Inner City Life

Before coming to Mexico City, home to over 19 million people, we were on our guard. We'd heard that it can be quite dangerous and that it'd be a good idea to keep an eye on our belongings. Arriving in the infamous city I was inclined to agree. We came in on the bus, dodging hopeless drivers through some pretty rough looking streets and wondered whether or not this had been a good idea. Soon after arriving we got a taxi from an authorised taxi rank. You see, when in Mexico City you must use taxis from these authorised ranks or get someone official looking to get one for you. I guess the concern is the amount of kidnappings that happen here... great!

After a very long and confusing taxi journey we arrived at our hostel, named 'Home' and we were pretty happy. The area looked very nice indeed and the name of the road was one of our favourite imports, 'Tabasco'. I have a feeling that our driver wasn't used to his customers living in such surroundings, as he had to ask three other taxi drivers for directions.

Almost as soon as we'd arrived we left in search of some grub and had been armed with a map and options of the best places to go in the surrounding area. As we were on the outskirts of the city, we wandered into Condessa, a lovely area with lots of bars and quaint restaurants, where we found an American diner and stuffed our faces with burgers and milkshakes. During our stay in Mexico City we went to Condessa most nights and found it to be a very safe and very fun place to go of an evening.

As we were in the capital of Mexico, we thought it best to go out in search of some culture and found it in abundance slap-bang in the middle of town, the Zocalo or main square. The Zocalo is the heart of the historic center of Mexico City and is home to the Cathedral, the National Palace and some other federal buildings. It also sports the biggest Mexican flag known to man and whilst we were there, we saw huge floral signs saying 'Viva Mexico', for the 199th Aniversary of their independance from Spain.

Whilst we were there we were aproached by a man armed with a historical arsenal of factoids. For a few pesos he informed us about the true history of the Zocalo and how the Spanish came in with brute force to crush the the Aztec capital called Tenochtitlan. They came in bringing foreign disease, drained the aquaduct, which was the main source of the city's water supply and then, when most inhabitants had either died or left the city, they demolished the temples and re-built the buildings you can see now with the same stones. This is the same in all of the Spanish ruled countries all over Mexico and South America. Needless to say there is a lot of resentment from the natives even to this day.

Mexico City was also home to one of the world's most gifted artists and a true Mexican hero, Frida Kahlo. She lived with her husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera in what's known as La Casa Azul (The Blue House). It's in an area called Coyoacan, which is now the arty area of the city, probably due to Frida and Diego having lived there. It's a great building with many of both artists' work and also a few pieces from artists that had influenced them. Unfortunately, there aren't many of the most famous Kahlo pieces as they will no doubt be hanging somewhere in Paris, New York or the great city of London! Never the less, it is well worth a visit and is extremely informative about the life of an unfortunate, but extremely gifted lady who never gave up on life.


After spending a few hours in the blue house we rushed on the Metro to the main park, called Chapultepec, but were too late. They close it at 5pm to the public! It was still light and we tried to sweet talk the guard at the gate, but he was having none of it. As the sinking sun was glistening off his rather large gun we thought it best to not push him too far, besides it was nearly 7pm! Unfortunately it was the last evening of our trip we couldn't come back to have a wander and we were gutted. It looked amazing from the gates as we were walking past towards the centre of the city and even at one point we spotted a couple drinking cider by one of the lakes. Just like home. 

I have to say that Mexico City is very similar to any other big city. Yes, it has it's criminal contingent and it can be quite unsafe, but it also hosts some really great areas as well. I wouldn't advise you to be swinging your wallet around or go flashing it about in your designer Gucci loafers, but don't get bogged down with all the warnings and worriers. We loved it there and most of the time felt very safe. It's well worth a visit.

Oaxaca

When in Oaxaca - seriously that's a word Vorderman would love. Apart from barely being able to say it, we didn't know much about the town other than it was the food capital of Mexico - and that's all we needed to know.

We pulled up after another long-ish and rather gross journey...(someone had fogotten to flush the toilet and that combined with about 3 hours of winding mountain roads had left the toilet looking like your ceiling after a blender accident. Nice.)

