Alongside our two days spent exploring Mexico City, we also spent a day venturing to Teotihuacan about an hour outside of the city, as well as hitting the town on a Late Night Tacos and Mezcal Tour with Eat Mexico (our second tour with them, read about the first, our Street Food tour here).
Teotihuacan
Whilst not exactly in Mexico City itself, Teotihuacan is one of the most famous and well visited ruins in Mexico. Its name translates as the “City of the Gods” and was given this accolade by the Aztecs when they (re)discovered the ruined city and, due to the scale and majesty of the temples, believed it must have been created by the gods and not mere mortal man.
To get there, we caught the subway from our Airbnb apartment to the North Bus Station where we then caught a local bus out to Teotihuacan – from beginning to end the trip took us about an hour and a half. By leaving the apartment at about 7:15am in the morning, we arrived just before 9am, beating all of the tourist buses – a great thing as we managed to snag an English speaking guide to show us around the site.
First glimpse of the impressive Moon Temple from
halfway up the Avenue of the Dead
Teotihuacan is made up of three main, imposing and yet readily accessible temples – the Sun Temple, the Moon Temple and the Quetzalcoatl religious temple (which I didn’t get any photos of – whoops!).
Taking in the majestic Sun Temple before we climb!
What makes Teotihuacan particularly fascinating is that construction begun between the 1st and the 7th centuries A.D. and the settlement subsequently developed into one of the largest ancient cities in the Americas, with at least 25,000 inhabitants, spanning over 32 square kilometres – quite a feat back in those ancient times.
Us just before climbing to the top of the world’s 3rd largest pyramid – Teotihuacan’s Sun Pyramid… look at all those people
(and this was before it got busy!!)
The nature of the site, laid out down a central boulevard, or avenue, and juxtaposed on north to south, and east to west axis’ perfectly, reiterates the engineering and mathematical learnings these people had – and how it played perfectly into their religious beliefs and customs in honouring the sun and moon gods.
Its actually really hard to do these imposing structures the justice they deserve – the sheer scale of them is difficult to imagine, and it is not until you are standing directly in front of it, and you realise these were created by man, and created before wheels were invented, that you recognise the incredible feat building these was.
Views of the Moon Temple and Avenue of the Dead
from the top of the Sun Pyramid
The Sun Temple itself in all its glory
Striking a pose in front of the Sun Temple after climbing to the top –
a bit sweaty now!
You can see the various hawkers and crowds along the Avenue of the Dead – this was still early in the day as well before it got really packed. Luckily for us, we were out of there before 1pm, which is apparently when the crowds come in throngs!
Approaching the Moon Temple from the Avenue of the Dead
Probably my favourite view are the two photos below, taken from the Moon Temple looking back at the Sun temple and down the Avenue, with all the other homes and structures on display but that are still not completely excavated lining the Avenue.
View from the Moon Temple towards the Sun Temple
These people didn’t just use the Temples, they lived and worked here. You can imagine them bustling about in their daily lives, offering human sacrifices to the gods and going about their business. Nobody actually knows what made the original inhabitants leave this well-planned city after only 700 years – they only know it probably involved local conflict as a lo of the buildings were discovered with fire damage.
View of Avenue of the Dead and
Sun Temple (far left) from the Moon Temple
Dave halfway up the Moon Temple (we couldn’t get any higher)
Would you believe that they estimate they have only uncovered about two square kilometres of the 32 kilometres of these ruins – this blows my mind! Seeing these pretty well excavated ruins was our first glimpse into the ancient ruins of Mexico, and these certainly set the standard high.
Both Dave and I commented though that it is a bit of a concrete jungle, and as a result, quite dusty. Still, this doesn’t take away from the majesty of the temples, it just makes us even more excited to compare these to the jungle ruins of Palenque or the beachside ruins of Tulum – still all to come on our trip!
Now, on to other important matters… tacos!
Late Night Tacos and Mezcal Tour
We were also keen to see some of Mexico City’s nightlife, but did not feel entirely comfortable wandering around on our own without knowing the neighbourhoods a bit better, so we booked another food tour, this one focusing on mezcal (basically Mexico’s alcoholic drink of choice, and a highly regarded one at that) and tacos.
Our lovely guide Anais from Eat Mexico collected us in a private car and we set off on our adventure to try as many tacos as Mexico City had to offer! Before tacos however, comes, street corn!
Streetcorn is one of my go-to dishes whenever dining at Mexican fusion restaurants in Perth and I was looking forward to trying the real thing. Served two main ways – one on the cob, smothered in a smoky mayonnaise, chill powder and crumbly cheese; and the other with the corn kernels shaved off the cob and served with lime juice and the same mayo (yes, the addition of lime is weird, but surprisingly it works!)
Here’s us with our corn cobs …and yes, we both did end up with mayo all over our faces!
Corn Cobs!
After the corn (which I half feel was to fill us up before we got to the main event of tacos, but lets not think like that!), we spent about an hour a half in a funky little mezcal bar where we sampled five different mezcals – each straight up with no mix… just like the locals do it! And these were STRONG – I am talking between 48 and 52 percent alcohol. No wonder the traditional way to drink mescal is to sip it, not to shoot it…. I felt more than a little tipsy after the five shots sipped and was grateful that we would be hitting the food not too long afterwards!
Oh and for those of you that follow me on instagram, this bar is where we also snacked on fried grasshoppers, flavoured with chill and lime. I must admit, I struggled a little with picking up the crispy little guys and putting them in my mouth, but the taste itself was actually quite enjoyable – not sure I would hurry to repeat it though!
So here we go – on to the tacos…
Spicy beef taco with an even spicier salsa on it – my mouth was burning for awhile after this baby!
Steak tacos with guacamole and (of course!) melted cheese
were next up on the menu. 
Probably my favourite taco, this next one had a juicy pork filling shaved off a meat skewer and then topped with similarly juicy pineapple – this one was a taste bomb of deliciousness!
Pork and pineapple
Below is a photo where we got the pork and pineapple tacos from – look familiar? Yep, totally reminded me of a kebab shop too! Funny enough, and part of me hates writing this, but I think the taco is to the Mexicans what the late night kebab is to us Aussies… a greasy food to counter the hangover you will have after a night on the booze, in our case – mezcal!
The next one is the last one I could fit in my belly … it was a beautiful tender flank and chorizo filling and was actually very tasty too, as was the poached spring onion they kindly served me up as well. This was juicy and full of garlicky flavour – yum, will have to try and recreate this at home, maybe with leeks as our spring onions aren’t that big!
Last stop – Dave was the only one to eat here (and I think he did it purely on principle!) – this was a super popular with the young crowd joint and had music cranking.
And that was it, after this last stop, and feeling very sleepy and VERY full, we were delivered safely to our door by our private driver just before midnight! Loving the local food, but a lot of the cheesiness is still a little too much for me, although I could dream about that pork and pineapple taco for days to come! We had a great time and loved seeing the mexican city nightlife!