We called Mexico City our bonus trip for the year. Jason was between jobs for a few weeks, so we booked a last-minute trip to take advantage of his time off. We both had vaguely wanted to go, but we didn’t actually know much about the city, so we were excited to experience it.

Mexico City is in a bizarre location. The lore says that when the Aztecs were looking for the right place to build their capital city, a prophecy said that wherever they saw an eagle with a snake in its mouth land on a cactus, they should build there. They ended up seeing the sign on an island in the middle of a swampy high-mountain lake, which was kind of terrible luck, but true to the prophecy, they started building the city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City.

Now home to a staggering 21 million people, the city feels special in both climate and history. It’s at almost 7400 feet elevation, so it takes a lot more effort to move, but unlike the high mountain desert where I grew up, the city is lush and green from the swamp it’s built on and the remarkably consistent climate (there’s a rainy season and a dry season, but the highs top out between 65 and 85 degrees year round). The city is full of beautiful parks with massive trees, and beautiful architecture from many different eras. There are benches everywhere for people to just hang out and enjoy the parks, which is lovely, and they were certainly being used.

When we were wandering around Chapultepec Park, a thunderstorm quickly rolled in, and we took shelter under the covered storage units that the street vendors used for their wares. It rained hard for about 20 minutes, but there was beautiful light peaking through the storm.

We had heard this was the case, but the food in Mexico City is amazing. There’s everything from street food, to traditional Mexican restaurants, to fine dining creative fusion. One of our favorite restaurants we tried was Mexican-Middle Eastern-African fusion.

The city also has amazing museums. We first went to the anthropology museum, which is in a beautiful complex and has a variety of artifacts and information spanning from the beginning of humanity through the development of the area. There were a lot of outdoor exhibits, which I loved, but the highlight was probably the rather graphic and detailed dioramas.

We also visited the Templo Mayor, which was the main temple of the city and had been demolished when the Spanish started tearing everything down and rebuilding. It’s now an excavation site that you can walk through, and there are also indoor exhibits of items that have been found (there were lots of skulls and art pieces).

Chapultepec Castle is on a hill in the massive Chapultepec Park, and the views are wonderful. Built around 1800, the site and the castle had various uses over the years. It’s now a museum where many of the rooms are set up for viewing, and visitors can also ascend the grand staircases to walk in the beautiful gardens and decks on top of the castle.

A very different museum that we visited was the Frida Kahlo house, where the artist lived for much of her life. A fascinating woman with absolutely terrible luck, Frida did amazing work, and the blue house and garden she inherited from her parents is amazing. Definitely look her up and learn more about her life, it’s a wild ride.

We also walked a little around the Coyoacan neighborhood where Frida’s house is. It’s a lovely neighborhood that felt older or more established than where we were staying. There were lots of restaurants, shops, and street vendors.

One of the nights we went to see the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, which is performed at the beautiful Palacio de Bellas Artes. We don’t have photos of the performance, but it ended up quiet different from what we expected. There was dancing. There was singing. There were dueling harps. There were people wearing giant heads. There was a comedic devil dragon. There was a ballet featuring the death throes of a deer. There was dancing with audience members. There were four false endings. It was an experience.

We also visited the artisan market, where we were some of the few tourists visiting on a weekday afternoon. Many of the pieces are made in studios at the market, which was very cool to see.

We always love seeing the animals in cities, and Mexico City was particularly fun because there were tons of dogs, and tons of dog walkers, all over the place. The dog walkers would meet up in the parks, and the dogs they worked with were all very chill and well trained. We often saw them sitting in a semi circle or walking calmly in a row.

We didn’t see any cats at first, but we started seeing more as the trip went on, especially when we visited a community garden and educational center in Roma.

It was a wonderful trip, and we have a lot of great things to say about the city. We’re happy to have a direct flight there and definitely plan to be back.