Finally, our last chapter. And thank you for indulging me: I realize that this is basically the equivalent of me forcing you to look at my vacation slides. But I feel like so many people are really tepid about the idea of visiting Mexico, and this trip was fantastic. And I took so many pictures. So here’s one last post.
We took a quick flight from Oaxaca City to Mexico City, then headed to Coyoacán, aka Frida Kahlo’s old neighborhood, to the lovely Meztli Casa Hotel and Spa. Once again, I loved the outdoors-in space of this hotel’s lovely little courtyard.
After being in a cozy space for a few days, we particularly enjoyed our spacious room.
There was a little dressing area separate from the bathroom with shelves to store stuff.
Plus fun art and a funky skylight.
After traveling, we spent the first afternoon and evening getting acclimated, eating tasty food and keeping an eye out for flora and fauna.
In the morning, we headed to the local market, where we enjoyed Cute W’s New Favorite Breakfast, chilaquiles, at Madre Cocina Mexicana.
Chilaquiles are a classic comfort food with corn tortillas soaked in a red or green sauce and various mix-ins and toppings. I liked them very much, too, but by the time I made it to Mexico City, my stomach was beginning to rebel against the sheer quantity and variety of foods I’d been consuming. One morning the two of them went out for breakfast while I stayed in bed and asked them to bring me back a plain roll. Dude, all I could do was my best.
For our first full day, we headed to the Museo Nacional de Antropología (for some reason the direct link isn’t working right now). The museum is enormous, with indoor-outdoor elements, and there is so much to see that it’s positively overwhelming. One of the first things I encountered was Lucy’s skeleton, and since I read a big ol’ book about Lucy in Anthropology 101, I was psyched to encounter her in person.
There are huge, expansive exhibits of tons of different indigenous cultures, and you basically follow along with their histories until the colonial period when things went to hell in a handbasket. But in the process of trying to remember what I could and searching for alternatives to the glitchy main site, I found this post on another site which is way more educated and actually informative about the museum, if that’s what you’re looking for. Instead, here are a bunch of pictures I took.
After leaving the museum, we wandered around Chapultepec Park, where the museum itself is located. It was a little rainy, but this one duck really liked it.
We stopped briefly for a snack at Craving Knafeh, because J had always wanted to try knafeh, a Middle Eastern pastry made with angel hair pasta and cheese. Then we continued on our true mission of seeking out more tacos. We headed to Michelin-recommended Tacos Hola El Güero, and they were very delicious, even if the restaurant itself probably isn’t what you visualize when you think of a restaurant recommended by Michelin.
The next morning we headed to the Museo Frida Kahlo. This was her home, basically a little compound that included an inner courtyard as well as her living space and studio space. I somehow had never registered just how disabled Kahlo was, so seeing her accommodations, like the clothing she wore to help brace herself and the mirror above her bed so that she could paint self portraits while reclined, was really amazing. Plus it’s just cool to see her actual paints and brushes.
Next up: a quick snack, one of our favorites: fresh mango with Tajin.
Then it some more walking, followed by food at the super-delicious Amatista Tostadas.
After a little rest time, we headed to downtown Mexico City to the Zócalo (Plaza de la Constitución) where we were fortunate to be around for a huge indigenous festival, which meant plenty of live music.
There was also a sprawling market to explore.
Then we took a long walk in pursuit of more Michelin-recommended tacos, this time to Carinito Tacos.
These were all unbelievably delicious. It is really a struggle when you want to eat more, because you’re like, “When is the next time I’ll get to eat a taco like this?” and you don’t know. We ran into other American tourists who live a little closer and just come to Mexico City for the weekend to eat food and go back home. Totally get that. However, at this point, I’d started to struggle. My stomach couldn’t take it. The next morning when we went to breakfast, I got plain cheese on a tortilla. And check out the side dish. I felt like I had been demoted to Kids Meal status while Cute W and J just kept going. But I loved how cute the place was.
