Jordan - January 2013

At the end of January, Nancy and I made a short (1 week) trip to Jordan.   We were in the UK and it seemed like Jordan would be far enough to the south to provide some warmer weather.   We left a cold and snowy England for Amman where it was warmer, but actually not as warm as I expected for somewhere that far south.  It was a pretty unstructured trip - we had a flight on EasyJet and a hotel in Amman for a couple of nights.  Beyond that we had no definite plans.

We arrived in Amman in late Thursday afternoon and took a taxi to our hotel - the most adequate Hotel Toledo.  Amman is a large city (over 3 million people in the greater urban area), an old city (its been around since biblical times), and quite hilly (that made it difficult to get a sense of where you were in relation to anything else - a confusing city).  That first night we walked down the hill from our hotel to the center of the old part of town.   Nothing very impressive, but we had a nice vegetarian meal at the Restaurant Hashim, the oldest restaurant in Amman - a nice outdoor dining experience.

The next morning, Friday, we met with a friend of a friend from Sacramento.   Merrill, who herself was from Sacramento, had been working in Amman for 4 or 5 years - teaching at an English school there.  Our good friend Margaret in Sacramento had put us in touch with her before we left. The three of us  had brunch together on Rainbow Street, a nice gentrified area in the old town, and she gave us a few tips about where to go, what to do and see and assisted us with the rental of a car.  It is likely an interesting life being an English teacher in Jordan.

Amman

After brunch we were off on a walkabout in Amman - down to the old part of town, and up the hill to the Citadel, the Roman ruins standing over the old part of town.   The Roman ruins were interesting enough but not spectacular.    The more interesting stuff was down in the bustle of the town itself - the markets, the butchers shops, the veiled women, the male dominated society (very few women walking around), the cute kids, ...

On Saturday morning we decided not to hang around in Amman any more but to head out for the south of the country. Our rental car was conveniently delivered to our hotel and, even more conveniently, the rental car man drove with us until we were on the outskirts of town (in exchange for the taxi fare back).  I don’t think we would have been able to navigate our exit from Amman by ourselves - it is an extremely complicated city to drive in.  While Amman is obviously a very large and important city, neither of us felt any attachment to it - it had a nice old section, some impressive new large modern buildings showing some serious present day investment but nothing that made us want to return.

We drove south towards the Wadi Rum area.  This is the desert area just north of Aqaba and the Red Sea.   It is the area where Lawrence of Arabia did some of his work with the Bedouins and it has become one of the spots where tourists can experience the desert.  We signed up for a 4-wheel drive trip into the desert, a nights camping in the desert and, yes, a camel ride back to our car.

The Desert at Wadi Rum

We left our car at the Wadi Rum visitor center and set off on our 4-wheel trip.  We were taken by our driver in his beat up Toyota pick-up around various interesting sites - a spring where Lawrence might have visited, a building where Lawrence might have stayed, the occasional petroglyphs from some ancient time but what was really impressive was some beautiful desert scenery - majestic cliffs, slot canyons, wide expanses of sand, really massive sand dunes. We did a bit of walking and climbing on rocks and sand dunes and finished off with a cup of tea in a Bedouin tent before we left for our campsite for the night. It was called a camp site, but it wasn’t at all primitive. The ‘tents’ were fairly nice structures and each contained a bed with a ton of blankets to keep us warm in the cold desert night.   While there was no hot water, there was water. We were quite comfortable.

We were awoken in the middle of the night by a storm.  It was an incredible storm that went on for hours - thunder rolled around the valley, lightening lit up the cliff behind our tent as if it were daylight, the rain poured down and streams were running down the valley floor.  I went outside to find a waterfall that was gushing out of the cliff behind the camp.  Epic stuff.  I think it was quite a significant storm by Jordanian standards - it was talked about a lot over the next day or two. 

