Templo Mayor

At this point, we were still staying at the hotel. During the day, Justin would go off to an archive and do research all day which left Olivia and I by ourselves. Being in a small hotel room with a three year old all day is not fun. There was cable TV, so I ended up watching a lot of cartoons in spanish and found a couple of movie channels that were in english w/ spanish subtitles. One can only tolerate that for so long. So, since we were pretty close to the Zocalo area we went on a jaunt to the Templo Mayor.  It was nice to get out and go on an adventure.

First, we went to this church in the Plaza de Santa Domingo. This was Olivia's idea. It was a smaller church and a good idea.

Next, we tried going to the Secretaria de Educacion Publica but when I saw an entrance and tried to go inside a man stopped me and started saying something in spanish. I didn't know what he was saying. Either he was telling me that I had to go in at another location or that something was going on and it was closed to the public. I will never know but decided to not try to find another entrance and just go another day. At this point, I'm having to carry Olivia. She isn't a huge fan of walking. The reason why I wanted to go to the Secretaria place was because they have some amazing murals inside by Rivera and one by Siqueiros. I have this guidebook that helps me plan out what places to go to and this was in there. I will go there before I leave.

Onward to the Templo Mayor. It took me a little while to figure out where the entrance was but I found it. It was $51 pesos to get in and Olivia was free. A very cool place indeed and not bad for taking a child. We strolled through the outside part first.

Writhing Serpent

Some cacti

View of the Catedral Metropolitana

Close up of some tile

A snake head

A drainage channel

Another view of Catedral Metropolitana

People working on the Wall of Skulls

Olivia

A Polaroid of Templo Mayor

Inside of the museum:

A replica of the Wall of Skulls

Some other cool stuff in the museum:

Olivia actually behaved pretty well here even in the museum. She didn't have one meltdown yea! Afterwards, we met Ariana at a Starbucks nearby and I had a Coffee Frappuccino and it was amazingly delicious. I got Olivia a blueberry muffin. We were all happy.

Next blog: UNAM