One tequila, two tequila, three tequila…..?four

Hola, bienvenidos a la ciudad de Mexico.

We are loving Mexico so far - vibrant, clean (in our area anyway) and cheap! However if you don’t speak any Spanish then you’ll have a bit of a challenge - there is some English spoken, but relatively limited and the menus for the street food are only in Spanish. Luckily I can remember enough from the Sth American trip 15 years ago to be able to largely understand the menus, and do basic communication!

We’ve got a Mexican sim now so that makes it a little easier to use google translate when out and about!! Although this is a little dangerous in Trap’s hands - especially after a couple of beers!

Our hotel is in an historic building that has been renovated, so the rooms are modern but the lobby and floors still have some of the original stonework. I’m not sure whether the statues are creative or scary, but they’re definitely different. 

We’re a couple of blocks or about 400m from the Plaza de la Constitution and the Cathedral, so we’re in a fantastic location. We have markets, taquerias, bakery’s and historic buildings all around us, making resisting shopping VERY difficult (I must not buy anything, I must not buy anything,,,). Ok so I’ve bought a really tiny amount, just a couple of items, really…

There are police everywhere and they're fairly mean looking - dressed in black, on the back of utes, with balaclavas on and holding machine guns. Apparently as the seat of parliament and president's office is just round the corner, security is very high!

Mascots dance in front of shops to try and entice people in, but as we have no idea what they're talking about, it's not working on us :)

We’ve got a great little rooftop bar/restaurant about 50m down the road which is quickly becoming our local. 7-8pm is “power hour” - 100 peso for as many beers or margaritas you can drink…. Very popular with the backpacker crowd. We particularly enjoyed the grasshopper guacamole dish I ordered by mistake...

We’re not sure if it’s not the tourist season or if for spring break everyone has gone elsewhere, but there are very few tourists around and even less that aren’t Mexican. There’s no queues, and all the tourist agents are vying to get your business.

Yesterday, we headed out on a day trip to Teotihuacan - which are Mesoamerican pyramids predating the Aztec Empire. At its height, Teotihuacan was considered the sixth largest city in the world and the city covered 21km2. They are more impressive than I expected being only an hour out of Mexico City. While there is still some original stonework, a lot has been reconstructed, but still way vaster than I thought they’d be. We were taken through the obligatory gift shop which included tequila & mezcal shots - however seasoned drinkers that we are - no purchases were made.

 

On the way back we stopped off at the Basilica Guadalupe (not another church from Trap, am pretty sure if they'd offered him a beer and left the aircon running he'd have stayed in the bus!) - which has 5 different churches dedicated to the miracle virgin. It’s also sinking (as are many parts of Mexico city apparently) - so some of the churches are leaning! There’s a large number of people sleeping on the ground and in tents, which we initially thought were homeless people, but turns out they’re pilgrims waiting for the next miracle!!

Tonight, we found a funky little piano bar - that was showing old school black & white films & had a lot of cool features. Came with complimentary (spicy) peanuts and dried chillies (VERY spicy) - just about blew Trap's head off!!

We’re off to the anthropological museum tomorrow and Luchre Libre tomorrow night at Arena Mexico, which should be a laugh.

Amiga/os posteriores (later friends).

J&T xx