There is a park in Mexico City called El Zapote Ecological Park.
It's located in Tlahuac on the southeastern side of the city.
It literally borders State of Mexico and is technically in the Tlahuac areas of Santa Catarina Yecahuitzotl and San Francisco Apolocalco.
Anyway, I live in Tlahuac right now and took an Uber over.
Along the way, we stopped at a gas station.
And, while getting over there, I really noticed the difference in how the general area looked outside.
A little more rural and less developed.
Could clearly see more of that "Estado de Mexico" influence along the route to this park.
The Uber driver tried dropping me off in the middle of some random middle of nowhere road that is right to the side of El Zapote.
If the people running Uber's app are reading this, know that the direction you use for El Zapote is slightly wrong.
It takes you to the general area but not actually at the entrance point.
Instead, anyone getting dropped off using Uber would be taken to a road that isn't where you should be dropped off.
The Uber driver was confused too and he drove about 3 to 5 more minutes.
A bit ahead and then to the left where we found the entrance.
On the inside, the park itself is OK.
You could walk through the whole park in about 40 minutes to an hour at most.
There's a few spaces for people to play sports.
Some spots to sit down and relax.
Absolutely not a single hustler trying to make money from you.
Nobody begging.
I liked that a bit.
There's also a trail you can go down.
Be careful though!
There's a lot of glass sprinkled all over on part of the trail that you are walking down to the side away from most people.
It seems like they don't take very good care of this park. A bit of trash here and there also scattered around beyond just the glass.
Decent viewing though of some nearby mountains.
Anyway, it's not a bad place to visit if you happen to be in the area.
And, if you like hiking, there's also a much bigger place you can visit that is VERY close.
It's called Volcan la Caldera that is just right across the Mexico-Puebla freeway.
Very close.
Though I'm not 100% confident, I THINK I took some pics of it that you can see below.
I asked one random dude "what is that mountain?" and he said "Caldera."
So it might be Caldera but I wasn't entirely sure.
Nothing else really of interest in this general area outside the park though (unless you just want to walk around and see what the general neighborhood is like out of curiosity).
When I left the park and tried getting out of the neighborhood and onto the next park, I had some difficulty.
I only found one taxi in the area after waiting 30 to 40 minutes.
It wasn't even a real taxi but one of those fake ones where any random dude can spray paint the word "taxi" on the side of his beat up vehicle and claim to be a taxi dude.
Some sketchy looking barrio type fella inside.
Wanted to charge me like 300 pesos for a ride to a nearby park known as Cuitlahuac.
Shook my head as I knew we were too far apart.
"How much" then he yelled as I turned away.
"No" is all I said.
He sped off.
Some older woman across the street who was finishing her day yelling carnitas tried helping me get a taxi but no luck.
There's a small area you can sit down on across the park though that is basically a combi waiting spot.
Combis being these small vans people get in together as some form of public transportation along a pre established route.
Got in after saying no to like 50 of them (ton in the area) and waiting for a taxi to no luck.
All the while some random crackhead looking homeless dude sniffing whatever was across the street staring the living fuck out of me.
In fact, out of any area I've been to in Mexico City, this area had more locals just staring the fuck out of me.
I've been to some rougher looking areas before and lived in them and never felt too much of an outsider or out of place but this was one area where the locals felt like staring at me.
In other areas I've never had that experience too much of being stared at like an alien from Mars.
Outside of that, some of the locals seemed friendly. The few who sat down in the same combi spot and made small talk with me or the old carnitas lady who tried helping me get a taxi.
Had a combi dude drive me to the Mexico-Puebla freeway that is literally just a few odd minutes away.
Got dropped off there as he was headed towards Metro Acatitla of Purple Line A.
Which is in the opposite direction of Parque Cuitlahuac.
Was charged just 50 pesos.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
Enjoy the pictures below.
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Best regards,
Matt
