This is part of a series about my trip to Mexico City and the surrounding area. Also see part 1, part 2, and part 4.

We spent four days in Toluca, and unfortunately I was ill the entire time. Since it was kind of a blur for me I’m cramming the entire four days into a single entry.

Toluca is largely an industrial town, with production outposts for Nestle, Coca-Cola, Chrysler, and Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma (the brewery that makes Tecate, Sol, Indio, and Dos Equis.) Due to the manufacturing, there’s also a lot of hotels, restaurants, strip clubs, etc.

Day 1

We hitched a ride on a taxi, then took a bus, where we met up with Alexia’s cousin in Toluca. We spent the evening checking out Metepec, an old town nearby which houses several old churches and a district of local artists.

Later in the night we joined up with the rest of the crew and went to the KISS Lounge. It’s a basement bar that doubles as a shrine to the band KISS. The decorations are all merchandise and albums from the band. Most of the bar’s walls were stuffed with KISS memorabilia behind glass; perhaps most shockingly, their collection included two separate matryoshka sets painted to look like members of KISS. As if one set was not more than enough?

Late into the night, a live band showed up to play various hard rock covers. By “late” I mean really late; the bar closes at 5am.

Day 2

The second day was pretty mellow, we hit up a “VIP” movie theater to see Black Swan. If you weren’t aware, a VIP movie theater has reclining Lazy-Boy style seats, tables, and waiters who will bring alcoholic drinks to your seat. This begs the question: why don’t we have this in San Francisco? I’d be there every week.

Anyway, the mall with the VIP theater had some unusual stores; a Hewlett Packard store, an “iShop” Apple Store knockoff, and they had an Imaginarium! This was the toy store I grew up with, and just like I remember, they had regular doorway next to a child-sized doorway. Granted, it wasn’t nearly as large or fancy as the one we used to have at the Stanford Shopping Center, but it was still a shock to me personally. I had no idea Imaginarium still existed.

Later that night we had one of Pizza Hut’s bizarre pizzas delivered to the hotel, and watched some Mexican TV. You know you’re watching Mexican TV when a guy in a clown suit is being interviewed by a woman sitting on a banana-shaped sofa which is in front of a wall that has bananas hanging from it.

Day 3
We headed back to Metepec to check out the local shops, then hitched a bus back to downtown Toluca. On the way, a band jumped on the bus to play some heavily-accented Doors covers.

Back in Toluca, we went to the MUMCI, a museum dedicated to beer brewing sponsored by Modelo. For homebrewers it’s quite interesting, and fortunately it’s in both English and Spanish. They cover everything from growing crops to brewing to bottling and packaging. They even have information on building your own industrial-grade brewery, which seems a bit odd as they’re explaining how you can compete with them. It even includes a Star Tours-esque ride about the bottling process.

Day 4

In downtown Toluca, I found that this vacation had something in common with my trip to Greece: the Acropolis. But unlike the Greek version, Toluca’s doesn’t cost 12 Euros, and it’s a mall.

We headed to the Cosmovitral, a plant conservatory in a green house that’s covered in an absurd amount of stained glass. In fact, it was worth the entry fee alone just to look at the stained glass, let alone the plants.

At the end of the day we retired to our hotel room with a box of mixed Modelo cervezas and a Skyy Blue cocktail (made with real Skyy vodka, unlike its American counterpart) from the local convenience store.

Day 5

The final day before my departure, we met Alexia’s family’s sheep. Their job is to mow the grass at the family’s parking lot.

We drove around to see some of Toluca’s factories, then to the official Cervefrio (or “beer store”) of Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma where I bought a official Sol beer mug.

Just before my flight, I got a horrible stomach ache because of my cold. Alexia’s aunt gave me a glass of some kind of incredibly foul tasting home remedy which worked surprisingly well. Whatever it was, it made me well enough to get on the airplane. Well, almost… as it turns out when your sinuses are completely clogged you should not under any circumstance get on a airplane. That’s something I learned the hard way.

This is part of a series about my trip to Mexico City and the surrounding area. Also see part 1, part 3, and part 4.

Day 3

We met up with more of Alexia’s family and we headed down to a massive bus terminal to for a ride to the pyramids of Teotihuacan! On the way I was introduced to the concept of legal graffiti. Bands often pay to have legal graffiti billboards of sorts painted on public walls to advertise their shows.

The Teotihuacan pyramids were overrun by “gypsy” style merchants of sorts selling whistles, hats, jewelry, etc. We headed down to the first and smallest pyramid, then quickly realized we needed a guide. We found a guy who spoke a bit of English (this was for my benefit only.) Before showing us the pyramids, he pointed out a group of four traditional Voladores de Papantla, or acrobats who were swinging in a circle off ropes on a 16 meter tall poll on ropes tied to their ankles. He claimed that traditionally, the poles were 40 meters high. Not for those of us with a fear of heights.

The tour guide (guy in the black baseball cap in the photo) showed us some traditional dyes made from insect eggs, paper, thread and needles made from cactus, and most surprisingly, the way the old city of Teotihuacan had been built.

