City Tour

It's raining when we wake up and we linger in bed unwilling to face a brisk walk in search of breakfast. When we make it outside, it turns out others thought the same and most cafés are closed. We finally find the pasticeria from yesterday and gorge on filled croissants and coffee, then hurry home to the waiting Abel and the cab.  It's a 20 minutes ride to the very impressive Museu de Antropología,

where Viviane, one of Abel's doctoral candidates, is waiting. We take in most of the huge collection, divided into the many cultures that comprise Mexican history. With a final look at a temporary jade collection we head outside in the now sunny and hot weather and begin, what is announced as a longish walk down past hotels, offices, mouments and many, many Starbucks on the Paseo de la Reforma. At one point we have to sit and eat freshly cut mango sold by a street vendor - to get our strength back. After about 2 1/2 hours we reach the beginning of the Centro Historico, where the crowds are becoming much more noticeable.

After a stop at an Italian restaurant, where we gorge on huge desserts of bread pudding and pannacotta - after all we did walk all that way - we continue on in the direction of the Palacio Nacional. On the way there's an onslaught of impressions, old buildings mixed with new, music pouring out from the stores, street vendors and the ubiqutous Mexican young women swaying along on high-heeled boots and wearing a lot of eye make-up. 

There a festive air and maybe it's due to the political event which has filled the - Vivi informs me - 2nd largest main square in the world (after Moscow) with supporters of a political party, but also by black clad youngsters with gelled hair waiting in a never ending line to get into the ensuing rock concert. Abel wants us to see the Templo Mayor, towards which we struggle through the crowd, but it's gotten late and we're too tired to do the monument justice. Instead we watch a group of Indians dance

in front of the cathedral - Abel says it's a political act also since the cathedral was built on their land - and then we dive into the Metro, led by Vivi, who is from the Brazilian south, but has lived in Mexico City for two years. In the Metro there's a changing army of singers, hawkers, small children with paper cups, guys selling cd's with loud music collections - all asking for money, but it gets us quickly to Coyoacán, where we wander back to our hotel through suddenly quiet empty streets. We cannot wait to get our shoes off, but it has been an amazing day filled with new impressions. Here are some pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/108088723826036223432/CityTour