We started the day with another breakfast at Fu Tian (the Chinese/Mexican restaurant up the street, remember?). Martha met us at the restaurant, and joined us for the day's adventures.
After breakfast, we drove to an area in the southeastern part of the city called Xochimilco (so-chi-MIL-co) (w) :
Apparently, Xochimilco used to be a large lake. But now, most of the lake has been filled in, and what remains are a series of canals. At several locations along the canals are Embarcaderos, where you can get boat rides:
Xochimilco canal boats
We went to Embarcadero Nuevo Nativitas, and got on our boat:
These boats have no motors; they're propelled by poles - kind of like Italian gondolas, only more colorful. Here's the gentleman who poled our boat:
El Gondolero
Along the way, we passed numerous gardens and nurseries:
There were also many vendor's boats in the canals, along with the tourist boats. Some sold drinks, some sold snacks. We bought some potato chips, doused with hot sauce. Some boats held mariachi bands, which would come alongside your boat and serenade you. We passed on the mariachi, but did purchase a couple of songs from a pair of marimba players:
Los Marimbistas Flotantes (floating marimba players)
After we got back to shore, we bought some nieves, which is essentially Mexican ice cream. One of the flavors listed was "Beso de Angel," or Angel's Kiss. That intrigued me, so I ordered it. It tasted like strawberry. In fact, when Martha ordered strawberry, I could have sworn the guy dipped it out of the same container that mine had come from. Hmmmmm.
Before we left, I was amused the see the sign on this boat:
Delusions of Grandeur?
After a brief stop back at the apartment, we went to catch a bus tour of the city. This tour featured recorded narration in several languages, including English, so my loyal interpreters could take the rest of the day off. The English translation was quite good, for the most part... with a few clunkers. For example, at one point, the narrator said that something "gave away to" something else, instead of "gave way to."
Okay, picky, picky, picky. I appreciated the effort. The tour mostly concentrates on the central historic area of the city:
Approximate area covered by the tour
Again, the tour covered so much that I can't get it all in this log. Much of the tour focused on Paseo de la Reforma (w) , a major thoroughfare through downtown Mexico City, along which are found a large number of traffic circles (called glorietas in Mexico), with a variety of statues and monuments. Here are some of them:
Fuente de la Diana (Fountain of Diana)
...a statue of the Greek goddess.
El Ángel de la Independencia (the Angel of Independence)
...probably the most important monument of them all, commemorating Mexican Independence (w) . On Sunday, before we left, I went back for a closer look, and took this picture of the base of the monument:
As you can see, there's a door in the base. So I went in. Apparently, the base of the monument also serves as a mausoleum for several important figures in the Mexican War of Independence.
Monumento a Cuauhtémoc (Monument to Cuauhtémoc)
Cuauhtémoc (kwa-TEH-mohc) (w) was the Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan (w) (the Aztec city that once stood where Mexico City stands today) from 1520 to 1521.
Monumento a Cristobal Colón (Monument to Cristobal Colón, aka Christopher Columbus)
Monumento a Simón Bolívar
Simón Bolívar was the founder of the nation of Bolivia. Why does he rate a statue in Mexico City? I don't know. They was also have a monument to Winston Churchill. Go figure.
Not everything we saw was on the Paseo de la Reforma. Here are some things we saw in other places:
Monumento a la Revolución (Monument to the Revolution)
...a monument to the Mexican Revolution (w) of 1910.
Monumento a la Benito Juárez
Benito Juárez (w) was President of Mexico from 1858 to 1872, and was by all accounts the most popular president in Mexico's history.
Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts)
...a famous opera house (w) .
In the heart of the city is the Plaza de la Constitución (w) :
...a large square bordered by, among other things, the Palacio Nacional (National Palace) (w) :
...and the Cathedral Metropolitana (Metropolitan Cathedral) (w) :
The tour is scheduled to last three hours, and passengers can get off and back on at any of a number of stops along the way. When we got to the Plaza de la Constitución, after we'd been riding for about 45 to 50 minutes, we decided to stop for dinner. I particularly wanted to stop, because where I was sitting, near the back of the bus, I only had a limited view. The buses are double decker, and I determined to sit on the top level when we got back on.
So we got off the bus, and walked a few blocks to a restaurant called Hosteria Santo Domingo. It featured an impressive stained glass window:
...and a very unimpressive piano lounge singer. The food was good, though.
On the way to the restaurant, I took a picture of yet another church:
Iglesia Santo Domingo
After dinner, we walked back to the Plaza to catch the tour bus. It was getting dark by this time, and I took a couple of pictures of the cathedral at dusk:
The Plaza, of course, is crowded with street vendors. One was a woman in Aztec dress, performing some kind of cleansing ritual:
But when the bus came, we got a shock. By this time, it was about 8:30. We knew that the tours ended for the day at 9:00, but we assumed that meant that the last tour left at 9:00, and we expected that we'd be able to complete our tour. Wrong. At 9:00, the bus stops, wherever it is, and everybody gets off. So we only got a little over half of our tour. Nuts.
So when we got off the bus, we were quite some distance away from where we'd parked the car. So I parked everyone in a Sanborn's coffee shop around the corner, and caught a taxi back to the parking lot, and drove back and collected everyone. We drove Martha home, and then returned to the apartment.
Here's a map showing the approximate locations of the various items mentioned above:
