La milenaria historia de las trajineras de Xochimilco

Where the name comes from. Xochimilco is Nahuatl for "place of the flower fields", and the Spanish called it the place of floating gardens because the chinampas were covered in them. The Xochimilca settled here around 1350, when the valley of Mexico was still mostly lake.

What a chinampa actually is. Not a floating island but a method of making land: rafts of reeds staked into the lakebed and layered with mud until they became solid plots, anchored by ahuejote willows. The mineral-rich silt, the constant water and the climate allowed up to three harvests a year — one of the most productive agricultural systems in the pre-Hispanic world. They are still farmed today.

How the boats became what they are. After the conquest the Spanish kept the canal and aqueduct system, and the area remained a centre of commerce and farming. The pleasure trip is Porfirian: in the late nineteenth century excursions to Xochimilco became fashionable among the catrines, the elegantly dressed gentlemen of the period. Demand changed the boats — a roof was added against the sun, wooden chairs for the view, arches of flowers and ahuejote branches tied with reed. The painted names on the prows started then too, added at the catrines' request to honour someone or to court a woman.

The twentieth century. Between 1910 and 1920 the landings were built and the Nativitas woods replanted; by 1970 the extension of División del Norte and the Periférico had absorbed the borough into the city. UNESCO inscribed the canals and chinampas as World Heritage in 1987.

Practical notes. Trajineras are hired by the boat and by the hour, not per person, and hold roughly 15 to 20 people; official tariffs are posted at each landing, so agree the price and the duration before boarding. While you are there: the axolotl exhibit, the Isla de las Muñecas, the greenhouses and the working chinampas.