The South Circuit

To do the southern circuit, we had to ride the Turibus to stop number 4.  That was perfect because the castle was stop 2, so it was easy.  And we didn't need to listen because we had heard it all on Monday.

This sign absolutely made me crack up every time I saw it.  The open air buses certainly come with their own risks...  As funny as it was, it was true.  There were times I wondered if the driver cared at all about our branch safety.  Always be on your guard!

While we loved Coyoacán and our lunch break there, we were mildly disappointed with the second round of the Turibus.  The southern circuit was much more spread out.  The bus pick-ups, consequently, were too.  If you got off, you were guaranteed a 45 minute span before the next one.  And yes, we eventually learned this lesson from experience.
We decided, realizing the distance between stops but also the fact that most of what we needed to see we could see from the bus, that we would just stay on as long as we could until we wanted lunch.  We walked around ultra-cool, laid-back Coyoacán and found a cute little lunch place.  Unfortunately, it had been too long since I was here with Kermit, so I forgot that their market has amazing smelling eats.  Oh, well.

We made our way into our restaurant (we debated among three and chose based on the menu- it was a close call) and took a load off.  Again, we hadn't done an incredible amount of walking, but it was still nice to sit (and not be moving).  This restaurant, like many in DF, had a plate of the day, which is always the most food for your money.  However, we weren't into the soup or the other options, so we decided to order from the menu.  Our poor little waiter didn't really know what to do with us.  He was probably about 20 and looked as if this could've been his first day on the job.  Handling the plate of the day for all the other customers seemed hard enough.  Add to that that we wanted something different.  He was all bent out of shape.  It took awhile, but shortly our horchatas and chicken tacos dorados and chicken tostadas were out.  We split each plate down the middle.  I just LOVE Mexican food!

We had some chocolate tres leches cake for dessert, but it was dry enough that it must have been on leche short.  We still got outta there in under 9 bucks a person I think.

We started walking looking for the market.  When I was there in November, we hadn't spent much time in the market and Gretchen had told me that while there were better (cheaper) markets in DF, there were some really good things in this one.  So we walked through the market.  I didn't find anything I had to have.  Ashley didn't either.  So we carried on.  I'm thinking we likely got ice cream at this point, though I don't really remember.

The next stop on the Turibus was Casa Azul, the "blue house" belonging to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.  It was just a few blocks away, so we walked there instead of waiting for the bus.  Around lunch time, I had texted Paloma saying we were not going to be finished by 3, so maybe we'd be back at the hotel between 6 and 7 and he could still take us to the bus station?  Well, we were approaching the Frida museum at 4:30, so it wasn't likely we would make it by 6, but I was waiting to update him until I was sure.
This museum was one of my favorite things in November.  I spent almost an hour there with the audio set and the gift shop!  This time, of course, they were closing in 30 minutes, and in typical Mexican fashion, they were out of audio sets!  What's a girl to do?  The museum is much less interesting and even less informative without the audio guide.  Oh, well; we were already there, so we rushed through, attempting to hit the bathroom on the way out without luck.

When we walked outside, there were three taxi men offering their services.  We told them we were waiting on the Turibus.  They informed us we had just missed it.  Did we want a taxi?  No, thank you.  We'd wait for our free ride.

They tell us it'll be 45 minutes.  We're frustrated, but want our free ride.  We are, after all, headed to a silver city tomorrow and need to save our pennies for that!

After about ten minutes there, one of the taxi men told us where we could get a bus (which scares me in a big city as I've mentioned before, since you never know where you'll end up- and which direction you'll be facing!).  It was about 5 blocks away on the same road.  It seemed like where we would get off would be pretty obvious.  We walked that way.  We waited.  And waited.  About 10 buses passed, but none that said whatever it was we needed them to say.

We walk back.  At this point, it's about 5:30, so we only have 15 minutes left to wait.  The guy asks what happened.  I tell him that no bus passed with that name.  He said every bus that passed was the one we wanted.

Awesome.

He felt really bad (I think I kinda yelled unintentionally at him when I was explaining that we hadn't seen the bus name), so offered to drive us to another bus stop.  At this point, we just wanted to wait for the Turibus.

There it came.

We had 2 more stops in the south circuit before we would transfer back over to the north (tourist) circuit.  It was 6 pm on a work day.  Traffic was awful.  I texted Paloma saying there was no way we'd be back before 7 even, but that we'd call on Friday and maybe we could all do dinner.

We finally got to our hotel at 7:45.  We grabbed our luggage and called a cab to take us to the bus station.  We also made use of the hotel's restroom since the one at the Frida house had been occupied (almost 3 hours before).

(This is a street sign with the name of my state)

The hotel provides private taxis.  It took us 45 minutes, but our lovely driver was very chatty and informed us of all the neighborhoods we were passing through (kind of like a review of what we'd learned on the Turibus).  We appreciated his commentary.  And his skills.  He was weaving in and out of DF traffic (still as bad at 8pm as it was at 6) like it was nothing!

We were thankful when we got there.  At the ticket counter, we were informed our bus would leave in five minutes.  What perfect timing!