What Old Jerusalem Feels Like

Old Jerusalem is an ancient, fragrant, complex, dusty, emotionally-, politically-, and religiously-charged space, and the best way I can describe it is to say: It feels heavy. As you walk through it and hear the call to prayer or the church bells or guttural Hebrew, it’s almost like 2,000 years of weighty history coming crashing in all at once.

We loved it. But it was difficult. And without our friend Ronen there to decode the goings on, we might have been pretty lost. We didn’t blog then but I’ll attempt to capture some of the things we learned in the following pictures and captions the best I can.

This is kind of what an Old Jerusalem Bazaar feels like.

 

And this is what it sometimes sounds like:

 

Another amazing thing about Old Jerusalem is that people actually live here, crammed in between these overwhelmingly significant structures, going about their daily business, and kids here have their scuffles here just like anywhere else in the world. In this photo, two boys are picking up pottery shards from pots they had smashed with the intention of chucking them at another group of children. The other group of children was retaliating with broken bits of tile. Mothers came out and scolded, as mothers do, and eventually the police stopped by to break it up. This event was significant enough for us that we scooped up a bit of tile as a keepsake and still have a piece of it glued on a magnet on our fridge.

 

Two boys gathering pottery shard ammunition. 

 

Very old stone buildings were retrofitted with electricity, modern kitchens, and, of course, Coca Cola machines.

 

Old nails in old doors.

 

One of my favorite places in Jerusalem today was this unmarked, forgotten arch in the Jewish quarter.

 

 

Templo Mayor

In the heart of Historic Mexico City, on Zocalo Square and partially buried under the Cathedral of Mexico City, is an ancient Aztec temple, archaeological site, and museum. The temple was active from 1325 until the Spanish destroyed it in 1521 to make room for the Cathedral. Fortunately, much of the site still remains.

The tradition of this temple is deep with human sacrifice and consecration with human blood. If you don’t want to read about that, you should stop reading now and visit our Teotihuacan post instead.

 

The temple doesn’t look like much from the outside, but you can see the prior floors and walls as it was built and rebuilt over the years.

 

This is a depiction of the diety Tlaloc, the wrathful god of rain, lightning and thunder. When pleased, he watered the crops. When displeased, he caused deep droughts. The Aztecs believed that he could be appeased with sacrifices of food, blood, or human lives.

 

This is one (unpleasant) Aztec way of sacrificing a human. The sacrifice would be ritually decapitated as part of the ceremony.

 

Another way to sacrifice humans is with special sacrificial blades. These were left in the skull as decoration after the deed was done.

 

These are the skulls of 3 male infants which sacrificed to Tlaloc.
This monolith of the goddess Tlaltecuhtli was excavated in 2006 and was stunning to vidwd from above. She is adorned with human skulls and crossbones and has a fountain of blood coming out of her mouth. Sounds like a nice lady.

 

Ceramic Seals, used to decorate cloth and pots. (I needed to give you a break from the gory stuff, right?)

 

This is a mask made out of a human skull, complete with dental modifications and creepy rock eyeball.

 

Finally, this sculpture of a golden eagle was meant to receive offerings at the temple in the cavity on its back. The bird measured several feet in length and was a beautiful and impressive sculpture. I hope it helps to wash your mind out after all the creepy things in this article because, frankly, it’s beautiful.

 

 

 

Mexico City Walking Tour

Our Airbnb host helped us plan an amazing walking tour of the heart of Mexico City. What follows are a few of our favorite stops on that tour.

 

This was described by our host as the most beautiful candy store in the world. Inside was a bakery where we bought some excellent breakfast pastries to fuel our day.

 

Nothing beats Latin American pastries. (But I’ll reconfirm after our trip to France).

 

Chapel in the Cathedral of Mexico City.

 

 

The beautiful blue organ at the Mexico City Cathedral.

 

Columns and domes inside the Mexico City Cathedral. The cathedral sits on top of a Mayan Temple.

 

Traditional Mayan dancer on Zocalo Square.

 

People were lined up to receive a blessing and smudging.

