Mexico City

Depending on who is doing the counting, Mexico City may be the second largest city in the world and the largest city in the Americas.  Or not.  Anyway, that is what they tell me, and it is definitely big.  Of course, the city that the Incas built used to be an island on a lake.



Here is the same view today.  It is a little different.




I had signed up for an all day intensive walking tour of the historic center of Mexico City and was happy to discover that no one else had signed up, so I had an excellent private tour.  We began the day exploring the ruins of the Aztec Templo Mayor.  The Spanish thought they had demolished the temple and built their cathedral on top of it - surprise, surprise - but a significant portion was discovered less than fifty years ago and excavated.  The temple was apparently used for human sacrifice.  I say apparently because the Aztecs left no written records, and no one knows how accurate the accounts that they told the early Spaniards are.  According to my guide, the Aztecs conquered many neighboring tribes, took the best of their soldiers and, after feeding them well, then sacrificed them.  She said it was a great honor; only the best of the best.  I asked who it was an honor for, and she told me seriously that it was an honor for both the sacrificer and the sacrificee.

Next we went to the cathedral built by the Spanish which is indisputably the largest cathedral in the Americas.  We were taken up a narrow stairway to the roof to see the two bell towers with their thirty six bells, the oldest of which date to the seventeenth century.  Very cool view as we watch them ring the bells.

The most interesting thing inside the cathedral was this black Jesus.




He used to be a "normal" white Jesus with his legs extended.  One day several centuries ago, a bad man put poison on his feet in order to kill a good man who kissed his feet every day.  Just as the man leaned in to kiss the feet that day, Jesus raised them and his body turned black as it absorbed the poison.  Needless to say, this is now the Miracle Jesus, and even the Vatican has sanctioned this black Jesus.

How can you visit Mexico City without viewing murals by Diego Rivera?  This is the only picture I had taken of me today, just to show that I was here.

After my guide left me I wandered around some more.  Some things you just don't understand.  What are the police doing in formation in the middle of the sidewalk with helmets strapped to their chests?

A band playing rock music on a sidewalk - that's more normal.  But a nearly toothless middle aged dancer?  I haven't seen that before.

I love the ceremony every night when they take down the largest flag I have ever seen.  It takes a dozen soldiers to grab and hold it.

Finally, a statue in front of the cathedral.  It is hard to see it, but the line on the statue's base shows the water level of the lake that Mexico City was built on.