By the next morning (Sunday) the storm had passed and the streams of water had disappeared. Unfortunately the storm had somehow caused our camels (we were supposed to ride back to the road on camels) to get lost in the desert (that's not very encouraging).  Plan B was brought into play and we drive back to the road and picked up different camels for a trip into the desert from there.  I must say the camel ride was interesting, but the camel is not a comfortable animal to ride on (at least not for the novice) and I soon regretted the 2 hour ride that we had signed up for.   I think 10 minutes would have been sufficient.   There was a lot of lurching around and the way they kneel down for the dismount or get up to start moving is decidedly scary requiring some serious holding on.

Camels for two

After our ordeal on the camel came to an end we got back in the car and continued our journey south to Aqaba on the Red Sea coast.  Aqaba is the main port in Jordan and the point of entry for most goods coming into the region.  There was lots of truck traffic going up and down the grade from the high desert to the coast at Aqaba.  

In Aqaba we were just going to do a quick look around, dip our feet in the Red Sea and then head back up towards Petra where we wanted to stay that night.  In search of a cup of coffee we went into the local McDonalds (shame on us) - very clean, quite nice, and, above all else, free wi-fi. We ended up staying for a burger and fries and ice cream (even more shame on us).   We followed this up with a trip to the beach where we found all the men folk swimming in the sea while all the women dressed in their black tunics and veils and were sitting on chairs on the beach - very strange.   We did the obligatory paddle in the Red Sea, took a few photos and then off we went back up north towards Petra.

 

The beach at Aqaba

The drive north was uneventful - we climbed up to higher ground, passed some remnants of the prior week’s snowfall, saw lots of goats and sheep and by around 4:00 pm we were in  Petra.  We stayed in one of the nicer hotels (the Movenpick) near the entrance to the Petra archaeological site so that we could get an early start for our sightseeing the next day.  

The next day (Monday), we did have an early start into the ruins of Petra.  Petra is a world class site and the Jordanians are not bashful about charging for entry - the price for a ticket was US $100 per person. The price included a horse ride to the entrance of the canyon. Nancy took the ride, I didn’t - I had had enough or riding on big smelly animals.   

The entrance to Petra is through a narrow slot canyon which runs for around 1 mile to the main settlement.   There is one picture everyone sees of Petra and that is of the Treasury Building.   It is the most impressive building at the site and it is revealed as you leave the slot canyon.   It is breathtaking to say the least.

The Treasury, Petra

The Treasury is so impressive because it’s sandstone front has been protected by the canyon walls from the elements.   Other structures at the site were surely as impressive or more impressive but they are more exposed to the elements and some of the detail has been eroded away.  Petra was built by the Nabataeans - a culture that I was not even aware of.  They were successful for a short time in that part of the world controlling the trade from the East to the Middle East and Southern Europe.

The entire Petra site is quite large and I am sure you could spend a couple of days to cover all the different structures.  We hiked pretty seriously and pretty quickly for a good 8 hours covering a lot of ground.  We finished the day with a strenuous hike up to the so-called Monastery.  A building in one of the more remote areas of the site, way up on top of the hill.

The Monastery, Petra

The entire complex is a sedimentologist's dream - sandstone cliffs with every color of sand you could imagine.  The structures are carved into these cliffs and typically that is all they are just frontispieces. The interiors are typically unadorned and just square rooms cut into the rock that were mostly used as tombs.

That evening we were weary from the hiking but there was a little bit of light left so we headed out of Petra for the north.  We were heading for the village of Dana, where there is a relatively new “ecological preserve”.   The journey turned out to be somewhat eventful - it started with wind and rain as we left Petra and then degenerated into sleet and snow.   Finally as we headed up the hill towards Dana the fog and mist came in.  We were crawling along at a snail’s pace trying to find the right turning to our village.   A little later than expected, after a missed turning and a slow drive down a dirt road we finally found our hotel.  

