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Published: February 12th 2010
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Chillis!
Welcome to Mexico! Sarah
Alcohol: a few beers here and there, and some 2 rather strong Mezcal cocktails last night!
Weight: Might have to wait for that one as it´s unlikely we´ll see any weighing scales for a while! But my trousers are now too baggy!
Bag weight: minus Trek Study stuff, (i.e. poo collecting kit - we finished today!), but plus a rug bought in Oaxaca...
Calories: everything is fried in lard!!
It´s been a while since we last did a blog so we will do a quick sum up so we can catch up!
Mexico City continued
Ben
The next day we went to Xochimilco, a network of canals at the south of the city where there are many flower growers. The area was initially cultivated by the Aztecs as a way of feeding their population of the city built as canals on a lake. They created these islands to grow food and they still exist today as a world heritage site. Locals and tourists alike ride around on these big colourful boats that are punted along by a man with a big stick. Mariachi bands, souvenir sellers and even food sellers
(people with big pots of boiling water and grills and sweetcorn cobs balanced precariously in their canoe) will come alongside and offer you a song/souvenir/food for a small amount of money. We forgot our camera though and had to buy a disposable, so we will see how the pictures came out in about 6 months!
Aferwards we had a look around a mansion of a now-deceased wealthy socialite that is now a museum and art gallery, with many Diego Rivera paintings, but the Frida Kahlo exhibition was temporarily in Europe! There was lots of other Mexican art and some pre-hispanic breed black hairless dogs. And lots of strutting peacocks.
We met Erik once more before leaving Mexico City, for coffee, cake and a tour of Polanco, the rich neighbourhood with a strong Jewish community. Many scenes from Amores Perros were filmed here (including the big car crash).
And then we went to Puebla!
Peubal and Cholula - colonial towns and pyramids
Puebla is like mini mini very safe studenty Mexico City. We explored the town, ate some food, sat on the Zocalo (the main square) and watched the world go by. We also went to
Cholula
The Spanish built a church on top of a pyramid. Silly billies a small nearby town called Cholula where the colonising Spaniards built an elaborate church on top of a big hill that later was discovered to have been a huge pyramid, no overgrown with grass, flowers and trees. It was a very important pre-Hispanic city centre that fell into decline long before the Spanish invaded.
However the weather started to turn over these two days, it got decidedly chilly and even rained (a lot on one day!). Then it was time for Oaxaca (Wa-Ha-Ka), which we had heard a lot of positive things about.
Last thoughts on Mexico City
A quick reflection on Mexico City. Everywhere there is food. Fancy restaurants, cafes, holes in the wall selling tacos, people selling snacks stood within the traffic at traffic lights, on the subway as well as in the subway stations. The most impressive that we saw were a corn on the cob seller with a large pot of boiling water in a shopping trolley at the side of the road, and a taco seller operating out of a car boot. And both were doing very good business!
The subway - 3 pesos to go on any one journey (it
Queso
The only place in the world where you can order a bowl of melted cheese, and you don´t get laughed at. is 20 to the pound), really easy to navigate around. The aforementioned snack sellers were a constant feature, as well as people selling absolutely anything else! Mostly they sold CDs. They would get on to one carriage, turn their music on really loud and blast the carriage with whatever type of music it may be, then do a little speech to announce and advertise their wares, which was always for 10 pesos. It was never dull on the subway!
The danger of the place was drummed into us no-end, from guidebooks, expats and Mexico City residents alike (especially the doctors from our first trek stufy appointment, who gave us a long lecture on the dangers of the city and what to do if, for example, we were being followed! But we had a very safe and really great time. Pretty much every person we met was really kind and friendly, and appreciated the attempt we would make at Spanish discourse. The traffic wasn´t half as bad as we had been led to believe either, they never ran you over if you walked out in front of the traffic! But the quantity of traffic was something else. Comparable to the
population, there was a heck of a lot. Also, leaving the city on the bus was very eye-opening - concrete urban sprawl for as far as the eye could see, and it took a really really long time to get out!
Ok, my musings are over. for now.
Next time, Oaxaca!! (sneak preview - it was brilliant). Someone ate Grasshoppers, and someone ate a Maguey worm.
P.S. it was only cloudy on the day we went to Cholula! No photos of Xochimilco cos of the camera debaucle...
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