Day 3: Mexico City to Palenque

How to reach El Panchan, Palenque

We took the Aviasca airline at 3.35 pm and reached Villahermosa at 5pm. Pretty good airline and it was on time. On reaching the Villahermosa airport, we took the easier option of prepaid taxis and it cost us 150 pesos to reach the ADO bus stop. There are two prepaid taxi counters once you exit the Villahermosa airport and the rate is fixed. The ride takes about fifteen minutes. Be sure to specify it’s the ADO bus stop to Palenque.On reaching the bus stop we booked tickets for the 7.30 bus to Palenque. We also booked the ticket from Palenque to Merida at the same time for the next leg of the journey. The cost of the ticket to Palenque is 94 pesos per person and the second ticket cost us 342 per person.The ADO bus terminal is pretty comfortable but they do not allow you into the airconditioned waiting room till before half an hour of your departure. At the bus stop we had a security check by the immigration guys !!! We had read someplace to expect such check by the military along the way so this wasn’t a big surprise. They just made sure we were there legally and all our papers were in order. The ADO bus is very good and comfortable, and took us two hours to reach Palenque.

Palenque town is quite big and active at 10pm. We were a little hesitant to reach so late but took the chance. There are many cabs at the bus stop and we took one to El Panchan for 50 pesos.

Day 3 Mexico City-Zocalo in Mexico City

Breakfast at Hotel Majestic Best Western at Zocalo, Mexico City: We had read about this restaurant in all the travel guides as must do, for the aerial view from here of the Zocalo.It’s on the top floor of the Best Western hotel. The food is a passe', but the view was really worth it. Buffet breakfast for two costs 250 pesos. We were there for an hour directly overlooking the Zocalo Square. There was big Mexican flag in the center, a giant Christmas tree being built and a huge ice rink under construction!!! We could also see the Cathedral from top and moving traffic in the busy City.

Catedral Metropolitana in Mexico City: We visited the Metropolitan Cathedral

, there was a service in progress. The Cathedral is beautiful with intricate carvings all over. It was built on the Aztec ruins by the Spanish conquerors, this massive building has been sinking unevenly due to that, resulting in cracks in the structure!

Presidential palace at Mexico City:The next stop was at Palacio Nacional in Mexico City. One needs an ID card (passport in case of Foreigners) to enter this building. Its guarded by the Military.The moment we entered we were approached by a guide for a tour lasting about an hour. We decided to go for the same and price quoted was 40pesos for 2 people. He was so good, we ended up giving 50 pesos!

He gave a brief history of Mexico right from BC to Spanish conquest to the Revolution! All these are depicted in the murals on the walls of the corridors. The famous Diego Rivera painted the murals in the presidential palace between 1929 and 1945. The last mural had a snap shot of the entire history of Mexico all the way to the Second Revolution. Karl Marx was displayed very prominently in the mural.

Three days at Mexico City! We enjoyed every moment of it , the crowd, the music,the food, the architecture all a wonderful experience for us to cherish.

Day 2 at Mexico City: Garibaldi square

We had dinner at El Popular, located near the Zocalo , we would highly recommend this place for the yummy pastries they had. We got ourselves some fancy Mexican food. This restaurant was a very popular local hangout as well since there was a long wait to get in. An average meal for two costs about 150 pesos.

We went to Garibaldi Square after dinner. Its about 5 blocks from Bellas Artes what grabs your attention when you reach the place where the mariachis perform are their clothes! They dress immaculately ,each team has matching uniforms and some of them have designer pants and jackets with silver ornaments. The street leading to the square are lined with clubs and bars, appeared a little unsafe and rundown. Once you reach the square there are families enjoying the music,so we felt safe after that. The mariachis perform from 8pm till wee hours of the next day morning.We were approached by lots of them but we pretty much stuck to listening to the others singing. Guitars,drums,trumpets,bugle,violin,cello,harmonica were some of the instruments used by them. We were told all the songs were based on love and most of them hired a mariachi to woo their dates.we saw up to 10 groups as we were early and more were coming in.we saw many couples swing and dance to the songs.