The next day we explored the village of Dana - not much there.  For the most part it was a ruined village on the side of a canyon with beautiful views across the surrounding country.  There were several hotels, with little sign of any guests - it was the low season and the troubles in Syria had made it a particularly slow off-season.

With nothing to keep us in Dana we headed out continuing north towards Kerak where there is a Crusader Fort.  It was an impressive looking fort but we couldn’t find the entrance so we decided that the most impressive thing was perhaps the view of the fort from the outside and so we continued on towards the Dead Sea. 
 
We wound down the side of the mountain to the lowlands of the Dead Sea.   I think that somewhere nearby would be the lowest point on the planet.   We did pass the Sea Level sign halfway down the side of the mountain.   

Sea Level above the Dead Sea

The Dead Sea was pretty barren - there were no beaches or access points to the water as far as I could see and no life on the water.  We headed up to the north side of the sea where all the hotels are.   It was all very strange - you drive for miles with barely any civilization at all and then there is a cluster of half a dozen luxury hotels.   It would appear that the only way you can gain access to the Dead Sea is from one of these hotels.  With the Dead Sea level dropping by as much as a meter per year even the hotels don’t have good access to the water.   Our hotel, the Movenpick again, had an artificial one-time beach sitting up above the water and then some steps down to the new water below. 

Dead Sea Swimming

We did the obligatory swim thing, though I don’t think you could swim in that water - it is way too buoyant to swim in. It is certainly a strange experience - you bob around like a cork and the water feels kind of oily and viscous. If you have any cuts or sores then you will certainly feel them, if you get any water in your eyes, you will be in agony till you wash the water out.  It was an experience but I am not sure it is a pleasant experience.

Supposedly its good for you!

Following the dip in the sea, you are supposed to rub yourself with mud.   It’s supposed to be therapeutic.  I doubt it, but I fell for it anyway and rubbed black mud all over my body. It took a lot of work to get clean again.


The next day, Wednesday, was our last full day.  We headed off for the “Baptism Site”, allegedly the place where John the Baptist baptized Jesus and started the whole Christianity thing rolling.  To be honest, it was a bit of a mud hole - murky polluted water, the odd plastic bottle floating in it - nothing commensurate with the expected stature of the place.

What was interesting was the Jordan River.   Again not a very impressive river, quite small, but Israel was on the other side so you have Jordanian and Israeli soldiers watching over each other.  From the Israeli side several people were dipping themselves in the river.   Obviously a deeply religious experience for them - they were dressed in white gowns and they walked down steps into the water and submerged themselves in the muddy water.  It was a little comical too - these people were not youngsters, they perhaps shouldn’t be swimming in flowing water.  To add insult to injury, when they emerged from the water, their white gowns were all clingy and transparent - not a pretty site.

Baptisms at the Krdan River

Back on the road again we headed north towards Jerash, a town just north of Amman where there are some very impressive Roman ruins.  The ride was interesting as from time to time we would pass through a town and we would get chance to see life going on in the street right beside us.  The butcher’s shops were the most interesting with all manner of carcases hanging outside - all with their heads still on - presumably it aids in identification of the meat you are going to buy - goats, camels, cows.

Butcher's Shop

The ruins at Jerash indeed are world class.   It is a very impressive site.   We spent the afternoon walking around taking way too many photos.   We just missed the nightly bagpipe recital by Bedouins in the Roman Amphitheater.   Probably just as well, but I understand that the bagpipe demonstrates the acoustic wonders of the Roman Amphitheater very well. 

Roman Ruins at Jaresh

Rather than stay in Amman that evening, we decided to continue on and spend another night at the Dead Sea.   Amman is just way too complicated to drive in, so we stayed on the major road that skirted the city and headed back out to the Dead Sea.  On the way back there was another torrential rain storm.  It made driving a bit scary with mud washing across the road, cars stalled here and there and yet everyone else keeping up a pretty high speed.   We survived and checked in for our last night in Jordan at the Movenpick.


