Day 2--Chapultepec

I woke up this morning at 7am to get ready for my day at the Anthropology Museum and Bosque Chapultepec. I left the hostel around 8:15 and made my way to the nearby Sevilla metro stop. Once inside the metro hallways, I felt like a salmon swimming upstream--there were people everywhere (little did I know that this was rush hour). I mapped out my route, bought some tickets (massively cheap at about 20 cents a pop!) and started my metro adventure.

The DF metro was surprisingly easy to use (even during rush hour) and I didn’t get lost making my transfers to other lines or anything. This was a really great, fast way to maneuver around this huge city. I felt that the metro was a really weird juxtaposition: on the walls are numerous Aztec murals and on the speakers overhead I kept hearing Foreigner and Journey!

I exited the metro at Auditorio and walked a couple of blocks to the National Anthropology Museum. It was only 8:30 so I had to wait outside for a half hour until the museum opened. Upon entrance, the first thing you see is a huge stone pillar/fountain holding up the massive concrete roof. I first visited the area containing artifacts from ancient groups that inhabited northern Mexico (i.e. Anasazi). After that, I visited the 1) introductory galleries, 2) Preclassic era, 3) Teotihuacan, 4) Mexica (Aztec), 5) Toltecs, 6) Oaxaca, 7) Gulf coast, and 8) the Maya. My favorite artifacts were housed in the Teotihucan, Aztec, and (of course) the Maya areas. To see all the Mayan glyphs and stelae that I had only before seen in books was especially neat. After touring the archaeological exhibits on the bottom floor, I stopped at the museum’s café for a lunch of waffles (strawberry!) and hot chocolate. My first authentic Mexican hot chocolate (chocolate metate) and it was really good!



After lunch, I visited the ethnographic exhibits on the museum’s upper floor. These exhibits showed the typical crafts and societies of indigenous peoples living throughout Mexico today. These exhibits were nice, but I didn’t enjoy them as much as I did the ancient exhibits. My favorite exhibits were: the Mayan stelae & Palenque tomb, hummingbird goblet in the Oaxaca gallery, and Moctezuma’s headdress in the Aztec gallery. This museum was great and well worth the trip.

After the museum, I wandered around Bosque Chapultepec for a couple of hours which was pretty fun (even though I didn’t have time for the zoo). After my wanderings, I hopped back on the metro and returned to my hostel. I ate a bit of dinner in the hostel and planned my day tomorrow (downtown!).