We arrived in Mexico City, D.F at 11 am...We flew Mexicana de Aviacion, which turned out to be a nice airline, with its service and punctuality. We found a hotel at one of the airport booths, took a prepaid taxi to the downtown and started our adventure in Mexico City. We paid 165 Pesos for the taxi, which seemed a lot cheaper than other countries to us. The hotel was a little gloomy, dark and cold, but we decided to spend just the night there and find another hotel for the following days. Our hotel was conveniently located close to Zocalo which is the main square of Mexico City and there were lots of five star hotels around our hotel. After relaxing a little bit, we took a walk outside and the first impression we got was how green and neat the city was...The American restaurant chains, Starbucks, fast food places and the 
Mexican Spanish looked very American to me, which gave me some feeling of convenience after all...We walked on the main street to Zocalo, saw the impressive Fine Arts Palace, Post Office, Casa de Azulejos (The Tiled Pavillion), the Cathedral and huge Zocalo Square. I had imagined Zocalo like Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain somehow, but Zocalo is huge and there is traffic around its edges. There are government buildings and shops surrounding the square and is a little park in the middle of it, as well as a temporary Nomad Exhibition. The weather was not hot, it was pretty nice, like 20-22 C but I had worn my shorts. I drew attention to the fact that the Mexican men were looking at my legs and throwing me "piropos", like sweet, unharmful words...
This was never happened in other parts of our trip, so I thought Mexico was one of the most conservative, almost the most conservative country among the others...The people's appearance was very much like Turkish people, with a little barriga(balcony, belly), bigote(moustache), rather dark skin complexion and medium built body size...I hardly saw any ladies wearing mini skirts, as opposed to Brasil or Argentina...However, it felt like home after all...After getting a little orientation,we decided to eat inside the Tiled Pavillion and enjoyed the setting of the restaurant Sanbourne, which is a chain of restaurants. I had some fajitas which were very delicious.
I paid about 100 pesos for a huge plate and coke,which seemed to be a more reasonable country than Brasil or Chile. Later we walked around the area, saw the Templo Mayor, which was an Aztec Sanctuary. The cafes and shops looked very cozy, the streets looked very clean and neat...I think for a huge metropolis like Mexico City D.F (distrito federal, pop.25 million greater Mexico City), the maintenance was noteworthy. I had always imagined Mexico City to be dirty, chaotic, messy and grey, though it was not what I encountered! After the first walk around the city, we walked back from the street leading to our hotel, had a delicious Starbucks Caramelatte and headed back home. 
In the evening, I went out to look for an internet cafe and saw the real Mexican people selling street food for 15 pesos, which were all to die for!!! Fajitas, burritos, delicious....Hmmm...After receiving a few more "piropos"(see above), decided to find an internet cafe. At 7 pm, the sun was down already, most of the places were shut and even the prostitutes were hanging around the streets. I asked one lady standing on the corner about the internet cafe and thanks to her, I found it. (it was impossible to find the place without a good direction). They usually charge 1 USD(10 pesos) for an hour and the connection speed is pleasant. The TV in the room was funny, it did not have buttons and we could only get 5 channels, which were all Mexican Soap Channels.(telenovelas). 
We decided to crash as we were very tired after our long flight from Rio...We had found another hotel (Hotel Lafayette) for the other nights and were going to move there the next day...The next day, we dropped our stuff at the new hotel and bought a city tour of Mexico City with Turibus Company at a cost of 100 pesos(10 USD). They have a double decker bus and multi language guided headphone tour. We saw almost all the parts of Mexico City,the area where only the international businesses
are, the art nouveau district, where the ritzy live, the residential parts, the area where the embassies are located...All in one was a very good idea...After the tour finished, we could continue with the same bus towards the south, which is outside the city to see the rest of this metropolis. We had an hour, so we had a delicious street fajita for 20 pesos with the drink and had a gelato as the topping. I also had some sushi! The bus came and we saw the rest of the city, in 3 hours. In the evening, we enjoyed the cable TV and more central location...The following day, we decided to go to Teotihuacan but while we were enjoying our delicious breakfast at
Vips, which is another restaurant chain, we missed the bus! The idea was to go and visit Xochimilco, which is famous for its colorful tiny boats and slow pace boat rides with the mariachis. Most of the tour groups have their lunches on the boat, but we took a 40 min tour, just to have an idea. To get to Xochimilco, we took the metro until the last station and took the light metro (tren ligero) to get to Embarcadero, which is the last station to get to Xochimilco. 
We haggled the price and have a quiet ride, until the mariachis insisted on playing our favorite songs. We gave them 2o pesos and had pictures instead!!! To me, they looked like Romans, the musician gypsies in Turkey. It was quite enjoyable. The rest of the day, we went to Frida Kahlo's museum and walked around the more artistic districts. 
Nearby the museum of Frida, we saw a mall to have a nice late lunch and had spicy fajitas to die for!!! The food is sooo good here! After having some coffee and looking around, we went to TAPO, which is the huge bus terminal of Mexico City to purchase our ticket to San Cristobal de Las Casas. We paid 800 pesos (80 USD!!!) for a silly bus, as this is the general price level for bus travels in Mexico. Later, we spent the night quietly, watching TV.Next day was Teotihuacan. We bought a trip from Turibus to Teotihuacan for 450 pesos(45 USD) for a full day tour. Our guide was a Mayan descendant young girl. She first took us to the Sanctuary of Mary of Guadalupe, which is a very important shrine for the Mexicans and all the Christians. Later we arrived in Teotihuacan. It is a 1 hour 30 minute-drive from Mexico City. The most impressive building of the site was the huge Temple of Sun, with its 70 m.(210 ft) height. There is also a Temple of Moon, several masks that one can see, the areas where they sacrificed people and animals, the towers where they observed the planets...The site was small, but our guide said the population was about 200,000 people!
It was an insane number for such a small area. The temple was constructed by Pre Aztec people, but nothing is known how and when it was constructed. The architecture was impressive and the size was spectacular. Later, we had a regular buffet lunch and came back to the city at about 4:30 pm. Our bus was at 8:30 pm, so after spending some time around, we took the bus. The bus was not very comfortable, was definitely not like the other buses we took but we arrived in the destination. The city we arrived was the base of the Zapatistas! Next chapter> San Cristobal de las Casas
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