公元1325年，阿茲特克人建立墨西哥城。兩個世紀后，由傳奇人物埃爾南·科爾特斯領導的西班牙征服者占領了墨西哥城。事實上，古老的印度傳統與歐洲青年野心的結合正是墨西哥現代首都的獨特之處。

墨西哥城的景點讓這座首都成為北美最受歡迎的旅游目的地之一。如果將墨西哥城的所有一切都放在一起，那會形成鮮明的對比：高犯罪率與當地居民的熱情好客，超現代的摩天大樓與阿茲特克金字塔，貧民窟與宏偉的宮殿，丘陵與平原——一切都為這座城市增添了一種令人難忘的特殊氛圍。

三文化廣場周圍環繞著特拉特洛爾科的阿茲特克金字塔、圣地亞哥殖民大教堂，以及外交部的現代建筑，這就是過去與現在和諧共存的最好說明。

圣母瑪利亞升天大教堂坐落在憲法廣場北側的山頂上，是美洲殖民地最大、最古老（公元1573年）的大教堂之一。它的中殿長110米，寬55米，共有51個拱頂，由74扇拱門和40根柱子支撐。大教堂與法衣室和國家宮共同構成一座結合了文藝復興、巴洛克和新古典主義風格的宏偉建筑群。

在城市的北部，您可以看到著名的瓜達盧佩圣母大教堂——整座大陸上最重要的教堂之一。大教堂里存放著胡安·迭戈的原始斗篷，斗篷后面掛有瓜達盧佩圣母的畫像，這正是異教徒阿茲特克人大規模——而且是自愿——皈依基督教的主要原因。公元1531年，第一座教堂在這里建成。但一段時間后，它便無法容納所有人。1987年，一座可以容納2萬人的新大教堂在老教堂旁邊建成。順便告訴您，大教堂是天主教最為重要的朝圣地之一，每年有1,400萬人參觀，是世界上朝圣人數最多的地方。

查普爾特佩克公園是北美洲最大的城市公園，也是世界上最大的公園之一。公園圍繞墨西哥城內2,325米高的查普爾特佩克山而建，占地超過686公頃，與巴黎的布洛涅森林、東京的皇居東御苑以及紐約的中央公園并列。它不僅是墨西哥城的“肺”，而且也是眾多文化品的聚集地，如國立人類學博物館。一進入博物館，一件古老的文物就會站在門口迎接游客，這是一塊七米高的巨石，以噴泉的形式描繪了雨神特拉洛克。

山頂上矗立著一座同名的查普爾特佩克城堡，由西班牙人伯納德·加爾維斯于公元1785年建立。這里曾是墨西哥總督、皇帝和總統的住所，現在是國家歷史博物館的主展覽廳。

墨西哥城的現代地標和它們的古代地標一樣雄心勃勃，令人印象深刻。獨立紀念碑是墨西哥城的象征，為紀念始于1810年的墨西哥獨立戰爭100周年而建造。紀念碑是一根36米高的柱子，上面有一座帶翅膀的勝利女神雕像，高6.7米。勝利女神伸出的右手上拿著一個月桂花環，左手拿著斷裂的鎖鏈。雕塑由青銅鑄造，表面鍍有24克拉純金。

墨西哥城最著名的摩天大樓是市長大樓和拉丁美洲塔。55層的市長大樓建于2003年，高230米，是墨西哥城最高的建筑。183米高的拉丁美洲塔建于1956年，與年輕一代的建筑相比，它的規模較小，但在成功抵御了1957年和1985年的地震后名聲大振。當時，7.9和8.1級的地震摧毀了墨西哥城的許多建筑，包括電視塔。而拉丁美洲塔卻幸存下來，成為墨西哥城的安全象征。

我們可以無休止地談論墨西哥城：文化、優雅、宏偉的相結合為這座城市的每一座建筑創造了獨特的故事。但正如他們所說，一張照片勝過千言萬語——請通過我們拍攝的全景圖來欣賞墨西哥城的壯麗美景吧

And now let me turn the floor over to Stanislav Sedov, who will share some of his impressions about the trip.

