Mexico City - day 1

We arrived yesterday evening in Mexico City, now called CDMX for Ciudad Mexico. It's so big that it's hard to get your head around it. On the plane coming in we flew over it for about 45 minutes! It's an amazing trip to be here in this city of 8.8 million people. Beyond the city proper are miles and miles of suburbs and shanty towns. The total population of the valley of Mexico is in the range of 25 million people.

And yet it's beautiful, no?




This trip is Harry's reward for completing his six-month chemo program. He was here for five weeks in early 2016 and wanted to share it with me. Today we got settled in our little apartment in Roma Norte, one of the more upscale neighbourhoods of the city.

We are staying in the central area close to the historic centre and Chapultapec park. Here is where the tourists come but also where many professional working people live. We arrived last night around 11:00 pm and spent the day settling in, getting oriented, and adjusting to the altitude. At 7,300 feet, it's about  mile and a half above sea level and boy, can I feel it. Just climbing one flight of stairs leaves me breathless and dizzy. And we both find that our thought processes are quite scattered. (Even more so than usual!)

We've been taking it easy today, hanging out in the shade with cool drinks. This one at the Museum of Modern Art.

I'll post a few photos from today's trip across town and into Chapultapec Park where we visited the Museum of Modern Art, a really gorgeous building with amazing exhibits.

But first I want to thank our friend Ritchie who insisted on driving us to the airport to arrive more than two hours before our flight to Vancouver.  When we checked in we were told that the flight from Vancouver to Mexico City had been reschedule to two hours earlier! Our travel agent had not informed us of this change!  It was only due to the diligence of the Air Canada staff that we were able to get an earlier flight and rush through security in order to get to Vancouver in time to board our Mexico City flight. What luck!  And a good beginning to our trip.

This is a sculpture outside the museum. I love the solidity and humanness of these figures. Below is a view of the inside of one of the two circular buildings that comprise the museum. Beautiful!

We saw some wonderful exhibits. To me the most memorable was a series of drawings of 20 women. Sadly I don't remember the artist but I must say I was truly impressed and inspired by the way these women were captured in graphite.

On another floor were paintings showing the soul of Mexico and I was struck by this drawing by Diego Rivera. What an amazingly distinctive style he had. And how beautifully he captured the maternal love of the Indigenous peoples.

After visiting the museum we stopped at a restaurant for a drink. Here in CDMX there isn't much in the way of wine served, so I've had to make do with beer. (Not my favourite!) But I've found that a light beer is somewhat palatable, especially in the late afternoon sunshine. Harry's beer was chosen in honour of our home town.

It got so hot this afternoon that we had to come back to our apartment and have a shower and a nap. It got cooler around 7:00 and we headed out to do a few errands and find a place to eat. We lucked out with a little sidewalk cafe and wine bar just a few steps down the street. Here I'm sitting on the sidewalk in a short-sleeved blouse at 8:30 at night. Lovely!