Arriba!!

  Mexico City, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico
Thursday, June 26, 2008

Mexico City

For those who read my last entry you´ll know I was starting to get a little travel fatigued, well just like a glass of red bull with them fizzy cola bottle things in it, Mexico completely revived me.  I arrived in Mexico City with not many expectations, in fact the only thoughts I had on the place was that it was a very populated city and very polluted and probably just like many other run of the mill cities I´d been to - I was wrong,  the place is brilliant.  As the plane came in to land I noticed the area to be very green and not as concrete as I was expecting, I also realised that I´d missed the colour green being in a landscape over the last 5 weeks of seeing the beige of the Peruvian and Bolivian desert landscapes.  The skies were slightly overcast too and looked like it could pee it down at any minute - reminded me of home, I liked it.  But overall the vibe of the place felt good straight away, can´t really explain that one though, it just felt good.

Statue Of Independence

I arrived late in the evening so didn´t do much that first evening except eat from a 7-Eleven (hadn´t seen one of these since Oz).  The next morning I went exploring this great city taking in the Independence Square and Chapultepec park, before moving in to the historic centre with its many cathedrals, churches and museums.  The historic centre was nice with a bizarre mix of old buildings with great architecture, nestled in with shops in alleyways selling everything form bargain clothes to shampoo to umbrellas.  With over a hundred museums in the centre I had to visit a couple and took in the cultural museum and the Jose Luis Cuevas museum, I hadn´t heard of Cuevas before but from his work he looks like a Picasso wannabe.  I also headed up the latinoamericana tower for the views of Mexico City and the huge park in the middle of the city which was very central park-esque but smaller.

Palacio de Bellas Artes

Mexico City Cathedral

Mexico City From High

The following day I went to somewhere I was particularly excited about seeing, the Estadio Azteca, home of two of the greatest world cup finals ever, 1970 and 1986.  It was great seeing the stadium that brought back so many memories from when I was a nipper watching the 86´ finals and the place is still in really good condition too.  There is a guided tour of the stadium which costs 20 pesos (just a quid) which was great value and we got right down to pitch side and into the changing rooms.  We did a circuit of the stadium too and it has some great graffiti and murals, a lot of them depicting Argentinian and Brazilian footballers which I thought was a bit strange, but also Michael Jackson and Bono popped up a lot (I think they´ve both played gigs here).  There´s also a plaque to Diego Maradonas goal against England in 86 (the good one not the cheating hand of god one) along with some yellow paint splatters where it looks like someones tried to vandalise the plaque (perhaps the trio of Terry Fenwick, Peter Reid and Peter Shilton).

Azteca Stadium

Inside The Stadium

Cool Graffitti

The rest of that afternoon I spent first of all at ´Ripleys believe it or not´ museum which was a museum of weird stuff from around the world including a reproduction of the Mona Lisa constructed entirely of toast, the biggest tea pot in the world, wax models of the thinnest, fattest and tallest men, the man with biggest nose ever who was from Yorkshire apparently (see for yourself but I can´t believe thats real) and a bloke who could put a tennis ball, golf ball and pool ball in his mouth all at the same time. 

Big Conk

Ball Mouth

Tall Guy

Next door to this museum was a wax works so I went in there on a double ticket and had my pic taken with all sorts of stars, so heres a quick ´Guess Who The Celebrity Is?´ quiz for you with a prize for anyone who can get all twelve correct.  Tip - I´m not the celebrity in each case.

Guess Who 1

Guess Who 2

Guess Who 3

Guess Who 4

Guess Who 5

Guess Who 6

Guess Who 7

Guess Who 8

Guess Who 9

Guess Who 10

Guess Who 11

Guess Who 12

Viva Mexico

In the evening we went out for beers in a district of the city where there was good nightlife and to catch the
copa libertadores final, first leg, which we´d been following all the way through South America.  I didn´t do too much on my last day in Mexico city apart from go back to the area we were the night before to catch the Euro semi finals, and drank in a bar where there was a big Old Spice promotion going on.  Old Spice is back apparently, or so the pretty ladies handing out free anti-perspirant were telling us, and I won a free old spice football for correctly predicting some stuff in the footy match.  Bit too big for me to carry around unfortunately so I donated it to the hostel.  A few hours later and we were on the bus east to the state of Chiapas.