Mexico City

 

Mexico City

December 8, 2021 by Stevie G

Mexico City

This probably sounds dumb, but a few days after we arrived in Puerto Vallarta, after we had been around town, gone to the beach, had 2×1 margaritas etc., I had this worry about getting bored. Like two months of this – perfect weather and laid back beach living would be too much to handle. Because after all, if you have beach access Monday through Friday, what do your weekends look like?

Mexico City is a short, cheap flight from PV, so we decided to take a long weekend and “get out of town”, so to speak. Ang had never been there (I had been just once) so the prospect of getting back in to “travel mode” for a bit was appealing.

View from the Castillo de Chapultepec, I thought these were all big fist pillars, but I guess they aren’t quite that cool.

I would challenge you to find someone who has visited Mexico City and doesn’t think it is awesome. That said, my experience has been that people who visit Mexico City are also those that would tend to think it is awesome… Most Americans who have been to “Mexico” mean Cancun or Puerto Vallarta, and the idea of going to Mexico and NOT going to beach town simply doesn’t compute.

“Why do I have such a headache? is it the pollution?” you ask yourself when you arrive, but then you realize Mexico City is at ~7,300 feet elevation. I didn’t realize this the first time I went, and when you are there you really have no concept you are so high in the air, no mountain vistas, just the altitude headache.

Facing the other direction from the Castillo de Chapultepec. A little green park in the middle of extreme vastness of city.

If on a short trip to Mexico City, I really don’t think you can go wrong. Walk around, look at stuff, eat tacos, go to an art gallery. Everywhere you go there is something great, and the city simply never ends.

Random pic from the Zocalo.

As great as the city is, the highlight of our trip was the temazcal. This is a pre-Hispanic sweat lodge type of ceremony, and entering it serves as a sort of rebirth. As I was just about to have my 40th birthday this seemed appropriate.

We were driven to a small patch of green nestled in the city limits. Mexico City is a never ending expanse of cement and the little nature preserve we entered seemed miles away. Here were some gardens, greenhouses, things for beekeeping and what not. The main attraction here is the sweat lodge of course, which looks like a giant clay pizza oven half buried in the ground.

If getting a good sweat in a pitch black oven heated by hot volcanic stones while guided by a shaman sounds good to you, I would highly recommend it!