We got up early in the morning to make our 6:40am flight out of Guatemala. We grabbed some breakfast after getting through security and played on the playground before boarding.
We had an 8 hour layover in Mexico City so we had planned to go tour the downtown ruins of Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital). We decided to try the MetroBus to get there and managed to get some pesos from an ATM and some bus cards from the ticket machine and get on the correct bus and off on the correct stop. Saw some sights of the city on the way.
We found the ruins, they call the place Zocalo now. The area had been razed by the Spanish when they conquered the area and a park had been built on top so now that they are trying to uncover it, it is all below street level. There are little “basement windows” in the street that you can look down to see the old walls. We also walked through the cathedral and saw the huge palace.
There were some traditional dancers with headdresses and skulls doing a show in front of the cathedral and maybe some type of Aztec stuff. We didn’t have an interpreter so don’t know for sure, but we weren’t too interested in hanging out for that, plus it was hot.
We ate lunch at a nice restaurant with a great view of the whole square. The ruins are directly behind us, the palace is behind them, and the cathedral is off to the right side.
After lunch we thought that riding the bus back to the airport would be too easy since we already figured that out so we wanted to try the subway. I’m sure the system is very nice and there were quite a few people using the trains, but we ended up having to switch trains three times and a couple of longish walks (as well as one wrong turn) before we got back to the airport.
We made our flight with the same confusion about gates as on the way to GUA, but got home fine.
After customs and immigration checks we got to our cars around 10:30pm with a 1 1/2 drive home. And that’s the end my friends!
More June 14 photos