One historious day out.

As we headed north out of the city, Ricardo weaving us through the mornings chaotic traffic, Pepe, our guide, gave us a run down of the day. It seemed that the wonderful Hostel Centro Historico had worked wonders in putting a small group of us in touch with Ricardo and Pepe. Both Chilango's (a term traditionally used to whom were born into the madness that is Mexico city).
Our first stop, Lazaro Cardeuas Y Manuel Gonzales Streets. (Three Cultures Square). The Plaza of the Three Cultures, known as the Plaza de las Tres Culturas symbolizes Mexico’s unique cultural heritage. Once the center of some of the most powerful Native American empires. Aztec, Mexico became a flourishing Spanish colony in the 16th century. Most Mexicans are Mestizos, persons with mixed European and Native American ancestry representing a third culture, thus the name of the area represents a mixture of all three cultures. This plaza is located at the ancient Aztec city of Tlatelolco where you can see it's ruins. You can also see the Colonial Cathedral of Santiago which dates back to 1524 (although it was rebuilt in 1609). With a sprawling city like Mexico it

 wasn't surprising to see that now this ancient city was being suffocated by many very ugly 1970s looking apartments and government buildings, only the ancient city was keeping them apart. Thankfully Pepe confirmed that this ancient city, dating back to 1325, was now being preserved and protected so in theary it should always be safe from developement. The structures which represent the Three Cultures are the ancient Aztec city of Tlatelolco, the Colonial Cathedral of Santiago, and the very ugly new addition towering, concrete building of the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores (Department of Foreign Affairs). An odd sight to see three structures of such contrast. All backing onto each other in the same location. Of course, in addition to these three buildings there were many other high rise blocks. And as the archeologists worked away at this acient site, residents of the nearest tower block used the now shared plaza for an aerobic class. 

The plaza is of an important site in Mexican history and it's where three terrible events took place. It was at Tlatelolco that on August 13, 1521 the Aztecs made their final stand against the Spanish army led by Hernan Cortes. It is said that 40,000 Aztecs died in the desperate struggle and their bodies clogged the local canals for days afterward. The battle is memorialized in the plaza by a plaque which reads in part, "Neither a victory nor a defeat, but the painful moment of birth of the Mexico of today, of a race of Mestizos". With that day came the end of the pre-Columbian era in Mexican history. The second tragedy, and one that more may recall, occurred on 2 October 1968 when Mexican soldiers, equipped with tanks and machine guns, fired into a crowd of 14,000 unarmed students who were staging a protest against spending on the 1968 Summer Olympics being held in Mexico City. A huge monument at the site lists the names and ages of the students who fell that day. The plaza was the site of more death on September 19, 1985 when an early morning earthquake caused a modern building adjacent to the plaza to collapse. For days thereafter tents were erected on the plaza as temporary shelter for some of those left homeless by the quake. The earthquake, which affected Mexico City, left at least 8,000 dead. In the name of history, anthropology and tourism, archeologists have only reveiled a small part of this ancient city, the Aztec city of Tlatelolco. The rest of this ancient city now intombed forever under the very ugly modern buildings that surround this famous plaza.

An hour later and we were back on the road and bantering about sporting history.  Mainly centring around football, clearly Pepe's sport of choice. We hit on Mexico's famous Estadio Azteca, Aztec stadium, the only stadium to host two World Cup Finals with a capacity of 105,000. That's some gathering of football minded types. The 1970 world cup, remembered for the ledgendry Pele years and of course the 1986 world cup with the hand of god Maradonna moment.

In just under a hour of the city we had already seen some great stuff.  On reaching Teotihuacan you could say the first thing you noticed getting out the bus was that the temperature had gone up a notch or 3.  Before exploring the pyramids we had a seemingly harmless 'exit through the gift shop' stop that was acting in reverse. Well this is Mexico. This trip through the gift shop experiance was like no other. Not only were we getting put through this experiance prior to the main tour, it also involved drinking copious amounts of tequila. Ranging from 18% to 42% in volume, it was 10:30am. No panic said the owner, as he added mixers of cactus juice or almond or of course a straight shot with just the salt and lime treatment as a side option. We will leave you to work out the strongest and nicest of the three!? Standard rule applied here, all drinks had to go down in one only after successfully completing the "tequila dance". Remembering that we were all stood in a shop. Well it was one way to get the overseas lot to spend out. We came away with a couple of treasures. Ten minutes more and things could have been a hell of a lot worse as the tequila was making it's move north to the brain. Funnily enough all back on the bus the volume had gone up a tad as we made our merry way onto our next historic site.

