We started our trip incredibly early in the morning so that we could get to Teotihuacan early and avoid the heat and the crowds. We really did avoid the heat and it was absolutely freezing when we arrived, but this didn't stop us exploring the ciudadela and then walking up to the huge pyramid of the sun. We were going to have a browse around the museum before climbing the pyramid, hoping that it would give the sun time to make an appearance, but after waiting half an hour for the museum to open, they had electricity problems and so it looked like there was nothing for it, but to climb the pyramid of the sun in the bitter cold of the morning. It was a steep climb and every level we went up we oohed and aahed over the views of the site below us. I understand now why you always see aerial views of ancient sites - it is so much more impressive from above when you can see it all stretching out below you.
Getting to the top of the pyramid was a wonderful experience, very cold but beautiful views and a really great feeling that we were sitting on top of this ancient wonder which people still don't really understand the reasons for.
After that we went back to the museum, which was working by this point - it was a nice little museum with interesting displays and we learnt a lot about the site. Then it was time to head to the smaller Pyramid of the Moon. There was plenty to see on the way there as well as the route to it had smaller but no less impressive ruins, which needed time to explore. The Pyramid of the Moon wasn't as huge as the pyramid of the sun, but was pretty anyway. Unfortunately we couldn't climb to the top, only about half way on this one as they were doing work to it.
We spent at least 5 hours at teotihuacan, looking around and there was so much to see. I'm really glad that we got there early as the heat did start to become unbearable later in the day and it got a lot busier than when we arrived in the morning. Once we'd seen as much as we could take in, we decided to head into the city and brave the Mexican metro and find our hostel.
The hostel was quite centrally located and the metro ride was less awful than anticipated. However the middle part of the journey i was completely crushed aginst ed and worrying for the safety of my bags. The hostel was fairly nice, a little bare but friendly and it turned out that we got a free dinner and breakfast there if we wanted it. We walked to the zocalo - only 5 mins away from our hostel and ended up in a museum about japan which was interesting and free! We watched traditional dances in the zocalo and ed admired the wonky buildings. We had a peek in the cathedral and then headed back to get our free dinner. We were pretty tired (after starting our day at 1am) but headed down to the bar for a cocktail or two before having a very early night!
The next day we were up early for our free breakfast and then straight off to Bosque de Chapultepec where we planned to visit the Anthropology Museum and the Zoo. It was another cold morning so we wrapped up warm and walked though the park to the museum. We hadn't realised what a huge park it was, and it slowly dawned on us that we were only going to see a corner of it.
The museum was quite far from the metro but it was a really interesting museum. We only saw half of the bottom floor by lunchtime and so we decided to leave, go to the zoo and cme back later (as the museum stayed open later than the zoo).
So off to the zoo where Ed took a photo of pretty much every animal we saw! It was a nice zoo, everything out in the open, but predictably it was quite crowded. It was pretty big and we saw all kinds of stuff but the highlights were the pandas, the avairy which you could walk though and which was filled with tropical birds and the butterfly-arium. I got a bit panicky with the butterfly hoise as it was a combined ticket with the insect house and there were pictures of huge spiders everywhere. Luckily the two things weren't in the same building and i could bypass the nasty spiders and just wait for Ed outside. The butterfly house was very cool though and worth the terror of maybe having to walk though a spider house with my eyes closed!!!
After that we headed back to the anthropology museum and looked at a different section about indigenous people, which was really interesting, but the museum closed and we had to head back into the city. In the evening we wanted to go to a veggie restaurant, but it was closed so we ended up at a chinese buffet where i mainly ate chips, onion rings and spring rolls! We had a drink in the bar at the hostel before going to sleep.
On the Monday we headed to the Latino American Tower - a very tall tower which used to be the tallest in Latin America but isn't anymore. We wanted to take lots of pictures but it was quite cloudy - we decided to go back later as the wrist-bands we had allowed us all day access. We had a drink and then went down and wandered around the shops for a bit before going to the zocalo and going into the National Palace which was huge and really pretty. It had murals by Diego Rivera and beautiful gardens and we enjoyed walking about in the sunshine.
We had lunch in the veggie restaurant which was closed the day before before going back up the tower for some better photos, which we got as the clouds had cleared and it looked beautiful - we could see for miles!
After that it was a mad dash back to the bus station, a tamal dinner and back to SLP.
