We were walking around the park of Chapultepec when we came across the lake. They have paddle boats…read moreand row boats that fit up to 5 people. The 5 person row boat with a shade was 200 pesos an hour which I thought was a great deal. We didn't see the entire lake, but it looked pretty big. On Saturdays they have lots of stands that sell souvenirs, snacks, food, and drinks. I would recommend checking it out if you're in Mexico City.

The lake is nice, but can be really crowded on weekends. There's also hawkers literally everywhere…read moreselling all sorts of useless stuff. It's about 90 pesos to go on a boat and paddle around, but I didn't do that part. The rest of the park more towards the castle is much more worth your time, and I highly suggest that.

What a dream to have visited Xochimilco! We got trajineras at around 10am. It wasn't packed yet so…read morewe got in right away and rented the trajinera for three horas at $600 hourly . We rented a speaker for 550 pesos hourly. I'm sure we could have negotiated but we choose not too. We thought it was a good price. There are people selling food, snacks and Miches in little boats! We bought food , traditional tlacoyos which were yummy. We got a bunch of quesadillas as well for 1200 total. It was about 10 of us which is about 7 US dollars for each and we were stuffed! Great experience except when having to stop at a restroom. 10 pesos to use and no running water which was uncomfortable. The bathroom was not a great sight. I'm so happy I got to get on a trajinera!

For a DIY day trip to Xochimilco's canals, you can get there by using public transportation (though…read morethe journey is long and may require a few transfers), or taking an Uber. If you're not going to Xochimilco on a guided tour, you'll need to hire your own trajinera, or boat. The current going rate for a boat is 600 pesos per hour. Embarcadero Cuemanco is where we went. Apparently Nuevo Navitas is more of a party scene, which I didn't realize, but then we got the whole it's closed scam and our uber driver started taking us somewhere else which is apparently an even bigger scam. If you go to Embarcadero Cuemanco you can ask them to stop at the axolotyl place, it was cool to see the little lizards and they had bathrooms (10 pesos) too. A really nice way to spend a few hours!

We visited the Botanical Garden at UNAM a few weeks ago when we were visiting the UNAM campus. The…read moregarden was founded in 1959, and it's intended to represent Mexico's plant diversity. To that end, it has several different areas. Since the garden is free to visit, we just stopped by for a quick visit. Since we didn't have much time, we just wandered around for a bit. We saw an amazing variety of agave and cacti. I definitely would have wandered for longer if I could have. The parking was a bit confusing. There was a parking lot, but the gate didn't let open to let us in. We parked on the street near the gate, but we weren't sure it was legal parking. Worth a visit if you're in the area, but I wouldn't suggest you necessarily go out of your way if your visit to CDMX is a short one!

Worth a look for sure. It's a bit out of the way and we had trouble getting an Uber to pick us up…read morebut otherwise it was great. The website claims they close at 3 on Saturdays but that seems to just be the little shop inside and the greenhouses. There are lots of little paths to wander and an enormous amount of cacti. Some of the paths aren't well marked and can be steep/rocky.