Thursday our last day we started with another swim in the Dead Sea (no mud this time).   We then headed off towards Mount Nebo and Madaba.   Mount Nebo is another biblical spot - it is allegedly the place where Moses saw the Promised Land.   He saw it and then promptly died at the ripe old age of 124, or so they say.   Nice view so if you are passing you might as well stop - but for a non-believer such as me, not that impressive.Madaba was a nice town but we were about done and the weather was cloudy and cool.  We had lunch, bought a few trinkets, and got ready for our flight home.  

Not everyone has the best of living conditions

We left our car in the airport parking lot with the keys in the trunk and off we went.  It was a great car - a Nissan Micra. A great trip too - an interesting country and great place for a winter break from the UK.  

As usual, here are some photographs from the trip - the highlights and everything.

Thanksgiving in Kansas City - November 2012

For Thanksgiving this year I went with Nancy to Kansas City where her daughter lives.  I had never been to that part of the world before and I admit I didn't know much about it.   When I asked people what to do they everyone said Eat Barbecue and Listen to Music.   I did experience the barbecue, but alas no music this time.

Flying at Thanksgiving is always a difficult procedure - the busiest travel season of the year.   Nevertheless, the outbound journey was quite relaxed and I even managed to arrive earlier than expected on Wednesday evening.  

Thanksgiving morning, we all did a 5K run - Nancy, daughters Erica and Arden and Joey Erica’s fiance.  It was a small race compared to Sacramento’s mighty Run To Feed the Hungry (3rd largest in the nation) but it was fun and just what we needed to make us feel good about all the excessive eating.

For Thanksgiving Dinner we prepared the usual fare - turkey, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, the works.  In Arden’s apartment, we were a little deficient in cooking utensils, but we managed to pull it off and I made a good job of massacring the turkey with a small and not very sharp knife.

That evening we walked around a nearby section of town. This area known as the Country Club Plaza is the home of one of the first suburban shopping centers in the US.  It is quite the work of art with lots of beautiful Spanish style ornate buildings - lots of hand painted tile, lots of towers.  That night the streets were thronged for the ceremonial “lighting of the lights”.   All a bit anticlimactic really - thousands of people waiting for a few lights to be turned on.   Those mid-westerners are easily impressed.

Country Club Plaza

Country Club Plaza - all lit up!

Friday came with a blast of cold air - it was in the 60’s on Thursday and then on Friday it was down in the 30’s - that is quite the steep cooling trend.  We made a quick visit to the Kemper Museum of Modern Art.   A nice museum, not very large, and free entry to all.   Then it was off to sample the famed Kansas City Barbecue.  One of the best places in town apparently is Oklahoma Joe’s - it was listed by Anthony Bourdain’s as one of the top 13 places to eat before you die, albeit at number 13 in that list. The place is in a strip mall in a converted gas station and, of course, we weren’t the only ones wanting to eat there - there was a line out of the door.  Our patience paid off with a wonderful selection of barbecue meats. Not something that I would want to eat all the time, but on this occasion, it was mouth-wateringly wonderful.

We then took a tour of the downtown area and wandered around in the older parts of town.  There are some remarkable buildings in KC.  Lots of great architecture - most of it old from the early 1900’s I would imagine, but then some great modern buildings too like the concert hall (the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts).  It looks like the older parts of downtown are being gentrified as they are in a lot of cities now and loft conversions were everywhere.   Everyone wants to live in a “loft” these days.

In the late afternoon we took a quick tour around the Nelson Atkins museum.   This is a larger museum/art gallery and, like the Kemper, totally free.   It stands in a large park and it has an old section and a more modern wing.   The modern wing is clad in this translucent skin and as night falls it looks quite amazing with the glowing light from the interior illuminating the building.

