Dear friends and family!
Our time in Mexico City has been going great and we have been VERY busy. It’s hard to think the time is flying by so fast as tomorrow is already our last day here and then we will be heading back to the States on Thursday. Here’s kind of a sneak peak at what we’ve been up to the last couple of days.
Sunday: We left at about 9am with a group of people to head out on a day long tour to visit a collage of different locations. Our first stop was the “Plaza of Three Cultures”. Here is represented the three cultures as you are able to see one of the pyramids built by the Aztecs, a Catholic Church in the background that they Spanish built by destroying the pyramid and using it’s rocks to build the church, and then the residential apartments that surround both structures that were built in the 1960’s. Heading out from there we went to visit the Church of the Lady of Guadelupe, the second most visited church in the world, following the Vatican. It was quite an impressive structure, built where an Indian claimed to have visions of Mother Mary. While great and enormous, it was a little hard to see the amount of sales that were going on in and around the church while there were so many people that were in need support right outside the main building.
In the afternoon we went to visit the Pyramids that are near Mexico City, which existed from the people group living there from 200 BC to 700 AD. We are both constantly amazed at how much work is still to be done on various excavation sites that we visit as this one was only 20% excavated and what was there was quite impressive. We were able to see both the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, and then many different smaller pyramids surrounding this illustrious Indian Empire as the Indian culture was polytheistic. One interesting fact that we were also able to take in about this culture was that even though they lived in an earlier time, they were already at the point of discovering concrete. Most of their buildings were made with this substance they called “Stucco” and were quite impressive architecturally all around. These Indians, along with the Aztecs that came later after them, were one of the only Indian groups to practice human sacrifice as well.
Monday: We spent the day walking mostly around the historic center of the city and doing some exploring and running some errands. There were a couple of things that we were looking for, so we decided to just walk around the city as much as possible looking for them and exploring in the meanwhile. We were also able to take an amazing tour to the top of the main Cathedral off of the historical center and climb up to the bell towers (35 bells total, most weighing 6-7 tons). We were able to walk up on top of the domes and on the rooftops/balconies of the Cathedral and the whole experience was really quite remarkable and impressive. The city also has a large Christmas Wonderland that is in the center of the historic center plaza that we were able to go to and enjoy (snowmobiling & tubing on artificial snow, ice skating, ice sculptures, etc. are all present at the downtown center). The previous evening, there had even been a large firework show to kick it off as the first night of the Christmas Wonderland, so that has brought a sense of readiness for Christmas into our minds as well!
Tuesday: We left in the morning on a city bus tour that would take us around the major part of Mexico City. The city bus tour was cheap and affordable, allowed us to get off and on at any of the main locations that we wanted to without paying extra, and granted us the privilege to see much of the largest city in the world (30 million people). Passing by quite a few parks, museums, monuments, and getting to stop at an enormous free zoo were all highlights (the zoo had everything from lions, tigers, rhinos, pandas, jaguars, etc.) Getting back to our hostel we went out for a walk on the town and got to see a different side of town then we had been to before with Mexican serenades and some good authentic Mexican food (Jon got and taco and Nathan got Mexican corn on a stick)
All in all, the past couple of days have been fantastic and we are looking forward to our final day tomorrow and also being reunited once again with all of you! Blessings in Jesus!
Nathan & Jon