According to our guide, every 52 years the citizens created a new city on top of the old city. So far archaeologists have only dared to go one level deep, where they found an earlier foundation for the buildings in exactly the same place, but with different decorations. There’s only one visible spot where it’s been dug up, and it’s pretty incredible. So far nobody knows if there’s another level deeper. Mysterious!

After an hour or so, our tour guide left and wished us well, and we decided to go up the Pyramid of the Sun, which is the largest pyramid at the site. Here, I have to admit that I didn’t make it even halfway up, perhaps because of the already high elevation, or perhaps because I was coming down with a really bad cold that would haunt the rest of the trip. I hate to admit that I was defeated by this pyramid — especially because it was one of the main reasons I came to Mexico in the first place. The one saving grace was that the view from partway up was incredible. You could see the entire ruins of Teotihuacan from there.

While everyone else finished scaling the pyramid, Alexia and I headed across the way to a small strip with some restaurants. Upon entering the street, we were assaulted by six young men carrying menus, each insisting we eat at the restaurant they represented. All of the restaurants essentially had the tourist-esque “please everyone” massive menus, so we decided on the restaurant we’d been recommended earlier. Eventually we were joined by our companions.

We ordered micheladas. If you’re not familiar with a michelada, it’s a Mexican beer (in this case, Indio) mixed with lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, and Clamato in a glass lined with salt and chile pequin. It’s one of my favorite cocktails, basically a Mexican version of a bloody mary. If you haven’t tried it you’re missing out.

Day 4

On the fourth day we took the Metro to Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the world’s most visited Catholic shrine. It’s a lot like Disneyland except there’s no rides and you have to pay to use the bathroom.

The main cathedral on the site was built in the mid 1970’s. It contains an incredibly large church, a place to put flowers, a series of conveyor belts you can stand on while looking at a painting of the Virgin Mary, and (of course) a gift shop. From the outside, the building looks suspiciously like Space Mountain, but the closest thing to a roller coaster is the Virgin Mary’s conveyor belt.

The grounds of the basilica contain several smaller chapels, Pope John Paul’s Popemobile(TM) and the old basilica, which is now fenced off due to problems with its structural integrity. The gardens have a bit of a mini-golf vibe, with a number of uncharacteristically painted statues here and there, and a few fountains. In the back there’s a cafeteria area with tortas, soda, etc. And (of course) more gift shops.

The area around the church seemed a bit sketchy… definitely not the kind of place you’d want to be at night. And perhaps even dangerous during the day, as Alexia almost stepped on a snake.

Hey everyone, gather ’round the living room and take a nap while I subject you to my vacation slides from February 2011, when Alexia Anthem and I went to visit Mexico.

The trip to Mexico series will be divided into four parts on my blog:

1. Mexico City part 1 (this post)
2. Mexico City part 2
3. Toluca
4. Rants about Mexico

This is part 1.

Day One
In spite of taking a redeye flight and essentially not sleeping at all, Alexia and I somehow found the energy to not flop down on the comfortable hotel bed and sleep.

Instead, we walked from our hotel to the park and the Palacio de Bellas Artes. Unfortunately the Bellas Artes was closed, so we headed to the nearby LatinoAmericana tower to check out the view and generally be good tourists.

After coming down from the tower, we headed down the street to the Zócalo, a plaza with a bunch of government buildings, a cathedral, and a surprisingly large flag.

Somehow we stumbled our way to a Metro stop. The Mexico City Metro is a rubber-tire train system that’s dirt cheap (tickets are 30 cents USD) and trains come every two minutes. It’s very impressive compared to what we have in San Francisco. Plus they have food stands in the stations, including Domino’s. How cool is that?

A few hundred staircases later we ended up walking down an alley filled with little shops and restaurants and on the way to Paseo de la Reforma, the main drag in Mexico City. Along La Reforma, there’s dozens of bike racks used as part of a bike-sharing program.

Soon we found our way to El Ángel, the iconic golden angel statue seen on Mexico City memorabilia everywhere. The statue is in the middle of a traffic circle. If you weren’t aware of this, jaywalking is somewhat of a national pastime in Mexico. So they didn’t bother with crosswalks to get to the angel, despite it being a national monument. You pretty much have to close your eyes, cross your fingers, and run through traffic to get to it. There’s a bunch of statues at the base of the angel, and a little door with some tombs inside. Protip: if you plan your vacation better than we did, there are days than you can go up inside pillar that holds the angel to an observation deck above.

Day Two
We were joined by Alexia Anthem’s cousin, and finally got to go inside Bellas Artes. The place is free, unless you have a camera, in which case they charge a camera fee. Yeah, I know. Lame. Anyway the place is filled with fantastic murals, including some of Diego Rivera’s best. A strange thing about Bellas Artes is that the outside has a typical Roman look, but the inside is art deco. The contrast between old and new is sort of like a grandfather who snowboards and plays video games.

We took a walk down to the tequila museum, which unfortunately wasn’t open! I suspect it was because they had an infestation of mariachi on the patio outside and were waiting for an exterminator. On the way there, I spotted a fake cable car, which begs the question: is there a way to take it all the way from Mexico City to Fisherman’s Wharf?