Mexico and Teotihuacán
Hi guys,
Thanks for the update on the presidential elections blog-trotteuse and congratulations Camille, you're the best! I just wanted to let you know that we're still alive after a day and a half in Mexico city. We took a bus yesterday morning at 10 a.m, having confirmed our flights for the 5th with Iberia (we'll land in Nantes at 10 p.m on the 6th). After a comfortable bus trip we started looking for a hostel in Mexico city at 1.pm. Not such an easy thing to do! Most hostels close to the Zocalo were actually fully booked but we eventually found a friendly "Hostel Amigo". Just the time to drop our bags and we were already wandering the streets of the biggest city in the world.
The center is quite nice and surprisingly breathable. There's a huge Mexican flag in the Zocalo, a few nice shops around and some people selling handcrafts. We stopped a few minutes in a park to enjoy the sun (it's warmer than we expected!) and to our surprise we saw those cops on horses with the Mexican hat. I thought they were only in Canada, although I knew those ones wouldn't wear a Mexican hat! We spent the rest of the day shopping ( last sales, hurry up!) and headed back to the hostel. We had a look at the different tours they offer and decided to go for the Teotihuacan one for the following day.
Today was the following day. We left the hostel with the group (a Canadian guy and his Norwegian girlfiend, a Kiwi, five other Norwegians and a couple of Swedish) at 8.30 a.m. Our first stop was in the middle of the city to see some ruins. We learnt that Mexcio used to be an island (until the 16th century, I think) in the middle of a big lake. Now the buildings are bending dangerously as the ground is a swamp.
Next stop was in the famous (at least in Mexico) Basilica Guadalupe. According to the legend, it was 
built because the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian and told him to build a church on top of the hill. The indian went to the archbishop and asked him to do as Mary had said. Of course the archbishop didn't believe him and asked for a proof. The indian went back on top of the hill and Mary gave him roses that couldn't possibly grow up there at this season. The indian gathered the roses in his cloak and ran to the archbishop. When he unrolled his cloak the roses fell to his feet and revealed a picture of the Virgin Mary on the cloak, where the roses had been kept. That was a miracle and the archbishop had the church built on top of the hill. Nice story isn't it? Well, the Indians believed it too and that's the way the Spaniards converted the poor Indians to Christianism and forced them to go to church instead of their "Pagan" temples. The site itself is beautiful although the new basilica built next to the old one in the 70's is ugly (pretty much like every other building from the 70's).
The third stop was next to Teotihuacán, to see how the locals use the agave (a plant from the Aloe Vera family), cutting its leaves to make needles and threads and also paper. They also showed us statues made of obisidian, a stone that you can only find in this part of Mexico. We finally got to try different tequilas with salt and lemon as well as the mescal with the worm inside. The canadian guy was brave enough to eat it! Yaaargh! We had a small Mexican snack and hopped on the bus again to see the pyramids. The
site is huge. There are two main pyramids: one for the sun and one for the moon. The pyramid of the sun being the second highest in the world after Kheops, Egypt. It's massive! We climbed both of them and we quickly realised that the Aztecs used very high steps. We were out of breath after a few minutes only. We spent three hours in Teotihuacán and then went back to our hostel at 6 p.m, right on time to see the flag ceremony. The soldiers gather on the Zocalo and take the huge flag. That was it for the day. Tomorrow we'll walk the streets of Mexico city and visit the Frida Khalo museum. The next update might be the last one as we leave on Monday. Good luck!