Long Day

Father's Day was exhausting for me. I exercised, mowed the lawns, went to my parent's house, went to The Queen's parent's house then took a short nap. And after all of that, I hit the road to the airport headed to Mexico City.

I got to my hotel at about ten o'clock local time, went to my room to freshen up and then went downstairs to meet my tour guide. I went on the "Pyramids and Guadalupe Shrine" tour, which turned out to be about seven hours long. It was great, but I must say that I am now really exhausted. With me on the tour were our guide Angel, our driver Albert, an older couple from Colombia, a young man from Israel and an older man from Norway.

The Guadalupe Shrine is supposedly the third most important religious center in the world behind Mecca and St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. It is a complex that consists of the Antigua Basilica dating from 1536, several small chapels and the new Basilica of Guadalupe that was completed in 1976. You can read more about the shrine on your own time. I must admit that I really was not that impressed. I was more impressed by the Cathedral in the Zócalo.

The new Basilica of Guadalupe looks like a modern building from the seventies that is just out of date, which it is. There is nothing impressive about the building other than the unique doors and the Our Lady of Guadalupe painting that is supposedly made on cloth from a cactus that should not lost as long as it has. It is also supposed to be the image that appeared on Juan Diego's apron miraculously. I don't know what is true, but there are a series of about five moving sidewalks that take you past the original so you can view it up close and even photograph it.

Our tour left the shrine after a short while and we headed out to Teotihuacan. Before getting there we made a stop at a place that houses artisans who work in obsidian and silver. They gave us a small tour and told us how the artisans work with the unique obsidian of the area and silver.

They showed us the maguey agave plant (cactus) and told us all of the items that the cactus provided for the local residents. You can peel paper from its heart, use the needles for sewing the threads that can be peeled away from the plant and even make a fermented "wine" named pulque. Then we got a chance to drink some pulque and tequila. The pulque had a sweet, easy drinking flavor. We were told that it is more watery now because of all of the rain they have had lately. When the weather gets hot, the pulque gets a lot more milky and has a strange texture. I liked it.

After that we got the hard sales pitch in their store. They kept following each of us around and commenting about how nice the piece was we were looking at. I resisted temptation and did not purchase anything at their store. They kept telling us that you cannot by any obsidian or silver anywhere else that is the same quality. We left after a short while and headed to Teotihuacan.

Teotihuacan was amazing. I will write another post all about it tomorrow. I was taking a lot of photos, but by the time I reached the Pirámide del Sol, my camera battery was dead. I started taking photos with my iPhone, hoping they will turn out OK. We spent over two hours at Teotihuacan and I walked more steps than I ever have in my life.

We left Teotihuacan and went to have lunch at a restaurant near by. The Moctezuma Restaurant was another tourist trap that our tour guide took us to. He suggested we order the especial, Molcajete Moctazuma. The fix a mixture of meats, onion, nopales and a special sauce that uses pulque in a molcajete. They serve it to you in the molcajete along with corn tortillas. You then make your own tacos. It was a lot of food, but it was pretty expensive at one-hundred and eight pesos. For comparisons sake, I can get a steak sandwich for less by ordering room service at my hotel. I was not able to finish all of the food, but it was really good. About three quarters of the way through our meal, a man dressed as an Aztec indian started dancing around and singing while his wife was banging on a drum. He finished and left us alone, but he did ask for a tip as we left.

We headed back on our hour drive back to our hotels. I got to my room at about six o'clock and about a half hour later it started pouring rain. It is a thunderstorm like we do not see back home. The thunder is very loud and continues for hours while the rain alternates between a downpour and a consistent rain storm. It is great weather as long as you are not out in it.