Mexico City

I checked out three museums within a few blocks of my hotel in the Centro Historico Saturday morning,

sometimes dodging the homeless who seem to be set up permanently in their spots down the side streets. Muse de Arte Popular, with fantastic folk art, Museo Mural Diego Rivera, art and displays of the famous muralist, and Museo Memoria y Tolerencia, with disturbing displays of genocides around the world.

I took a taxi to a hotel in the more upscale Zona Rosa, nicer but much further from most attractions.

Here I met my tour group, and first on the agenda was a “taco crawl”. This consisted on one taco joint. We also stopped at a mezcalaria. Mezcal is the latest artisanal drink to become popular here, now that tequila is mass produced. It’s a higher alcohol content and is normally sipped rather than shot back.

The next day we were taken for a walking tour of the centre,

which I was already familiar with, and a visit to a famous bakery,

followed by a seafood lunch in a huge market.

(that was actually just tan appetizer! tiny deep fried scorpions!)

Back in Zona Rosa, my roommate Daphne and I went for a hike to the Basque de Chapultepec, a forested park, where she visited the world class anthropological museum (I saw it last time, it is spectacular), and I climbed up to the Castillo de Chapultepec, the only castle in the Americas.

It was inhabited by Maximilian and Carlotta, puppet rulers from Austria and Belgium.

That night everyone in my group was going to the Ballet Folklorico (since I recommended it), so I went too and it was just as awesome. This time I saw the famed stage curtain made of a million pieces of stained glass.