Staying in the Zocalo

We arrived yesterday afternoon after a frustrating departure from Havana. We arrived at the Havana airport at 12:00 thinking we had plenty of time before our 2:30 flight. How wrong we were!

The line to check in was one hour long, then we had to line up to pay our departure tax and next we had to wait in line to go through immigration. The immigration line up was the worst as we were running out of time and we knew we still had to go through the security line.

We made it with time to spare and the one good thing was that we didn't have to wait long to line up for boarding the plane - no seat number calls, no children first and no first class boarding. Just one big line.

We sat on the plane for over an hour waiting for the people who couldn't get through the four major lines fast enough. We did have a fairly smooth flight and we breezed through customs in Mexico City. No checked luggage means we get to the lines early....and we pushed a green light!

We are staying at the Holiday Inn right on the Zocalo and I would highly recommend this hotel. The Holiday Inn chain has taken an old building and restored it to original condition. The rooms overlooking the Cathedral and the Palace are huge and very clean.



We spent the better part of the morning walking the streets around the Zocalo. According to rumour, Carlos Slim has spent millions restoring this area of Mexico City and it is great for walking and looking.


As usual though, our curiosity gets the better of us and we venture too far out of the restored areas. We didn't have to walk more than an hour before we were back in the poorer parts of Mexico City. It was a little uncomfortable walking through this area as it was littered with garbage and homeless people.

The Zocalo is home to the Presidential Palace, the main Cathedral and numerous restaurants and hotels. It does have the odd homeless person sleeping across the street from our room as I found out this morning while checking out the view.