We have made it safe and sound to Mexico (the WORLD´s largest city) and for once, our 100% unorganised last minute madness paid off well, a hotel (San Marino Suites) booked online at the airport on a last minute website (Laterooms.com) has turned out to be a gem and we´re paying about 20% the normal tariff! (We seriously hope, or we will be home soon).
Yayayay we´re in Mexcio, I´m so excited. Just going to sort out some kind of ´plan´ for the next 3 months, then get going. We have got the BIGGEST guide book for Mexico, it´s quite overwhelming for the moment, but I´m sure we´ll struggle through.
On brief viewing today, Mexico City seems to be very cool and modern, wth great life. There is street art everywhere, every bench in this city is interesting (pix soon) which makes walking really interesting. I was really worried it was going to be awful, huge and smelly with muggings abundant, so I´m a happy girl and I think we´ll stay (the great hotel is helping too!) We are staying in the ´pink zone´ near the CBD, known for it´s gay friendliness, there were a lot of sequins on our walk today. Definitely THE place to stay in MC, it is clean, green and quiet compared to the rest of the city bits we´ve seen. We actually went out tonight (I know, brave) and the pink zone was pumping even at 8 o´clock, I have never seen so much boy-boy girl-girl action (and I´ve been to Brighton gay pride parade) and was seriously in the minority. Also when we went out there were hundeds of police surrounding the angel monument, which made us nervous, and drums and protest... then around the corner came
hundreds of naked men skipping, beating drums, dancing and yelling in the streets. Very strange. ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what that was about, but it was pretty interesting!
I have been apprehensive about Mexico´s food too, as flatmate Matthew had told me years ago ´it´s not all tacos and nachos you know´ and what we have in Oz is a very bastardised (yummy) version. We had tacos today and they were great, and all the food looks great in the street stalls. We also did our good deed of the day and shared our dinner with a homeless person, he was so grateful I nearly cried.
It s also looking thankfully like it might be a bit easier on the budget here. It´s going to be an interesting few months hurtling towards the end of our funds!!
Two days in and we feel we have done Mexico City, especially after being groped on the metro today, gross. And I thought the worst thing would be pickpockets. I have never been so brazenly ogled, even the policemen stare at your boobs. I did feel sorry for some of the coppers (not the pervy ones) as they have these little chariot things they ride around on, which go fast, but are not so cool. Also not cool were their hats - massive, embroidered Sombreros. What some police have to put up with!
Most impressive feature of Mexico City - green men at crosswalks (that are green for a start, they are white in South America, I just thought they were faded for a loooong time) and actually walk, I will post a film as evidence, they are super cute dudes.
We went to an archeological site an hour out of the city, called Teotihuacan. We walked down and up, down and up stairs all day, a very good workout, and very impressive pyramids, the sun pyramid is the 3rd largest in the world. Tourist site = touts, loads of them, the good news is ´no gracious´ (Spanish) has re-replaced ´nao obrigada´ (Portugese, still stuck in my head) officially through being used 7,000,000 times today. Most of the site looks rebuilt, and the bits that haven´t been excavated look pretty rubblous, but it´s a great site, and I was really glad to have seen Mel Gibson's film Apocalypto as I could better imagine a thriving civilisation there. Mexico also have the world's largest pyramid, but apparently it is just a big grassy mound, so we might skip it unless it falls right in our way.
Anyway, sadly we are out of Mexico City tomorrow, heading to the coast for some thunderstorms. We have just had the poo-est weather on this trip! The plan now is to head north to LA, fly to Vancouver for Giles and Becký's wedding then come back through Minnesota to see Craig and Tina, then NYC, and back to Cancun to have the last 6 weeks in Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Watch this choatic travel plan as we just keep crossing our tracks and going around in circles! How hard is it to plan anything a year in advance?!?!?! Ciao for now xx
5/7 - We have not been swept away by a landslide.
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