Mexico City - New Year's Eve

Uninspired to write much these days, I'll let the photos tell the tale... We explored more of the DF today.These were some of the sights from the local food market:




grasshoppers anyone?
artesanal market stuff:


Ubiquitous VW buggies, a taxi:

car thong?

Also some archaic delivery systems are still being used. Here is an ice delivery man and his delivery bike:


Mexico City has a mix of architecture and you seem to find something of interest on every block. The art deco Bellas Artes, designed by an italian architect in the early 1900s:


can you see the architect's nod to mayan design?

on display in Bellas artes, the diego rivera mural - commissioned by rockefeller, destroyed, and redone later by Rivera.

a building with spanish tile facade (near Bellas Artes):

more cool architecture squished between buildings:

We met up with Sergio and Sasha at their place in the area of the city called Polanco. We had hoped to eat a nice dinner in their neighborhood, but everything, i mean EVERYTHING, was closed for New Year's Eve... so we improvised, and made a delicious spaghetti meal instead. . . For New Year's Eve, we quietly set off sparklers, and listened to the fireworks blown off around the city.

mexico city - 30 dec 2007

We arrived in Cancun at 5am, and managed to get an earlier flight to Mexico City. exhausted as we were, it was still exciting to see volcanoes sticking out of the clouds/smog as well as Mexico City (AKA: Distrito Federal, AKA: D.F.)from the plane:
mexico city from
Taking the Metro seemed to be the easiest way to travel to our hotel which was two blocks north of the major plaza, called the Zocalo. The weather was a very comfortable 80 degrees, so it was shocking to see a zamboni and an ice-scating rink set up for the holidays in the Zocalo:
After arriving at the hotel and dropping our things, we ate a yummy breakfast:


The Zocalo was crowded with people performing music, tricks, cleansings, dances etc.
hurdy gurdy man:


We also explored the nearby museums and churches:
Cathedral:

Diego Rivera murals at the National Palace:


A sculpture honoring the omnipresent Frida and Diego at the National Palace:

happy new year!

We hope everyone has a wonderful, peaceful, and happy 2008.

Andrew and Leigh

merida - day 7

On our last day in Merida, we decided to stay in town and enjoy the city. The folk art museum displayed the best of Mexico's art, showing us what the artisans at the markets are trying to do.






At midnight, Andrew and I hopped on an overnight (4hr) busride back to Cancun so we could catch our 8AM flight to Mexico City.


oh, and we wondered who this dude resembled?

Uxmal and Kabah (Day 6)

As we mentioned, Merida is a great jumping point to see the Yucatan. We took advantage of our rental car and drove to the ruins of Uxmal (pronounced "Oosh-mahl"), a large city that flourished from 900-1200AD. Although the word Uxmal means "built three times", it's thought that the city was rebuilt five times, and if you count the modern reconstruction - six times. Although the ruins are not as extensive as Chichen Itza's, our overall experience there was far nicer - the land was better managed, there were no vendors once in the 'park', and there were fewer overall visitors making the experience more like an exploration.

Leigh at Uxmal:
Chicken at Uxmal
Pyramid at Uxmal (note rounded corners):
Andrew, Eric, and Leigh atop a (very steep) ruin at Uxmal:

Kay and Brian below the (very steep and tall) ruin:
Unlike ChichenItza, there are no open sources for water along with very little rainful, so the inhabitants of Uxmal built cisterns to hold their water supplies. Not pictured here are the hornets that attacked Leigh while attempting to look into a cistern - two stings later, escaped without further incident.

The smaller site of Kabah (meaning "mighty hand") is only 25km from Uxmal. We were originally interested in visiting because of the description in the tourbook: "It remains unexplored, but the one great building, the Codz Poop (Palace of the Masks) lies not far off the highway to the East... The facade of this amazing structure is covered all over, in ludicrous profusion, with goggle-eyed, trunk-nosed masks of Chac - to get in the doorways, you need to tread over the masks' noses." Seriously, who wouldn't want to see this structure which celebrates well-endowed noses?

Goggley-eyed critters at Kabah
Mayan figures at kabah
More ruins and carvings:






Admittedly, we were disappointed to not find the well-endowed shnozzes, but the wacky creatures were fun to see. Not unlike Greek ruins, most of the ruins seem to have been stripped of their beautiful carvings by the Spanish or by archeologists and this has been a little dissappointing. So Kabah was fun because there seemed to be more intact carvings than at other sites.

shopping and museum (day 5)

We spent the day in Merida. In the Museum of Anthropology, we learned that Mayans shaped the heads of noble children...
Some decorated their teeth with Jade and others shaped individual teeth (ouch):


Eric and Kay enjoyed the children's displays:

and there is a art exchange program with Japan - on the Passeo, there are some fabulous pieces, this one resembles some people we've seen: