Mexico City / CDMX

The city that won best in class for me last year was Mexico City or Ciudad de Mexico or CDMX. I spent the month of March and 2 weeks in October there in 2022. It was the most impressive city I visited all year. Let me tell you why. If you’d rather just have an itinerary click here. Otherwise continue for the details.

FOOD

From the street food to the restaurants Mexico City is a place for the self declared foodie. When you walk down the business districts or popular neighborhoods the Taqueros have taken over. Taquero is the name of the man who runs a taco stand. The set ups vary and are as unique as their salsas. The vibe of a Taquero is what makes each stand unique. They are jokesters, chefs, waiters, and bus boys all at once. Their dynamic energy draws you in and before you know it you’ve ordered 3 tacos and are sitting on a plastic stool watching him work. You order what you can smell or take a guess at what the various parts of the pig or cow are being offered. The plate comes with a plastic wrapper over top of it. Two corn tortillas come with each taco and the expert says you eat it in 2-3 bites. Before you dive in grab some salsas, green does not always mean mild so do some taste testing before.

While remote working from Mexico I would run out for lunch, scarf down a couple tacos, and run back. This is truly the beauty of working remotely. You forget you are in another country until you step outside. Roma and Condesa, the neighborhoods I stayed in, have incredible restaurants. We ordered entire octopus, clam ceviche, vegan pink tacos, the options endless. There are incredible bakeries for the morning and for the brave of heart, you can try grasshopper. They crisp them and serve them as a bar snack with nuts. I won’t tell you my favorite restaurant because it is already too crowded but its the last photo on the right.

MESCAL

After all this food you are going to need a drink. Forget the tequila, when you are in Mexico you need to learn about Mescal. I’ll save the history lesson for the Oaxaca City breakdown. There are over 200 types of mescal, I equate it to how the Italians have wine. They make it in their backyards and each has a different recipe. This is the same with Mexicans and their agave plants. From herbal flavors to smokey and on you can really find one that fits with your palate.

CULTURE

20 million people live in Mexico City. This means that the culture here is unique and constantly changing. People move from all over the Americas and with this movement comes change. Some neighborhoods feel the US with the people living there, others like regional Mexico. Grab a walking tour that’ll take you through some of them so you aren’t just a gringo roaming through people’s backyards and you’ll walk away awestruck.

One of the first days I arrived in Mexico City in March was International Women’s day. The city reacted similarly to how America responded to the Black Lives Matter protests. From Roma to the central plaza every building boarded up their walls. Statues and monuments where boarded up as well. My airbnb host told me that men don’t go into the city on that day because it gets dangerous. Domestic violence and payment discrepancies for women are high here and they take to the streets to speak. That night I walked around taking pictures of the street art and statements lining the barricades. One reads “Glorieta de las las mujeres que luchan” Glory to the women who fight and “La policia no me cuida” The police don’t protect me. Amen sisters.

One of the most internationally know days is DIA DE LOS MUERTES. Meaning day of the dead, Mexicans have this holiday to celebrate their ancestors that have passed on. It is a day of community and family, not what our Halloween has turned into in the states. It is a similar idea to All Saints Day, where the focus is on celebrating your family. Skulls, cemeteries, and all things dead run this festival which is why it has become ghoulish at home. Here the skeletons bring smiles and dancing because it is your family returning to you. I came the week before halloween or Dia de los Muertes and the Paseo de Reforma was closed down for a massive parade. For $10 I had my face painted and joined in celebrating with the locals. The parade went on for hours and hosted every type of float. The costumes and dancing and art was stunning.

MUSIC

While remote working from CDMX for 3 weeks with my friend Christine I wanted to see some live music. I did some googling of major venues and found one around the corner from our airbnb. There was a free show so I signed up and one night we walked over, showed our event brite tickets, and walked in. It was in a converted church where the venue was inside and the bar was outside. We grabbed some mescal and a beer until the show started. The band was self described as a Spanish Led Zepplin. We ushered in and posted up ready for the show. The opener starts and we notice that we are the only women alone. All the other women here are with men.

One guy singing word for word comes up to us and chats. He speaks quickly and its loud but Christine and I try and follow along together. He buys us beers and invites us to join his friends. We join the group to meet 3 other guys, one girl and her boyfriend. They are from a Pueblo Magical about an hour away. Mexico has these towns all over. They are historically old and do have this feeling in them. After this year of traveling I will have visited at least 4, Sayulita, Todos Santos, Bacalar, Isla Mujeres.

The band plays, we dance and enjoy this friend group we crashed. Both guys ask for our numbers and instagrams. Christine laughs that no one even cares that she has a wedding ring on. Mexican machismo is still a big thing. One of the guys invites us to the House of Vans tomorrow for another show. Also free. We uber out there the next day. The space is massive, they have converted the skate pit into the concert pit. The stage on the side. We listen and have some beers another nice night of music.

HISTORY

All over Mexico you can find Incan or Mayan ruins. They vary in size and amount uncovered but almost any city you visit will have one nearby. Mexico City has an incredible one you can visit about an hour away. Teotihuacán is an old city you can town and climb certain parts. Get a tour to take you out there and walk you around the massive space. You’ll start to understand how these people lived and moved around the country. They were as smart as the Egyptians but most of their knowledge has been lost when the Spanish arrived in the 1500s and had one of the largest genocides history has seen. The architecture is impressive and still well built. Some of these structures are thousands of years old. Sustainable and successful, where did we loose this in our humanity?

If you have a rainy day and need to escape inside visit Museo Nacional de Antropología. This museum is gorgeous, two floors, and has endless rooms. You start at the beginning of man, anthropology of our development, then travel through the Americas and how these cultures created life and structure here. You could spend an entire day reading and learning about our human history. Exhausting but worth it.

ART & Entertainment

Now there are two different ways I would suggest taking in some art or entertainment. The first is lux, the second local. Palacio de Bellas Artes has a performance piece that takes you through Mexican history through dance. The costumes and dancers communicate their love and pride for their country. The concert ended with a couple cheers of Viva Mexico! It felt so beautiful to be somewhere with this love for country.

The second local way is to get tickets to a luchador match. Luchadores are masked figures who battle solo or in a team. There is always a story, good versus evil, the underdog, big versus small. You can take a tour where they will get you tacos and your ticket and take you through. If you don’t speak Spanish this is the way. Otherwise you can take our path and uber to the major stadium. This is like MSG but heightened. Scalpers try and get you to buy with them. Christine, her husband Mike, and I are practiced New Yorkers though and we know how to ignore the noise. We go purchase our tickets, head in, tip the guy who seats you, and order some jumbo beers. The narration is what is important so you can learn the story line. The guys next to me talked me through the story. After a couple beers I felt like I could follow. When the smaller women’s group lost the woman jumps up on the ropes and SHAVES HER HEAD. Yes this was real serious.

NATURE

Now Mexico City is a proper city but it does have lovely parks. The biggest and best is Bosque de Chapultepec. The only castle in the Americas sits there surrounded by a park with a lake and endless pathways. Vendors sell silly trinkets and snacks. Families run around, dance groups practice, lovers picnic, work out classes pump, and I even saw one group practicing some sort of sword play.

If you want to check out Mexico City but don’t know where to start I hope my experience showed you the path. Have no fear, like Times Square in the 80s, this city has become much safer. Just be smart, bring cash, and get ready to enjoy.