Next we headed to some art museums. First up: contemporary art at Museo Tamayo. This art was not quite my cup of tea, although I did like Joachim Koester’s images of cannabis.
Then we headed over to the Museo de Arte Moderno. This one was much more my speed. One thing I really appreciated was that, for some of the works, they offered up little scent pots to complement the works of art.
With our recent trip to her house, we were all better informed an interested in seeing Los dos Fridas.
I also really loved this Custodia magiscopica by Feliciano Bejar, which was cool on its own but also super-awesome for taking pictures of Cute W.
I also really liked Yvonne Domenge’s Caminos and Wolfgang Paalen’s Migracio de Yucatan.
After these museum visits, we headed outside to the Jardín Botánico del Bosque de Chapultepec. Oh my Lordy, this place was gorgeous. Just a sample:
Then we stumbled across street performers doing Danza de los Voladores, an ancient ceremony where they climb a super-high pole and then spin their way down.
Next up was some food at Orale Arepa before heading to Museo Soumayo. This museum was really interesting, with a crazy assortment of art and cultural items. For example, in one spot, there were just a bunch of different telephones from all different eras.
And then you’d see two different sculptural representations of the Three Graces, one from 1623 and another from 1900.
And then there’d be a painting by Kahlil Gibran next to an original manuscript of The Prophet.
And then in another spot there’s a portrait by Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s son Jean (girlish looking to our modern eyes) and other images of childhood, like Salvador Dali’s sculpture of Alice in Wonderland, which you can see on the right, kind of around the corner.
It just felt very stream-of-consciousness and funky to me, and I would have stayed longer if they hadn’t basically chased us out because it was closing time.
The next morning, Saturday, I was pretty snap-happy, since it was our second-to-last day. Random pictures:
We headed to the San Angel Art Market, as instructed by our neighbors, who have spent a lot of time in Mexico. This was fantastic, although I didn’t take many pictures because the artists understandably don’t want people just copying their stuff. I was excited to meet up with our neighbors’ friend, aka Alishart.
But we couldn’t resist buying some art. It’s gorgeous. And affordable. Seriously, if you have a big space to decorate and you like color, it’s well worth your while to travel to Mexico City and just buy a lot of stuff. We don’t have much space to decorate, but we couldn’t resist buying a few pieces, although these were what we bought over the course of the whole trip. The orchids and the tiny nature pieces are what we bought at this market.
To give you a sense of the small scale of the ones just above, you can see them in this picture.
And, of course, more food.
Sunday was our last full day. We headed back to our local market for breakfast, then took a DiDi (a car that’s popular in Mexico) to the Xochimilco Canals. This turned out to be a really fun drive because our driver was chatty, and he and J spent the entire time in animated conversation in the front while Cute W and I tried to follow the conversation but mostly just enjoyed feeling impressed by our trilingual daughter. We were heading to the canals to take a Sunday afternoon ride on a trajinera boat.
This was a super-fun experience. Basically, tons of people have floating parties on the various boats, and along the way you’ll see vendors selling snacks and drinks and fun stuff like the plants and flower crowns below.
There are also mariachi bands on boats, and you can call them over so that they’ll board your boat and play a few songs.
Some of the canals were quiet, and then we’d turn a corner and there’d be a broad, boisterous space full of boats. Sometimes there were so many people that they tied the boats together. I would love to go back again and experience with a big group, because we were three mellow tourists on our little boat, and they were clearly made for a party.
We had some yummy dinner again, our last together.
The next day I was flying home while Cute W and J were continuing on to Guadalajara. We had one last breakfast and a little walk in the park before heading to the airport.
Oh! One last funny thing: I overstuffed my carry on so that Cute W and J could be a little lighter for the final few days, and among the items I packed was a paper-wrapped mirror that J had bought. At the airport, my bag was flagged by security, and they basically had to empty the whole thing.
I was perplexed until I saw her unwrapped mirror, which looked a little bit like this one, and a lot like a throwing star weapon!
And that, four months later, concludes our Mexico trip!
