Vagabond and Beyond: Why visit Mexico City....

The drive from San Cristobal to Mexico City was 15 hours and it wasn't helped by the several narcotics police stops along the road. Our bus was pulled over six times by them in the first two hours and searched 4 of those times, thankfully when we left the state of Chiapas there was no more stoppages. They must think people stop smuggling drugs after that state?! We were staying in the historic centre close to the zocalo (Main Square), so that was our first port of call. The restaurant we chose to have a drink in order to look out over the zocalo happened to be a little more upscale than we anticipated, so when they found out we wanted drinks instead of their pricey buffet we were asked nicely to leave and return later for drinks (a little embarrassing), we probably only got into the hotel in the first place because we were gringos!

A lot of people warned us off Mexico City but none of these people had been there, anyone we met that had been to Mexico City said it was a must go place and not to miss it and thankfully we made the extra effort to see it. There is a serious amount of attractions in Mexico City; to do most of the list recommended to us you would need at least two weeks. We tried to fit in the guts of the massive city best we could in the 5 or 6 days we planned on staying there. First up, the National Palace, stupidly I spent more money for a locker to put my water bottle in than the water cost itself! Moving on from my stupidity, the building was once occupied by Hernán Cortés, the Spanish explorer who conquered the Aztecs, and the reason for our visit was to view the famous panoramic mural of Mexican history by Diego Rivera. The murals sum it all up pretty good and rightfully enough the conquistadors are not shown in the best light. Then on to the National Anthropology museum, the highlight being the Stone of the Sun or Aztec Calendar which was excavated from the Zocalo, apparently it was more likely used as a ritual altar for gladiatorial sacrifices rather than an astronomical device, the most impressive artefacts in Mexico always seem to involve sacrifices! We finished our day with a trip to the Tequila and Mezcal museum which also happened to be Mariachi central (from what we could tell they all meet up here before heading off to gigs for the night). Sneaky photo below of Sarah chilling with the Mariachi's.

The next day we were planning to head to the large ruins just outside Mexico City (Teotihuacan), however, some books/websites said they were closed on a Monday so we headed to the area of Coyoacan where Frida Kahlo's (famous Mexican artist) house is, which is now a museum. Unfortunately that museum was closed too and we later found out that ironically the Teotihuacan ruins were now open on Monday's! With nothing to do we found a great food place in the local market and had the best Tacos we've eaten in Mexico to date (unashamedly returning the next day for double portions). We spent the rest of the day in an artist's market and bought a few things to send home. We're chancing the Mexican postal system and according to our tracking number the package has already made it to the airport so we might be one of the lucky ones that get a package delivered.

Next day we had a lot of catching up to do now that the sites were finally open. We went to Teotihuacan ruins and climbed the massive pyramid of the sun, pyramid of the moon and walked the avenue of the dead. The ruins founded by an unconfirmed people are much older than the Mayan ruins (beginning 100 BC) and later became an Aztec city. Apparently at one stage the city would have been one of the largest in the world. On the way back from the ruins the bus was stopped yet again by the police and all the men had to get off (I figured this out when I looked around and it was me and about 10 women) for a bit of a pat down. We read earlier that the bus to the ruins is robbed frequently so they must have police stops along the route to stop further robberies. We then went to Frida Kahlo's casa azul or blue house and back just in time for Mexican wrestling night with the hostel. Free Tequila shots before the wrestling and off we went to the main arena for the oddity that is Mexican wrestling. Unfortunately no cameras are allowed in so I couldn't take any photos of a little person fighting a Ron Jeremy lookalike, it was surreal to say the least. Back to the hostel where the barman gave free Tequila to people with wrestling masks, hadn't posted mine back home at this stage so free Tequila it was and some post wrestling banter.

Mexico City is beautiful and one of our favourite places yet, the people were friendly, the metro is brilliant and there is more things to do in this city than any I've been to anywhere else in the world. Sure we saw 3 police officers running down the street with guns out and later what appeared to be a post mugging scene but this is one of the largest cities in the world (23 million) so there is going to be some crime and if you're not an idiot you'll survive the mayhem and love this city. From our experience it was all good and if anyone asks us if they should visit the city they will get a resounding yes! A quick note on the metro, during rush hour it's every man for himself (I say man as women and children can take their own separate carriages) and people nearly kill each other getting on and off. Being one of the tallest people on the metro (Sarah is the average height in Mexico) helps as you miss the elbows to the face : )

Our next stop was going to be Acapulco to lie on the beach and give these hectic days of visiting ruins and museums a well-deserved break but after mentioning our plans to the barman in our hostel we quickly changed our minds. We checked the news about Acapulco and now plan to skip the beach and head to Oaxaca staying in the surfing paradise of Puerto Escondido after there. Apparently there is somewhat of a war going on in Acapulco with a few shoot outs on the main tourist strip with heads recently decapitated being thrown into shopping centres etc. The barman said that there are 15 kidnappings and 10 murders a day so thinking it might be best to skip Acapulco if we want to finish out this trip! We just started on the malaria tablets so looking forward to the side effects already; short term memory loss is one of them so I'll be using it as an excuse for everything I do wrong. Short term memory loss is one of them so I'll be using it as an excuse for everything I do wrong.....