ZOSHA'S WAKE: Mexico City- Xochimilco

Hello friends. Happy New Year to you all.
In this installment of our recent trip to Mexico City we are gonna take a boat trip through the ancient canals of the Aztecs located in the "Barrio Magico" borough of Xochimilco. This is the third largest borough in Mexico City. It has been continually inhabited since the Aztec and pre-Hispanic era. Its famous system of waterways have been the main transport arteries in this part of the city from the pre-Hispanic period until the 20th century.
These remaining canals and floating gardens were declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. Sadly, today this wonderful ecosystem is in danger of a total demise. The underground springs that feed the canals are being depleted by the water needs of the 20 million people who live in and around Ciudad de Mexico and of course we all know the ravages of urban pollution. On the bright side, there are many groups in Mexico who are tirelessly working to preserve the magic of Xochimilco....... I'm certain that they will prevail!
Lets look around.....

This is our boat. We had it all to ourselves. The Feast of The Virgen de Guadalupe was in this same week so most of the local crowds were involved with the festivities for that day which by the way is the single most important religious feast day in Catholic Mexico....

The boats are very colorful and are hand propelled with a sculling oar...no engines allowed...

Notice the long tables down the center of the boats. You can have food and drinks and whatever brought aboard and party while traversing the waterways.

All lined up waiting for customers....

Leaving the dock...

Pretty cool....wouldn't you say? Especially knowing that ancient peoples travels these same waters....

There are houses built along some of the canals..

Those roots belong to a type of Juniper tree call an Ahuejote... they are critical to this ecosystem because the roots combat erosion and provide safe nursery sanctuary for many aquatic species found in the canals. The trees themselves provide a windbreak.

Pretty nice house in the background....little hottie in the foreground..

All type of vendors are out on the canals selling their stuff...this guy was selling souvenirs others out there had floating bars and restaurants ....

These guys are floating musicians...call them over and they will hook up to your boat and will perform for you....they charged

35 pesos or about $2.00 US per song....they were good too..

We had some ice cold cervazas on the boat, beautiful day, Mexican music in the background, and floating down the waterways of a World Heritage site.. a good day!!!

Its getting kinda creepy now..... this is the floating garden of

Isla de las Munecas, Island of the Dolls. The island belonged to a hermit who found the drowned body of a little girl in the canal in front of his shack. Later he found a doll floating in the same waters. He thought that the doll might be the little drowned girls so out of a sense of reverence for the little girl, he hung it from one of his trees.

From this reverent act the hermit began a slow descent into madness. He stated that he could hear screams and wails from the nearby woods and that he constantly heard footsteps and whispers in his hut motivated by terror and fear, he spent the next 50 years collecting old dolls and body parts from dolls and hanging them in the trees surrounding his hut in a desperate attempt to appease what he believed to be the drowned girl's spirit. The hermit was found dead in 2001....drowned in the same waters where he found the little girl decades earlier. Today there are thousands of dolls hanging from the trees on the island which is only accessible by boat.