Mexico Trip Journal – Day 3 – Mexico City

I ate breakfast again at the hostel and then caught the metro to the central bus station in the north of Mexico City to find a bus for Teotihuacan which is 30 miles north of Mexico City. I had been told that the bus station was a place that one needed to keep a particularly sharp eye on one’s valuables so I was surprised that the bus station turned out to look more like a modern airport than the bus stations back in the USA. It stands to reason that more people probably arrive at Mexico City by bus than by airport in a given day.

The area of the city north of the city center reminds me of my trips to Tijuana with a more improvisational style of architecture than downtown.

I plan to write a more detailed guide to Teotihuacan so I will just summarize that I spent almost 6 hours there climbing the pyramids including the 3rd largest pyramid in the world. Remember that Mexico City is at 7000 feet so a significant portion of the time of my visit was spent trying to catch my breath. The Aztecs thought Teotihuacan was built by giants and I don’t blame them based on how steep the steps are for these pyramids. The complex is also just huge! Just walking from one end to the other felt like a couple of miles although part of that may have been that the bus dropped us off downhill from the large pyramids of the sun and moon. I went through 2 liters of water and it was a beautiful day, not particularly hot.

I struck op conversations with one tourist from NYC (originally Bermuda) and another from East Berlin who had just spent 3 weeks in Cuba. He said Mexico is much better, the food and the service in particular.

After seeming to only have 2 meals a day for some reason I decided to treat myself to something nicer and ate at Cafe Tocuba which is close to the hostel and recommended by my guide book which is the Eyewitness Travel Guide to Mexico. It is a lovely cafe with a good mariachi band and a very respectable chicken molé. Dinner came to 153 pesos, about $10, before tip.

More pictures can be found on my flickr photo stream