Yes it is a very big city:

After a great visit with friends from Virginia, we decided we might as well grab a flight if we were at the airport. We chose Mexico City. Given our quick decision, we did little research. Very quickly we realized that the city would require many visits to fully explore.

Brant loves ruins (I do too but not as much as him). So on the first day one we got up at about 4:30 AM so we could meet a guide and driver who took us to the Teotihuachan ruins. it was a bit over an hour to a “tuna” farm. While one of the benefits to going to Mexico City now was the “emptying “ out of the city to the beaches… we had to join that group for a bit and our driver had to work hard to get us there before sunrise.

It was a little chilly in the morning so they had started a fire. Very slowly as the sky lightened we saw hot air balloons rising until the sky was filled with close to 50 balloons. It was beautiful but also a unique landscape. Maurice owns the property and lives there by himself with no electricity. He told us he felt very blessed. He knew little English (we were impressed by the word blessed) but our guide spoke English, Spanish and French fluently. He reminded us of our daughter and knew they would have enjoyed chatting with each other. They shared so many of the same concerns for our world.

After an excellent breakfast of fruit, and arepas we headed down to the “lost civilization “. Interesting how a group of people built these huge structures then basically died off. Likely ran out of water and bit by bit fell apart. The Aztecs found their structures and took over the place but eventually that fell apart. I always think it’s a shame we can’t figure out a way to live in the ruins. Imagine having a pool on top of the pyramid? Pickle ball courts in the courtyards? And grow some maize etc . They always seem like sad places—ruins that is.

After only a couple hours sleep there is not much energy for sightseeing but we packed in as much as we could every day. It’s a great city for walking. Each day we walked about 18,000 steps. We could have easily taken more Ubers as they were very cheap and easy to use, but we enjoyed seeing the neighborhoods. Each “neighborhood “ had its own very distinct feel. We mainly explored 4 neighborhoods.

Polanco: where our Marriott was located overlooking a park that seemed bigger than Central Park . Beautiful upscale restaurants everywhere and lots of museums…. Not the “hip” area but beautiful and remarkably quiet.

Centro: this is the oldest area. It was about a 30 minute Uber ($4) from our hotel. The zocalo is immense but sadly cordoned off on our first visit with giant plates of plastic on the pavement. hmm? We wandered around watching dancers and checking out the buildings in the golden light until we got hungry . That evening I had outstanding kale pesto on homemade pasta. Brant had housemade sausages–excellent food at Amaya’s (even if we were actually in search of jazz club when we stumbled on it).. Brant later read that Vatican was lending Mexico City a replica of the Sistine chapel and they were building it in 10 days. on the zocalo. We were too curious not to return. Sure enough we saw the chapel going up and the zocalo was open! It was now filled with people listening to a free concert and many waving an Israeli flag. Strange combo: Sistine chapel being built amongst 1000’s of people many waving the Israeli flag on the night before Easter. It seemed to get increasingly more crowded and given that some officers had riot gear we decided to cab home after checking out a cool hotel.

I mention the cab here because he gave us a tour of the city. He was very talkative and really tested the limits of our Spanish. We had to give directions to our hotel which seemed odd. He told us they have one park that people can legally smoke pot. Lots of police were at the park too. He thinks it’s a good way to do it. By the way, you can do ok with no knowledge of Spanish here but it sure does help!

The anthropology museum was giant and truly amazing. When there wasn’t an English translation the google lens came in handy. I guess it’s silly but did not realize how many different concurrent groups were out building pyramids. We walked to the famous Jumex which had a huge line so we “settled” for the free art gallery at Soumaya. Could not believe that such a terrific art exhibit was free.

Roma and Condesa (the hip neighborhood): One day we roamed around Roma (lots of roaming because gringos tend to eat lunch between 12-2 which is when restaurants tend to close in Mexico city. (No lunch here–just breakfast and dinner is served). Fortunately we found a tiny place serving delicious pita sandwiches. The owner had been born in NYC but had lived in Israel, Venezuela and Brazil. He was hoping to open a new place in Puerto Escondido where he can be closer to surfing…. the new life work balance. Smart. The next day we decided to more deeply explore the bar scene … so after a quick goblet of sangria near a plug for my phone (after visiting a dog park and discovering the cat cafe was closed)we headed to what was described as a dive bar. (Actually a Pulqueria with some little swimming pools). Again one of those odd combos… 4 story bar with a rooftop terrace with dancers and plastic pools that the kids really enjoyed, but no diving (thought that’s what they meant by dive bar). After that was the mescaleria with a band (in Roma Mercado) ….. ahh so many bars and restaurants and so little time. Beautiful old architecture in this neighborhood mixed with new (remember this is home of many earthquakes). Then finished off with ice cream and brandy near the hotel.

Easter Sunday and at the airport. A busy place today! Lots of the city is headed to Cabo. I was chatting with someone from the US before the trip. He was shocked we would go to Mexico CIty. He had heard it was extremely unsafe. We did not feel unsafe in the city but it is not to say there is not crime in this huge city. In fact, there is a city bordering Mexico City where there is little or no power or water and each day 1-2 women are murdered. They say it is the result of impoverished people taking over several hillsides. No police except for drug lords.

With that said Mexico City was truly a beautiful city packed with way too much to see and do. It seems like a crazy Mexican combo of Rome and NYC… at a third of the price with much friendlier people. (And tacos all over the place).

Brant spoke to a couple who had just arrived from Jamaica in the elevator at I’mour hotel. They were loving Mexico City and soon to go to Puerto Vallarta then on to Toronto. Brant asked why they were skipping the US and sheepishly told him they were concerned about gun violence in the US. And to the person I was talking to about the safety of Mexico City …. there have been 2 mass shootings in the US in the past couple days… so guess we all need to keep trying to make our world a better place… for everyone everywhere. Sadly we have had a couple of years of crime rising in inner cities, hopefully things will slowly improve but in the mean time, Brant and I feel so very fortunate to be having this opportunity. Travel helps with perspective I think. Interesting that a Californian might be fearing travel in Mexico while a family from Jamaica fears gun violence in the US. To a European the risk of being shot in the US has become unacceptably high and yet a horrible war is just a short distance away from them. We don’t really think of it on a day to day basis in the US, nor do most Mexicans I suspect. Most folks I know think they are safe where they live on a day to day basis, truly a privilege to feel that way. In the meantime it is wonderful to be out and about seeing people having fun and getting back a sense of normalcy. We have begun to meet more ” young nomads” in our travels and wonder if the definition of country may change some day? Perhaps that will help. In Roma there were young people from all over the world sharing a neighborhood. So interesting to watch how this goes—-and now we can certainly see why so many have chosen to move to Mexico City.