Anyway, we pulled up to a rather nice colonial town which seemed very pleasant at first look. The first thing I did when we got to Oaxaca was search out a cooking class - Oaxaca boasts some of the best chefs working in Mexico today and as a result of all the food tourism, there are a number of cookery classes available ranging from half day lessons to whole weeks spent at villas in the countryside. We, of course, are on a budget, so we opted for a half day class which included a trip to a nearby market to buy food for our class.

We walked up the road from our hostel to the cooking class which was held in a lovely house with a courtyard called Casa Crespo. We chose this cooking class as the cooking focuses exclusively on the traditions of the Oaxaca region so we were to learn something completely new.

Firstly Oscar asked us to choose a number of ingredients and dishes to cook. I was really pleased that we weren't just going to cook from a set menu but could choose ingredients that were both in season and that we liked. Our menu was going to contain one of my favourite ingredients; courgette flowers - i literally only know one way of preparing them which is stuffing them with goats cheese and frying them but today we were going to make tortillas out of them and also a wonderful soup.
Our entire menu was as follows:

quesadillas and tortillas with cheese and courgette flower accompanied with a green and a red salsa and fresh guacamole, a courgette flower soup, a stew made from huitlacoche, a dark mole served with chicken, and a chocolate and chilli ice-cream. We even made a lime water drink to wash it all down.
And the best part ... we got to eat it all !

The next day we visited another larger market called '20 de Noviembre' which had cafes within the market that you could eat snacks or whole meals at. We tried a couple of dishes;

Tlayudas which are giant tortillas, fried crispy and topped with avocado, tomato, beef. onion gucamole and salsa.

Carne adobada which is a thin pork steak marinated in a spicy thick sauce.
Chaupalines which are (wait for it...) deep fried spicy grasshoppers, a famous tradition. The women who make these literally pick each grasshopper in the early mornings. The piles must have contained thousands of them !

Stuffed, we decided to find out what else the town had to offer...Rob had spotted a poster for a Lucha Libre match in town in a couple of days and being big fans of all wrestling and Nacho Libre we decided to check it out. I'm not sure what we were expecting but it wasn't wrestling ring under a gazebo in a park with only two lights taped to the gazebo to shed any light on what was going on in the ring. And then it began to rain!

Luckily we able to keep dry and unelectrocuted and ended up watching loads of great fights! And we had to buy a mask of course!

The next day we decided to get a bit more culture and decided to go on a excursion to various sites in the region of Oaxaca considered must see sites. I won't bore you with a descrition of each site but it went as follows:-

really huge massive tree

incredible ruins

tradtional weaving

pertrified waterfall

mezcal (a type of tequila) distillery

A strange and interesting list of sights you'll agree but we had a really fun day and felt better for having seen a bit more of what the region and Mexico had to offer.

Oaxaca ended up being a real mixture of things for us. We went expecting to be wowed by the food which we were but we were also caught by surprise at how many other things there were to do. A real gem in Mexico's glittering array of places to visit.

San Cristobal de las Casas

If I had a pound for everytime that someone told me to visit this beautiful town in the region of Chiapas, I'd have enough for a slap up meal.

Once we got off the 17 hour coach from Tulum and got in a taxi to our hostal, it was easy to see why everyone had raved about the place so much. The streets were filled with gorgeous multicoloured houses and markets. We also passed about three beautiful churches and plazas on our way to the hostal.

The other thing we noticed almost immediately about San Cristobal was how COLD it was ! It was bloomin' freezing compared to Tulum and we'd only been there half a day when it began to rain. Now, I had been commenting to Rob that I kind of missed the rain, well different weather in general as we'd been literally dripping with sweat for about two weeks, but as soon as it started to rain I realised that I would rather it didn't thank you very much.

San Cristobal is in one of the poorer regions of Mexico and examples of poverty could be seen everywhere that we looked. There were lots of people begging and even children shoe polishers in ragged clothes. However the town has been firmly on the backpacker trail for a number of years and the evidence was plain to see. Expensive bars and coffee shops jostled for space with tattoo shops and shops selling jewellery made from the region´s amber. However not once did I see a local in any of these places; it would have been interesting to know what they thought about their town being overrun with tourists and backpackers alike spending money in businesses they could no doubt find in their hometowns rather than in the markets and street stalls they owned.

