Mexico City to Teotihuacan Pyramids by bus

May 12, 2022

Like many visitors to Mexico City, I visited the Teotihuacan Pyramids. While Uber is cheap (I saw 300-600 MEX), I wanted to go by bus instead. It was a bit confusing, and there was little information available online, so I wanted to provide some more information to hopefully help people doing this trip in the future.

Initially I was planning on following the suggestions from Google Maps which showed a shared taxi departing from Portola station that stops near the pyramids. But I wasn’t really sure what I would be looking for, so I opted to follow this blog from a trip from 2019, which does a pretty good job at explaining this process. But I always appreciate more details, so I wanted to expand on that here, what my experience was on a Wednesday in 2022.

Getting to Central de Autobuses del Norte

• Take metro to Autobuses del Norte
• Go into the Central de Autobuses del Norte
• Go to the left until seeing Autobuses Teotihuacan near Gate 8, this blog post has good pictures

Getting a ticket

• At the Kiosk, there is a sign that has a list of departure times. The list looked roughly like what I see on the Autobuses Teotihuacan website (screenshot below), saying that departures happen every hour at the X:20 minute mark.
• I couldn’t get any more formal schedule or estimates of returns.
• In May 2022, my round trip ticket was 104 pesos (cash only)
• Oddly, my ticket said Mexico Norte -> PTA Arqueo, but another tourist had a slightly different destination printed

Boarding a bus

• Buses left from gate 7, in the spaces numbered 6-7.
• There was also only 1 other tourist there, which was fewer than I expected.
• Confusingly, buses arrived in both spots around the same time and both drivers said they were going to the pyramids. Maybe one was more direct? We ended up just choosing the one that left first, which was about 8:30.

Bus route

• About 1h10min to Teotihuacan pyramides, puerta 2
• I thought I made a mistake because the bus I took didn’t get on the highway Av Insurgenentes Norte, but rather drove parallel to it picking people up near the metro stops like Portola and Indios Verdes. Most people got on here. After about 20-30 minutes, we got on the highway, and it was pretty smooth.
• Guys came on and played guitar or sold snacks to make money.
• Detour to San Juan Teotihuacan where most people got off.
• Drop off at Teotihuacan pyramides, puerta 2
• I think I would have rather stayed on one more stop to puerta 3 and start from the north end rather than the middle of the temples.

Return

• I exited through the south end of the temples (Teotihuacan pyramides, puerta 1). Apparently no buses pick up from there until 12pm or 12:30pm and they come every 30 minutes.
• I walked up to Puerta 2, where I was told buses come about every 15 minutes.
• Return ride took about 50 minutes to Indios Verdes, where I got off and took the metro.

Summary

So yeah, it may be confusing, but it works out fine. Hope this information helped.