With a pretty bleak winter in Utah, I was excited to travel south to Mexico for some sightseeing, cultural immersion and climbing. I was going to be away on my birthday and two early birthday greetings stood out:

The flight was direct and faster that I expected. I had planned the trip to arrive a day early to make sure my baggage and climbing equipment made it. The elevation in Mexico City is a bit higher than where we live so another day of acclimatizing would hopefully help mitigate any potential altitude issues.

A couple of the other team members arrived early, as well and we walked down the street to dinner together. The next day, we had until 5:00pm for our gear check, so lots of time to explore the city. Jason had arrived a couple days early and ended up being a great tour guide as he had already found a lot of interesting places to explore plus he had a good handle on Spanish, so Jim and I just tagged along, and used his train ticket!

We spent pretty much the entire day in Chapultepec Park. The name Chapultepec means Hill of the Grasshopper (“chapul” – grasshopper, and “tepec” – hill).To get there we took a couple train rides to find the grasshopper icon station.

The park was huge – in fact I just looked it up and it is twice the size of Central Park. (I had to come home and read about the different things we saw.) Cut and pasted from the park website:

“This was the site of one of the nation’s most bitter experiences during the Mexican-American War. The Battle of Chapultepec took place here on September 13, 1847. At the time, the castle functioned as a military school and six young cadets lost their lives in the battle. The cadets, between the ages of 13 and 19, are remembered by Mexicans as Los Niños Heroes (the Boy Heroes). The monument pictured here is in their honor. It has six marble pillars, one for each of the heroic cadets, and in the center a pedestal with a mother embracing one of the fallen.”

Walking further we went up the hill to the Chapultepec Castle, which was pretty overwhelming. Here is a painting in one of its galleries that depicted the battle.

On the way back to the hotel, we opted not to try one of the food offerings at the stands in the park, but found a great little cafe that was packed, which we took to mean that the food was good! Then it was time for the gear check, meeting the rest of the team and our first group dinner (and first of many chicken poblano mole dishes.)