The Nelson Atkins Museum at dusk

The next morning Nancy wanted a photograph of the family for her Christmas Card so we were again off to the Nelson Atkins museum area to capture the perfect shot.  I must have taken 300 or so photographs of everyone in various poses and positions around the museum.  It was cold and it was windy so as the day progressed people’s patience was running short and their noses were getting redder.   I learned how difficult it was to get four people looking good for a photograph at the same time.  Particularly when three of them were women.  The guy Joey was just fine in every shot, but it was rare to get all the women happy with their faces or hair or posture at the same time.

One of the many photos

Later that day we toured the Union Station - like all the old railway stations this was an impressive structure.  It must have been a wonderful place when people traveled by train in large numbers.   Now of course there aren’t many travelers and it houses a few restaurants and shops.  There is a sad little waiting room off to the side for what remains of train travel in the US today.    

The Union Station was the site of the infamous Kansas City Massacre where 5 people were killed in an attempt to free a criminal in custody.  There is a memorial plaque outside the station and the scars on the entrance wall are allegedly bullet holes from the event.  If you read the details here you see it was a bit of a botched job by the FBI.

Union Station and Downtown Kansas City

On Sunday we did a couple more museums.   The first was the World War 1 Museum.  A monument and unexpectedly good museum telling the story more from the American viewpoint.  A great guided tour too and I even felt I learned a lot (e.g. I didn’t know that Germany approached Mexico to join in and attack the USA.   Pretty bold move on Germany’s part).

The second museum was the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, just 10 miles up the road from Kansas City.  That was my first visit to a Presidential Library and I was suitably impressed.   The whole span of Truman’s life was laid out.   He made some tough decisions during his presidency and he set the ball rolling for a more interventionist USA.   It was fascinating to imagine Truman returning from Washington to live in little old Independence Missouri.  It is not a very impressive town - bit of a dump really.

Nancy, Harry Truman, Arden

I left Nancy on Sunday evening to return home.  Alas it was not a smooth trip - delayed flight out of Kansas City, late arrival in SFO, missed connection to Sacramento, night in the airport, fog delayed departure from SFO to Sacramento the next day.   I haven’t had a bad travel experience like that for some time.

Again, there are more photos here.

Formula One Grand Prix - Austin, Tx - November 2012

The weekend of 17, 18 November was the penultimate F-1 Grand Prix of 2012 held in Austin, Texas.   My friend Dave who lives in Austin had secured some tickets and since I had always wanted to go to an F-1 event I splurged on a weekend pass for the three days (Friday practice, Saturday practice and qualifying, and the race on Sunday).   

View of Track from the top of the tower

This was the first time Formula 1 had been back to America since Indianapolis in 2007 and the Austin people had built a fine new track just for the event - the Circuit of the Americas.   It was all very impressive, though I gather there had been all sorts of complications along the way to completing the project and it was touch and go whether things would go ahead for a while.   They pulled it all together in the end and from what I could see they did a fine job.

My outbound trip was not that smooth, I missed a connection in Denver that necessitated a diversion through Houston and a late arrival in Austin.  As a result I missed the Friday practice session.  Nevertheless I did get into Austin on Friday night and had the pleasure of seeing the finishing touches being applied to my friend Dave’s new house on Lake Travis.   It was the first night they had stayed in the house and things were a hive of activity getting ready for guests on that first night.

On Saturday morning we went out to the track for the qualifying sessions.  Dave had a friend who put together a bus to take about 25 of us out to the track.  That was the nice and relaxing way to do it and we didn’t have to worry about driving and parking.  

Looking down to Pit Lane from Turn 1

The track itself was quite impressive and so were the crowds. Formula 1 has some hard core fans that pay some serious money to visit these events.   I avoided paying $50 for a Red Bull T shirt, or $150 for a slicker Ferrari shirt.  As you can imagine all the concessions were seriously overpriced.  I did shell out $35 to get to the top of the tower in the middle of the track.  It provides a nice view of the entire course and the surrounding area.  