Day 2 at Mexico City- Turibus

After watching the Aztec dancers, we decided to take the hop-on hop-off bus. This is not a typical touristy ride as there are more locals than tourists on the bus. We took it from the parking lot of the Cathedral at Zocalo, it takes you to about 22 attractions. Its worth a ride on this, since it takes you all over Mexico city including Condesa, Chapultepec park and the Museum of Anthropology.The total time for one round trip was about three hours. We really liked the concept of the turibus, for 135 pesos per ticket we got to see all the important places with a description and history behind the monuments. We noticed the whole of Mexico City is filled with statues , fountains and colonial style buildings with huge domes. Headsets are provided when we enter the bus, it has about nine languages !


We headed to the open rooftop and took our seats and enjoyed every moment of it. What you need to watch for is there are two routes covering different parts of the City and the ticket is valid for both!!!! The common point for both the routes is “Insurgentes”, embark here if you plan to take the second route. If you have one full day at the city, we suggest you take both the tours since the ticket is valid for both. We had to miss the second route due to lack of time and Rajesh’s laziness to go enquire at the right time:-( We also missed the Museum of Anthropology, which is supposed to be the best in the world. Note that all the museums and Templo de mayor is closed on Mondays, so plan accordingly.

Link to turibus: http://64.78.37.75/turibus/recorrido_turistico_df.html

Day 2 at Mexico City- Aztec Dancers at Zocalo

After the visit to the Pyramids we had lunch at Sanborne café, close to the Alameda park. Great food and ambiance . Though all the places we eat, Raji had a tough task of explaining the concept of vegetarian :-). All the restaurants have at least one item fully vegetarian and Mexico city has about 4-5 restaurants which are only vegetarian. So it wasn’t such a big issue.

Post lunch we headed to Zocalo, this is the main town square, about 5 blocks from Alameda park. We reached Zocalo at around 2pm on Sunday, it was so crowded and an impressive sight! Zocalo is a large square surrounded by the Cathedral Metropolitana, the Presidential Palace and Templo de Mayor and hordes of shops and people. When we reached the Zocalo there was a rock show in progress, and at the same place at night we saw a religious rally…very active town square indeed !

Next comes the best part …The Aztec Dancers !!! They dance to the drum beats in their traditional attire with huge head gears , one gets mesmerised by the rhythm and the beats of the drums. Their bodies are painted and we sighted both men and lady aztecs! They were about 20 dancers and we spotted them in between the Catedral and Templo de Mayor on Sunday afternoon. This is a must see in Mexico City.

Day 2 at Mexico City- Teotihuacan

We headed to the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan on day two. Its Mexico's biggest ancient city. We started at about 7.15 am and reached at 8.15 am , we started early to avoid the sun and the crowd. The sun shines with all its glory later during the day and tour buses start coming in after 11am. Its pretty chilly in the morning so do take a jacket with you. If there is one sight not to be missed in Mexico city, its Teotihuacan!!!! It’s just amazing with the Pyramid of the Sun and the Moon and the Avenue of the Dead.

Pyramid of the Sun: It’s the worlds third largest pyramid. It has about 3 Mn tonnes of stone and was built without the use of any metal tools or wheels.we started with climbing this, it isnt too easy with 250 steps ,but the view from top of the pyramid is so amazing; you get an overview of this huge ancient city!One can only marvel at the engineering behind it 2000 years ago.

Pyramid of the moon: We were allowed upto the first platform of this pyramid, you can have an awesome view of the avenue of the dead from here.The steps here are very steep and tougher to climb. This pyramid is smaller than the pyramid of the sun, but its built at a higher elevation, so both the pyramids are the same height!!! We happened to see some new age devotees out here with white clothes on, they believe the mystical energies still converge at this place!!

We walked through the avenue of the dead and went to the residence of the high priest, which had abstracts murals on the walls. Entry to the ruins cost 48 pesos each.

How to reach Teotihuacan from Mexico city:

• We took the metro to La Raza, which is just 2 stops away, then another metro to Autobuses Del Norte which is just one stop.-cost 2 pesos per person.


• As soon as you alight from the train you can see the bus station to Teotihuacan called the “Autobus del norte”. Its on the other side of the road, so you can use the underpass to reach the bus stop.





• Once in the bus stop walk towards your left to the end of the bus station, the counter is the last but one counter. Board a bus, which says “Los Piramides” specifically, there are also buses to the teotihuacan town which can slightly mislead you. The whole journey took us an hour to reach the pyramids. Cost – 31 pesos each one-way.



