In 3 trips over the years to Mexico City, spending in total some 15 days there, I never had the urge to visit Xochimilco. There seem to be so many better things to do in the Mexican capital. And the colourful party boats and mariachi bands that define the popular image of this area did not appeal to me at all. But I kept looking for an alternative way to visit, as there must be more to this important part (and second location) of the inscribed site.

I eventually found a tour called “Pre-Hispanic Floating Gardens & Foodie Fest”, which promised “visiting one of the best-kept secrets of Xochimilco, an oasis south of Mexico City”. It was expensive, certainly for one person, but when I had an unforeseen spare day in Mexico City, I decided to sign up. The tour brings you to the village of San Gregorio Atlapulco, 25km outside of the city center and some 5km beyond the tourist boat landings. Looking at the official map, I believe that the village lies in the buffer zone of the WHS and its floating gardens (chinampas) in the core zone.

We started at the daily farmers market, a pleasantly relaxed affair with stalls selling mostly vegetables, but also fruits and (the omnipresent) chickens. A specialty of the villages in this area is also the creation of garments for the statues (or dolls) of Christ that every Mexican family has in their home, and the repair of the dolls. An urgent job due to the upcoming festivities of the Día de la Candelaria. We tasted a lot of good street food as well and drank some aguamiel and pulque.

At the edge of the village, the gardens begin. The Xochimilco area still serves as the garden for Mexico City – every evening trucks drive back and forth, picking up the fresh produce of the day. And those gardens are really a sight. We explored them on foot, crossing one unstable wooden bridge after another. The small plots were given to the farmer’s families after the Mexican Revolution, and have been exploited by them since. They continue to practice the traditional process to sustain the chinampa islands, by heaping layers of lakebed mud and soil on them yearly. Some parts we saw are really high (thus very old), others still lower. In a way, it’s a bit like reclaiming land for polders and I found the landscape very similar to The Netherlands with its straight canals and farmlands.

The farmers all have their own specialties, overall making up a great variety of products. One even specializes in edible flowers for the fancy restaurants in the city. We had lunch with one of the farmers, and the amicable atmosphere among them was remarkable. We shared our lunch with whoever came over to chat.

The farmers use wooden boats to bring their produce to the collection points for the trucks. Not all canals are navigable anymore. "Our" farmer took us along in his boat. While quietly floating, you’ll notice a lot of native trees called ahuejote bordering the farmlands: with their roots, they stem erosion and they act as windbreakers. We ended up at Laguna de San Gregorio, which is now a protected nature area with plentiful birds including pelicans.

It was a very relaxing day out in the countryside, so far away from the bustle of Mexico City. It’s a miracle that this way of living still has survived despite the neverending population growth in the agglomeration. And when you’re there, at the plots and among the network of small canals, the experience is even better when you imagine that this is what the Spanish encountered when they first entered this area, but then on a much more extensive scale.