After a nice night we were happy to sleep in this morning. We slowly got up, worked on the blog and enjoyed the leftover pizza from the Italian restaurant. The maid came by about 10am so we decided to set off for the day.
Our original plan for the day was to take a bus tour. We researched the local offerings and decided on the 'official' Mexican City (Capitalcity). Tim looked up the directions and found that there were three buying locations. A bit different than your standard bus line that allows you to buy on the bus. We set out in search for Plaza de Madrid; or at least we thought we had.
After about 20 minutes of walking Tim thought we were close to where the map said and after a quick look on the phone we discovered we were on a wild goose chase. Oh well, nothing wasted walking around beautify Mexico City, change of plans.
We walked a little further and decided to take the metro downtown. Just outside the station was a large market; seems like a popular thing here. We checked it out but it appeared to be mostly second hand toys; looked like Commicon. We enjoyed the best Tacos el Pastor. Wow, delicious and only 30 pesos for 5.
A beautiful church caught our eye; we crossed the street to check it out. This may sound like a simple task, but crossing the street in this city is a death defying task. Pedestrians definitely do not have the right of way here.
The church was very pretty, very traditional. The conception of Christ here appears to be slightly more realistic; quite bloody. People seem very religious, Catholic and there was many stalls just outside the church selling miniature Jesus', crosses, candles and bracelets.
The metro was a bit confusing at first, mainly because we picked one of the most complicating stations with interconnecting lines. We bought our tickets and found our platform. It seemed quite busy and we were in for a shocking experience. We stood amongst other travellers, but it was when the doors opened that we were indoctrinated to the sport of metro travel. I will try to paint the picture: twice as many people that would fit on the train, trying to force their way on, including us. There was a lot of pushing and pulling and 2 trains later we got on. Tim was surprised he fit and even more surprised when 2 more people pushed him further in. If getting on wasn't crazy enough, I had random hands wandering my body, “Tim is that your hand on my leg”.....Nope.....check you wallet!
After walking around Independence Square we decided against the bus tour. They only had 48 hour passes and we leaving the next day. Instead, we walked over to Temple Mayor, an interesting archeological site where a Mayan temple was destroyed and covered by the Spanish Conquistadors.
It was cool, but was really interesting was a rooftop patio above the ruins. Lunch on the roof was really good. We enjoyed a cold beverage, some quesadillas and tortilla soup.
Our next destination was Mercado de le Mercel, a bustling market. Along the way was insanely packed streets of Saturday shoppers looking for everything from bathroom amenities to shirts and chocolates. These speciality 'shops' were at times nothing more than a person with bag of stuff to sell, or a blanket spread on the ground. Not all that unusual from other places we have travelled.
What was different was that this seem to go on for miles. One speciality area was female beauty treatments. Tim was nice enough to wander around for the almost 2 hours it took getting my nails done.
After shopping around until after dark, we took the metro back to our neighbourhood. The short walk through the Roma district was very pretty at night and many people were out enjoying a cold beer on patios. We were pretty tired and heading back to our hotel when we stumbled on the most amazing use of a city space on a Saturday night. They had closed Paseo de la Reforma to traffic and thousands of people were riding their bicycles, people walking dogs and others were just dancing in the street. What was most interesting was at the Angel of Independence was what appeared to be a flash mob. Hundreds of people all dancing in synchronization. I couldn't resist dancing for a couple hours before we called it a night.
