The canals of Xochimilco had been on my list since my last visit to Mexico City, and they definitely made for a fun day trip. The history of Lake Texcoco that these canals are a remnant of, and which Mexico City is built on top of, is fascinating and worth a deeper dive.
The canals are quite extensive, and there are multiple embarcation points (embarcaderos). We went to the one in Cuemanco, which is closest to Mexico City. We came via Uber. Everything at the embarcadero was cash only.
The colorful boats that are used to navigate them are trajineras, also known as “trajinebrias” to partygoers. You can fit your whole family or a mariachi band or both on these, and sometimes more than one is tied together. You can buy food and drinks and serenades from other boats that come by.
We were hungry, so started out with drinks and food. The vendedores for the restaurants here really got up in our face. We had some pulques (one natural and one mango) and then some tacos and gorditas at Los 2 Padrillos. All very good.
Evidently you used to have to haggle over the price and duration of your ride, but now there’s a central area with a map where the prices are listed. The 2 hour basic ride was 1200 pesos ($60), but we wanted to go further and ended up paying 2200 ($110) for our trajinera, plus a tip. The prices are for an entire boat.
Two stops of interest along the way were the (temporary) Casa de Bebes and the “aquarium”, where they had a number of Axtolotls and some other random animals.
