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Published: September 15th 2019
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Carlos' call woke me this morning, apparently Steve Smith failed to get the 200 runs required. Let us down again. I forgot to mention that Carlos actually has a wife although he never introduced her. She is at Coca Cola, she is Fillipino, but doesn't speak Spanish. I asked her whether the office spoke Spanish and she said "they do now" so I guess she is senior. At breakfast an older American lady sat with us she arrived in a fit of coughing and I told her she'd better not make us sick. She did give us a recommendation for good coffee so at least we were able to cross that one off the list.
Today we are driving out to Teotihuacan to look at the Pyramids. Our driver Aryton did the 1.5 hour trip in about 40 mins, although we spent most of it about 6 inches from the car in front.
The pyramids are sensational. There are basically 3 laid out in a solar pattern. Our guide Joel explained the dimensions and relativity. We started climbing the pyramid of the Sun. After about 4 steps Catherine pulled the old “altitude sickness” card and
collapsed. We were about 10 feet above sea level. We tried to revive her but she couldn't go on, which was disappointing for everyone. Joel had a lot of mates selling various souvenirs including one guy who was the only one who makes “genuine” archeological replicas.
In fairness to Catherine, although she could have soldiered on a little, the Sun pyramid was hard going. I’m pretty sure they’d lose the odd tourist along the way. Apparently when they excavated they discovered the bodies of children which had been sacrificed to the sun god. Tempting! But it is amazing what humans can achieve and when you look at something like this you can only marvel and imagine what life would be like if we'd continued slavery (obviously you'd want to be on the right side of it).
Joel was pretty keen for an early end as he wasn't getting any commissions on souvenir sales so when we got to the Moon pyramid he told us it was almost impossible and it would be better not to risk it. Wilko and I made it up in about 5 minutes.
Aryton took over and drove us
to the Basilica De Guadalupe. As a Catholic it's easy to understand why over 1m people a year (more than Mecca, I was going to put something funny here but Becs says I'll death threats) go to the site where the Sacred Mary first appeared to the people in the Americas. We took in a bit of Mass in the new cathedral and climbed up to the actual site where Mary appeared. I could see that Catherine Wilkinson was completely overcome by the whole experience.
Back in Mexico City we walked around Roma and La Condessa . The Mexicans have done a wonderful job with their streets and you can walk down the middle through beautifully tended gardens. My Spanish has been coming along in leaps and bounds this afternoon I was able to successfully order 4 fruit juices from a street vendor. They would have been better in 4 different cups but it was close.
We had to jog back to the hotel as Wilko was concerned we would miss happy hour which started at 6pm. Luckily we made it in time.
Becs had booked dinner using the Amex concierge and it was a bit disappointing
that they didn't have our booking. I tried to call Jackie McAleer in case she could help but she didn't answer which does make you wonder about the service level at Amex. Not a bad dinner at Limoneros back in Centro but certainly not like Pujol.
Wilko had to take a call from Carlos about the result of the Storm/Raiders game and then we headed back to Baltry, a cool little bar that the staff at Pujol had recommended. We said hi to Daniel the owner and ordered our drinks. It did take us a while for us to realise it wasn't Daniel (all Mexicans look alike) but he made out like he knew us. What a professional!
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