Look Both Ways

We have arrived. Mexico City is everything they say it is. It is huge and noisy and cosmopolitan and very intense. Our hotel is really centrally located and we are able to walk to most of the things we want to/will have time to see while we are here. It is a pretty nice hotel, very 1970's in its design, lots of dark wood and funny cube shapped lamps. Probably the most overwhelming part of the big city is the traffic, and everything that goes with it. Crossing the street is a risk everytime. Even the Lonely Planet has the helpful reminder to always look both ways, as even on one way streets buses sometimes go the opposite direction of traffic. The smog and noise from the constant honking add to the joy and chaos. There is also the ever present protesting going on. We saw probably the most interesting one we have seen so far yesterday evening on our way out to dinner. A group of people who are protesting for Agrarian reform and have been camped out in a plaza near our hotel for some time it seems, were out last night, drumming, and mostly naked. Some of the men wore a photo of some government offical as a loin cloth. I don't know the significance of the nakedness but it seemed out of place in a fairly conservative country.

Today we managed to be pretty far from the traffic and protests for most of the day. We spent the day mostly inside the Bosque de Chapultepec, Mexico City's version of central park. We saw the museum of national history located in an impressive castle that used to be home to the country's presidents. Then we went to the Zoo which was, while not the zoo with the most open and ample enclosures I have ever seen, didn't make you sad or worry that the animals were going to die of broken hearts. With the exception of the Asian elephant, which was all alone. Elephants live only 1/4 of their life span in captivity, even in the very best zoos. Elephants probably shouldn't be captive. They have 3 pandas which are the progeney of two that they have stuffed at the beginning of the exhibit. One of the highlights was the reptile section were we saw an enormous Anaconda, as well as lots of other large and/or dangerously posionous snakes.

We ended the day at the National Museum of Anthropology. It was quite impressive. We were able to see much of the treasure that was taken away from the many sites we have visited as well as replicas of some of the tombs that we couldn't go inside of on our journey. We have lots of cool pictures and someday we will update the photos so you can see some of them.

Also exciting about Mexico City: NON-Mexican food! Don't get me wrong, I love Mexican food. But it was pretty exciting to have authentic Korean BBQ for dinner last night. Sushi is on the menu tonight and I am hopeful that we will track down a Thai place for tomorrow night. Tomorrow we are headed to Teotiuacan.