Off We Go to Mexico

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Rob Writes







Three hours sleep. We got three hours sleep the night before we were due to fly out. This was less then than ideal. More sleep is required to comfortably get us through the next 20+ hours, door-to-door. Just sleep on the plane? Yea, right.

So we leave the house at 6:30am and off to Glasgow airport we go using an Uber taxi this time. Nothing untoward happened in Glasgow airport, although we did get a free upgrade to extra legroom seats (emergency exit) and we were soon on the plane. Unfortunately however, the flight to Cancun was delayed. Someone had blocked the toilet which was situated in front of our seats, so the Plunger Engineer had to be called to try and fix it. He couldn't fix it. So now the flight was forty minutes delayed and the nearest toilet was buggered. Damn.

The toilet situation made the flight an absolute pain in the arse. Let me explain why. The seating arrangement in the plane was 3-3-3, with the toilets in front of us (one for each isle), and we were sat in the middle 3 with the toilet bulkhead wall in front of us. For the entire flight people would attempt to go to the broken loo on the right isle, realise it was out of order and then cross in front of us to get to the left isle, to go to the other toilet. The airline did announce that the toilet was out of order and that people should go around, but did the cretins listen? Did they bollocks. Half a dozen times the air stewardesses were on the tannoy telling them to stop. They even constructed a suitcase wall blocking the way, nothing worked though. It's hard trying to sleep when your feet get stood on every fifteen minutes. Tina had a go. Of course she did. A woman with a child who had repeatedly crossed back and forth got the brunt of it. Her response? “I've got a child.” Say no more your majesty.

Due to the forty minute delay, I made the air hostess aware that we had a connecting flight to Mexico City which we were dangerously close to not being able to make. They were good about that. They moved us to a couple of free 1^st class seats thirty minutes prior to us landing so we could get off the plane first.

We made the next plane, but only just. There was a bit of a faff at Cancun airport because the boarding passes on our phones weren't quite right either.

The flight from Cancun to Mexico City was only a couple of hours, so that was alright. The girl we sat next to on the plane recognised my Glasgow Uni face-mask too (yes, face-masks are still very much a thing here) so we got chatting away to her. Turned out she was from London but lived in Finnieston. Basically around the corner. Small world.

Once we had arrived in Mexico City we were absolutely shattered. We got a couple of sim cards for our phones from the airport before getting another Uber taxi to our hotel. The taxi ride was only supposed to be ten minutes or so, turned into an hour. Mexico City traffic is crazy.

It was late when we finally arrived at our hotel, about 9pm. Tina found a soggy pizza bake thing in our backpack which we quickly munched before hitting the hay. We were saving the sandwiches from the plane for our dinner but they got confiscated at the airport by security for some reason.

The following day we changed rooms as the room we spent the first night in was very noisy, probably one of the noisiest hotel rooms I've ever experienced. Mexico City doesn't seem to sleep. The noise was constant throughout the night, police cars, horns, music... which caused us to wake up a few times, although we got a decent enough sleep regardless, probably because we were so tired!

Day 1 in Mexico City

We packed up our bags and left them in the room before heading down for breakfast. The hotel told us that they would move our bags to our new room while we were out for the day.

Breakfast was an experience. We can speak very little Spanish, better reading but hopeless when someone is talking to us. Fortunately the breakfast menu was a tick box situation, mostly, apart from the bits that weren't, so we just had to do our best and settle for what we were given.

After breakfast we headed out to the main square where there was a market on. We had a wander about, taking some pictures of the cathedral, before deciding to get on the hop-on-hop-off tour bus. I quite like these buses, they're good for getting about and have stops at all the main attractions. I keep meaning to go on Glasgow's one, but after sixteen years I still haven't quite got around to it. A set of headphones were provided as part of the bus price and you could listen to the pre-recorded tour guide in English, which was nice.

While it was great being driven around Mexico City in relative comfort we decided to get off at a museum. That's what Tina decided anyway. The museum which just so happened to be near a shop that sold cream for your face that she likes. What a coincidence. We went into the museum for all of about ten minutes (it was an art museum) before heading to the snake-oil shop.

Disaster strikes.

On the way to the face shop Tina remembered that she had taken her wedding rings off and put them by the sink while we were putting on sun cream in the hotel room, but didn't pick them up again!

She burst into tears.

She rang the hotel tout suite while I furiously translated what she needed to say using my phone. Fortunately the guy on the hotel desk got the picture and told her it was no problem. Tina, understandably, extremely relieved and coming down from adrenaline, forgot what country she was in and wished the man 'au revoir' before hanging up the phone.

