Mexico 2020 - CDMX - Coyoacán

After our bus ride and a long cab ride we made it to our third and final airbnb in Coyoacan.

Well, just across the highway from Coyoacan.

I've never really wanted to live in a glassy building. Of course the sliding glass doors didn't lock, which made me nervous.

We picked this place because it had a pool, but the weather wasn't warm enough for the locals to consider this pool weather.

After settling in we walked around our new neighborhood. Check out that tree house.

We walked down towards the center of Coyoacan for dinner. We passed through the main market on our way.

Our AirBNB suggested we eat at a classic eatery, La Coyoacana. This was the most expensive meal on our whole trip. Think it came to $40 American.

This was the first time on our trip where I didn't recognize anything on the menu. Luckily our waiter spoke English.

The kids shared steak tacos. It was really good and I wish I had ordered it. Theo just ate guac and Meadow had trouble with her missing front teeth. I'd suggest you come here just for the tortillas.

I've noticed that most of the restaurants here have hooks by all the tables to hang your bags or hats.

We meandered through the neighborhood back to the airbnb.

Good morning sleepy bears.

On our way to breakfast we spotted a playground and and had to stop of course.

I promised Meadow that our walk would be broken up by a playground.

This area north of the freeway was very modern.

A few days back we had spotted a restaurant called Estacion Cereal. That's cereal station for the Americans. There was a location in Coyoacan and I knew Meadow would love this.

They had every kind of cereal you could think of.

And you got to put in special toppings and choose from any milk you could think of. Meadow loved it.

We had some time to kill before our Frida Kahlo Museum visit.

We checked out the the Coyoacan Market again.

This time we went inside.

There was lots of homemade pinatas.

I loved this Dia de los Muertos ranch diorama.

Chips not hot enough? Add some hot suace.

We stopped to buy a kilo of oranges.

Frida's house was cool to see. But very busy. We had bought our tickets ahead of time, but I wished we had picked an earlier time. 

You get herded through pretty quickly.

Diego's room had his original overalls.

His room was my favorite.

Her studio was exactly how she had left it.

 Too embarrassed again for photos.

 The gardens were relaxing. I wouldn't mind living somewhere with a courtyard like this.

I swear, I enjoyed the home tour.

There was an extra exhibit that included Frida's clothing. I'd love to replicate this shirt.

I thought Meadow would love this section, but she wasn't feeling it.

Although now that we're home she talks about how fun it was to see Frida's house.

From the outside it didn't look like much, but she lived in a little Shargri-la.

Scott spotted us from the bathroom.

We stopped back at the market so Meadow could get a princess dress.

We did not realize that this Mexican-made Disney knock off was super glittery.

Then we decided to go to the pyramids at Teotihuacan. You could take the bus there but we decided to take a cab.

Cabify (ie Uber in CDMX) is way too cheap. At least when you're bringing American dollars. You can see the volcanoes in the distance.

We cruised through neighborhood after neighborhood and city after city.

Our driver didn't speak any English but he made sure to point out any interesting sites.

Buddy boy fell asleep on the long ride.

Our Cabify driver was set to meet us again in a couple hours. There's little cell service at Teotihuacan here and you can't pick up an Uber or Cabify. You can easily get an old school cab though.

We had almost gone here on our second day, but it's a good thing we waited for our bodies to adjust to the altitude first. 

It's amazing to see these massive 2400 year old pyramids.

It was definitely tough to climb. We had to stop at each level to catch our breaths.

Meadow was a champ. Climbing is her thing.

At first I thought one of us would stay back with Theo while the other climbed with Meadow. I then changed my mind last minute to climb with him on my back.

Brooke was the real champ!

Break time.

People are always asking if they can take our photo.

I do exist.

Cool hair Theo.

I was here in high school and these ropes were not there. Nice to see they were added to help with the climb.

Phew, we made it!

It was windy on top and Meadow wanted to wear her new cape from the Anna dress she had bought earlier at the market.

Cool, dude.

I wasn't sure if Teotihuacan was worth the hour plus cab ride, but I guess I was wrong.

He wanted to skip it, but I convinced him we had to go.

The climb down wasn't quite as bad as I remembered.

I wanted to recreate a photo I had taken as a teenager.

Almost nailed it. 

Again, people asked to take our photo.

This lady knew what she was doing. This one needs to be printed.

Super Meadow!

We had gotten here two hours before it closed. I didn't think we'd be here more than an hour but there was lots to see.

Meadow and I decided to climb one of the smaller pyramids.

Theo wanted to climb our pyramid too, but I didn't like that idea. We took him over to a smaller one.

Brooke's motherly instincts finally came out. A miracle.

We would've liked to have stayed a bit longer, but we had to meet our cab driver.

We had plans to meet our driver at 4:30. We didn't have his number and he only spoke Spanish so we trusted that he'd come back for us.

We sat around for a bit, but then he showed up.

