If Chapultepec is the lungs of Mexico City then Paseo de la Reforma must be its pulmonary artery.

The Bosque de Chapultepec is a very large park. One of the largest city parks in the Western Hemisphere. Much larger than New York’s Central Park. Big. And very busy with 15 million visitors each year, 250,000 each day. Yet, as soon as we pass through the gates of Section 1, the oldest part of the park, we are engulfed in a deep forest that transports us far away from the congested, noisy streets of Mexico City. In here, the visiting hoards quickly dissipate down networks of paved paths, finding quiet corners, a park bench to rest awhile and take in the songs of 20 to 60 species of birds that also call Chapultepec home. Chapultepec is not just a park but an ecological preserve with forests playing a vital role in returning oxygen to the city’s strained atmosphere.  (more…)