Hola Mexico!

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Up early for the taxi to the airport and managed to get some breakfast at the hotel (fortunately as no grub on the plane). Got to the airport and limped to check in, limped to queue for security and had to go into a massive backwards and forwards pre- queue before getting in the actual queue! We finally got to the front and then were allowed to go through a short cut due to my ankle. Typically we managed to end up in the slowest xray queue known to man then only to discover we had left the sun cream and insect repellent in the bloody back pack. Lost the suncream but we were allowed to keep the insect repellent??!! (we don’t want you getting malaria said the official!). My stick had to go through the scanner so they lent me another then took it away and I had to balance on this fully body scanner machine! Swabbed my splint and once that was analysed I was allowed to go!

We had to walk MILES to get to the gate and then again to get to the plane. On the plane we had the only non reclining seat row and the women in front of us reclined so far back you could practically see their tonsils! I was left with about 3 inches to breathe in and they stayed that way for the whole flight. Luckily no one sat in the 3rd seat so Howard scooted along and I was able to put my foot up.

When we arrived in Mexico we had to walk miles again to immigration and to collect the bags and then miles to get to the pre paid taxis and of course we had chosen the ones with the fewest cars and the longest wait! Not a good journey all in all and by now my ankle and leg were on fire!!

It took 30 minutes or so to eventually find our hostel (thank god the taxi was pre paid!) as the driver didn’t know where it was and again Howard’s planning and his basic map came in handy! It was tea time and the traffic was mad, they all drive like it’s India, but the city looked great, really bustling, lively with markets everywhere. We were staying in the Old Historic Quarter and it was full of open squares, colonial buildings, churches, cathedrals, market stalls and narrow streets, just my kind of place! But I was in so much pain I just knew there was no way I was going to get out exploring.

Once we found the Hostel Amigo Suites which was just a small doorway we then had to go up a flight of stairs to the reception, our room turned out to be on the 2nd floor and the roof terrace (the only place you could smoke and also where food was served) was on the 4th floor and of course there were no lifts. Anyway dragged myself up slowly to the room which was nice enough but with a seriously hard bed and collapsed – god I felt ill!

Come 6.30pm and a couple of painkillers later I managed to stairs up to the roof for the dinner – which was included in the price, it was lettuce, salad, bits of tuna with green potatoes and green beans and pasta ( I do no do pasta), however we were starving by then and it tasted pretty good and at least it was a good start to dieting! Howard did not see it that way!

The staff were lovely, the other guests friendly, you could get diet coke and smoke so not a bad place to be. We met Dean a young Jim Morrisonesque lad from Essex who had also just arrived and spent a lovely couple of hours just chatting and relaxing. Then the ankle forced me back to bed, plus it was bloody cold!

2nd October ’11 Mexico City
Today Howard was sent out on a mission armed with my empty prescription bottle to find painkillers as mine had run out, this being Sunday I was not optimistic however he came back with something in Spanish that I had never heard of but the pharmacist (who spoke virtually no English) had said ‘similar’. I looked them up on the internet but it was all in spanish and as I spotted the dreaded word asprin decided I didn’t dare take them.

Howard had got lost despite having a map but had had a good wander around and had commented on the vast numbers of armed police/riot police he had seen everywhere. Later when we went up to the roof terrace and lay on the sun loungers in our fleeces one of the staff came over and was chatting with us and we discovered that today was the anniversary of a student massacre by government troops back in1968 and there was going to be a big rally. He said he was off home early as there may be trouble and he wanted to be out of it! We checked it out on the internet and sure enough in 1968 45 were killed although it was suggested it was actually a lot more than that and 1000s arrested, they were demonstrating against the governments waste of money and surprise surprise the usa had backed the government, armed them for the protest etc. Trust us to pick now to arrive! So with the police helicopter circling overhead and being extremely cold we went back to the room. Back up again later for the dinner this time rice, spaghetti, green potatoes and green beans hmmmm. We saw Dean again and he transferred his rosetta stone Spanish course onto our pc for us – what a nice guy, chatted and watched some of the 300 on the big screen and then back to bed.

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