Blogs from Mexico, North America - page 650

Day 23 and 24 - San Diego and travelling day to Mexico Day 23 - Saturday - 16 June 2007 Not much at all to report for these two days. We had a slack morning on Saturday, just taking our time. We then headed into the Fashion Shopping centre. Spent a bit of time doing some wandering around the shops. There was another Tiffany & co, but I managed not to go in! It will have to wait until NY! We had another great lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, a place we'd discovered courtesy of J&J in LA and then went to see Shrek the Third. Back to the hotel for an early night, as we were getting up early the next day for our full travelling day to Mexico. Day 24 - Sunday - ... read more

This was our second stop of our weekend trip, Real del Monte (de Mineral or Mineral de Monte back in the day and with the nickname "El Real"). My Lonely Planet book doesn't give this small town enough credit. This is one of the best reasons to travel with locals because they take you to the hidden gems of their country. It is worth a visit. Even the website states the truth, Pueblos Magicos/Magical Towns. I did just find a website address for the town http://www.el-real.com. Real del Monte is a very small town approx. 2 hours outside of Mexico City. It is the highest/tallest populated urban location in Mexico at 2660 m.. It was a mining town years ago, established by the English, so in turn has a very rich culture and history. It ... read more

From Tulum we took a bus to Cancun and yes the hotel zone looks as built up as we imagined! As Cancun does not really interest us we headed straight to the ferry to get to Isla Mujeres. Although Isla Mujeres is very close to Cancun and rather developed, it is still really nice and small. There are no high rise hotels and the beaches are all still public. There are quite a lot of umbrealls and sun chairs to rent and the beaches are not as empty as some otheres, but still far from Rimini or the Costa Brava. There is a nice stretch without any chairs and some palms to give shade. During the day, the big boats full of day trippers from Cancun arrive for a bit of shopping and snorkelling and ... read more

Carlos and I took a long weekend trip with his Uncle Richard and Aunt Claudia. Our first stop was to Teotihuacan, the archaeological zone 50 km outside of Mexico City. We started our trip from Chilpancingo and drove through Mexico City before arriving in Teotihuacan. People that live in Mexico City are called Chilango(s) or Chilanga(s). Anytime you have to drive near, through or around Mexico, as it is called by the Mexicans, one must be prepared for an adventure. It can take hours to drive near, through or around Mexico. We were lucky this time as we started our trek early in the morning. In addition to the traffic, one has to be very cautious of the drivers in Mexico because there are no rules while driving. We escaped two potential accidents while through ... read more

We finally made it to Mexico. Mark was really scared at the airport (what else is new). Completely lost and confused like always. Good thing Margie was there to save the day. She got us through Immigration, Customs, and baggage claim without dropping a sweat. Then Mark couldn't figure out the cash machine at the airport, so once again Margie had to step in to save the day. After checking into our hostel we headed for the beach where we spent all day, after that we headed for some Cerveza (the only Spanish word mark learned the whole time we were there).... read more