Day One in Mexico City, Mexico

Before I arrived in Mexico City I had contacted my friend K' and together we agreed that we would visit a few of the major archaeological sites in Mexico. As there are dozens and dozens of different sites worth visiting and my time here is limited, we chose a few of the biggest, most important and best preserved sites to visit.

It was only after I arrived here and we discussed then that I found out that there are almost no actual sites that the Aztecs built that remain intact, but there are plenty of ruins that the Mayan civilization created, a race that was different and earlier than the Aztecs, and who had either died out, migrated or abandoned their mountain strongholds long before the Aztecs conquered much of what is now Mexico and Central America.

Before we headed out to visit our first site, Teotihuacan, we had to swing by K's work place so that I could send a few emails and visit the neighbouring laundrette in order to get my clothes done, as it was far too expensive to get it done in the hotel in San Salvador.

It was really great driving through Mexico City with K' as she is a confident driver, we had the radio blaring out classic 80's songs and with the sun shinging down we flew along the highways and could see the mountains, valleys, corn fields and it felt so confortable and relaxing.

The colours of Mexico are as green as anywhere else you could imagine, and I was pleased and surprised to see small trees, shrubs and flowers planted and lovingly tended to all along the highways, like they were private avenues instead of public highways.

The colour of taxis in Mexico City are green and white and although the modern models are slowly phasing out the older taxis, it was wonderful to see green and white beetles whizzing about the city centre.

Mexico city centre was originally built by the Spaniards right over the top of the original city built by the Aztecs, which they first had to flattened and flood, and this terrible act destroyed almost all of the original structures, however the foundations are still there, underneath the modern buidings.

The only drawback for them, which they could never really have forseen, is that where they did not let the land settle for years first, the land is slowly subsiding and now the modern buildings are in danger of falling down in on themselves. This can be seen is many of the roads and larger buildings where the room centres are lower than the supporting walls.

However, saying that, Mexico City has more modern and properly constructed buildings than most other cities that I have seen in the Americas, as largely it does not feel like a poor or a broken down metropolis at all.

Of course, there are the bad neighbourhoods and regions, but more often than not they are few and far between and much of the city is under constant reconstruction and renovation, with scaffolding and pavements uprooted on many street corners, and the roads themselves are some of the best I have seen outside of Europe.

Outside of the city centre the horizon became even more beautiful than before, with forested hills and white peaked volcanoes rising up in the far distance, until we reached Teotihuacan, a settlement built by Indian people of the same name and here my first experience of the vastness and size of the pyramids that in stone and size dwarfed even the Greta Pyramid of Giza, although using more much more managable sized hewn rock and stone.

An avenue of mini funeral flat roofed pyramids stretched out on both sides, passing by areas of housing and reaching out to the end of the avenue which sat the impressive pyramid of the moon, itself almost in the shadow of its bigger twin pyramid of the sun.

Having already trekked through Central and South America, the heat and humidity was not a problem for me but for slightly overweight American tourists it was another matter, and a few had to pause every tenth step as they climbed up to the top of the Sun Pyramid, before being rewarded by a magnificent view overlooking the valley that stretched for miles in every direction.

As Teotihuacan is almost two hours drive away from the city centre, we could only stay a few hours before it was time to come back, but in all honesty with the flatness of the land itself, the hordes of tourists and the lack of trees or vegetation for shelter I would not really have wanted to stayed there much longer.

On the way back we could see that the sun was almost setting and in the end once we arrived back in the city centre, we found a restaurant that served traditional tacos where I stuffed myself silly eating, as they were so great and I regret not trying them more often back in the UK, although being fare K' explained that they dont travel well and are best found locally.

As the sun was down, there was not much else we could visit that I could take many photos of, so instead we went around an area just outside of the city centre, known for its night life and found that a wedding was in progress in the local church, which meant lots of people dressed up in their finest clothes and the bride arrived in a wonderfully preserved car that would have turned heads even in the 1920's or 30's which is when it was first seen on the roads.

Then we came back, watched a comedy movie and then crashed out for the night.