Xochimilco's canal network predates the Spanish conquest by at least six centuries. The Mexica built chinampas — rectangular island gardens framed by woven reeds and anchored with willow roots — across the shallow bed of Lake Xochimilco, extending farmland into open water. By the fifteenth century the system fed Tenochtitlan with flowers, maize, and vegetables carried by canoe along 170 kilometres of interconnected channels. The Spanish drained most of the Valley of Mexico's lakes after 1521, but Xochimilco's canals survived as an agricultural lifeline. UNESCO inscribed the site in 1987, recognising both the engineering legacy and the cultural continuity of chinampa cultivation. Today the waterways function as a living museum and a weekend gathering place. Families, tourists, and locals hire trajineras — flat-bottomed boats painted in primary colours and arched with the owner's name — for hour-long or day-long floats. Mariachi bands pole alongside and serenade passengers for a negotiated fee. Vendors drift past selling elote, tacos, flowers, and bottled drinks from their own smaller craft. The canal district hums with accordion riffs, laughter, and the slap of wooden poles against shallow mud. The xochimilco party boat tour tradition blends pre-Hispanic infrastructure with modern leisure. The trajineras themselves evolved from working canoes into passenger barges in the mid-twentieth century, their length and width calibrated to canal dimensions that have changed little since Aztec surveyors marked them. Most are five to six metres long, fitted with a table down the centre and low benches along the sides. A single boatman stands at the stern, steering with a quant pole that reaches the canal bed. The boats move slowly — rarely faster than walking pace — but the rhythm suits extended gatherings. Groups bring food, sound systems, and tequila; the canal becomes a floating plaza. Embarcadero Nuevo Nativitas anchors the busiest stretch. Dozens of trajineras tie up along the concrete wharf, each decorated with paper flowers and vinyl lettering. Weekend afternoons draw the largest crowds, and the canals narrow into slow-moving parades of colour and sound. Early morning offers a quieter alternative: the water reflects unbroken sky, egrets hunt in the reeds, and the boatmen's voices carry across empty channels. The chinampas themselves remain productive; farmers pole to their plots at dawn, tending radishes, spinach, and ornamental flowers in soil built layer by layer over centuries.