Day 2 On the road to Mexico City
We had breakfast in the hotel dining room, scrambled eggs, refried beans and toast. We boarded the bus and very soon were in Queretaro (pronounced Care-ét-ah-roh) . It was founded in 1531 and is growing rapidly. Enrique shared with us that many corporations are moving out of the highly populated cities, like Mexico City, To smaller cities and Queretaro is one of those cities. As we drive down the streets we see many, many USA corporation businesses here. It seems like some shopping centers were mostly companies popular in the USA. We first went to eat at a franchise restaurant called Wings…sort of like Denny’s. We are still into Mexican food so we had a Stuffed Pablamo Pepper with rice and beans. After lunch we drove over to Convent of the Cross and on the way were introduced to the Aqueduct. It was built by Juan Antonio de Urrutia y Arana to take water to the Convent of the Holy Cross from some springs east of the city, and funded completely with his personal fortune. It is composed of 74 arches of quarry that reach a maximum height of 75 feet and a length of 4,200 feet where the duct continues through a mountain. The Convent of the Holy Cross is the result of a desire in the 16th century to evangelize the indigenous Indians. There is a tree in the garden with cross-shaped thorns. It is said this is the only known place where this tree with this cross-shape thorn exists. They believe it to be The Holy Cross. The convent has continuously maintained its original architectural structure, a very beautiful ancient building.
As we get close to Mexico City we can see how the city is growing right up the mountainside and even on over the top in some places. The skyline is quite beautiful to see. Mexico City is located in the Valley of Mexico, a large valley in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico and at an altitude 7,349 feet. It was originally built by the Aztecs in 1325 on the island of Lake Texcoco. It was founded as Mexico-Tenochtitlan by the Nahua Aztec or Mexican tribe. It rapidly became the capital of a sophisticated growing empire. Dams built by the Aztecs kept the city surrounded by clear water from the rivers that fed the lake. These dams eventually caused the lake to dry up and the city has now spread out covering the entire area and even up the mountain sides all around this bowl shaped landscape. In the picture below you can see canals running through the city. These were to bring in fresh water. Those same canals are now some of the main streets in the city. There are 20 million people living in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. It is 48 miles across with the original downtown directly in the center. It has a very efficient bus/subway with approx. 3.6 million people using it daily. We found a website with pictures of Mexico City that tells a story like no other. We encourage you to go to: http://homepage.mac.com/helipilot/PhotoAlbum31.html Housing for many of the poor people is very meager. Some areas of the city have very limited or no electricity and water. Old apartment buildings are in danger of falling in during the imminent rainy season while other parts of the city are very modern, exquisite and expensive. One area of the city is building new low income apartments with all being exactly alike, 10,000 of them. It is a strange site. It is still growing at an alarming rate and in some areas a wall is built on the mountainside to keep people from building any higher up the mountain.
