When Mexico City was Tenochtitlan...

The Day 3 started with a small fiasco. We were really keen to see some more of the archeological history around the city, hence our target was the Museum of Anthropology. We wanted a slow morning and started off around 11.30 am for the museum. Little did we know that there will be almost 2km long queues at both the entrances! We circled the venue, thinking if there will be some alternate entrance for foreign tourists. There were none. We took another taxi back to the hotel, but there were road-blocks all around. The main roads were reserved for the skaters and cyclists on Sundays till 2pm, and it took 45 minutes to reach back. We were 400 pesos poorer and dejected at wasting the morning.

The Templo Mayor ruins were left to be seen, so we headed straight towards the site, after a brief break at the hotel room. En route, we entered the compounds of the Mexican Supreme Court and clicked some pictures of the interesting building structure.

Our major pain point was lack of English speaking crowd. The entry-point to the temple ruins also had a long queue, so we decided to have lunch instead and then head back. Both of us wanted some light lunch and searched for an unnamed street food that everybody seemed to be having. Finally it was located at those super-small 'thelas'. We ended up having chillis and bacon, and enchiladas at a local Bar-cum-Restaurant. The cheese could have been lesser though, no wonder the people (specially women) have such huge tires around their bellies.

We gawked at some local street dancers and the traditional dancers on the way. Curiously, the Mexicans seemed quite superstitious, similar to our culture - we came across enchanters on the road to drive away evil spirits, and people actually flocked to them. We reached the ruins around 4pm. It was another enriching experience. The huge area almost declared to us its past glory. The magnificent architecture has had lots of meditations, offerings and self sacrifices to the God, a tradition quite rampant during the Aztec era. The killings were abolished instantaneously with the Spanish conquest.

There were small boards with details written at each corner of the ruins. Interesting was the fact that there were quite a few teenagers, writing down notes from these boards, and clicking pictures on a Sunday afternoon. They all seemed to be on some school project. It kind of touched us since this seemed to be an ideal way to inculcate the importance of your own historical significance from an early age. You learn to respect that feeling throughout your life and pass it on to the next gen as well.

The temple used to have seven layers to maintain the inner sanctum. It was brought down by the Spanish soon after the invasion of the then Tenochtitlan (old name for Mexico City). There is a museum attached to the ruins that contains artifacts from the early age. With eight levels and hundreds of beautiful artifacts on display, we took almost an hour and a half to even scan through. Closing time was nigh and we did not have another day to come back.

We sometimes notice weird facts on our trips. One of them were the entry fees of each of the tourism sites - they are a standard 57 pesos, with no difference between locals and foreigners OR between the sites. This maybe to maintain equality of historical significance, or maybe we were deducing too much.

Late in the evening, we went to the local market again to experience the evening communal dances and smell the local food. Then we walked to the Monument of Revolution that we could see from our hotel room, and were curious to see it up front. The building is 52 mts high and was made during the first centennial celebrations. The colourful dancing fountain in the front had many people having a fun time in the water. We clicked some pictures and went up in the glass elevator, to the top of the building. The evening wind and the night-scape welcomed us with all its serenity. Some half an hour later, we came down from the building, only to see something totally unexpected. There was an open-air projection theater and Iron Man II had just started. Pleasant surprise there!

We headed back to the hotel room with warm thoughts of the day, and 312 pictures of the day in our camera. The entire city is a wonderful amalgamation of modern civilization with old architecture, all within walking distance. As I already said, the local people respect their own culture. There are various musicians on the roads as well. The people like to spend quality family time on Sundays, encourage their performers, eat to their heart's content, and live life in their own terms - no less than King size!

Our flight was in the early morning. A quick dinner later, we tucked in for the night and headed back to LA the next day.