Mexico City: Teotihuacan, Tenochtitlan & Tacos!
I first heard of the ancient city of Teotihuacan while visiting the De Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco in 2018. Artifacts from the ancient pre-Aztec city were on display and I was quite surprised to read about the city, as I had never heard of Teotihuacan before. “At it’s height, around the year 400, the city was home to as many as one hundred thousand residents, and was the center of cultural, political and economic power in Meso-America”, read the plaque. While a population of 100,000 today classifies as a small city, this was in 400AD, and in Central America. By comparison, the famous Mayan site of Chichen Itza was only 35,000 residents at it’s peak. This definitely intrigued me, and Teotihuacan made it to my bucket list. Come Dec 2023, I finally had a chance to visit Mexico City, and explore the ruins of Teotihuacan.
Reaching Ciudad de México
Landing in Mexico City, early evening, we headed to our hotel in the Hippodrome area, which is right in between Roma and Condessa — the two hip/chic areas in Mexico City. The hotel staff were really great and went above and beyond in recommended places to us, and we spent the evening walking around the place and grabbing dinner at one of the recommended restaurants — Antolina.
Teotihuacan
The next day we had an early start. The plan was not only to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacan, but also fly over them in a hot air balloon!
I had booked a tour with the aptly named Volare. The tour included pickup from a Mexico City hotel, the drive to Teotihuacan, a hot air balloon ride, followed by time to explore the pyramids on foot, and then return to Mexico City. This meant starting off at 5AM, but it was not too bad, as the tour van picked us up right from the hotel. The drive to Teotihuacan was about an hour, and we reached the hot air balloon take-off spot well before sunrise.
The pilot of our balloon took us right up close to the pyramid of the sun — the largest pyramid in Teotihuacan. After the flight, we had a simple but nice breakfast, while a band of mariachis played music live.
After the breakfast, we visited the pyramids on foot, and explored Teotihuacan up close. The Volare guys also offered an optional guided tour, and I decided to go for this, so that I could learn a bit about the history and legends of this place. As stated before, Teotihuacan’s main attractions are the Pyramid of the Sun, The Pyramid of the Moon, and the Street of the Dead between the two. The “Street of the Dead” (or, “Calle de Los Muertos” in Spanish) is called so because the structures along the street were thought to be tombs. Archaeological excavations have revealed that these were not really tombs, but lesser pyramids which may have served as homes for the royalty.
The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon are thought to be temples devoted, respectively, to the Sun and Moon gods. Excavations have unfortunately revealed both animal and human sacrifice inside these pyramids.
We could also enter one of the buildings here, known as the Palace of Quetzalpapalotl, which provides a glimpse of the vibrant colors that these buildings were originally painted with.
The Pyramid of the Sun is quite a bit larger than the Pyramid of the Moon, and it dominates the overall landscape here. There was a time when you could climb up the pyramids, but after a few tourists died here, it was banned. The guides here tell you about a legend that the pyramid has some magnetic properties that interfere with pacemakers. They say that a tourist had a pacemaker and tried to climb up this pyramid, and died due to the pacemaker failing. Not sure if this was true, but the legend stays on!
There are also a network of caves and tunnels under the Teotihuacan complex. These caves are also open to exploration by tourists, but a guide is needed to find your way.
It seems like the archaeologists who excavated here in the early twentieth century actually removed the murals and frescoes decorating the pyramids here. Back in Mexico City, we also visited the Museum of Anthropology (Museo Nacional de Antropología) where we could see the original decorations of these pyramids.
The Food
No travel-blog about Mexico City would be complete without mentioning the food here. The city is famous for Al-Pastor tacos. The name “al-pastor” comes from the origins of this taco. It was influenced by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico in the 19th century. The Lebanese shwarma style of spit roasting was adopted, but with replacing lamb with pork, and the Lebanese spices with Mexican ones.
I tried one of the famous taquerias here called El Califa. While the al pastor tacos are the most famous, I personally liked another taco here, called the “gaona”. The taco gaona is a specialty of El Califa, and I have never had this taco before anywhere (even though I live in the Bay Area, where there’s no shortage of great taquerias and taco trucks). The gaona is a super soft cut of beef, simply placed on the taco. However, the meat is amazingly juicy and “melt-in-your-mouth” kind.
While the tacos are famous, there were other restaurants focusing on a variety of other Mexican dishes. Some were real fancy, such as Azul in the Zocalo.
Zocalo & Tenochtitlan
Mexico City’s “Zócalo” is the official center of the city. It is also the site of yet another ancient, pre-Columbian Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. The name, at a glance, reads very similar to Teotihuacan, but this is a completely different ancient city. Tenochtitlan was built much later than Teotihuacan, in the fourteenth century. The city was built on an island in a now drained lake, called Lake Texcoco.
Much like Venice, the city of Tenochtitlan was interconnected by a network of canals. All of that was lost after the Spanish conquest. Tenochtitlan was conquered, and the lake drained to control flooding. The Spaniards also built a cathedral here.
Colonization and ecological tampering aside, the Zocalo is now a very vibrant historic center, with a wonderful fusion of Christianity and Aztec Shamanism thriving side by side. Just outside the Cathedral, you can have your “aura cleansed” via shamans.
To the left of the cathedral, is the National Palace. Now a Government building, the site of this palace is the same as that of the Aztec rulers.
Since we were in Mexico City on Dec 31st, we also had the opportunity to see how the locals celebrate the New Year’s Eve. The Zocalo plaza was all lit up with lights and decorations.
The actual New Year’s Eve celebrations, however, were in the Angel de la Independencia (monument of the angel of independence). Here a very popular salsa band (the name of whom I forgot now) were performing an open air concert.
Museums
Mexico City was home to Frieda Kahlo and Diego Riviera. While we could not visit the Frieda Kahlo museum, which is built on the location of her house, we did visit other museums with her art.
There was also the museum of anthropology (Museo Nacional de Antropología), with a great collection of Meso-American artifacts. This includes the famous “Aztec calendar”, which we now know is not really a calendar.
The museums here are really well maintained and well worth the visit.
