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Published: September 23rd 2018
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Today we are having an easy day. I am still jet lagged (woke at 3.30am again despite having forced myself not to go to bed before 10pm) and Ian is feeling slightly under the weather. I go out for the morning coffee takeaways whilst Ian sleeps in. First attempt fails as I cannot find the Oxxo shop...everything looks very different in the dark! Back at the hotel, I check it out on google maps and Ian gives more detailed instructions so my second attempt is successful!
Today we are completing the remainder of a walking tour up in the historic centre and having a second attempt at visiting the palace (making sure to take our passports with us!). We have decided to give the castle a miss especially as we are having heavy rain showers here today.
It’s now 10am and the sun is out as we make our way up to the zocola and the Palacio National. There is a queue to get in, but not too long. Passports are checked, backpack scanned and stowed in left luggage and we are in.
Our tour starts with a museum visit followed by a walk around some of the
palace rooms which were used by the former president Juarez in the 1860s. Passing through a courtyard with central fountain, we reach a staircase on the far side with a split staircase and huge, colourful murals. The paintings are the work of Diego Rivers in 1929-35 and depict Mexico’s turbulent history including some grizzly scenes from the Spanish Inquisition. We finish our visit in the grounds.
Now we are off to sort out my phone...long story which I won’t go into but we need a Mexican chip. We find an AT&T office and, with the help of google translate, we purchase a SIM that will see us through the first month of our trip. Poor chap, he had to work very hard to earn his 200 pesos!
This evening we set off in search of an ATM and a restaurant which Ian has picked out after doing some google research. You would think it would be easy to navigate the streets on the grid system they use here, but not so! The problem is, every street looks the same and so it’s easy to get disoriented. On the plus side, we do get to see a bit more
of the historic centre. On the minus side, it has just started to rain...great big spots which quickly turn into a deluge. It’s the first time this trip that we have ventured out without our waterproofs! Seeing that there is little chance of the storm abating we just make a run for it arriving back at the hotel literally dripping!
We take a shower and the rain is still hammering, along with massive rolls of thunder. We decide to stay in and use the hotel restaurant rather than risk another soaking. Tomorrow we move on and we don’t want to be carrying a bagful of wet clothes around.
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