We parked ourselves at Turn 1 for the first qualifying.   An impressive tight turn at the top of a hill where they slow from 200 Km/hr to next to nothing (or so it seems) to make the corner.  For the second and third qualifying sessions I went to our seats in the Grandstand area - across from the pits and on a high speed straightaway

Its all very exciting stuff - the kind that makes shivers go down your spine - the speed, the noise, the technology.... wonderful stuff.  Of course, I soon realized I had no clue which car was which - all the Red Bulls and Toro Rossos looked the same, I couldn’t even differentiate the Ferraris.   I had to brush up on the car’s livery and then figure out that a color coding on the camera on top of the car identifies the different drivers on the same team.  

Qualifying looked a piece of cake for Vettel and the Red Bulls, though Hamilton did squeeze in between Vettel and Webber for second place on the starting grid.

That night we were joined by a couple more old friends from the late 70’s when we were all working together in Sacramento.   We had Dave Close (our host), Dave Vaughan (from Sacramento), Mike Meadows (from Houston), Geoff Stephenson (now in Austin) and myself - five old geezers reminiscing about the old days and the good times we had.

Dave Close, Mike Meadows, Dave Vaughan

For Sunday’s race we again went out by bus.  The traffic was quite bad getting in.   They haven’t built any infrastructure like new roads to the track as yet.

It was amazing to see we had protesters picketing outside of the entrance.  The infamous Westboro Baptist Church had decided that the worshippers of F1 race car drivers are evil and will go to hell.  They had all sorts of hateful placards on the road to the track.   Still I suppose that’s better than what they are more notorious for - the picketing of US soldiers funerals.

One of the Red Bulls - Vettel or Webber

The race itself was pretty exciting - the noise alone was amazing.   Ear plugs are essential.  While we did have good seats, across from the pit lane, we didn’t get to see much beyond cars flying by. There was little to no overtaking on our stretch.   The 3 second tire changes in the pits in front of us were impressive to watch however.

Vettel flying by our seats

Vettel and Hamilton were in a battle throughout the race and Hamilton just managed to squeeze by the German about ⅔ through the race.   He then held the lead to the finish.  Alonso was a distant third, keeping the championship alive for the last race next week in Brazil.

My final challenge of the weekend was to find my ride to the airport.   Since it was expected to be a slow exit and since the bus was not going to the airport, I had arranged for another friend to take me there.  All well and good, but where was this person - he wasn’t sitting with us and there were 120,000 people there all rushing for the same exits.  Cell service was so overloaded calls were not going through, texts were taking ages to get through.   I had abandoned the bus way out and now couldn’t find my friend.  That caused me some anxiety, until we finally made phone contact and were able to guide each other to a rendezvous.

All in all a great weekend.  And while watching a race on the TV is the best way of seeing everything and receiving expert commentary, being there was pretty exciting. 

As usual here are some more photos.

Mexico City Weekend - November 2012

In November, Nancy and I spent a long weekend in Mexico City. Mexico City is perhaps not the normal weekend getaway you might think of but I thought this would be a good birthday present for Nancy’s 60th.   Leaving Sacramento on the Thursday evening we flew through the night to Mexico City arriving in a somewhat weary state just after 5:00 am on Friday morning.  Our hotel was the Gran Hotel Ciudad Mexico a wonderful place on the the main square (Zocalo) in the old part of town.  It was a work of art in itself - originally built as a department store in the late 1800’s and since remodeled as a hotel, the interior has an open area with a stained glass roof that is truly spectacular.  One of the guidebooks said it was by Tiffany, but apparently not, Tiffany style maybe but it was made by a Frenchman - Jacques Gruber who did a lot of that sort of thing.

