• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

Take a pseudo booze cruise through the waterway full of party boats.   (Photo: Flickr: travelinknu)

Take a taxi an hour south of the city center to the Aztec canals of Xochimilco ($10 for the cab ride), where families and visitors gather at “the Venice of Mexico” for special occasions aboard brightly painted wooden trajineras (flat-bottomed boats). Get out at the Embarcadero Nuevo Nativitas, the busiest of the nine landings, and snag a spot on a twenty-seater green-roofed boat equipped with buckets of domestic beer ($12 per hour, plus drinks). Request a ranchera song from one of the mariachi bands-for-hire coasting by ($6) or enjoy a floating picnic from canoegoing vendors hawking hot soup, barbecued rabbit, and grilled corn. Make arrangements with the boat guide to stop at the Isla de las Muñecas, located two hours outside of the water park. Explore this spooky shrine to a poor girl who drowned in the canal by walking beneath the hundreds of old dolls hanging from trees. Don’t forget to leave an offering—a doll or candle—to placate any restless spirits.

Published on Dec 3, 2009 as a web exclusive.