• On return, we took the exit near the pyramid of the moon and waved a bus going to Autobus del Norte and the metro for the rest of journey back.

Hotel San Francisco in Mexico City

We booked this hotel in Mexico City, since we were from SFO too :-) , its an okay place to stay, clean and decent rooms. The best part of this hotel is the location, its walkable to the Zocalo( town square) , the metro stations are just 2 min away. Its opposite the Alameda park and very close to the Bellas Artes building. (Palace of fine arts). But it might get pretty noisy at night if there is some event happening in the Alameda park more so on weekends. We faced it on day one when it got a little loud, but since we were so tired due to the red eye flight we just dozed off. Please note the hotel doesn’t have any heaters. So, if its cold request for extra blankets.

Day 1 at Mexico City: Xochimilco

Means a place where flowers grow. It was a romantic boat ride , just the two of us in a 14 seater and we were wooed by the mariachis though I didn’t hire one for Raji, we heard lots of it in the canals. When we reached the canals it was devoid of all the holiday tourists so we were forced to take a boat tour for an hour for 150 pesos. It was worth it!!!

If you go on a holiday or on a Sunday evening you can share the boat with others and it costs much lesser. Our boatman took us in a beautifully decorated boat, it had chairs and a central table. We saw many families hire the same, they got food and drinks and had a party!! There were also many shops floating by the boats. They were selling corn,drinks,food,bonsai,flowers, mariachis…just about everything.The colorful boats are called Trajineras.

Some interesting trivia:
a) These canals were used for the rowing events for mexican olympics
b) The boats are usually named after women whom the boatman wants to pleaseJ

How to reach Xochimilco from Mexico City
a) We took the metro from Bellas Artes to Tasquena ( see the Metro map from the earlier posts). 2 Pesos per ticket
b) Just outside the metro station of Tasquena there is a light rail station. Take the light rail from there to Embaracadero, which is the last stop of the train. 1.5 Pesos per ticket
c)From Embaracaedro it’s a short walk to the canals. Look out for the boards which say “Embaracadero” once you get down from the light rail. Its very easy to locate, just walk in the direction where the crowd walks and from there you can follow the boards. The total commute time from the city took us about an hour.

We had lunch at Sanfrancisco hotel, since we didn’t have too much time. Pretty good food. Dinner was at an exclusive vegetarian place called “Restaurante vegetarino”, they had some great bread.

METRO-MEXICO CITY

Our 10 day trip to Mexico

Places covered: Mexico city, Palenque, Chichen-Itza,Cancun

We reached Mexico City at 10 am , went to the forex counter which is located at the international terminal . So if you are flying to the domestic terminal you have to show the boarding pass of the previous flight and convince him to let you in at the gate of the international terminal. The Forex rates at the airport are the best , we got 12.45 per USD and u don’t have to pay any comission so we were happy about that ! The rate given by hotels and other tourist places is fixed at 10 per USD ! so its best to buy or sell the currency at the airport counters. After the currency exchange, we headed towards Hotel Sanfrancisco in Mexico City.

We went strictly by all the blogs we had read and headed to “ SALA- A” which means GATE A of the domestic terminal . Go through the exit under a covered path in the direction where you see many locals headed to and voila at the end of it was the Metro station!

We got 10 tickets costing 2 pesos each from the . The metro is the fastest and cheapest way to commute in Mexico city. Its very user friendly and what strikes you first is the way it is designed , you can just walk in and start using it. All the sign boards are very clear and one need not ask for any directions at all. Download the map and you are ready to travel !

Our hotel was situated near Bellas Artes and just 5 blocks away from Zocalo , so it was very convenient that way. We reached the hotel in less than 30 min from the airport though we had to take 3 trains! Wait for the next train if its crowded there is one every 2 minutes ! I would discourage its use during peak hours when its so crowded and if you have too much luggage to tag along, we just had backpacks so it was easy.

All over the metro stations and coaches you can see young couples smooching away to glory,most of them looked like they were in their teens ! but it was no different outside the Metro looks like the whole of Mexico is in a hugging and kissing mode.The marketing and sales campaign done in the trains is just amazing especially the sale of audio CDs. The salesmen come with a backpack fit with an amplifier and speakers and they have a CD player in their hands. They play loud music and each CD cost just 10 pesos ! Well enough said about the metros. We reached the hotel and headed to Xochimilco on day 1.