Mexico City - Day Two

On Sundays until 14:00, one of Mexico City's main streets, Paseo de La Reforma is closed for vehicular traffic and the roadway is taken over by bike riders, joggers and all forms of human-powered transport. It's a very wide thoroughfare with a barrier down the middle and bikers and rollerbladers fill the lanes. Where the road meets other major intersections leading to significant public sites and squares, the roads are also closed to traffic and the whole thing is managed by legions of police and volunteers who keep the cyclists safely in their lanes when cross roads are reached so that crossing automobile traffic can get through while the bikes are kept safe. A wonderful system and the Four Seasons provided V and I with bikes, helmets and bottled water so that we could join the parade. V had excused herself from the meetings for an hour so that she could join me and we rode, much more sedately than many, for a couple of kilometres before she had to return. I pressed on for about another hour before turning back to the hotel. A fabulous way to see the city, infinitely better than by car and to an extent that just would not be possible as a walker. Day clear, bright and cool, a great day for riding. V's group organized a bus to take everyone on a guided tour of the city in the evening and then on to Villa Maria Restaurant. We left the hotel about 17:30 in a couple of jitneys that were to take us to the tour bus. The traffic was unimaginable, chaotic, insane! It took us about 45 minutes to travel about 1.5k's, all the while the driver fighting for every inch of space, not easily conceded by the other equally determined and aggressive drivers; pandemonium. But once aboard our bus and moving away from the area of congestion, we had a pleasant and enjoyable tour of the city from the upper deck of the open air bus. So between the bike tour and the bus tour have seen and gotten a much better sense of the city than on any of the previous visits.

Restaurant was a madhouse, our group was given an upstairs semi-private dining room complete with mariachi band that gave us its full attention the entire evening. Trumpets blaring a metere away from one's ears for 2 hours makes for a long, long evening but the margarita's came in washtubs and the wine flowed endlessly so within a short time, none of it mattered. Great fun but no doubt the dawn will rise with pain and repentance a wide-spread commodity.