Ah, Mexico City. I spent nearly two weeks there around July 2006, and my friend John joined me for the second half of the trip. It was an interesting time due to the highly contested elections, but things remained peaceful while I was there. I haven't had much time to write up the trip story, but I'll dash off some highlights before I forget (these aren't sorted). All in all, it was a fantastic trip.

John did the work of creating a webpage of the photos from the trip, since I was too lazy to do anything but dump them as raw images in a directory. Thanks John!

Right, on to the highlights:

  • the music club Alicia (Alicia myspace page)...I saw both an evening of "Mexican Indie Rock" (I liked The John Band the best of the bands that night) as well as a tribute to Desmond Dekker that featured DJs spinning reggae/soul music and dancing
  • the opera La Boheme and an evening of modern dance at the gorgeous Bellas Artes
  • the Caricature Museum on Donceles 99 (near the cathedral) because I love that style of art
  • the metro system where trains come every 30 seconds without fail and which featured some cool art in the stations
  • the wrestling match (lucha libre!) we went to, though truth be told we left after about an hour and headed to an indie rock show because while the spectacle itself was fun, the actual wrestling part was, well, wrestling...
  • Cafeteria El Cuadriltero where I met ex-wrestler Super Astro and where we ate insanely huge tortas (sandwiches)
  • the pyramids of Teotihuacan
  • eating churros while watching the World Cup
  • the art markets of San Angel (Saturdays) and the Jardin del Arte (Sundays), the flea markets that popped up all over town on the weekends, and the various mercados like the artisans market
  • buying the perfect old edition of the Spanish language version of The Little Prince (El Principito) after much searching and asking in Spanish for what I was looking for (the good used bookstores are on Donceles, not too far from the caricature museum)
  • the Frida Kahlo Museum, and in particular the Diego Rivera painting "Mujer con cuerpo de guitarra" that was there
  • Chapultepec Park, including the Anthropology Museum and the Castle
  • seeing the Cuban animated film Mas vampiros en La Habana since it is something that would never be imported into the US
  • the Diego Rivera murals at the Palacio Nacional
  • catching a play at Centro Cultural Helenico
  • a fabulous dinner with Cuban son music at the amazing Casa Lamm
  • the hostel Bed And Breakfast Mexico that we stayed at with excellent host Angel and charming fellow travelers
  • the highly stylized Condesa DF hotel
  • the granola for breakfast at Condesa DF (yes, this was so good it deserves its own bullet point!)
  • and I mentioned the food, right? the pastry shops! the tasty tacos! the fresh squeezed juices! the omnipresent papaya! limonada! tequila!

    More photos are at this link
    (mirror site in case previous link is down)