Coyoacan II and Theotihuacan

So I'm back again with a new entry, but too many things have happened this week so I'll have to be short and probably leave out some interesting details.

This Thursday we went down to Coyoacan again with James and it was truly lovely again. The weather was great and we were in a much better mood too after both James and my cat got better. (On that note: unfortunately, my cat has something like a lung emphysema, which is common amongst old cats apparently, and it is incurable. But at least we know what it is now, and have a little time to spend with him while preparing for the worst...).

We decided to check out some sights this time, so besides my favorite church in the center we visited the Frida Kahlo museum. The house was pretty (bright blue), colonial, colorful, with some furniture to give you an idea about how Diego Rivera and her used to live there for 30 years. There are some paintings too, but mostly by Rivera. This in fact was slightly disappointing: there is absolutely no art by Frida Kahlo and there is not much about her history and past in the house. Apart from the clothes and reconstructed kitchen, we didn't find out anything her except through the lenses (paintings, letters) of Rivera. So, all in all I didn't quite understand why it was called the Frida Kahlo house and not the "Diego Rivera house"...But other than that it was very pleasant. We also had tortas again, in the same place but this time maybe we weren't so hungry or we ordered the wrong thing because both of us felt that it was too greasy (it is true: I ordered one with the famous choriso sausage just to try, so I don't know what I expected...)I also tried a very popular pastry here, it's called: churro, which I really liked. It is a bready stick that is deep fried and just a little sweet from the sugar but it's soft and a little chewy in the middle. I do recommend it to everybody with a sweet tooth! But take it without any filling because that makes it way too sweet (tried that too - with chocolate).

On Friday, my fried Yvonne arrived to visit us from New York and we went to Theotihuacan on Saturday. It was one of the most beautiful and interesting sights I have seen here so far. It is an old Indian city, the largest pre-Columbian city that was built around 500BC but it lost all its habitants and was miraculously deserted by 800AD. At its peak, it had 45,000 habitants, more than the contemporary Rome. It is a vast, long, straight road (2 km) surrounded by ruins of smaller and bigger temples, pyramids, administrative buildings and what looks like remains of streets and houses. The two most amazing and largest pyramids are that of the Sun and at the very end of the road the Pyramid of the Moon. We climbed both of them, and I have to tell you, it was not easy. They are very hight and steep. The Pyramid of the Sun is in fact the 3rd highest pyramid in the world (the second is also in Mexico). It is not hollow inside but a mountain of rubble, imagine: over 3 million tonnes of stone was used to build it...It is just so different than anything else I have ever seen and to imagine the busy life once going on there, the wealth and the rich culture (they already had writing and books) - it is incredible.
Theotihuacan was our first venture out of the city (it is 50 km north, a bus takes you there in an hour for 30 pesos - 3 dollars), but we are already planning the next trip somwhere else. I loved to be outside the crazy big metropolis for a day, it was quiet, peaceful and overwhelming. And we even got suntanned a little.