Mexico Part 1: Mexico City, day 2

 We started day 2 going to the anthropology museum which was huge, similar in size to the Smithsonian. The two exhibits we toured were the Aztec history which they had the actual artifacts! No replicas - the actual artifacts. It was breathtaking!!

You can see here the difference in the shape of these real skulls. Also below them are teeth with jade in them. The wealthier people showed off their jaded teeth.

The actual Aztec dictionary.

These are artifacts from the Temple Mayor which was the main temple of the Tenochtitlan people from the 1300's. The Templo Mayor was destroyed in 1521 by the Spanish to make way for the new Cathedral which is located at the Zocolo. They did a lot of ancient human sacrifices which you can see in this case.

The Aztec calendar.

This is one of the Aztec paintings. To paint they would dye clay and as it dried the color remained. This is the actual painting, look at those vibrant colors for something 700 years old!

The God of Death

You can see from the skull preserved from the Templo Mayor that during the human sacrifices they would put a spear directly through the nose and another through the mouth.

Aztec calendar.

This statue is the thing where they used to put the heart of the person after human sacrifices.

These are replicas of skeletons found in the exact position they died. Their hands were tied behind their backs. Around their necks were a necklace of jaw bones.

This was a fountain sculpture in the center of the entrances to all of the exhibits.

Outside this guys wwould climb up on top of this pole, wrap rope around their waist, and hang from the pole as the rope naturally made them spin all the way down until they could touch the ground.

The flute player.

Lots of different cacti around the museum.

Mexico part 1: Mexico City, day 1

Our trip started our rough due to a part for our airplane needed to be flown in for maintenance. So we had to reschedule our whole trip. Instead of flying into Matamoros and then going to Mexico City with Kempton and Bonnie, we flew into Mexico City and met them there. Our flight went from Spokane to  AZ to NC and then to Mexico City. During the long 7 hour layover we actually left the airport to go bowling and eat dinner. We spent about 36 hours either in an airplane or airport and I don't recommend that at all. It was really exhausting and really frustrating.

But! We finally made it to Mexico City which is the second largest urban area in the world with over 22 million people. Wow. I was expecting really dirty, crowded streets but was surprised to find no crowd and the city does an incredible job keeping that city clean. On any given street we saw at least 20 people walking around with their brooms and trash cans. We checked into the Grande Hotel which was super fancy! The entry had a Tiffany stained glass ceiling, beautiful elaborate lamps, and extraordinary architecture and detail. It was stunning! After we checked in and rested for a little bit we got a bite to eat down the road - the best street tacos I've ever had in my life!

On the terrace was our continental breakfast which was more like a 5 star restaurant, the food was so delicious! One thing we noticed about eating was that every restaurant had a team of about 7-8 waiters who stood by your table during the whole meal and literally "waited" on you. They quickly scooped up plates as soon as we were finished, they picked up napkins if they fell, refilled water on the spot, they even moved the outdoor umbrella so we weren't in the sun. It was top notch service!

This was the view from on top of the terrace, it overlooks Zocolo plaza. The Zocolo is very well known and is the center of the historic city. It has the very ornate cathedral, federal district buildings, the Old portal de Mercaderes, and the Palacio Nacional which was built over the ruins of the last Aztec emporor's former palace.

 

This picture shows a bit better how gigantic the Zocolo is, and the flag in the center is HUGE.

Mexico city streets

This is the Cathedra-so beautiful!

Interior of the cathedral. Everything was very extravagant and made with real gold.

This was on Zocolo plaza, the woman standing was being healed with different herbs, and there's a man on the table. The spiritual seances were very sacred to them as they sang, chanted, and yelled. It reminded of the evangelicals on TV where the pastor would tap someone on the forehead and yelled "be healed!" then the person would collapse and allegedly was healed.