Advertisement
Published: July 26th 2002
Edit Blog Post
Mexico City is the biggest city in the world, and from reading the lonely planet guide it is also the most dangerous, polluted and over-populated. ut it also has some of the most fantastic sites, food and culture in the entire region. It´s hopefully worth the risk (whatever the risk actually is). This entry though is going to be about the journey.
Robbie and I have travelled from La Paz (Baja Sur) to Mexico city over the past few days, without stopping for rest or using hotels. Meaning I haven´t seen a bed or shower for around 54 hours... you might ask why I´m using the Internet right now and not sorting out the essentials - because we are not able to check into a hotel or hostel until 11am - it´s currently 8.30am - we arrived in Mexico City at 5am.
So about the journey - this is raw, gritty, travel writing as it happens - unedited, unthought about, probably unreadale. The ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan takes 18hrs, on the ride we met a couple of fellow backpackers, Andrea (Italian) and Martina (German) they were heading down to Guadalajara, though I may see Andrea again as
he has plans to jungle trek in Guatamala... sounds fun.
The Ferry itself cost 581 pesos - over twice what the guide book had list - only two years out of date, that isn´t just inflation. We paid for just seats, it was absoultly chaotic when it came to sleeping time, people - whole families just sprawled themselves out in every available nook and cranny. I found myself a bench and slept badly over the course of the night. I awoke to a fantastic sunrise, at 6am, felt so rough, not seasick just tired. I got a really bad cup of coffee but refused to pay $1.30 US for a snickers bar.
In La Paz we had been able to get hold of some cheap bus tickets to Mexico - so although we paid more than expected on the ferry we paid less on the bus, managing to get to Mexico City for approximately $100US. The bus journey was a nightmare, the first bus was hotter than swedish sauna, the second was freezing - a bus transfer happened in the middle of the night - we weren´t expecting it and had very little idea of what was going
on, I had just bought a hotdog and spilt mustard all over my belongings...
We got to Mexico City at 5am - 3 hours earlier than we expected - we had fun trying to get a taxi - one without the threat of death or robbery. It was actually fairly straight forward and since we paid the same prices as the locals, for a change, it wasn´t too badly priced.
Right now I´m in Hostel Modena, I can get a room at 11am - I plan to stop a few nights, and then head to Oaxaca, they have buses and deals and tours of the pyramids in Mexico City so its a good spot to stop right now... Robbie is to go to Veracruz, so another chapter in the journey is about to end and a new chapter to start.
In case anyone was wondering about Ladies Night in La Paz Lapa, we got out OK, met up with our friends - managed to win a bottle of tequilla by being the roudiest group - which I actually drank some of - I don´t like tequilla.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.045s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0204s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb