Salsa, Audiorama & Museo de Historia

Squirrel in the park

Tomorrow I am leaving Mexico City for Puerto Escondido (a 12 hour bus ride away) where I will spend a few weeks taking Spanish lessons, cooking lessons and doing some diving.  Can't wait, Puerto Escondido is a small town on the coast and looks lovely.

So over the last couple of days I've been seeing the sights of Mexico City.  I went to a Salsa bar, visited the big park Bosque de Chapultepec, had a canal boat ride at the Embarcaderos, visited a few museums  and chilled out in the Audiorama.

I went to the Salsa bar with a few people from the hostel, Nathaniel, Sophia from Canada, Chris from Germany and Antonio along with a couple of his local Mexican friends.  It was good fun, the band was great and we all danced, but gee I suck.  I think I whacked Antonio in the face at least three times when he was trying to swing me around.  His friend Alessandro was nice though, took it easy on me and acted very impressed when I didn't screw up the simplest moves.  Anyway it was a good night, but I don't think I'll be getting right into the salsa thing any time soon.

Yesterday and today I went to the Bosque de Chapultepec, it is a big park walking distance from the hostel.  In the park are lots of markets, museums, statues, couples who really should just get a room and squirrels.  Today I went there for the museums and lucky me, Sunday is free day at all the museums, so I went to 3 and saved myself a whole $15.  The Museo de Nacional Historia was the best. The Galleria de Historia was too much reading and I can't read Spanish yet, and the Museo de Arte Moderno was just a bit crap, a lot of the old WTF? art.

The Museo de Nacional Historia is in an old castle/fortress.  It's a fantastic building and a lot of the displays are rooms refurbished to look as they would have back in the day, along with all the original furniture and stuff.  There were also some great city views (except for the pollution limiting the visibility) and really spectacular gardens.

However, the museum everyone is talking up is the Museo de Antropologia, so I will go there tomorrow before I leave.

So the one other great thing I found in the park is the Audiorama, I found it yesterday and went back today.  It's kind of hidden away behind this big statue thing, but you go in and it's a little closed off garden.  There are speakers playing cruisy music and all the park benches are reclining.  And there is a table of books, so people come in and just chill out or read a book.  I think it must be the only place in Mexico City where you can't constantly hear the traffic.



Me in the park

Audiorama

Museo de Historia