The Centro Ceremonial Otomí, is one of many day trips you can make from Mexico City.
It was built in 1980 as a ceremonial centre for the Otomí people, an indigenous group that lives in the highlands of Central Mexico.
The Otomi Ceremonial Center can be seen in the 1989 Bond movie, “Licence to Kill”, starring Timothy Dalton.
“Licence To Kill” became the first Bond film to be entirely shot outside of the United Kingdom.
Mexico would host three more Bond shoots: 1997’s “Tomorrow Never Dies,” 2008’s “Quantum of Solace”, and 2015’s “Spectre.”
The Centre lies at 3200m asl. You can see athletes from kickboxers to runners taking advantage of the clean air and high altitude.
I visited the Centro Ceremonial Otomi on a day trip with Miss CDMX during the pandemic.
How to get to the Centro Ceremonial Otomi from Mexico City:
From Mexico City, you have 2 budget options (the details are still valid in 2025):
- Take a bus from the Cuatro Caminos “Metro Toreo” bus station which is adjacent to the Cuatro Caminos Metro station, the last stop on linea #2
- Take a bus from the Terminal de Autobuses de Poniente which is adjacent to the Observatorio Metro station, the last stop on linea #1
In both cases, you can travel with the Flecha Roja bus company to Temoaya. The difference lies in the frequency of departures and the duration of the journey.
We took the latter option as the Observatorio Metro station is easier for us. With luck, the bus was close to departure. The journey took just 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Tickets as of August 2025 cost 94 MXN.
Once in Temoaya, it is a 5-minute walk to the “Glorietta del Bicentenario”, the centre of town, from where we took a shared taxi for the last 15 km to the Centro Ceremonial Otomi.
When we visited, The Otomí Ceremonial Centre was open from 10 am until 5 pm and the entrance fee was 30 MXN.
Within the Mercado Artesanal, you can get food, but we chose to eat outside of the centre near where the buses stop. Here we are tucking into Quesadillas and sharing a bizarrely named Squirt soda (Grupo Peñafiel):
Coming back we took one of the local buses, which run from just outside the center, every 20 to 30 minutes back to Temoaya for 20MXN.
