AdventuresAboardAvatar: Mexico City Trip Day 1 & 2

As part of our pre planning for our trip to the South Pacific, we want to get a long stay (1 year) visa for French Polynesia. So we found out that we had to go to Mexico City to the French Embassy to do so, because we are residents of Mexico. (oh darn! NOT). Lucky for us our friend's daughter, Valentina, lives in Coyoacan, which is a neighborhood in the south end of the City. We staid in her room in her 3 bedroom apartment and enjoyed meeting her roommates, Anna and Carlos, who were both so helpful in us finding our way around.
We arrived early on Thursday with a spectacular view of the volcanoes and city. We spent most of the day exploring the local neighborhood. The Coyoacan (means Coyotes) area used to be where all the city folks had country homes. The area is quite old, and both the homes and trees are quite large for being in the city these days. We went to the "Blue House", home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with in walking distance from the apartment. If you do not know who these artists are, look them up, as they are national treasures of Mexico, even having their photos on the money. Frida contracted Polio at age 6 and was later in a devastating accident which caused her incredible pain and the need to wear braces under her clothing. Much of her art is a bit disturbing, showing the pain she was in both physical and mental. Most of my photos are not of that. They both being artists also collected lots of art themselves. The house was quite impressive.
Many of the big busy streets all have parks down the middle with trees and sidewalks for pedestrians. It makes for lovely green areas all throughout the city. In Coyoacan, we saw a double decker tourist bus and thought that would be a great way to see the city and get a lay of the land, so to speak, perfect for day 2.
The tour bus had 4 different routes and we were on the southern one. After we jumped on, we transferred to the Centro one. This took us all around the downtown sites of the big Mexico City. When I say big, I mean it is huge. Largest population in the western hemisphere, at 21 million people.
The first notable thing about the city, is the variety of old and new. Second is how clean it is. They have really reduced their smog levels with mass transportation of an underground metro and free bikes you can ride from one place and leave in another part of the city. People were friendly and helpful, and we met other tourists from all over the world (South America, Europe and Asia).
I took a lot of photos of the gold statue Angel of Independence. This was the photo on the cover of my high school Spanish book, of which I did not study so well. Mrs. Anderson would be proud of my Spanish now!
The tour bus stopped at the Anthropology Musem which was where we wanted to go, but with the horrible Friday traffic, it was only open for another hour by the time we got there. So we figured we would come back on Monday after our appointment at the French Embassy and spend the whole day there.
Back on the bus, I asked the guide where our transfer stop was to get back on the South tour to get home. He said "oh no, you will not make it. We finish before we will get to that stop with this traffic. You will have to take the Metro." "Uhhh, we are not familiar how to do that and we are not city folk. Can you help us?" Some other folks on the tour said they were going there and we could tag along with them. Feeling better already, we asked them where they were from. "La Paz, Bolivia". "NO way, we are from La Paz, BCS Mexico!!" They spoke English too. We were saved! The one son, lived in Aguascaliente, also in Mexcio, but his brother, Dad, step mom and little brother were all from Bolivia. On a Friday night there are a lot of those 21 million people out and about. The Metro was packed like sardines. We all held on to each other like a train, while the dad carried the 2 year old. We had to change from one train line to another to get back to Coyoacan. They were so sweet to take care of us. I hope they get to read this, to know how much we appreciate what they did for us!!