Mexico City
Trip Start
Feb 25, 2007
1
72
Trip End
Aug 25, 2007
Mexico City,
Mexico
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Today me and guy got up at ridiculous o clock, because of severe jet lag, got some free mexican eggs at our hostel, and set off in the city. It was so hot, and really busy even early in the morning. We walked to this huge statue of an angel, which is in the middle of a massive road. Spealking of which, the roads are absolutely mental, everyone drives like nat, and uses their horn freely. We then walked down to the main park in the city, which is huge, 1000 acres, and walked all round that. Whenever we passed mexican teenagers they absolutely pissed themselves at us, i dont know why. Then we went to the zoo! which was free, and really good, although the animals looked a bit bored and pissed off!
There were also huge gangs of police wandering around looking menacing, which was nice, but we didnt get mugged so si suppose they are doing a good job. We then thought we would get a bit of culture in, and went to see the museum of anthropology, which is meant to be one of the best museums in the world. We had to cross some mental roads to get there, but it was worth it; it was really good. Cheap entrance fee, and there were some amazing exhibits and displays.
After that we trekked all the way back to the trendy district called Condesa, to get some lunch in, which was really cheap, 5 quid, and really tasty. Then we were nackered, so we went back to the hostel and got some kip in. We woke up to find that we had some room mates, a couple of australians and a belgian, who are really nice, and have given us some good reccomandations and advice for the rest of our time in Mexico!
G - We have had a really good time in Mexico city and its our last day today (28th).
View from hostel
We have booked our 16 hour bus trip down to Puerto escondido now which we{ll take overnight tonight and we have booked our hostel in Puerto already, its called Mayflower hostel, have a look if you like. Yesterday we went out to the ruins of Teotihuacan the Aztec civilisation-. It was amazing, we went on a tour which cost 15 quid each for the whole day but was well worth it. The drive out there in this lttle minibus was incredible, it took us an hour to get out of the maassive urban sprawl that is mexico city and its suburbs which all kind of mould into one. These houses are tiny huts really and piled up on the mountaisides, the people are very poor. Our tour leader was mexican but spoke amazing english and she had a degree and two masters in this exact field so she knew her stuff. It made it much more interesting than if we had just wondered round. We climbed up the pyramid of the sun which is the 3rd largest pyramid in the world- we got out of breath pretty fast with the altitude and all that. We also went for a really nice meal last night in this tinyt little argentinian restaurant bar in Condesa - its an area in walking distance from our hostel which is full of bars and restaurants. Its really hot here and we cant wait to get to the beach and chill out for a couple of days. We have just returned from the downtown area of Mexico city around the Zocalo - the huge square in the city centre where we have been today. We visited the Cathedral which is the largest in latin america and also climbed up the torre latino, a huge tower from which we had amazing views of the city, just buildings as far as you can see, disappearing into the smog.
Zona Rosa
Also the national palace is amazing and contains some incredible murals by Diego Rivera, his art is every where here. The city centre itself is basically just museums galleries and a ridiculous amount of shoe shops. There are tiny street vendors everywhere and shoeshine boys with there little stalls. Every time cars stp at traffic lights (which isnt very often, regardless of the colour) people run into the road holding sweets, newspapers or anything they think they might be able to sell and many start washing unwilling drivers' windscreens in the hope that they'll get a few pesos. We went to a small taco cafe for a comida corrida - the traditional mexican lunch - it was 39 pesos each (about 2 pounds) but consisted of 2 courses of very watery soup, one with some strange chicken in it and the other mainly rice, the desert was a chocolate bar which the waiter presented very proudly, couldn{t help laughing at this point. Our spanish is kind of coming on but generally we dont know what we have ordered in restaurants apart from beer and enchiladas which are great. The mexican people are very friendly and we havent really felt unsafe at any point, the most unsettling people are the policemen and soldiers brandishing their weapons.There{s some reallyu nice people in our hostel and it seems everyone is so friendly, we have met a girl from leicester who is going to be in Lima at the same time as us, she´s been travelling on her own through north america and is now doing central and south. So we have booked into the same hostel in lima which will be fun. The two aussie girls who have been in mine and calums dorm have already been down to Oaxaca and highly recommended it so we have some ideas about what to do there. It is unfortunate that we have to get on buses now pretty much non stop for a couple of weeks but hopefully we will be able to stop at some great´places along the way. Sorry for all the typos this computer keyboard is a bit funny and im trying to be quick.
I'll try to upload some photos but this machine in our hostel is so slow.