Stained Glass Ceiling - Gran Hotel

We were lucky in getting an early check in (for a price) and were able to sleep for an hour or so before we took on the City.   We also got ‘upgraded’ to a room overlooking the square, the Zocalo - a nice upgrade until we realized that the square was the place for that evening’s Day of the Dead celebrations and so the square and our room were not the quietest of places.   Not to worry though we were so exhausted we could have slept through anything.

After a brief rest we set off to explore the city.  We decided the first destination would be the Aztec temples at Teotihuacan some 50 miles to the north of the city.   We negotiated a deal with a taxi driver to take us all the way to the pyramids, wait a couple of hours and then bring us back - that seemed to be the most practical and convenient for us and the driver threw in a couple of other stops on the way - the Plaza de Tres Culturas and the Basilica of Guadalupe.   The Plaza de Tres Culturas is so named because it has structures from the Pre-Colombian, Spanish Colonial and Independent Mexico periods - interesting but not all that remarkable.  

Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of those Catholic holy sites where some apparition occurred to a peasant guy back in the 16th Century.  All very dubious stuff, but it now is a center for pilgrimage with an old colonial church and a nice new modern one.  Popes visit there regularly.  I find these wonderful old colonial churches just amazing and never tire of walking around them.  The Catholic Church in the 16th and 17th century really did a lot to boost tourism in these modern times.

Pyramids of Teotihuacan

From the Basilica we continued our way to Los Pyramides at Teotihuacan.  The pyramid site is quite extensive with two pyramids (Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon) and lots of associated streets and buildings.  While it is a fairly spectacular site I must say I wasn’t in awe of them in any way.  Yes, it was quite the construction project but after a climb up to the top of the largest pyramid (Pyramid of the Sun), I was ready to get back to Colonial Mexico City proper with its churches and fine buildings.

Zocalo at evening from the Cathedral Bell Tower

Back in Mexico City we dined on the rooftop of our hotel overlooking the main square, the Plaza de la Constitution, or Zocalo as it is called (Zocalo means base and after Mexican Independence, President Santa Anna wanted to build a monument in the square - they built the base but the monument never got finished and so ‘base’ became the name of the plaza).  November 1st and 2nd were the Days of the Dead so there was a lot of activity down on the square.  With the cathedral and all the fine colonial buildings surrounding the square, the huge Mexican Flag flying in the middle and thousands of people milling around, it was quite a sight.

Cathedral on the Zocalo

After our late lunch we wandered some more around the square and visited the Cathedral.   What an amazing structure the Cathedral is - the largest Cathedral in the Americas and just so elaborate and ornate inside.   The building was started in the late 16th Century and continued until the 1800’s.  Since the old part of town is built on an old lake bed, it is prone to subsidence. Many of the old buildings, including the cathedral are subsiding and leaning to one side.   It is very off putting to see some columns vertical and others leaning slightly.  Presumably if it survived the 1985 earthquake it should be stable enough for our visit.

We took a guided tour of the cathedral bell towers that proved to be very interesting.  It was nearly nightfall as we went up the bell towers and we had this amazing view of the activities in the square below.  Then there was a demonstration of bell ringing which was a treat for the ears.  We were standing beneath all these bells in the tower (perhaps 8 or 10 in total) and they were all ringing together - deafening but really impressive.   After that we were allowed out on to the cathedral roof - we just wandered around - not much in the way of health and safety concerns there - just don’t do anything stupid.

That evening we strolled around the streets of the old town.  Being the Day of the Dead there was a lot of activity, lots of people and lots of weird and wonderful costumes - like Halloween on steroids.  Again it was another chance to marvel at all the old wonderful buildings in this part of Mexico City.   One of the finest of these was the Casa de los Azulejos (the Blue Tile House) which is now a restaurant and department store combination.  A beautiful building on the outside, covered in blue tiles, and on the inside a nice Orozco mural.  We drank a cocktail in the bar while being entertained by a pianist and opera singer who were entertaining the crowds below from a balcony in the bar.

The Blue Tile House

Back at the hotel for the night the party in the Zocalo was going full swing, but we were far too tired to notice.