San Cristobal was a wonderful place to photograph and walk around, but we were intrigued about the surrounding areas; there are a number of indigenous villages around San Cristobal which you can visit. Rob and I decided to visit San Juan Chamula... on horseback.

While I have a little riding experience, Rob was a complete novice. You think that paying for a travel agency for the experience would mean some guidance and explaination from the guides. You would be wrong. The guides only spoke Spanish and Rob was put on the horse, told not to pull the reins so hard and then was sent on his way. The first I knew of this was when Rob galloped past me on his horse, his face a mask of terror!
We managed to get to Chamula and back in one piece as you can probably tell... just!

No photos of Chamula though - tourists are forbidden to take photos in the town which is completely autonmous to the rest of Mexico - even down to having their own police force and no outside military or police are allowed inside.

Even though I'm very glad to have visited San Cristobal, I was very disappointed at how yuppyish the town had become. Everywhere we looked we saw travellers who had clearly put down roots in San Cristobal and were vying for trade with the indigenous locals from tourists, which to me basically means taking the food from their mouths. Even so it is a beautiful and much loved town in a very picturesque area and well worth a visit.

pn.

Tulum or not Tulum...

After an extremely heavy night in Miami, Priya and I found ourselves chatting to a group of people in the lift up to our hostel. I was chatting to a Russian girl and Priya, a Mexican man called Arael. We would see him from time to time during our stay in Miami and up til then I hadn't said much to him except 'Hi'. During their 20 minute chat he told her that he lives in a place called Tulum, that is very beautiful and has many ruins & cenotes nearby. He also said that if we came to town he would show us around. Very forward for a 20 minute conversation, but he seemed like an alright kinda guy so we agreed. As it turned out Arael is a lovely bloke and a true gentleman.

Tulum is everything Arael described and more. Whilst we were there, we visited two sets of ruins; Coba and Chichen Itza. Both were astonishing and very fortunate to still be standing. You see after the Spanish invaded Mexico and South America, they would take apart these temples and important buildings and build Catholic cathedrals and churches in their place, using the same stones!

Coba is a Mayan city which is in the heart of the jungle and the buildings are quite far apart from each other. We chose to ride bikes to get to each building, which just added to the sense of adventure. Coba is also great because you can climb the largest pyramid, which gives a breathtaking view of the jungle below.

Chichen Itza is the largest set of ruins in the state of Yucatán and the second largest city in the Aztec Empire. The Pyramid is the main focal point of the ruins, with a massive ball court close by. It is mainly out in the open, with few trees to shade you near the main buildings. Chichen Itza is also extremely touristy, with locals selling carved goods and Mayan clothing around every corner, with selling tactics that even Del Boy would be proud of!

Tulum is situated in the Yucatán province, which is famous for more than just the ruins. Cenotes. They are underground caves that have become flooded over millions of years of rising seas. Under the Yucatán there is an underground river with dozens of these openings known as cenotes (which comes from the Mayan word for well). Depending on the type of water in the different cenotes you can either snorkel or scuba dive in them.

As we don't scuba dive (which I am bitterly disappointed about) we went to a freshwater cenote called 'Gran Cenote', which was no further than 3km from our hostel. The water was freezing, but lovely considering the heat outside the water. There were lots of little fish swimming about and I even saw a fully grown turtle just before we were about to leave, which I hear is almost unhead of in that cenote. But the thing that hooked me was the fact we were swimming with fish, inside caves complete with stalactites and stalacmites, the occasional flash light illuminating invisible darkened caverns from scuba divers below, the icing on the cake being the bats flying above. It was both frightening and exhilarating. I generally find snorkelling fine, but the whole experience left my breathing panicky and uncontrolled. This, i thought, felt like a real adventure!

I could go on about Tulum for a very long time. It is a real gem and has so much to offer. All I would advise is go before everyone else does and it gets too touristic. It has begun to already and we possibly may have caught it one summer too late, but there is no doubt this small town will become over populated with people searching for the perfect holiday destination. Dare I say it, they might be right.

PS.

You can can in Cancun

Arriving in Cancun Airport we knew this was the start of travelling for real. In USA we had it easy, what with everyone speaking English 'n' all. This was the big test, so naturally we were quite nervous.

