First few days in the big city

One word, Huge! Mexico City is enormous. You can`t really appreciate the size until you see it from the air. Situated in what is now a valley which used to be a lake before the spanish drained it, MC is home to between 20 and 25 million people. Nobody knows for sure how many. The largest poor suburb is home to about 2 million alone, and is a landscape of wall to wall concrete housing, most situated far up the slope of surrounding mountains. Dotted inbetween the countless grey "buildings" are a few painted ones, apparently only a few can afford to paint their home.
"A small part of the city."



The central part of the city is actually very nice, much nicer than i imagined it. The infamous traffic isn`t so bad as i thought it would be, and the pollution is tolerable even though it certainly blocks the view of much of the city. There are many museums to visit and countless colonial style buildings. Unfortunately, since the water table is constantly being drained, the city is sinking slowly but surely. Many of the older buildings are sloping, and on the street i live , the roofs look like a rollercoaster.








"The former headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition (que Monty Python:)"


"Church of Guadalupe. To the left they are selling plots for the graveyard being built next door. If you cant afford to pay cash, you can always pay in easy installments of 12 or 25 months. Gotta love the catholic church...



























"A building covered with murials"



"eehm...que?"


Yesterday i visited perhaps the most famous sight around MC, Teotihuacan. The City of the Gods is an ancient city which was built during the last half of the first millennium. The original name of the city has been lost, but it was later inhabited by the Aztecs who gave it its current name. Nobody really knows who the original inhabitants were or why they abandoned their city, which gives it an air of mystery. Today we can only see about 10% of the original city which probably housed over 150.000 people at its heyday. Most of it has been reconstructed, and gives us only a taste of what it once must have looked like. Originally all surfaces were covered with a white type of plaster which was then painted in magnificent natural colours. A few places we can still see some of the blues and reds in the murals, but most of it is unfortunately lost.


"Me on top of the Pyramid of the Moon. It represents the female aspect of the duality.
You can see the avenue of the dead going
past the Pyramid of the Sun."











"Here i am again, on top of the Pyramid of
the Sun. It represents the male aspect of
the duality. You can see the Pyramid of the
Moon in the background."