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Tres Hombres In Mexico: Mexico City


Mexico City, man... flying in at night is cool...you see the lights way before the plane completes its curve over the horizon... This place is huge. Dig it: the city is a human bowl of roughly 23 million people crammed into 800 square miles, 7,500 feet above sea level, surrounded by mountains. We expected to be gasping in hot, brown air -- molten with leaded gas fumes -- but for some reason (El Nino?) strong February winds had lowered the temperature and cleaned out the inversion bowl that fouls the skies. Sometimes you're just lucky. That's not to say we didn't spend a lot of time basking in air-conditioned grandeur, rapping and drinking great stuff like Ceurvo 1800 tequila (incredible, and served with Sangrita, a hot red chaser), and the ubiquitous Coronas.... We got the roaming done, as well. The streets, the bars, the ruins, the art, the museums, the Zona Rosa... everywhere... all fodder for our digital cameras...

Most of these shots are lifted from the video I did of the trip, with additional hits from LR's S-10 Sureshot.







The Corona Bar in the Zona Rosa. Very cool Mexican artist Sergio Bustamante designed and constructed these zany figures...




The Mayan Calendar Stone at the Museum of Anthropology. After a zillion years, it expires in 2002, doesn't it?




The Big Flag in the Zocolo.





Bal and LR frame the entrance to the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. Then we climbed it. Then we drank a couple beers. Then we barfed.




Just outside of the ruins of Teotihuacan is a "crafts" center managed by this guy. His sales technique? Gives you a shot of alcoholic pulque before you enter the store.




The Plaza de las Tres Culturas shows you Aztec, early Spanish, and modern Mexican in one square. Yawn. Then we noticed an artifact from the last earthquake.




And, of course, you gotta throw in a couple artsy-fartsy pix, right?




Inside The Government Palace




The view from our Zona Rosa Hotel





Bal and LR have breakfast from the Hotel Gran's balcony and check out El Zocalo for any morning insurrections...




Ever shoot that machine gun at anyone? I asked. Si, he replied.




The government Palace off the big Zocalo has the world-renown murals of Diego Rivera. Yeah, they're cool, but not as great as I thought they might be...




Various areas around El Zocalo. From left: A parade closes in on the square; a booth for an unguessable product; "The Mountain Of Tears" is what the sign says -- it's a mall of pawn shops.




More Sergio Bustamante designs in the Corona Bar in the Zona Rosa.



Museo Nacionale de Antropología

You can spend a lot of time in this place... and check out that mothership architecture - top left - by Pedro Ramírez Vásquez. The entire roof is supported by a single off-centre pillar. Not a good place to be when the ground starts trembling... Half of the museum's two miles of corridors display how the pre-spanish cultures lived; the other half is full of neato artifacts.