We managed to get a cheap shuttle bus to our hostel situated in the centre of downtown Cancun and the nerves weren't shaking off. The lady on reception hardly spoke any English and to be fair why should she, but we managed to check in ok. We were both very hungry so decided to head out straight away, but only got as far as the front door when a very smiley man asked us if we'd like to go to dinner with him! He later explained that he was going with a few others in the hostel and that he knew the area very well. He seemed alright and certainly very friendly so we agreed and weren't disappointed.

There we learned a few things about eating out in Mexico; firstly, where ever you go a band will find you and try to play you a song or two. Secondly, pork rib tacos are very highly recommended and lastly, they love a drink called Michelada. It is their version of a Bloody Mary. It consists of: 1 x Corona, 1 x lemons, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, Tabasco sauce, black pepper and salt. Nice! Well not really, but i'm sure it's an aquired taste!

Whilst at dinner, we spoke to this happy-go-lucky man named Enrique, who turned out to be the entertainments officer at the hostel. He sorts out all the excursions and all the girls that will allow him! He told us to hit the beach the next day and informed us about swimming with whale sharks! That sounded awesome so we were decided on that instantly.

The beach we decided on was absolute paradise, I'm sure you agree. Only thing is that if you look at the beautiful turquoise colour that seems to stretch for 30 metres or so, there the water never went higher than our knees! Where the water changes colour the sand bed drops for 10 metres at least. Not that i'm complaining, it was incredible.

Talking about incredible, the very next day we were speeding off across the Gulf of Mexico to check out a school of whale sharks. It took about half an hour to reach them. There were roughly about 100 of them swimming all around us, but to fully appreciate the spectacle we were taken into the water two-by-two for 15 minute sessions with the 'monsters'.

'Do not touch the sharks', we were told. The reason for this was that once touched, they would go deep and we wouldn't see them. I have more recently been told that you can kill a whale shark from touching it. Supposedly, they have a protective layer on their skin that can get irritated from foreign bacteria when in contact with humans and can later die from disease. This I didn't need on my conscience!

They were everywhere. Once you'd marvelled at one gracefully swimming past, collecting plankton, you just turned round to see the next. You had to be on your guard though, as they don't really seem to notice us small humans. At one point I was happily gazing at one swimming past, when I looked left and saw a five metre wide mouth no less than two metres from my miget body! I gave a little scream , which isn't a good idea with a snorkel on and got away just in time for it to give me a wink on the way past.



Snokelling with whale sharks was an incredible experience and was just the sort of adventure we'd hoped to find on our travels. We hope for more of the same in the places to come. As for Cancun, it is a place of contrasts. On one hand, it has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, but due to tourism, spring break and low standards the actual town of Cancun hasn't much to offer. I can see why people often fly straight to the resort and don't leave until they go home.

PS.

60 Days of Greyhound

After spending 60 days travelling around USA on the infamous Greyhound bus service we thought we should honour this achievement with a blog... as always! Yup indeedy, 60 days. That's:84 hours, 48 minutes and 12 seconds of actual travelling! Perhaps. . .

Responses to the fact that we've completed this feat have been interesting. Most have been that of pity - especially when they thought of us travelling with ex-convicts on their way home from prison. This did happen on some occasions. It was easy to spot them as they were always wearing the same clothes: blue t-shirt, beige trousers and blue plimsoles. That and they were generally the loudest people on the bus and they had some competition believe me.

We saw our fair share of interesting people on the Greyhound ranging from bible-bashers to singers (who wouldn't shut up!) to crabby old men. But in truth most were quite normal and kept themselves to themselves. Other than the extrovert, we were fortunate not to witness any crazies or loons like the ones we had become quite fond of during our stay in LA. The stations were generally pretty crappy, but matched the state of the buses quite well. They often had a restaurant which always had the same American staple diet: fried chicken, hamburgers, chips, Coke and lard! Believe me, anyone wanting a normal stool sample at the end of the day does not eat in the McRestaurants in the Greyhound stations. Saying that I'm always up for a challenge and with this in mind ate with ferocity whenever I could. Until one day that is... I rock up, hungry and in need of my daily dose of carbs drenched in fat. I walk to the counter and order a burger only to be told, 'sorry sir we're closed'. I look up at the clock above her, physically stunned as the small hand clicks to 1 and the big hand slides to 12. I'm pretty sure closing at lunchtime in the USA is the same as treason and is punishable by electrodes to the testicles! She got away with it a good ol' english 'tut' under the breath.