 

A Mayan Shaman prepares the ritual blessing.

 

This beautiful mural depicts a large swath of Mexican history simultaneously occurring in an adjacent park.

 

Mayan culture is obsessed with mouths and teeth and devouring and human-animal-god transformations. This sculpture on the side of the Palace of Fine Arts is just one example of that.

 

Impressive sculptures outside the Palace of Fine Arts.

Teotihuacan

Little is known about the people who built this amazing pre-historic city, just outside of the Mexico City metro. It is easily accessible via public transit and allows you to get up close and personal with beautiful ruins. Josh thinks visiting Teotihuacan was cooler than visiting the Pyramids of Giza. I’m on the fence.

One particularly neat thing about the site is that you are allowed to actually climb the two large pyramids at either end of the Avenue of the Dead.

The steps to climb the Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacán were sometimes 2 feet tall, which was particularly difficult for my post-op knee. After already having climbed the Pyramid of the Sun (pictured in the background) and walked 7 miles that day, I wasn’t sure I would make it. But sometimes just a little bit of self-doubt makes an achievement so much more satisfying, and I felt deeply grateful to reach the top step and get this photo.

 


It turned out that this platform provides the very best view of the archaeological site. It was well worth the effort.

 

These were just some of the rather large stairs we climbed.

 

Pyramid of the Sun, which we climbed early in the day. The view from the top produced the following two photos.

 

Dense living quarters, as viewed from the top of the Pyramid of The Sun.

 

Nicole looking out over the Pyramid of the Moon.

 

Perhaps the best view we got of the Pyramid of the Sun was from outside the city, from the surrounding golden fields. This place was special to us because there was nobody around and it was easy to imagine how this place would have looked to a traveler approaching on foot 2,000 years ago.

 

Our last stop was at the Courtyard of the Palacio de Quetzalpapálotl. This is original paint, sculpture, and floors from a 2,000 year old palace. Truly impressive.

 

Fantastic Food. (#priorities).

Mexico City food was amazing and some of our more expensive, 3-course meals cost around $12. We would go back just for the food alone.

First, we had a variety of tamales that really opened our eyes to what a tamale could be. They included blackberry, pineapple, chorizo, and something like a leek that I can’t remember the name of. Ever since then, we’ve been on the hunt for tamales anywhere we go.

 

2 Tamales (so good we ordered seconds) + horchata + minty mezcal

 

Mole + Chilaquiles

 

Second, we had our favorite tacos of all time. (And we eat a lot of tacos).

Okay, I know these are on Styrofoam and poorly photographed in the dark. But these are the best tacos I’ve ever had.

 

This guy was sharpening the giant knives used at our favorite taco shop. Dinner and a show!

 

And just for fun, here is the tortilla machine at the place with the tacos above. Nicole got a kick out of it.

How Mexico City Defied Our Expectations

Mexico City has a reputation for being dirty, poor, crowded, uncultured, and unsafe.

Don’t believe the hype.

We were blown away by the amount of art, culture, and well-curated museums we encountered all over the city. We walked around at night and never felt any more unsafe than we would in Chicago, or LA, or any other large metropolis. The food was amazing, the people were friendly, and it was a thoroughly modern metro in which nobody paid us any mind. The people there asked us about our trip and treated us as people, not tourists, and many offered to help us understand the things that were going on around us. We would recommend it to anyone.

 

This is a kindergarten in the Roma Norte neighborhood. Many businesses used striking murals and street art to beautify their neighborhoods.

 

“Evolution is a fact”. This may not be our most beautiful photo, but it captures something really neat about Mexico. Public places, like this walkway between metro lines, were often used as educational opportunities. We saw one on the history of the universe, our solar system, the development of a neighborhood, Canada (odd), climate change, and this one on evolution.

 

Even construction barriers were beautifully decorated!

 

Monuments abound! This one is in a gorgeous park where families came to spend a relaxed weekend afternoon.
Sweet ripe plantains and cream.

 

Beautiful graffiti mural in Roma Norte.

 

We’re confident that after exploring the rest of our posts, Mexico City will defy your expectations, too.