Touring without a guide really drives home the fact that we are pretty slow and clumsy tourists left on our own. Yesterday we could barley find a shopping mall. However, today we managed to leave the hotel by 1PM today and walk over to the amazing National Museum of Anthropology. Many of the artifacts that were found inside of and around the pyramids of Mesoamerica ended up in this museum.

I have to confess that I'm a skimmer of museum exhibits, they tend to overwhelm me, but I am a huge fan of museum building architecture. .

Central courtyard of the National Museum of Anthropology

Our next adventure was a dinner at the highly rated Pujol restaurant.

Nobody's taken a picture of this sign before... kidding

An interesting side note is that Pujol changed locations effective March 2017 but they still have a note on their website recommending that patrons arriving by Uber manually enter the new street address.

...there is a compatibility problem with the app used by drivers, that can take you to our old location.

it won’t being before businesses will be getting scam calls about their location GPS accuracy instead of their Google listing.

I didn't take food pictures but I can say that this was our best meal in Mexico City by a long shot. This restaurant deserves all of its accolades. Worth every penny.

We were toying with going to the Folkloric Ballet after dinner, but the logistics didn't work. However, the Big Band Jazz de Mexico was playing less than 15 minutes away at 9PM and the billing included "and friends". That sounded promising but I really didn't know what to expect beyond "big band". We took an Uber to the Lunario of the National Auditorium.

One we presented our tickets we were whisked quickly to a table. The theater featured stepped terraces and was configured supper club style with rows of small tables surrounded by 4 chairs. Service was prompt and continued during the performance. We didn't need any more food but I was on a mezcal binge and picked one from the menu. Julia was starting to flag and ordered water (which makes for a nice drink between mezcal sips).

Bandleader Ernesto Ramos came out in a tuxedo and all of the band members wore shirts (Paul Anka would be proud). In addition to several guest instrumentalists and vocalists, the performance included the artist Jazzamoart who whipped off 3 paintings at the side of the stage and unrolled 8 different long banners during the show. Some were wrapped around the stage and some were passed into the audience. The atmosphere was festive and friendly.

Jim Letourneau's Blog

Day 5 - National Museum of Anthropology, Pujol, Big Band Jazz de Mexico