Disaster averted (we hoped). We didn't actually get back to the hotel until late that night so we weren't sure throughout the day if they were found and indeed in safe hands. To the hotel's credit though the rings we waiting for us along with our bags in our newly assigned, less noisy room. What a relief.

Eventually we found the face skin care shop and spent way too long looking at stuff we apparently couldn't buy back home (probably because it's dangerous) and unsurprisingly, left empty handed. Turns out they didn't sell the XX Face Acid Ultra either.

Back on the bus we go.

After another quick jaunt around the streets of Mexico City we arrived at the big Anthropology museum. This place was fantastic, although not a lot in English unfortunately for us. To do it properly you would probably need two days, but we managed to get the highlights in half a day. Not that there was two days worth of English translation to read, but we appreciated what there was. I wish we had more time, and I wished we spoke Spanish as it was very good.

It was getting late in the day now so we jumped back on the tourist bus to head back to the main square before heading back to the hotel for a few hours rest. It was almost dinner time. Exciting!

After a few hours of chilling out we went to the taco restaurant around the corner. Our first tacos in Mexico! They were great, and cheap! A little spicy for Tina, so she left her last one for me. No complaints there.

Day 2

The following day we went on a tour to see the Teotihuacan pyramids. We booked this tour with the same company that ran the tour bus, which was quite good so we were expecting good things. The tour left at 9:30am, and got us back for about 6:30pm. It was a little cheaper than the other tours we had seen, about half the price, so I should have been more suspicious of that in hind-sight. More on that soon.

The first point of note was our English speaking tour guide, which we specifically asked for and was told would be possible, spoke very little English. At this point we should mention Jessica, another guest on the tour.

Jessica was our friend for the day. She was one of those people that I would never naturally meet in my life back home, which is a shame. She was a University of Berkley educated Mechanical Engineer from the US, who worked for Pixar and resided in San Francisco's Silicone Valley. That aside, she spoke English (obviously) and was quite good at Spanish. She filled in the gaps throughout the day where the tour guide struggled. I liked Jessica.

The first stop on the tour was a visit to a silver jewellery manufacturer. Apparently. It was a tourist shop selling cheap jewellery, which to be fair, may or may not have been made in the shop. I don't think it had been though. The tour guide tried to convince us otherwise by showing us around the workshop though. We didn't buy anything.

The next stop was a visit to an obsidian workshop which also involved tequila tasting. This was a similar set up as before. A guide took us around showing us the work shop, plied us with three shots of tequila and let us loose in the tourist obsidian gift shop. Call me Mr glass-half-empty, but I don't think the things they were selling were made in the workshop they took us around either. For a start I saw no painting facilities, nor did a see a laser engraving machine. Needless to say, we didn't buy anything. Not just out of spite, but because it was absolutely extortionate!

Third stop, Teorihuacan pyramids. Finally!

Another quick jaunt on the bus and we were there.

We only had about an 45 minutes (despite being told when we booked it we would have 2 hours) of our nine our day at the pyramids but they were a great sight. Eighty percent reconstruction it should be noted, but what you see leaves little to the imagination which is nice.

After the pyramids we had one final stop, the Plaza Mariana, where there were a couple of catholic churches, both old and new and the plaza itself which was quite incredible and fantastically maintained.

The plaza was the last stop of the day before the tour bus dropped everyone off at their hotel. We exchanged details with Jessica for if we were ever in each others neck-of-the-woods, and that was that.

For dinner that night we found a small taco place around the corner before heading back to the hotel after a long, tiring day.

Day 3

We had a bit of a lie in on the third day before trying our luck at breakfast again.

After breakfast we went for a walk around Mexico City with a rough goal of trying to find the medical museum. We did eventually find the medical museum, although it was under some kind of refurbishment. It wasn't really my bag to be honest. There was a lot of dissected people there, which I appreciate for what it provides, but can only look at for so long before my mind starts to picture them as real people that are now dead and chopped up, in a glass bowl... and that fucks with my head. Tina enjoyed herself though.

After that it was lunch time. For a change we had tacos.

By this point it was mid-afternoon and we had been in the sun for the best part of the day so we headed back to the hotel for a few hours.

Tina had been banging on about this expensive open rooftop restaurant for the last few days so on our final night we went there. It was a six or so course tasting menu at about £50 a head, so not too bad. Its location was fantastic, right over the main square with views over Mexico city to the east. It was a lovely night watching the sun go down over the city and a great way to end our stay in Mexico City. Tomorrow we go to Puebla.

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