicated it to his deceased wife. The architecture alone was worth seeing, but inside was an entire floor of Salvador Dalí and Auguste Rodin sculptures!

      This museum is in Polanco, the 5th-Avenue-inspired (according to our taxi driver) neighborhood of CDMX. So afterward we headed back to Roma in search of a delicious lunch, and ended up eating delicious mole at Papá Chón.

      Then I finally made it to the Museo Nacional de Antropología. Here there are artifacts from the Aztec and Mayan civilizations as well as earlier peoples such as the Teotihuacanos who built and later abandoned the city before the Aztecs discovered it.
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    • Day 8

      Park Chapultepec

      January 14, 2017 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

      Chapultepec ist der größte Park Mexiko City's. Hier haben wir uns in der Gruppe getroffen, um uns nochmal besser kennenzulernen. Alle Teilnehmer sind wirklich unglaublich nett, offen und interessiert. Jeder hat Spaß an dem Projekt und die Gruppendynamik ist einfach toll!Read more

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