This short journey took us though colourful districts, none of which you would want to amble round on your lonesome. Each village seeming to have it's preferred choice of merchandise ranging from very large speaker boxes for cars to refurbished oversized tube style TVs sets. Ever wondered where all the non-digital TVs have ended up? Well here's your answer, small remote villages in Mexico. All this was broken up with what looked like brightly coloured schools and community centres. What was constant was the sprall of housing, very basic housing at that, stretching from the highways to as far as you could see right up into the mountains. Only seeming to stop where the mountains became too steep to build on. If you could term this as building. Housing that was just about standing, mainly being supported by neighbouring shacks. This is how Mexico city is constantly growing. People being typically drawn to the bright lights of a city from the countryside for work and a better way of life. A thought process that looked to be failing miserably. Most people make their way to areas like this from southern mexico. In the past many of these people would have fled to the US for work. Not anymore though. All houses built in these areas are constructed with no planning and no services. Some, if not many will be living in slum like conditions in a lawless community. Pepe mentioned that the only way these settlers had a chance to obtain services was if a group of neighbouring people get together to jointly fund connections. Once you are luckily enough to pitch up at a patch of free land the ownership is granted once you have been on it after only 5 years, although here is where the coruption starts. A country joined at the shoulders with the mighty USA, but what a contrast to the way of life being led. Oh yeah, then there's the highway check points where you see guards with the biggest guns we've ever seen at the side of the road. The gun of choice seeming to be the shotgun!

Teotihuacan, The City of the Gods, is Mexico's first great civilisation city where an estimated 125,000 people resided between AD250 and 600.  Probably was the biggest pre-Hispanic Mexican empire.  It is home to some of the largest ancient pyramids in the world, the huge Piramide del sol, (pyramid of the sun) and the almost as big Piramide de la Luna, (pyramid of the moon), both of which were sat there crying out to be scaled.  So with little or no shade we set off for this archeological complex of awesome pyramids set amid what was once Mesoamerica’s greatest city.  According to legend, it was here the gods gathered to plan the creation of man. Scaling some of these pyramids in the mid day sun and at Mexico's altitude of 2,240 metres (7,350 ft) was some going. These mass structures were all built by hand without any machinery and the detailed scuptures alone on each pyramid were carved out without the use of metal tipped tools. When we hit the top of these bad boys it was quite a rare moment of silence for a group that had been drinking tequila some 3 hours earlier. But at least all this legwork eased us into accepting an great mexican lunch offer. An all you can eat which included some fantastic chilli based sauces, catus relish, which was lovely, chicken in a Mexican chocolate sauce, real gucamole, potato tacos, fresh salad by the bucket load, more chillies, more enchiladas and quesadillas than you could actually eat in any one sitting to name but a few dishes. With all this on-board how we ever made it up the second pyramid of the day, the Piramide de la Luna, (pyramid of the moon) is a wonder. Only the gods may know. At the top we were rewarded with some awsome views. Looking straight down the main avenue of terracing made you imagine how it must have been to live here back in the day.

Our third and final Mexico city maneuver of the day was the Basilica of Guadalupe located on Tepeyac Hill, just North of City. This is the site of one of the most visited churches in the world, in fact the second most visited church in the world, after St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. The Basilica of Guadalupe is a shrine in Mexico City that is an important Catholic pilgrimage site. The original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the 16th Century is housed in this basilica. Mexico's greatest pilgrimage is done in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe every December 12, commemorating the day when the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared before Juan Diego. The Basilica of Guadalupe receives millions of pilgrims who travel for days from their place of origin throughout the country.

A brief history of Lady of Guadalupe, bare with us:- Lady of Guadalupe (also called Our Lady of Tepeyac or the Virgin of Guadalupe) is a manifestation of the Virgin Mary who first appeared on Tepeyac Hill outside Mexico city to a native Mexican peasant named Juan Diego way back in 1531. She asked him to speak to the bishop and tell him that she wished for a temple to be built in her honor. The bishop required a sign as proof. Juan Diego returned to the Virgin and she told him to pick some roses and carry them in his cloak. When he went back to the bishop he opened his cloak, the flowers fell out and there was an image of the Virgin on his garment. To this very day Juan Diego's tilma, or cloak, with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is displayed at the Basilica of Guadalupe. Over 12 million visit the Basilica every year. Juan Diego was canonized in 2002, making him the first indigenous American saint. So as you can image it can get pretty packed at certain times with all this pilgrimaging going on.  To ease overcrowding and reduce queues at the sacrid spot a four lane escalater has been installed to move you under the high-mounted original of the 480 year old Juan Diego's tilma (cloak) together with the image of Lady of Guadalupe. Despite the escalator technology there still seemed to be a back up going on. Some were just going continuously back and forth on this small escalator.