Wild Mexico City: the Axolotl, Xochimilco and the Forest

Mexico City’s wild side, from the canals and floating gardens of Xochimilco, the last home of the wild axolotl, to the Bosque de Chapultepec, its botanic garden, and the forested national park of the Desierto de los Leones, with a directory of the places in our guide. Facts from the CDMX official tourism site, UNESCO and the IUCN Red List.

Mexico City was built on a lake, and the lake has not quite gone. In the south, at Xochimilco, its last canals still wind between the chinampas, the floating gardens farmed since before the Spanish arrived, and in their water lives one of the most extraordinary animals in the world, the axolotl. Above the city to the west, forest climbs the hills of the Desierto de los Leones, and in the middle of it all, the Bosque de Chapultepec is the city’s great green lung.

This is a short guide: the city’s wildlife is quiet and small, but the places are memorable. Go early, on a weekday if you can.

A salamander that never grows up survives in the wild only in the canals of the old lake beneath the city.

Xochimilco: the last canals of the lake

Xochimilco keeps the last canals of the lake on which the Valley of Mexico’s cities were built, and the chinampas still farmed between them; UNESCO inscribed it with the Historic Centre of Mexico City as a World Heritage site. Trajineras, the painted boats, leave from the embarcaderos, among them Nativitas and Cuemanco, where the ecological tours also start. The Parque Ecológico de Xochimilco, on the Periférico Oriente, has lakes, gardens and its own boat landing.

Get there by Metro Line 2 to Tasqueña, then the Tren Ligero to its terminus at Xochimilco. Agree the price and the length of a boat trip before you board.

Chapultepec and the Desierto de los Leones

The Bosque de Chapultepec is the city’s largest park, in several sections: the first holds the castle, the lake, the zoo and the museums. Its Jardín Botánico, on Paseo de la Reforma, grows agaves, cacti, orchids, succulents and 14 species of wild dahlia, Mexico’s national flower. The botanic garden of the UNAM’s Instituto de Biología, in Ciudad Universitaria, is another quiet green refuge.

In the hills west of the city, off the Mexico–Toluca road, the Desierto de los Leones National Park is named for the Carmelite monastery at the heart of its forest, a cool escape from the city on foot.

Feature: the axolotl

The axolotl, a salamander with feathery external gills and a permanent half-smile, is found in the wild only in the canals and wetlands around Xochimilco and Chalco. It is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List: pollution, introduced fish and the loss of the old lake have left very few in the wild. Chapultepec Zoo and the UNAM keep and breed axolotls for conservation. The best thing a visitor can do is support the ecological tours of the canals, and never buy or release axolotls.

Did you know? Axolotls never grow up in the usual way: they keep their larval gills and live in water all their lives, and they can regrow lost limbs.

Our advice

Our advice: take a quiet weekday-morning trajinera from Cuemanco, or one of the ecological tours, rather than the Sunday fiesta if it is nature you are after. Visit Chapultepec and its botanic garden early, and pack a jacket for the Desierto de los Leones, where the forest is cool. Never feed wild animals, and leave the axolotls in the water.