One of our top priorities for the trip was getting to Teotihuacan, a Aztec site about an hour outside of the city. In normal times we would have taken a bus for about 50¢, but navigating a crowded bus station and then sitting on a potentially crowded bus for an hour each way sounded like a bad idea. Our hotel said they could arrange a private car for $100, but we ended up doing Uber for about half that.
The drive out there was interesting to give us some context outside of the small parts of the city we'd seen. This is a bad picture of the Mexico City suburbs.
Teotihuacan is in the middle of a small village. It reminded me of the Coliseum in El Jem, Tunisia; you feel like this can't possibly be the right place, but it is.
The biggest pyramid is the Pyramid of the Sun. In normal times you can climb these pyramids, but they were blocked off because of COVID. This was great news for me, as going up (and especially down) shallow and steep stone steps is probably my least favorite thing on earth. But you know, if I was allowed I would have to do it to be sure I didn't have any regrets. Thankfully I was able to head off this psychological trauma altogether because of the global pandemic.
Pyramid selfie!
There were a lot of people selling things here. Jewelry, toys, blankets, trinkets of all sorts. It was pretty annoying but I also bought some earrings, so you know, I'm part of the problem.
From the Pyramid of the Sun, there's a long wide walkway down to the smaller Pyramid of the Moon.
We have faces!
We sat on a wall here and ate a snack and stared at the Pyramid of the Sun.
Teotihuacan was a big city. We walked all the way down to the other end.
There are ruins of non-religious sites too, shops and homes.
We saw a dog.
The Temple of Quetzalcoatl is at the far end. If you look closely here, you can see surviving stone animal heads on the exterior.
The trip back to Mexico City took about 90 minutes and cost $20. I honestly felt bad making the guy drive so far for so little money. We always tipped as much as Uber would allow.
We popped over to Ojo de Agua for a late lunch, a little place around the corner from our hotel. We walked by frequently and the food always looked great. These sandwiches were amazing. The people at this restaurant did not speak English and it was always kind of a comedy of errors trying to order anything, but worth it.
After our afternoon rest break we went to dinner at Quintonil, considered one of the Top 50 restaurants in the world. They gave us little bags for our masks.
We ate individual dishes other places that were standouts, but start to finish this was probably the food highlight of the trip. The service, atmosphere, and food were all impeccable.
This is a green chile and corn soup with (I think) thinly sliced jicama.
This is a "crab tostada" with a basil sunflower sauce.
Softshell crab.
Wild mushrooms with adobo sauce.
Tuna and ... something. It was good!
This is roasted chicken with macadamia nut mole, nectarine, and pickled clams. (I took a picture of the menu; I would never have remembered this otherwise.)
When we first sat down an American woman across from us was complaining that the lamb was tough. !!! They were extremely nice to her, much nicer than she deserved. An hour and a half later we were served the lamb, and it was emphatically not tough. It was amazing. Served with chickpea miso and tiny peeled green tomatoes.
This was one of the most interesting things, a cactus sorbet palate cleanser.
And two desserts! Berries:
And mango coconut sorbet.
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