A Mexican Wave

Breakfast on our first day in Mexico City, was on the terrace overlooking the square: once again we had it to ourselves. 

An early morning coffee in the Deli will never be the same again!

Our morning was spent re-acquainting ourselves with the area around the Zocolo. We then decided it was time for some culture and took in two of the cities many museums. We'd tried to pick two that would tell us something about the history of Mexico but ended up learning about the Egyptians - a bit like the British Museum! 

We then headed out to the Artisan Market only to find most of it closed, despite the flyer professing it would be open (perhaps it was because it was Palm Sunday).

Many of the streets were closed off to traffic because of some kind of bike-a-thon. There was also a huge police presence, many of them clad in riot gear.  Mexican cyclists are obviously prone to violence.

Mexico City Cathedral

It was a long and tiring day.  At least the following day was spent out of the city.

First stop was Cuernavaca, famous for its excellent climate, old town square containing many churches and the cathedral and the birth place of the hero of the revolution, Zapata.  RM proceeded to tell Mario all about the Zapata moustache - something HJ had no idea about!

After a gentle stroll around the town, we headed for Taxco, famous for silver mining and design.  This journey took us back up into the mountains and a height above 3000m.  The cobbled streets are very narrow and our driver weaved his way around until he found a car park.  We found we had many steps to climb before reaching a small plaza with countless silver jewelry stores.  Our driver Mario, took us into his favourite and introduced us to the owner who then gave us a brief history about silver design and an annual competition showing us some of the winning entries from previous years.  He produced a replica set of jewellery made for Frida Kahlo which HJ was allowed to try on (value $6,000). 

He started plying us with drinks to loosen our purse strings, little did he know! he showed us the top range of his stock but we bade our time until the value of the items being pointed out came within our range and the glasses we dry.  HJ then made a few purchases with BOO vouchers.

With all parties happy, we celebrated with an excellent light lunch on a balcony overlooking the square.

After lunch, Mario guided us around the warren of hilly, narrow streets and the market.  On sale were bags of live beetles, apparently a favourite stuffed into a tortilla before they fly off: luckily we had eaten.

The town was very picturesque and we would love to return one day. 

We had an early start to see the daily Mexican version of trooping their huge flag in the Zocolo at 8.00am accompanied by a military band and all the trimmings. 

We then had breakfast before getting even more touristy by clambering onto an open-top bus for a tour. 

Bad photo: bad bus ride

Three weary hours of non-stop red traffic lights and hardly any sights later, we eased ourselves off now feeling far more sympathy for the tourists who dog our every move around Parliament.  We tried to get up the Torre Latino Americano high tower for good city views, but the Easter week queues beat us so we ditched our tourist wristbands and headed for the best value wine bar in town - our hotel bar, bliss! 

We fly to our final destination next: the relatively quiet village of Tulum.  We are likely to be a bit cut off IT-wise so postings may be sparse.  We think we can stand it for a couple of weeks.