Mexico City In A Weekend

Scott went to Mexico on Thursday to visit Katie and give her a break from the long travel days that she's experienced for the past year. Plus it was a great opportunity/excuse to explore Mexico City together! Katie took the weekend off and we were energized by just getting to be together. Here are some of our highlights!

On Friday we got a ride to the 'floating gardens' -- there is a real Mexican name for it, but we're too lazy to Google it right now. They are cool decorated wooden boats that float down a canal-like system -- very much an European influence, as they are powered by a guy on the end of the boat using a large stick to both push and direct where and how fast the boat travels. Out on the canal were hundreds of these boats and smaller boats with people trying to sell you food, flowers, trinkets and songs -- yes, there were travelling mariachi bands!! -- 1 song for 70 pesos ($7.00) There were, of course, many types of amazing flowers as the name floating gardens was well earned.

On Saturday, we explored downtown Mexico City. As we have found with most of our travel, you can't go wrong with taking the 'city tour' -- and so we boarded the Double Decker 'Touri-Buso' and had a blast exploring this city which is home to more than 22 Million people! Massive city squares that house their most valued government, religious and cultural buildings. Having both explored Europe, we were transported to the same look & feel of city centres there and were impressed with the Spanish influence which was very apparent. We have pictures of a very impressive dance-type show we saw (but we forgot our download cable -- have to wait till home) But it's a group of five people at the top of this pole who are only attached by a rope around their waist and they spin around and around as the rope brings them to the ground in a controlled 3 minute spinning frenzy -- very cool!
The weather has been amazing, despite being the rainy-season -- however, at the end of our bus tour, we did experience a downpour while on-top of the open-aired bus....hmmm...refreashing!?! Scott was in total "cop" mode on the ride home, as we just flagged down a taxi to take us back to the Hotel. Let's just say the driver took us to parts of Mexico that weren't on the 'official city tour!' It was great fun watching his expressions as we rolled through some of true Mexico!
On Sunday we went to the pyramids. Wow. The massive space is only 25% discovered/excavated -- but no more excavation is being done by the Mexican Government. Still the area to explore is huge and climbing both the Piramide de la Luna (Pyramid of the Moon) and Piramide de Soleil (Pyramid of the Sun) gave some impressive views of the area. We hired a great guide from the hotel for both this trip and the floating gardens trip. It was interesting riding with him (much safer!) and seeing the great poverty on the streets and shanty-towns that Mexico is famous for. It appears that all 22 Million people work in Mexico (give or take a few million) -- never were we asked just for $$ -- always trying to sell something in return. perhaps the exploding homeless population in Calgary could take a lesson from their employment rate.
We had an amazing weekend together, as you can read! Only two more weeks in Mexico for Katie and then her time being away is finished -- yeah! Scott goes back to Calgary on a 6am flight and then is away for a boys biking trip -- I'm sure we'll see photos and stories from their adventure!