Colonia Condesa & the Zocalo

After a day or so of acclimatizing to the elevation here, I set out yesterday in earnest to acquaint myself on foot with some of Mexico City's neighborhoods.  In doing so I also familiarized myself with the city's fast and efficient Metro (subway) and a couple of electric bus lines.

Colonia Condesa is a quiet, pleasant, relatively wealthy neighborhood with tree-lined streets just 10-15 minutes by Metro from the bustle of the downtown Alameda area.  Condesa seems to be peopled mainly by upper middle class dog lovers, and the whole area has a large number of cafes and restaurants which were mostly busy with Sunday diners both times I visited.

Street musicians of all stripes compete for coins and peso notes--including a very fine instrumental trio of clarinet, accordian and contrabass who entertained the multitudes in the very cool and shady Parque Mexico.  These guys played very intricate arrangements at high tempo of what sounded like music from the Balkans, and they appeared to be quite popular as their "hat" was filling with green dollar bills and blue 20 peso notes.

While the boys jammed for the gente, I enjoyed a coffee break at a sidewalk cafe that featured plastic dandelions in water-filled salt shakers.

In the afternoon I went hunting back near the Zocalo for other, possibly cheaper hotels from the one where I currently reside.  The Zocalo's large plaza seems to be occupied by a permanent camp of anti-government protesters, but this didn't hinder in any sense the fun-seeking activities of the huge crowds of Sunday strollers.  I managed to find a couple other hotel possibilities to file away for future reference.

The Hotel Fleming, where I stay now, is perfectly fine but just a tad above my daily budget.  Its location is unbeatable, though, especially for the Metro and the Alameda park.

Sensory Overloads the DF

Thanks to Jim Johnston's excellent advice in his "opinionated" city guide about getting a sitio taxi from the airport to the Colonia Central, I had a very smooth transition from flying the unfriendly skies in the morning to getting situated in my pre-booked, conveniently located hotel early in the afternoon.

Although the heart of the capital is only six kilometers from the airport, it took nearly an hour to navigate through the city's notorious traffic congestion.  However, I was out and about on foot by around 2.30 for my first walking tour of this massive, colorful metropolis.

The Alameda Central, a green park about five blocks long, is only a couple blocks north of my hotel, so I made a beeline for it.  Though the sun was pounding the streets pretty heavily, there were people everywhere I looked, just as it is in Manhattan.

From the Alameda, I walked up a wide boulevard about six blocks north to Plaza Garibaldi which is mariachi central for the entire country.  Even though it was too early to catch any music--the place doesn't get hopping until late at night--there were plenty of costumed musicians (including several violinists) beginning to gather in readiness for the coming night's work.

At this point I turned east, intending to locate the Zocalo, the historic center of the city with one of the biggest plazas in the world, surrounded by dazzling colonial architecture of palaces, the Metropolitan Cathedral, and various government buildings.  

But after a couple blocks I began to feel the heat of the sun more intensively as I realized that the city's 7000 foot elevation was turning my walking legs into heavy lead.  I decided to save the Zocalo for another, cooler time period.

I found a good, albeit slightly pricey four-course lunch in the restaurant of my hotel.  This was just as well, for by that time I was running on very little sleep from the night before, and a siesta afterward took me til nearly 9.00 p.m.  Nightfall brought temperatures 20 degrees lower than the day's--a pleasant end to an exciting travel day.