Day One in Mexico City

Dear Family and Friends,

Tuesday morning Audrey picked us up at 6:45 am and took us to the Tucson airport.  Our adventure was off to a great start.

Here are Chuck and I waiting for our first flight.

We flew to Los Angeles, which takes no time at all.  There we changed planes and flew direct to Mexico City,   We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel.  We were very tired and the sun was setting so we had our dinner at the hotel and made it an early night.

This morning we took a short walk from our hotel and had a cup of Starbucks to start our day.

The Starbucks here is much the same as in the USA, except for one big difference.  It takes the crew longer to make the order, which causes the lines to be long.

After getting fueled up, we decided to go visit the huge market located in the south of the city.  The market is said to be the largest market in the world.  It covers acres and acres.  We just saw one tiny section, but it made for a fun morning.

Here are some photos.

Nice melons.  These look so fresh, I could almost taste how sweet they are just by looking at them.

Huge amount of dried chilies of every variety there is.

These are colorful small fresh fresh peppers.  I love the sign above them, it says Dinosaur Eggs.

I found a market kitty.  Looks healthy and well feed.

With so many people working at the market they have to eat and there are many very small stalls where people can eat.

He is making tacos.  They sure looked inviting, but we had other plans for lunch.

Here is a couple, I think the man works at the market.  The lady is enjoying some soup and their daughter is sitting safely in a crate behind them.

This happy vendor sells chickens.  Look how large his chicken breasts are.

Large amount of Mexican sausage.  

One last market picture.  This lady is buying the largest wash tub I have ever seen.  Maybe she has a bunch of kids to bath at home.  

 

After a couple of hours we were through with the market.  There was tons more to see but it was getting hot in there so we took a taxi back to our hotel.  

We rested a little at the hotel and then started our afternoon adventure.  

We decided we wanted to try some street food.  They always say don't eat from the street vendors, and we usually don't but the food looks so good we decided to take the chance and try several vendors just to have some real Mexican food.

Our first vendor, Edwardo, was making tortillas out of blue corn meal.  

We ordered one and halved it.  This is mine.  It was very tasty.

Our second vendor, Carlos, made us flautas.  

Here is mine..

and here is Chuck enjoying his.

The third place we went was to a small outdoor vendor who had plastic tables and chairs.  They were extremely busy and offered many items on the menu.  I chose a burrito and Chuck had a soup called pozole.

While we were waiting for our food, these two lovely ladies offered me something that I have never had before.  I had seen them in Thailand but was not brave enough to try them there.  They offered me some fried grasshopper to try.  I accepted the offer and honestly, it was crunchy with a smoked garlic flavor.  It was really good.

This is a gross picture, but I just wanted to show that I did indeed eat a fried grasshopper.

These are the two ladies that shared their grasshoppers with us.  They are Irene and Velna.

Irene said she was eating a Mexican pizza.

Here is my plate with burritos, rice with mole sauce and salad.  Yum, yum.  

Here is Chuck enjoying his meal.

The street food did not make us sick.  It was all very good and unique.  We will certainly do this again.  

After eating we walked around before returning to the hotel.

Here is a picture of the Revolution Memorial reflected in a building.

and here is Chuck posing by a Day of the Dead art piece.

We had a  fun food filled day.  Tomorrow we will have a tour guide and I bet he would never let us do the fun things we did today on our own.

Love you.

Nancy