If you are visiting Mexico City you must use the metro to get a true insight into daily life in the capital city, but be prepared as it is hectic as! Sometimes feels like the entire Mexico City population is in your carriage during rush hour.
Used by around 4.4 million passengers on an average weekday, it has 195 stations and more than 226km of track on 12 lines. Trains arrive every two to three minutes during rush hours. At M$5 a ride, it’s one of the world’s cheapest subways and will get you across the entire city.
Best option for people watching and striking up conversation with people you may not otherwise talk to.
Plaza Garibaldi, home to Mexico City’s mariachis. Located along one of the city’s main avenues, Eje Central a few blocks from the Fine Arts Palace. At all hours of the day and night, mariachi bands can be found playing or soliciting gigs from visitors to the Plaza, or on the main avenue trying to get picked up and taken to house parties to play. A must see if you are in the city centre.
Entering Santa Fe, Mexico City.
Santa Fe is one of Mexico City's major business districts, located in the west part of the city, consisting of countless high-rise buildings that tower over Latin America's largest shopping mall. Built over existing landfills, several layers of sand was poured over millions of tons of garbage before constructions began. Many original residents of the outlying suburbs were evicted and forced to the outskirts seen here.
Passion of Christ in Iztapalapa. Iztapalapa, is the most populous of Mexico City's 16 boroughs, an urban sprawl on the eastern edge of Mexico City, home to nearly two million people and one of the city's lowest-income areas. Every year a huge numbers of additional visitors, an estimated 2-4 million spectators gather to watch the annual Passion of the Christ procession.
The area has been plagued by high crime rates and instances of domestic violence for years therefore, the prestige and scale of the Passion procession are a much-needed source of honour for a community that is so often portrayed negatively in the news.