First Sight

  Mexico City, Central Mexico and Gulf Coast, Mexico
Monday, November 3, 2008

Week 1

Monday. 

No turning back now

  After a "brisk" 11 hour flight over Canada and the U.S. we decended into Mexico City just as the sun was setting over the mountains.  The final approach was the most breathtaking sight from a plane I've ever experienced.  The sheer scale of this city is incomprehensible, the lights just went on for ever in every direction and the city is set in  beautiful rolling hills with a mountainous backdrop. Photos do not do it justice. I asked the Mexican couple beside me whether there was a viewing tour anywhere but even that would be not be sufficient to grasp the magnitude of the place. That was the only pleasant experience about the whole flight, I know I eat alot more than my figure belies but British Airways feed quite poorly in cattle class. I was in agony from about 5 hours in!

A very small part of Mexico City

 

90 minutes in an immigrations queue (they must have put me in the Americano queue) and then not even a nod from a customs officer I was milling around the airport fighting off eager eyed dodgy cab drivers.  Not a hint of a sign to indicate how to get to the metro, needless to say I perservered on and decided to try out my first piece of Spanish.  "¿Habla usted ingles?". "A little" came the reply. Brilliant! "Subway por favor".  I was off on my way again. After a brief embarrasing moment where I tried to purchase a subway ticket from a car park payment machine I found the station.  No change to buy a ticket meant no ride. ( A ticket was 2 pesos, the smallest I had was 50 and was suitably laughed out of the station).  So I decided to throw in the towel and take a cab. Gutted but I tried and it was by far the easier option. 6 quid and 45 minutes later I was sitting in the hostel destroying a good old fashioned "Mexican" Burger and Chips. Not long afterwards I zoned out to the sounds of traditional Mexican music on the square outside my window. 


Wednesday, got up bright and breezy not knowing what the day would entail. Volcano tour, leaves in 10 mins. Sold!

Nevada Del Toluca

Wow! 4 hours later I was hiking into the crater of Nevada De Toluca, a dormant volcano about 100 miles from Mexico City.  4200m high, 4 steps and I was struggling for breath. Wish I had kept the running up throughout the Summer!






Inside the crater there are two glacial lakes, Lagoon of the Moon and Lagoon of the Sun.

Lagon of the Moon

Lagoon of the Sun

There`s not much life up here, trees can't live this high and plants struggle too. That said I got to the edge of the lake and there was cow$hit! There always seems to be "cows" and "$hit" wherever I go. 

Gabriel

Our tour guide, Gabriel, was a nutcase! Think speedy gonzalez on drugs and you get the idea. I can't imagine what his 2 kids must be like. He even kept us entertained in the evening during the traffic jam back into Mexico City by contributing his 2 pesos worth to a road rage incident. This guy has everything!



Thursday, joined up with an Italian guy, Raymon and 2 Danish girls, Sarah and Sabrina, from my hostel and made our own way (Finally on the subway - so cheap that thing 2 pesos a pop to go anywhere - that's about 10 pence) out to the ancient ruins at Teotihuacan or Piramides as the locals call them. This is an ancient site which was believed to be occupied / visited by many civilisations including the Toltecs, Maya and Aztecs over the years and at it's height was one of the biggest cities in the world with well over 100,000 people living there. (So just a bit bigger than Mullingar then!). It has two massive pyramids, Pyramid of the sun, the 3rd biggest in the world and Pyramid of the Moon. Although a huge tourist attraction, it's scale makes it a very peaceful place, some would say spiritual.  We finished off the day back in the hostel chatting to some other weary travellers with a healthy amount of cerveza and some salsa sounds.

On top of the Pyramid of the Moon

Scale Model of the site

Friday, travelled to a place called Xochimilico on the edge of the city. Think Venice crossed with Cambridge with lots of colour Mexican style. It is a serious of canals, that started out as a lake with floating islands. It was a very important source of food and plants and still has a strong agricultural influence to this day. However it is now more famous as a big party place where you can hire boats and a guy to punt you around the canals. There are thousands of colourful boats and many people come here to eat, drink and party serviced by the floating shops, bars and traditional Mexican bands. We spent about 2 hours floating around taking in the atmosphere and watching the locals going about there everyday business. 

Yes it was definitely called Xochimilco

Floating entertainment

Some boats!

Saturday, I had arranged with some Mexican contacts to go see the real Mexico City. Monteserrat and Tomas took me out for the day to their own neighbourhoods and some other very nice parts of town. One of the highlights being the very first house Hernan Cortés lived in when he came to Mexico. It was stunning looking with traditional mexican colours and extremely well preserved. It is closed to the public as somebody actually lives there but in the back there is a restaurant and beautiful gardens.  

Tomas and I at the house of Hernan Cortez

The courtyard

Mis amigos mexicanos!

We spent the afternoon relaxing, nosying around some local markets/bazaars and was I treated to an authentic Mexican spread for dinner. (Not a burger or chip in sight Neil!). Afterwards we travelled to a popular nightspot where we were joined by some more of Mon and Tomas`s friends and I spent the evening practising my Spanish. (Well actually everybody could speak perfect English, so I felt quite embarrased about my feeble attempts at conversation in Spanish). We drank and joked into the small hours and made plenty of new Mexican friends. A fantastic day and night out and my thanks to Mon and Tomas for their hospitality!




Next is an overnight bus journey to Oxaca City, approx 7 hours south east of Mexico City.