My arrival in Mexico City was a rough start. I flew from Oaxaca, and I learned a hard lesson… make sure you look up where the airport is in relation to the city before booking the ticket. I flew to the Santa Lucia airport “in” Mexico City. Well, let me tell you, it is not in Mexico City at all. It is over an hour outside of the city, and an uber will not pick you up there. A taxi cost more than the price of the flight, so I said, there must be another way. There is no public transportation to this airport. I made my way through the airport and found a tourist bus that would take me near-ish to where I needed to go, so I paid the money and then settled in for the ride to the city. The NLU airport is beautiful and seemingly brand new. I was today years old when I learned that it only opened for “civilian” use in 2022- which makes sense as to why there is no infrastructure to get people to the city from there. Alas, I was off to a bad start.
I eventually make my way to the hostel, and my tummy is rumbling. I’m thinking- it’s probably the stress of the arrival, settle in and it’ll probably go away. Oh no folks- I had traveled through all of Central America without getting a true traveler’s belly, but I make it to one of my most looked-forward to eating destinations… and I am sick. Like can’t keep food down sick. So I cancelled my fancy pants dinner reservation for that night and weakly make my way to eat some pasta, and couldn’t even finish that. I was in public sweating (not new) from trying not to diarrhea on myself (new). Without going into details, I had an early and restless night in the hostel dorm. To my delight- my hostel roommates were big partiers and came in very loudly and kept dropping things like change and water bottles, and giggling about it when they came into the room pretty late. I can’t be overly mad at them, but I was physically ill and it just wasn’t a great start for me.
Squinting like a vampire who’s never seen the sun, I am not better the next day. I make my way to a pharmacy and ask for help. I take everything they give me and hope my body rallies because that day was meant to be a big day. Yes, it’s the day I went to CASA AZUL! AKA- Frida Khalo’s home and studio. I bought my tickets months in advance, as advised, and I couldn’t skip it.
It was an incredible experience. I enjoyed walking through all the rooms, seeing her painting set ups in various places. They had a special exhibit on her outfits, and I loved those too. Frida is an inspirational woman and painter, and I believe any trip to CDMX would be incomplete without paying homage. I’m glad I knew a little bit about Frida Khalo beforehand so that I knew the significance of the mirror above her bed, and they had her original back braces (a little gross?). I mostly loved all the bright colors and eclectic pieces in her home. It felt a little like mine, ha!
I was still feeling miserable. I walked around the neighborhood a little bit, but couldn’t trust my body to be moving without easy access to a toilet, sadly. I bought a ticket for a hop on hop off bus because I saw one pass by and thought, yeah, I can do that! Then I waited for an hour… and it never came. (I would try again later, and the company I bought mine through must have 1 bus for the entire city because it never came the second time either. There were like 4 companies I could’ve picked from and I just chose poorly.) Defeated, I went back to my hostel for a nap and to take more medicine.
While waiting for the bus that never came, I was sitting in front of the National Art Museum. When it started to rain, I went inside and decided that this was now the activity I was going to do. It did not disappoint! The staircases by themselves were breathtaking, and I could look at the intricate details all day. The sound the rain made on the roof was a melody. I took my time through all of the exhibits and truly enjoyed this museum.
The next day, I woke up finally feeling human again, but with the feeling that I needed to see all that I missed of Mexico City in one day. (Don’t come at me- I knew there was no way I would be able to see all of CDMX in the 3 days I had planned anyways… but I was sad that I would see so little.) I got up early and took myself on a walk. I love the architecture here.
Above is the Palacio Bellas Artes, and the roof is absolutely fabulous. There are many options to have a drink on a rooftop where you can see it better, but I didn’t get a chance to do that. Right next to the Palacio Bellas Artes is the Palacio Postal, whose interior is up on the list of the most beautiful interior‘s I’ve seen. It’s a functioning post office too! I was lucky to be there early and basically got to twirl around as much as my heart desired.
Having paid my respect’s to his wife before, I went to the Diego Rivera Mural Museum, which really only houses one mural, but it was still cool nonetheless. I took my time to read about every figure who was painted into this mural and the significance to Mexico’s history, which was educational.
For lunch, I dined at the luxurious Rosetta. It was exquisite. Rosetta has a Michelin Star and is on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants Discovery list. Pictured above is my dessert- all honey themed. I was so full leaving, I was happy to stroll through the Roma neighborhood.
A final museum for the day, I went to the National Museum of Anthropology and looked an ancient artifacts from different civilizations. Above is one of my favorites, where I got to see the Mayan sport’s equipment. The museum has a giant Aztec calendar, so many carvings, and beauty to look at. I was a little tired by this point and still soaked in some history and culture.
As I was leaving the museum, these guys were starting their performance. They all go up this pole and then slowly “fly” down to music and singing. They don’t use safety equipment, just methods passed down generation to generation. What a dizzying experience.
The grand finale for my entire trip, and my final night in Mexico City, was a trip to the Lucha Libre match. I went with a large group from my hostel. They gave us luchador masks to wear, so we could “fit” in with the crowd. We had beer, we cheered. We enjoyed the show. It was absolutely amazing. It’s important to suspend your belief in reality a little bit to truly embrace the experience, which I was happy to do.
I squeezed a ton into my only full day, and then got only a few hours of sleep before a very early morning to get to the airport back HOME to Indiana!
A post with a summary and stats will be coming “soon.” Thanks for joining me.
Okay! I’m editing this post almost a year later because I do not want to write another post for a summary… haha, oops. I don’t know what stats I was imagining, but here is my budget breakdown. My flights aren’t included in here, because those will definitely fluctuate.
- Restaurants: $883.05
- Accommodations: $647.22
- Activities: $524.04
- Transportation: $508.23
- Shopping: $271.37
- Miscellaneous: $151.90
For a total of: $2,985.81
Not too bad for the amount of adventures I had!
seekingmygreaterperhaps 
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