Xochimilco (Mexico City)
written by lomollete
on July 11th, 2008
(0 votes)
Xochimilco is one of the many neighborhoods in Mexico City, but it isn’t just any neighborhood, it’s one of the most fantastic places in Mexico City. It’s a zone that maintains a lot of colorful, fantastic, and fun traditions. The most interesting thing about Xochimilco probably is the many water channels with houses, “chinampas” (chinampas are pieces of land that are put into a lake to get some more place to live in or plant crops.
Aztecs started this whole chinampa thing about 500 years ago), flowers, trees, of course water and lots of things alongside, it’s like the Mexican version of Venice. There are these amazingly colourful (and fairly big) boats called “trajineras”, they are rented by tourists to tour the channels, lakes and stuff. Local people are the ones that show you around, and tell you about the place (if you speak Spanish), they also sell traditional food, which I hear is delicious, and souvenirs and handmade stuff (little trajineras for example).
People from Xochimilco are really nice, at least the guy that showed me around was, he talked to us (I went with my family and a friend) about everything, the place, their culture, their food, their houses, his childhood anecdotes, and he even managed to save a little dog from drowning.
In Xochimilco people use everything, it’s a very ecological community, they make decorations for their boats out of dried straw and fallen trees, they reuse everything they can, they grow their own food and eat a lot of vegetables, and all of their organic rubbish is made into compost.
If you ever have the chance to come to Mexico try to visit Xochimilco, it’s really worth it.
Xochimilco was declared World Heritage in 1987 by UNESCO.
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