From the top of the Torre Latinoamerican. The view doesn’t stretch very far thanks to the smog. Mexico City has a ton of hardcore driving restrictions in place to try and alleviate some of the congestion and smog, but from what we can see it isn’t doing much good, it took a nearly hour long cab ride to travel the five miles to the museum the other day.
We spent the day just wandering around. Mexico City is an interesting place to be a gringo because within the space of just a couple of blocks you can go from bustling tourist street/plaza to a rather sordid feeling street/plaza. We never felt like there was trouble brewing, but a couple of places we just had the feeling that these are some unsavory characters. Both times we felt that way we were within just six or eight blocks of the Zócalo.
Overall though, you’d be hard pressed to find yourself in any real trouble here. Cops are absolutely everywhere you look. I can’t even fathom what the number of police officers is in this city—it must reach six figures. On the street in front of our condo yesterday sat six police trucks filled with riot police playing cards and staring at their phones. They seem to scatter these guys throughout different areas each day.
We’re on the hunt for Lowe’s first pedal bike. This baby is definitely in the running. “It looks like a motorcycle.”
Brilliant mobile workshop. I had my knife sharpened the other day by a guy with this same setup in the trunk of his car. But here in the city this guy had to adapt even further.
Just as I was about to take this photo Herman Munster walked up. This may very well be my favorite picture of all time. Too bad Lowe had refused to join Ouest. Of our kids, Lowe is definitely less apt to pose for a picture.
I have to admit that we’ve struggled a bit finding a place for the kids to get out and wear off some energy. There are some obvious nice large parks in the city, but nothing in our Historic Centro neighborhood. These are the sorts of parks we have found around here.
I feel like I’m not giving a very favorable impression of the city so let’s talk about the food. Mexico City claims to be the home of el pastor tacos. In every city we visit I scan the street-side restaurants looking for the tell-tale spit of pork. I don’t always find it. But here, in Mexico City, they are everywhere. In sizes never imagined. We’ve only been here a few days and Ali is already telling me that she can’t eat another taco.
17 Comments on “Ciudad de México”
lovely photos as usual. My husband and I lived in DF in 2010-2011. It’s my favorite city! The smog gets much worse as the dry season goes on sadly.
We lived in coyoacan (we stayed in an amazing guest house off the plaza – email if you want the info). There is a ton of stuff to do there & UNAM is worth a visit – nice botanical garden good for lizard and bird watching & running around. The San Angel market has an amazingly decadent weekend brunch – a good change from tacos.
Other than the zocalo and the templo mayor, we didn’t find the centro historico to be that great for hanging out. We much preferred the smaller town feel of the suburbs like coyoacan, condesa and polanco. The Sunday morning bike ride on reforma might be fun for your crew. We usually took the subway or metrobus and often found it faster than taxi.
Ah, tacos al pastor! whoever figures out how to bring authentic tacos al pastor to the foodies in the U.S. Would make a fortune!
Wow! What a great city! I was there in 1965 at the young age of ten. I love the mobile printshop, my trade for many years…
There are about two dozen of them scattered across one plaza.
If you feel a bit uncomfortable in Mexico City only six to eight blocks off the main drag, I figure that makes is roughly three times safer than Washington, D.C. You get over two blocks from the Whitehouse and you feel you just might be taking you life in your hands.
Great photos … I also LOVE the one with Ouest and Herman Munster! Too bad Lowe wouldn’t get in the picture .. would have made the perfect “family” photo! =)
Or, you could Photoshop Lowe’s face onto the Mexican child painted on the building . . . maybe with him looking up and to his left with a quizzical WTF expression as he wonders how the late Fred Gwynn came to be in Mexico City in the late spring of 2015.
TJ
Chapultepec Park on Reforma (about 2-3 miles away from Zocalo maybe?) is a good place to spend an afternoon at the old castle, lake, museums, lots of acres to wander around in. The Metro runs from Zocalo to Chapultepec, but this gringo was always strenuously discouraged from using that by the staff at the Sheraton Maria Isabella next to the US Embassy. I used to enjoy wandering through La Zona Rosa in the early 90s, but late 90s exhibited a distasteful and uncomfortable change in flavor there also. I hope it has changed back.
I have two favorite photos of yours-Ouest with the butterfly you painted on her face and Lowe running towards the camera in his dragon costume. Herman Munster is right up there though.
I know exactly the two pics you are talking about. 🙂
Amazing photos at night. Where did you take that from? What did you do to make Herman look so serious? He sure is giving you the eye.
Those were from the top of the same building we were at in the morning—Torre Latinoamericana. Ticket was good for the whole day. As for Herman, well, he just walked up as I was about to press the shutter. He stopped right there and didn’t move. I took like six pictures. I should really post them all in series. Took me a while to decide on this one as the best.
Yes, please on the photo series 😉
THAT.PHOTO!!! Holy cow, no kidding. Awesome.
Hey, did you take the kids to the National Anthropology Museum? We took ours, but Micah’s older than Ouest – the zoo is across the street and some other stuff, I think – it looked interesting (we didn’t go because we ran out of time).
(How long are you going to be there? did you even leave already?)
Last Anthropology Museum we walked into the kids got ahead of us and were staring at a 7-month old fetus in a glass jar. Don’t need to make that mistake again anytime soon. 🙂 We’re here for a couple weeks this time through.
You take great photos of people and “life” in the moment. The Herman Munster one is incredible. A contest winner for sure, if you were inclined to enter such things.
Showed my wife the Munster picture and she said that looks like a Banksy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
It’s a knockoff. I don’t think a real Banksy would last ten minutes in this neighborhood.