We would like to tell you a short story about our trip to Mexico while the memories are still fresh in our minds. Maybe some of you'll learn something useful.

As soon as we'd finished shooting Tikal in Guatemala, Dima and I decided to go to Mexico.

We started off our journey on the wrong foot. The bus that was supposed to take us to Chetumal in Mexico arrived two hours later at 8am. And it seemed that Dima's perfect trip plan started falling apart.

It all went downhill from there. In order to reach Chetumal from Guatemala you have to pass a small country — Belize. There is nothing special about it, just another former British colony. Probably because of this reason it's one of the few countries in Central America where Russians need to get visa to cross the border. And only British Embassy grants this visa in Moscow.

Dima found some travel website that stated that if you have a U.S. visa, then there'll be no problem getting Belize visa on the border in 20 minutes.

A couple of hours later we reached the border. There were no incidents when we left Guatemala. We filled out necessary forms and handed them over to Belize border guards. After that we sat waiting under the shed with a proud name "Immigration point". Of all the people on the bus the only one getting visa, beside us, was a Korean girl. All other white people crossed the border without any problems.

An hour and a half (!) later an officer came out and said that everything was alright, and that we would get our visas in 5 minutes, as soon as they get a response from the capital.

40 minutes later the Korean girl got her visa. We were told to wait because they couldn't get through to the office, because of holidays and other unknown reasons.

Half an hour later our bus driver came up to us and said that he couldn't wait for us any longer. We couldn't blame him, because temperature outside was about 40 degrees Celsius, and passengers were almost ready to kill both him and us. So the bus left and we continued waiting while haveing fun in a warm and friendly environment. We saw the border guard running past us and telling us that they were able to get through to the office, and that our visas would be ready in 5 minutes, etc. Yeah, right.

Then one and half hour later (by that time we spent 4.5 hours on the border) we were approached by a man, who introduced himself as a police officer and took Dima with him to talk about why the hell we decided to go to Belize in the first place.

Dima was gone for 5 minutes and then came back with a pale face: he said there was a problem. He took our Mexico shooting permit, and disappeared for 40 minutes. I was about to call the Embassy (my wife texted me the phone number), but then I saw Dima approaching me with a nervous smile on his face. He said they mistook us for drug traffickers: we had too many stamps in our passports, we traveled a lot, and looked very suspicious. It turned out that it was police, not the border guards, that were running background check on us. And it took so much time, because they were waiting for resoponse from Interpol.

By the way, the police officer finally believed in our story only when I showed him the picture on my phone, the one that Dima took of me and our helicopter in front of the Tikal pyramid.

Only then he apologized and said that he thought we were Russian mafia.

After that we got our visas in 20 minutes. When we reached customs (the next cordon after the border guards) and told customs officers how we waited for our visas for 5 hours, and that our bus left us behind, they gave us a sympathetic look and said, "Go ahead, we're not going to check your bags." And we finally entered Belize.

After that it was easier: we took a taxi. It took us 4 hours and costed $250 to drive through the country from one border to another. The second border was way more simple than the first one. The only problem was that we had to walk from Belize post to Mexico (and it was quite a distance), but we were lucky enough to be picked up by the bus headed in the same direction.

On a personal note, we would also like to say a few words about local hospitality. Out trip to Mexico wouldn't happen without help of Ricardo Gomez Garrido, a pilot and a photographer from Mexico City, and his friend Diego Ruelas Tiscareno from www.fotoaereamexico.com team. First of all, Ricardo helped us with obtaining photo permits for all Mexican historical monuments and pyramids. As we learned down the road, there would be no photo shoots without those permits. And secondly, the friends arranged a warm welcome for us in the capital, helped us with the transportation, and found us a helicopter for our photo shoots. Checking in to the downtown hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to see aerial photographs of Mexico City taken by Ricardo and Diego exhibited in the hotel lobby.

由 Stanislav Sedov 和 Dmitry Moiseenko 拍攝

2013 年8月5日