Mexico City

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We arrived a bit blurry eyed in Mexico City airport and easily got a taxi to our hostel that we had prebooked whilst in Auckland with STA Travel. The hostel is on a street just of the Zocalo - the second largest square in the world after The Red Square (we think Tianamen square was bigger). It seemed an ok hostel to be in so we left our bags and went down in to the square to have a little look around and then get some dinner. Armed with our phrase book and our few classes worth of knowledge we looked at a few menus and finally settled on the Cafe Popular. I ate Tacos (Yay!) and Chris had chicken with salsa sauce, quite a succesful start. We went back to our hostel and tried to go to the roof top bar but were told that it was closed, so we went back to our room. It was around 10pm at this point when we got a knock at the door. Our vistor was a man telling us to leave the hostel as it was unsafe, I think we heard the word fire in there somewhere, but we don´t really know what the problem was! We packed our bags, asked for our money back and found ourselves a new hotel on the other side of the square! It`s much nicer and not too expensive so we don`t mind too much. Quite a funny start to our time in Mexico!

We slept in yesterday to catch up on the sleep we missed the previous night and then went to the Zocalo for some sightseeing. The Catedral Metropolitana is the largest cathedral in Latin America and it looks really impressive form the outside. Attached to it is a church that gets used for everyday things which is also really cool, with it´s heavily carved facade.
We also went into the Palacio Nacional to have a look at some Rivera murals. They were very impressive. The largest depicted Mexican history, with other smaller ones depicting life before the Spanish. We might go to RIvera & Frida Kahlo´s house & museum when we come back to Mexico City at the end of our trip.
We had more good Mexican food for our lunch - fajitas. Yum scrum.

The Templo Mayor is the last thing that we visited at the Zocalo. It is the site of a big Aztec temple which was only discovered in 1978 when some workmen found a huge stone with the goddess of the moon carved into it. We had a look around the ruins where you can still see some of the carved sepants and things, some of which still have quite a lot of colour on them. The musuem which they have built next to the ruins contains the largest collection of Aztec artefacts in the world, it´s pretty cool stuff like skulls and sacrificial tools.
When we came out, the square was full of soldiers lowering the enormous national flag. They do this everyday at around 6pm and lots of Mexicans watch them.

In the evening we went to the Plaza Garibaldi. This is where all the mariachis hang out. It was fantastic! We watched from a distance for a while and then paid a group to play for us. A bunch of old guys with spangly trousers, it was great!

So far we like Mexico a lot. The architecture is beautiful, the food is yummy and there`s a lot of interesting things going on all the time. There are loads of policia all around where we are and we feel pretty safe (not particularly because of the ploilce though).
We are very excited as tonight we are going to the Luche Libre!