Our driver offered to take us somewhere to eat on the ride home. At first he took us to super fancy restaurant and I told him through Google translate, "We're not that fancy. We like cheap tacos" So, he drove us over to a taqueria in the center of San Miguel de Teotihuacan.

People have been very accommodating with the kids. Always coming over with high chair and helping Theo.

They claimed they took credit cards here, but they didn't. Thankfully I had enough pesos on hand.

Meanwhile, our driver patiently waited for us to eat. We tried offering him dinner. 

On the drive back we hit traffic coming into the city.

It took more than two hours to get back to Coyoacan. Poor driver. When we arrived I paid him 4 times what he would've got through the Cabify app.

He deserved it.

 We had our driver drop off us back off in central Coyoacan where we stumbled upon another market.

Mmm...apple soda.

Meadow had never had a churro before so we set out to get one.

Meadow and Theo's was stuffed with blueberries.

Meadow in her new dress that she bought.

She put it on as soon as we got back for the night.

She had been waiting all day to try it on.

We worked on her travel journal before going to bed.

The next morning I got up early enough to witness the sunrise.

We ate the candied fruit we'd gotten in Guanajuato before heading out for a proper breakfast on our last full day in CDMX.

We found this place tucked under the freeway. One of the best breakfasts I had.

There was also a playground tucked under the highway.

It was dirty, but the kids didn't care.

Full of soot.

We started the day exploring Coyoacan further.

You could say the Mexicans adore Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The church next door was one of the oldest in all of Mexico.

The Frida Kahlo Museum was even busier today.

I love how the architecture changes between the neighborhoods.

The western half of the neighborhood felt like a fancier, flat Guanajuato. Mostly it had narrow, meandering, streets.

I found a playground for the kiddos before we headed into the future forest or Viveros de Coyoacan.

The squirrels are a little too friendly here.

They were hoping we had food.

Meadow I thought they may have mistaken her for a princess.

This was a cool park. There's a trail that goes all around the trees for runners.

There are rows and rows of different tree species. You could walk down the middle of the long rows of trees.

I could've stayed here all day, but we each had one place we had to see on our last day in Mexico City.

We stopped to let the kids play.

We ended up walking back through the park after I realized that the subway wasn't accessible  from this side of the park.

Theo was lagging a little so we convinced him to move faster by all hanging onto a stick.

Then Meadow and I picked up the little bugger.

After we left the park the kids continued to hold hands. Theo never lets Meadow hold his hand so we had to document this rare event.

Heart, melted.

We somehow had avoided the subway over our entire stay in CDMX. It actually made sense for once, so we took it up to the Palacio de la Bellas Artes.

Taking a Cabify was so convenient. 

We had hoped to go to the Palace of the Arts to see some of Diego Rivera's murals.

This was about as far as we could go in without a ticket.

It was the most expensive tourist attraction we had been too in all of our travels. So, we did a hard pass.

Instead the kids wanted to play in the fountain, but were too chicken.

They only got a little wet. Which was probably for the best.

Today was the first day that felt hot.

We ended up at Taqueria Arandas for lunch. You had to sneak by the first floor kitchen then up narrow stairs to the dining room.

On the 3rd floor.

We ate a lot of tacos. I was worried we'd get sick of tacos. Nope, never.

I was happy that we made our way back to Centro Historico, but it was mostly to surprise Meadow with our last destination of the trip.

At the Zocalo there was a giant ad for Guanajuato made of produce native to the region.

He actually crawled through the X.

There goes Theo photobombing again.

We had a plan to go to a special market for Meadow, but first we had to walk through the rougher eastern side of Centro Historico.

It was full of party and paper stores.

Walking through here made me wonder if this was how New York City was like in the 1900's.

Anything you needed to buy could be found here.

We had arrived at El Mercado Ampudia, also known as Mercado de Los Dulces), a mecca to all things sweet.

So. Much. Candy.

It was very claustrophobic inside of the market. It seemed like it could go on forever.

Meadow and Theo each picked out a marshmallow kebab Valentine thing.

Brooke wanted out and I don't blame her. I just wish I would've gotten something sweet myself.

There was church hidden behind the mayhem of the market.

Then we walked by bike store after bike store.

We saw little kid cargo bikes! If only it would fit on the plane.

We were all tired and wanted to get back to the our neighborhood or thereabouts.

But first we had to stop and get popsicles one last time.

Yes, we went to Casa Michoacan on two different days. It was that good.

The next morning we got up early to catch our cab. Luckily for Meadow her dress was too big for her backpack so she had to wear it home.

Not so lucky for our cab drivers or the flight attendants.

We weren't quite home when we got to the states. We had a layover in Orlando. I do not recommend a layover in Florida in the middle of winter.

So many families. And since security is more lax in Mexico we had to exit the airport and go through the security line again. 

Eventually we got on our second flight back to MSP.

Until next time, Mexico.