Saturday morning we awoke to an empty square and a nice blue sky and we did more walking around the old part of town.  We paid a visit to the Central Post Office, known as the Palacio de Correos de Mexico, and a Palace it certainly was.   We don’t make post offices like that any more.
 

Palacio de Correos de Mexico

From the Post Office we moved across the street to the equally impressive Palacio de Bellas Artes.  Another real treasure with a series of murals by Diego Rivera inside.

Palacio de Bellas Artes

Next stop was a trip to the top of the Torre LatinAmericana, for a bird’s eye view of the city.  It was good to get some sense of the size and layout of the city but really all we got was a sense of the bad air quality as the city just disappeared into the haze.

The afternoon started with a visit to the Palacio National.   This building on the east side of the Zocalo houses the federal government.  It has an impressive frontage on the square but inside it is even more beautiful with courtyards, gardens, an art gallery, and more murals by Diego Rivera.  I do so like his stuff.

We had a nice lunch on a rooftop cafe behind the Cathedral and the Templo Mayor (the Aztec temple complex in the heart of the old town) then we moved out of the old district to our digs for our second night out in the El Cosme area.   That move was not quite so straightforward.  There was something called the Zombie Walk going on - something to do with Day of the Dead where they were parading along the streets in costume and all manner of gory makeup.   This kind of hindered our movement and when we got in the Metro station the line for tickets was so long we gave up and got in a taxi.  That was when we experienced Mexico City traffic at it’s worst.   For what seemed like ages we crawled along sometimes only one car moving through an intersection per light change.  It was very tedious and frustrating sitting in a taxi as the meter went up and we went nowhere.  

After what seemed like ages we finally got out of the crush and were safely delivered to our new digs, a B and B called El Patio 77.  A nice remodeling of an old building, quite small but very nicely done.   

That evening we walked to the La Reforma district (the main business and banking area) and found a delightful French restaurant for Nancy’s birthday dinner.  Just perfect.

On Sunday, our last day in the city, we went out to one of the suburban areas, Coyoacan, where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived, and where Trotsky spent the last years of his life.   We took the Metro from where we were staying out to Coyoacan.   The Metro is a great way to get around - at 3 pesos per trip it is affordable for everyone and everyone seems to use it. Even on Sunday morning the trains were frequent and very crowded.

In Coyoacan, Frida K’s house is now open to the public.  You can see lots of her art work and her studio and how she lived.   There is her wheelchair parked in front of her easel, her back brace, her crutches, and, of course, her ashes in a jar on a table.   The poor lady was quite tormented both mentally and physically during her life.  One of the interesting things was a shelf with two ceramic clocks - one with the hands at the time when she divorced Diego (he wasn’t the most faithful of husbands) and another with the hands on the time when she remarried him for the second time.

Frida Kahlo's Studio

Clocks marking the divorce and remarriage

A few blocks from Frida’s home was the refuge of Trotsky, which is also now a museum.  Alas Mr and Mrs Trotsky didn't have the same flair for interior decor or art as Frida and Diego did. The house was fortified with bricked up windows and what look like gun turrets on the corner. I guess the poor guy was pretty restricted in what he could do and where he could go in later years.  There were several attempts on his life before the last successful one with the ice axe to the back of the head and he lived in this house with his family, a few friends and his bodyguards.   Stalin and his cronies managed to get Trotsky and just about all his family members by the time they were done.

Trotsky's Bedroom - bullet hole in wall (they missed)

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Coyoacan, which is a beautiful little neighbourhood.  

Around 3:00 we set off back to the hotel to pick up our bags and take a taxi to the airport.  An uneventful flight back via Houston to Sacramento.   All in all a wonderful weekend.   Mexico City is a great city, and you really need more than a long weekend to see it.  Nevertheless, we did a lot and we had a great time.

There are more photos here on SmugMug.