Fresh from the solitude of wilderness camping in California’s Kings Canyon National Park, it was perhaps to be expected we would take a little time to adjust to the busy, sprawling streets of Mexico City. We had unintentionally thrown ourselves in the deep end by arriving late on a Friday night to our hostel in CDMX’s Juarez neighbourhood. Sound systems competed for superiority as crowds of hedonistic teenagers spilled out of nearby bars and nightclub queues stretched out of sight around street corners.
Mexico’s capital has the fifth largest population of any city in the world and it takes at least a few days to gain even a superficial understanding of its scale. In an attempt to gain our bearings, the next morning we headed to cultured Coyoacan. After walking around the pretty Plaza Jardin Hidalgo, we arrived with our tickets for the Frida Kahlo Museum. Reservations were essential here. One group of young American travellers, intrigued to see what everyone was waiting for, was told by a museum official that the next available booking was three days hence.
Much more low-key, but just as interesting, was a visit to the nearby Leon Trotsky House Museum. The Marxist revolutionary lived here in exile until Ramón Mercader entered his study and plunged a pick-axe into his skull.
On Sundays between 8am-2pm, the city closes the Avenida Paseo de la Reforma to cars. So we hopped on a tandem and joined thousands of other cyclists and runners on the road. We first headed north-east to the enormous Catholic church and pilgrimage site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, before returning past the statue of the Angel of Independence on our way to entering the expansive grounds of Chapultepec Park.
When the cars returned in the mid-afternoon, we departed for historic Zocalo Square. The cathedral in the plaza was impressive, even if the rows of the surrounding shabby clothes shops were not.
The following morning we headed nearly two hours south on the train towards Xochimilco. En route we saw the Azteca Stadium, the venue of the celebrated 1970 football World Cup final. After haggling with limited success, we were on a colourful barge, floating along the interconnecting canals. The air was filled with the contrasting sounds of mariachi bands and the explosion of daytime fireworks, shot into the sky by passengers on passing boats.
In the evening we ate in Pujol, which is ranked as the ninth best restaurant in the world. Trout ceviche, mole and swiss chard wrap all featured in the eight dishes on the tasting menu. At more than £100 a head, this was an extremely rare travel extravagance. Apparently the price is quite cheap in comparison to other, similar culinary experiences, but it’s a lot given I was still hungry when we departed. This was remedied by a visit to the Mexico City institution of El Moro, where we ate churros and drank the deliciously sweet rice-based beverage of horchata.
On our final day in the capital we explored the neighbourhoods of Roma and La Condesa, two barrios near our base in Juarez. Judging by the proliferation of vegan cafes, both have been heavily gentrified in recent years.
We rounded off our stay by watching Lucha Libre wrestling in the Arena Mexico. I’d initially been ambivalent about going, but it was worth it to witness the increasingly impressive gymnastics throughout the night as the amateurish theatrics of the undercard was replaced by the elite practitioners of the ‘sport’.
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