Anyway, on the morning of my first day in Mexico City, a friend and I were taking an Uber across the city to get to the bus station, when I started to see bits and pieces of murals tucked away down alleyways, behind cars, over fences, etc. We were clearly passing through some sort of cluster, so I quickly grabbed my phone and dropped a pin on the map. Come hell or high water, I was going to come back to this spot with my camera.
The gallery that follows contains murals from all over Mexico City that we walked past as some point the week we spent there, but probably 50% of them come from that dropped pin on the map. And probably 75% of what are my favorites in this lot come from that dropped pin on the map.
Teotihuacán is one of the most historically, culturally, and architecturally significant cities in the pre-Columbian Americas. At its height, it was the largest city in both North and South America, with a population of 125,000 people (estimated). That might not seem like much today, but by Mesoamerican standards, that’s like Tokyo or New York. This wasn’t just a place—it was THE place. But here’s what makes it so fascinating…
The origins of Teotihuacán are utterly mysterious. The backstory behind its founders is totally unknown. And it’s not just unknown to us now, in 2020. Apparently the Aztecs discovered the ruins of this city and also didn’t know exactly where it came from or what the story was. Isn’t that INSANE? The AZTECS discovered this when it was already ruins!
Let’s start with size. Mexico City is really, really big. In fact, Mexico City proper has almost 9 million people and Mexico City metro is home to a whopping 21 million people, which just a few million less than Beijing. This makes it the largest population center on the entire continent of North America—bigger even than New York, LA, Chicago, Toronto, etc. It also puts Mexico City comfortably in the top 10 largest cities in the world.
