A Fabulous Museum!

Today was reserved for one of our favorite museums in Mexico City – or anywhere, for that matter – the massive and beautifully curated Anthropological Museum in Chapultepec Park.  Chapultepec Park is in itself a destination – kind of like Central Park in Manhattan (though at over 1,700 acres, it is twice the size!), huge lake and all, it contains some of the city’s finest museums – Anthropology, Natural History, Modern Art, Contemporary Art and others, as well as the Zoo and Water Park and a Castle. 

 But first – breakfast!  Up this morning around 5:30 am and needed to find a place for breakfast.  Gonzalo, our host, had provided us with a list of local restaurants, and we decided on Peltre, as it was close by, as well as opening at 7 am – handy for we early breakfast folks!  It is located in the block on Juarez just next to the Hilton, which makes it very handy!  And of course, we were the first people there, so as R pointed out, no problem getting a table!

 R ordered Mexican scrambled eggs, which came with refried beans and toast.  I ordered their eggs machaca – scrambled eggs with dried, shredded beef, cooked with tomatoes and onions, with very thinly sliced fried tortillas on top.  It was fabulous!  Both egg dishes came with a very tasty but not particularly spicy red sauce, which added just enough flavor to both dishes – truly excellent!  R had Café Americano (which he claimed was weak and would never pass muster in France!) and I had excellent hot chocolate – which I loved; also very good glasses of orange juice.  Truly Peltre is a find!  It is a small Mexico City chain, although it could stretch farther than that; no idea, really, just glad we found it!

 

My amazing hot chocolate!

And my wonderful machaca eggs!

R's Mexican scrambled eggs with beans and toast

From there, back to the apartment for about half-an-hour until we caught an Uber in front of the Hilton (very convenient location, this!) for the Museum.  Now let me just say that the traffic here in Mexico City has somehow gotten MUCH worse since we were last here in 2022!  It was CRAZY!  First of all, for some reason, there were blocked off streets in the area, making things difficult for drivers – but wow boy, very much stopped traffic and I’m glad we’re Ubering rather than taxiing, as at least with Uber, there is a set price, no matter how long you’re stuck in a jam! 

 It’s only a few miles to Chapultepec Park, but it took almost half-an-hour to get there!  We arrived about 9:10 (opening time is 9 am).  A Small line for security, but no line for tickets, which was nice!  No paper maps anymore, you just have to take a picture with your phone of the map and use that!  Okay …

 As this is, I think, our 5^th visit here, we were pretty familiar with the layout, and decided to head specifically to the places we were most interested in.  Fortunately, almost everybody starts at the beginning and works around to the end.  (The building is shaped like a squared off U) and as the things we wanted to see were at the end – Olmec/The Gulf Coast and Mayan – we headed there directly and quite literally had the two galleries basically to ourselves for the most part, which was wonderful! 

 

Me at Museum entrance, with fountain!

Fountain!

Beautiful center courtyard pond

First, however, we wanted to get yet another look at the famous Aztec “calendar” or “sun” stone, which is one of the most famous pieces in the museum.  When it was originally discovered, it was proclaimed as a “calendar” – a fact which proved to be incorrect, although most people still consider it as such.  Today, the symbol of that stone is everywhere!  We have it ourselves, on a wooden plaque in our kitchen, beautifully painted and polished, and I look at it all the time!  But it is on everything from tea-towels to tee-shirts and everything in between.  As it turns out, this was NOT a calendar, it was, rather gruesomely, a sacrificial stone, and the site on which a very specific human sacrificial ceremony was conducted – which makes me think – UGH!  And it’s in my KITCHEN???  Will definitely need to rethink that one…

 

Aztec NOT Calendar Stone!

Aztec Codex

However, we had the Aztec Sun Stone to ourselves, which was nice, as it is in the apex of the “U” before we headed back to the Gulf/Olmec area.  And, we’ve collected our first two Olmec HEADS!  I had thought that only one was in the National Museum, but it turns out they have two – numbers 2 and 6 (or 2 and 17, depending on whose list you’re looking at!)  SO fun to start our collection!! 

San Lorenzo Head #2

 The pre-Olmec cultures lived along the Gulf of Mexico coast around 2500 BC and, with the rise of agriculture, the Olmec civilization itself appeared around 1400 BC, lasting until ~400 BC.

 

San Lorenzo Head #6 or 17!

 

Outside of a beautiful Olmec bowl

 Spent quite a bit of time with the Olmec/Toltec artifacts, before moving on to the Mayan. 

 The most interesting artifact here (among a whole host of incredible artifacts!) is the recreation of the tomb of K’inich Janaab’ Pakal 1, the powerful 7^th-century Mayan ruler of Palenque.  While the burial chamber is a full-scale recreation, (and it is absolutely HUGE, especially the stone sarcophagus lid), the jade funerary mask is original, made of jade, shell and obsidian and covered Pakak’s face when his tomb was discovered in 1952.  It is thought that the original tomb, located in Chiapas, Mexico, was actually built around the sarcophagus because of its size, but is no longer open to the public due to problems caused by so many visitors and the heat/humidity in the Chiapas region.

 

Lots of Mayan Stele

Loved all the various glyphs!

  

Jade mask and jewelry

Pakal 1's funerary mask

We did have a sit-down at this point for a cup of coffee (judged to be strong enough! by Robert), and another excellent cup of Mexican hot chocolate for me! 

 From here, we wandered through a few more rooms – Teotihuacan especially, although we’re not planning on returning there this trip … maybe next time?!  But by this time, there were lots of people visiting, and lots of tour groups, so we eventually decided we had seen all we really wanted to see, and decided to head back to the apartment.

 Crossed the road to the Zoo entrance to the Park, and contacted Uber – and in just a minute, our ride appeared!  The problem was that La Reforma had been closed while we were in the museum (no idea why…) and all traffic was being diverted off onto another road!  This caused a massive traffic jam, which David, our wonderful Uber driver, finally managed to get around and back to the Hilton!  Incredible!  Something like 40 minutes to travel 3 miles?!  Wow!

 As I hadn’t slept really well last night, I settled down for a lovely nap, and Robert has continued to read his book on the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone!  So!  Up now, and looking forward to dinner soon at Go Tan, our favorite Argentinian restaurant in Mexico City!  So, more later!

 m

xxx

Just back from Go Tan restaurant, and it was wonderful!  We started with beef empanadas, with chimichurri sauce – excellent – and worked our way through a delicious steak, cooked rare, with a special Argentine potato – with four cheeses and bits of bacon included!  It was interesting trying to figure out the quantity of beef, as they charge by the gram … and I have absolutely NO idea what a gram even is, let alone how much it weighs!  R was able to come up with an appropriate answer, though, and we were both very happy with the result!   Finished every last bite (except for a bit of the lovely marinated tomato, onion and lettuce salad that came with it!). 

 

Interesting presentation for a potato!

Excellent beef empanada with chimichurri sauce!

Potato inside tin foil!

Back to the apartment about 7 and now in for the night!  I’m still trying to catch up on sleep, so will probably post and get off the bed.  The television set here has access to Netflix, Apple TV and Prime, all of which we have, so R will probably browse for a bit … but tomorrow we’re off to Xochimilco and the chinampas* of “original” Mexico City, and need to be on the road by 8 am, so an early day!

 Lots of love,

m

xxx

*The Chinampas of Xochimilco are ancient, highly fertile artificial islands ("floating gardens") in Mexico City, created by the Aztecs for agriculture.