30 - 31st Aug - Mexico City

We leave San Diego with a bit of sadness in our hearts, we really liked the place and the people. But as they say onwards and upwards, and in this case it is upwards as we´re heading to Mexico City which is high in the Mountains at 2200 feet. Luckily it´s not high enough for us to get any altitude sickness but don´t worry I´m sure that will come.

Our first day was spent wandering the old Colonial area of Mexico City at the Main Square, Zocalo and the Cathedral all built by the conquering Spanish 400 years ago. The main square is massive with the largest flag pole and flag I´ve ever seen waving in the breeze in the middle of it. The square is pretty busy with a market at one side and people selling all sorts of stuff everywhere. Three sides of the Square have beautiful old (what we would now consider Spanish Style) building and on one side the massive Cathedral.

Inside it´s spectacular - huge gold alters at the end of a massive vaulted ceiling´d room. Mairi noticed the floors, walls and ceiling were at stranges angles - probably cos it´s so old. We paid to get into the Sacristy which had been painted by 17th Centuary Spanish painters - all religious scenes and beautiful. The guide unfortunately spoke little English but we were able to discern from him that the Cathedral had been sinking.

Basically most of Mexico City is now either built over the ruins of Tenochtitlan (Aztec ruins) or on what was once a lake (when the Spanish invaded). The Cathedrals twin bell towers and the massive bells in them are too heavy for the rest of the building and it was falling over. Over the past 20 years they have been rectifying the problem by pumping in millions of tonnes of concrete into the other end. There is a massive plumb line falling from the centre of the ceiling showing just how far off line the whole church is and how far they have managed to rectify it. Neat.

Mairi, ever the Civil Engineer was very impressed.

We wandered round the corner to part of the exposed ruins of Tenochtitlan and the museum showing what it looked like when the Spanish invaded. Tenochtitlan was inhabited by Aztecs when the Spanish invaded and it must have been more impressive than anything we had back in Eurpoe. The City was built on an Island in the middle of a lake and when they were too big for the island they started reclaiming land from the lake. The city had a number of massive temples which would have been covered in white plaster with massive carvings, sculptues and gold. Unfortuantely Mexico City now covers most of the ruins, although they are still excavating a little at a time and every so often another park or site alows you to walk around a little more. The hotels nice enough although it is surrounded on three sides by a building site, although after some persuasion we managed to get a room not facing one of the building sites and instead it faces the Alemada - a park originally an Aztec market place. Although, now it´s full of renaisance buildings and waving policemen. Maybe two white (very white almost blue in fact) girls walking around Mexico City is very strange cos lots of the Police have been waving at us! One of the waiters in hotel restaurant is trying to make friends with us and with his bit of Eand our attempts at Spanish we´ve managed to exhange names and have a wee chat. Our first taste of Mexican food was green stuff with the bread. I dived in, never one to shrink back and I could smell the chillis even before I put the green stuff into my mouth. It was nuclear - totally magic but we difinately needed a beer to stem the flames in our mouths - so far so good.