Mexico City 2024

Another year, another trip to Mexico City – when I say it’s one of my favorite places in the world, I’m not kidding! And, when you love a place, you want to share it with others. The past few years, it’s been friends. This year – family. The whole family!

For reasons that I still don’t fully understand, each year Minnesota K-12 students get three days off in October. Grandma hatched a plan to bring everyone to Mexico City, and we were more than happy to participate. Delta’s nonstop flight makes it easy – we left Wednesday morning, got to CDMX around 1pm, and made it to our Airbnb around 2. Travel days don’t get much smoother. We got a great Airbnb in the Juárez neighborhood, with three floors and plenty of space for everyone to spread out.

With such a short time in the city, I didn’t want to lose any time to indecision, so I made sure we had a dinner plan set for our first night. We took a leisurely stroll from our Airbnb through La Roma to La Condesa. In the weeks leading up to the trip, we’d been talking up the churros and chocolate in Mexico City, so the niece and the nephew had that flagged as a high priority. A little bit of sugar before dinner never hurts, so our first stop was El Moro. Then we strolled through Parque México for some people watching, before hitting Azul Condesa for our dinner. There are a few locations, and they all serve predictably high quality food, so it seemed like a good introduction.

We split up to make our way home, with some folks in an Uber and Kat, Henry, and me walking back. CDMX is my ideal sort of city – tons of energy, mixed architecture, lots of greenery, and just enough grittiness to not feel sterile. Getting a chance to show the kids a living city like that was a real goal for the trip. Henry immediately recognized the similarities to Washington DC – even though they’re separated by hundreds of years, they both draw on European influences in a recognizable way.

Thursday was all about food. I mean, technically every day in CDMX is all about food, but Thursday especially so. I left early in the morning to fetch pastries and fruit from Mercado Medellín. The family had a leisurely start to the day, and at 11 we met Daniel for our food tour with the Taco Mensch. Our friend Avidan is dealing with some health issues at the moment, but his cousin Daniel is a certified Mensch and did an amazing job with a group that included some skeptical eaters. Some of the highlights included tlacoyos outside the mercado and the al pastor tacos at El Tizoncito. The latter were probably the biggest revelation for the kids in terms of just how good a taco can be.

After the tour, we walked back to the Airbnb with a stop at Mini So, an emporium of Cute Japanese Stuff. Eleanor was in heaven, and made it clear that we’d be returning.

Thursday night, went to the Zocalo so everyone could get a sense of the older part of the city. We scored a great table at Terraza Catedral, and ordered some light food and drinks. Afterwards, we wandered the Aztec ruins and split up to head home. Kat and I walked back and enjoyed all the nighttime energy of CDMX – roller skaters, musicians, dancers, and lots and lots of food.

Friday morning we had a first breakfast of fruit and pastries, followed by a lovely brunch at Ojo de Agua. Then we made our way to bosque chapultepec for a tour of the Anthropological Museum. Our first tour guide had to cancel due to a rescheduled appointment to get his American visa, but we lucked out with a last minute booking through Airbnb Experiences and met Javier Ro for a tour. The last time Kat and I went to the museum, we were by ourselves and it was pretty overwhelming. Javier guided us on a narrative tour from the Olmecs through the Mayans and the Aztecs, with a focus on prepping the kids for a visit to Teotihuacan.

After all that learning, the kids needed a break, so they went back to the Airbnb. Kat and I had a chance to meet up with Avidan and his lovely wife (newly married!) Angie. It was so great to give him a hug, and he felt up for a taco outing – he had a new place he wanted to show us. Even though we had dinner plans, we weren’t going to say no. We had some killer tacos and flautas at Maizajo. We rushed home and made it back in time to head out for our dinner reservation at Fónico – in part a celebration of Kate’s birthday. I came across Fónico while looking for somewhere that could take 7 on a friday night and which would have some good vegetarian options. The real highlights of the menu were the appetizers – we loaded up on at least one of everything. Among the many options were some mini quesadillas which won “absolutely the best” merits from Eleanor. The only disappointment was that we were too full to order the full dessert menu.

Saturday was our chance to head to Teotihuacan. Although there are a hundred other sights worth seeing in Mexico City, I wasn’t sure I could convince the kids to do another extensive museum visit. Visiting the pyramids seemed more likely to make some lasting memories. We negotiated a slightly later start with our guide Fermin, so folks could have a bit of time to get moving. We set out just before 9, and made good time to the site. Fermin has a PhD archaeology, with a deep knowledge of the actual science of the ruins – he wasn’t interested in telling ghost stories or making up “unsolved mysteries.” Instead, he helped us understand why the site is so important, and just how much is unknown about the story of the people who built it. After visiting the main pyramid site, he took us to a “neighborhood” – the site of Teotihuacan itself is huge, and tourists generally only see the “avenue of the dead”. The small neighborhood site we visited, which would have been inhabited by a few hundred people, was totally empty. It’s so magical to have an archaeological site all to yourself. The site had some amazing intact paintings, showing how folks from all over Mexico migrated to Teotihuacan.

Despite our efforts to argue for quality over kitsch, the kids won out and we had lunch at La Gruta, the cave restaurant. What I can say is that the food was definitely food, Henry ate crickets, and the kids can say they had lunch in a cave.

Our trip back to the city took nearly two hours because of traffic jams caused by the annual Zombie March in Mexico City. In an effort to detour around it, we ended up driving through a street market selling punk gear. Apparently it’s a weekly occurrence, though like any good punk, Fermin explained that it used to be better.

We got back to the Airbnb and immediately set out for some shopping endeavors. First, we had to get some flower ice cream from Amorino (a French chain selling Italian gelato in Mexico). Then we split up – Kat took the girls to an artisanal craft market, and I took Henry to look for a skateboard. He’d had his mind set on getting a skateboard deck in Mexico City, and we’d researched a couple shops. The first shop explained that they didn’t really have Mexican decks, because they tend not to be great quality. But, they pointed us to another store with some unique boards. They also told Henry about all the skate parks he needs to visit in the future.

The second shop, Destructible, had the absolute perfect item – a custom board, designed by a Mexican artist for Destructible. The artist normally does designs for Santa Cruz, a major skateboard brand. Finding a unique item with such great Mexican imagery was a total score. With the skateboard in hand, we did a big loop back to the Airbnb, with a few stops so I could pick up candy for the office. It was great to spend time with Henry and hear his reactions to the city.

For our last dinner, we rolled the dice and went to Traspatio. Finding seating for seven on a Saturday night in a hipster neighborhood seemed risky, but luck was on our side and we scored a table right away. We all got a chance to reflect on a couple days together, while enjoying the surroundings.

Sunday morning, we did some quick excursions for food, packed things up, then herded the cats to the airport. Safely on the plane home, I’m happy to say that the trip went off without a hitch. Nobody got sick, nobody had a bad mood, and I hope everyone left with a little more appreciation for our neighbor to the south.