Halfway through our two month ordeal, we thought it would be clever to go on a night bus to Roswell. Not a good idea as it turned out. We went to a late night showing of '500 Days of Summer' at Albuquerque Cinemaplex, left satisfied and ready for the bus in the Greyhound station. After some time, numb bummed, we boarded the bus. We had one transfer at 4.30am and a 30 minute wait before boarding another bus to Roswell for 5 hours. Easy. The problem was that our first driver spoke very little English and was a total idiot! Not once did he try to wake anyone up at any stops. Every other driver would turn on the light and anounce the stop on the tannoy. Not this guy. This resulted in us waking up in Texas, at the wrong station, with our bags at the correct station. Not cool. Panicstricken, we tried to get information from the extremely unhelpful retards at the Greyhound Station. Eventually we found out that we were about to board the bus we had wanted to board, just a station too far. We jumped on, reassuring each other that our luggage would be waiting for us in 20 minutes time. Of course our bags were nowhere to be found when we got there. We started to panic. Fortunately, our driver to Roswell was extremely reassuring, and told us that our bags had probably been put on the next bus which would be passing through Roswell later.

The next 5 hours were the longest of our lives. Everything we owned were in those bags! It was a truly unthinkable situation to be in. We arrived, spoke to the lady in the fly-infested tin shed that Roswell calls a Greyhound station and she advised us to come back in 2 hours when the other bus unloaded. We didn't have much choice so went off to our Days Inn and patiently watched 'Cops' on Tru-TV. We couldn't even go in the pool, as skinny-dipping in Roswell may well get you examined by aliens.

Fortunately they arrived the next day, just before we were to go to the mall to get some more Speedos and who was to deliver then to us, but the very reassuring bus driver who took us to Roswell. His name is Migel, I'm getting a tattoo of his face on my face as a tribute... a true American hero!

So to summarise, Greyhound has been a true endurance test. We've seen a lot of things and what doesn't kill ya only makes you stronger, eh? It helped us to travel across America which we will be always grateful for, but next time I think we'll drive.

ps.

Florida: The Sunshine (and rainy and windy!) State !

Finally we were heading towards Florida and end of our marathon 7 week tour of America. We had never planned to spend so much time in the US but the further along we got, we decided that it would be rude not to go all the way and head to the East coast. However in order to get to Miami, we first had to traverse all the way along and down Florida - which is a hell of a looooooong way.

We knew that there was no way that we were going to do it in one trip so decided to have a couple of stops in Florida along the way - it had been quite a while since we had been on the beach so we thought we'd stop at 2 !

We weren't at all sure what to expect of Florida as like most people we know, all we'd heard about Florida was Disneyworld, The Everglades and Miami.
Well I'm glad to tell you that Florida has a wonderful stretch of coastline with soft white sand and azure seas as the northern half of Florida is along the Gulf of Mexico.

Our first stop was Panama City Beach, situated just east of the Alabama-Florida border. Panama City Beach was just what we needed after the madness of 'Nawlins', a motel on the beach combined with peace and quiet. The resort seems to have boomed in recent years with a lot of new hotels and apartment complexes being built along the coast.

Our next stop was Jacksonville, the largest city in Florida. However we decided to hang out in Jacksonville Beach, which had a very pleasant small-town feel to it. We even decided to visit the local bowling alley to bowl for $3 each a game and enjoy 2 for 1 beers!

Having chillaxed to the max, we finally felt ready for Miami. Ah Miami...a place that we had so much to thank for; rolled up sleeves on blazers, pastel suits, no socks. Oh wait that's Miami Vice. I on the other hand have to thank Miami for giving me one of the worst hangovers of my life.

Miami passed in a haze of massive cocktails, beach side bars, huge and expensive clubs, the most awful fashion this side of Eastern Europe and HOT HOT HEAT.

There's not really much more to say, except for those out for a fantastic holiday with money to burn, this is the perfect destination.

pn.